Land Rent is our Common Fund

Victor G. Saldji

[A letter to the editor, printed in the 5 February, 1954 edition of the Tribune Magazine]

C. S. ORWIN appears to be concerned that the evils of private land ownership should be both abolished and preserved. In the name of the people, nationalisers would take over the land and also provide an annuity and sinking fund so that the people would be saddled with the cost of management (or mismanagement) as well as the disguised burden of the rent which would still go to those who "provide" the land.

Against this "easy" hotchpotch of unprincipled confusion, Land Value Taxers demand that before any man is taxed on his labour, the whole ground rent of Britain be collected for public revenue. The people give the land its value-let the people take this value, which is theirs, and force into productive use the millions of acres of unused and underused land in country and town. This would break the land monopoly-without compensation.