March 24, 1888 Vol. III, No. 12Whole No. 64

C[ONTEN]TS:

[A subscriber’s mailing label, pasted on at an angle, covers the middle of the heading and the ends of several entries. It reads: “104 Dr. Walter / Mendelson 167 / 17[?] W 74th St.” The covered text is marked below.]

Rapid Transit. The Democracy a[obscured by label] A Speech that Oug[obscured by label] False Labels on Twa[obscured by label] The Whisky Trust. Newport’s Mistake. Congress and the Public. Clamoring for High Freight Ra[obscured by label] Alarmed Pine Men. Opposing the Telegraph Wires. They Begin to See. The Poor Irish Landlords. A Hint to Stanford. The Telephone Decision. The Anti-Poverty Society. Queries and Answers. An Unconscious Apostle. The Proposed July Conference. The Island of Lewis. The Result of a Recruit Subscription. All Along the Line. Extracts from Letters. Bleeding the Builders. Loose Land Tenures. The Adequacy of the Single Tax on Land Values. From the Lehigh Coal Region. Tenant’s House and Landlord’s Home. Certain Reasons for Protection. How I Felt the Cat. John and his Master.

RAPID TRANSIT.

A bill embodying Mayor Hewitt’s suggestions for providing the city of New York with rapid transit facilities has been presented to the legislature, and will popularly be known as the mayor’s bill. It provides for a board of rapid transit, to consist of the mayor, comptroller and commissioner of public works. This board, after adopting plans as to construction, equipment, motive power, rates of fare, etc., and receiving the concurrence of the common council, is to advertise for proposals to build, equip and run the road for a term of years. The contract is to include all these things. and^sic the board is given power to accept such bid as it thinks best, irrespective of its amount. The necessary funds are to be provided by the issue of city bonds, the contractor to give security for fulfillment of contract, and to pay an annual rental to the city equal to the annual interest on the bonds and two per cent in addition, the rental to be applied first, to the payment of the interest, and secondly to the sinking fund.

Practically this bill might as well provide that the mayor, comptroller and commissioner of public works should be authorized to make a contract with the New York Central railroad company for the extension to the lower part of the island of the sunken road which now gives their trains access to Forty-second street, and the running upon it and its branches of rapid transit trains, the city, by the use of its credit, to furnish the company all the capital needed, and the company to have all the profits upon the road for a stipulated term of probably thirty-five years, in return for the payment of five per cent interest upon the capital furnished by the city.

The determining feature of Mayor Hewitt’s plan is the utilization of the already existing sunken track of the New York Central from Forty-second street to Harlem river, an economy which would save both work and time. He proposes something of a compromise between the old idea that it is best to leave the building and running of railways to private corporations, and the new and rapidly growing idea that railways ought to be built and owned by the public—a compromise which has the merit of giving some recognition to the new idea without seriously threatening the old. The city of New York is to furnish the money for the building of the road in its newer parts, and after some thirty-five years may enter into the possession of these parts. But it is to employ a private corporation to do the building, and is for some thirty-five years to give up the running of the road to this private corporation under certain restrictions as to fares—which, however, would equally be made if the corporation built with capital furnished by itself.

The pressing need for rapid transit facilities for the steadily growing metropolis is becoming more pressing every day. New York has already far outgrown existing means of transportation, and every morning and evening the cars of the elevated roads are packed with human masses to a degree not only destructive of comfort but exceedingly dangerous; while, as the blizzard and the recent fire in Coogan Brothers’ furniture warerooms have demonstrated, these already inadequate means of communication are liable to be partially or wholy^sic paralyzed by unpreventable accidents.

It is probable that the mayor’s bill offers the quickest means for giving some immediate relief to the pressure upon existing transit facilities. But it is worthy of grave consideration whether it would not be better, if necessary, to even suffer presents discomforts^sic for a little while longer, rather than make a false step in beginning such an enormous system of public improvements as the supplying of what is destined to be the greatest city in the world with adequate means of transit. Certainly the mayor’s bill is but a proposition to put a patch, and that a very small patch, of new cloth upon an old garment. Would it not be better, and in the end far cheaper, to begin a perfectly new garment, since whatever we do now will require great extensions with future growth?

The difference between the operating of the railways which have become of such vital importance to our great cities, and the functions that can safely be left to private individuals or corporations, is that the former are in their nature monopolies, and

p. 1, col. 2 that in regard to them the principle of competition, which where free can be relied upon to give the public fair service at a reasonable price, cannot act. If one baker bakes poor bread, and charges too high a price for it, the citizen can readily get his bread of another baker. But the man who would ride on an elevated road must pay the price and accept the accommodation which the elevated road offers. He has not and cannot have his choice of roads that will suit his purpose equally well. The very building of one prevents the building of another.

The interest of the public, whenever it comes in conflict with the interest of the corporation enjoying such monopoly, can only be guarded by limitations of the franchise or exertion of legislative power. Experience has shown the inadequacy of such means. Our elevated roads do all, and probably more, than has been required of them in the matter of running trains. Yet they not only pack these trains almost to suffocation during the hours when there is the greatest travel, and it is perhaps a physical impossibility, with the existing tracks, to furnish larger accomodation^sic; but they deliberately lay off cars and uncomfortably crowd their passengers during other hours, when the only excuse is that of saving money. In such matters as light they are niggardly in the extreme, and hundreds of thousands of the people of New York who are compelled to pass from an hour to three hours of each day in these cars are bringing on premature failure of sight by attempting to utilize this time in reading. The fares that they charge are, for part of the day, less than those to which they are legally limited. Yet so high has the growth of travel made this rate as compared with the expenditure necessary for the performance of the service, that after all the enormous watering to which their stock has been subjected, the difficulty is not to pay dividends, but to so further water the stock as to make these dividends seem reasonable. On the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, our existing rapid transit lines could be made, at least during certain hours of the day, to afford greater facilities to long distance travel, by reducing the number of stations at which trains stop. But the management prefers to run them in competition with the horse cars, as there is a profit in crowding cars with human beings to the extreme of possible compression.

The great evil of putting the arteries of travel and tra[ns?]portation under the control of private corporations is that the public service and convenience, which should be the prime motives in their management, become entirely subordinate to the consideration of profit. Mayor Hewitt’s plan does not avoid this evil. The road which it proposes, though built with the means of the people of New York, will be no more under the control of the people of New York than the present elevated roads. It will be, for thirty-five years at least, virtually the property of the New York Central railroad company, or of some annex corporation formed to co-operate with it. And it will be to the interest of this private corporation to make all the profit they possibly can out of the volume of travel. Not only this, but (another great evil inseparable from private control of public throughfares^sic) it will be their interest to prevent the construction of other improved means of transit which would interfere with their monopoly.

After thirty-five years—that is to say, after we of the present generation are all in our graves—there is a prospect that such parts of the road as are built under Mayor Hewitt’s plan may come into the possession of the city. But in the light of experience, it is not a very bright prospect. Where state, nation or municipality has gone into partnership with a private corporation, the usual ending has been, not that the public interest has swallowed up the private interest, but that the private interest has swallowed up the public interest. By the time the thirty-five years of lease contemplated in this plan have expired, what the city will have power to take possession of will not be a complete system of rapid transit, but merely some parts of such a system, other essential parts of which will be the property of the private corporation. This, added to the power which possession gives, and which such an enormous pecuniary interest as the Central railroad and its allied corporations will then be able to exert, will practically make it as difficult and as costly for the city of New York in 1925 or 1930 to assume control of rapid transit facilities as if those facilities had been provided by private capital without the use of the credit of the city.

The main reason why Mayor Hewitt proposes to call in the great Vanderbilt corporation to build and to run roads that are to be paid for by the city, is that this corporation already owns important transit facilities. “We must,” says Mayor Hewitt, “recognize the fact that access by rail to the city of New York is practically controlled by the New York Central and Hudson river railroad company, and that the city has expended the sum of three million dollars in furnishing this company with depressed tracks so that rapid transit might be secured north of the Grand Central depot.” After this same company shall have built, even though at public expense,

p. 1, col. 3 the extensions of the local system that Mayor Hewitt now proposes; after they shall have run these extensions as part of their own system for thirty-five years, and after, as it will be their interest to do, they shall have built necessary links at their own expense, which they can hold as their own property, is it likely that it will seem less obvious to whomever shall be mayor of New York in 1925 or 1930 that the Vanderbilt corporation ought to continue to operate the rapid transit system, than it now is to Mayor Hewitt that they ought to operate it in its beginning?

What inclines Mayor Hewitt to this patchwork scheme is not merely that the existing sunken roadway between Forty-second street and the Harlem (as well as the track of the Central railroad on the west side) could thus be utilized, but that to the construction of this sunken roadway the city has already contributed three millions of the public money and has already rights of use. But these rights have never yet been utilized. The city has gained nothing by this public expenditure, unless—what is extremely doubtful—it hastened the providing by the Central road of terminal facilities demanded by its own business. These are not facts which should incline New York to further partnerships with private corporations in public works. Would it not, in the light of the present, have been far wiser for the city to have added to the expenditure of the three millions whatever might have been necessary to complete for herself this sunken road, to lay rails upon it and to run cars over them, or to let out to private corporations the privilege of running cars over the city’s rails, just as the New York Central now lets out to other railroads that make use of its terminal facilities the privilege of running their cars to Forty-second street?

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And, profiting by previous experience, why should not the city, instead of going into any further partnerships with private corporations, go to work now to provide herself with transit facilities upon such a bold and comprehensive plan as will no[t] only give to the present generation all th[e] benefit of rapid transit roads owned by th[e] city, and run for the public benefit an[d] convenience, but will furnish a groun[d]work which future generations could ex[-]tend as needed. The two cities of Ne[w] York and Brooklyn have built the grea[t] East river bridge, and there is no regre[t] that its building was not left to a pri[-]vate corporation. Why should they no[t] build their own underground roads without calling in any private corporation t[o] act as intermediary and take the profits[?] The two cities run the cars over tha[t] bridge, and there is no demand that thei[r] running should be turned over to a pri[-]vate corporation. Why should not eithe[r] of them run their own railroads?

There is no question of money. With a credit that enables her to borrow money at three per cent, the city of New York can afford to spend whatever tens of millions or hundreds of millions may be needed to enable her to provide her people with the very best, the very cheapest and the very quickest rapid transit facilities—for the facilities for rapid transit are the practical limits of her growth, and how soon the great city which under various names is growing up around New York harbor shall pass London in population is only a question of rapid transit facilities. And the increase in population and in wealth thus brought about by the improvement of transit facilities will bring about in its turn a growth of value which will far more than suffice to pay the cost of such public improvements.

In his message to the board of aldermen the mayor states that the additions this year to the assessed values of real estate as the result of the growth of the unoccupied portion of the city, particularly north of the Harlem river, have been so grea[t] “that the rates of taxation have not been materially increased, although the appropriations are nearly $4,000,000 greater than the year before.” He continues:

This increase in value cannot go on unles[s] the upper part of the island is provided wit[h] increased facilities of transport. Otherwis[e] the result will be an increase in the rate o[f] taxation. It therefore concerns the citizens as a whole to see that these increased facilities are provided, and it will be proper for the city itself to undertake to make the pro[-]vision, because the citizens as a body wil[l] thus get the benefit of the increase in th[e] value of property which these facilities wil[l] create.

The mayor in this, though perhaps [a] little clumsily, recognizes the importan[ce of the?] fact that the increase in land values caused by such public improvements as he urges will far more than pay for them. Th[e] figures he gives are significant. He estimates the cost of the very ex[-]pensive road he proposes from Forty-second street to the city hall, including rights of way, etc., at $10,000,000. Bu[t] an increase of land values, which woul[d] give to the city an increased net revenu[e] of $4,000,000, would thus permit th[e] payment of interest, at three per cent, on $133,000,000! Practically there is no limit to the amount of money that New York can afford to spend in public improvements that will make the city [a?] more desirable place to live in, a bette[r] [illegible] place to do business in. The return wil[l] [illegible] come quickly in increased power of raising revenue; in the growth of that fund tha[t] belongs of right to the whole community

p. 1, col. 4 and that can be taken for the use and benefit of the whole community without in the slightest degree lessening the rewards of labor or the returns to the investment of capital.

And in the fact that the city of New York can thus get back whatever it may be necessary to spend for the most improved facilities is a sufficient reason why in taking the first steps in the new departure necessary to meet the pressing demands for rapid transit, we should not only discard the notion that private corporations must build and run our roads, but that we should also discard the toll-road notion that those who wish to travel on these roads must pay fare. Mayor Hewitt states that “according to the best authority” the value of property (meaning, of course, land) “increases as the square of the velocity of the travel.” Whatever objection may be made to the form of this proposition, there is no doubt of the underlying truth that Mr. Hewitt had in mind, that the quicker any particular piece of land can be reached from the center of a great city the larger will be its value. And so is the cheapness with which it can be reached a similar element of value. Five cent fares will give greater value to land than ten cent fares; and free transportation will give still greater value than five cent fares. Why, therefore, should not the city’s iron roads be made as absolutely free to all who choose to journey over them as her pavements or her streets are now to those who choose to drive or walk through them. If Mayor Hewitt were contemplating the erection of a great building, he would not propose to get back the cost of putting in and running the elevators by a charge on every one who rode up or down. He would, on the contrary, make the use of them perfectly free, knowing that he would be more than compensated for the cost of constructing and running the elevators by the increased values of the rooms of the building. Does not this same principle apply as fully and as clearly to those appliances which are needed to carry people to and fro in a great city as to those needed to carry them up and down in a great building? When the city can so easily, so cheaply and so justly get back the cost of running free rapid transit roads, why should she turn over the power of levying a toll on their use to any one else, or contemplate levying such toll herself? There is no objection to free city railroads that would not equally apply [t]o free city streets. There is no ob[j]ection that would not apply with [m]uch greater force to the abolition of tolls upon the Erie canal. Yet no one proposes to restore the tolls on the Erie canal; while the man who should now propose to set up toll gates on our streets would be regarded as a lunatic.

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It costs our well traveled street car lines from a cent and a quarter to a cent and a [h]alf to collect a five-cent fare. Why should [t]he proposed rapid transit system be sad[d]led with such a needless expense?

