March 3, 1888 Vol. III, No. 9Whole No. 61

A CALL FOR A CONFERENCE.

In our advertising columns will be found a notice asking advocates of the single tax who are in favor of holding a national conference to send their addresses to Samuel W. Williams of Vincennes, Indiana.

In the letter inclosing this advertisment^sic, Mr. Williams says:

No matter whether we are to support Cleveland or Blaine, or a ticket of our own, we can certainly benefit ourselves and the cause of reform by holding a great national conference.

In the west we are taking steps to have a grand meeting on July 4. Bailey is to issue the call. It is not to be a convention. It is not a meeting of the united labor party or any other party, but is a meeting of all individuals who desire to come, and who believe that the public revenues should be raised by a single tax on relative land values. We have given ourselves ample time to do the necessary preliminary work, and there is no good reason that I can see why this meeting should not be a grand success.

The circular which Mr. Williams proposes to send to those who respond to his notice is as follows:

“The advocates of a great principle should know no thought of compromise. They should proclaim it in its fullness, and point to its complete attainment as their goal.”

VINCENNES, Ind., Feb. 20, 1888.

Dear Sir:—It is deemed expedient that a national conference of those who believe in the single tax idea should be held on the 4th day of July, 1888.

This shall be a conference and not a convention. It should not have power to nominate candidates. It will be a mass meeting of all those who desire to attend who believe that the public revenues should be raised by a single and direct tax upon relative land values.

The call will be limited to the advocates of this idea.

The meeting will be held in the west or south.

It is suggested that one hundred or more of us join in a request to Warren Worth Bailey, of [281?] South Hoyne avenue, Chicago, Ill., authorizing him to select the place, appoint committee on arrangements and prepare and issue the call. The time has arrived when we should meet, clasp hands, consult and organize. The Cincinnati conference (July 4, 1887) ordered a national conference. Please write to Mr. Bailey immediately on the subject and name to him your choice of place of meeting.

Truly yours, SAMUEL W. WILLIAMS.

Two or three of our friends who have already received copies of this circular send them to me^sic, asking what I think of the proposition.

What I think is, that Mr. Williams has no more authority than anybody else to take preliminary steps for calling a national conference of single tax men; but that in the absence of anything like a national organization, he has just as much authority as anybody else. And there is something essentially democratic in this straightforward individual action that I like. Mr. Williams, it will be remembered, [was?] the author of the resolution adopted at [the?] little gathering of advocates of the sin[gle?] tax held in Cincinnati last Fourth of [July?], which requested John McMackin to call a national conference before October of last year. Seeing that Mr. McMackin has not acted, and that the Cincinnati resolution is likely to be made the pretext for a very different kind of a call than it originally contemplated, Mr. Williams now steps forward himself, and virtually suggests to those who believe in the single tax that they, by individual action, appoint Mr. Warren Worth Bailey, now of Chicago, a committee to select a place, make arrangements, and call a conference on the Fourth of July next. Mr. Bailey will, I think, make just as good a committee for that purpose as Mr. McMackin would have made, or as a larger one selected in any other way. He is a stanch and conscientious believer in the single tax, and has the honor of having published the first newspaper in the United States which unqualifiedly advocated it—the Vincennes News—from which he was finally compelled to retire by the loss of patronage consequent upon his open devotion to the single tax principle. He is active and reliable, and will, I am convinced, promptly and fairly discharge the duties which Mr. Williams suggests should be devolved upon him by the individual request of a hundred or more.

The date suggested for this conference, the Fourth of July, seems also to me to be a good one. By that time both the old parties will have adopted their platforms and made their nominations, and the popular issue in the presidential struggle will have been clearly made. If it should then appear expedient that single tax men should take any organized part in the national contest, there will be ample time to do so. If, on the contrary, it should then be clear that the time has not yet come for us to independently enter the field of national politics, a national conference will at least give such of us as can attend an opportunity of making one another’s acquaintance, of comparing views, and of suggesting plans for future action. It also seems to me well that the call for this conference should emanate from the west and that the conference should be held at some point in the Mississippi valley that should as nearly as possible equalize the cost of attendance.

In short, I can see nothing to object to, and much to approve, in the proposed conference and in the manner of call which Mr. Williams advises, and I would suggest to those who favor the idea that they communicate with Mr. Williams as he asks.

HENRY GEORGE.

THE BROTHERHOOD STRIKE.

Quick on the heels of the Reading strikes with all their large consequences and pregnant lessons, comes another strike which p. 1, col. 2 promises to be still more important, and which, indeed, may prove to be the opening of the most momentous industrial war that has ever yet been waged in the United States—that of the brotherhood of locomotive engineers on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad system. It might seem as if, irritated and alarmed at the defeat of one powerful champion after another, the strongest and most conservative of the great trades unions had leaped into the arena, or, what is doubtless much nearer the truth, as if organized capital, flushed with recent victories, had challenged to a decisive struggle what from the nature of the occupation, and the vital relation it bears to other industries and social functions, is of all labor organizations that which can fight with the greatest advantage and can inflict the greatest damage.

Both special and general qualifications are requisite for the man competent to stand at the lever in the cab of a locomotive. He must possess sufficient knowledge of the complicated mechanism of an engine to be able not only to keep it in gear, but in case of accident to make promptly such slight repairs to it as may be possible with the tools carried in the engine chest. To perform his daily work with the best results he must intimately know his own engine, which is likely to have characteristics as distinct from those of other engines as one man has from another. After his engine he must give attention to the train it draws, observing whether, for example, it be light or heavy, short or long, made up of cars built for fast runs or of those calculated only for the moderate speed of freight. He must know the tracks of his run well enough to keep up to a time schedule on the darkest and stormiest night of winter, when he cannot see his way feeling it, so to speak, by the swing of the curves and the jar of side track frogs. An engineer may save fuel or waste it, preserve a boiler or burn it out, adjust his speed at sinuous and straight places, so as to reduce wear and tear to a minimum, or he may wrench or even wreck a train at a curve. And the nature of the business of railroading renders it a matter of time and difficulty to judge of his efficiency or incompetency in these respects.

Sobriety and steady nerve are qualities indispensable to an engineer. A reputation for unreliability through intemperance would drive a man out of the occupation, and no one can enter fully upon its duties without having shown that he possesses more than ordinary promptitude in emergencies.

In view of these considerations it is not difficult to see why engineers command more than average wages. Their vocation stands out from those of all other mechanics as an illustration that wages are higher in a difficult than in more easily learned occupations; in one requiring unusual mental and physical qualities than in those not subject to such requirements; in one dangerous than in those not dangerous; in one incurring grave responsibilities for life and property than in those in which there is little or no responsibility. The responsibility with which the locomotive engineer is charged is of the very highest. Any incapacity, any unreadiness, any carelessness or drunkenness on his part, may at any time cause not merely the loss of thousands of dollars to his employers, but the loss of hundreds of human lives. His mind is the mind of the rushing train. On his hand at the throttle depends the safety, not only of all that his locomotive pulls, but very often of other trains as well.

Yet there have been other important factors in determining the wages of locomotive engineers in this country. In twenty-five years the number of miles of railroad track have been trebled, creating a demand for engineers that has constantly kept pace with the supply. While eastern railroad companies have mercilessly cut wages in other departments they have been careful to retain the services of the captains and pilots of their land ships, the engineers to whom they intrust the care of millions in property and the reputation of their roads for safe passenger traffic. To keep these employes, they have in some measure been obliged to bid against the great railroads of the west.

It was under conditions such as these that the brotherhood of locomotive engineers obtained its growth. In its earlier stages it cleared its way to intelligent action through a series of costly and occasionally disastrous strikes. When experience had taught its members that for them there were safer methods of operation, it dropped the strike as a weapon, or rather consigned it temporarily to the background. It adopted as its leading feature the mutual benefit side of trades unionism, vigorously pushed its organization throughout the country, and put restricted but yet great authority as an arbitrator into the hands of its executive head. “Let us reason together,” their chief would say, when waiting upon the officers of a road the engineers of which desired to make known any grounds for complaint, and he was heard, for he represented men who could cut away dividends. So the guild waxed fat and quite content.

In time, as the huge mass of the p. 1, col. 3 country’s labor writhed and groaned in angry discontent, the brotherhood was widely advertised as a praiseworthy example to good workingmen. The order seems to have shrewdly permitted the employing class to do most of the trumpeting and the making of comparisons odious to the other unionists. But they could hardly have done it themselves. They had ample opportunity, in the usual treatment of their fellow workers, to see the sham in the talk of railroad officials at their annual reunions, in which the good engineer who was too intelligent to strike was contrasted with the bad common hand who, in his ignorance, struck so often. The engineers knew how many unions of switchmen, trackmen and brakemen had in vain remonstrated against overwork and reduction of wages. “Let us reason together!” They well knew that language like this from unskilled laborers, who could easily be replaced in case of strike, would be regarded as audacious.

And in fact they have seemed to care little for unskilled labor, or any labor other than their own. The brotherhood has been managed, and up to this time successfully managed, upon the principle that the rise or fall, the success or failure, of other labor organizations mattered nothing to members of the brotherhood. It has not only refused its aid in great strikes when its action would have been decisive, and earned among other trades unions a character for selfishness, but, as Mr. Powderly charges even while counseling Knights of Labor to refrain from retaliation, brotherhood men have on some occasions been permitted to take the places of the striking members of other organizations of engineers. In this strike at least there is nothing sentimental. It springs from no notion of “the solidarity of labor,” from no conception that the principle, “an injury to one is the concern of all,” has application beyond the lines of a single organization, and from no desire to help those beyond those lines.

On the other side, the officers of a great railroad, experienced and calculating business men, have decided that the market for engineers is not monopolized by men who will not sell their labor for less than the brotherhood scale, and they are risking serious immediate losses to the road, for the greater gains to come if they succeed in manning their engines with engineers who will work at rates fixed by the company. The dispatches tell us that the officers of the other great lines centered in Chicago are watching the fight with deep interest. There can be no question as to which side they desire shall win. The bonds of amity uniting the aristocracy of trades unionism with its late admirers of the great corporations have been severed, and all the value of the example of its much lauded moderation is lost.

Whichever side may be beaten, this strike, in its occurrence, has definitely settled some facts of large import. The brotherhood of locomotive engineers, like every other labor organization maintained to uphold wages, does strike when other means for accomplishing its purposes fail. A labor organization that will not strike cannot long breast the current that is ever carrying wages down.

From the very nature of their occupation the engineers constitute the strongest of all trades unions. Against them, however, is that general pressure for employment which, beginning with the laborer destitute of special skill, who is denied access to the primary means of all employment, spreads upward through all trades and occupations; and against them also is a certain jealousy, whatever it may practically amount to, which their exclusive policy, hitherto so successful, has aroused. As affecting this contest of endurance, and as of the utmost importance to the general public, it must also be remembered that under our essentially vicious system of permitting our great iron highways to become the property of private corporations, whose shares are often the counters of the gambling of the stock market, the interests of the managers of a railroad and the interests of the road itself are not merely separable, but are often diverse. It is in the power of the brotherhood engineers so long as they stand together to inflict tremendous losses upon any road against which they strike. But what if the managers of the road have sold its stock short? What if they represent some great speculator or clique of speculators who desire to get hold of its stock cheaply?

Though it has been the policy of the brotherhood of locomotive engineers never to strike in aid of any other organization, they must, if they are to stand, strike when necessary on other roads in support of their members where a strike has begun. Thus, if it be not quickly settled, the strike which has commenced on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy system is likely to spread. What would be the result of anything like a general and protracted strike of railroad engineers can only be imagined when it is considered that the regular operation of railroads has become not merely essential to great and diverse branches of industry, but also to the supply p. 1, col. 4 of our great centers of population with the very necessaries of life.

Faster and more sharply is the logic of events forcing the consideration of the great social problem of modern civilization upon the people of the United States. Happy will it be for them if they shall ere long see that the whole system of protection and special privilege is false and dangerous, and that justice and freedom can alone prevent the productive forces which our civilization has evolved from becoming the means of its destruction.

THE TRUSTS RUN TO COVER.

Every effort has been made by those immediately concerned to prevent the state senate committee to investigate trusts from getting at the bottom facts concerning the great sugar combination. The secretary of the organization has been absent from the state. Witnesses summoned by the committee have been reported sick or absent, and others when placed on the stand have flatly refused to answer questions. Mr. Parsons, one of the directors of the trust, persists in his refusal to produce the agreement between the refiners, basing his refusal on his rights as counsel, and in that capacity he also coaches witnesses and advises them not to answer. If a legislative committee has no more authority than this one has in the opinion of Mr. Parsons, it is difficult to see why any such committee should be appointed.

The tactics of the sugar conspirators have been closely imitated by those interested in other trusts. The secretary of the milk combination is accidentally in Florida, where he has taken all the books and papers that might throw light on the process by which farmers are compelled to sell milk cheap and the people of New York are made to buy it dear. William Rockefeller of the Standard oil trust is in Florida when wanted to testify concerning the cotton seed oil trust, with which, of course, the Standard trust has nothing to do. The agreement on which the cotton seed oil trust is based is conveniently absent in Cincinnati, and no one can think of any way in which it could be produced in this city. A witness who acknowledges his interest in the trust, professed utter inability to answer some simple questions and under advice of counsel flatly refused to answer other questions.

All of this seems to indicate that the investigation will fail to elicit the information most desired by the public, but such a failure will not prove that the proceeding has been of no public benefit. Agreements to control vast industries, all details of which are thus sedulously concealed, must be of such a character that those concerned in them dare not allow the facts to pass into the possession of the public and its grand jurors and prosecuting officers. The written agreement which forms the constitution of the sugar trust is kept so secret that Mr. Parsons has intimated that he would go to jail rather than produce it, and Mr. Havemeyer has sworn that he is not sure that even the individuals signing it have the right to see it. No criminal secret involving the lives of a band of political conspirators was ever more closely guarded.

We doubt if any possible exposure of the operations of the trusts could do so much to influence the public mind against these new devices of monopoly as this policy of concealment. The inevitable inference is that there must be something behind all this even worse than the public had suspected. This appears to have occurred to the more astute members of the Standard oil trust, for when John D. Rockefeller was called to the stand he, after a mere formal protest, gave the committee a copy of the famous deed of trust that serves as the constitution of the Standard oil trust, and assumed an attitude of great frankness toward the committee. Either this attitude or something else had such an effect on George Bliss, one of the committee’s counsel, that he handled Mr. Rockefeller with great tenderness, and even protested against pushing the investigation too far. General Pryor was less considerate, and brought out some facts that did not entirely accord with Mr. Rockefeller’s claim that the greatest of all the trusts had none of the characteristics of a monopoly.

Already the hurrying of witnesses to other states and the implied threat of Mr. Havemeyer that they will move their refineries beyond the limits of this state if the legislature does not cease to “persecute” them, point to the necessity of a congressional investigation. It is clear that no state jurisdiction extends far enough to enable it to cope with these conspiracies that aim to control the trade of a continent, and the house committee on manufactures is preparing to begin such an investigation.

