LETl^ERS ON HENRY GEORGE 215
5. That there will be no more inspectors and collec- tors of taxes in mills, factories, refineries and work- shops, but there will only be collectors of the tax on land which cannot be stolen, and from which a tax can be most easily collected.
6 (and chiefly). That the non-workers will be saved from the sin of exploiting other people's labour (in doing which they are often not the guilty parties, for they have from childhood been educated in idleness, and do not know how to work), and from the yet greater sin of all kinds of shuffling and lying to justify themselves in conmiiting that sin ; and the workers will be saved from the temptation and sin of envying, condemning and being exasperated with the non-workers, so that one cause of separation among men will be destroyed.
To a German Propagandist of Henry George's Views.
It is with particular pleasure that I hasten to answer your letter, and say that 1 have known of Henry George since the appearance of his Social Problems. I read that book and was struck by the justice of his main thought — by the exceptional manner (unparalleled in scientific literature), clear, popular and forcible, in which he stated his cause — and especially by (what is also exceptional in scientific literature) the Christian spirit that permeates the whole work. After reading it I went back to his earlier Progress and Poverty, and still more deeply appreciated the importance of its author's activity.
You ask wliat J think of Henry George's activity, and of his Single-Tax system. My opinion is the following :
Humanity constantly advances: on the one hand clear- ing its consciousness and conscience, and on the other hand rearranging its modes of life to suit this changing consciousness. Thus, at each period of the life of humanity, the double process goes on : the clearing up
