created is clearly by the law of justice a public fund, not merely, 
because the value is a growth that comes to the natural bounties 
which God gave to the community in the beginning, but also, 
and much more, because it is a value produced by the com 
munity itself, so that this rental value belongs to the community 
by that best of titles, namely, producing, making, or creating. 
To permit any portion of this public property to go into 
private pockets, without a perfect equivalent being paid into 
the public treasury, would be an injustice to the community. 
Therefore the whole rental fund should be appropriated to 
common or public uses. 
In the desired condition of things land would be left in the 
private possession of individuals, with full liberty on their part 
to give, sell, or bequeath it, while the state would levy on it for 
public uses a tax that should equal the annual value of the 
land itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improve 
ments on it. 
The only utility of private ownership and dominion of land, 
as distinguished from possession, is the evil utility of giving 
to the owners the power to reap where they have not sown, to 
take the products of the labour of others without giving them an 
equivalent. 
Thus it should be clear that what people need to see 
in order to incline them to the single tax is not so 
much “the wrong of private ownership” —a phrase 
which often both violates and confuses their moral 
sense — but “the wrong of the private appropriation 
of ground rent” — a phrase which does neither. 
It does not necessarily follow from this characterisa 
tion of a doctrine as morally sound, that what is right 
in principle may not be wrong in method. As to 
method, Dr. McGlynn was in accord with Henry 
George in his mature conclusion, given in his own 
words* that “we can only accomplish the change we seek 
by the slow process of educating men to demand it. In 
the very nature of things it can only come slowly, and step 
♦ “Saratoga Discussion, 1 ” 1880, p. 78.