Another taxation plan for reducing the evils of our land system consists in the imposition of special taxes on the _present_ value of land. As a rule, these imply, not an addition to the total tax levy, but a transfer of taxes from other forms of property. The usual practice is to begin by exempting either partly or wholly buildings and other kinds of improvements from taxation, and then to apply the same measure to certain kinds of personal property. In most cases the transfer of such taxes to land is gradual, extending over a period of five, ten, or fifteen years. The plan is in operation in Canada and Australasia, and to a slight extent in the United States. It has received its greatest development in the western provinces of Canada; namely, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The cities of Edmonton, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer; Vancouver, Victoria, and thirteen others of the thirty-three cities of British Columbia; all the towns of Alberta except two; all but one of the villages of Alberta, and one-fourth of those in Saskatchewan; all the rural municipalities and local improvements districts in Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan, and 24 of the 28 in British Columbia,--exempt improvements entirely from taxation. The three cities in Alberta which retain some taxes on improvements; all the cities and towns and three-fourths of the villages in Saskatchewan; the four largest cities in Manitoba; and a considerable number of the municipalities in Ontario (by the device of illegal under-assessment in this instance),--tax improvements at less than full value, in some cases as low as fifteen per cent. Land is invariably assessed at its full value. It is to be observed that these special land taxes provide only local revenues; they do not contribute anything to the maintenance of either the provincial or the dominion governments. The reason why the local jurisdictions have adopted these taxes so much more extensively in Alberta than in the other provinces is to be found in a provincial law enacted in 1912, which requires all towns, villages, and rural areas to establish within seven years the practice of exempting from taxation personal property and buildings. Saskatchewan permits cities and towns to tax improvements up to sixty per cent. of their value, while British Columbia and Manitoba leave the matter entirely in the hands of the local authorities. The provincial revenues are derived from many sources, chiefly real estate, personal property, and incomes; but British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta levy a special tax on unimproved and only slightly improved rural land. The rate of this "wild lands tax" is in British Columbia four per cent., and in the other two provinces one per cent. Some of the municipalities of British Columbia and Saskatchewan also impose a "wild lands tax." By a law passed in 1913 Alberta levies a provincial tax of five per cent. on the value increases of non-agricultural lands.