THIRD  BOSTON  OBJECT  LESSON

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the  demands  of  business,  the  more  securely  the  title
valve  is  pressed  down  to  its  seat.
A  title  to  land  bought  and  paid  for  five  or  fifty
years  ago  is  not  like  other  wealth.  Title  to  land  is
simply  a  warrant  to  take  indirectly  at  the  annual
round-up  a  certain  proportion  out  of  the  wealth  which
other  people’s  labour  Ihas  produced  upon  that  land.
That  is,  it  is  a  warrant  to  take  the  ground  rent  which
public  expenditure  creates,  leaving  other  people  to  go
on  paying  the  taxes  with  which  to  meet  that  public
expenditure.
Ground  Rent  a  Reflected  Value
It  may  help  to  an  understanding  of  the  subject  to
remember  that  the  site  value  of  land  is  so  to  speak
a  reflected  value,  an  intangible  value,  not  value  resulting ­
  from  individually  directed  labour.  The  immovable
land  reflects  the  movables  that  are  upon  it.  In  great
centres  of  traffic  in  movables,  the  land  value  is  great.
Withdraw  all  movables  from  Boston,  New  York,  or
Chicago,  divert  them  to  other  centres,  and  land  value
would  vanish  as  does  your  image  from  the  glass  when
you  step  away  from  it.  How  plain,  then,  is  the
unwisdom  of  taxing  the  things  which  a  community
wishes  above  all  else  to  invite  and  to  hold;  how  plain
the  wisdom  of  taxing  nothing  that  can  evade  taxation
The  Natural  Basis  for  a  Natural  Tax
The  ultimate  natural  basis  for  the  assessment  of  a
natural  tax  upon  land  is  manifestly  the  basis  upon
Which  the  assessor  makes  all  his  calculations  of  land
value,  viz.,  gross  ground  rent,  what  the  land  is  worth
for  use.  Ground  rent  is  something  that  every  map