is in all
cases graduated down to a very low rate on the smallest income; in
Prussia there is no tax on incomes less than $214. The cities also
collect the bulk of their revenues from incomes, using the same
classification and sliding scale as the State.

"A highly interesting innovation in taxation is the 'unearned
increment' tax on land values, first adopted by
Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1904, and already applied by over 300
German cities and towns....

"The bill before the Reichstag [since become a law--W. E. W.]
extends sick insurance to farm laborers and household servants, a
change which will raise the burden of this system for employers
from $24,000,000 to $36,000,000. The bill also provides for
pensioning the widows and orphans of insured laborers at an
estimated additional expense of about $17,000,000....

"A better result of the insurance systems than the modest pensions
and the indemnities that they pay is to be found in their excellent
work for protecting health and prolonging life. Many offices have
their own hospitals for the sick, and homes for the
convalescent....

"All these protective measures have already told effectively upon
the death rate for tuberculous diseases. In the three years ending
with 1908, deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis dropped from 226.6 to
192.12 per 100,000.

"The accident system has also had a powerful effect in stimulating
among the physicians and surgeons the study of special ways and
means for treating accident injuries, with reference to preserving
intact the strength and efficiency of the patient....

"Bismarck once, in a speech in the Reichstag, explicitly recognized
the laborer's right to work. Some twenty German cities have given
practical effect to his words by organizing insurance against
nonemployment; and the governments of Bavaria and Baden have taken
steps to encourage this movement. Under the systems adopted, the
laborer pays the larger part of the insurance money, and the city
the rest; in a few cases money has been given by private persons to
assist the insurance."[82] [N.B. The word "Socialistic" is used by
Mr. Dreher in the sense of "State Socialism," as opposed to what he
calls "radical Socialism."]

FOOTNOTES:

[78] Special Correspondence of _New York Evening Post_, d