Even if this investigation, covering a wider range, only serves to emphasize the facts elicited by the present investigation in this city, it will be of great use. It is of less importance that a legislative remedy shall be devised than that public opinion against the growth of monopoly and the constant tendency of enormous power to concentrate in an ever lessening number of hands shall be aroused. We are entering on a presidential campaign in which the tariff will be the main issue. Nearly all of those engaged in these conspiracies to enhance prices, limit production and control the wages and opportunities for employment of labor, are p. 1, col. 5 protectionists. Into the testimony showing that they close factories while guaranteeing profits to their owners but nothing to the men thrown out of work, they inject the familiar cant about the need of a tariff to protect American labor against the pauper labor of Europe. The hypocrisy of such a pretense is so bold that it must excite the derision of even those workingmen who have hitherto been deluded into a belief that the protective system is maintained for their benefit. The fullest possible exposure of the tactics of these high tariff trusts will be most effective in opening the eyes of the masses to the fact that what our “protective” tariff really protects is monopolistic robbery, and not the wages of labor. Now is the time for such an exposure, and the closer the rebellion against “protection” can be linked with a general attack on all monopolies built up by legislation or conspiracy, the better will be the chance for securing a popular verdict in support of that movement. Tariff reformers in congress cannot afford to ignore the subject of trusts.

THE TREATY AGAIN.

The proposed fisheries treaty with the British government has become a subject of sharp controversy in and out of congress. The attacks on it are as silly as was the jubilation of the negotiators over its completion. The real contention of the Americans who regard themselves as chiefly interested is for the privilege of using Canadian ports for convenience in conducting deep sea fishing, while refusing to Canadian vessels the full privilege in our own ports that is enjoyed by American vessels. The aggressive acts of the Canadians are undoubtedly designed to force the American government to come to an understanding more satisfactory to the Canadian fishermen. Canada undoubtedly inflicts considerable injury on her own people by this course, and her truculent attitude enables demagogues on this side of the line to appeal to that puerile pride and stubbornness which in international affairs is regarded as an exhibition of a proper patriotic spirit, and is formulated in such immoral cries as “our country, right or wrong.” The highest patriotism is that which insists that one’s country shall be right at whatever cost; and as the public conscience becomes educated, men will see that the general praise which greets such a declaration as “I would rather be right than be president” is as much greater in the mouth of a nation as a whole people is greater than an individual citizen.

The United States is unquestionably wrong in this contention, and the claim it sets up is in the interest of a few greedy citizens in one corner of the country, and in derogation of the rights and interests of the whole body of the people. This century old quarrel could be settled by one stroke of the pen eliminating the duties on fish and fish oil from our tariff. The demand of a handful of New England fishermen for the retention of those clauses is simply an extreme illustration of the brazen effrontery and essential immorality of the whole protective system. There are from sixty to seventy millions of people in these United States and not more than four or five thousand of them have even the most remote interest in preserving the duties on the products of the Atlantic fisheries. The interest of every man, woman and child among the vast remainder is to have the fish supply cheap and abundant. These few thousands not only demand that the price of fish shall be artificially kept up for their own immediate personal benefit, but when under such circumstances a neighboring people, whose fishermen are practically excluded from our ports, retaliate by denying our fishermen certain privileges in their ports, these New England fishermen actually have the criminal audacity to insist on their claims, even to the extent of going to war if need be.

There is no other possible interpretation of the eager desire of certain congressmen and newspapers to keep open this dispute and to aggravate its bitterness. In order that a few thousand American fishermen on the New England coast may be protected in their privilege of making millions of their fellow citizens pay for salted fish more than they are worth, these very victimized millions are asked to subject our seaboard cities to destruction, sacrifice their lives in a brutal fight and impose new burdens of debt on generations yet unborn. Did greed ever inspire a more wicked proposal or selfish craft ever build so openly on a faith that what Carlyle said of England’s millions is true of ours—that they are “mostly fools?”

For ourselves we are glad that the proposed treaty is unsatisfactory. It could not, in the long run, prove otherwise, since it is based on false principles, and is at best a compromise with wrong and folly. Professor Goldwin Smith of Toronto openly rejoices that the mere discussion of the subject forces forward the movement for commercial union, as the only solution of the fishery and other disputes between this country and Canada. That free trade between the two countries would benefit both is manifest, since neither will sell the other its products without obtaining in return products still more desirable to it. The protectionists themselves admit that free trade between the various parts of our own country is the source of whatever prosperity we enjoy, and human ingenuity p. 1, col. 6 cannot formulate a single respectable argument against the extension of the same beneficent system to this whole continent. They must see this themselves, but they fear to admit the truth, since the logic of the argument would carry us to free trade with all the world.

VEXATIOUS LITIGATION.

It is said that no less than three thousand suits against the elevated railroad companies for damages to property along their lines are now pending. It is the policy of the managers of these roads to fight every suit of this kind step by step and take an appeal from every decision adverse to their interests. The object is to make such litigation as costly as possible to all who engage in it, and to cause such delay in the final settlement of suits that any damages won by a plaintiff will be more than eaten up by lawyers’ fees and court charges. It does not matter in the least that all of the points of law raised have been passed upon by the court of appeals; a new appeal is taken in each case for the undisguised purpose of delaying the suit.

Such tactics, which are the ordinary tactics of rich men and corporations, ought to be impossible. Justice which is not prompt is not justice at all, and these legal delays give to the long purse an advantage in our courts that practically could hardly be greater if rich defendants could openly bribe judges and buy juries. In the case of the elevated railroads one of two things is true, either the companies are or they are not liable for any proven damage they have done to property along their lines. This is a sample legal question^sic that ought to be settled as completely in a single case before the court of appeals as in a hundred cases. Once settled in favor of the companies, other suits of the kind should be speedily disposed of by the court in which they were instituted. If, on the other hand, this question has been decided against the companies, as is claimed, then all appeals made for the express purpose of delay ought to be instantly dismissed. If the existing practice renders this impossible then the existing practice is bad, and if lawyers only wished to expedite legal proceedings they could easily suggest a way in which it could be reformed. But lawyers can no more be trusted to reform legal procedure than party managers can be trusted to reform politics. What is needed is a popular demand such as that expressed in the Syracuse platform, “We desire also to so simplify the procedure of our courts and diminish the expense of legal proceedings that the poor may be placed on an equality with the rich and the long delays which now result in scandalous miscarriages of justice may be prevented.” This is one of the many reforms proposed in that platform that should be forced on the attention of all political parties by popular demand.

But there is another aspect of these suits against the elevated railroad companies of New York which deserves most serious attention. Whether these demanders of damages from the elevated railroad companies have or have not any legal claim, they certainly have no claim in justice. Their suits, if they have any legal color, ought not to be defeated by delays. But our laws ought to be such as would make it impossible to bring them. However much the stockholders of these elevated roads may have possessed themselves of what really belongs to the whole people, no matter how much they have watered their stock, and how badly they treat the public by overcrowding and inefficiently lighting their cars, we ought not to permit another set of public beneficiaries to blackmail them. The suits for damage of property which have been brought against the elevated roads, and which amount in the aggregate of the claims to some twenty million dollars, are not suits for damage done to property which justly belongs to individuals, but for the lessening of land values in particular places. Now, these land values, as to which so many individuals claim to have been damaged by the erection and maintenance of those great public conveniences, the elevated railroads, are in no case the result of individual industry, but are due to the growth and improvement of the whole community and rightfully belong to the whole people of New York. The elevated companies have not profited by the great increase in land values due to the building of their roads, and they ought not to be compelled to make up what lowering in relative values the same improvements in transportation may have caused in other places. If the individuals whose lots have been reduced in value by the building of the elevated roads have any just claim for compensation, it ought to be against those whose lots have been increased in value.

The single tax on land values would remove all such difficulties. Under it the owner of any lot which was diminished in value by a public improvement would be compensated by the lessening of the taxes he was called on to pay, and the public itself, which would thus be the real loser, would get compensating benefits for this loss in the larger income from the lots which were rendered more valuable. Under this equitable system the costs for damages in making public improvements, whether in building railroads, in opening public squares or in continued on p. 2 →

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The Financial Reform Almanac and What It Tells—The People Who Own Great Britain and Ireland.

THE STANDARD has received from the Financial reform association, 18 Hackins Hey, Liverpool, the “Financial Reform Almanac” for 1888. It is a pamphlet of 200 pages, packed with statistical information relating to the the public receipts and expenditures of Great Britain and cognate subjects. The association, which was established in 1848, advocates economical government, just taxation and perfect freedom of trade. It demands a single and equitable system of direct taxa- tion “in lieu of the present unequal complicated and expensively collected duties upon commodities,” and the continuation of tariff reforms, “until the last chain laid upon human industry and skill be broken and the last duty abolished,” and insists upon a revision of the land laws and a readjustment of the land tax. In order to throw light on the way to proceed in these reforms, the association has had compiled from the best available sources, mainly official, statements of fact in respect to every question of import to the taxpayer. The index embraces several hundred subjects.

Social questions in Great Britain are so closely related to those of America that a citizen of our country will find this “Almanac” quite as instructive in parts as if it were an American publication. Especially is this true in regard to the chapter on the land question. The landed interest of Great Britain has for many generations been doing what every interest subject to combined effort will do—employing governmental agencies for its benefit and vigorously pushing its own fortunes to the detriment of all other interests. The Almanac points out that Mr. Samuel Laing, M. P., has ably demonstrated that the landlords of Great Britain have received fifty million pounds over market value from the people through railway companies’ purchases. Their landed estates have been thereby increased one hundred and fifty million pounds in value, not to speak of the relief afforded by the large share of local taxation borne by these railways, which Mr. Laing estimates at one-half:

As an instance of the way in which the last generation of peers dealt with railways the fact is recalled that in 1818 the house of lords threw out the first Stockton railway bill for fear of disturbing the duke of Cleveland’s fox covers. These very rails have since made his successor a Crœsus. The mode of opposition by some peers of the present generation is illustrated in these two typical cases. In 1878 Lord Beaumont claimed £20,- 000 for one and one-eighth acres of ground at Fulham, wanted for the Metropolitan district railway. A jury awarded him £7,250. In 1884 Lord Derby demanded £200 an acre for common agricultural land in the vicinity of Bury, for which a jury gave £107 as the fair value.

The Almanac compiles from the Domesday returns of 1874, which it says greatly understated the facts as to the size of the large landed estates, the following statement:

In England and Wales—

12 persons own 1,038,8[8?]3 acres.

66 persons own 1,917,076 acres.

100 persons own 3,917,611 acres.

580 persons own 5,425,764 acres, or about one-sixth of the inclosed land.

523 persons own one-fifth of all England and Wales.

710 persons own one-fourth of all England and Wales.

874 persons own 9,267,031 acres.

10,207 persons own two-thirds of all England and Wales.

One man owns over 186,397 acres in England; another, 102,785 acres; 4,500 own 17,498,200 acres, or more than half of England and Wales.

In Scotland, where the total area is 18,946,694 acres:

One man owns 1,326,000 acres, and has, besides, [32,095?] acres in England; total, [1,358,095?] acres.

Another has 431,000 acres.

Another has 424,000 acres.

Another has 306,000 acres.

12 owners have 4,339,722 acres, about a quarter of Scotland, and more than the entire area of Wales.

20 owners hold more than 120,000 each.

24 owners hold more than 4,931,888 (a fourth of Scotland).

70 owners hold about 9,400,000 (a half of Scotland).

171 owners hold about 11,029,228.

330 owners hold two-thirds of Scotland.

1,700 owners hold nine-tenths of Scotland.

In Ireland, where the total area is 20,159,677 acres—

1 person owns 170,119 acres.

12 persons own 1,297,888 acres.

8 persons own over 100,000 acres each.

14 persons own over 50,000 acres each.

90 persons own over 20,000 acres each.

135 persons own over 10,000 acres each.

452 persons own over 5,000 acres each.

292 persons own 6,458,100 acres (nearly one-third of the island.)

744 persons own 9,612,728 acres (nearly one-half of the island).

1,942 persons own two-thirds of Ireland.

In Scotland more than 2,000,000 acres have been depopulated and cleared of thousands of sheep to make room for deer forests. Of four highland counties of Scotland, having an area of 8,050,190 acres, the extent of land under cultivation is only 419,385 acres, the rest being left for deer and other wild animals.

With reference to land tax reform the Almanac says that the tax on land now yields an annual revenue of a little over a million sterling and holds a comparatively humble position in the fiscal system of the country, but its importance is by no means adequately estimated if regarded solely from this point of view. It holds a place of primary importance in the history of British taxes, and the means are suggested by which “this ghost” of a once substantial tax may be restored to its ancient position in the national fiscal system. During the reigns of the Norman and Plantagenet kings the national charges were almost wholly drawn from the land, but from about the year 1334 onward, personal property was laid under contribution, and customs duties were from 1353 regularly levied on certain descriptions of imported articles. In the reigns of William III and Anne one-third of the total revenues were supplied by the land tax, the crown lands having been granted away and the feudal payments abolished. The average revenue in those reigns amounted to four and a half millions.

The Almanac contains much useful and interesting information concerning the appropriation of common lands by the large land holders, the absentee landlords of Ireland, the ancient land tenures, the statistics of agriculture, with other facts and figures bearing on the land question. In all, the pamphlet is highly valuable as, what it is announced to be, “a vade mecum for fiscal reformers, free traders, politicans^sic, public speakers and writers.” The price is one shilling.

Pre-empting Land in the Middle of Salt Lake City—A Practical Illustration of the Stealing of the Unearned Increment.

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 20.—Once in a while a community is so circumstanced that it clearly sees the injustice of the individual appropriation of land, even when such appropriation is effected in accordance with the law. There lies in the outskirts of this city a large tract of commons known as Arsenal hill, valued at about a quarter of a million dollars, and which has for many years been regarded as the common property of the people. On Tuesday morning last a number of men were found busy setting posts on the land preparatory to inclosing it with a barbed wire fence. It was soon discovered that one John H. Linck proposed to “jump” the land, as the people called it; and unmeasured indignation was aroused.

Marshal Solomon was soon on the ground, but the men paid no attention to his orders. Later in the day he returned with eight policemen, and, the men refusing to quit work, the officers began to take up the posts while the men continued to plant them. The policemen not being over fond of work, thought it cheaper to arrest the men, which they did. In return Linck had the officers arrested on the charge of arresting without lawful process. The next morning several tents and a board shanty were found on the land. Near one of the tents a lady was busy cooking breakfast, and elsewhere a man had begun to improve the field with a plow, while a half dozen men were digging more post holes.

By this time the indignation of the people had reached a white heat, and in response to the public ire the mayor summoned Marshal Solomon, Night Watchman Dobson, Recorder Wells and nearly the entire police force, with forty or fifty specials, and proceeded to the hill to oust the jumpers. They soon cleared the field of jumpers, tents and shanties, and continued to forcibly occupy it in the name of the people. The jumpers claim that the city had failed to comply with the law upon the authority of which alone any title must rest, and that therefore the land is open to settlement. And if their position can be sustained they have merely accepted the general invitation of the government of the United States, of which the people of Salt Lake are a component part, to “jump” any lands in its possession which are not reserved from settlement.

