SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 421 



the proposition, which many economists deny, that taxation can be based 

 on scientifie principles; in other words, that money for the needs of gov- 

 ernment can be so raised as to take advantage of the natural laws that 

 operate in society instead of running counter to them. The principle of 

 plucking the greatest quanitity of feathers with the least squawking is cer- 

 tainly antiquated and unworthy of a mature and intelligent people. Our 

 taxation should be scientific, and if the scheme advocated by Mr. Shear- 

 man really has that character, he has brought the right article to market. 

 Many pei-sons who are not prepared to accept the single tax as a remedy 

 will admit most of what he says in regard to the evils of indirect taxation. 

 He affirms that direct taxation is practicable, but of the three forms now 

 in use the income, succession, and general propei'ty tax he deems the sec- 

 ond useful only as an adjunct, while the other two, because of the pre- 

 mium they put on fraud and other objections, should never be used. A 

 tax on land he calls the natural tax, because it can not be evaded, and be- 

 cause its proper distribution is automatically determined very much as 

 ground rent is regulated by the market. In reply to the objection that 

 such a tax would be shifted upon tenants, he cites *'not only the entire 

 school of Ricardo and Mill, but also nine tenths or more of other economic 

 writers," as denying the possibility of such a transfer. In this respect he 

 notes a difference between a tax on land and one on buildings. It is ob- 

 vious that the landless class would be gi-eatly benefited by exemption from 

 all direct or indirect taxation. Mr. Shearman also maintains that the 

 landowners, taken as an entire class, would also bear a smaller burden 

 than now, because they would be exempt from taxes on personal property, 

 indirect taxes, and the cost of collection and other burdens incidental to 

 these modes of taxation. Some of the landowners would have a heavier 

 burden than now. Mr. Shearman estimates that this would fall on fifty 

 thousand of the six million families in the United States who own land. 

 These fifty thousand own thirty per cent in value of all the land in the 

 countrj^, and also get almost all the benefits arising from the monopolies 

 fostered by the present mode of taxation. He takes especial pains to show 

 that the farmers need have no alarm at the land-tax proposition, and 

 affirms that this plan, in addition to its other benefits, " would bring about 

 a just distribution of wealth, would give a perpetual stimulus to industry 

 and production, would greatly increase wages, would increase the profits 

 of capital, would give a security to property now unknown, would encour- 

 age manufactui'es, commerce, and agriculture, and would incidentally 

 solve many social problems which under present conditions seem almost 

 insoluble." Mr. Shearman has not made his programme attractive enough, 

 or, rather, he has not given it the right kind of attractions. The masses do 

 not want a just division of wealth any more than the classes. Every moth- 

 er's son of them is perfectly willing that a few shall have big prizes at the 

 expense of the many, if only he can be one of the few; and in a democratic 

 country, where it is possible for a poor boy to become president of a rail- 

 road, he is constantly hoping that next week or next year will bring him 

 some undeserved advantage over his fellows. Even if a majority of the 

 voters in the United States were convinced that any economic reform 

 would benefit them all, they would need to have the lottery spirit educated 

 out of them before they would adopt it. 



