118 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
be taxed to send the rich man’s children to the public 
school? But what difference does it make whether the 
rich man sends a dozen children or none to the public 
schools? Public schools add their cost to the land value 
of the city or town. They add just as much value to 
the land of the man that sends no children as to that of 
him who sends a dozen. Is not this fact sufficient to 
reconcile the childless man to the justice of his school 
tax? The cultivation of a family would not increase 
his tax any more than the cultivation and improve 
ment of his farm would add to the farmer’s tax, and 
thus by the single tax both farmers and families would 
be encouraged. 
Socialism 
The single taxer appeals also to the socialist to see 
and realise the self-evident truth that, without the 
socialisation of ground rent, were every other possible 
dream of socialism, political socialism or Christian 
socialism, brought to a perfect realisation, its full 
benefit to the last farthing would be reflected in the 
enhanced value of the land and so go straight and 
unearned into the pockets of the land owner. 
There is in natural taxation nothing of technical 
socialism,* which means the artificial assumption by 
society of a function that is primarily individual. 
It is rather a resocialisation of that which by it s 
own nature, in its inception and its growth, can be 
nothing but socialised, but which has been artificially 
desocialised. 
Socialism would replace artificial discord with 
artificial concord. Single tax is natural harmony i n 
* See Appendix A.