The question whether the proposed rapid [t]ransit facilities which are to be provided [b]y public funds are to be run upon the toll [r]oad principle or upon the public high[w]ay principle, ought to be considered now, [a]nd decided before any rapid transit bill is [p]assed. For if, as I am confident will be [t]he case, consideration leads to the con[c]lusion that it would be wasteful and un[w]ise to collect fares, then the rapid tran[s]it problem would be considerably simpli[f]ied. If a bargain must be made with the [V]anderbilt corporation it would involve [f]ewer elements of uncertainty if no fares [w]ere to be collected. So, to settle that [t]here should be no fares would diminish in [m]any minds a serious objection to the [r]unning of railways by public authority, [s]ince it would greatly decrease the op[p]ortunities for peculation and corruption. [T]he accounts of rapid transit roads run on [t]he same plan as the elevators in all our [l]arge public and private buildings, like [a]ccounts of our public schools, or of our [fi]re department, would be merely ac[c]ounts of expenditure—accounts much [m]ore readily examined and clearly un[d]erstood than are accounts of receipt; [a]nd the degrading necessity for bell [p]unches, ticket pumps and other patent [p]eculation preventers, with that for spies, [s]potters, etc., would be gone.

Mayor Hewitt proposes to give the board [e]normous powers. The contract which [th]ey are to make on the part of the city is [in] reality probably the most liberal dona[ti]on ever made to a railroad company since [t]he general government gave to the [pr]ojectors of the Pacific railroads lands [an]d bonds enough, not only to build the [ro]ads, but to make many great fortunes [be]sides. This lodgment of power is not to [be] objected to, for power must be lodged [so]mewhere if anything is to be done, and [ex]perience shows that there is less danger [of] corruption where the concentration of [ad]ministrative power brings clear respon[si]bility than where the division of power [so?] divides responsibility that it rests no[wh]ere clearly. But when they are to have [su]ch power and to assume such responsi[bi]lity, why should the representatives of the [cit]y be required to make contracts for the [bu]ilding of the road with an intermediary [co]rporation, which is in its turn to con[tr]act with other contractors? And though

p. 1, col. 5 it is doubtless best that contracts should be made for the supplying of material, why should not the necessary labor of all kinds—engineers, superintendents, mechanics, laborers and the whole force needed for operation and maintenance—be employed directly? The contract system is generally preferred on public works from the idea that individual vigilance and energy are thus secured. But I am inclined to think that public experience shows that the contract system of performing public work is liable to more abuses, both political and pecuniary, than it avoids. This, at least, is a matter worthy of discussion.

One thing is, however, certain—that if the city of New York is ever to own and run her own railways we might as well make a beginning now as at any future time. It will, in fact, be easier to make a beginning now, when public necessity is forcing the adoption of some permanent means of rapid transit, than after private corporations shall have, in some measure at least, provided rapid transit facilities. What with horse cars and ferry companies and elevated roads, the majority of the people of New York are thoroughly tired of the control of the means of transit by private corporations, and public opinion seems to be ripe for a bold and comprehensive measure which would give the city her own rapid transit facilities—and those of the very best. Is there in reality any need of bothering about the New York Central’s depressed road, and after virtually giving that corporation three millions to get rapid transit north of Forty-second street, which, as Mayor Hewitt says, has only nominally been obtained, to repeat on a larger scale the same sort of an experiment?

If we must go beneath the surface, and that seems to be generally assumed, why not go at once one hundred feet, or, if better, two hundred feet? Diamond drills, compressed air, electricity and improved methods of handling excavated materials, have made tunneling comparativly^sic cheap. And it is not only as easy and as cheap to tunnel one or two hundred feet beneath the surface as ten or twenty, but in a great city it would be much easier and cheaper, for gas pipes, water pipes, sewers, cellars and vaults would thus be avoided. And surely the owners of this rock-bottomed Manhattan island, albeit they are the legal owners of all that lies below it, down to the very central fires, would hardly think of charging the people of New York for the right of way at such a depth. If they did, perhaps it would be all the better, as it would bring home to popular thought and popular imagination what is really involved in giving to holders of land the same rights of property as justly attach to things produced by human exertion.

Tunnels one hundred or even two hundred feet under ground could, by means of rapidly running elevators at every station, be made easier of access than are the present elevated stations. The air in them could be kept perfectly fresh and pure by means of up-cast and down-cast shafts, compressed air or fans. They could be brilliantly lit by electricity and would be free from dust and noise. In summer they would seem delightfully cool, and in winter pleasantly warm. The rails could be laid closer, and rattle and jar avoided from the diminished liability to expansion and contraction. From the main tunnels others could branch off—under the East river, under the North river, under the waters of the bay to Staten island. Not merely the New York Central and Harlem River, but all the railroads that have their termini around New York could thus be given opportunity to connect with the great underground arteries of metropolitan trausportation^sic. The main lines should, of course, consist of four tracks—perhaps in four separate tunnels connected at stations, two for express trains running a mile a minute and making few stops, and two for way trains that should stop at stations not more than four blocks apart and carry passengers to and from stations where the express trains stopped.

Some such a system or such improvement on it as competent engineers might determine would be best would be a good and substantial beginning for a system of transit worthy of what it would ere long make—the greatest city the world has ever seen. And such a system, operated at public expense, for public convenience and comfort, could not be carried very far before a demand would arise for running the surface lines in the same way.

In concluding the message to the board of aldermen in which he broached his rapid transit scheme, Mayor Hewitt touched upon the tenement house problem, declaring that it could only be solved by cheap rapid transit. “Nothing so effective for the relief of those who live by their daily labor can be devised as the creation of cheap rapid transit to those portions of the city where land is plenty and the surroundings healthful and attractive. The system of separate dwellings for each family alone realizes the true ideal of home life.”

But if the value of land increases, as the mayor says it does, with the rapidity of the transit, and also, as he certainly will concede, with the cheapness of the transit, how is cheap, rapid transit to those por

p. 1, col. 6 tions of the city where land is plenty to help the laboring man or substitute separate homes for the overcrowded tenement house? What will it avail the laboring man though vacant land be plenty if the price he must pay for it be high? Nor does the overcrowding of houses come from the dearness of houses. It comes from the dearness of land. Cheap rapid transit will increase the population and wealth of the city, but so long as every public improvement and even every prospective improvement but stimulates speculation in the primary essential of human life, but adds to the price that the man who lives by his daily labor must pay for the right to live and to labor, cheap rapid transit can neither permanently benefit the laborer nor substitute the home for the tenement.

In a few vivid lines the mayor thus suggests to the board of aldermen the possibilities of the New York of the future:

With its noble harbor protected from injury, and the channels of approach straightened and deepened; with its wharves and docks made adequate for the easy transfer of the vast commerce of the country; with its streets properly paved and cleaned and protected from destructive upheavals; with cheap, easy and rapid transit throughout its length and breadth; with salubrious and attractive parks in the centers of dense population; with an ample supply of pure water now nearly provided; with a system of taxation so modified that the capital of the world may be as free to come and go as the air of heaven, the imagination can place no bounds to the future growth of this city in business, wealth and the blessings of civilization. Its imperial destiny as the greatest city in the world is assured by natural causes, which cannot be thwarted except by the folly and neglect of its inhabitants.

It is pleasant and encouraging to find a man of Mayor Hewitt’s position and political influence thus expressing hope for the abolition of all taxes on personal property and for the abolition of the tariff. But much as would be gained by the abolition of taxes on personal property, and much as would be gained by the abolition of the tariff, these measures are but steps toward what must be done to assure to this nation and its metropolis the far more than imperial destiny which is possible for them. The supreme reform, which will make all other reforms and improvements easier and secure all their good effects, lies simply in the securing to all of equal rights to natural opportunities by taking for the use of all that value which social growth and improvement attach to land.

See how this would make easier the great improvement of rapid transit and secure its advantages to the whole people. Consider the great cost under the existing system, of buying or condemning the land necessary for any such improvement. Were the single tax in operation we would have to pay nothing for land—all that would have to be paid for would be the value of the buildings or “betterments” destroyed or damaged, with a little something to compensate people who were obliged to move. Consider how every such improvement alters relative land values, raising them enormously in some places and diminishing them in others, even though adding largely to aggregate values, and how this leads to all sorts of “pulling and hauling” as to the location of such an improvement, and frequently, if not indeed usually, deflects it from that location which would be best for the whole. This change in relative land values would, under the single tax system, be a matter of indifference, since where land values were raised taxes would be higher; and were they even reduced, taxes would be diminished. Consider how all the various taxes, internal and external, which now fall on capital in all its various forms—lumber, iron, tools, machinery, etc., increase its cost and diminish its amount, and how the cost of such roads is now increased. The single tax would permit and involve the abolition of all of these. Consider how the appropriation of land values to public uses would in a community such as this not only provide for all administrative purposes, but provide also an enormous and constantly increasing fund, which could be used for improvements; and how such improvements would in turn increase this fund, which could be used for common benefit, thus diffusing their advantages among all. Consider how our leaving to individuals, as at present, the increased land values that result from such improvements now leads to speculation and forestalling, and, where vacant lots are still abundant, prevents men from getting homes. Under the single tax land speculation and the mere holding of land would become unprofitable, and no one would want a piece of land unless he wished to use it.

Speculative value would not keep ahead of the growth of real value, and that worst and most injurious form of gambling—the “real estate boom”—would become impossible. The increase in the utility of land, still less the prospective increase in its utility, would not mean increase in its value. Even when land became valuable by reason of the demand not to own, but to use it, the man who wanted to use a piece would not have to diminish his capital by paying for its value in a purchasing price, but would simply have to pay an annual tax. Even in a place where such continued on p. 2 →

[continued on page 2]

Former Members of the Executive Committee Withdraw From the Society.

The following card is the result of the action taken at the last meeting of the withdrawing members of the executive committee of the anti-poverty society:

NEW YORK, March 21, 1888.

In order that there may no longer be any dispute as to the status of those now claiming to be the executive committee of the anti-poverty society, and that there shall be no unseemly struggle for the control of the organization at the ensuing annual meeting, the undersigned, hitherto members of the executive committe^sic have resigned from such committee and withdrawn from the society:

J. O. S. HUNTINGTON,	HUGH O. PENTECOST,
EVERETT GLACKIN,	EDWARD J. SHRIVER,
WALTER CARR,	A. J. STEERS,
TOM L. JOHNSON,	JEROME O’NEILL,
BENJ. URNER,	HENRY GEORGE,
LOUIS F. POST,	T. L. MCCREADYsic.
W. T. CROASDALE,	WILLIAM MCCABE,
J. W. SULLIVAN.

In addition to those named above, the following gentlemen, who were members of the executive committee on Feb. 13, have resigned:

Charles F. Wingate,	James P. Archibald,
Rev. J. Anketell,	John W. Waters.
Edward Johnson,

Of the remaining members, James Redpath, J. C. Fleming and J. V. George, have not for months attended meetings or taken part in the recent eontroversy^sic, thus leaving of the thirty-one persons who were recognized as members of the committee on Feb. 13 but nine who are still acting as members. These are:

Dr. Edw. McGlynn,	Gaybert Barnes,
Dr. J. Coughlin,	Wm. B. Clarke,
John McMackin,	Michael Clarke,
James O’Flaherty,	Hugh Whorisky,
Dr. Wm. S. Gottheil.

As Mr. E. J. Shriver, late treasurer of the anti-poverty society, deems that an injustice would be done by letting the speech of Dr. McGlynn, reported in THE STANDARD of last week, pass uncontradicted, we give place to the following communication, trusting that this will be the last of an unpleasant and unprofitable subject. The many correspondents who have written to THE STANDARD in commendation of the course of the majority of the committee and in criticism of the acts which compelled their withdrawal, and whose communications have not been published, will understand the reasons which make an exception in this case proper:

NEW YORK CITY.—In his address at the Academy of Music on March 11, as published by you, Dr. McGlynn made a statement of the occurrences at the anti-poverty committee meeting, during which I moved his suspension, in which he presented me in the light of an instrument selected by a conspiracy to humiliate him. While I do not wish to embarrass you in carrying out the policy of dignified silence which you seem to have assumed, I trust you will allow me the opportunity to contradict certain of the doctor’s assertions, as a matter due to myself.

The course of action agreed upon by the majority of the committee for that evening did not include Dr. McGlynn’s suspension. He may have dreaded such action as a just rebuke to him for arrogating the power to dictate a policy for the united labor party at an anti-poverty society meeting, but the motion when made was made on my individual responsibility, without consultation with any one, because it seemed to me personally the best way to stop further illegitimate exercise by him of the appointing power. It is morally impossible that Dr. McGlynn should not have known this when he delivered the address to which I allude, as a full deseription^sic of our programme had been given to several of his intimate friends.

Dr. McGlynn further stated that “seven [or?] eight” of the withdrawing committee men were employes of THE STANDARD, and infers in various ways that all of us were acting, not of our own motion, but in obedience to STANDARD policy. Both the statement and the inference are untrue.

EDWARD J. SHRIVER.

Australian Gold.

NORWICH, N. Y.—The strong point you make against protection is that shutting out imports cuts off exports, thus destroying the commerce of the nation to a certain extent. This seems evident, as a nation cannot take our products unless we want and are willing to take products of that nation in payment. Now, I wish to raise this point for you to comment upon: Suppose that our tariff constitutes such an embargo that Australia, which wants our manufactured articles, can pay us only in gold (gold not being prohibited), and that we continue to draw on Australia for gold for a period of years, receiving nothing else in return for our products. I am aware that gold is a commodity—not money—when used in the exchange of nations, and we receive it from Australia as bullion. Possibly such bullion would be of but little value to us, even when coined over and made into our money. Could we put that gold to use, and in what way? Of course we could put it to some use, but what would it be and what would be the extent of the loss on such trade?

ELMORE SHARPE.

In the case you put, if Australia made large demands for our products and her gold held out, it would involve less work for us to make the things that Australia wanted and let Australia dig gold for us than to dig our own gold. The tendency would be to reduce the value of gold and to make our gold mines less valuable than they are. On such trade we would lose nothing—we would gain. The only losers would be our gold mine owners.

We would put the gold to such uses as we do now—dentistry, jewelry, and so forth; and we would use it to a greater extent than before, for more of our people could afford to use it, first, because they would get better pay for their work, and second, because gold would be cheaper. We would also ship Australian gold to other countries in exchange for their goods.

The Inducement to Keep Land Out of Use.

PHILADELPHIA.—In the unpublished portion of the letter to which you reply in your issue of February 18, I asked “why you contend that those holding unused agricultural land will not rent it to the highest bidder?” I am therefore justified in assuming that in the example of mines which you have given you consider that the same conditions obtain as in the case of agricultural land, each class of opportunities being owned by thousands of persons, each competing with the others to secure the largest return from his possessions. I have asked you to show me the inducement which the competitive owners of opportunities located within the margin of cultivation have for keeping them out of use?

I can see such an inducement in the case of city lots, which may become available for business purposes, and which cannot be used temporarily without erecting a comparatively costly structure in the form of a residence, which would have to be destroyed later in order to put the lot to the best possible use. Your remark on that subject in the issue of March 3 is therefore hardly pertinent to my question.

