XIX SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 353 



the landlords in order to ruin them without benefiting 

 the rest of the community, who are all tenants. That 

 would be pure " cussedness," as our American friends 

 would say. But the tax on landlords is for the express 

 purpose of relieving tenants. Just as the landlords are 

 made poorer by it, the tenants are to be made richer, 

 taxes are to be transferred from tenants to landlords, and 

 would be exactly equivalent to a reduction of rent. 

 What then would happen — the landlord, as Adam Smith 

 says, acting "always as a monopolist and exacting the 

 greatest rent which can be got for his ground ? " Is it 

 not absolutely certain that, he being poorer and the 

 tenant richer, he would raise the rent and thus get back 

 the tax he had just paid ? Mr. Fletcher Moulton says 

 this is a fallacy. He urges, that. 



' ' under the proposed system the ground value will represent the 

 full rental value that the landowner can obtain for the use of his 

 land, unburdened by any rates. This is a sum which will be deter- 

 mined by considerations relating to the land itself, and by these alone. 

 In ascertaining the rental which he can afford to give for the free 

 use of the land, the proposed tenant will not be affected by the 

 question, what portion of that rent will be retained by the landlord, 

 and what proportion will be paid over in rates ? " 



Of course he would not ; nobody has ever suggested that 

 he would. But Mr. Moulton has slipped in the words, 

 " unburdened by any rates," and thereafter ignores them. 

 Are tenants now " unburdened by any rates ? " And if 

 their rates are removed and put on the landlord, does not 

 this affect the tenant's power of paying more rent, and 

 the landlord's power, " acting always as a monopolist," to 

 obtain more rent ? Surely the " simple fallacy " is on 

 Mr. Moulton's part, not on ours. 



A writer in the Democrat also trusts mainly to the 

 authorities, and in his arguments also misses the main 

 point. He says : 



" A tax upon land value, or economic rent, would not raise prices, 

 but would simply transfer to the State a portion or the whole of 

 that premium paid for the use of better land which now constitutes 

 the unearned incomes of the landlords. " 



Here, " transferring to the State " is spoken of as if it 

 VOL. II. A A 



