120 
THE A B C OF TAXATION 
injustice to one man there would be a far greater justice 
wrought to hundreds and to thousands; that the 
vacant lot which is his only all, is not the poor man’s 
universe; that his individual loss or benefit will be 
measured, not by his relation to that vacant, unpro 
ductive lot, but by his relation to the social fabric into 
which he is woven and to the universe of which he is a 
part; and that for every alleged confiscation there would 
be a score of compensations. 
If the moral theory of the “compensationists” 
were sound, it would apply — and many of its advo 
cates claim that it does apply — as well to slavery as to 
landlordism, so that slaves could not be justly set free 
unless the masters were compensated. The most 
outrageous act, then, of what the “compensationists” 
call confiscation, was committed by God himself, when 
he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Instead of com 
pensating the Egyptians, who thereby lost valuable 
“private property” which had had the sanction of four 
hundred years’ acquiescence, He engulfed in the Red 
Sea those whose sensitiveness to the injustice of 
“confiscation” stirred them to follow and reclaim 
their confiscated property. 
If the cinder is not removed from your eye at once, 
and inflammation follows, what then do you do? Do 
you bathe the head, apply a plaster to the back, hot 
water bottles to the feet, and some specific to the 
stomach? Or do you forthwith remove the speck from 
the eye whatever the pain it costs you? The smaller 
the offending cinder, the more intense oftentimes the 
inflammation, and the more difficult of removal. The 
longer the operation is delayed the more painful the 
conditions. While guarding well “the apple of the