Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/207

 OPEN LETTER TO POPE LEO XIH. 15

But, further: That God has intended the state to obtain the revenues it needs by the taxation of land values is shown by the same order and degree of evi- dence that shows that God has intended the milk of the mother for the nourishment of the babe.

See how close is the analogy. In that primitive condi- tion ere the need for the state arises there are no land values. The products of labor have value, but in the sparsity of population no value as yet attaches to land itself. But as increasing density of population and increasing elaboration of industry necessitate the organi- zation of the state, with its need for revenues, value begins to attach to land. As population still increases and industry grows more elaborate, so the needs for public revenues increase. And at the same time and from the same causes land values increase. The connec- tion is invariable. The value of things produced by labor tends to decline with social development, since the larger scale of production and the improvement of pro- cesses tend steadily to reduce their cost. But the value of land on which population centers goes up and up. Take Rome or Paris or London or New York or Mel- bourne. Consider the enormous value of land in such cities as compared with the value of land in sparsely settled parts of the same countries. To what is this due ? Is it not due to the density and activity of the popula- tions of those cities to the very causes that require great public expenditure for streets, drains, public build- ings, and all the many things needed for the health, convenience and safety of such great cities? See how with the growth of such cities the one thing that steadily increases in value is land ; how the opening of roads, the building of railways, the making of any public improve- ment, adds to the value of land. Is it not clear that here

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