296 Evolution and Soc'ud Iteform : 



held by the railroad companies in 1880 was $103,319,845, 

 or less than two per cent, of tlieir entire assets. The 

 attempt to tax adequately a railroad corporation on the sole 

 ground of levying a tax upon land values is equivalent to 

 using the extradition laws to obtain possession of the per- 

 son of a man on a charge of burglary, and then trying him 

 and punishing him for high treason, an act which is con- 

 demned alike by international law and by the universal 

 sentiment of mankind. 



The single tax is recommended on account of its ease 

 and simplicity. Ease is a good thing, simplicity is a good 

 thing, but neither that which is easy nor that which is 

 simple is always the best thing. The easiest and simplest 

 way of getting rid of a man who annoys you is to shoot 

 him. It is generally thought, however, that ''murder is a 

 bad habit to get into." The easiest and simplest way to 

 get rid of troublesome theological questions is to adopt a 

 creed which somebody has already prepared for you. This 

 course, however, does not seem to commend itself to those 

 who most frequent this place. It is claimed by its advo- 

 cates that the simplest and easiest tax to collect is a single 

 tax upon land values. But I think that I have sliowni that 

 there is no special justification in history for such an ex- 

 ceptional burden, while it Avould fall with crushing weight 

 upon those least able to bear it. Were I desirous of dis- 

 covering one single measure which would most help the 

 speculative rich at the expense of the dependent poor and 

 most seriously damage the future of the race, which, 

 thank heaven, I am not, I cannot imagine that I could 

 find any more potent than the proposed confiscation of land 

 values. 



These schemes. Communism, Socialism, and Georgeisni, 

 are all artificial, mechanical, they are not organic. You 

 have a world infinite in its complexity, with a race infinite 

 in its variety. You are conscious of incomideteness, of great 

 inequality: you turn a crank (pardon me no i)un was 

 intended) and lo ! it is all changed, the world is made 

 over and the millennium has arrived. When Hamlet said, 



" The time is out of joint : oh, cursed spite 

 That ever I was born to set it right !" 



he seems to have felt opi)ressed by the weight which was 

 thrown upon him. Not so these modern reformers. They 

 assume the labor of performing the function in which the 