It is worthy of note that, while smarting under the fresh sting of the moral injustice of the individual appropriation of that particular piece of valuable land, the people of Salt Lake City are directing their indignation exclusively against the land jumpers, never once suspecting that the fault may be in the law and not in the human nature which prompts men to take advantage of any special privileges extended by the law.

The reason that the moral injustice of the jumping of this particular piece of land so sensibly prods the sleepy perceptions of our citizens is not to be found in the analysis of principles involved, but in the circumstances of time and value. Had this same land been “jumped” twenty or thirty years ago, the same value would have attached to it which it has now acquired without any one “owning” it, and from the same causes. But under those circumstances none of the present protestors would have dreamed of questioning the title or right of the jumper to the great unearned value of that land. The moral deductions would be something like these: “The settler obtained lawful ownership of the land at about the price which it was worth at that time; and the land being absolutely his property, any value which might subsequently attach to his land would be his also, for how could he”own” the land and some one else claim its accruing value? He bought or settled the land and took his chances, and it happened that Salt Lake City grew in population so as to give it a value of a quarter of a million dollars. He was a lucky dog, a shrewd fellow.” Under these circumstances he would not be denounced as a land “jumper” but honored as a land “lord” and would be accorded especial consideration at the hands of the community, whom he had as effectually robbed as could be done by the most extreme case of land jumping imaginable. But the idea of an individual seizing that enormous unearned value at a single grab after it had accumulated is extremely repulsive to the sense of justice of the Salt Lakers.

Unquestionably the individual appropriation of Arsenal hill would be an unmitigated robbery of the people. But there is a much better way to right that wrong than by getting indignant and hiring special policemen to hold the fort. If the community were to levy a tax on all lands exclusive of improvements equal to its rental value, how much interest would the jumper of Arsenal hill have left? Only the value of the fence, tents and shanties. And since it was the land value they were after, and not the use of the land, they would drop the latter without the former like a hot potato. Or, at the worst, the city could resume possession of the hill by condemning it and compensating the “owners” for all the interest they have in it, viz: the fence and shanties. And the people would thus not only gain the undisputed possession of the full unearned value of that land, but also of the enormous aggregate unearned value of all the lands within the city limits. They would be reveling in the enjoyment of an ample revenue to provide schools, public buildings, parks, libraries, good streets, electric lights, free public conveyances and many other desirable things, without depriving a single citizen of the fruits of his labor to the extent of a single penny.

JOHN SMITH.

DR. GOTTHEIL PRESIDES AT THE FORTY-FOURTH PUBLIC MEETING.

A Powerful Oration by Dr. McGlynn—The Anti-Poverty Society Should Copy the Methods of the Anti-Slavery Society and Work with the [Party?] that will Do Most for the Advancement of their Principles—Better Work with Unthinking Instruments than Not to Work at all—An Appeal for Maintaining the United Labor Party.

At the forty-fourth public meeting of the anti-poverty society, held in the Academy of Music last Sunday evening, Dr. Gottheil, the son of the well-known rabbi, presided. He said that when the anti-poverty society was first founded he was afraid that its platform would be no place for him, but he was glad to find that its foundations were laid so deeply that Jew and gentile, religionist and agnostic were equally admissible. Based on no creed, it appeals to all creeds. It was for the cause of humanity, and its members must go straight on, no matter who might falter or fall by the wayside. Compromise might be well for political associations, but it had no place in the anti-poverty society. Not until justice had been established would its work be done. Dr. Gottheil introduced Dr. McGlynn as the orator of the evening.

Dr. McGlynn in beginning his address disclaimed any special power of oratory and said that he always felt diffident on rising to address any audience. He felt more than usually diffident on this occasion because he was more than usually unprepared. It was a meeting of the anti-poverty society, and therefore the doctrines of that society should be expounded at every meeting. A newspaper man had spoken of the “old fad or gag of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” In doing this he had been guilty of a blasphemy and an outrage against his own manhood and should ask pardon of the almighty Father for his unfilial utterance.

Dr. McGlynn went on to expound the doctrine of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and the consequent equal rights of all men to work out their destiny, which involved their equal rights to maintain life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by their own labor. From this he deduced the equal rights of all to the common, general bounties of nature; that is, their equal right of access to them, so that their diverse talents and industry would not be hampered and all men reduced to a dead level. The idea that all men should be brought to such a level was no part of the teachings of the anti-poverty society, although it was frequently so misrepresented, even by men who spoke in the name of religion. He gave some of them credit for sincerity in such misrepresentation, however, saying that they denounced the society because they wanted to make good the teaching of God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” But they were wrong. So far from wishing to promote stealing, the anti-poverty society wanted to stop the stealing.

This stealing occurred through the appropriation by individuals of the unearned increment or increasing value of land which accrued from the growth of the community. This value belonged to the community and should be taken by the community by a rental value tax. This system would unlock opportunities now monopolized by the few and would make possible a civilization grander than any of which the world had yet dreamed. This was the mission of the anti-poverty society and its twin sister, the united labor party. Dr. McGlynn continued:

This wrong must be undone by political action. We contemplate only a peaceful change of law. There is almost precisely the same relation between the anti-poverty society and the united labor party as between the anti-slavery society and the republican party. (Applause.) The anti-slavery society gave the thought and impulse that helped to make the republican party that, hating slavery, while acknowledging its inability to interfere with it where it was entrenched in the institutions of sovereign states, was determined to do everything to make that horrid institution odious, to restrict it as much as possible, to forbid it wherever by the constitution of the United States it could be forbidden by congress. And so they waged war against slavery in the territories and in the District of Columbia; and that party, by the providence of God and through the folly of the slave owners themselves, was able to bring about the emancipation of the slaves in a few years’ time, when even the most sanguine of the founders of the party and of the anti-slavery society could hardly have dared to hope for any such thing in a century.

It is only by imitating the magnificent bravery of the anti-slavery men and of the founders of the republican party that we can hope for a victory at all. (Applause.) A most magnificent means of preaching our doctrine is the availing ourselves of every political campaign whether in the city or the state or the nation, by the holding of conventions, by the adoption of a platform, by the nomination of a ticket, to give excuse and occasion to our speakers to go through the city, through the state, or through the country, getting a hearing that under other circumstances it would be idle for us to hope for. (Great applause.)

Now if I, as a friendly member of the united labor party, may be permitted to give a word of advice to that party, it is that it should go straight ahead, doing its appointed work, never disbanding, never intermitting its labors, until having fought every campaign in city, state and nation, it shall have accomplished a perfect victory by writing its doctrines in every statute book, whether of the state or of the nation, and seating its congressmen and its legislators, and its president in the chair of Washington. (Applause.)

We have heard the sentiment expressed somewhere that it doesn’t matter how people vote but it does matter how they think. (Applause.) Now suppose we all think that it would be well to make a tunnel through the Palisades over there in New Jersey, and let us all keep thinking and get all the people of New Jersey and all the people of New York to devote the undivided attention of their intellects to thinking that there ought to be a tunnel right through a certain point in the Palisades; I want to know how much of that combined intelligent thinking of all the people of New Jersey and New York will bore that tunnel through the Palisades? (Laughter and applause.) But if somehow or other you can get a gang of men there with machines and get them to work on that spot of the the Palisades, although they do not think at all, although they don’t know what a hole through that mountain is dug for, that hole will be dug. (Applause.)

So I cheerfully admit, my friends, that thinking is a good thing, and that thinking leads to doing. But in a matter of political reform I cannot for the life of me see what good the thinking is going to do unless that thought shall be carried into practice. And on the other hand I do believe that the vote of a man who does not think at all, who takes

p. 4, col. 2 his opinion on faith because he knows you are a wise man and you advise him to vote so for the best interests of his country, if he does vote taking his principles on faith, his vote is just as effectual in that direction as the vote of the greatest philosopher the world has ever seen. (Applause.) And if the philosopher should happen to stay at home that day because the weather was rainy, the man, not being a philosopher, not doing much thinking, but who would go and vote, would help the cause [more, so?] far as voting goes, than the philosopher. And practical reform never would be helped at all except by voting.

Now, then, I would advise the united labor party not to disband their party after a campaign or two to take a rest for a year or two. (Applause). It would have been a funny kind of a way to put down the rebellion if, when our armies were in the face of the enemy after a reverse or two, President Lincoln had said “You had better go home and take a rest. This putting down the rebellion does not seem to be very successful so far. In a year or two we will call you together again and we will have another whack at putting down the rebellion.” (Great applause and laughter.) You could never have got those men together again; never, never.

The party should go straight on. Such was the unanimous feeling of all those men who started to establish this party. Such was the plan of those who adopted the Syracuse platform. It was their clear intent that a conference should be called for the purpose of forming a national party to take active part in the presidential contest. Some have since taken the view that we had better not go into the national campaign, except by making prominent some other issue, that the fundamental doctrine of the platform was really no national issue at all. But the Syracuse platform was composed largely in view of a national campaign. It was full of national issues.

There is a demand for a postal telegraph. Who was to establish this postal telegraph? The same power that owns and controls the post office. There was a demand concerning the currency (applause) and one aimed at the abolition of the national banks. If that is not a national issue I don’t know what a national issue is. We want government ownership and control of railroads. The United States ought to own and control certain railroads that it has actually built—(applause)—the great Pacific railroads and others.

To come to our fundamental principle, the doctrine of the land for the people. (Applause.) Has that doctrine nothing to do with national politics? Let us look a moment. See how large a portion of the United States is still occupied by the so-called territories. These territories are subject to the congress of the United States, our servant. We the people have a right to demand that congress shall enact such laws for the government of these territories as they know to be just. There is the District of Columbia, subject to the despotic power of congress. We have a right to demand that those wards of the nation shall not be robbed by land grabbers. (Applause.)

Congress should to-morrow make laws that all taxes in those territories and in the District of Columbia should be levied upon land, that the full rental value of the land should be appropriated in the shape of a rental tax and paid into the local treasuries. (Applause.) I said on another platform that such rental tax should be paid either into the United States treasury, or, better still, into the local treasuries. Through the unfortunate inaccuracy of reporters the latter portion of my remark was not reported. And so some wiseacre writes a letter to say that Dr. McGlynn wants to make the United States the universal landlord. It does occur to me that between our own government, or an English syndicate, or private individuals in New York city, I would cast my vote for the government as landlord every time. (Applause.) But the latter part of my phrase is what I would adhere to and insist upon. I would only accept the landlordship of the United States government as the lesser of two evils. But the proper thing, in keeping with this platform, would be to appropriate by law of congress to the local treasuries of these territories the full rental value of those lands. Is not that a national question?

That is not all. Does not our government now hold as trustee for the whole people an immense national domain in all the states and territories? There are still hundreds of millions of acres actually the property of the United States government. Could we not with perfect propriety demand that our government shall never again violate that law of God, “The land shall not be sold forever,” and demand that congress shall never again sell or give away a single square foot of land, but that it shall under wise regulations, precisely similar to the existing homestead laws, permit the occupation for use of these lands in proper quantities, say 160 acres, with the understanding that the occupants shall enjoy, if they use them, perpetual, undisturbed possession, and that they shall never be taxed upon any of their improvements, on the simple condition that when with the growth of the community a rental value shall accrue to those lands they shall pay such rental value in the shape of a tax into their respective local treasuries?

In that way we could through our national government actually introduce this great reform in a short time into all the territories of the United States, that with the rapid increase of population will in a few years be mighty states of this union. And that is not all. By the force of example we can accelerate enormously the bringing about of this platform in all of our states because of the potency of the example of what is done on national land. We have a most comforting example in the republican party, the abolition movement, the anti-slavery society, who while acknowledging that they could not interfere with slavery in the states were determined to give the institution no rest, by constantly petititioning^sic congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and its prohibition in the territories of the United States (applause). In order to preach our doctrine effectually we must practice it as well as preach. Let us preach as much as we can, but let us do all we can to encourage our brethren of the united labor party in carrying out their magnificent campaign whenever opportunity offers.

The Henry George Assembly of Detroit.

The second public meeting of the Henry George assembly of Detroit was held Feb. 20, with James Phelan in the chair. Mr. Henry A. Robinson was the chief speaker. Among other good things he said that the Malthusian theory of population as the cause of poverty had been exploded. Capitalism and landlordism watch labor’s life line, and wages are doled out accordingly. That class living the cheapest—economizing the most—regulates the wages of all others; for all must come down to that rate or starve. It is not over-production, or extravagance, or intemperance or over-population, then, that causes the galling poverty visible on every hand. “The cause of poverty is landlordism,” thundered the speaker, and this climax to his argument brought a storm of applause.

After scoring Statistician Atkinson on his soup bones and rinds and his corn and hog and “protein,” Mr. Robinson showed that if the people got the entire proceeds of their labor there would be no general poverty. For poverty is the result of robbery under forms of the law, which uphold and perpetuate a monopoly that makes the land owner the master and the tenant the slave. “Such a thing as exclusive proprietorship in the earth, any more than in the air or the water, was never contemplated by the Divine Being who gave us life.”

The next public meeting will be held March 6.

Anti-Poverty in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE, Feb. 27.—Our anti-poverty society held its regular weekly meeting in Ranie’s hall^sic, on Sunday, Feb. 26. A good audience was precent^sic.

Mr. W. T. Gorsuch of New York, was the first speaker. He gave a clear demonstration of the principle upon which the society is founded, and spoke approvingly of the recent utterances of President Cleveland on the tariff, and of Mayor Hewitt on taxation.

Mr. W. J. Ogden of Baltimore also spoke, showing the progress our doctrines are making among people who adopt them consciously and unconsciously. He referred to a local question now agitating Baltimore—the annexation of the lands surrounding the city, a measure which is opposed by speculating land owners, whose taxes would be increased if the “belt” were taken into the city. He showed how the value of the land in the “belt” has been created by the people of Baltimore, and justly belongs to those who brought it into being.

Mrs. Margaret Moore, of New York, is expected to address the society at its next meeting.

We have received a circular signed by Mr. S. W. Williams of Vincennes, Ind., asking opinions with reference to calling a national conference (not convention), to be held in the west or south. The matter will be discussed at our weekly meeting on Wednesday. W. N. HILL, M. D.

Good Reading for Jeffersonian Democrats.

Jefferson’s Writings, vol. 7, p. 310.

That our Creator made the earth for the use of the living and not of the dead; that those who exist not can have no use nor right in it, no authority or power over it; that one generation of men cannot foreclose or burthen its use to another, which comes to it in its own right and by the same divine beneficence; that a preceding generation cannot bind a succeeding one by its laws or contracts; these deriving their obligation from the will of the existing majority, and that majority being removed by death another comes in its place with a will equally free to make its own laws and contracts; these are axioms so self-evident that no explanation can make them plainer; for he is not to be reasoned with who says that non-existence can control existence, or that nothing can move something. They are axioms also pregnant with salutary consequences. THOMAS JEFFERSON. Monticello, Sept. 24, 1823.

