THE ONLY WAY, THE EASY WAY. 55
tliis system, was paid by the tenant would be taken by the State, it is pretty clear that middlemen would not long survive, and that very soon the occupiers of land would come to be nominally the owners, though, in reality, they would be the tenants of the whole people.
How beautifully this simple method would satisfy every economic requirement; how, freeing labor and capital from the fetters that now oppress them (for all other taxes could be easily remitted), it would enormously increase the production of wealth; how it would make distribution conform to the law of justice, dry up the springs of want and misery, elevate society from its lowest stratum, and give all their fair share in the blessings of advancing civilization, can perhaps be fully shown only by such a detailed examination of the whole social problem as I have made in a book * which I hope will be read by all the readers of this, since in it I go over much ground and treat many subjects which cannot be even touched upon here. Nevertheless, any one can see that to tax land up to its full rental value would amount to precisely the same thing as formally to take possession of it, and then let it out to the highest bidders.
- " Progress and Poverty."
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