You say that only fifty would be mined in the first and fifty in the second mine. Would it not be to the interest of each owner to mine 100? and since the demand is for only 100, would not competition between them cause the rent of the second mine to fall to zero, and that of the first to a trifle below two-tenths?

1. I now repeat my original question: Assuming that the land owners are not all members of one syndicate, what inducement has any one holding land on speculation to keep his land out of use, if its temporary use does not involve an expenditure equal to or exceeding the rent obtainable in the interim during which he contemplates holding it?

2. Does Ricardo’s doctrine admit that the land outside of the margin of cultivation is appropriated, or are the margins of appropriation and cultivation identical? I ask this question to settle a disputed point with several students of “Progress and Poverty.”

A STUDIOUS INQUIRER.

1. He has no inducement to keep it out of use; but, on the other hand, he has no sufficient inducement to put it to use. The land is worth in the market a certain price; he will not sell it for less than that price, and if he rents it, he expects a rental based on that price. Both the price and the rent are for the time being more than a user can afford to pay. Therefore, having no customers, he allows the land to lie idle, or, what is the same thing, except in degree, he does not use it to its capacity.

There are in upper New York acres of city lots; the owners will not sell, and while they would be willing to rent for building purposes, no one will hire for such purposes at the rent demanded. So the owners rent to gardeners who pay all the land is worth for gardening purposes, but not so much as it is worth for building purposes. I have in mind a tract of woodland in an agricultural district which belongs to a farm. If the trees were cut and the stumps removed this woodland would make excellent truck land. The owner is not able to bear the expense of clearing, and the land is unused. He will not sell it because he expects a rise in land values in his neighborhood. He might rent it to workingmen in parcels, but his terms are too onerous to tempt p. 4, col. 2 them. And yet if that land were taxed at its actual value as land, the owner could not afford to keep it idle, and there are plenty of workingmen who would clear it for their own use if they were assured of undisputed enjoyment so long as they paid the land value tax. In the Pennsylvania oil district there is a tract of land which belongs to an English family. It is taxed low as mountain land; but if any one wants to open a well he must agree to the terms of the English family; and when his well is bored his land is taxed high while that around him is taxed as low as before. In the coal fields of Pennsylvania there are thousands of acres of unopened coal mines which no one is permitted to open, which have a high value as coal lands, and which pay a small tax as agricultural lands.

It seems to me you are giving yourself a good deal of trouble about an abstraction, when you have only to open your eyes to see, respecting all kinds of land, that though the owners are not all members of one syndicate, valuable land is held out of use. From this fact it follows that the margin of production falls below its natural limit, and that is all there is to the question.

2. The margin of appropriation and the margin of production are not necessarily identical. RobinsonCrusoe^sic appropriated his island, but the land of the island remained below the margin of production nevertheless. So long as any appropriated land is no better, all things considered, than land that is not appropriated, the appropriated land will be below the margin of production; but appropriated land which, all things considered, is better than any land that is not appropriated, is above the margin of cultivation.

Protection and Strikes.

NEW YORK.—Will you kindly inform me: (1) Where can I find authorities and proofs for the statements concerning the increase in duty on cheap grades of bottles in the year 1883, and (2) the strikes or lockouts following this measure, spoken of in the first column, second page of THE STANDARD of March 10?

EDWARD FRIDENBERG.

1. In the federal statutes of that year.

2. At the Astor library, in the newspapers of the time.

Money.

NEW YORK.—I note in your last issue, in answering “A Reader,” you state that “money is merely a counter of exchange.” Having always supposed true money to be gold and silver coin and actual wealth or merchandise, and paper money only a representative thereof, I find difficulty in understanding Mr. George’s references to our coinage and storage of silver as “the folly of digging silver out of one hole in the ground and burying it in another.” Will you kindly refer me to a clear exposition of the position taken?

GEORGE A. HOLLIS.

Read chapter 8^sic of “Protection or Free Trade?” being the chapter entitled “Confusions Arising from the Use of Money.”

Effect of Tariffs.

ALDEN, N. Y.—Do I see the tariff cat^sic aright? Goods represent labor; consequently when goods are low compared with gold, labor is low compared with gold. If I buy a pair of boots at $2.50 gold and pay the bootblack five cents gold for a shine, when I can get the same boots at 50 cents gold I may pay the bootblack only one cent gold, and it will be the same with the bootblack as it was before.

If I am correct, then the tariff does not affect the price of goods any further than to denominate the price of labor in that country.

J. C. CLARK.

You are right in your statement, and if the tariff were an equal ad valorem tax on everything you would be right in your conclusion also. But as the tariff bears unequally, some things being heavily taxed, others lightly and others not at all, money wages generally are governed by money wages in the production of the untaxed article, which puts the workman at a disadvantage when he buys an article on which the tax is imposed.

How to Get Rid of the Surplus.

CHICAGO.—I have been a deeply interested reader of THE STANDARD for several weeks, and the following questions have occurred to me as the result:

If the rental value of the land on which a city is built is the creation of the people of such city, and therefore justly belongs to the community as a whole; and if such value ought to be and should be collected for the benefit of all the people, and the total amount so collected should exceed the sum required to pay the debts and current necessary (and only necessary) expenses of the city government economically administered, how under the workings of the single tax theory as advocated by you, if exercised to the extent of levying a tax to the full amount of the land or rental value, would you dispose of the excess alluded to, be such excess much or little?

J. H. WALRATH.

It is refreshing to hear from a correspondent who fears that the single tax will raise too much revenue. It reminds one of old times, just after “Progress and Poverty” appeared, and before the Harrises and the Suns and the rest of them who, when one objection proves shaky invent another equally untenable, had discovered “statistically” that the tax would not raise revenue enough. You are behind in the literature of the discussion

The proposition is to tax land values and land values alone. If such a tax does not raise as much revenue as we raise now, we must reduce our expenses. But it cannot raise more than we need. Fixed sums, according to public necessity, would be called for as now, and these sums could be, and when the benefits of taxing land values for public use were appreciated, no doubt would be, increased until practically no land value would be left to the owner. But the sums would not be increased arbitrarily; they would be increased in response to public demand for public improvements.

Silencing the Single Tax Theory.

BROOKLYN.—Will you be pleased to republish the article in THE STANDARD of this week, entitled “The Tenant Farmer of the West,” in connection with answers to the following questions:

1. Knowing from experience that the article referred to is substantially true, and that the landlords in the country are in the condition set forth, I desire to know how it is possible for such a mighty “land monopoly” to exist as is claimed by THE STANDARD?

2. With this state of facts how is it possible p. 4, col. 3 to so increase the tax on land as to raise $800,000,000 of taxes on land alone annually to run the general and state governments?

3. If the landlord farmer makes but eighty cents per day for his labor and capital with which to support his family, employ labor, pay taxes, buy seeds, tools, blacksmith work, clothing and food with absolute free trade, whence will come the enormous increase of taxes to defray the whole expense of government?

4. Please explain the rental value of these farming lands aside from labor and improvements.

5. Would any man, syndicate or trust take the farming lands of the United States and pay for the labor and improvements?

6. To my mind this simple showing ought to be sufficient to forever silence the absurd single tax theory.

I. V. P.

1. THE STANDARD is not so short of material as to find it necessary to reproduce its articles; but to make your questions intelligible I will state the substance of the article to which you refer. It was quoted from the New York Times and showed that one-half of the farms of Michigan are mortgaged; that the assessed value of Michigan’s farms is $700,000,000; that this is one-third of the actual value; that the amount of mortgages is about $350,000,000; that the ten agricultural states of the Mississippi valley are in about the same condition, and are consequently mortgaged for about $3,422,000,000, their actual value being about $13,931.000,000^sic; and that the produce of the farms of these states will not, after paying interest on the mortgages, leave enough for the farmers to live on. These are the facts which you say from your experience are substantially true, and how, in face of such facts you can ask the question you do is puzzling? When the owners of land (called mortgagees in this article) are able to rack rent their tenants to such an extent as to leave too little for the tenants to live on, the average man would infer the existence of a pretty “mighty land monopoly.” Perhaps you are not an average man.

2. A tax on land values alone would lessen the taxes of farmers and increase those of mine owners, forest owners and owners of valuable city lots. These farms are assessed at one-third of their actual value. That is in all probability about the value of the naked land. Therefore, Michigan farmers are now paying as high taxes on their farms as they would be called on to pay under the single tax. They are now paying taxes on what they buy as well. The single tax, therefore, would reduce their contributions to the public revenue without any change in the value of land. But as that tax would make it unprofitable to keep land out of use, a great deal of unused land would be thrown upon the market, with the effect of reducing land values generally and making the tax burden of the farmers lighter still.

Since the farmers are taxed on a valuation of one-third, other real estate is probably taxed on the same basis, or less. Thus, a man who owns a mine worth $100,000, in which there are improvements worth $10,000, now pays on a valuation of one-third of $110,000, or on $37,000 in round numbers. Under the single tax he would pay on a valuation of $100,000. I have no doubt that a great deal of valuable lumber land pays taxes on less than one-third of its value; under the single tax such land would pay on its full value. And in cities there are vacant lots the tax on which is based upon a low valuation; under the single tax it would be based on a full valuation. Your experience in the west will enable you to see from these suggestions that a single tax on land values would increase the taxes of men who monopolize natural opportunities and diminish the taxes of men who earn their living by work. Whether the single tax would raise eight hundred millions or not, I do not know, nor do I care. It is enough to know that it will raise all that the land on which it falls is worth, and that the tax so raised would go into the public treasury instead of going, as it does now—into the pockets of land owners. Land is now taxed to its full value, the tax, less what goes to the state, going to landlords; and the value is artificially increased by cornering land. If all land not in use were free, as it would be under the single tax, no land would have an artificial value, and no one would pay a higher tax for his land than the superior advantages that land gave him would enable him to pay. But under our present system, land being made scarce by speculation, land in use is abnormally valuable and consequently is excessively taxed.

3. The farmer, under absolute free trade, would make more than eighty cents a day.

The farmer is not the only man who uses land.

There would not be an “enormous increase of taxes to defray the whole expense of government,” but an enormus^sic decrease.

All taxes would be the annual price of superior natural opportunities.

If one man worked a mine that produced teh^sic annually with given labor and capital, and another worked a mine that produced five annually with the same labor and capital, the first man would pay five more in taxes than the second. This difference now goes to a mine owner; it would then go to the people. If the value of all such advantages in the country was not enough to meet public expenses—public expenses would have to be cut down.

4. How can I explain the rental value of these farming lands without knowing the value of the improvements? John’s coat and trousers are worth $15; how much is his coat worth? Answer me that riddle and I will answer you yours.

5. I think so, and I am sure they would take all the lands of the United States on those conditions.

6. If your mind is to be judged by your questions, your confession of opinion need occasion no surprise.

Mat Making and Free Trade.

NORTH NEW YORK.—I have twice voted the united labor ticket, from top to bottom the last time, and am a believer in the effiacacy^sic of the single tax, and hence a free trader, understanding that, while a few interests in trade may be crippled, the vast majority of the people will be benefited. But for the enlightenment of others as well as myself I want to put a question, which, as a reader of THE STANDARD, I am sure will receive a p. 4, col. 4 frank, if not to us a satisfactory, answer, or at least an agreeable one.

They and I are mat weavers—all kinds—door mats, ordinary floor matting, etc. Now the raw material is spun in the East Indies, comes to England, where the best of the stock is bought up, manufactured and sent to the New York market, and sold cheaper than we can manufacture it. Now, how would absolute free trade operate in this particular trade?

GEO W. RODEN.

Assuming that mat weavers in England could make up the material and ship it to this country for sale at a less price than you could make it up and sell it for, absolute free trade would make it more profitable for you, both with reference to your present condition and your condition then, to do some other kind of work. The more mats and carpets England sent to this country the more products of this country would it require in return. This would increase the demand for work in this country in a way that would make it very easy and more profitable for you to find employment in some other direction.

But are you sure that England could undersell you in our market if we had free trade? As I am not sufficiently familiar with your trade to know what your raw material is I cannot make any comparison of the duty of twenty per cent on mats and matting, which is imposed for your “protection,” with the duty on your raw material, which, if there is a duty, is certainly imposed to your injury; but you can readily ascertain what the duty on your raw material is and make the comparison yourself.

Of this, however, you may be sure, that the “few interests in trade,” which, as you say, “may be crippled” by free trade, will not be the interests of people who work, but the interests of those who profit by the unrequited labor of others.

Notes.

GEORGE F. LEWIS, Victor, Iowa.—Your difficulties with the farmers are appreciated. With their ignorance of the incidence of taxation, it is to be expected that they will at first imagine that the single tax will increase their burdens and lighten those of the “capitalist.” Get them to read tracts relating to farmers, and ask them to explain why “capitalists” are so bitterly opposed to the single tax and so suddenly anxious for the welfare of the poor farmer.

LOUIS F. POST.

A Place in Which the Doctrine of Private Land Ownership is Scarce a Generation Old.

London Christian Commonwealth.

Few men know the highlands better, or are better known and respected by the highlanders, than Mr. John Murdoch. The following account of some of the historical and religious aspects of the great movement among the Scotch crofters, specially written by Mr. Murdoch for the “Anti-Poverty” columns of the Christian Commonwealth, will, therefore, be read with interest at this time. Mr. Murdoch speaks of that which he knows, and testifies of that which he has seen, for he has recently visited the very districts in which the “raids” are now taking place.

In the first place, the island of Lewis, which, by the way, is the nativity of William Black’s “Princess of Thule,” is in a more than ordinarily favorable position for holding forth the idea that the land belongs, not to a landlord, but to the people. The Morrison chiefs, the MacLeod leaders, and the Mackenzie “Seaforths,” whatever they may have asserted in Edinburgh or London when among the representatives of the grantees of Charles II, would not have dared to assert that the lands of Lewis or of Kintail belonged to any one man in particular. The land belonged to the clansmen, and the great men at their head held sway by virtue of their chiefship. It is not worth while going further into this part of the question than to say that for a long time there was a struggle going on between this clan or patriarchal system and the feudo-commercial system of landholding, which has been fully established in the highlands since the battle of Culloden. The possession of a bit of land is a moral force; it is more than even Arthur Young thought of when he lauded the “magic of property,” and that moral force is all the greater when the possession is held to be a matter of natural right, and in no degree dependent upon purchase.

