THE  SINGLE  TAX

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that  the  burden  of  a  land  tax  cannot  be  made  to  survive
a  change  of  ownership  has  in  turn  this  corollary  of  its
own,  viz.,  that  a  new  tax  burden  if  imposed  to-day
would  in  one  generation,  by  sale  or  by  inheritance,
cease  to  be  a  burden.  If  all  taxes  are  finally  collected
from  the  landowner,  he  will  then  be  the  only  man
taxed.  If  another  generation  serves  to  let  his  successor
out  from  under  the  burden,  who  will  remain  under  it?
Ground  rent,  economic  rent,  being  an  equivalent  for
value  received,  is  not  a  burden,  and  if  all  taxes  are
ultimately  taken  from  rent,  it  follows  that  in  the  course
of  two  or  three  generations  taxation  may  cease  entirely
from  being  a  burden  upon  any  one.
If  professional  economists  and  taxation  experts
will  at  once,  to  use  a  nautical  phrase,  quit  their  dead
reckoning  and  steer  their  craft  by  the  single  tax  polestar,
  time  and  tide  will  do  the  rest.