102  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED
them  ;  they  are  needed  for  the  improvement  and  enlargement ­
  of  public  life.
Our  civic  and,  in  general,  our  public  life,  is  narrow,
meagre,  inefficient,  and  undignified  in  comparison  with
what  it  ought  to  be,  if  the  wealth  due  to  public  effort
was  wisely  and  economically  laid  out  in  the  public  service.
Taxation,  or  State  assumption  on  equitable  terms,  of
properties  whose  increasing  values  are  due  to  public
activity  and  public  need,  to  be  administered  in  the  supply
of  common  wants  and  the  enrichment  of  the  common
life,  is  likely  to  be  of  material  assistance  in  raising  the
general  standard  of  consumption.  The  adoption  of  progressive ­
  taxation  of  accumulated  wealth  through  the  Death
Duties  is  based  on  an  instinctive  recognition  that  this
assertion  of  a  public  claim  is  both  just  and  expedient.
The  same  is  true  of  the  progressive  income-tax,  so  adjusted
as  to  secure  for  purposes  of  public  use  that  portion  of
the  income  of  the  well-to-do  which  otherwise  would
materially  assist  to  swell  the  excess  of  accumulated  forms
of  capital.
The  direct  and  progressive  taxation  of  ground  rents
and  values,  so  far  as  they  can  be  ascertained,  would
accord  with  this  policy.  The  economist,  while  insisting
upon  the  necessity  of  securing  to  all  private  investors
whose  “saving”  is  needed  to  furnish  capital,  the  market
price  of  such  saving,  i.e.,  the  minimum  interest  required
to  draw  sufficient  capital  into  the  several  channels  of
production,  would  sanction  the  taxation  of  dividends
which  exceeded  that  necessary  limit.  The  application  of
this  purely  economic  principle  would  of  course  be  liable
to  be  overruled  by  considerations  of  practical  politics.
At  present  many  elements  of  “unearned”  income  accrue