GROUND  RENT  A  SOCIAL  PRODUCT  5

long  run,  the  State  cannot  prevent  being  collected.
Seldom  has  there  been  a  more  beautiful ­
  illustration  of  the  wise  yet  relentless
working  of  natural  law  than  in  the  proved  impossibility ­
  of  justly  collecting  any  tax  other  than
upon  ground  rent.  It  shows  that  nature  makes
it  impossible  to  execute  justly  a  statute  which
is  in  its  nature  unjust.”  This  definition  of  Mr.
Shearman  is  offered  as  one  difficult  to  be  improved
or  condensed.
Such,  it  may  be  added,  is  the  nature  of  rent  —
ground  rent  —  that  all  the  public  and  private  improvements ­
  of  a  community  to-day  are  reflected  in  the  land
values  of  that  community.  Not  only  this,  but  the
value  of  all  those  ideal  public  improvements  conceived
of  as  being  possible  under  Utopian  conditions  would
be  similarly  absorbed,  as  it  were,  in  the  ground,
would  be  reflected  in  its  site  value.  Stand  before  a  big
mirror  and  you  will  see  your  image  perfectly  reflected
before  you.  If  you  are  a  man  scantily,  shabbily
clad,  so  is  the  image  in  the  glass.  The  addition
of  rich  and  costly  attire  is  imaged  in  the  glass.
Load  yourself  with  jewels  and  fill  your  hands
with  gold:  in  the  mirror,  true  to  nature,  is  the
image  and  likeness  of  them  all.  Not  more  perfectly,
nor  more  literally,  is  your  image  reflected  in  the
mirror  than  are  public  improvements  reflected  in
the  value  of  the  land.
One  peculiarity  in  the  nature  of  ground  rent  to  which
we  urge  your  attention  is  the  subtle  relation  existing
between  this  natural  income  and  the  artificial  outgo
°f  the  public  taxes  —  a  relation  not  unlike  that  of
cause  and  effect,  by  which  the  wise  expenditure  of  the