Happy 140th birthday, Winston Churchill

Three cheers for the Rt Hon Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA, on his 140th birthday.

Regardless of anything else he did, Churchill's on our birthday card list because of his advocacy for land tax.

Here's an excerpt from his cracking 1909 speech on the subject:

Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labor and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived.

Those who love enterprise, take note!