THIRD BOSTON OBJECT LESSON 
83 
the demands of business, the more securely the title 
valve is pressed down to its seat. 
A title to land bought and paid for five or fifty 
years ago is not like other wealth. Title to land is 
simply a warrant to take indirectly at the annual 
round-up a certain proportion out of the wealth which 
other people’s labour Ihas produced upon that land. 
That is, it is a warrant to take the ground rent which 
public expenditure creates, leaving other people to go 
on paying the taxes with which to meet that public 
expenditure. 
Ground Rent a Reflected Value 
It may help to an understanding of the subject to 
remember that the site value of land is so to speak 
a reflected value, an intangible value, not value result 
ing from individually directed labour. The immovable 
land reflects the movables that are upon it. In great 
centres of traffic in movables, the land value is great. 
Withdraw all movables from Boston, New York, or 
Chicago, divert them to other centres, and land value 
would vanish as does your image from the glass when 
you step away from it. How plain, then, is the 
unwisdom of taxing the things which a community 
wishes above all else to invite and to hold; how plain 
the wisdom of taxing nothing that can evade taxation 
The Natural Basis for a Natural Tax 
The ultimate natural basis for the assessment of a 
natural tax upon land is manifestly the basis upon 
Which the assessor makes all his calculations of land 
value, viz., gross ground rent, what the land is worth 
for use. Ground rent is something that every map