58

..THE  A  B  C  OF  TAXATION

a  high  price  because  its  area  cannot  be  increased.
The  limited  floor  space  of  Winter  Street  commands ­
  a  high  average  price  because  its  area  has
not  been  increased.
How  Capital  Is  Handicapped
Query.  If  capital  is  the  friend  of  labour  why
does  it  not  build  better  buildings  on  Winter  Street?
Simply  because  it  cannot  get  at  the  land.  The  land
owner,  being  unable  or  indisposed  to  build,  and  unwilling ­
  to  sell  his  land,  there  is  no  inducement  to  capital
to  put  up  lasting  buildings  to  be  forfeited  at  the  end
of  the  lease.  When  business  from  compulsion  builds
for  itself  in  this  way,  it  puts  up  the  cheapest  building
that  will  answer  for  the  time  being,  instead  of  what
is  best  for  all  time.  The  one  hundred  and  seventyfive
  or  more  concerns  on  Winter  Street  are  in  the
merchandise,  and  not  in  the  building,  business.  Such
building  is  exceedingly  disadvantageous  to  large  concerns ­
  and  impossible  to  small  ones.
Query.  Were  the  land  holder  and  the  business  man
of  Winter  Street  “created  free  and  equal”?  The
extensive  alterations  and  improvements  in  Shepard,
Norwell  Co.’s  stores  (Fig.  Ill),  as  in  many  other  cases,
have  been  paid  for  by  the  tenants,  who  have  also  paid
all  taxes  on  them.  At  the  expiration  of  the  usual
twenty-year  lease,  all  these  improvements  revert  to
the  owners  of  the  land.  Is  it  fair  that  the  land
owner  should,  in  the  disposal  of  his  land,  have
the  benefit  of  the  sharpest  kind  of  competition,
while  the  business  man  is  debarred  from  all  kind
of  competition  in  the  obtaining  of  new  buildings?
Is  it  not  about  time  that  all  Winter  Street  build ­