Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1825

Verbatim comment on John Orr, c/o Mrs. John Paul, 10 Sutherland Grove, London S.W. 18, England, taken down by Spencer MacCallum on the occasion of reviewing a 1939 Christmas list of names.

No date

     Dead. He moved out in my direction somewhat in England. How they /Georgists/ hated him. Doesn’t shed much light, but shows where they’re wrong.

/Rough notes and reflections by Spencer MacCallum after conversation with Heath on January 14, 1955:/

     /John Orr proposed land owners submit to taxation to increase the whole prosperity and raise their rents (presumably taxes on their tenants would be let up). This is a step in the direction of proprietary administration, but Orr still only saw the political picture. Landowners should not “submit to” politicians, because there would be no limit to the taxing power. They should actively work to relieve taxes on industry. Then, more, supply some of the public services themselves, so that the money would not have to pass through the politicians’ hands who had the power to tax and spend and waste the life-substance of society without upward limit — a sieve or a batter of coin buckets without bottoms. A drain or a coin pail without a bottom.

     /Neither Orr’s nor Henry George’s was a proposal to reduce taxation. George’s was to tax proprietors, Orr’s that proprietors should submit to taxation — in self interest. Neither was a practical proposal. But Orr’s was a valuable step towards understanding the function and the potentiality of land ownership./