English League for the Taxation of Land Values

The English League for the Taxation of Land Values was a historic precursor of two present-day reform bodies—the international umbrella organisation the IU[1] and the UK think tank the Henry George Foundation. The object of the League was

the taxation for national and local purposes of the 'unimproved value of the land', ie the value of the land apart from the buildings or other improvements in or upon it. The League actively supports all proposals in Parliament for separate valuation of land, and for making land values the basis of national and local taxation.[2]

The organisation was established in 1883 with the name the Land Reform Union, as a result of the social reformer Henry George's first UK lecture tour in 1883-4.[3] The Union was "absorbed" in 1884 by the then newly established English Land Restoration League—which organised George's second tour, in 1884-5.[4] In Victorian England "the principles for which the...League stood were made widely known, and found acceptance both in town and country".[5] In 1902 the Restoration League changed its name—"which involved no change of front nor change of principles"—to the English League for the Taxation of Land Values.[6]

The League was a constituent part (as one of the three national members), and 1907 founder, of the United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values, which became the Henry George Foundation:[7] as co-organiser of the 1926 International Conference in Denmark (and its 1923 precursor in Oxford, England), the League was a partner in the foundation of the International Union for Land Value Taxation and Free Trade, which became known simply as the IU.[8] The United Committee and the IU became the principal vehicles for the League's work. The English league as a stand-alone organisation disappears sometime after its general meeting in 1950, to which its Hon Secretary, Vic Blundell, "explained how the work of the English League was being carried on if not in name then in spirit by the combined activities of the associated groups [—the United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values Ltd and the International Union for Land Value Taxation and Free Trade]".[9]

References

  1. ↑ Barker, Charles Albro (1955). Henry George (p. 402). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 402.
  2. ↑ Joseph Edwards, ed. (21 July 1909). Land and Real Tariff Reform. The Land Reformers’ Handbook (First Edition of First Issue ed.). London: Joseph Edwards with The Clarion Press, LD and ILP, New Age Press TCP. p. 77. through stages of organisational turnover
  3. ↑ Edwards 1909, p. 77
  4. ↑ Edwards 1909, p. 379-380
  5. ↑ Edwards 1909, p. 78
  6. ↑ Land Values vol. IX, no. 100, September 1902, p. 60
  7. ↑ Edwards 1907 p. 73
  8. ↑ Land&Liberty vol. 33, no. 388, p. 179
  9. ↑ Land&Liberty, vol. 57, no. 679, December 1950, p. 240
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