16 



BOOT MATTERS IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. 



FALLACIES OP THE SINGLE TAX PANACEA. 



Mr. Henry George's name among modern writers stands 

 pre-eminent in the advocacy of the abolition of the existing 

 modes of levying taxes mainly derived from land and 

 property, luxuries, and foreign products, and substituting 

 for the same a direct tax upon the value of the land,* minus 

 such tangible artificial additions to its value that may be 

 truly estimated as improvements solely created by the labour 

 or services of man. "Waiving the serious objection at the 

 threshold of this proposal, viz., the difficulty — nay the 

 impossibility : — of justly determining the proportional values 

 of the land and the improvements added to it by mavis 

 services. Let us examine it fairly in the light of the various 

 canons of taxation which Mr. George himself quotes with 

 approval : Thus p. 63 (People's Edition) " Progress and 

 Poverty/' he affirms : — 



" The best tax by which public revenues can be raised is 

 evidently that which will closest conform to the following 

 conditions : — 



" 1. That it bear as lightly as possible upon production so 

 at least to check the increases of the general fund front 

 which taxes must be paid and the community maintained. 



" 2. That it be easily and cheaply collected and falls as 

 directly upon the ultimate taxpayers, so as to take from the 

 people as little as possible in addition to what it yields the 

 Government. 



" 3. That it be certain, so as to give the least opportunity 

 for tyranny and corruption on the part of officials and the 

 least temptation to law-breaking and evasion on the part of the 

 taxpayers. 



" 4. That it bear equally, so as to give no citizen an 

 advantage or put any at a disadvantage as compared with 

 others." 



The Effect of the Single Land Tax upon Production. 



Mr. George asserts without the slightest attempt to show- 

 by argument or demonstration that " Taxes on the value of 

 land not only do not check production, as do most other 

 taxes, but they tend to increase production by destroying 

 speculative rent." This, certainly, is one of the most absurd 

 and fallacious assumptions that could be made, and yet, 

 without reason or argument, Mr. George supposes that we 

 can at once build upon this rotten foundation without 

 question or hesitation. He evidently thinks that different 

 names for the same thing have some occult power to alter the 



* That means in practice a tax upon local productsjin lieu of a tax upon foreign, 

 products. 





