28 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
lies, coal barons, oil magnates, and railroad kings, 
but many people do not think of the perfectly natural 
resort of taxing them to the same extent that other 
people are being taxed. 
This bugbear of monopoly is the central point 
at which numberless palliatives are ineffectively aimed. 
Taxation, it will be found, is the only “power to 
destroy” what there is of wrong, and the only “power 
to build up” what is right in these conditions. 
XIII.—The Opinions of Economists 
Concerning the first leg of the single tax tripos, 
the following statements gleaned from some of the 
world’s greatest thinkers in the field of economics 
and public finance, who, however, have approached 
the subject from another point of view, support the 
contention of this chapter that the value of land is a 
social product: 
“ Both ground rents and the ordinary rent of land are a 
species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys 
without any care or attention of his own. Though a part of 
this revenue should be taken from him in order to defray the 
expenses of the State, no discouragement will thereby be given 
to any sort of industry. The annual produce of the land and 
labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great 
body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before. 
Ground rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are, therefore, 
perhaps the species of revenue which can best bear to have a 
peculiar tax imposed upon them. 
“ Ground rents seem, in this respect, a more proper subject 
of peculiar taxation than even the ordinary rent of land. The 
ordinary rent of land is, in many cases, owing partly at least to 
the attention and good management of the landlord. A very 
heavy tax might discourage too much this attention and good 
management. Ground rents, so far as they exceed the ordinary