land values. Many Conservatives, too, favour the taxation
of land values in cities, and all the principal municipalities have
petitioned Parliament in favour of this method of taxation. But it is the
democratic ideals of Henry George that have been the life of the movement
for the Single Tax, and but for these ideals the movement would never have
become a living influence towards democracy, or inspired a social
enthusiasm.

The charm about the Single Tax propaganda is that its ideals of democracy
do not discourage the practical politician and the average citizen from
supporting what seems a necessary and reasonable proposal. Without
committing themselves at all to Henry George's full scheme for the total
abolition of land monopoly by a tax of twenty shillings in the pound on all
land values, and without abandoning the common British suspicion of the
doctrinaire and the political idealist, the ordinary shopkeeper and
householder are quite of opinion that urban values in land can be taxed
legitimately for the benefit of the community, and that democracy would do
well to decree some moderate tax on land values for the relief of the
overtaxed non-landowner.

So the taxation of land values is presented by its advocates as a social
reform more radical and democratic than all other social reforms, as a
reform that in fact would make democracy master of its own land, and the
people free from the curse of poverty; and it is accepted by the great mass
of working people as a just and useful method of raising revenue for local
and imperial needs.

Socialism, social reform, the Single Tax--various are the ideals of a
democratic people at work at the business of government, and various are
the means proposed to establish the democracy in economic freedom.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IX

THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS

EAST AND WEST

The movement towards democracy is world-wide to-day, and the political
constitutions of the West are desired with fervour in the East.

For generations there has been agitation in Russia for representative
government, and men and women--in countless numbers--have sacrificed
wealth, reputation, liberty, and life itself in the cause of political
freedom. On the establishment in 1906 of the Duma, a national chamber of
elected members, there was general rejoicing, because it seemed that, at
length, autocracy was to give place to representative government.