The age-herald., 1899-10-22
HENRY GEORGE, JR., ON
 THE SINGLE TAX QUESTION

Henry George, Jr., has taken up the sim gle tax work where his father left 1t off. He lives in his fathers old home at Fort Hamilton, and devotes his time as ms father did, to a vigorous prosecution of society as it exists at the present time To a reporter of The Age-Herald who recent ly visited him he said:
 .~rhe single tax doctrine is based prima- rily on the land; that the land belongs in- alienably to all human beings equally; that to make land private property is to deprive some men of their equal right to life; that to restore equal rights to land actual pos session need not be disturbed; that all would get justice if the holders of land paid its annual value into the public treas ury; that the simplest and cheapest method of doing this would be through the existing machinery of taxation; that as the revenue from land would be more than ample 10 meet the present needs, all present taxes should be abolished, save that falling up- on the value of land, and that this single tax should be increased until 1t should ab- sorb the whole of the value of land, eXclu- sive of improvements; that this would re- turn to the whole communlty that 1t would cheapen land, because it would destroy speculat tton that 1t would cheapen produc- tion, because 1t would relieve 1t of the pres ent heavy burden of taxation; that 1t would increase wages, because 1t would throw land open to all the great primary occupa- lions; that in short, 1t would do equal and exact justice by giving to laborers of all kinds the ful fruits of their industry, while it gave to the community as a whole what belongs to It.
 '"This doctrine was brought forward by my father twenty years ago and in the short time that has elapsed it has spread over all the world
 "Why has it spread? Principally be- cause no matter where they are or what language they speak, the burning question with the masses of the people is how to get their bread and butter, and the great reason why the single tax doctrine Is to be found spreading like a contagion among the great laboring classes everywhere Is that it addresses Itself simply and directly to this bread and butter question-teaehes in terms that ploughman can understand how civilized men should get living. And an era of marvelously cheap printing and instantaneous communication facilitates The advance of ideas along the whole line of battle.
 Another reason for the spread of the doctrine is that it appeals to the individual; st brings him stimulus and hope such as Christianity brought to the Roman slave II fills him with belief that he sees the everlasting truth and that civilization does not necessitate the tramp1ng on the many, but that with the principle of equal rights applied, civilization would really lift the whole social mass from the bottom.
 ''It imbues him with supreme confidence, dmpeIs him with unaIbating tenacity and drives him with burning zeal to convert all about him. From the frozen zone of the J<londike to the torrid heat of the Fiji Is- lands. from Maurtius in the Indian ocean to the legislative chamber at Lansing, Michigan, from American Knights of Labor to Berlin university students, from London fo the Antipodes, from Natal, Mexico. Par eguay, Tokio and Pekin come the general report-progress of the single tax idea!
 "When asked on recent visit to this country what public question he thought was gathering most strength in the United States, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain is reported to have answered: The single tax, because if is rapidly gaining recruits and never loses any And this might be truly said Of any and all countries.
 .srhe last place in the world for the sin gle tax to show advancement Is fn Great Britain yet here 1t shows the most. In 1891 New Zealand imposed a graduated tax