Farmers Who Demand the Right to Buy in the Cheapest Market.

At a recent meeting of the Minnesota state farmers’ alliance in St. Paul the following resolution was adopted:

We demand the revision of the present iniquitous tariff, and ask our Minnesota delegates in Washington to use their utmost endeavors to have placed upon the free list lumber, iron, salt, wool, coal, and all articles for which “trusts” have been or may hereafter be formed, as the producers of the northwest are forced to sell their products in competion^sic with the producers of the Old World. They ask also to be allowed to purchase in the cheapest markets without paying this no longer necessary tribute to our own government.

p. 4, col. 4

CHRISTIANITY AS OPPOSED TO MODERN CIVILIZATION.

A Discourse by Hugh O. Pentecost on The Golden Rule—The Obstacles Which Our Civilization Presents to its Observance.

Hugh O. Pentecost’s sermon of last Sunday was devoted to the consideration of the direct teachings of Christ in their applicability to modern human society, and the pointing out of the artifical^sic obstacles which our civilization interposes to any complete obedience to the golden rule.

It is my obinion^sic, said Mr. Pentecost, that even as things are, the teachings of Jesus are far more easily followed than we commonly suppose.

In my opinion, to set a young boy or girl free, or rather never to arrest them at all, after the commission of a crime, but to habitually treat them with kindness—to make this the habit of the community just as it is now our habit to be especially considerate toward the blind, the lame or the deformed—would be far better and safer than to send them, as we do, to the house of correction, where they are immediately thrown with more hardened offenders and confined in a moral atmosphere in which the highest virtue is to become skillful in crimes, bitterness being all the time engendered in their hearts toward the society which incarcerates them.

Not long ago a burglar was brought before a New Jersey judge and sentenced to prison for the second time. “Now,” said the judge, “my advice to you is to go to prison and serve out this sentence, and during it make up your mind that when you come forth into the world again you will be an honest man.”

“Yes, judge,” said the prisoner, “that is very good advice; but when I was in the prison before, I was taught to make shoes, a large portion of the soles of which were pasteboard, and the contractor who is getting rich out of this business of selling pasteboard for leather is a prominent Christian. I don’t think you’ll ever make me an honest man in that prison.”

Now which would be better—to imprison that man under the circumstances related or to send him away with the assurance that society loves him rather than hates him?

A few years ago in New York a young man was discovered in petty thefts from his employer. He was thrown into prison. Before he was brought to trial his Christian employer was induced to withdraw the charge against him, but only after such long and persistent persuasion that all the moral effect of the pardon was lost. The young man came forth from jail disgraced and went west to begin life anew, his family being heartbroken and sharers in his shame. They were among the best of people. Here was punishment tempered with what would ordinarily be called mercy.

At about the same time a young man of whom I know stole money from his employer and absconded. The employer alone knew of the theft and told no one, making a plausible excuse for the absence of his clerk, meantime searching for him until he discovered his whereabouts. He then wrote to him, making no reference whatever to his crime, but saying that when his vacation was over he would be glad to see him back at his desk. The young man understood his employer, went back to work, was greeted as usual, no allusion whatever being made to what had happened, and to-day is in a place of trust and responsibility from which he has risen on account of his superior talents and fidelity.

Both these instance are facts^sic. Which illustrates the highest principle and the best policy?

I know it will be said such an instance as the last would only be true if the thief was of a comparatively fine nature. This, however, is pure assumption. I think that the secret of success in such cases lies in the genuine goodness and tact displayed by the thief’s employer.

Who will say that the bishop in “Les Miserables” who, instead of punishing the thief whom he had kindly entertained and who rewarded his hospitality by stealing his silver candlestick, calmly said to him, when arrested and brought before him: “You forgot to take the plates which I also gave you,” was not right in the highest sense of the term? I think the effect of that action in making Jean Valjean one of the best of men would be the result ordinarily in actual life as it was in the story.

Whenever we do, as if by accident, put the teachings of Jesus into practice we find that they work quite as well as our policy of selfishness and vengeance.

It is commonly said, and by great and good men, that progress depends upon the exact reverse of these maxims; that our present glorious civilization has been built up by force; that we should not be as far advanced in all that is called Christianity but that we have forced men to do right. If that is true, then the British officer who calmly proposed as a measure economical, expeditious, and, in the end, calculated to permit the loss of the fewest souls, the subjugation of India to Christianity at the cannon’s mouth, was right. Then Mahommed was wrong in nothing except that he forced men to believe in the wrong religion. Then the inquisition was right in torturing men for the good of their own souls and killing them for the good of others. Then we have made a mistake in abolishing capital punishment for nineteen of the twenty crimes for which it was once inflicted.

Now, I deny this common assertion that it is necessary to do wrong that good may come; that true civilization is built upon force: that the only way we can make men truly the imitators of the high life of Jesus and Buddha and Socrates is to begin by violating their teaching.

And I assert that the only characteristics of our civilization which are truly beneficent have been evolved by the teaching and effort of men who hate this damnable doctrine of salvation by gun powder, steel and blood.

I assert that the monstrous curses of the human race to-day, land monoply^sic at the foundation, and upon that as a superstructure every other heinous monopoly of wealth and opportunity; national debts and burdensome systems of taxation, are the direct results of the use of force in establishing and maintaining society.

And these fruits of force are the causes of poorhouses and prisons, poverty and crime.

There are those who point to Germany as in the van of civilization. And in scholarship she is. But in so far as Germany reflects the thinking and purposing of that devout Christian and man of iron and blood, Bismarck, she is a scandal upon the name of civilization. A nation that turns women and old men and children into producers for the support of its army, and turns itself into a military camp is, in that particular, barbarous, not civilized.

There are those who speak of English civilization, but except in the realm of letters, science and art there is no such thing. A nation that never hesitated to do wrong if she could accomplish it by force and never was known to do right except at the mandate of force; a nation that forced opium upon China to build up her trade, and forces degradation and death upon Ireland to increase her rent

p. 4, col. 5 roll, represents a barbarism far more terrible in its effects than that of the jungles of Africa.

We might not have built up precisely the same sort of civilization that we have if we had always followed the precepts of Jesus Christ. We undoubtedly should not. We should have built with the idea that men are more important than property; at present we are proceeding entirely upon the supposition that property is a more sacred possession than life.

At present a cow that can be bought for $30 is more valuable in the sight of the law and in the sentiment of Christian people than a man, as is shown by the fact that he who kills another in the act of stealing his cow will go by common consent unpunished; and that a horse is more valuable than a man is shown conclusively wherever you find horses and men employed by the same concern. More valuable? Why not? A horse costs $150; when one drops in his tracks it costs that much to replace him. But if a man drops in his tracks another is ready to take his place at no cost, though he knows that he, too, will soon drop in his tracks.

You were troubled with draft riots in New York in ’63, and all the “solid men” in the community were with the government against the rioters. What produced these riots? The people saw that when the government was in need of men it did not hesitate to go into the poor man’s home and take out the bread winner; but when the government was in need of money it very considerately agreed that the poor people who were left after the war should pay to the rich a dollar and a half for the present use of half a dollar, beside interest ad infinitum. Supposing the government had drafted money when it needed it as freely as it drafted men, would all the “solid men” have been as patriotic as they were? And yet why did the government not do so? Because the glorious civilization we have reared by violating the precepts of him after whom we have named it, is one which makes money more sacred than men.

It is strange how long it takes us to see what evil results always follow this false practice of government by force and how good the results of the right conduct are.

I never heard parents beside the dead form of a child repent of all their patience and wise forbearance; but I have heard them express shame and regret for using the rod.

Some years ago the murderer of Jim Fisk was tried for the crime and sent to prison for a year or two. Now he is a prominent man in society in some respects. Would it have been better to have hanged him? Would it not have been better to have done nothing to him since what we did has sent him forth, what would be called in theology, “justified.” His crime is “atoned” for. . . . There is, however, a real difficulty in putting into practice the charitable precepts of Christ. “If a man takes your overcoat give him your undercoat.” “Give to him that asketh thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.” “Lend hoping not to receive again.” These precepts are difficult to follow because nothing is more certain than that he who puts them into practice is a kind of criminal, since the certain effect of indiscriminate charity is to pauperize the community and reduce wages. It is absolutely certain that the hundreds of thousands of dollars which are poured into New York through her two hundred charitable societies does more harm than good.

Here is the point at which we run against a snag in the teaching of Christ, and it brings us face to face with the question: Is he wrong, or are we wrong?

I do not hesitate to say we are wrong. Any social system which makes it desirable for a man to become a criminal is wrong. And this our system does. We are rapidly approaching the time when it will be desirable either to be very rich or to be in prison—that is to say, to be a criminal; for it will soon be true that a man can neither be very rich or get into prison without becoming a rascal. The road to wealth is already practically closed against conscientious men, and it is repeatedly found necessary nowadays to refuse entrance to prisons to honest workingmen who apply for the privilege of going.

Only a short time ago a man in Danbury, Conn., was forcibly ejected from a police court because he insisted upon going to jail, whereupon he went into the street and threw a stone through a show window, and so succeeded in his quest after being forced to become a criminal.

This is because, as the Christian Union says, it is now demonstrable that society provides more bountifully for its criminals and treats them better in every way than if they were honest mechanics.

The spectacle of Austin Corbin giving $20,000 in charity to the families of the suffering miners, after having refused to arbitrate with them for the purpose of deciding upon a fair scale of wages, is an instructive picture of society in relation to the workableness of the golden rule. This is not doing as you would be done by. No man wishes to be deprived of the opportunity of earning a living and then pauperized by charity for the glorification of pharisees.

The golden rule is not workable now in the industrial world and never will be so long as we keep on in our present “devil-take-the-hindmost” policy. But when we become wise and just enough to see how much better it is to use our land for the sustenance of human life than to feed financial greed; to use our railroads and telegraphs and coal mines and oil wells to minister to the needs of all the people rather than to the superfluities of the few; when we become wise enough to arrange society upon a just basis, it will be no longer necessary for Christian ministers to tell us that we should worship Jesus but pay no attention to his vagaries; it will be possible for us then to read the sermon on the mount and find some practical sense in it; we may then largely abate our punishments, for when men can easily earn a living they do not care to steal; and when they are debauched by neither poverty nor riches they are not so fond of murder and other crimes. We can then declare to men a beneficent God and hope that they will believe us; we can then point to the sayings of Jesus and say: “Behold, how true they are!”

From the United Labor Party of Dunkirk.

DUNKIRK, N. Y.—At a meeting of the members of the united labor party of this city, held this day, the following resolution was adopted, the same having been drafted by Messrs. F. Lake and M. J. Smith, who were appointed at a previous meeting for that purpose:

Whereas, Certain members of the executive committee of the united labor party have declared their intention to call a convention for the purpose of nominating candidates for president and vice-president in the approaching national campaign; and this course being in the judgment of our teacher, Henry George, and others of our trusted leaders detrimental to the best interests of the party, and a stumbling block in the way of the advancement of our principles and the accomplishment of our purposes, which are the abolition of our present system of national and state taxation and the substitution therefor of a single tax on land values; therefore, be it

Resolved, That we, the members of the united labor party of Dunkirk, deem the

p. 4, col. 6 action of those members of the executive committee worthy of censure, and demand the calling of a conference as provided for by the Syracuse convention; and be it further

Resolved, That copies of these resolutions be sent to the editor of THE STANDARD and the secretary of the executive committee of the united labor party. GEORGE H. SIMMONS, Chairman. JOHN J. LIPPUT, Secretary.

They Advise the County General Committee to Condemn any Attempt to Commit the Party in Advance.

The county executive committee, united labor party, at a meeting held Feb. 27, voted to recommend to the county general committee the passage of the following preamble and resolutions:

Whereas, Certain individuals in advance of the coming of a national conference have endeavored to commit the party to certain policies and privileges; therefore be it

Resolved, That the county general committee of the united labor party, believing firmly in the principles enunciated in the Syracuse platform and their logical deductions to be embodied in a national platform, do most emphatically condemn any premature decision as to candidates, principles or policies in advance of the meeting of the only body that can authoritatively deal with them—a national conference; and be it further

Resolved, That we most emphatically condemn, no matter by whom made, any attempt to sidetrack the united labor party, or make it the mere catspaw of either the democratic or republican party, as we believe them both to be wholly corrupt and incapable of effecting any reformation in existing social and political evils, until, through defeat, they are compelled to adopt the only principles that by removing the burden of taxation from the products of labor will secure to all their unalienable rights to the soil, and the full enjoyment of the products of their labor.

A Vote Explained.

NEW YORK, Feb. 27.—It may not be inopportune at this time for one who voted in favor of “exclusive and unswerving support of the fundamental reforms set forth in the Syracuse platform” at the first meeting of the county general committee of this city, to define what I understood the above to mean. The sinister purpose of those who introduced the resolution can not detract in my mind from the excellent effect it may be made to serve. As I understand it, all the “fundamental reforms” are summed up in the abolition of all taxes but one, and I regarded the resolution as a timely notice to the democratic machine that tinkering in place of reform could not deceive nor divert us. I also read in the resolution an assurance to those who, without thinking, might conclude that a small installment of reform would pacify the party’s clamor for the full measure, that nothing short of the whole earth in this respect would satisfy us, and that no matter what the measure of their sincerity the tinkers could not reckon upon their usual arts in staying the progress of our movement.

Those who see the worse than uselessness of entering a national campaign on state issues need not fear that their vote in the county committee committed them on that occasion to the ideas of those who care more for party than principle. In my devotion to the latter I trust I may, without egotism, claim to be as sincere as any member of the committee, while as to the former it can only command my adherence by eschewing the machine and fulfilling the purpose for which it was called into existence. ROBERT IRELAND. 1906 Third avenue.

A Friend’s Word of Cheer.

NEW YORK.—As one who has followed the single tax movement with the keenest interest ever since its commencement in 1886, I feel impelled, on the present occasion, to send you a few words of good cheer and to thank you for your steadfast adherence to principle. In doing this, I am sure that I express the feelings of that large portion of your readers, on whom your writings are exercising so powerful an influence and who, like myself, must have a feeling of gratitude and pride to find that you do not waver when a stand has to taken^sic for principle as against policy.

It was well to avoid the disgraceful spectacle of rival anti-poverty societies. As regards yourself, you can well afford to withdraw from politics. As a recent letter in THE STANDARD from Mr. Garrison very well expressed it, your work is that of the reformer, and its seems to me^sic that you have reason to be satisfied with the influence which you are exercising upon the thoughts of your times.

To emphasize my feelings, I enclose $100 for the recruiting fund. A. B. C.

The Single Tax Club of Brooklyn.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.—At the last meeting of the Henry George land reform club of South Brooklyn it was decided to change the name of the organization to the Single Tax club. The intention of this change is simply to make the object for which the club exists more manifest. The club was organized in January and has already made such progress in membership as to warrant its removal at an early date to larger and more attractive quarters. Meetings are held every Tuesday and Friday evenings at the club rooms, at 358 Sackett street, and visitors of every party and of every shade of economic opinion are heartily welcome. The present membership is about fifty. HOUSE COMMITTEE.

