QUESTIONS OF TAXATION. 179 



of the nation's revenue should come from an 

 impost on the land ; what exemptions there 

 should be ; what should be the rate and what 

 the basis of valuation. I am inclined to think 

 that the soundest basis would be that of ' un- 

 improved values," or site values. This would 

 proportion the tax to the profits, and make 

 the burden most heavy on city lands, and most 

 easy on rural lands. The tax might fairly be 

 graduated so as to fall more heavily on the big 

 landowner, but should not aim at a confiscatory 

 rate, recognizing that it is not more immoral to 

 have £1,000,000 in land than to have it in stocks. 

 If rates marched parallel with the income tax 

 rates, it would be roughly fair : at one end 

 complete exemption for the small farm or the 

 home allotment having but a slender unimproved 

 value ; at the other end super-tax rates on 

 millionaire estates. To provide for certain 

 special circumstances would call for some in- 

 genuity : it would be a mistake to penalize 

 private gardens, parks, sporting enclosures, when 

 they are of due proportions ; it might perhaps 

 be nationally wise to penalize, especially by 

 super-tax rates, parks and sporting areas when 



