soon wears
itself out, and the theorists who argued in favor of, as well as those
who argued against, the new system, having exhausted their ingenuity
in argument, turn for the most part to something newer, and let the
matter drop.

Then follows the period of incubation. Removed from the din of
controversy a certain number of people are always found who are keenly
sensible of the evils which the new system was supposed to cure, and
who continue to meditate upon the possibility of its possessing the
power to do so. These persons, it may be, make but little noise in the
arena either of literature or politics, but they are not the less
active, nor perhaps in the end the less really influential, on that
account. Their influence is of the sort that depends upon a solid
conviction, right or wrong, that the theory which they support is the
true one; and as long as the evils, which the system they adhere to
professes to cure, continue to exist, so long their influence may be
expected to increase.

It is the third or experimental stage which is the critical one, and
generally speaking it is well when that stage can be reached without
any needless delay. By experiment alone can the value of such theories
be tested to the satisfaction of the practical mind of humanity, and
it is only as the result of a trial that men will either consent to
admit the value of a proposed reform or to abandon a specious theory
to which they have once given their adherence.

The single-tax theory of political economics advanced by Henry George,
having passed through the first of these three stages with something
more than the usual publicity and controversy, has already been in its
second stage for a good many years. The cessation of active
discussion, which appears to some people to argue that it has passed
into oblivion, or is at any rate well on the way toward such a
consummation, is only evidence that it is in its second, or
fermentation, period. Nobody can pretend for an instant that any one
of the evils pointed out by Henry George as the things that called
loudly for reform, have actually been reformed since the date of the
publication of his original essay on "Progress and Poverty." No
reasonable man can doubt that many, if not all of these evils, ought
in some way to be dealt with, and if possible amended. While such is
the case it is impossible wholly to get rid of the theory which
trenchantly pointed out those evils and professed at leas