492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and that is, that men ought to live up to their agreements. "We 

 accordingly give our verdict to B. And we do this with the more 

 confidence because we believe that, when the disadvantages be- 

 come clearly preponderant, you will find a way to overcome them 

 without shocking the moral sense of distant observers." 



IV. 



Are the taxes on land in this country high enough or not ? Is 

 economic rent sufficient in amount to support government ? We 

 will consider these questions in their relation to agriculture. 



The generally received idea of the single-tax party is that held 

 by the physiocrats, that all wealth proceeds from agriculture, 

 using that term to include all the products of the earth and the 

 sea. This is a corollary of Mr. George's book, although I believe 

 he has not explicitly affirmed it. I find an apt statement of it in 

 the " Twentieth Century" of August 3d, viz. : 



" Where all land is occupied, the annual rental value of the 

 land of a nation is, theoretically, equivalent to its net annual pro- 

 duction that is, to the total production, less sustenance, interest, 

 and replacement. This, through private land-ownership, is now 

 all absorbed by a small number of individuals." * 



It is needless to say that mere space, which is not applied to 

 the growing or gathering or mining of anything, is not to be in- 

 cluded in the wealth-producing parts of the earth's surface, ac- 

 cording to the physiocratic conception such as lots in towns and 

 cities. If all wealth comes from the earth by means of agricult- 

 ure, mining, hunting, and fishing, why should not they pay all 

 the expenses of government and a fund besides for the general 

 use ? Would not those industries, after such deductions, still be 

 as well off as the industries which have no share in the land ? Is 

 not the whole of a thing equal to all of its parts ? 



It is true that man draws his sustenance from the earth, and 

 that the annual surplus which takes the form of capital, of what- 

 ever sort, there has its start. But where does agriculture begin 

 and end ? It is commonly supposed to begin with the making of 

 roads, the clearing of land, and the destruction of beasts of prey. 

 But, before land can be cleared, tools must be made. Axes, plows, 

 spades, wagons, bows and arrows, gunpowder perhaps, must be 

 manufactured. And where does it end ? All production is under- 

 taken to satisfy man's wants. These are not satisfied when a bale 

 of cotton has been picked or a ton of wheat gathered into a barn. 

 The wheat must be ground into flour, the flour must be baked 



* I do not find any explanation of the word " theoretically," but I suppose that it wa3 

 not used without a purpose. Theoretically a man who owns the only coal mine on the line 

 of a railroad has a valuable monopoly, but it may turn out practically that he only has the 

 privilege of working it on terms fixed by the railroad. I can point to cases of this kind. 



