8 4

THE  A  B  C  OF  TAXATION

pays,  and  must  pay,  for  the  use  of  his  land,  and  no
constitution  or  statute,  army  or  navy,  can  relieve  him
f rom  this  natural  tax.  He  now  pays  this  ground
rent,  and  all  other  taxes  besides.  Our  desire  is  to
turn  Ephraim  from  his  petrified  idols  of  taxation  until
he  pays  no  tax  except  his  ground  rent,  which  he  must
pay  in  any  event.
The  inequality  in  the  division  of  wealth  effected
through  special  privilege  is  caused  by  the  failure  to
put  a  natural  tax  in  the  right  place,  and  the  subsequent
aggravation  of  this  unequal  division  is  caused  by  the
error  of  putting  artificial  taxes  in  the  wrong  place.
The  single  tax  is  not  a  new  device  with  a  set  of  newly
devised  principles  peculiar  to  itseT;  it  must  stand,  if
it  stands  at  all,  upon  demonstrable  scientific  principles
of  political  economy.  These  we  are  seeking  to  determine ­
  and  apply,  believing  that  the  operation  of  such
principles  must  bear  the  fruits  by  which  they  may
be  known  and  justified.
Other  sciences  —  mathematics,  chemistry,  physics,
astronomy  —  have  long  been  showering  the  world  with
blessings.  Is  it  not  time  that  economics,  the  science
par  excellence  of  the  fair  distribution  of  all  these
blessings,  should  assume  its  high  privilege  and  prerogative ­
  as  quartermaster,  commissary,  and  purveyor,
to  govern  the  issue  of  all  these  Aladdin  stores?
In  considering  the  possible  ease  with  which  the
burden  of  taxation  may  be  made  finally  to  weigh,  let
the  fact  never  be  lost  sight  of  that  the  selling  value  of
land  will,  with  the  new  purchaser,  subsequently  to  the
imposition  of  a  new  tax,  slip  out  from  under  the  burden
like  a  globule  of  mercury  from  under  the  thumb.  We
find  that  the  only  place  where  the  tax  yoke  will  stay