74 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
this instance for the landowners. This may be an 
extreme illustration, but it goes to show the vicious 
ness of the present system, and points unerringly to the 
sufficiency of ground rents for all purposes of taxation. 
Few persons now call in question the right of the 
owner of any Washington Street lot to tear down 
his building and hold his lot vacant. If one owner 
may do this all owners may do the same. Must 
there not be some fatal weakness in an apportionment 
between the rights of individuals and the rights of 
the people that would make possible such an impolitic 
condition? But the fact that modern buildings would 
be worth $50 to $75 per square foot instead of $13.50, 
the value of present buildings, is proof that most of 
this land, though not held entirely vacant, is held 
practically three-quarters to nine-tenths vacant, or, 
in other words, put only to one-quarter or one-tenth 
of its legitimate and most economical use. A public 
economy that turns a landowner from a public friend 
into a public enemy, whether he will or no, cannot 
be wise. 
If Boston should take the $4,383 received for taxes 
from the marble Sears Building on Washington Street, 
and the $7,465 from the Ames Building, and spend 
these amounts in the improvement and repair of the 
worthless buildings of Washington Street, the owners 
of the Sears and Ames Buildings would complain, and 
very justly. Exactly what the City of Boston does 
is this: It spends these same taxes in the “improve 
ment and repair” of the land value that is under 
these and similar buildings. But is this really less 
unjust? This is one more way of looking at the unequal 
incidence of a tax on buildings.