THE A B C OF TAXATION
168
Its appeal is no less to the Catholic than to the Protestant;
no more to the Christian than to the Jew or the Mohammedan,
or the Pagan; it appeals alike to Republican and Democrat.
Being a veritable lodestone— all attraction, no repulsion,
and with the whole arsenal of arguments on its side — why
should it not quickly gather to itself a victorious host ?
Economically, the single tax proposes the displacement of
an unjust distribution by a just distribution of wealth. Instead
of distribution according to special privilege, and taxation
according to ability, it proposes distribution according to
ability, and taxation according to special privileges, chief
of which is the private appropriation of ground rent. Morally,
it offers itself as a fundamental bond of unity to reinforce the
great accomplishments already made, and greater efforts to
be made along the line of Christian agreement.
Henry George offers to the world, not only a political philosophy
that will stand the test of the gospel, but a religious
philosophy also, that removes a great beam from the eye of
the Christian Church, enabling it to see clearly where it now
confesses blindness, and adding to its light a warmth and a
radiance which the indifference of the world could not resist.
Hence the persistent disciples of Henry George ask Christians
to consider this doctrine; to gather to the standard of the
single tax, and to follow that standard, not as the hound
follows the fox, winding and redoubling upon its own trail,
but as the bee flies, and as the carrier-pigeon flies, by the
instinct of principle, in the straight line that lies between
right and wrong.
B
TOLSTOY AND HENRY GEORGE*
Tolstoy’s letter to the London Times upon the subject,
“A Great Iniquity,” is the Russian philosopher’s latest utter-♦
Published in the Springfield Republican, December 10, 1905; New York
Evening Post, December 19, 1905; and the Boston Evening Transcript,
December 26, 1905.