We have thus dawning on us one of the forces now at work in the highlands. The Lewis people have this force strengthened by the historic fact that their island never was a marketable commodity until some forty or forty-four years ago, when the trustees of the late “Seaforth” Mackenzie sold the island to Mr. (afterward Sir James) Matheson. To this hour this mercantile transaction has not lost its bad odor, although, no doubt, Seaforth did some things which were as fraudulent as any perpetrated since, although they were not so audacious. One of the aspects of the conjuncture thus presented has often come before the present generation of Lewismen in the claim of the Mathesons to exact rent. From a commercial point of view it seems very reasonable that the man who lays out money, as the buyers of estates have done, should recover sufficient interest on the money invested; but the question arises at once, What right had the Seaforth trustees to sell the people’s land? And what right had the Mathesons to look to a third party to implement a bargain between a first and a second? The believer in usury has been staggered when the crofters have said to him, “A sells to B, and B comes to C for the interest on the investment.” This, of course, is only one way out of many in which the validity of landlord claims can be set aside. The next matter which comes before the mind is the development of the moral courage, the sense of duty and the religious enthusiasm to carry out the convictions formed.

This, much more than mere intelligence, is the great desideratum all over the three kingdoms; and it is not too much to say that when something of the kind shows itself even far away in Lewis, the real leaders of English thought will, I am sure, hail it with all their hearts. Now, while the misleading papers do their utmost to associate the doings in Lewis with mere selfish, barbarous lawlessness, the fact is that the whole of the present movement is traceable to well reasoned religious convictions and pious sentiments. The lever of social reform has been laid on the fulcrum of religious thought and feeling. This movement is one of the first examples in modern times of men laying hold of the apostolic teaching that “Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is as well as that which is to come,” and making a direct application of the principle underlying it. These people are not “political economists” in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but they reach much more directly what the economists aim at. Then there is another noteworthy circumstance, viz., that at the very outset of the social and economic movement there is beyond all question an elevation of character made manifest. The movement is no mere groveling scramble for personal advantage.

Besides having the traditions which I have mentioned, they are remarkably devout and p. 4, col. 6 bible reading men. They have laid firm hold of the teachings of God in regard to the land. The land was given to the children of men with the injunction that they were to support themselves and their families by tilling it. They caught firm hold of this as a divine command. It was true, they might possibly suffer much themselves individually from want of land, and all that land yields; but they were confronted with the leading element in true religion—the visiting of the fatherless and the widow. So far from their religion requiring them to stand by while their dependents were perishing, it impelled them to go where God ordered them—to the land, and from it, by the sweat of their brows, take that with which they were to visit the widow and fatherless in the affliction of poverty. But then there was a lion in the way. If they did this they would be confronted with the law of the estate. Well, what then? “Whether it be right in the sight of God to obey you rather than God, judge ye.” There was a still deeper thought to which they gave heed. Their profession as Christian men implied that love had cast out fear. They were not to allow the fear of man to check them in the true carrying out of their love of God—loving God by doing good to men.

And without going any further in this groove, it is to be noticed that when they came into contact with the force of the law they did not avenge themselves, they did not resist evil; they went remarkably near to turning the other cheek when they actually showed their willingness to go to prison. It is evident that in doing this they had an eye to making the system with which they were at issue odious in the public estimation. In other words, they went as directly at “the land” as they possibly could in the circumstances, and they took care not to sully their hands or their cause by resorting to any kind of rowdyism or lawlessness.

HOW THE MOVEMENT FOR INDUSTRIAL EMANCIPATION IS PROGRESSING.

There was a fair attendance at the regular meeting of the tax reform club at Everett hall, in Brooklyn, on March 14. A. L. Voorhees Frank P. Rand^sic, D. S. Baker, D. White and Theodore Atworth briefly addressed the meeting, showing good reasons why personal property should be exempted from taxation. The Williams-Bailey call for a national conference came up for consideration and the majority of those present favored fixing a date later than the old party conventions. A resolution was passed advising every member to request the assemblyman of his district to aid the passage of the Hamilton bill for electoral reform.

The following officers were elected: Theodore Atworth, vice-president; F. W. Shepard, financial secretary; George White, treasurer; J. L. Tollett, Frank P. Rand and D. S. Baker, executive committee. The question, “Has an Employer a Right to Take Advantage of the Present Competition Among Laborers?” will be discussed at the next meeting.

A New York Club Wants Correspondents.

NEW YORK.—The West end labor club of Harlem is desirous of establishing a correspondence with other Henry George clubs; also with land and labor, free soil, free trade clubs and associations of similar proclivities. It is our belief that an interchange of thought in regard to principles and methods of propagation will be mutually beneficial. Will you kindly insert this in your paper and thus advertise our purpose. T. C. WILLIS, Cor. Sec.

Anti-Poverty in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE, March 11.—Notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather the Baltimore anti-poverty society held its usual weekly meeting this evening in Ramis hall. Mr. J. H. Ralston of Hyattsville, Md., delivered an interesting address on the future of the single tax movement. He related an incident which recently occurred in Hyattsville, which illustrates one method of introducing the single tax. In that town, which is a suburb of Washington, there has been a project started to issue bonds for improving roads, etc. In Maryland such issues cannot be made by municipalities without an enabling act granted by the legislature, and the consent of the citizens must be given. The committee which investigated the needs of the village reported in favor of the bonds provided the taxes to pay the same were levied on land values alone. The land speculators of course objected; but the land tax people still “hold the fort” with the motto, “No land tax, no bonds.” Mr. Ralston stated that much interest had been aroused by the controversy and the people were rapidly waking up to the advantages of the single tax. W. N. HILL, M.D.

Anti-Poverty in Washington.

WASHINGTON, D. C.—The anti-poverty society of this city at its last meeting perfected its organization by the adoption of a constitution. This declares the name of the society to be “the Washington anti-poverty society.” Its objects are set forth as follows: “The abolition of poverty by appropriate means; but particularly by securing to all persons an equal right to the use of the earth, and an equal interest in those social creations and utilities commonly known as franchises.” The methods by which the society proposes to attain its objects are set forth as follows: “The education of ourselves and of the general public in our principles by discussions, lectures, the circulation of literature and other appropriate means, and the exertion of our influence on congress to secure the enactment of laws removing taxes from all forms of industry and its products and placing them on land values, and establishing as public industries tramways, water works, gas and electric light works, and all other public utilities whose existence rests on legislative consent and which are monopolistic in their natures.”

The constitution provides a novel way of choosing officers, which, it is claimed, secures a more perfect representation of the sentiments of the members of the board of officers. The only officer chosen by the direct vote of the society is a clerk, who keeps a book. Then each member has a right to vote for one member of an executive committee, to comprise not more than seven members. He makes known his choice to the proxy clerk, who keeps a record of votes. Votes have to be renewed once in three months, and may be changed at any time. The seven persons at any time having the highest number of votes constitute the executive committee. This executive committee, each of whom has as many votes as are credited to his favor in the proxy book, elect the president and other officers of the society from among their own number.

Messrs. Bowen, Brown, Monohan, Geddes, Boyd and Davis were elected members of the executive committee. Before the meeting closed Mr. Bowen, in answer to inquiries from visitors present, made an address setting out what the Henry George theory was and how it was proposed to better the condition of the world at large by applying the single tax scheme.

A Landlord Missionary in Evansville.

EVANSVILLE, Ind.—Please send me by return mail six copies “Protection or Free Trade?” and one of “Social Problems.” This makes the third order for books I have received from a man who is a large land owner, and who one year ago was opposed to our doctrines. He buys the books for gratuitous distribution, and has already given away twenty copies of “Protection or Free Trade?” Of course he doesn’t want any notoriety just yet, but he is making converts. C—— ——.

Anti-Poverty in Cincinnati.

CINCINNATI, O.—The twelfth consecutive weekly meeting of the anti-poverty society of Cincinnati was held at Elks hall March 11. The principal addresses were by Rev. E. P. Foster on “Some words of heaven about the earth,” and Mr. E. T. Fries on “The Protective Idea.” Both were admirable. One of the strong points made by Mr. Foster was a quotation from the great commentary of Matthew Henry, giving as a reason for the land restorations of the jubilee year “that no family should be sunk and ruined and condemned to perpetual poverty.” Mr. Fries’s essay was by no means narrowed to the tariff question, but took a wide ethical scope, involving the noblest considerations of love and brotherhood. C. H. FITCH, Secretary.

The Free Land Club of Dayton, Ohio.

DAYTON, O.—At no time since its organization nearly a year ago, has any meeting of the Free land club been so well attended as that of yesterday.

The address was made by Rev. J. K. Lewis. In a speech of an hour he gave an outline of our proposed tax and land reform, and closed by reading a paper on the justice of the single p. 5, col. 2 tax on land values and its sufficiency for legitimate governmental expenses.

A new impulse was given the movement here by Mr. George at the opera house on Feb. 20. Several persons joined the club at the next meeting after the lecture and a good many others are talking land reform who had given it no thought before hearing Mr. George. One thing particularly noticeable and gratifying is the daily increasing sentiment in favor of free trade. W. W. KILE, Cor. Secretary Free Land Club.

Standing Up to be Counted in Cedar Rapids.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa.—Out of 1,800 votes polled at our recent city election, the united labor candidate, Sam H. Wolf, received 500, while 1,300 were cast for the combination nominee of the two old parties. Though this result is somewhat of a disappointment to single tax men here, it yet shows our strength to be greater than our adversaries had supposed.

Concentrating Forces in Washington Territory.

SEATTLE, W. T.—Will you be kind enough to have the following note inserted in THE STANDARD:

To single tax men of Seattle, and other parts of Washington territory—You are requested to correspond with F. P. Morrow, 111 Union street, Seattle, Washington territory. The object of the request is that we may concentrate our forces to promote the single tax system; also that we may become better known to each other. F. P. MORROW, Printer.

In a Maryland Town Meeting.

HYATTSVILLE, Md., March 17.—We have commenced injecting the single tax doctrine into our local politics here. For some time past a proposal has been before our citizens for the issue of $8,000 worth of improvement bonds, and on March 15 the matter was finally brought up for settlement in town meeting. We single tax men told the town commissioners that we must decline to vote for the issuance of the bonds unless they contained a proviso that the taxes to pay them should be levied exclusively upon land values. The commissioners assured us that if our town should adopt such a method a committee would seek the defeat of the bill before the legislature. That such a committee would succeed, for various reasons, we had no doubt. We therefore said we should resist bonding to the last, and at the town meeting the motion for bonding was defeated, the negative vote being cast for the greater part by those who stood with us. We have thus in a meesure^sic put what is called the “George” idea to its first practical issue in Maryland, and our friends in Washington—six miles away—feel satisfied with the result. J. —— ——.

A Study of Taxation in New Zealand.

George W. Cole, esq., of Wellington, New Zealand, last year wrote a series of articles for the Evening Post of that city exposing the iniquities of the system under which the colony is taxed. The articles have been republished in pamphlet form. Mr. Cole’s conclusions, after a review of the facts and figures pertaining to taxation in New Zealand, are (1) that the customs duties should be gradually decreased instead of increased; (2) that some machinery should be devised whereby it should be rendered impossible for exorbitant rents to be charged either in town or country; (3) that the present bona fide cultivators of the soil should be liberated from the grip of the money lender; and (4) that land should be treated altogether apart from other property, and dealt with upon its merits, the value of its unearned increment being made a basis for its taxation—all land being meant, whether of town or country.

A Chicago Lecturer in Canada.

Mr. K. H. Maloney of Chicago has been visiting the old city of Kingston, Canada, on his way from Montreal, where he has spent three months in lecturing and working in the “anti-poverty” cause. He gave a lecture in Kingston on “Anti-poverty and the Rights of Labor,” in which he replied to some objections which had recently been advanced to [the?] George theory concerning land—by an able thinker and lecturer, Professor Watson of Queen’s university. He also forcibly impressed on his audience—principally composed of workingmen—the great truth, that in order to its true success, the labor movement must be essentially a religious one; that the principle of love—love to God our father and our brother man—is the “very core and essence of Christianity,” and must be the core and essence of all true reform. He pointed out the evils of the long hours of labor as tending to keep men away from Sunday services as well as to send them to the saloons after their day of exhausting toil, and showed that only with shortening hours of labor could they be prepared for the more elevating pursuits and recreations which would add so much to the happiness and dignity of their lives. He strongly enforced the need for justice in the hearts of all—that the working man might be freed from many of the influences that now drag him down, freed from the evil in himself, as well as the evil in others—and he pictured in glowing terms the happy state of society when the reign of justice or righteousness shall be general on earth. His audience was evidently a little restive under the enforcement of the religious element, as men are apt to be with anything that goes beyond the material and outward. But truth is truth, and its scattered seeds have a living and germinating power.

Mr. Maloney spent several days in Kingston, and had pleasant intercourse with some of its Christian citizens, including one or two clergymen, in whom he found kind friends, sympathizing with his ardent belief in love as the heart of Christianity, and the motive power of the regeneration of humanity and human society in all its aspects. Only as this principle asserts itself in the hearts of the wealthy and influential, as well as in the hearts of the poor to whom the gospel was first preached, will the perplexing problems of the day find a peaceful and satisfying solution. In Canada, as elsewhere, the professedly Christian conscience needs to be awakened to this truth, and they who can effectually arouse it will do a noble work. A. M. MEACHAN.

The Record of Two Meetings—J. P. Kohler Discusses the Causes of Commercial Depressions—Henry George on “Why I am a Free Trader.”

PHILADELPHIA.—The meeting of the anti-poverty society on Sunday, March 11, was presided over by J. C. Frost, one of the most noble, whole-souled, sincere, earnest and energetic men in the city, a man who spares himself no effort and considers no sacrifice too great to make for the sake of his fellow man’s welfare. In a few well chosen words he introduced the society’s favorite speaker, H. V. Hetzel, who, in his usual straight-forward, forcible way, explained the object of the society and the duties of its members. He said he did not care much about differences in p. 5, col. 3 men’s creeds so long as they were truly religious and desired to live up to the doctrine inculcated by all creeds, namely, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. It is impossible to live up to this doctrine under present conditions. It is customary to appeal to sentiment and ask people to obey the golden rule “for God’s sake;” but, though “man cannot live by bread alone,” yet it is impossible to live without bread, and the struggle for bread is so intense that man is compelled to disregard the brotherhood and will do very little for God’s sake. It would be good policy to “love our enemies” and change them into friends, but we cannot.

And why is the struggle for bread so intense? Is there not plenty? By the term bread we include food, clothing, houses and everything we need and desire. The only way to get bread is to go to nature. We get everything from land and there is plenty of land. The veriest savage would tell us that land being the gift of nature and not made by anybody, belongs equally to all. We would not go into any society that did not give equal rights and opportunities to all, and yet this is just what our present social system does. It commits the great iniquity of allowing greater rights to land to some people than to others. The theory that upholds equal rights to human products is exploded by merely looking at it. We cannot contribute equally to the aggregate of human products. But nobody contributes to the aggregate of land, so nobody has a greater right to it than anybody else. We don’t need to, and we could not, secure this equality by dividing up the land into little strips. We only want to enact a law which will by a tax turn the value of the land into a fund to be used for common purposes. And to this end it is each one’s duty to work and act in every way he knows how.

