eigner was
permitted by law to own land directly or indirectly, so that the curse
of Absentee Landlordism which was the ruin of Ireland, should never
blight the happiness of the people of Eurasia), they added up the
assessments for the previous five years and divided them by five and
added twenty per cent. to it in payment for the land, together with
fair compensation for any buildings there might be on it; so that if
the owner swore to a low valuation on his land he was the loser; but
the District Court, sitting as a Board of Equalization every year,
could fix the value of the land at what they considered proper.

CHAPTER XI.

THE INCOME TAX.

The income tax was a graduated income tax beginning with persons having
on income one thousand dollars a year and above what they laid out in
improving their property. All persons whose income was less than one
thousand dollars paid no income tax. The tax was one per cent. on one
thousand dollars, the rate increasing with the amount of income up to
fifty thousand dollars a year, when it was fifty per cent., leaving the
owner twenty-five thousand dollars, and for all incomes over fifty
thousand dollars a year the surplus over twenty-five thousand dollars
went to the Government and as a result of this wise policy there were
no Jay Goulds or J. D. Rockefellers in Eurasia. All money received from
land and income taxes went into the District Fund for the expenses of
the district and schools, and building and maintaining of good,
macadamized roads, for every district had a rock crusher from which the
roads were supplied with broken stone at a trifling expense to the
district.

CHAPTER XII.

DEPARTMENT OF MANUFACTURES.

The Government derived its revenues from the sale of liquors, drugs,
chemicals, tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, salt, coal, oil, stone,
charcoal, iron, steel, copper, lead and the precious metals. The
greatest revenue was derived from liquors. Every commodity produced or
manufactured by the Government was sold in lots or packages at one
dollar a lot or package. The Government made and sold wine in three
grades, The first-grade wine was put up in quart bottles at one dollar
a quart, the second-grade wine in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a
bottle, and the third-grade wine in gallon bottles at one dollar a
gallon; alcohol in half-gallon bottles at one dollar a bottle, and
brandy in the same way and sold at the same price. There were no grades
in brandy. Al