BY E. M. JOHNSTON, F.L.S. 19 



of altogether it would be possible for the farmer to reduce to 

 that extent the price of products to consumer, but the 

 consumer must necessarily pay for it so long as it remains a 

 charge either as tax, rent, interest, or mortgage. It is the 

 amount remaining as a charge that concerns the producer and 

 the consumer, and not the nature or name of the item forming 

 the said charge. 



So long, therefore, as foreign products are not artificially 

 excluded from local markets the consumer is perfectly secure 

 against the monopolists of local rents raising the price of 

 products by arbitrary increases to reat. 



But a very different conclusion must be arrived at if rental 

 and other charges, such as interest or mortgage, are abolished, 

 and merged in the shape of a single tax upon land. In the 

 first place, if we abolish all burdens on land in the shape of 

 rent or mortgage — How are we to do so ? In these colonies 

 at least, the right to the rent of land has been acquired by 

 honest purchase. Even now the State in Tasmania derived 

 (in the year 1888) a revenue of £77, 504 from rental and fresh 

 sales of land ; a sum equivalent to 19'09 or nearly 20 per 

 cent, of the total yearly taxation. In the 10 years ending 

 1888 the State derived a revenue of ,£646,497 from the same 

 source : and yet after taking from honest purchasers this 

 original value of the land, Mr. Henry George and his followers 

 would urge upon the State to retain the original purchasers' 

 money, and wrest from them all rights in land thus acquired 

 without compensation. Such a proceeding would be revolting 

 to all who possess any remaining trace of the sense of honour. 

 The hypocrisy of glossing over such wholesale robbery by any 

 fine-sounding phrase only shows how far the modern robber 

 has fallen from his ancient prototype, who, at least, had the 

 courage to consent to an appropriate name for his violence 

 and dishonesty. We have no representatives of feudal lords 

 m these colonies, and if we had, the proprietors of the land 

 for the time being are as much and as little their representa- 

 tives as any other capitalist ; for every year a considerable 

 portion of the land changes hands by fair purchase, and there 

 are now few owners of land who can trace their land to the 

 State by purchase or grant, who have not parted with it on 

 fair terms of purchase to those who amassed wealth from 

 other sources of wealth and enterprise. The condition of 

 society, if it is to be improved, cannot be ameliorated by State 

 robbery or violence. There is, therefore, only one honourable 

 course for the Single Tax theorists to adopt, viz., to compen- 

 sate the existing owners for the loss of their rightly acquired 

 property. This course would involve capitalising the Jand. 

 Now, supposing this to be done, and that we made some profit 