The chairman then made an application of one of Mr. Hetzel’s ideas that had a very gratifying effect upon the size of the collection which was then taken.

J. P. Kohler, president of the Brooklyn land and labor club, was introduced as the next speaker. He made a highly interesting address, and one which was very cordially received by the audience. He showed very clearly how rent causes the regularly recurring paroxysms of industrial depression. When business is good rent gradually goes up and up until the crash comes. Rent is something we pay for the mere privilege of working. If a man gets $60 a month wages, and $15 goes for rent, he has $45 left to buy what he needs with., But^sic when rent goes up to $20 he can buy only $40 worth. And so the higher rent goes the less becomes our purchasing capacity.

What does commerce, trade, business and all this great system of the industrial world mean? Only that people want to buy hats and shoes and clothing and houses and many other necessaries and comforts and luxuries. The business man experiences a brisk demand and he turns all his capital into his stock in trade; he borrows on sixty and ninety days, expecting to have sold all his stock before his notes become due. But in the meantime rent has been gradually, but constantly, lessening the community’s purchasing power and his notes come due long before he has sold his stock. The bank had discounted his notes, but it could not carry them, and in turn had them discounted in the banks of some commercial center, and there is where the first crash comes. We experience what is called a period of over production, but it is really an under consumption. The markets are glutted, but it is only because the purchasing power of the community has been enormously diminished by rent. Shoes are plenty, but many children run barefoot. Houses are plenty, but many families are huddled into one room.

The consumer is the real employer, and the so-called employer is only an agent. So when consumption is lessened, employment is lessened. And, on the other hand, we are shut out from opportunities by rent.

Nature is one vast store house. Everything is made of earth, and the tendency of everything is to return to earth. A few people appropriate this store house and compel others to deliver a large portion of what they produce before they will allow them access to this store house.

There is no real fight between capital and labor. The real fight is between capital and labor on the one side and the owners of this store house on the other. The latter take everything and give nothing in return.

Temperance will never benefit the laborer. If you should be brought to go naked, you would gain nothing. You might as individuals, but not as a class. Inventions have never benefited labor. If the philosophers of the last century could have foreseen the stupendous increase in the capacity of labor to produce, through inventions and applications of steam and electricity, they would have exclaimed, “O blessed people who shall live in that generation? They will not have to work. They will need only to start their machines and look after them, and can spend all their time in improving the mind and enjoying themselves!” But is it so? The reduction of fares on the New York elevated roads did not benefit the people, for immediately rents in Harlem rose so as to more than swallow up all they saved by the reduction in fares.

And so it is and will be always and everywhere so long as individuals are allowed to take the rent of land. We must stop that. We must learn to know our friends and vote for them and send them to the halls of legislation to change those laws that allow a few to gather in the rents. Vote for your own interests. Don’t sell out at any price. When it was proposed in the constitutional convention which sat here one hundred years ago to affix a property qualification of $50 to the elective franchise, Benjamin Franklin said, “Suppose a man should be allowed to vote because he had a donkey worth $50, but when he again came to vote the donkey had died, and the man in consequence would not be allowed to vote, which would have voted on the former occasion, the man or the donkey?” So to-day, when a man sells his vote, it is not he that votes. It is the $2 or the drink of whisky, or whatever he sells his vote for. The speaker urged his hearers to be faithful and not to be discouraged because they were few in number and would be ridiculed by the populace. Christ was hooted, and no doubt would be now, and our end might be achieved in a way we little think of.

The meeting of Sunday, March 18 was a crowded one. President W. J. Atkinson presided and Henry George of New York spoke upon the subject, “Why I am a free trader.” He made a ringing free trade speech, leading up to the doctrine of the single tax, which was listened to with close attention and elicited great enthusiasm. After the lecture Mr. George answered questions. Mr. Chambers also entertained the audience with a fine recitation. An anti-poverty choir is now in process of organization.

Steady Work in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal.—Our anti-poverty society shows no abatement in its enthusiasm and is doing good and steady work. Its Sunday evening meetings at Grand Central hall, corner Market and Sixth streets, are attended by intelligent and appreciative audiences, and the hall is generally crowded. At our last meeting Mr. Joseph Leggett delivered an interesting address.

p. 5, col. 4

How Patent and Tariff Laws Built Up the Wood Screw Monopoly.

New York Times.

For some years the manufacture of wood screws (such screws as are used in wood) in this country was monopolized by the American screw company of Providence, which controlled the industry and the home market by means of patented machinery and a high tariff on foreign screws. The profits of the company were very great. The value of its shares rose to extraordinary figures. The patented machinery was also used by a manufacturing firm in England, and when the monopolists here had raised their prices to the top of the tariff barrier and desired to raise them still higher without suffering from foreign competition, they hired this English firm to keep its goods out of the American market. The firm’s factories were in Birmingham, and the most prominent member of it was the Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, who recently visited this country as a commissioner empowered to negotiate a fisheries treaty. Concerning this subsidy we have his testimony. On Nov. 12, 1885, Mr. Chamberlain made a speech at Birmingham, in the course of which he undertook to show from his own experience in business how a high protective tariff may enable rings of monopolists to extort burdensome taxes from consumers. His remarks were reported by the London Standard as follows:

At that time the Americans put a duty of one hundred per cent on screws, and in spite of that his firm sent these articles to America in large quantities. The result was that the American manufacturers came over here and said: “We are making one hundred per cent on capital; if you continue to send screws to America we shall, of course, be obliged to reduce our prices. That will shut you out, but it will reduce our profits, which will not be good for either of us. Let us therefore make a bargain; we will pay you so much a year to sit still and not send a screw to America.” Well, they did it, and his firm received a handsome income for years from the American manufacturers, protected, as they were, by the folly and stupidity of protectionist legislation, to sit still and not send screws to America.

Mr. Chamberlain did not say how much had been paid to his firm, but the subsidy was afterward reported to have been £25,000 a year. When the patents ran out one of the monopoly’s supports was removed, and prices fell. The manufacturers continued to enjoy, however, the advantages of a high tariff.

p. 5, col. 5

The reports of the treasury department are misleading as to the ad valorem rates, which are the equivalents of the specific rates on wood screws. The ad valorem rate as published is calculated upon the very small quantities of some one size which are imported. The duties are practically prohibitory. The rate on screws 2 inches or more in length is 6 cents a pound, and last year the value of such screws imported was only $9.40. On screws from 1 inch to 2 inches in length it is 8 cents a pound, and the value of importations was only $107.40. Ten cents is the rate on screws from ½ inch to 1 inch long, and the value of such screws imported was $2,173. The equivalent ad valorem rates are very high. Two years ago there was published a carefully prepared tabulated statement showing that the rates, as applied to the current price lists of English screws from 1 to 2 inches long, ranged from 104 to 174 per cent.

Mr. Randall’s bill would raise these rates. The Mills bill would reduce them by substituting for the pound rates an ad valorem rate of thirty-five per cent.

We do not know that the competition in the manufacture and sale of wood screws is prevented at present in this country by a monopoly or a ring of producers. Since the patents expired conditions have changed. But any review of attempts to kill competition and exact extraordinary prices by rings in the United States would be incomplete if it should contain no reference to this wood screw job by which for years the building trade and all consumers were subjected to a heavy and unjust tax. The greed and ingratitude of manufacturers protected twice by the favor of the people—once by patents and again by very high tariff rates—were never more clearly shown, for, not satisfied with the great profits gained by keeping prices as high as exceptionally high duties would permit them to be carried, they virtually raised the tariff and obtained room for further exactions by subsidizing the only foreign producer who could compete with them after the tariff barrier had been passed.

Preaching the Gospel Unconsciously.

WHEELING, W. Va., Feb. 29.—A convention composed of the land owning classes of the state has organized what is to be known as the “West Virginia state development association.” And their object, as stated in the resolutions adopted by the convention is the encouragement of immigation^sic to the state, and of course boom up land values.

Among the leading speakers at the convention were Stephen B. Elkins and Henry G. Davis, who as usual delivered long addresses of statistical gush showing the many natural advantages of the state, and explaining in their characteristic way the great increase in value of the land that would result from its development. And the speaker dwelt at some length on the prosperous condition of the working classes.

At the conclusion of Mr. Davis’ address, ex-Governor Pierpoint, a leading republican of the state, addressed the convention, and unconsciously advocated the principles embodied in the Syracuse platform. In the course of his remarks in answering Mr. Davis, Mr. Pierpoint said: “I do not wish to be understood as doubting the wisdom of developing our state. . . . But it seems to me that in view of the great rise in land values of this state to result from its development, that it should be the duty of the state to adopt a system of taxation by which all this unearned increment could be used for public purposes.” It is hardly necessary to state that the governor’s remarks created quite a sensation, as coming from a source entirely unexpected, and it is very evident that the governor himself didn’t know where the logic of his remarks would lead him to. And so the cause moves on. Davis, Elkins & Co. are known as the “lords” of Mineral county, and are the owners of several thousand acres of land in the state. Operators of coal mines pay their men off in checks payable at their bank at Piedmont, a distance of forty miles from the mines, and in order for a miner to get his check cashed he must pay Davis, Elkins & Co. $2.80 to travel to Piedmont over their railroad. JOHN L. FRANK.

A Little Mixed.

New York Sanitary Era.

“The principal legislative measure proposed by the united labor party is the shifting of all taxes from products of labor to land values. Products of labor, being produced by the individual, it is confiscation to take them away from him; land values, being produced by the community as a whole, it is confiscation to take them away from the community.” So says Henry George; as if any kind of property, in general, owed more of its value to individual labor than does land, or as if the value of every other “product of labor” were not equally dependent on “the community” and its growth, with that of land. Land, minerals, woods and the whole creation are alike raw materials, dependent on the reciprocal action of individual labor and community demand for their development to marketable value as property. Even where unimproved real estate is most valuable from its situation in business centers, its extra value depends on potential and anticipated improvement, which is entirely a “product of labor.” City values are simply a grand condensation of labor of all kinds, from all the world. Mr. George’s talk reminds us of a bright, shallow, babbling stream—only there is no health or refreshment in it. It is contaminated with but too lucid and soluble poison.

If Two Hundred Millionaires Prove a City’s Prosperity, What Will Two Hundred Paupers Do?

Chicago Herald Interview with a Real Estate Dealer.

More lots have been sold in Chicago during February than any four winter weeks since 1868. There are millions to be invested; Chicago does not contain a congregation of paupers as it did in 1873, the time of the panic. The thousand big business houses now in the center of the city, bringing in millions of money, are mostly free from debt. The enormous rental from the buildings they occupy does not go east any longer; it stays here; it is being used in enriching and improving Chicago, not New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Hartford. Real estate will not depreciate in value here, for the best reason in the world—there is too much wealth here. In 1874 there were not a dozen men in this city that could truthfully write the word “millionaire” over their names. To-day there are 200 who can do it, and many who can prefix the numerals five, ten and even twenty. In 1874 many of them were respectable paupers; the city was, financially, a ruin; to-day evidence of the vast wealth of our citizens is to be seen on every side. Now, as to the business of our firm, I will say that we are buying all the acres we can get. The more the better, for if a boom does strike us we want to be in the path and catch it.

Beginning to See It.

Brooklyn Weekly Press.

We are blessed with a dog-in-the-manger property owner, who recently has held his corner lot at a valuation that no one could pay. A short time ago this man was offered the price he set on the lot when he refused to let it go for less than an additional thousand. The other day the same would-be purchaser approached, intent on buying the corner even at the thousand advance, but was told the price to him had gone still further—another thousand. What a fraud? Here comes a builder desirous of improving the corner, and who would put to work probably thirty or forty mechanics, at the same time circulating capital that is now lying idle, but is forced to desist on account of the hog who will neither build himself nor allow another to do so. The owner is a carbuncle on progress.

p. 5, col. 6

You See, the Mortgagee Gets the Profit on the Building, But Mr. Potter Takes the Profit on the Land.

New York Cor. Chicago Herald.

Several excessively rich men in New York are getting richer by going tremendously into debt. Next to Grace church, on Broadway, a handsome building of pressed yellow brick is nearly done. It is owned by Orlando B. Potter. Its cost, with the ground, will be something like $1,500,000. I was watching the workmen as they were hoisting a tile into place when a prominent real estate man approached me.

“Do you know that that building is mortgaged for about half its value?” he asked me?

I replied that I had not any information upon the subject.

“Well, it is,” he said, “and what is more striking is that the most of Potter’s property is in the same condition. He owns a large amount of real estate in this city. In fact, if all the property that stands in his name was entirely free and unincumbered his wealth would be colossal. Nevertheless, his head is very level, and you may be sure he would not be putting up new buildings and then putting mortgages on them unless it paid to do it.”

“Do you mean that the mortgages pay him?” I inquired, astonished.

“That is just exactly what I mean,” replied the real estate man, smiling. “I thought that my assertion would surprise you, but, to tell the truth, there is nothing remarkable about it at all. Business men in this city do it right along. Their plan is very simple, and requires only one thing. That is good credit. Take the Potter building at Park row and Beekman streets as an example. The ground there cost $1,000,000, and the structure cost as much more. Potter found the opportunity to put up an office building in one of the best locations down town. He could have gone ahead without any difficulty and have paid the entire cost, but he saw a scheme worth two like that. He borrowed what money he could on first mortgages. In that instance it was $600,000. He borrowed it at a small interest, because he was financially solid himself and because the security, being a fire proof building, was the very best. Now all he has to do is to pay that small interest. His income from the building is very large, something like ten per cent net, and so he is not only making a handsome return on the money he has personally invested, but also on the money he has borrowed. In fact, the less of his own money he has invested in the building the more profit he will make, for he can keep on starting buildings with his own capital and use other people’s money to keep them running. By having his own money free he can at the same time be secure at all times if anything unforeseen should occur. Mr. Potter is engaged in this business probably to a greater extent than any other man, for he has buildings throughout the busy parts of New York; but there are many others who imitate him. It requires shrewdness and a keen insight into the value of a location. The same thing applies, of course, to private residences, and many builders who are now prominent have made their money on the same plan that Potter is now pursuing.

Why This Distinction Between Pensioners?

Philadelphia Record.