From the Canton, Ohio, Club.

CANTON, Ohio.—The following resolutions were adopted at the last meeting of the Henry George club of this place:

Resolved, That, for what seems to us good and sufficient reasons, we, at present, deem the nomination of a candidate for president on on the “single tax” platform, impolitic and inexpedient.

Resolved, That, regarding principles as of more importance than party and believing free trade a great advance toward the attainment of our ultimate aim, we indorse the consistent, rational, and firm stand taken by Mr. George in THE STANDARD of Feb. 18.

S. J. HARMOUNT, M. D., President, W. D. MEREDITH, Secretary.

Dr. McGlynn at Bradford, Pa.

BRADFORD, Pa.—Dr. McGlynn addressed a large and appreciative audience here on Friday, Feb 24. His lecture has effected a thorough change in public sentiment on the subject of the single tax, one of our papers that was formerly bitter^sic in its denunciation of Henry George’s ideas now practically conceding about all we ask. The lecture was for the benefit of our land and labor club, and was very successful. B. J. BIRNEY.

From the United Labor Party of Rochester.

ROCHESTER, New York.—At the last regular meeting of our organization the following resolution was unanimously passed:

Resolved, That it is the sense of the united labor party of Rochester that a national conference be held early in July, at which it shall be decided whether a national ticket be put in the field or not.

JOHN J. HAYES, Sec. Rochester United Labor Club.

Who Pays the Single Tax?

LONDON, Ontario, Can.—(1) Granted that your single tax law is enforced, the rent being appropriated by the state, would not every commodity produced directly or indirectly from the land carry a portion of the tax with it? Where, then, is the reason in saying that all commodities which are the product of human effort should be exempt from taxation?

2. Or, putting the question in another shape, a criticism of the following statements would shed light on the darkness: Justice to each and all only demands two conditions, viz. (a), that the tax should be constant—that is, levied without any possibility of change, and (b) that it cannot be evaded by any portion of the community. These conditions being fulfilled, it does not matter whether or not the tax is imposed on land or on the products of human exertion, speculation and monopoly in land not being considered.

INQUIRER.

1. No. A commodity produced from valuable land is worth no more in the same market than a commodity produced from land having no value. Here, let us say, is a piece of land. the best^sic to be had for nothing, which with a given expenditure of labor and capital will produce 20 of any given commodity; and here is another piece which with the same expenditure of capital and labor will produce 50. Eliminating, for simplicity, the cost of exchange, the rent of the latter piece of land will be 30 and one commodity will be of the same value in the same market as the other. If, now, you take the rent (39) by taxation^sic, how can the value of the commodity carry a portion of the tax with it? If a higher price is asked for the commodity produced on the valuable land which has paid a tax, than for that produced on the non-valuable land, there will be no sale for it. A tax on rent cannot be added to the price of the product.

2. A tax on products of human exertion will not fulfil the conditions. (a) A tax on a product is not constant; by adding to the cost of production it increases the price and is shifted to the consumer. (b) It may be evaded as such taxes constantly are, e. g., by smuggling. But justice demands more. Taxes on products diminish consumption by increasing price; diminished consumption checks production; a check in production contracts consumption; that still further checks production; and so on, by action ard reaction^sic, men are prevented from meeting one another’s wants. This in itself tends to impoverish the laborer, a tendency which is intensified by the monopoly of land, which low taxes on land values encourages.

He Fails to See.

PHILADELPHIA.—In reply to my letter in the issue of Feb. 18, you give as an example three mines, and claim that the rent of the first will be raised by closing the second. I concede that your position is correct if both classes of opportunities, which the first and second mines typify, are in the same hands, or held by owners whose interests are identified. But if that were the case the law of rent, expounded by Ricardo, would not be applicable, as that assumes a competition among the different owners of opportunities, within the margin, to secure tenants.

Presuming, therefore, that you refer to existing conditions where opportunities of the first as well as the second class are held by different owners acting for their individual interests, I fail to see why the owners of the second class would “lock up” their opportunities if they could rent them. For the increase of rent which would result to the owners of the first class does not benefit them unless they also hold first class opportunities, which is not generally the case.

A STUDIOUS INQUIRER.

You may also fail to see why owners of vacant lots in cities lock them up; but they do lock them up all the same.

You said it was an unfounded assumption that the private ownership of land produces a speculative rent line lower than the actual rent line, and I replied as follows:

Let us suppose three gold mines; the first of which will with a given amount of labor yield $10, the second $8 and the third $6. If only the first is appropriated its rent will not exceed $2, for nobody will work them for less than $8 when he can make $8 in the second mine. But if the second mine be appropriated and locked up, the rent of the first mine will be $4 instead of $2, for the most that labor can then make will be the product of the third mine, which is only $6. Now it is the system of private land ownership that permits the locking up of the second mine, and as you may see from this illustration, the fact that the second mine is locked up lowers the rent line so as to raise rent from one-fifth to two-fifths of the product. In this case the normal rent line leaves four-fifths to labor while the speculative rent line leaves to it but three-fifths.

You now say you do not understand why the owners of the second class would lock up their opportunities if they could rent them. They might not in the strict sense of the term “lock up.” But there is a “lock up” in effect. The illustration presupposes an unchanged demand for gold and an unchanged supply of labor. An increased demand for the one or supply of the other would tend to lower the normal rent line. Now, as these are unchanged, both the first and second mines would be only partly worked. Suppose that the demand were $100, the whole of it being produced from the first mine before the second was appropriated. Then $20 would go to rent and $80 to wages. But when the second mine is appropriated half of the product, say, comes from each mine. Then of the $50 from the best mine $20 would be rent and $30 wages, and of the $50 from the second mine $10 would be rent and $40 wages, showing a total of $30 rent as against $20 before, and $70 wages as against $80 before. There is a fall in wages due to the speculative rent line, for if it were not for private ownership of land, which encourages speculation, the second mine would not be appropriated until the first was worked to its full capacity.

The same result may be and is produced by an actual “lock up,” mines, farming land, city lots and so forth being held out of use for the purpose of making a profit by selling rather than by renting.

In the Coal Regions.

EASTON, Pa.—(1) A buys a lot for $1,000, all the money he has. B buys alongside and builds a house for $30,000, would A not be obliged to pay as much tax as B?

2. The coal monopolies sell lots to their

p. 5, col. 2 miners, but only to a certain depth. How would the tax affect the monopoly?

H. L. BACHMAN.

1. The tax would be the same in each case. It is right that it should be. If A does not want to build or cannot afford to build, he has no right to prevent others from building. And if B livens up the building trade by erecting a $30,000 house, there is no reason why he should be punished for it by a heavy tax.

A appropriates the same amount of common values that B does; why should B pay a higher tax because he benefits the community by putting his land values to use while A plays dog in the manger with his?

If the As were all compelled to let go of the land they are keeping out of use, work would be so plentiful and wages so high that $1,000 would be much easier earned, and when earned could be put into an untaxed house instead of being sunk in the purchase of a piece of the earth on which to put a taxed house.

2. If there was a value below the surface the coal monopolies would be taxed for it. As a fact building sites in the coal regions are of very little value compared with the value of mining rights; therefore miners would pay little or no tax for the land on which they live, but coal companies would pay a heavy tax for their right to mine beneath the miners’ cottages.

The Chief Benefit.

1. I have long seen the fallacy of our protective laws, still I am unable to discover any relation between the land value tax and free trade. I had thought that a tax on land values to the full rental value thereof would be full restitution to the people of rights of which they have been robbed from time immemorial; that the adoption of this system would do away forever with poverty, would do away with the necessity of one man being dependent on another for employment, that it would, in short, strike away the very foundation upon which the protected capitalist bases his profit. It is because of its immense sweep in this and many other directions that the land question becomes so soul stirring and fills its disciples with such enthusiastic endeavors. If this be so, can the mixing it up with any other question do otherwise than belittle it? Let us pride ourselves on having but one principle, and that so broad as to include all others, and so plain and simple that a child may understand it.

2. Your correspondents seem all to agree that this system should be brought about by state action. If each state were to collect its own land value tax, will your system then have reached its ultimatum in justice? Are the land values of the several states so nearly proportionate to the inhabitants of those states as to work absolute justice by each state absorbing its own? For instance, the population of New York is eight times that of Colorado. Are not her land values more than eight times as great? And if so, did not we of Colorado do as much as you of New York to create those excessive values? Render unto Cæsar, etc.

3. This, however, is based upon the assumption that there are excessive land values in the greater commercial and manufacturing states. Is such the case or not?

4. Have you any means of knowing approximately the land values of the several states, or some of them? And if so, will you kindly publish a list?

RODNEY FORD.

1. No good can come from mixing up the single tax question with other questions. But free trade is not another question. It is one of the steps that must precede the single tax. We cannot have the single tax and the protective tariff tax, nor can we have the single tax until we get rid of the protective tariff tax. The single tax principle cannot enter into national legislation except through the free trade controversy, for the bulk of national taxation is collected through custom houses, and it would be just as absurd to try to influence congress in favor of the single tax without asking it to abolish the protective tariff as it would be to ask a state legislature to adopt the single tax by abolishing the protective tariff. The single tax question and the free trade question are distinct as, and only as, the states are distinct from the nation.

I think your confusion is attributable, like that of most people who write or talk as you do, to your idea that the chief object of the single tax is to collect land values into a common fund for common use. That is not its chief object nor will that be its chief benefit. Ideal exactness in the collection of this fund can never probably be accomplished. But individual freedom can be accomplished, and that is the great desideratum. If you and I do equal work with equal results, it makes little real difference whether or not you get somewhat more than I; but it makes a vast difference whether or not you are able to command me on pain of starvation. If the single tax were imposed to the extent of ninety per cent of land values some owners would amply earn the other ten per cent in collecting rent while to others the ten per cent would be more than their work was worth. But that would harm no one, because no one would be dependent. Every one would be free. But to get to this point the abolition of the tariff is just as necessary a step as is the abolition of taxes on personal property or the abolition of taxes on improvements. Each of these taxes hampers trade and consequently burdens industry, and it is as they are removed, that the burden grows lighter and the end of our journey is nearer.

In state affairs the easiest point of attack at present is taxes on personal property. When they are abolished we have made a long stride in the direction of the single tax. In national affairs the only prominent point of attack is the tariff, and when that is abolished we have also made a long stride in the direction of the single tax. To refuse to aid in the abolition of either of these taxes because it is not all we desire is like a man refusing to take off his overcoat because it is not his overcoat but his undershirt that he wants to remove.

We do “pride ourselves on having but one principle;” it is the principle that all taxation should be abolished save that on land values. And that principle is “so broad as to include all others.” It includes the abolition of the tariff, the abolition of personal property taxation; and the abolition of taxes on improvements, and though it does not in terms include the principle that land should be taxed to its full value, it does in effect, for the

p. 5, col. 3 benefits of the single tax once realized by the people they would never stop demanding public improvements until the only fund from which they recognized the right to draw—land values—was exhausted. Moreover this principle is “so plain and simple that a child may understand it.” It must be a very young child who does not understand that the simplest way to eat an apple is one mouthful at a time.

2. In abstract justice, possibly not; but individual freedom will be secured. Abstract justice might require that all the land values of the world should be used for common purposes; but substantial justice does not. Substantial justice is attained when all barriers to traffic are removed, and all unused land is open to the first comer. This question, like your first, is dictated by your idea that the single tax is only a scheme to return to the people what landlords take from them in rent. This is its least important object.

3. I do not know, but I am inclined to think that there is a tendency in all communities to an equilibrium between communal needs and land values.

4. Nothing but Mr. Croasdale’s calculations in his tract on “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.”

Cheap English Farms.

ST. LOUIS, Mo.—A writer in the January number of the London Quarterly Review states that many farms in England are lying idle and that the owners are willing to rent these farms for sums which would pay but a small per cent on the value of the improvements. He makes mention of a spot not far from London from which can be seen nineteen unoccupied farms. Will THE STANDARD kindly help at least two of its readers to account for these facts, if facts they be?

J. H. D.

I cannot verify the statement; but there is no reason to doubt it. England’s farming is being done in other countries, and it is not at all strange that her farm lands should, as farm lands, depreciate in value. If it be true that farms can be rented in England or elsewhere for a small percentage on the value of the improvements, it is because farming in that location does not pay. It is essentially the same thing that happened in Oil City when that place was in its decline. Houses could be rented for less than their value, because nobody wanted houses there. If more than the ordinary rate of interest on capital, and more than the ordinary rate of wages could be made by working those English farms they would not go begging for tenants at a small percentage on the value of the improvements. They could not be had except for a premium.

Land in England is in a transition state. Agriculture is declining because the people of England can raise wheat easier by digging coal or weaving carpets than by plowing and sowing. Consequently agricultural land is declining in value. But as it goes out of use for agriculture, it comes into use for something else. Particular agricultural land may lie out of use for a long time, and for that reason be at a low value for a long time; but that is because it is not immediately adaptable to changed conditions. Other agricultural land, however, is so adaptable, and immediately acquires greater value than ever before.

The true test of the rise or fall in land values is not whether the value of particular land has risen or fallen, but whether land values generally have risen or fallen. If the London Quarterly Review really wishes to make a point let it show that the average land value of all England—mines, towns and cities included—has fallen. When it can show that to the extent to which it claims to show it respecting the farms it mentions it will be offering life portraits of Macaulay’s New Zealander as premiums to keep up its circulation.

An Agricultural Minister.

I have no doubt but the next decade will witness a great change in favor of the poor as against the rich, but I haven’t the least idea that it will come in the line you are at present working. Having lived on a farm for years, and being brought into close contact with agricultural people all my ministerial life, I am satisfied that your single tax theory were it applied would ruin the agricultural interests in every state in the Union, and to the army of unemployed at the present would be added the agricultural laborers of the land.

The problem to be solved is a difficult one and the highest wisdom of the nation will be necessary for its solution. I don’t know what opportunity you have had for acquaintance with a farmer’s life, but it seems to me that a year of the life of the farmer would lead you and Rev. Mr. Pentecost to see the impracticability of your theory.

You appear to have made a genuine discovery. High taxation has always been looked upon as very injurious to the farmer, and now you come along with the assurance that a method of taxation which would reduce the farmers’ taxes, and in many instances abolish them entirely, “would ruin the agricultural interests in every state in the Union.” And you speak by the book, too, for you “have lived on a farm for years,” and have been “brought into close contact with agricultural people” all your ministerial life! I confess, speaking for myself, that it is discouraging, after having thought and written and spoken for years under the impression that taxation is destructive to agricultural interests, to be told authoritatively that taxation is really what the farmers need to save them from ruin. Are you sure you are right? At any rate will you not think it over again? And to be certain that there is no mistake, will you not ask some of the farmers of your acquaintance for their opinion?

Of course you know that farmers pay taxes, and very high taxes, on nearly everything they buy when they go to the store. These taxes we propose to abolish so that farmers may purchase goods for the bare cost of production and exchange. To what extent will this ruin agricultural interests? Will it injure them at all? Don’t answer hastily, but think it over, and if you are in doubt inquire among your neighbors.

