90 RURAL LIFE IN CANADA 



for production, not upon means of living. To treat 

 all wealth alike in this regard is to fail to see that each 

 generation owns in absolute fee its own production, but 

 has only a life interest in the sources of wealth. There 

 are four factors in production : " land," in its widest 

 economic sense ; " labor," including ability as well as 

 toil ; capital ; and society. The contribution of society 

 is the so-called " unearned increment," which is found 

 not only in the price of land, but in the wages of labor 

 and in the interest of capital. This is the true " unpro- 

 ductive surplus " of political economy. This incre- 

 ment of the value of land, labor, and interest, earned 

 by society, should become, not the subject of taxation, 

 but in its own entirety the whole complement of taxes. 

 The function of taxation is not to lay a burden upon 

 land, labor, or capital, levying the burden according to 

 the patient willingness of the shoulder to bear it, but 

 to appraise the share of production due to society as a 

 partner with the other three and to hand over to her 

 her own. And had society wages as she has worth, 

 wealth would be hers for all her tasks, and her members 

 would be relieved from their burdens alike of poverty 

 and of riches. Under the failure of government to 

 accomplish this true function of taxation the farmer is 

 the chief sufferer. His is the most patient shoulder 

 beneath uneconomic taxation, and upon it in conse- 

 quence the heaviest load is placed. 



Enough! the lie is ended. God only owns the land; 

 No parchment deed hath virtue unsigned by His own hand, 

 Out on the bold blasphemers who would eject the Lord, 

 And pauperize His children and trample on His word. 



