elty of his arguments. Deeply impressed by
the study of this book, no sooner had he finished it than he possessed
himself of its forerunner, "Progress and Poverty," in which the essence
of George's revolutionary doctrines is worked out.

The plan of land nationalisation there explained provided Tolstoy with
well thought-out and logical reasons for a policy that was already more
than sympathetic to him. Here at last was a means of ensuring economic
equality for all, from the largest landowner to the humblest peasant--a
practical suggestion how to reduce the inequalities between rich and
poor.

Henry George's ideas and methods are easy of comprehension. The land was
made by God for every human creature that was born into the world, and
therefore to confine the ownership of land to the few is wrong. If a man
wants a piece of land, he ought to pay the rest of the community for the
enjoyment of it. This payment or rent should be the only tax paid into
the Treasury of the State. Taxation on men's own property (the produce
of their own labour) should be done away with, and a rent graduated
according to the site-value of the land should be substituted.
Monopolies would cease without violently and unjustly disturbing society
with confiscation and redistribution. No one would keep land idle if he
were taxed according to its value to the community, and not according
to the use to which he individually wished to put it. A man would then
readily obtain possession of land, and could turn it to account and
develop it without being taxed on his own industry. All human beings
would thus become free in their lives and in their labour. They would no
longer be forced to toil at demoralising work for low wages; they
would be independent producers instead of earning a living by providing
luxuries for the rich, who had enslaved them by monopolising the land.
The single tax thus created would ultimately overthrow the present
"civilisation" which is chiefly built up on wage-slavery.

Tolstoy gave his whole-hearted adhesion to this doctrine, predicting a
day of enlightenment when men would no longer tolerate a form of slavery
which he considered as revolting as that which had so recently been
abolished. Some long conversations with Henry George, while he was on
a visit to Yasnaya Polyana, gave additional strength to Tolstoy's
conviction that in these theories lay the elements essential to the
transformation and rejuvenation of human nature, go