Skc. 7] PROPERTY 31

merely to increase the tax upon it until all its value has
been taxed out of it; that is, to take from the individual
all of the services or profit of his landed wealth for the benefit
 of the public, leaving him merely the empty shell of
nominal ownership. The case is analogous to that of a person
 or a community which has mortgaged its wealth so
heavily that the value of its services is entirely consumed
in the payment of interest, and nothing is left with which
to redeem the pledge. The same principle applies to all
taxes, even when not carried to such an extreme.

§7
A second helpful guide in resolving the various obscure
forms of property is found in the fact that one property right
is often overlaid by another. For instance,a mill is owned in
shares; a railway company owns some of those shares; a
bank owns some of the railway shares; and John Smith
owns some of the bank shares. It is evident that John
Smith has a claim upon the wealth constituted by the mill,
although his property is only distantly connected with it,
and through several intermediate layers of property rights.
A common example of such secondary relation between
wealth and property occurs when the property is held in
trust. At common law, the trustee is the legal owner; but
the law of equity recognizes the fact that the beneficiary is
the true owner. He has a claim against the trustee, and the
trustee holds the right to the wealth as against the rest of
the world. The beneficiary must work out his rights
through the rights of the trustee.
Another good example is that of a claim upon a government,
 as, for instance, a government bond. This is really
a claim against the community, for the government is
merely an intermediary between the bondholder and the
public wealth which is taxed to satisfy the bondholder’s
claims. The government owns property only as a sort of
trustee for the public. The Boston Common is held by the