You know, also, that farmers pay taxes on their houses, fences, out buildings, cattle, machinery, money in bank (when they have any), and on whatever value they have added to their farms by drainage, clearing and so forth. These taxes, too, we would abolish. In what way will that be injurious to agricultural interests? It may be that taxes on the

p. 5, col. 4 goods they buy are a good thing for farmers, because such taxes promote economical habits. I do not say these taxes are a good thing, but may be they are. They may make farmers’ wives wear calico instead of silk and use molasses rather than sugar, and otherwise abstain from the vanities and superfluities of life; but conceding all that as to the taxes the farmer pays at the store, how can taxes on his improvements be a good thing for the farmer? I don’t know. and if you do^sic I wish you would tell me, for I am always glad to make a note of curious information. Then there are poll taxes and dog taxes and things like that which we would abolish. I can understand that farmers might experience a mournful sense of loneliness, as when an old and faithful dog dies, were these taxes abolished, but really I do not see how it would bring ruin upon agricultural interests.

But probably it is not the abolition of taxes at all that gives you concern about the farmer, but the tax on land values which it is proposed to substitute for all other taxes. Ah! Well, let us see.

You understand, of course, that it is not land, but land values, that we propose to tax. That is important to begin with. Now, as a farmer and a friend of farmers, you must also know that there are very few farms of which the land is worth more than a quarter or a third of the whole of the farmer’s property. Then, you see, that at the worst we propose to tax the farmer on a basis of only about a quarter or a third of the values on which he is now taxed. Oh, yes, perhaps you will exclaim under your breath, but the single tax is to be so increased that it will take the whole annual value of the land, which is much more than present taxes amount to! Is it, though? Is it as much, considering that he pays taxes whenever he goes to the store as well as when he goes to the tax office? I doubt it. I am sure the real value of his land is not so much. Owing to light taxes on land values a great deal of land is put to poor use or no use at all, though it is appropriated. If nothing but land values were taxed, this land would come into market and reduce land values generally. And as land values fell the farmers’ taxes would fall. I have no doubt that a large proportion of our agricultural land has only a nominal value, and that if taxes were put on land values alone. buildings^sic and other improvements and personal property being exempt, great numbers of our farmers, instead of being ruined and turned into tramps, would find themselves untaxed either by the store keeper or the assessor.

I have replied to your criticism only with reference to its bearing on the selfish interests of a class of the community. It is a class that is hard pressed and whose selfish interests are entitled to consideration as are those of every other plundered class. But there is a loftier element in the problem. You are evidently a minister. What have you, as such, to say of the system that undertakes to deny to any man the right so obviously natural to a place on the earth? Do you believe the being whose minister you profess to be, intended that the earth should belong to a few and that all others should be dependent on them for the privilege of living on it? Do you believe he intended that some of his creatures should make a living by selling privileges to the others to use the earth? If you do, what kind of a being, and I intend no irreverence, is this whom you represent?

You have taken enough interest in this subject to read THE STANDARD and to send your views to it; now will you not pursue your inquiries a little further by reading “Progress and Poverty” so as to understand the subject of land value taxation in all its bearings?

LOUIS F. POST.

Common Sense.

Cedar Rapids New Era.

If the legislature, instead of fooling away their time over such absurd proposals as the Hutchinson bill to increase taxes on capital and labor, would turn their attention to some measures for relieving labor and capital of taxation, then they would be doing the state some real service. Any attempt to increase the taxes on capital only so much more increases the burdens of labor; for capital is like a man on horseback and labor is like the horse. You may put more weight on the man and thus inconvenience him somewhat but that only makes the horse’s load heavier.

It is utter folly to try (as the Hutchinson bill proposes) to help the farmer or laboring man or business man by taxing mortgages, notes, money or capital in any of its forms, for capital is only the name of the tools that all these men must use, and if we tax their tools we but check the production of wealth and make it harder for them to earn a living. There is only one kind of tax that falls justly and fairly on all classes of people and that is a tax on land values.

p. 5, col. 5

THE FIRST STEP.

Houston, Tex., Labor Echo.

The proposition to be discussed in this article is that the first step toward the adoption of the Henry George theory—which here in Texas is the passage of a constitutional amendment, exempting personal property and improvements on land from taxation and requiring all direct taxes to be levied on land values only—would result in reducing taxes on farms and homesteads from twenty to eighty per cent annually without in any way increasing the burdens of indirect taxation, while the relief afforded by exempting all products of industry from taxation would wonderfully stimulate every enterprise giving employment to labor.

By the exemption of improvements on land from taxation is meant the exemption from taxation of all values placed upon land by the application to it of human industry, such as values resulting from breaking up the wild sod, clearing land and reducing it to cultivation, as well as such improvements as fences and buildings. It means the collection of no more tax on farms and homesteads than is collected from unimproved vacant lots and lands adjoining of equal value, exclusive of improvements.

The first step is the practical matter to be discussed at present, and in considering it one need not inquire into any of the succeeding steps, nor inquire as to whether it would be just or expedient to raise the tax on land values to the point at which the community would appropriate for the good of all the entire unearned increment produced by all.

It is urged as an objection to the first step that if personal property and improvements on land were exempt from taxation, and if speculators were made to pay as much in taxes for the privilege of excluding capital and labor from the use of land, as farmers, merchants and manufacturers are required to pay for the privilege of employing labor on lands of equal value, the owners of improved real estate would in the end have a greater tax bill to settle than before, because, it is urged, no one could then afford to hold land in idleness and pay the increased tax on it, and hence, that all vacant land would at once revert to the state for non-payment of taxes, thereby compelling the owners of improved lands to bear, in addition to present taxes, all that portion of the burden now borne by land speculators and land monopelists^sic.

In other words it is urged as an objection that the first step, even, toward the realization of the George theory would so effectually destroy every species of land monopoly that every unoccupied tract of land, business or residence lot, every unused coal bed, mineral deposit, water privilege or wharf frontage in the state, would at once become free to the first comer who wanted to use it badly enough to be willing to pay a little higher tax on it than is now required of its present owner.

Let us see if this would really be true.

It is an accepted fact in political economy that in any extended community about half of the property valuation is in personal property and in improvements on land; that is to say, in values attaching to products of human industry, while the other half is in the land itself, exclusive of anything done to it by the hand of man; the values last referred to, which are defined as “land values,” being placed upon land by the common energy and enterprise of the entire community, the same resulting from the presence of population and increasing with the increase of population. It therefore follows that if we were to exempt personal property and improvements on land from taxation, it would simply be necessary, in order to raise the present revenue derived from direct taxation, to double the amount of taxes now collected from land values. In other words we would have to increase the percentage of the tax until a point was reached at which the revenue derived from the tax on a tract of vacant land would be about twice as great as under the present system.

This would double the taxes to be paid on every tract of unused land, but it would reduce the taxes to be paid on every tract of improved land. If this were done, is it reasonable to suppose that land speculators would immediately abandon their vacant lots and lands to the state, as is urged by some, and at once go to producing wealth themselves instead of stealing it, by a system of legalized theft, from merchants, mechanics, manufacturers and farmers, as they are now encouraged in doing? It is to be feared they would not.

The writer will suppose the reader to be the owner of a thousand-acre tract of wild land, in the neighborhood of which a number of industrious farmers have already settled. While they are toiling and sweating to pay for their farms and improve them, it is to be hoped you are taking your ease on a cool gallery. You may not think of it, and they may not know of it, yet all these farmers are putting a considerable sum of money into your pocket for every day’s work in the hot sun done by them in improving their own lands.

Ten years ago perhaps you paid a dollar an acre for that thousand acre tract. You are now holding it at five dollars per acre. Whose labor has put this additional four thousand dollars of value upon that vacant land? Was it your labor or the labor of any one employed by you? You now refuse offers of two and three dollars per acre, because you say you do not need the money and can afford to hold the land. You demand five dollars an acre and are stiff at that price, since you know that some of those farmers around there will soon want to enlarge their farms or settle their children in the neighborhood, and meanwhile the population of the country is steadily increasing. You are well satisfied that the necessities of these people, or those of other people, with the natural growth of population alone, will compel some one to give five dollars an acre for that land, and more, too, in a few years.

Meanwhile you expect the tax assessor will continue to deal very gently with you, on account of the plea that your land is “unproductive real estate,” as though you were a public benefactor in keeping your land idle, and in refusing to accept two or three dollars an acre for it, from those who wish to make it useful to mankind.

Your plan is to squeeze the farmer who must buy your land sooner or later, up to the highest notch; and you do not doubt but that the tax assessor will let you carry out this programme with the least possible expense to yourself. You expect to pay in taxes, for the privilege of excluding capital and labor from the use of a free gift of nature, about one-fourth or one-fifth as much as farmers around your tract of land have to pay in taxes for the privilege of employing labor on land of equal value.

You have done nothing with your land except to drive labor off from it, and thereby to retard the prosperity of the community, and it is therefore thought proper to encourage you for it by assessing your land for taxes at only two dollars an acre. These farmers, however, have done something with their land—they have improved it, and in so doing, have given employment to labor, and thereby enhanced the prosperity of the community, and it is therefore thought proper to fine

p. 7, col. 2 them for it by assessing their land at ten dollars an acre, so as to make them pay five times as much in taxes for benefiting the community as you are required to pay for injuring it.

But now suppose the first step to have been taken, and the deficiency in the public revenues, resulting from exempting personal property and improvements on land from taxation, is made up by doubling, or, if need be, by trebling the percentage of the tax. Your thousand-acre tract, being vacant land, the tax on it is, of course, doubled; before it was twenty dollars a year, now it is forty. It now costs you annually twice as much to prevent farmers’ sons from opening up homes on that land as it did before. It will seem right hard on you, won’t it?

But because your tax is forty dollars a year instead of twenty, will you abandon the land to the state? No, indeed; you will freeze to it, and you and every other owner of vacant land will walk up to the tax collector’s office and settle the same as before. But I will tell you how it will affect you. You will not be so top lofty when a farmer boy comes around to inquire on what terms he can buy fifty or a hundred acres of that land. You will find that this doubling the expense of holding land in idleness will cause a good many land grabbers to turn it loose on more moderate terms, even if you yourself are rich enough to stand it. You will not find brother speculators, either, quite so willing to take it off your hands at a profit to you, to be made good to them out of plodding farmers.

As a result, while you would hold on to that land and pay your taxes on it as before, you would moderate your price perceptibly and be content with a little less blackmail paid you for the privilege of access to a natural element. Under the present system you pay in taxes, for the privilege of preventing labor from being employed on a hundred acres, $2 a year, while the farmer pays in taxes for the privilege of employing labor on a hundred acres of land of the same value $10 a year. Under the new system the tax on land values is doubled, while the products of industry are exempt from taxation. Your tax on a hundred acres of that land would be $4 a year, and the farmer’s tax on his hundred acres would be the same. Your tax is increased one hundred per cent; the farmer’s tax is reduced sixty per cent.

Why would not this be just and right? Why should other men be taxed five times as heavily as you for the privilege of improving land adjoining yours of the same value and thereby at the same time making your land more valuable?

Why should farmers, merchants and manufacturers be taxed more for using land and giving employment to labor on it, and thus increasing the prosperity of a community, than the speculators are taxed for holding it in idleness, preventing labor from being employed on it, and so retarding the prosperity of a community? Is it not absurd to so adjust our system of taxation as to discourage the former way of using land, and to encourage the latter way of withholding it from use?

Land is not really property, because it is not the product of human industry. It is the gift of nature, intended by a kind heavenly Father for the equal use and enjoyment of all his children. The child of a pauper born in a garret is by natural and inalienable right as much entitled to free access to a portion of the surface of the earth as a child of the proudest duke that ever lived. Since land, exclusive of all improvements on it, by natural right belongs in common to all, a tax on land values alone is simply something paid for the good of all for the privilege of the exclusive possession of a portion of that which by natural right belongs equally to all. This is the proper theory on which to base the right of taxation, to the exclusion of the notion that taxes should be paid as an equivalent for the protection received from the government. And this theory is all the more logical because of the fact that land values are the result of the presence of population. They are produced in common by all, and a tax on these values simply enables the government to appropriate for the good of all a portion of the values produced by the common enterprise of all.

What is the great obstacle which stands in the way of the working people becoming the owners of homes in the cities and of farms in the country? Is it because of the scarcity of vacant lots in the cities and towns, or of vacant lands in the country? Even in the city of New York half the residence lots are absolutely vacant, and it is much the same in all our towns, while scarcely one acre of land in ten in this state is in cultivation. The great obstacle preventing poor people from becoming the owners of homes in towns and farms in the country is the high price of land. Why is it so high? Because our laws encourage men to invest their means in vacant lots and lands for the purpose of forestalling labor, instead of investing it in buildings, in mills and factories, and other channels for the purpose of employing labor.

How do our laws encourage men to bury their money in dirt instead of investing it in productive enterprises? By an absurd system of taxation, which encourages people to hold land in idleness, by taxing it on a low valuation so long as it is held idle, and discourages people from improving land, by taxing it on a high valuation the moment it is improved. If taxes on vacant land in the country and vacant lots in towns were doubled would not people be a little more shy about investing their money in such vacant lands? Would not people having vacant land be a little anxious to get rid of it? Would not this tend to keep the price of land down, to make it cheaper and make it easier for working people to get hold of it for homes and farms; and for capitalists to get hold of it for business houses, mills and factory sites, and mining operations, all of which give employment to labor and make times better? And furthermore, if people having money to invest were discouraged from investing in lots and lands, and vacant coal beds and mineral deposits, on account of this tax on land values, or in other words, were discouraged from trying to invest their money so as to forestall their fellow men, would they not be much more inclined to invest it in buildings, dwelling houses, factories and mills, particularly if such investments were exempt from taxation except as to the value of the land occupied? And if more of the capital now going into land—into the raw element—went into productive enterprises, would not more labor be employed and times be livelier, to the benefit of the merchant as well as the farmer and mechanic?

A capitalist can increase his wealth in two ways. One way by which he may increase it is by investing it directly or indirectly in the products of human industry—as in buildings, factories, machinery—anything in the production of which human labor has been employed. The capitalist whose wealth is invested in this channel is himself a wealth producer. While he is increasing his individual wealth he is at the same time adding to the sum total of the wealth of the world—and in this channel he can only increase his wealth by calling on labor to assist him—in other words, by giving employment to labor.

The other way by which a capitalist may increase his individual wealth is simply by investing it in land—with increase of population his investment increases in value, but his capital is not used so as to assist in the production of wealth, nor is he himself in any

p. 7, col. 3 sense a wealth producer. By investing in a free bounty of nature, to which all are by natural right equally entitled, for the purpose of forestalling his fellow men and taking advantage of their necessities he is enabled to draw to himself wealth which others have produced; and he does it without calling in labor to assist him—in other words, without giving employment to labor.

