The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1892-04-22

fallacy occasionally crops out even
among Single tax men. For instance, /
have letter from gentleman in Ohio,
who begins by saying: 4 am believer
in and teacher of your doctrines
And then he goes on to express surprise
that in my letter to the pope should
say anything to imply that taxes on
land values would not be shifted
through the medium of prices upon all
consumers of goods, with which admis-
sion he thinks our position would be
stronger and nearer the truth
ga still more striking instance of the
same confusion is given by the Detroit
Evening News, a journal that has been
active in propagating the single tax
idea. In an editorial article entitled
The Question of Taxation in it's issue
| of November 10, in which it urges the
adoption of the single tax, occurs the
following:
If all taxes were placed on land only,
every pound of pork, every bushel of
wheat, every horse and COW, every form
OF personal property would be taxed.
The user of the land would simply add
the tax to all these things, and every
person who uses them would paw his
just proportion
'Whereupon a correspondent writes
to the News asking whether this con-
struction of the News is in harmony
with the single tax as outlined by Henry
George
printing this inquiry the News re-
plies:
Perfectly; otherwise the single tax
scheme would be of little value; indeed
less than of no value at all. Unless the
tiller of the soil, if compelled to pay di-
rectly the whole cost of government,
could add the taxes to the prices of the
things he produces, he could not till the
soil with any profit to himself, and agri-
culture, upon which the human race de-
ponds for existence, would be ruined
''Here is an instarEe of the single tax
being advocated on a ground that is not
merely untenable in itself, but that ut
terly denies fundamental principle of
the single tax theory. Since all have
ever written on the subject of taxation
is based on the proposition that a tax
on land values cannot fall on produc-
ton and increase prices, and since there
is no error that have been at so much
pains to correct as that the tax we pro-
pose would fall on land users and
through them on consumers, it is hardly
necessary for me to deny that my views
are correctly represented by the News.
But it may be worth while to point out
the error into which at least more than
one of the professed advocates of the
single tax have fallen. Nothing is to
be gained by having the single tax ad-
vocated for wrong reasons. Men brought
over by erroneous arguments can never
be relied on in cause that must rest
on truth. The unsou4 supporter is, in
fact, more dangerous than an opponent.
UNLESS he sees that taxes on land
values, or economic rent, which is what
we mean by the single tax, must be
borne by the owners of the valuable
land from which it is collected. and
that it cannot fall on the users of land
as users, and cannot add to the cost of
production or increase prices, no one
can possibly appreciate either the moral
side of our argument or the full weight
of it's fiscal side. < y
"And the fundamental reason why
taxes on land values cannot fall on
users or add to prices will always be