GROUND  RENT  A  SOCIAL  PRODUCT  7

rent,  if  that  ground  rent  does  not  return,  the  body
politic  is  prostrated  or  enervated  by  loss  of  blood.  The
body  politic  to-day,  like  a  man  with  a  ravenous
appetite,  is  cleaning  its  plate  of  all  the  millions  a  year
that  it  can  earn,  and  mortgaging  the  future  for  nearly
as  much  more,  always  eating,  yet  always  hungry,  and
simply  because  the  best  part  of  its  millions  of  dollars'
worth  of  arterial  life  blood,  instead  of  coming  back  to
the  public  heart,  ebbs  rapidly  away  through  severed
blood  vessels  in  the  private  appropriation  of  ground
rent.
These  illustrations  of  the  miscarriage  of  a  beneficent ­
  provision  seem  to  hint  strongly  at  the  true
theory  of  ground  rent,  as  waiting  to  be  naturally
developed  under  a  natural  law,  and  as  a  natural
social  product.
III.—The  Operation  of  Ground  Rent
Critical  consideration  is  invited  to  Mr.  Shearman’s
statement  that  the  operation  of  ground  rent  is  to
exact  from  every  user  of  land  the  natural  tribute
which  he  ought  to  pay  in  return  for  the  perpetual
public  and  social  advantages  secured  to  him  by  his
location,  a  part  of  which  natural  tribute  now  goes
to  the  State  in  the  form  of  a  tax,  and  the  remainder
to  the  landlord  in  the  form  of  rent.  Objection  to
monopolies  and  special  privileges  is  that  they  participate ­
  in  the  private  appropriation  of  an  undue  share  of
this  natural  tribute,  and  while  recognising  that  in
the  end  all  quasi-public,  as  well  as  all  public  service,
should  be  at  the  least  practicable  cost  to  the  people,
it  is  held  that  meantime  whatever  monopoly  is  enjoyed
should  be  obliged,  through  taxation,  to  repay  to  the