Can there be any possible doubt but that it is to the advantage of the farmer, the mechanic, the merchant and the manufacturer that capital should be invested in the former channel rather than in the latter? Can there be any possible doubt but that exempting the products of industry from taxation and taxing land values only, will tend to discourage the investment of capital in the latter channel and encourage its investment in the former?

By taxing improvements, buildings, tenement houses and factories we discourage the investment of capital in a direction where it stimulates business and increases the prosperity of all. By taxing land values alone, however, by increasing the burden of taxation on land values, we do not lessen the amount of land, but we cheapen its price; we make the speculator a little more anxious to unload; we make the land owner a little more anxious to improve.

A tax on land values alone, therefore, instead of retarding enterprise, stimulates enterprise.

H. F. RING.

The World is Moving.

Reynolds’s Newspaper.

Municipal bodies are looking to parliament to give them the power to rate real property, or in other words to tax landlords for the relief of industry. The prospective loss of the coal duty, which has hitherto been spent upon improvements in the city of London and outside the city within the metropolitan area, has rendered it necessary to think how the half million sterling hitherto levied upon coal is to be replaced. The loss of that income means the imposition of a 3d. rate in the pound, and that, too, without reference to any future improvements. To the city corporation the loss represents an additional rate of something like 6d. in the pound. Hitherto the metropolitan board of works has taken 9d. and the city 4d. out of the 1s. 1d. per ton levied upon coal. We have not been surprised, therefore, to see a notice of motion in the court of common council in favor of seeking the authority of parliament to levy a tax not exceeding 6d. in the pound upon the owners of property in the city. It is impossible to conceive of a more equitable source of taxation. The present annual gross value of the real property of the city may be said to be the result of the expenditure of the people’s money, collected in the form of a tax upon coal from the people within the metropolitan police area. In other words, about £150.000 per annum has been spent upon the improvement of the city of London, every shilling of which, except the small proportion collected upon coals consumed in the city, has been paid by people who have no interest whatever in city properties. Within the last thirty years the rents in the city have been increased until they have been quadrupled and quintupled, at the cost of industry but to the profit of the landlords. The ground landlords have done nothing except let their lands at enhanced ground rents. Limited owners who have built have only speculated on their own account, and the industrious people who occupy the offices, warehouses and manufactories of the city have had to pay the increased rents which practically constitute a charge upon profits, and therefore upon wages. The time has come when we are bound to investigate how far the enhanced values created by the people in the increase of population and industry should contribute to the maintenance of the state and the municipality. We must not be afraid to undertake the task of investigation because we are met with cries of confiscation, spoliation and robbery. The fortunate people who are in possession of the parchments will, of course, object very much to the imposition of any tax or rate upon real property. They calculate upon the ignorance of the people; but the people are now too intelligent not to be able to quote chapter and verse in proof of the claim to tax real property, which was once the source of all taxation, and was only released by a series of frauds thinly disguised by processes of legislation.

Seeing the Paws of the Cat.

Cincinnati Christian Standard.

A wealthy American has purchased two hundred and thirty thousand acres of land in Scotland, which he has converted into an immense game preserve or hunting park. Here is a tract of country capable of supporting ten thousand people, which has been depopulated and stocked with wild animals, simply for the cruel and barbarous sport of one man. This aristocratic American is but an imitator of many titled British landlords, and Scotland is in danger—as well as many parts of England—of being turned back to a state of nature. This may help to explain why London is overcrowded with some five millions of people, half of whom are mad and miserable. Agricultural landlordism is bad enough, but this barbarous fashion of driving the people out of a land not only crowds them into the cities, but dries up the sources of food. No wonder there are millions half famished when millions of acres of land are devoted to the maintenance of wild animals for the cruel pastime of a few hundred “gentlemen.” There is but one end to such folly if it is not stopped, and that is revolution—awful, fierce, cruel revolution.

Nor is this simply a matter of European interest. The same thing is being introduced into this country by wealthy Anglomaniacs, Scullyism, as seen in Illinois, where a foreign landlord has introduced the odious agricultural serfdom of Ireland, is humane in comparison with this return to a barbarism which destroys houses and barns, and fields and orchards, and people, to make room for game. How any civilized government can permit such suicidal folly is a mystery. There must be a law limiting, and that narrowly, the amount of land which may be owned or controlled by any individual family, association or corporation, and at the same time forbidding any lands being used for purposes inconsistent with civilization and economy.

Viewing a Great Question Through Socialistic Spectacles.

Christian Union.

We are often asked to state definitely what grievance the workingmen have. One grievance, which not only the workingmen but the entire community have, is found in the fact that our industries are so often organized on monarchical principles. A striking illustration of this has been afforded during the pending strike in the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania.

The mountains of Pennsylvania are filled with coal which God put there, but which can be gotten out only by a combination of labor and capital. On the getting out of this coal depends many great industries and the comfort of thousands of homes. The laborers, represented by a few leaders, and the capitalists, represented by a single man, have gotten into a controversy, and the coal mining has come to a standstill. Iron furnaces and iron mills are closing for the want of coal; hundreds of employés outside the mining district, and having no share in the strike, are thrown out of employment, and thousands of homes are suffering inconvenience, and some of them positive distress, for want of coal. The number of persons injured by the cessation of the mining operations is vastly greater than the number of both laborers and capitalists directly concerned in the mining. Under these circumstances several delegations of citizens have presented petitions to Mr. Corbin asking him to arbitrate the question at issue between himself and the miners. The fact recalls episodes in the history of France under the Bourbons, in which the people, suffering great injury, if not great wrong, petitioned to the Bourbon king, who alone had power to issue the edict necessary for their relief. It reminds one of experiences in Russia, in which the people petitioned the czar, who alone has power to rectify abuses by his edict. As in France, as in Russia, so

p. 7, col. 4 now in the great state of Pennsylvania, all that the wholly innocent sufferers from the coal famine can do is to petition Mr. Corbin and await his reply. Whether they can get any coal or not, and on what terms they can get it, depends upon his degree^sic. He is monarch of the Schuylkill region. He may be a very good monarch; we are not finding any fault with him. We find fault with the system which gives him the power, not with his use of the power which it gives him. The morality and piety of St. Louis the Just was far superior to the morality and piety of the average congressman, but no American would be willing to go back from the rule of congress to the rule of even a St. Louis the Just. It is a very serious grievance that in a free state thousands of citizens who are suffering from a coal famine should have no recourse but to petition one man, who possesses absolute power over the coal field, for permission to get out the coal which is needed for homes and for industries.

Some of our contemporaries want to know definitely what legal labor reform we would institute. Here is one: We would have the people of the great state of Pennsylvania say to Mr. Corbin and the men whom he represents, you shall submit the questions at issue between yourself and your employes concerning the rate of wages to an impartial tribunal; you shall do, not what you think is just, but what we think is just. We would have them say to the miners, you, too, shall submit to what we think is just. We would have the people put an end to petitioning an industrial king to submit such a question to arbitration, and take the kingly power into their own hands and compel arbitration. In other words, we would take a first step in the transition from industrial monarchy to industrial democracy.

If not, why not?

Not Charity, But Justice, Wanted.

Topeka Post.

Not a single city, town or village in this broad land but what is to-day doling out charity—charity which in ninety nine per cent of the cases means to the recipient pauperism. It is not the aged and infirm, nor is it the young or helpless, sick and afflicted that receives a major portion of this charity—the situation would be bad enough if it was—but men able and willing to work are forced to accept alms or starve, and as they listen to the cries of their little ones and see their destitution, and turn to the wan features and scantily clad form of the wife and realize their inability to help themselves, they would not be human to refuse the only alternative they possess—that of receiving “charity.” Those who supply this charity are entitled to credit for their generosity—and from that credit we would not detract, but desire to rather call attention to the hopeless outlook if charity alone is depended upon. Laziness, want of thrift, or a supply of the needful commodities of life cannot be said to be the cause for all this needed charity. Facts are against each one of these theories. Kansas has within her bountiful storehouse the wherewithal to make every man, woman and child comfortable; she has brain and muscle enough to produce and make useful every necessary of life. Yet the labor commissioner of Kansas tells us that our paupers are increasing faster than our population, and those whose benevolence prompts them to seek out the poor and needy are well aware that each year brings a larger number. In the face of these facts, then, it behooves the people to seek the true cause of this need of charity. If our civilization and progress only brings this result, better that it cease.

From whence comes all the material that makes life possible? From the land. Just in proportion as men are deprived of the use of this original free gift, in that proportion do you find poverty increasing on the one hand among the many, and riches increasing on the other hand among the few. Take the history of any nation and the same result will be found. The primal cause the same, the final effect similar. Take this general proposition, subdivide it as you will, the end is the same. To remove the necessity for charity you must remove the cause that produces it, and it is to this we would invite the attention of all interested. The single tax on land values is the process to open the storehouse of nature, as has previously been shown by the Post, because the single tax on land values gives all an equal opportunity to the land. Until this right is granted every person, so long will charity be needed, so long will it be inadequate and so long will we have want and the gaunt wolf of hunger abroad in a land of plenty. Justice, not charity, is the crying need of the hour. Our perceptions tell us that a state of affairs in which human beings can only live by charity, and able-bodied men beg for work which they cannot get, is unnatural and wrong. Not only do we encounter utter failure when we try by benevolence to remedy this state of affairs, but we can see, if we choose to look, that benevolence only intensifies the evil it cannot cure. Why, then, should we not turn to justice? It is not in establishing charitable associations, free soup houses, or allowing men to sleep at the police station that will abolish charity and its recipients, but it is in giving all a chance, for there is enough for all if they are only permitted to get it.

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As there is much demand for information about the Australian system, City Chamberlain William M, Ivins^sic has placed at the disposal of the readers of “The Standard” a number of copies of his pamphlet entitled “Machine Politics, and Money in Elections in New York City,” in which a full account is given of the Australian system of voting, and the gross evils in our politics which it would remedy are vividly portrayed.

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THE LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY.—We are now publishing under the title of “The Land and Labor Library” a series of short tracts on various phases of the social problem. These pamphlets contain facts, figures and arguments expressed in concise, vigorous language easily understood. As a means of propaganda we recommend them to all who desire to help on the movement for social reform. Those who wish to have these tracts placed where they will do good but who are unable personally to attend to their distribution, can remit the price to us, as we have every facility for sending them where they are needed and will be read.

The following have already appeared:

No. 1. “First Principles.” By Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 2. “Land and Taxation.” A conversation between David Dudley Field and Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 3. “The Right to the Use of the Earth.” By Herbert Spencer. 4 pages.

No. 4. “A Christian Minister on the Remedy for Poverty.” A sermon by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost of Newark, N. J. 2 pages.

No. 5. “A Sum in Proportion.” By T. L. McCready. 2[?] pages.

No. 6. “The Settler’s Nightmare.” By Louis F. Post. 4 pages.

No. 7. “New York’s Docks. The True Mode of Raising Revenue.” By J. W. Sullivan. 4 pages.

No. 8. “Unemployed Labor.” By Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 9. “Voices for Reform.” 2 pages.

No. 10. “A Mysterious Disappearance.” By Lewis Freeland. 6 pages.

No. 11. “How to Increase Profits.” By A. J. Steers[?]. 2 pages.

No. 12. “The American Farmer.” By Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 13. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor and the Randall Farm.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.

No. 14. “The Collegiate Church and the Shoemaker’s Field.” By W. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.

No. 15. “Only a Dream.” By Abner C. Thomas. 4 pages.

No. 16. “The Anti-Poverty Society.” Dr. McGlynn’s address at the first meeting. 8 pages.

No. 17. “The Cross of the New Crusade.” A poem. By David Rorty. 2 pages.

No. 18. “It is the Law of Christ.” By Rev. S. H. Spencer of Henry, Ill. 4 pages.

No. 19. “My Landlord. By John Jones. 4 pages.

No. 20. “Thou Shalt Not Steal.” An address by Henry George before the Anti-Poverty Society. 8[?] pages.

No. 21. “Christianity and Poverty.” An address by Father Huntington before the Anti-poverty society. 4 pages.

No. 22. “Poverty and Christianity.” An address by Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the Anti-poverty society. 8 pages.

No. 23. “The Single Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 8 pages.

No. 24. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 1. 4 pages.

No. 25. “Hymns of the New Crusade”—No. 2. 4 pages.

No. 26. “Religion vs. Robbery.” Address by Rev. Dr. McGlynn before the New York Anti-poverty society June 12, 1887. 8 pages.

No. 27. “Back to the Land.” Bishop Nulty’s letter to the clergy and laity of his diocese. 16 pages. Price, 5 cents.

No. 28. “Anti-Slavery and Anti-Poverty.” An address by the Rev. Hugh O. Pentecost before the New York Anti-Poverty Society, June 19. 8 pages.

No. 29. “Tenement House Morality.” Rev. J. O. S. Huntington in the Forum. 4 pages.

No. 30. “The Case Plainly Stated.” A speech by H. F. Ring before the Knights of Labor at Houston, Texas. 8 pages.

No. 31. “Questions and Answers.” Questions by Rev. Howard Henderson of the Sixty-first street M. E. church of New York; with answers by Henry George. 2 pages.

No. 32. “Objections to the Land Tax.” By Thomas G. Shearman. 4 pages.

No. 33. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error.” Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 34. “Horse Sense.” W. C. Woods. 2 pages.

No. 35. The Syracuse Platform. 2 pages.

No. 36. “Cityens and Rustiens.” Tudor S. Jenks. 4 pages.

No. 37. “Taxing Land Values.” Henry George. 8 pp.

No. 38. “God Wills It.” Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 39. “What We Want.” Everett Glackin, president Typographical Union No. 6. 2 pages.

No. 40. “Protection or Free Trade.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents.

No. 41. The Syracuse Platform. (German.) 2 pages.

No. 42. “First Principles.” (German.) Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 43. “Socialism—Its Truth and Its Error. (German.) Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 44. “How John’s Father Saw the Light.” W. C. Woods, M. D. 2 pages.

45. Platform of the United Labor Party. 2 pages.

No. 46. “Taxing Land Values.” (German.) Henry George. 8 pages.

No. 47. “It is the Law of Christ.” (German.) Rev. S. H. Spencer. 4 pages.

No. 48. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (German.) H. F. Ring. 8 pages.

No. 49. “The Distribution of Wealth.” Thomas G. Shearman. 16 pages.

No. 50. “Progress and Poverty.” (German.) Henry George.

No. 51. “Ten Thoughts for Christian Thinkers.” Rev. John W. Kramer. 4 pages.

No. 52. “The Case Plainly Stated.” (Swedish.) H. F. Ring. 8 pages.

No. 53. “Sailors’ Snug Harbor.” (German.) Wm. T. Croasdale. 12 pages.

No. 54. “What the United Labor Party Want.” Henry George. 2 pages.

No. 55. “Stories for Farmers.” 4 pages.

No. 56. “Electoral Reform.” A. T. Rice. 4 pages.

No. 57. “Protection as a Universal Need.” Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 58. “To a College Professor.” Bartholomew Appleby. 4 pages.

No. 59. “Before a Royal Commission.” W. A. Douglass. 4 pages.

