PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND 
105 
In considering, therefore, a tax on land values, we must 
bear in mind that it is a fundamental teaching of the Church that 
the common good of all mankind is an end that must be kept in 
view; that the community is the overlord of the landlord; that 
every individual holds whatever land he possesses subject to 
the high and supreme title of eminent domain. 
“If I thus correctly interpret your aim and object, I do not 
hesitate to say that your system of taxation is not condemned 
by the Catholic Church, nor is it contrary to her ethical 
teachings.” * ) 
To the foregoing there should be added the following 
words of the Rev. Edward McGIynn in his statement 
to the authorities of the Church of Romef regarding 
what he broadly conceived to be the right of eminent 
domain with deductions therefrom; 
The organised community through civil government must 
always maintain the dominion over those natural bounties, as 
distinct from products of private industry, and from that 
private possession of the land which is necessary for their 
enjoyment. 
The increasing need for public revenues with social advance 
being a natural God-ordained need, there must be a right way 
of raising them — some way that we can truly say is the way 
intended by God. ... By a beautiful providence, that 
may be truly called divine, since it is founded upon the nature 
of things and the nature of man of which God is the creator, 
a fund, constantly increasing with the capacities and needs of 
society, is produced by the very growth of society itself, namely, 
the rental value of the natural bounties of which society retains 
dominion. The justice and the duty of appropriating this fund 
to public uses is apparent in that it takes nothing from the 
private property of individuals except what they will pay 
willingly as an equivalent for a value produced by the com 
munity, which they are permitted to enjoy. The fund thus 
* Extract from an address by the Rev. Robert J. Johnson, Rector of the 
Gate of Heaven Church, South Boston, at a reception and dinner given by the 
Massachusetts Single Tax League to the Catholic Clergy of the Archdiocese 
of Boston, December 3, 1900. 
t for Dr. McGlynn’s complete statement as presented in Italian to Mgr. 
S^atolli, December, 1892, together with English translation, see Appendix D.