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 XVI LETTERS ON HENRY GEORGE

To T. M. Bondaref, who had written from Siberia asking for information about the Single-Tax.

This is Henry George's plan :

The advantage and convenience of using land is not everywhere the same ; there will always be many appli- cants for land that is fertile^ well situated, or near a populous place ; and the better and more profitable the land, the more people will wish to have it. All such land should, therefore, be valued according to its advantages : the more profitable — dearer ; the less profitable — cheaper. Land for which there are few applicants should not be valued at all, but allotted gratuitously to those who wish to work it themselves.

^Mth such a valuation of the land — here in the Toula Government, for instance, — good arable land might be estimated at about 5 or 6 roubles* the desyatina ;t kitchen-gardens in the villages, at about 10 roubles the desyatina ; meadows that are fertilized by spring floods at about 15 roubles, and so on. In towns the valuation would be 100 to 500 roubles the desyatina, and in crowded parts of Moscow or Petersburg, or at the landing-places of navigable rivers, it would amount to several thousands or even tens of thousands of roubles the desyatina.

♦ The rouble is a little more than 25 pence, t The desyatina is nearly 2| acres. [ 213 ]