No. 60. “The Tariff Question.” Henry George. 4[?] pages.

No. 61, “A Practical Illustration.” Hugh B. Brown. 2 pages.

No. 62. “Progress and Poverty.” Henry George. Price, 35 cents.

No. 63^sic, “American Pretection and British Free Trade^sic.” Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 64. “Hints as to What You Can Do.” Henry George. 4 pages.

No. 65. “To a Bookkeeper.” Bartholomew Appleby. 2 pages.

No. 66. “A Lawyer’s Reply to Criticisms.” Samuel B. Clarke. 16 pages.

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Bolton Smith Analyzes the Arguments for and Against a Nomination—The Tariff Question is the Door of the Land Question.

MEMPHIS, Tenn., February 20.—I have followed the controversy between the two wings of our party with growing interest, and, I must confess, with changing opinion. Immediately after our defeat—for such it was if compared with what we confidently expected—I felt that our course was plain; that we should place presidential candidates in the field. This had been my opionion^sic before the election and it remained my opinion immediately thereafter, simply because no other view had presented itself to my mind, and Mr. Cleveland’s message had not been written, it must be remembered. And so, when Messrs. Croasdale and Post opposed presidential nominations on grounds of policy, I inwardly exclaimed: “What have we to do with policy?” and I confess that I was troubled when Mr. George did not take a firm stand in opposition to these gentlemen, though I never thought him a backslider, because I still bore in mind how radically I had once differed from him on the land question and how completely he had won me to his views. Having decided to read both sides and to reserve judgment, I soon found that those opposing presidential nominations were the only ones who argued, the other side confining itself to the declaration that “we must stick to principle,” without once proving that their course was more agreeable to principle than the one insisted upon by their opponents; while their failure to answer the arguments urged by the latter touching the inexpediency of making presidential nominations seemed a confession of their soundness.

In the meantime as president of our local land and labor club I had gained some useful experience of an eminently practical and convincing nature. I, who have been an ardent free trader for years, found myself apologizing for protection on the ground that “after all, free trade would do no permanent good,” refraining from answering the arguments of our protectionist members as vigorously as I could have done and “suggesting” when I longed to speak positively, and all for fear of doing the club harm. I was making a sacrifice for principle and yet there came to me none of that feeling of inward satisfaction which such a sacrifice should bring. On the contrary, I felt like a whipped cur, and why should I not feel so? Had I not attempted to set party above conviction and so descended to the arts of the “practical politician?” Had I not given proof of that party spirit, which in the members of the old parties is our chief foe? I had acted and spoken as if it were immaterial to me whether protection continued or free trade prevailed, and I had, for all practical purposes, lied. I did and do care. Next to the restoration of the land to the people, free trade both as an end and as a means, seems the most noble cause in which one can do battle. To deny this was surely not to follow principle.

Whether a stream shall obey the law that governs it by flowing to the ocean through or around an obstruction, is a question of force and resistance, of mechanics, or, if you will, of policy; but while carrying out that policy which surrounding conditions led it to adopt, the stream would not, for one moment, disobey the law, for it ever flows downward.

Our object is neither to hold conventions, to nominate candidates, to conduct elections, to secure prominence, nor even to have a grateful world some day say, “See what these men, what this party has done for us and for mankind.” No; these things are all very pleasant; but the mother purpose of our party was the dissemination of the truth that the land of every country belongs to the people, and to secure the incorporation of this truth in the laws of the land. How this may best be done is a question neither of principle, nor yet of policy, in the odious sense of the word. It is a question of force and re sistance, of thought mechanics—a question of human nature.

A great deal has been said as to what we should do, a matter most proper to be considered in its place, only that place is second. The first question is: “What can we do?” and it is within the territory mapped out by the answer to the latter question that the true answer to the former should be sought and will be found. If men felt that the approaching tariff contest were unimportant, and especially if we had any guarantee that they would continue in this humor until after the election, then protectionists and free trade members of our party might well agree to take no part in it, and by running presidential candidates we should poll our full vote, whatever that may be, and so obtain consideration of our principles to a certain degree. But even now our men do not feel indifferent, and it is most idle to “play” that they do; and unless we can isolate them from the influences of the coming campaign well nigh all of them (many of those now most clamorous for presidential nominations among the number) will have been swept into one of the two contending camps by the heat of a contest in which great masses of men wage battle in the name of fundamental principles. To me such defection would indicate that their hearts were wiser than their heads.

This above all—to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

If men will but perform each duty as it is presented to them, and trust to God for the rest, will they not be obeying the highest principle and the truest policy? Is not this the moral of the above quotation, approved by all who read it?

Let us not forget that we are not the only men in these United States who are pure in purpose. There are in every part of this dear land of ours thousands of men and women whose souls turn upward in fervent prayer for right guidance, and who would give their very heart’s blood to serve God and their fellow men, could they but see the right road and feel sure they were doing his will. The many movements, of which prohibition and charitable organizations may be considered types, bear witness to this fact. Yet such movements are of too little promise to rouse and engage the truest and soundest of these noble men and women, who, born crusaders as they are, still search for a crusade worthy the effort. The coming contest, if conducted on a plane high enough, is sure to attract the attention and enlist the support of this class as no movement in this nation has done for a quarter of a century. Beside the fact that any appeal to principle clears the moral and political atmosphere, and paves the way for true reform, the tariff contest is par excellence the door through which we can best introduce the land question as a practical subject of consideration to the entire nation. The tariff question simply involves a discussion of the effect of indirect national taxation on the distribution of wealth, and more particularly on wages, and is sure to lead beyond its present and apparent destination. That the anti-corn law agitation did not result in free land no more proves that this agitation will not so result than the fact that caravans perish from thirst proves that there is no water to be had beneath deserts. Notwithstanding the fact that England was far from having universal suffrage at that time, will any believer in the single tax dare affirm that the publication of

p. 8, col. 2 “Progress and Poverty” ten years before would not have materially altered the scope of the movement?

Let us go into this movement as individuals following our own opinions. Let us see to it that the battle is fought on the plane of an appeal to justice and to right. And if we do our full duty among our temporary comrades shall we not, when the struggle is over, carry with us the soul of both parties? Mr. Wilder will ever be whispering to his comrades that the tariff raises ultimately nothing but mining royalties, stumpage, etc., while our noble priest, McGlynn, will remind free traders that their reform, however excellent in its way, will, in the long run, but raise the rentals of agricultural land and of seaport town lots. Will not such a course be better than independent action, which to earnest men in the older parties will seem but an evidence of that unfeeling indifference to the actual needs and woes of the present of which reformers are so often accused—so often guilty? Will such an introduction gain us converts? And how would our free traders feel if President Cleveland should be defeated through their inactivity? And how far would the election of Blaine or Sherman advance our cause? These are a few contingencies it were well to ponder.

The winds of thought blow, the currents of opinion move, destroying, retarding, advancing. We can no more alter them than we can recall yesterday or hasten to-morrow. But by rendering to ourselves an account of their force and direction we may ride the currents and use the winds to fill our sails. That we may prove skillful mariners is my prayer, for our bark is indeed freighted with much of the world’s hope.

BOLTON SMITH.

What the Building Trades in Paterson are Demanding—Driving Business Away and Why it is Possible.

PATERSON, N. J.—Last season the masons’ union of this city demanded and obtained a nine hour work day with ten hours’ pay. This season they demanded in addition that eight hours shall constitute a day on Saturday and that they shall receive ten hours’ pay for it. Not to be too far behind, the carpenters’ union demand this season nine hours for every day but Saturday, which shall have but eight, and ten hours’ pay for every day including Saturday. This means of course a demand for an increase in wages equal to seven hours each week or a raise all around of something more than eleven and one-half per cent.

In view of these facts many prospective builders have decided to wait awhile before building, in the confident expectation that wages will come down again. There are barrels full of suggestions in this for any one who will take the trouble to tap them.

First, by this waiting the demand for labor will be checked. Second, the checking of demand will produce a surplus of labor. Third, a surplus of labor will bring wages down. And all the labor combinations under the sun can’t put them up again until the demand revives.

This is the situation. It is as old as private ownership in land, and will be the same until the single tax draws the teeth and nails of that great monopoly, and prevents it from denying to labor the right to produce.

There are many here who declare that the unions will kill business by their exorbitant demands; who assert that the business of Paterson will be transferred to places where workingmen are contented with “fair” wages for a “fair” day’s work; who say that the prospective building boom will be knocked flat by an increase of eleven and one-half per cent in wages. And the facts in the case will undoubtedly lend force to their opinions, just as the fact that wages are better here than in the old world gives force to the argument for a protective tariff. These talkers remind one of the savage chief who made a tour of the world and was struck by the fact that civilization is marked by plug hats and suspenders. The more civilized a people were, he noticed, the more plug hats and suspenders were worn, and vice versa; so, reasoning as do those who maintain that a protective tariff makes high wages, and a combination for higher wages will kill business in a place, he bought a ship load of plug hats and suspenders, and sent them home in order that his people also might be civilized.

Because the natural opportunities have been better in this than in the old country, wages have been better here than there. Yet, since we have gloried in taxing ourselves for the benefit of those who own these opportunities, they have been lost sight of and the tax is credited with the better wages which naturally follow better chances of work. At the prospect of good times land values are first to appreciate. Land owners demand and receive from fifteen to one hundred per cent, and as much more as men can possibly give and keep enough to do business with. In case of a boom they will demand more than business can afford to give, and the result is that business falls flat and moves on to do the same thing over again in the next place. Now, at the prospect of good times, labor naturally wants “some of it;” but by the time workmen are prepared to make a demand, land owners have so reduced the margin of business that a demand for twelve per cent more wages becomes a serious matter, and business is checked because it cannot satisfy both land owner and worker. Either the worker is sacrificed for the land owner, or, in case the workers are well enough organized to resist immediate sacrifice, business “moves on” and every one is punished! The people who lay the blame on labor unions lose sight entirely of the enormous advance in land values, and attribute the disaster to the much smaller demand for labor.

As a matter of fact, the unions are themselves at fault in allowing this state of things to continue. If they put in half as much time seeking to make work steady as they do in making spasmodic efforts to increase wages, it would soon come to an end. The fight is so plainly between the land owners and the workers that one must be unwilling to look not to see it. But as the savage thought plug hats and suspenders made civilization, and the protectionist thinks high taxes make high wages, so very probably many will continue to think that a demand for more wages will spoil business. Meanwhile the workers will try to get more wages without disturbing land owners and will continue to get left.

E. W. NELLIS.

A Big Meeting on Washington’s Birthday—Speeches by Professor Hamlin Garland and Dr. McGlynn.

BOSTON, Mass.—The anti-poverty society celebrated Washington’s birthday by a public meeting at Tremont temple. The hall was completely filled, and the audience included a large representation from the vari ous labor organizations of Boston.

The first speaker was Professor Hamlin Garland of Boston university, who was introduced by the president of the society, Mr. J. R. Roche. Professor Garland spoke in brief as follows: “There are two great forces in social progress always at war—innovation and conservatism. The present state of affairs is always the resultant of these two forces. The rich and great institutions are mainly conservative, and the innovator is often a martyr. The great innovator eighteen centuries ago wore a crown of thorns, and this explains why Henry George is vilified and Dr. McGlynn cast out. (Cheers.) The opponents to reform, and to this great reform in particular, are the ignorant; those who are satisfied with the present order of things; the great institutions and their paid workers, and last, those who are reforming, but are moving so slowly that the friction between them and the new movement amounts to opposition.”

Dr. McGlynn was then introduced and received with enthusiastic cheering and waving of handkerchiefs. He thanked the audience for his reception, and spoke of his diffidence, which would restrain him from speaking in public, in spite of a long experience, if he did not feel a duty impelling him. He said: “It has been brought to your minds that I am a priest, and the implication was seemingly that I am now suffering the penalty for doing something unworthy of this office; but it is because of a continuance of the zeal with which I dedicated my young life to the service of God that I occupy my present position. It has been my lot to say strong words for the downtrodden and oppressed, and I have been impelled thereto because it is fully consonant with priestly duties. I have seen and deplored the fact that the church and the people are getting further apart, and I have tried to remedy this. I must continue to pursue my solitary path, feeling that I am doing God’s will. I stand upon this platform because I believe it to be a religious platform. The movement is called an ‘anti-poverty’ movement. Is not poverty as necessary in the general social scheme, must it not haunt the footsteps of progress as its necessary shadow? asks the world. It now becomes necessary to show that we are in earnest and not visionary. So far are we from trying to interfere with God’s law that it is because of our love of God and his law that we are doing as we are. The doctrine of this platform can only be logically deduced from the equality of all men as the sons of God. If men are not equal, human life is but a brutal scramble in which the weak are trampled upon. Is the true type of society a family sitting at a well filled board, or brutes at a trough trampling others underfoot in their eagerness and wasting in their haste more than they consume? Our platform, therefore, is not quixotic and strange, and not subversive of law and order. The abolition of poverty is in the closest touch with the labor problem. Labor means life, and life means labor. Life is a gift of the creator, and it is a sacred trust for which we shall be held religiously accountable. Without labor the trust cannot be fulfilled. The human family could not live if men did not labor and labor diligently. The naked man and nature have produced all things, and, better still, if the man gets a fair show, he is capable of producing things hitherto unheard of. In spite of what we have in common with the brutes, there is much that we have above and beyond them. It is the sublime philosophy of Christ’s apostle that we rise by material things to the knowledge of God himself. ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ This stamps him as tending toward all in the universe that is good and true. He alone is conscious of a moral law which teaches him that God is a father and a brother. This is natural law, and is as well known in China as in Christian Rome. When Christ came to the world, it was not so much to teach a new law, but to give a grace and sanction to the natural law. Equality and justice are the same things; and the Bible is full of their praises. If there are not great religious principles at the bottom of all this; it had^sic better not be; if it were not for the spiritual significance, then were life vanity. It is the religion of Christ that we serve the Father by the succoring of our brethren. We love God for his own dear sake, and mankind for his. All the dogmas of the church and all the sacraments to which I give the fullest allegiance are in themselves good, but it is folly to exalt them above charity, and it is an accursed thing to use them for upholding of

p. 8, col. 5 the wrong-doer. The whole scheme of the world is that in the Father’s own good time he will call home from school to enjoyment the child who has been learning his tasks here upon earth. Labor is good, it is noble, it is holy—we do not restrict this to mere bodily work, but everything to make the world better. The artist, the architect, the orator, and (to say a word for my own shop) the preacher, if he speak the truth, is a laborer. There exists an inalienable right of man to life and to the equal enjoyment of all the providential bounties of life. The right of property comes from making, producing; in some sense we make it. The inducement to labor is that we shall be allowed to enjoy the products of our work. Anything produced by human industry is properly considered property. It is a putrid calumny to say that this platform is against the rights of property; we do not want to steal; we want to stop the stealing. We are warring against the order of things in which one cannot get a chance to labor for life, and in which men are compelled to bid against each other and not get a fair amount of the result of the labor for his reward.”

Dr. McGlynn spoke for nearly two hours, and was eagerly listened to by his audience.