From: The Edwin Burgess Letters on Taxation

Why tax we the produce of anyone’s toil
While it raises the price of the land,
And limits the sale, by enhancing the price
Of the food which the poor must demand?
It raises the price of the product of land,
And lowers the wages of toil,
So the workers have little their wants to supply,
And nothing to purchase the soil.

With little to buy, they have little demand
For the produce of anyone’s toil;
So the workers are idle, as well as the land,
While weeds grow on much of the soil.
Men perish, tho’ labour and land would afford
What would keep them in comfort and joy,
While the blessings of health and the comfort of wealth
Would follow their steady employ.

No taxes on aught that our labour can make,
For these would diminish free toil;
But so much per acre all over the land,
So that no one should hoard up the soil,
For the landlords have robbed us, for ages before,
Taxed all but the land which they stole,
Our food and our drink, our paper and ink,
To enslave us in body and soul.

May we reap the reward we’ve endeavoured to sow,
Of free land and the freedom of trade,
That the taxes may henceforth be all on the land,
And never on labour be laid.