AGRICULTURE AND THE SINGLE TAX. 487 



by any device or dispensation which should enable government to 



be carried on without taxes. I protest against the assumption 



that this would abolish poverty, unless those who hold that it 



would shall offer us something more conclusive than their private 



opinions. 



III. 



The ethical reason why land should be singled out exclusively 

 for purposes of taxation is based upon what are called " natural 

 rights/' I quote Mr. Clarke's words : 



" The second answer, in substance, is : Because land is not 

 rightfully the subject of absolute property, and because the injus- 

 tice of allowing it to be so acquired and held will be remedied by 

 the exaction and application to common uses of economic rent. 



" The standard of right, to which this answer appeals, is that 

 conception of inherent or underlying rights which is usually de- 

 scribed, perhaps not altogether happily, by the phrase natural 

 rights." 



General Francis A. Walker, in his "Land and its Rent," dis- 

 poses of the dogma of natural rights as applied by Mr. George 

 with a few words of sarcasm, which, really do embrace the true 

 philosophy of the subject. He says that as he has never lived in 

 the state of nature himself, but has passed his whole life in com- 

 munities more or less civilized, he does not feel moved to discuss 

 the subject on any other than economic grounds. According to 

 my observation, more people of fair intelligence are taken in the 

 single-tax net by this dogma than by all others together ; and even 

 when they are shaken from every other, they still cling to this as 

 a sheet-anchor. It is worth while, therefore, and indeed necessary, 

 to give some particular attention to it, in an elementary way. 



Having cautioned us against the use of the phrase " natural 

 rights " as not altogether happy, Mr. Clarke proceeds to use it 

 twenty-one times in the next twenty pages, as though it were as 

 happy as possible, assuming in all cases that every person born 

 into the world has a natural right to land and a natural right to 

 the best land conditioned, however, upon every other person's 

 equal right to the same land. The only way to make these con- 

 flicting natural rights effective is to confiscate economic rent 

 through the taxing power. 



What are "natural rights" ? Let us test them for a moment 

 by the Socratic dialogue, the interlocutors being A and B : 



A. When you speak of natural rights, you mean rights accord- 

 ing to nature, I suppose ? 



B. Undoubtedly. 



A. And that the origin of such rights is traceable to the state 

 of nature ? 



B. Certainly. 



