VALUE OF LAND AN UNTAXED VALUE 49 
(c) This whole doctrine overlooks the inevitable con 
sequence that, if “the selling value of land is an untaxed value” 
and “if the burden of a land tax cannot be made to survive 
a change of ownership,” these facts would so increase 
the demand for land that the profits from its purchase 
and ownership would not exceed profits in other lines of 
investment.” 
Let us examine these points one by one. 
Ca) It is, as I understand, admitted by all econo 
mists that in the United States (the country now under 
consideration) the tax on land is everywhere exceed 
ingly unequal, and, especially in the large cities, almost 
exclusive. 
Either the capitalisation of the land tax is a fact or 
it is not. If it is a fact it is, with its corollaries, the 
most vital fact of all those bearing upon the material 
Welfare of the race, and ought not to be brushed aside 
m three short unsupported sentences like the above, 
all of which are substantially contrary to the mass of 
evidence assembled in these chapters. 
But the capitalisation of the land tax in the United 
States is a settled fact, and hence not debatable; a 
business condition of every-day knowledge in the buy- 
mg and selling and assessment of land. It is out of 
the domain of theory, and not dependent upon any 
abstract speculation concerning an exclusive and 
unequal tax. 
_ For the sake of illustration; First. Let it be assumed 
fbat there are two, and only two, fields open to 
myestment, viz., land paying 5 per cent on purchase 
Pnce and bonds paying 5 per cent on purchase price 
(because either by exemption or by evasion they es- 
ca pe taxation). What is it that fixes the above rate