3§ 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
provide at your own expense, but for the use of which 
you can afford to pay in proportion as you use them. 
It is these outside things, available by their proximity, 
for which you are called upon to pay I300 a year. 
To enumerate some of them specifically, they are, in 
a town or city lot, right and ease of access to water, 
health inspection, sewerage, fire protection, police, 
schools, libraries, museums, parks, play-grounds, steam 
and electric railway service, gas and electric lighting, 
telegraph and telephone service, subways, ferries, 
churches, public schools, private schools, colleges, 
universities, public buildings — utilities which depend 
for their efficiency and economy on the character of 
the government; which collectively constitute the 
economic and social advantages of the land; and 
which are due to the presence and activity of popu 
lation, and are inseparable therefrom, including the 
benefit of proximity to and command of facilities for 
commerce and communication with the world — an 
artificial value created primarily through public 
expenditure of taxes. In practice, the term “land” 
is erroneously made to include destructible elements 
which require constant replenishment; but these 
form no part of this economic advantage of situation 
or site value. 
(c) In other words, you are to pay I300 a year for the 
value of what the law calls the “ rights and privileges 
thereto pertaining,” specified in every deed of land 
conveyance. This I300 is ground rent, “what the 
land is worth for use.” 
Proposition 2.— Assuming this piece 0} land to he 
free from all charges and incumbrances, and assuming 
the current rate 0} interest to be 5 per cent per annum,