Items of Interest March 3, 1917 Issue

Items of Interest

The bill authorizing the secretary of war to make contracts for the diversion of water from Niagara Falls for fifty-year periods was passed by voice vote in the House of Representatives. The bill gives the secretary of war large powers in the supervision and termination of contracts made authorizing diversion, and provides that all such contracts are revocable for violation of the act, or when the power companies do not use the water with a satisfactory degree of efficiency, or when the amount of water diverted is considered as interfering with the use of the Niagara River as a navigable stream or with the scenic beauty of the falls. Opposition to the bill was based mainly upon the alleged inadequacy of the "recapture" provisions to enable the Government to take control of the situation at any time. It was also charged that the bill favors the two power companies which are now using all the water diverted from the falls by the United States, and that no adequate provisions for protecting the consumers of the power from exorbitant prices are included in the measure.

That there is a widespread belief among the people of California that private ownership of large holdings of land, unimproved and uncultivated, is against the public interest, and that large holdings of even improved land is to some extent also against the public interest, is the conclusion of the California State Tax Commission, gained by an extensive questionnaire sent to thousands of citizens and property owners throughout the state, and expressed in a report just made public by the commission.

Stating at the outset that it is "unalterably opposed to the destruction of the principle of private ownership in land," and believing that the "land laws should be so shaped that wholesome private ownership in land should be strengthened and protected," the commission says: "The increasing difficulty and hardship attendant upon the attempts of individuals of small means to procure, retain, and develop a reasonable land holding for farm, residential, or business purposes, and the continued holding of land values in large ownerships in this state, indicate that there is something fundamentally wrong with our land economics." The commission proposes that "a maximum tax be imposed upon the future increase in value of all unimproved land or land not put to any beneficial use, and a lesser rate of tax in the case of land improved or being put to any beneficial use."

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