AGRICULTURE AND THE SINGLE TAX. 495 



The yearly tax bill took tlie whole of the economic rent, if not 

 more, just as it now does in Connecticut. I remember that my 

 step-father was glad to resign his advantages as a land-owner 

 and accept a salary of five hundred dollars per year in a town, 

 in lieu of his chances of being lifted into affluence by " the wedge 

 thrust midway into the social structure," which Mr. Clarke 

 pictures for us. I suspect that Mr. Clarke never worked on a 

 frontier farm. 



Between the extreme West and the extreme East I presume 

 that instances of economic rent can be found in farming districts, 

 but my observation teaches me that it is an insignificant affair 

 in the total economy of the nation. When you have swept off 

 all buildings and other distinguishable betterments, all live stock 

 and other personal property, and when you have deducted fair 

 wages, or if you please the family support of the farmer (gen- 

 erally of a very meager sort), the residuum of economic rent, I 

 am very sure, will not be worth the trouble of confiscation. 



If the single-tax theory prevails, what shall be done in those 

 cases where economic rent is a minus quantity ? According to 

 the Connecticut report, three hundred and seventy-eight farms 

 out of six hundred and ninety-three (fifty-four per cent) report 

 no profits, but losses instead. Should they not be compensated 

 in some way ? Would it be fair for the state to take only the 

 choice cuts of economic rent, and leave the bone and gristle ? 

 The least that it could do would be to abolish taxes on all land 

 that yields no return to an industrious cultivator. Of course, 

 there are good farmers and bad farmers. Some can make a liv- 

 ing where others can not. But when the Government, in addition 

 to all its other duties, takes up the task of separating all the dis- 

 tinguishable betterments of the country from all the land in the 

 country, and rack-renting the land afterward, it will probably 

 stop short of the task of discriminating between good farmers 

 and poor ones. It would be obliged to stop taxing the non-profit- 

 making farmers, if indeed it did not consider them entitled to 

 some compensation out of the treasury for their labor. I do not 

 see how otherwise the single tax would abolish the poverty of 

 these three hundred and seventy-eight Connecticut farmers. 



V. 



The solidarity and interdependence of useful industry dispose 

 of the complaint that all except land-owners are crippled and cur- 

 tailed of their chance of earning a living. Says Mr. Clarke : 



"A material thing is not rightfully the subject of absolute 

 property if the appropriation of it by the exertion of one man's 

 natural powers interferes with the equal right of other men to 

 exert their natural powers. 



