VALUE OF LAND AN UNTAXED VALUE 51 
plished gradually and almost imperceptibly in one 
generation. The execution of this particular plan would 
involve an increase in the rate year by year sufficient 
to take in taxation annually an additional 1 per cent 
only of the gross ground rent for thirty years, or one 
generation. An average 0} about 20 per cent of gross 
ground rent is now taken in taxation, as for instance 
in Boston. If an additional 1 per cent should be taken 
each year for thirty years, it would amount finally 
to 30 per cent, which, added to the 20 per cent already 
taken, would make 50 per cent, or one-half, which is 
about the average proportion that present taxes bear to 
ground rent. 
By this plan, at the end of thirty years the burden 
°f $15 (1J per cent) per thousand on present valuation, 
now borne by the occupier, will have been placed on 
the land holder, and this transfer of burden would, even 
rf land did not meantime increase in value, reduce the 
selling value of his land, every 11,000 to I700. Mean 
time, few land owners would suspect the change, much 
less be prejudiced by it. 
But if a thirty-year bond is at a premium, and 
Worth one hundred and fifteen dollars to-day, and 
Will be worth only one hundred dollars or par at 
maturity, does the whole burden of the vanishing 
fifteen dollars premium fall upon the "present 
owners”? The new million dollar office building will 
Probably be worth little or nothing in three generations, 
hut this whole burden of ninety years natural decay is 
n °t visited upon “present owners.” The immediate 
reduction of 1 per cent (or one point on the stock 
hoard) in value of land would not greatly depress selling 
v alue, while increased taxes and consequent deprecia