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great, is probably producing a small yearly return until it is
let for building. The owners of this land are rated, not in
relation to the real value, but to the actual annual income.
They can thus afford to keep their land out of the market, and
to part with only small quantities, so as to raise the price beyond
the natural monopoly price which the land would command by
its advantages of position ; meantime the general expenditure
of the town on improvements is increasing the value of their
property."
The Report goes on to show the advantages which might
be derived from the rating of vacant land.
"The owners of the building land would be forced to offer
their land for sale, and thus their competition with one
another would bring down the price of building land, and so
diminish the tax in the shape of ground rent, or price paid
for land which is now levied on urban enterprise by the
adjacent landowners, a tax, be it remembered, which is no
recompense for any industry or expenditure on their part, but
is the natural result of the industry and activity of the town
people themselves."
Had the working man the opportunity within his reach, by
thrift and perseverance, of becoming the landlord of his own
house, those virtues discovered to be so useful in the attainment
of that end would soon become common qualities
among the labouring class. Let it once be generally recognised
that this end is within the power of the average wage
earner, and the elevation of that class from the hopeless
condition of hand-to-mouth existence experienced by it
to-day, to circumstances of comfort, if not of ease, is a
foregone conclusion.
Let it be granted that by an extension of the Building Act
you have made the house a healthy home, whether it be a
tenement or cottage, and that by the discouragement of
speculative holding, you have brought that house within the
reach of the labouring man. It is not a very wide step in
advance, by a Leasehold Enfranchisement Act, to bring the