GROUND  RENT  A  SOCIAL  PRODUCT

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social  service  constitutes  the  maintenance  of
ground  rent.
A  simple  illustration  may  help  to  an  appreciation
of  the  absurd  absence  of  a  true  economy  in  tax  affairs
to-day.  A  landlord  owns  a  factory  which  requires
steam  power,  and  which  is  useless  and  worthless
without  it.  Another  man  owns  a  steam  plant,  and
furnishes  steam  to  factories  at  so  much  per  horse  power.
The  man  who  hires  and  uses  the  factory  pays  factory
rent  to  his  landlord,  who  furnishes  the  factory,  and
steam  rent  to  the  man  who  furnishes  the  steam.  He
Would  smile  if  you  should  talk  to  him  about  paying
his  steam  rent  to  the  landlord  who  does  not  furnish  it.
In  vivid  contrast  with  this  sensible  performance  we
may  take  the  case  of  another  landlord  who  owns  a
store,  requiring  public  service  and  convenience,  and
useless  without  it.  The  municipality  owns  and  runs
a  public  service  plant,  and  furnishes  public  service
at  a  cost  of  so  much  per  thousand  dollars’  worth.
The  man  who  hires  and  uses  the  store  pays  store  rent
to  his  landlord,  who  furnishes  the  store,  but,  by  a
strange  perversion,  he  pays  his  public  service  rent
to  the  same  landlord.  Should  he  not  pay  his  public
service  rent  to  the  public  that  furnishes  it?
Inasmuch  as  all  these  contributions  to  its  maintenance, ­
  so  far  as  enumerated,  are  from  the  treasuries
of  the  people,  what  can  ground  rent  possibly  be,  if
it  is  not  a  social  product?
VII.—An  Illustration:  The  Ground  Rent  of
Boston
A  dense  skepticism  and,  indeed,  a  denser  ignorance,
seem  to  obtain  even  in  regard  to  the  simple  fact  that