The soldiers who have dearly earned the pensions they ask for are not solicited to go to Washington and help congress to fix upon the amount they shall receive. But a great outcry has been raised by protectionist congressmen at Washington because the committee on ways and means does not ask the advice of bounty fed interests as to the amount of bounty which shall be paid to them. If legislation is to be determined by the lobby, and what is for the public interest ascertained by consulting the people who get money from the government rather than the tax payers who furnish the money to the government, it would be a thousand times better to let the soldiers fix the amount of their own pensions than to let the “trusts” and other tariff nourished monopolies fix the amount of their bounties. The soldiers are not insensible to the burdens of taxation, and know when they have enough. The tariff infant is as greedy after a hundred years of nursing at the public teat as on the first day he took hold of it.

If.

Philadelphia Times.

This beginning of an investigation has therefore resulted in a practical demonstration that the sugar trust exists, that it is levying a tribute of twice its real capital yearly upon the sugar consumers, and that it defies law, legislatures, courts and public sentiment to prevent its exactions. If congress would abolish the duty on refined sugar, the sugar trust would be a little less defiant and Tweedlike.

THE HISTORY OF A TITLE.

Of the locality of the parcel of real estate, the history of the title of which it is proposed to relate, it may be sufficient to say that it lies in Boston within the limits of the territory ravaged by the great fire of November 9 and 10, 1872. In 1869 this parcel of land was in the undisturbed possession of Mr. William Ingalls, who referred his title to it to the will of his father, Mr. Thomas Ingalls, who died in 1830. Mr. Ingalls, the elder, had been a very wealthy citizen of Boston; and when he made his will, a few years before his death, he owned this one parcel of real estate worth about $50,000, and possessed, in addition, personal property to the amount of between $200,000 and $300,000. By his will he specifically devised this parcel of land to his wife for life, and upon her death to his only child, the William Ingalls before mentioned, in fee, to whom, after directing his executor to pay to two nephews, William and Arthur Jones, the sum of $25,000 each, he gave also the large residue of his property. After the date of his will, however, Mr. Thomas Ingalls engaged in some unfortunate speculations, and upon the settlement of his estate the personal property proved to be barely sufficient for the payment of his debts, and the nephews got no portion of their legacies. The real estate, however, afforded to the widow a comfortable income, which enabled her during her life to support herself in a respectable manner. Upon her death, in 1845, the son entered into possession of the estate, which had gradually increased in value; and he had been enjoying for fifteen years a handsome income derived therefrom, when he was one day surprised to hear that the two cousins whom his father had benevolently remembered in his will had advanced a claim that this real estate should be sold by his father’s executor and the proceeds applied to the payment of their legacies. This claim, now first made thirty years after the death of his father, was of course a great surprise to Mr. Ingalls. He had entertained the popular idea that twenty years’ possession effectually cut off all claims. Here, however, were parties, after thirty years’ undisputed possession by his mother and himself, setting up in 1860 a claim arising out of the will of his father, that will having been proved in 1830. Nor had Mr. Ingalls ever dreamed that the legacies given to his cousins could in any way have precedence over the specific devise of the parcel of real estate to himself. It was, as a matter of common sense, so clear that his father had intended by his will, first to provide for his wife and son, and then to make a generous gift out of the residue of his estate to his nephews, that during the thirty years that had elapsed since his death it had never occurred to any one to suggest any other disposal of the property than that which had been actually made. Upon consulting with counsel, however, Mr. Ingalis^sicsicsic learned that although the time within which most actions might be brought was limited to a specified number of years, there was no such limitation affecting the bringing of an action to recover a legacy. See Mass. Gen. St., c. 97, sec. 22; Kent v. Dunham, 106 Mass., 586, 591; Brooks v. Lynde, 7 Allen, 64, 66. He also learned that as his father’s will gave him, after his mother’s death, the same estate that he would have taken by inheritance had there been no will, the law looked upon the devise to him as void, and deemed him to have taken the estate by descent. What he had supposed to be a specific devise of the estate to him was then a void devise, or no devise at all; and his parcel of real estate, being in the eye of the law simply a part of an undevised residue, was of course liable to be sold for the payment of the legacies contained in his father’s will. It was assets which the executor was bound to apply to that purpose. This exact point had been determined in the then recent case of Ellis v. Page, 7 Cush., 161; and Mr. Ingalis was finally compelled to see the estate, the undisputed possession of which he had enjoyed for so many years, sold at auction by the executor of his father’s will p. 6, col. 2 for $135,000, not quite enough to pay the legacies to his cousins, which legacies, with interest from the expiration of one year after the testator’s death, amounted at the time of the sale in 1862 to $143,000. The Messrs. Jones themselves purchased the estate at the sale, deeming the purchase a good investment of the amount of their legacies, and Mr. Ingalls instituted a system of stricter economy in his domestic expenses, and pondered much on the uncertainty of the law and the mutability of human affairs.

By one of those curious coincidences which so often occur, Messrs. William and Arthur Jones had scarcely begun to enjoy the increased supply of pocket money afforded them by the rents of their newly acquired property when they each received one morning a summons to appear before the justices of the superior court, “to answer unto John Rogers in a writ of entry,” the premises described in the writ being their newly acquired estate.

The Messrs. Jones were at first rather startled by this unexpected proceeding; but as they had, when they received their deed from Mr. Ingalls’s executor, taken the precaution to have tho^sic title to their estate examined by a conveyancer, who had reported that he had carried his examination as far back as the beginning of the century, and had found the title perfectly clear and correct, they took courage and waited for further developments. It was not long, however, before the facts upon which the writ of entry had been founded were made known. It appeared that for some time prior to 1750 the estate had belonged to one John Buttolph, who died in that year, leaving a will in which he devised the estate “to my brother Thomas, and if he should die without issue, then I give the same to my brother William.” Thomas Buttolph had held the estate until 1775, when he died, leaving an only daughter, Mary, at that time the wife of Timothy Rogers. Mrs. Rogers held the estate until 1790, when she died, leaving two sons and a daughter. This estate she devised to her daughter, who subsequently, in 1800, conveyed it to Mr. Thomas Ingalls, before mentioned. Peter Rogers, the oldest son of Mrs. Rogers, was a non-compos, but lived until the year 1854, when he died at the age of 75. He left no children, having never been married. John Rogers, the demandant in the writ of entry, was the eldest son of John Rogers, the second son of Mrs. Mary Rogers, and the title set up by him was substantially as follows: He claimed that under the decision in Hayward v. Howe, [12?] Gray, 49, the will of John Buttolph had given to Thomas Buttolph an estate tail, the law construing the intention of the testator to have been that the estate should belong to Thomas Buttolph and to his issue as long as such issue should exist, but that upon the failure of such issue, whenever such failure might occur, whether at the death of Thomas or at any subsequent time, the estate should go to William Buttolph. It had also been decided in Corbin v. Healy, 20 Pick., 514, 516, that an estate tail does not descend in Massachusetts, like other real estate, to all the children of the deceased owner, in equal shares, but according to the old English rule, exclusively to the oldest son, if any, and to the daughters only in default of any son; and it had been further decided in Hall v. Priest, 6 Gray, 18, 24, that an estate tail cannot be devised or in any way affected by the will of a tenant in tail. Mr. John Rogers claimed then that the estate tail given by the will of John Buttolph to Thomas Buttolph had descended at the death of Thomas to his only child, Mary Rogers; that at her death, instead of passing, as had been supposed at the time, by virtue of her will, to her daughter, that will had been wholly without effect upon the estate, which had, in fact, descended to her oldest son, Peter Rogers. Peter Rogers had indeed been disseized in 1800, if not before, by the acts of his sister in taking possession of and conveying away the estate; but as he was a non compos during the whole of his long life, the statute of limitations did not begin to run against him, and his heir in tail, namely, John Rogers, the oldest son of his then deceased brother, John, was allowed by Mass. Gen. Stat., chap. 154, sec. 5, ten years after his uncle Peter’s death, within which to bring his action. As these ten years did not expire until 1864, this action, brought in 1863, was seasonably commenced; and it was prosecuted with success, judgment in his favor having been recovered by John Rogers in 1865.

The case of Rogers v. Jones was naturally a subject of remark among the legal profession; and it happened to occur to one of the younger members of that profession that it would be well to improve some of his idle moments by studying up the facts of this case [in?] the Suffolk registries of deeds and of probate. Curiosity prompted this gentleman to extend the investigation beyond the facts directly involved in the case, and to trace the title of Mr. John Buttolph back to an earlier date. He found that Mr. Buttolph had purchased the estate in 1720 of one Hosea Johnson, to whom it had been conveyed in 1710 by Benjamin Parsons. The deed from Parsons to Johnson, however, conveyed the land to Johnson simply, without any mention of his “heirs:” and the young lawyer having recently read the case of Buffum v. Hutchinson, 1 Allen, 58, perceived that Johnson took under this deed only a life estate in the granted premises, and that at his death the premises reverted to Parsons or his heirs. The young lawyer, being of an enterprising spirit, thought it would be well to follow out the investigation suggested by his discovery. He found, to his surprise, that Hosea Johnson did not die until 1786, the estate having, in fact, been purchased by him for a residence when he was twenty-one years of age and about to be married. He had lived upon it for twenty years, but had then moved his residence to another part of the city, and sold the estate, as we have seen, to Mr. Buttolph. When Mr. Johnson died, in 1786, at the age of ninety-seven, it chanced that the sole party entitled to the reversion, as heir of Benjamin Parsons, was a young woman, his granddaughter, aged eighteen, and just married. This young lady and her husband lived, as sometimes happens, to celebrate their diamond wedding, in 1861, but died during that year. As she had been under the legal disability of coverture from the time when her right of entry upon the estate, as heir of Benjamin Parsons, first accrued, at the termination of Johnson’s life estate, the provisions of the statutes of limitations, before cited, gave her heirs ten years after her death within which to bring their action. These heirs proved to be three or four people of small means residing in remote parts of the United States. What arrangements the young lawyer made with these parties and also with a Mr. John Smith, a speculating moneyed man of Boston, who was supposed to have furnished certain necessary funds, he was wise enough to keep carefully to himself. Suffice it to say that in [1869?] an action was brought by the heirs of Benjamin Parsons to recover from Rogers the land which he had just recovered from William and Arthur Jones. In this action the plaintiffs were successful, and they had no sooner been put in formal possession of the estate than they conveyed it, now worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars, to the aforesaid John Smith, who was popularly supposed to have obtained in this case, as he usually did in all financial operations in which he was concerned, the lion’s share of the plunder. The Parsons heirs probably p. 6, col. 3 realized very little from the results of the suit, but the young lawyer obtained sufficient to establish him as a brilliant speculator in suburban lands, second mortgages and patent rights. Mr. Smith had been but a short time in possession of his new estate when the great fire of November, 1872, swept over it. He was, however, a most energetic citizen, and the ruins were not cold before he was at work rebuilding. He bought an adjoining lot in order to increase the size of his estate, the whole of which was soon covered by an elegant block, conspicuous on the front of which may now be seen his initials, “J. S.,” cut in the stone.

While the estate which had once belonged to Mr. William Ingalis^sic was passing from one person to another in the bewildering manner we have endeavored to describe, Mr. Ingalls had himself, for a time, looked on in amazement. It finally occurred to him, however, that he would go to the root of this matter of title. He employed a skillful conveyancer to trace the title back, if possible, to the book of possessions. The result of this investigation was that it appeared that the parcel which he had himself owned, together with the additional parcel bought and added to it by Smith, had in 1643 or 1644, when the book of possessions was compiled, constituted one parcel, which was then the “possession” of one “Madid Engle,” who subsequently, in 1660, under the name of “Mauditt Engles,” conveyed it to John Vergoose, on the express condition that no building should ever be erected on a certain portion of the rear of the premises conveyed. Now it had so happened that this portion of these premises had never been built upon before the great fire, but Mr. Smith’s new buildings had covered the whole of the forbidden ground. It was evident, then, that the condition had been broken: that the breach had occurred so recently that the right to enforce a forfeiture was not barred by the statute, and could not be deemed to have been waived by any neglect or delay; and that consequently, under the decision in Grey v. Blanchard, 8 Pick., 284, a forfeiture of the estate for breach of condition could now be enforced if the true parties entitled by descent and by residuary devises under the original “Engle” or “Engles” could only be found. It occurred to Mr. Ingalis, however, that the name, “Engles,” bore a certain similarity in sound to his own; and as he had heard that during the early years after the settlement of this country great changes in the spelling of names had been brought about, he instituted an inquiry into his own genealogy, the result of which was, in brief, that he found he could prove himself to be the identical person entitled, as heir of Madid Engle, to enforce, for breach of the condition in the old deed of 1660, the forfeiture of the estate now in the possession of John Smith.

When Mr. Smith heard of these facts he felt that a retributive Nemesis was pursuing him. He lost the usual pluck and bulldog determination with which he had been accustomed to fight at the law all claims against him, whether just or unjust. He consulted the spirits, and they rapped out the answer that he must make the best settlement he could with Mr. Ingalls, or he would infallibly lose all his fine estate—not only that part which Mr. Ingalls had originally held, and which he had obtained for almost nothing from the heirs of Benjamin Parsons—but also the adjoining parcel, for which he had paid its full value, together with the elegant building which he had erected at a cost exceeding the whole value of the land. Mr. Smith believed in the spirits; they had made a lucky guess once in answering an inquiry from him; he was getting old; he had worked like a steam engine during a long and busy life, but now his health and his digestion were giving out; and when the news of Mr. Ingalls’s claim reached his ears he became, in a word, demoralized. He instructed his lawyer to make the best settlement of the matter that he could, and a settlement was soon effected by which the whole of Mr. Smith’s parcel of land in the burnt district was conveyed to Mr. Ingalls, who gave back to Mr. Smith a mortgage for the whole amount which the latter had expended in the erection of his building, together with what he had paid for the parcel added by him to the original lot. Mr. Smith, not liking to have anything to remind him of his one unfortunate speculation, soon sold and assigned this mortgage to the Massachusetts hospital life insurance company; and as the well-known counsel of that institution has now examined and passed the title, we may presume that there are in it no more flaws remaining to be discovered.

In conclusion, we may say that Mr. William Ingalls, after having been for some ten years a reviler of the law, especially of that portion of it which relates to the title to real estate, is now inclined to look more complacently upon it, being again in undisturbed and undisputed possession of his old estate, now worth much more than before, and in the receipt therefrom of an ample income which will enable him to pass the remainder of his days in comfort, if not in luxury. But, though Mr. Ingalls is content with the final result of the history of his title, those lawyers who are known as “conveyancers” are by no means happy when they contemplate that history, for it has tended to impress upon them how full of pitfalls is the ground upon which they are accustomed to tread, and how extensive is the knowledge and how great the care required of all who travel over it; and they now look more disgusted than ever when, as so often happens, they are requested to “just step over” to the registry and “look down” a title; and are informed that the title is a very simple one, and will only take a few minutes; and that So-and so^sic, “a very careful man,” did it in less than half an hour last year and found it all right, and that his charge was $5.

