y6

THE  A  B  C  OF  TAXATION

he  pays  his  ground  rent,  the  natural  tax.  Why  ask
him  to  pay  for  the  same  things  a  second  time?
The  people  of  Boston,  as  hereinbefore  alleged,
actually  pay  in  single  taxation  a  natural  tax  of
$55,000,000,  coupled  with  an  unnatural  and  “double”
tax  of  $13,000,000,  a  grand  total  of  $68,000,000.
They  receive  in  return  benefits  amounting  only  to
$23,000,000.  The  failure  to  pay  all  public  expenses
out  of  this  natural  tax  of  $55,000,000  is  the  cause  of
gross  inequality  in  the  division  of  wealth,  an  inequality
greatly  exaggerated  by  the  additional  $13,000,000
unnatural  double  tax.
The  single  tax  stands  for  the  recognition  of  a
scientific  principle  of  taxation.  When  or  how  it  is
to  be  introduced  is  not  for  us  to  say.  All  that  is
here  asked  is  that  you  shall  study  the  problem,  adopt
the  single  tax  principles,  and  then  begin  to  apply
them.  The  complaint  is  against  a  condition  and
never  against  an  individual  or  a  class.
The  man  who,  when  paying  his  water  rate,  or  his
city  gas  bill,  or  city  electric  light  bill,  pays  in  full  for
a  public  service  rendered  to  him,  is  not  paying  a  tax.
How,  then,  could  a  land  owner,  who,  in  paying  his
single  tax,  would  pay  to-day  not  in  full,  but  only
fifty  cents  on  a  dollar  for  the  communal  service  rendered
him,  say  that  he  was  paying  a  tax,  or  that  he  was  the
victim  of  confiscation?
The  proposal  of  the  single  tax  is  gradually  to
abolish  the  present  complex,  unequal,  and  systemless
method  of  taxation,  and  to  defray  all  public  expenses
from  a  tax  upon  land  values  alone.  This  surely
would  be  a  simple  process.  It  would  be  to  distribute
the  public  burden  with  invariable  justice,  because  in