to assume the form, and, if we may judge from current criticism, is quite generally understood to have the form, that because the value of land increases without effort on the part of the land-holders as the community grows, therefore the community has earned such value, and may justly take it for common purposes. In that form the argument is fallacious beyond question.”
Land, he shows, is subject to decrease as well as to increase of value, and other kinds of property increase or decrease in value quite independently of the owner's exertions, merits, or demerits.
The second economical reason why land should be singled out and its holder made to bear a burden from which the owners of other sorts of property are exempt, as stated in the quoted paragraph, is “because property in land being qualified in the way proposed, poverty will be abolished,” etc. No mode or process by which poverty is to be abolished being furnished, we are at liberty to infer that, if a marked addition were made to the land-tax all over the country, the poor would soon find themselves in easier circumstances; and that if successive additions were made, they would become more and more prosperous; and that when the whole rental value had been taken, there would be no poor people anywhere.
Now, taxes on land are paid by land-owners (I believe that Mr. George agrees to this). The proposition then is, that if land-owners were required to pay into the public treasury as much as they could by any possibility pay, other people would be so much benefited that even the poorest people in the world would be in comfortable circumstances.
The only way that this great change can be brought about is by the abolishment of all other taxes. I do not undervalue the relief that would accrue to industry from the abolition of indirect taxes. I hold that it should be the first step toward the elevation of the poor man, and the bettering of his condition, to let him have and enjoy what he earns—all of it, except just sufficient to keep him watchful of tax-eaters and tax-thieves.
But suppose that Divine Providence should bestow upon us rulers who could carry on government without any taxes whatever. Would that dispensation abolish poverty? Those who think so are bound to tell us how.
The single-tax philosophy does not propose to constitute a fund for general distribution. If anything should be left over after defraying all necessary expenses of government, the residue is to be applied to the common benefit and delectation through free libraries, music halls, picture galleries, higher education, etc. There is to be no alms-giving, because there are to be no poor. I take it that the utmost good to be derived from the exemption of all others than land-owners from taxation would be gained equally