Thoughts Evoked by a Purely Abstract Consideration of Some of the Conditions Growing Out of the Application of the “Single Tax on Land Values” Proposed by Henry George.

NEW YORK.—A careful reader of THE STANDARD, and in constant communication with many co-believers in the “remedy” proposed by Mr. George, I have, however, noticed that while its justice is unquestioned, the adequacy of the tax to meet social wants is a matter of grave concern to many minds, some holding that the revenue therefrom will fall far short of, while others claim it will vastly exceed, the actual amount needed for public wants.

I have often fancied that the discussion of this question has proceeded along the line of concrete consideration to the almost entire ignoring of the fact that this is a proposition capable of abstract proof.

The attempt to handle a demonstrable abstract truth by adjusting and explaining the perturbing influences that enter into its practical application will always produce a degree of mental confusion and incertitude from which extrication is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible, no matter how brightly the discerning, co-ordinating and eliminating processes of the mind may irradiate the subject, and irrespective of the fact that the individual may bring to his aid the principles of social ethics, philanthropy, religious and political precedent, the doubt will still remain as to whether it may not be “better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.”

Louis F. Post’s reply to an inquirer who desired certain information without giving adequate data, “Why don’t you ask me the length of a clothes line, and I will answer it as easily?” is suggestive of the turgid condition of men’s minds while trying to satisfy themselves by a concrete consideration of social phenomena.

Every circumstance or event is but the effect of antecedent causation, and the environment in which we find ourselves now is merely the resultant condition of the operation of causative processes through long ages, and which are, except in general principles, to-day unrecognizable.

If, then, it is possible to consider a supposed truth in the light of a pure abstraction, as we would geometrical propositions or algebraic problems, the logical mind obtains a relief and composure that gives it the courage of its convictions, and arms it with an irresistible power against its adversaries.

Pure, as distinguished from applied mathematics, deals with qualities and quantities in the abstract. It treats of magnitudes and numbers that are continually undenominatuoinal. If it speaks of points, lines, surfaces and solids, and their relations to numbers, its truths are applicable in practice, whether fields or houses, coal mines or ships, lunar eclipses or tramways, are to be considered.

In this light let us advance to a contemplation of one of the resultant conditions of the application of the single tax on land values, viz.: the qualitative amount^sic of revenue to be derived therefrom. This question has provoked much discussion, and varying opinions are entertained by George’s followers, with the preponderance in favor of the belief that the revenue will be largely in excess of public wants.

Theorem: The single tax on land values as proposed by Henry George will be neither more nor less than absolutely adequate to provide for social wants.

As in all sciences, so in social economy, the necessity exists for an exhaustive and never varying definition of terms. We must, therefore, explain what we mean by the terms land values and social wants and adhere strictly to our meaning.

Land values are certain values which land acquires as a result of the progression of society from the indefinite, incoherent condition of primitive homogeneity to the increasingly definite and coherent heterogeneity that marks each successive step of the progress, and which may be lessened or lost by a retrogression. (Land being understood to mean the whole available material universe, as well as natural forces external to man himself.)

Social wants are to be considered as dual in their nature; and comprising requirements (based on common necessities) and conveniences (based on common desires), and are the result of the same progress of society as stated in preceding paragraphs, and may be lessened or lost in the same manner. (Note that requirements must, while conveniences may, arise.)

These definitions may be considered as basic axioms of the economic science, but must be accepted as necessary postulates. The correlation, therefore, of land values and social wants is at once apparent, as both are the effects of the same causes acting in parallel lines, or at least in the same general direction, and the measure of their growth of necessity relative (if not proportional), although the adequacy of the first to meet the second may not at once be patent to the mind not trained to think in principles and make intuitive leaps. It will, therefore be necessary to bridge the chasm and perfect a syllogism.

The extremes of mathematical parallelism are the tangent lines at diametrically opposite points to a circle whose radius is infinity, and the coincidence of the tangents when the radius is reduced to zero. If, therefore, we can reduce the distance between the two lines on which land values and social wants progress to zero, fix their beginning at the same point, and equalize the ratio of advances, we will have the quod erat demonstrandum.

To fully accomplish this we must enunciate other axioms or postulates, the first of which is that the standard of measure of land values is the same as that of social wants. In other words, the value of the opportunity is paid for (no matter who pays it or who receives it, the ethics of the subject having no place in this discussion) in the same currency in which the community pays for the satisfaction of its social wants. Human labor is the medium, and the unit of value in exchange the standard.

The next axioms or postulates that must be brought forward are the facts that increase of land values produces an increment of social wealth (without any respect to the increase or decrease of individual wealth which may be affected by disturbing influences of arbitrary social adjustments) and that a measurable decrement of social wealth is effected by the dissipation of the same to satisfy social wants.

The question, then, is to prove the equivalence of this increment and decrement in an hypothetical condition of society where progression is normal, i. e., unaffected by arbitrary social or individual interference, and the coincidence of the lines becomes apparent.

Force acts on the line of the least resistance. Man strives to gratify his desires by the least exertion. The dynamic and economic laws are the same.

Without society there are no social wants or land values. The initial point in the progress of formation of men into society is common therefore to the growth of both, the opportunities at once becoming of value, and the need of social adjustments arising.

As man will not consent to pay (to meet p. 6, col. 5 social requirements) more for the opportunity than the excess of what he can produce over and above his self-employment at a valueless opportunity, but being gregarious in his nature will consent to do that much, with a strong probability of his willingness to pay an extra amount for social conveniences, the value of the opportunity is measured by the degree of social advantages it can afford his gregarious demands, and the increment of land values (measured by the same standard) will be identical as far as requirements are concerned (if not slightly in excess of in regard to conveniences) with the decrement of social wealth to maintain these advantages.

As men may consent to a further levy on their industry to supply social conveniences, land values will advance to meet the same, and it is even possible that, quantitatively considered, the increment of social wealth may at times be either greater or less than the expenditure for social wants; but the tendency must be practically to an equality, which in theory is absolute.

The initial points the direction of the movement^sic, and the ratio of progress being identical the lines will coincide.

Note.—By social wealth must be understood not aggregate wealth, but that wealth which does not inhere in an individual, but is the common property of all.

Illustration of the Progressions.

A———B
      C———D

Let A represent the point at which land values begin, and that their progression is along the line A B. Let C represent the point at which social wants begin and that their progression is along the line C D.

As land values and social wants are produced by the progression from and to similar conditions of society, the direction of the lines must be parallel or approximately so, if not coincident, and will assume this relation.

A———B
C———D

the lines merely indicating the direction and not the ratio of progress or equivalence.

The initial point in both must coincide, as land values and social wants begin to be produced only at the point where common desires spring into existence. The lines beginning then at the same point and having same direction must coincide or one be lost in the other and will assume this appearance, if the equivalence is not immediately patent:

     B
A————————D
     C

As men will not pay more for social requirements (based on necessities) than the excess of their returns from the opportunity over what they can make at a valueless opportunity, the points B and D must have the same location and the lines will coincide thus:

A     B
 —————
C     D

As men may consent to pay more for the opportunity to obtain conveniences (based on desires) the effect would be to extend the point B of the L V line:

A
 ———D———B
C

But as the decrement of social wants to gratify the convenience must keep place with^sic the desire, the tendency is for B and D to again approach each other and the lines to coincide. Thus:

A     B
 —————
C     D

READ GORDON.

Master Workman Hugh McGarvey Describes the Situation—More Money Paid for Royalties Than is Paid Altogether to Miners—The Knowledge of the Remedy Spreading.

Mr. Hugh McGarvey of the Lehigh coal region, master workman of district assembly 87, K. of L., visited New York several days since to solicit aid for the sufferers from the late strike. In an interview with him a representative of THE STANDARD elicited some information which ought to give courage to single tax men all over the country. Mr. McGarvey said that the collieries were starting up as fast as possible, but that 700 of the men who had gone back to work had been blacklisted and discharged for having taken too active a part in the strike. “Not many new men had come into the region,” said Mr. McGarvey, “because it was well known that public opinion was very strong against the interference of outsiders.”

“What will become of the 700 men who have been discharged?” asked THE STANDARD man.

“They will go elsewhere to seek work.”

“Where will they go?”

“To the Schuylkill or Wyoming regions.”

“Have not the Schuylkill and Wyoming collieries already a full quota of hands?”

“Yes, but men are always getting dissatisfied or discharged, and the idlers take their chances.”

“What per cent of the whole number of miners does this shifting element constitute?”

“About one-third.”

“Then for every two men who are at work there is practically always one idler standing by bidding for their places?”

“That is just it.”

“Then the upshot of the whole business is that a miner can now dig coal in Pennsylvania only on the terms fixed by the owners of the coal mines.”

“That is exactly it, and the mine owners are making the terms worse every year.”

“What, then, do the miners or their organizations propose to do about it?”

“Well, that is the question. The more intelligent knights are beginning to see the dog in the coal pit. They are beginning to see that, while labor organizations and strikes may and do check the encroachments of the mine owners on the mine workers, the miners will never be able to get all that they earn until the dog in the coal pit is routed out—that is, until any miner can dig coal, without asking the leave of any one, on the same terms as can Mr. Austin Corbin or Mr. Anybody else. There is no place in this world,” continued Mr. McGarvey, “which so plainly points to the necessity of the common appropriation of land values by the single tax as the anthracite coal regions.

“Here are some facts which will show what I mean. The anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania, which practically contain the entire supply of anthracite in the world, cover about 2,500 square miles. There are employed in mining this coal only something over one hundred thousand men and boys. The royalty paid to the men who claim to own the mines amounts to more than the aggregate wages of all the mine workers. That is enough in itself to set the people thinking. Why, here is one firm, Coxe Bros. & Co., who own thousands of acres of coal lands and lease thousands of acres more, who are now getting all the miners they want at about forty per cent of the current wages in other collieries. Men who have nothing to eat, who live in company houses, on company land, who haven’t the means to take them away if they wanted to go, and wouldn’t know where to go if they could get them, and who can’t work a lick without the permission of the owner of everything above and beneath the surface of the ground, will work, temporarily at least, for almost any price. There are so many miners in that state of abject poverty that Messrs. Coxe Bros. & Co. have little trouble in getting the services of some 4,000 mine workers on their own terms, and of course the effect is to more or less demoralize wages in all the collieries. The situation is very bad, but these strikes are educating the workers to see more plainly where the real trouble is.”

The coal miners of the Lehigh region have made an appeal to the working people of the United States for relief of the victims of the late strike, and they request that all remittances be made to Mr. John J. Meighan, treasurer, Freeland, Pa.

TENANT’S HOUSE AND LANDLORD’S HOME.

On a winter’s evening, some fifteen months ago, the members of Widow McTabb’s household were sitting in the comfortable little parlor of a modest house in an entirely respectable though not fashionable part of Toronto, namely, in Lake street.

Mrs. McTabb’s family consists of herself, two sons and three daughters. The elder son, Jack, earns good wages in a piano factory. The younger, Tom, a lad as yet, is an amateur carpenter, with a reputation of putting the house in disorder daily. The daughters are young women of good education, good manners and good looks, reflecting credit on the great middle class in which they move, and quite capable and fully prepared to adorn any circle of the upper class to which matrimonial fate may lead them.

Jack and his mother were seated by themselves near the open grate, talking of business matters, and the perennial business topic with them was the landlord and his intentions.

“Miller is going to raise the rents in May,” said Mrs. McTabb, her tone indicative of spirits somewhat depressed. “He’s hinted as much to the McDonalds next door—and its such a bother^sic and expense moving.”

“Yes,” said Jack reflectively, “and where can we move to and do better? All the talk in our shop is that rents are going up ten per cent in the spring, and living in the suburbs means paying your money to the car companies instead of the landlord and losing your time besides.”

“I declare,” rejoined Mrs. McTabb wrathily, “landlords are the meanest set on the face of the earth. Miller is charging us just twice what the house brought when it was new, sixteen years ago, when the Rosses lived here. Mrs. Munro told me this morning that Miller thinks of making a feed store next door. A nice thing to have bales of hay on the sidewalk and a big bunch of straw hanging out on a stick right against our front door for a sign. We’ll have to pay double insurance and be burnt in our beds besides, may be. That old miser of a Miller has never done a thing to this house since we came into it four years ago; not a latch nor a lock will he fix; we’ve had plastering to repair, and we’ve had doors and window sashes to ease over and over again, just because they were miserable green stuff to begin with. When he raised the rent two years ago—the week after he saw that nice new lilac paper on the parlor walls—I made up my mind he would never raise it on us again. Why should he? He’s getting four profits on his investment now. And me a widow, too.”

Mrs. McTabb’s eyes moistened.

“Well, well, mother, that is all very fine, but what can we do if property is going up all the time? We can’t live in a smaller house.”

“No, we can not live in a smaller house. I would like to have a larger house, with a room in it for Tom, that wouldn’t be so small and dark as that closet up stairs where he sleeps now.”

Just then the door bell rang loudly, with an unmistakable tone of the post office about it. The energetic officialism of one conscious of wearing her majesty’s cloth was announced in the opening clang, and continued to assert itself as the vibrations gradually died away. Mrs. McTabb went to the door herself, and brought in a large blue tinted legal envelope. Brushing from it the snowflakes that told that the weather was no respecter of government officials, she opened it, and drew from it a sheet of legal cap. on which^sic were printed in the character of the type writer a dozen of very business like lines.

Mrs. McTabb read aloud the contents of the letter, including the formalisms of heading and signature. They were to the effect that Hawk & Factum, solicitors and counselors at law, begged to say that Mrs. McTabb’s loan on mortgage, for $8,000, on property owned by their clients, Willis & Son, bearing 5½ per cent interest, would not be renewed after maturity. 1st May proximo. except^sic at the reduced rate of 5 per cent, money being abundant at 5 per cent, and in round amounts could be obtained on terms even lower.

“Jack, look at that!” she cried, as she finished reading, handing the formidably legal looking document to her son, who read it himself to make sure there was no mistake, while Mrs. McTabb’s already troubled face took on a shade of deeper anxiety. She didn’t like curt business communications from hard hearted law- yers, and what she disliked much more was a loss of the half of one per cent on the bulk of her little competence, which was what the $8,000 represented. Her husband’s life had been insured for that amount, and after his death, five or six years previously, the insurance agent had recommended that she seek an investment through his legal friends, Hawk & Factum; and now, she thought, they took the earliest occasion to cut down her interest. While Jack was reading the lawyer’s note she calculated on what her income would now be, with her diminished interest on the mortgage, and the little something coming from a few gas shares and a few hundreds in a savings bank, and before she was half finished had convinced herself that she was a very poor widow indeed, besides being oppressed as a tenant. She looked at Jack while he thoughtfully gazed at the letter, and remembered his large contributions from his wages to meet the household expenses, and, though these were already her main reliance, she sincerely hoped they would not be made heavier.

