objected to the valuation for taxation purposes has not been
widely exercised, but several very important and considerable
compulsory purchases of estates have been made in cases where
associations of persons wishing to take the land on perpetual lease
have applied to the government for that purpose. The chief benefit of
such examples, indeed, seems to have been in compelling owners either
to use the land themselves or to offer it for sale to persons anxious
to use it; but from the New Zealand point of view this would appear to
be almost if not quite equally desirable. Finally, the land tax has
largely enabled the country to do without other taxes, which would
necessarily have fallen more heavily upon the class of workers with
small incomes, instead of being levied on the classes best able to
bear them.

It yet remains to be seen whether evils may not lurk, as yet
unnoticed, in the system, which may impair if not destroy its
usefulness. One consequence which was predicted by its opponents,
however, has not been found to follow upon the introduction of the
system. It was said that capital would be withdrawn from the country,
and that poverty and stagnation would result. No such result has
followed up to this time. New Zealand, with its less than a million
inhabitants, is to-day looked on as one of the soundest dependencies
of the British empire; it continues to draw to it from the mother
country as much capital as it can profitably use; its exports steadily
increase; and its people, if not rich, are well-to-do and comfortable.

It may be said, indeed, that New Zealand has not accepted Henry
George's doctrines as they were propounded by their author, and this
is literally true. It is, however, also true that they have accepted
the essential spirit of those doctrines, and, applying that spirit to
the circumstances of their own country, are giving probably the most
useful practical illustration of all that is best in them for the
world's acceptance. No doctrine in economics yet propounded for the
acceptance of humanity has ever been found to be applicable in
exactly the same form or to exactly the same extent under all
circumstances, and this, it may be safely said, will prove
emphatically true of the doctrine of the single tax. The single tax,
like all other economic plans, is not an end, but only a means. The
end must be the amelioration of the condition of the masses of the
people, and the consequent prosperity and ha