Jack seemed to be reading and re-reading the lines of type writing. At length he broke out—

“Mother, let me tell you what you might do. Property is going up all the time, and now we’re told by these lawyers that it is cheaper than ever to borrow money on mortgage. Why not buy fifteen or sixteen thousand dollars’ worth of property, paying half cash, and getting Hawk & Factum to borrow the other half for you at five per cent? What’s the use

p. 7, col. 2

in paying rent all our lives and having nothing to show for it?”

“I wouldn’t like to owe anything on property, Jack. Why wouldn’t it be best to buy no more than I can pay cash for?”

“Because you will make a profit on the money you borrow. You see you pay only five per cent for it, but you lease your houses so as to pay you seven or eight after the outlay for repairs.”

“But suppose any of the houses couldn’t be let?”

“Small fear of that, mother, if you buy in a good locality not too far out from Main street. And then you have always the chance of your property rising in value, which puts money in your pocket you don’t have to earn.”

As they pursued this vein of conversation, the troubled expression left Mrs. McTabb’s honest face, and the world, including Hawk & Factum, did not seem so bad, after all. And Jack, as he unfolded his scheme for increasing the family income, grew excited.

. . . . . . .

Landlord Miller fulfilled Widow McTabb’s expectations. On the legal date he gave her formal notice of a rise of three dollars a month in the rent of her house. She had her reply ready; she told him she intended to quit.

Mrs. McTabb had always lived in a rented house. Incited by Jack, she was now determined to gratify the longing she had entertained for many years to own a home. Sometimes with one daughter and again with another, she talked over her project and planned as to what they would have if they once found themselves in their own house. With one of them accompanying her, she frequently went to the business district of the city and climbed up many pairs of stairs that led to real estate agencies situated high up in tall houses. Fortunately her caution and her energy in investigating many of the properties held on sale led her to a knowledge of the hollowness of the average real estate agents’ description of his prospective sources of commissions. “A central location” proved to be an alley—but, be it admitted, near the post office. “Constructed with special care” was a phrase employed in describing bulging brick walls, restrained by iron rods and conspicuous bolts. “Modern in all its appointments” brought the weary widow to a row that, while built but a few years, was tumbling to pieces because of cheap bricklaying and plastering. But after much inspection of structures rat-eaten and ramshackle, of houses in neighborhoods which had been rendered undesirable with the appearance of livery stables, markets and railway tracks—property rarely retained by buyers of residences, and hence the staple of the business of real estate agents—Mrs. McTabb was attracted by a row of four medium size brick houses. She called a convention of Jack and Tom and the daughters, and after due and weighty deliberation the brick row was adjudged to be about what was wanted. The houses were not new, but they were well built. They stood in Elm street, a locality where it was likely they would always be let. One house would answer well for the family mansion, and it would be a good thing to have their tenants close at hand. The one they picked out was larger than the house they were leaving—large enough to give Tom not only a sunny bedroom, but a garret where he could set up a lathe and make as much mess as he liked with it and his planes and chisels. The price of the row, $16,000, suited exactly the calculations Jack had made. The houses, of course, would need some repairs at once.

With the kind offices of Hawk & Factum and a real estate agent and the obliging seller of the houses, Mrs. McTabb’s eight-thousand mortgage passed away among the things that had had their uses, and the brick row, passing into her ownership, became the object of her hourly thoughts.

Long before it was time to move to their new home, Mrs. McTabb had formed the habit of putting on her bonnet and going with Susannah, or Lucy, or Mary, over to Elm street, and looking at the houses of which she was to take formal possession. They gained steadily on her affections. She felt an increasing satisfaction in contemplating them. She admired the fine, deep back yards, the trim brick sheds, the tree shaded sidewalks. She observed again and again how near they were to the two leading lines of street cars. She liked to think how she could say to any one who might wish to rent one of her houses that close by, and yet not too close by, were good markets and large grocery stores, and that if a housekeeper ran short of a yard of calico or a spool of silk she could buy it in the next block. Mrs. McTabb already felt the tickle of landlord’s pride.

The leases of two of the houses ran out in May. As the family would then move into one of them, it left only the other for them to let. Mrs. McTabb felt sure that the other two were let too cheap—far too cheap. However, she decided to do the best she could with the one that was to be vacated. She inquired as to what other house owners in the locality were going to do in re-leasing property. She ascertained that in at least one or two cases $30 a month was being asked for houses that had been bringing only $25. The information aroused mingled feelings—joy at her bargain in those houses; deep, heartfelt regret that two of her tenants had leases for two years longer at the old rates. She made a mental note that she would never give long leases.

When Jack, at his mother’s request, brought home from the printers a “House to let” placard, there was a long, earnest discussion as to what rent should be asked for the house soon to fall vacant.

“Mother,” said Jack, “don’t you think five dollars a month too much of a jump? Isn’t it taking advantage of people to make them pay sixty dollars more a year than the house has ever brought before?”

“Jack, don’t be silly like your poor, dear father before you. Take what you can get. People wouldn’t pay thirty if they could get such a nice, handy house anywhere else for less. Property is going up; they say it is going up wonderfully; and why shouldn’t the rents of our tenants go up, too?”

The girls giggled. They hardly knew whom to side with. They had been tenants

p. 7, col. 3

so long that the feeling against high rents had not yet entirely left them. But they were reconciled at thinking how nice it was to own houses and be getting more for them every year.

Next morning Jack tacked up the placard, “House to let; $30 a month. Apply at No. — Lake street.”

Within three days Mrs. McTabb had so many applicants that her views with respect to tenancy underwent still further development. She almost regretted her moderation in fixing her rent at the low figure of $30. As it was, she felt she could take the choice of her applicants.

Two of the persons who called on her were the wives of officials of the Canadian Pacific road. Their visit served to remind Mrs. McTabb that that railroad was doing a great deal for the prosperity of Toronto—an additional reason why stiff rents should be charged generally, and surely houses in such a good street as Elm street would be more in demand than ever. Both the ladies, however, had children, and Mrs. McTabb consequently declined to lease her house to them. She could not have youngsters breaking the plaster and pulling the blinds and banisters to pieces. To be sure, Jack and Tom and the girls had been little once, but they had been such well behaved children, and had been so well looked after, that they had never damaged any landlord’s walls, or banisters, or blinds.

Another caller was a refined, neatly dressed widow, who came to see Mrs. McTabb one morning about the house. She impressed Mrs. McTabb with the elegance and cultivation of her manners, but when Mrs. McTabb learned that she was dependent on two sons employed in Quebec in a bank, and that she had an invalid daughter, Mrs. McTabb said that other parties were applying for the house, that she had partly promised it to them, that she would see about it and let the lady know in a day or two.

When the lady had bowed herself out with old time French grace, Mrs. McTabb said, meditatingly, to Susannah:

“I don’t want a widow in my house that hasn’t good private means. Suppose her sons die or lose their positions, what’ll become of her? I might have the house thrown on my hands in the fall, or the winter may be, just when I can’t afford it. No, the best people for the house would be a newly married couple. They’d fix it up nicely, put new furniture in, and wouldn’t have any children to knock things about—not for two or three years anyway.”

As a matter of fact, Mrs. McTabb’s house was rented by just such a couple as she lay in wait for—well to do young people, not too exacting.

In due time Mrs. McTabb moved into her own house. Tom hugely enjoyed his attic work shop, and was not insensible to the superiority of the sunny front bed room over the little closet in the house where they had been tenants. Jack was as much delighted as his mother with the new home—their own property. He consulted with some of his shop mates about improving the house. After ’protracted^sic and often excited conferences, he concluded he would make certain repairs that seemed to him and his mother essential to what they would regard as a home. He calculated on putting $400 into fixing up the place in pretty fair style.

Jack remembers now how one piece of fixing up gave rise to the necessity for another. The first story floors had sagged somewhat, and he decided to run a brick wall across the basement to remedy that. When the bricklayer came and tore up the basement floor to begin his work, there was such a hideous revelation of damp, rotten wood that Jack was reluctantly obliged to take the bricklayer’s advice and keep both damp and rats out by having a concrete floor put down. To lay this properly not only took a good while, to the affliction of Mrs. McTabb and the derangement of her culinary arrangements—it took money. Then nearly every bit of the basement wall and ceiling had to be replastered. While all this was going on, the boss plasterer pointed out to Jack that the basement windows ought to be enlarged, they were so much smaller than those of new houses.

“Better make one job of it while you are at it,” he said.

So, after some little hesitation, Jack called in a stone mason and the stone courses which rose above the basement lintels were knocked out to make windows a foot higher than the old ones. The new windows themselves looked well, and Jack thought that they ought to, considering the new frames and the glazing cost nearly twenty dollars. But viewed from the street they caused the house front to appear patchy. A coat of paint for the exterior of the house was recommended as a remedy for that imperfection. So next week the painters came and set to work renewing the cream colored paint on the brick front. Jack, with a sense of proprietorship and for the purpose of overseeing things, one morning mounted up one of the long ladders of the painters until he was on a level with the eaves of the roof. The rain water leader he noticed was half full of dust and dirt. In cleaning this out he brought to light a number of holes in the leader, and in digging about on the roof close by he found that it was none too new.

On making these discoveries Jack grew a trifle nervous. When he had promised his mother that he would put her house in nice order for her he had no idea that anything more than “slight repairs” would be needed. He had not been aware of the state of thorough unwholesomeness and neglect into which the average dwelling is allowed to lapse, nor of the fact that houses built to lease are often run up regardless of the health or comfort of their occupants.

However, Jack had courage. Seeing that he was in for it, he had the leader well soldered and the roof repaired, and he determined to make a thorough job of it in all parts of the house. In restoring the parlor floors to a level the carpenter’s jackscrew had brought down square yards of plastering. Jack looked at this trouble square in the face and told the girls he had a job for them. If they would wash the paper off the parlor walls he would have them repaired and tinted and a pretty fresco pattern painted on the ceil-

p. 7, col. 4

ing. This proposal was received with enthusiasm, and acted upon in a very few days. Jack went right along, effecting other and more important improvements. He had the plumbing inspected. It was found grossly defective. He had it put in good order, with the drain pipes left uncovered and accessible throughout their whole course. Winter in Canada is both long and cold. Jack, knowing that a hot water furnace was much better for heating a house than stoves, had a furnace and the necessary piping put in.

“There won’t be any carrying coals up stairs nor bringing ashes down stairs. The saving on coals will more than pay interest on the expense,” Jack said.

Tom, handy with his carpenter’s tools, built a coal bin under the basement staircase, just opposite the furnace door. When it was finished, it held six tons of good anthracite, with six more piled up out in the shed, bought in time to escape the usual advance of price in early winter.

Tom not only built the coal bin, but made ironing boards, clothes horses and dough trays. He made wardrobe fronts for the wall recesses in the bed rooms. He framed a lot of pictures that had been accumulating for years and that the family had never cared to use to adorn a rented house.

All done, Jack, although he had spent a little more than three times the $400 he had originally estimated as the cost of “fixing up” the house, did not grudge the money, for all that it had nearly exhausted his account in the savings bank. He never was tired of admiring the size and handsomeness of the old-fashioned rooms. He ceased to talk about going to the states in search of better wages. The girls were as much pleased with the new house as were their brothers. They clubbed their small savings and bought a pretty portiere to hang between the front and back parlors. Their employments with needle and thread were soon chiefly directed to mak- ing mantel draperies, curtain bands and the other ornamental things for a house in which the feminine mind delights. The girls and their brothers are attached to “home” now as they never were before.

And their mother, good Mrs. McTabb, what of her? In her little back room off the parlor, her “office” as she calls it, she keeps her books. The item for repairs to her tenants’ houses is not a large one. Her views as to what a landlord ought to do for a tenant have undergone some modification since the old days in Lake street. She feels that she can’t afford to pay away every dollar of rent for repairs. Tenants are always asking that money be spent on a house. It is only the other day that she and Mr. Miller, owner of the Lake street house, had a sympathetic talk about the aggressions and unwarrantable expectations of selfish tenants. In a small book kept on her desk are a few figures showing her forecast for next year’s account in connection with her real estate:

1889, three houses at $33 a month, year………… $1,188 ” Interest on mortgage of $8,000, five per cent……………………………. $400 Taxes……………………………. 180 Slight repairs……………………………. 20 —— 600 —— $588

The Widow McTabb softly murmurs when she looks at this entry:

“That’s better—than five—per cent—on mortgages! I’ve this—house besides. Thirty-three dollars for—Elm street next year—will be little enough. Slight—repairs will do.”

W. H. RAE.

A Plan for Protection.

Chicago Times.

The low prices realized for the animals in a menagerie sold out at auction in St. Louis indicate the claims of another infant industry for protection against pauper competition in the jungles of Africa. When a hyena can be bought for $42, a zebra for $195 and monkeys rattled off at $12.50 apiece, what encouragement is there for farmers of the northwest to engage in raising live stock? It is a matter which Mr. Randall and Mr. Blaine should look to.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

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As there is much demand for information about the Australian system, City Chamberlain William M. Ivins 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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[Advertisement] HENRY GEORGE’S WORKS.

[Advertisement] NEW PUBLICATIONS. THE LAND AND LABOR LIBRARY.

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:

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Address 5 New Bridge street, London, E. C.

A Worker in the Cause.

Mr. C. Hardin of Contoocook, N. H., is doing efficient work for the cause of industrial emancipation. In a series of letters to the Kearsarge Independent and Times of Warner, N. H., he is telling some home truths about tariff plunder and land monopoly, and has succeeded in compelling the advocates of the protective idea to rush into print and aid the cause of freedom by illustrating the weakness of the arguments against it. The extracts which we print below will give an idea of Mr. Hardin’s work. He is making the Independent and Times a mighty interesting paper:

Americans should not forget that free trade is free trade. Freedom in our commercial relations is just as important as freedom in other things, and should be guaranteed by our government as much as our freedom in other things. A trade is an exchange of something which is of less value to us for that which is of greater value. This is true of both parties to the trade. It is a part of a man’s liberty to be permitted to make such a transaction, and the more frequently and freely the better. So-called “protection” is an interference with this principle. It adds to the gains of one class, but it compels other classes to pay the difference. It is a wedge driven horizontally through society which, while it elevates some, pushes others down just as much and separates the individuals and interests of a country whose welfare and strength depend upon their being united.

We hear it said that practice, not theory, should decide the question. Well it is already decided before our eyes. The different states of the United States have no “protection” from each other and there is no tariff on goods brought from one state into another, yet New England farmers need just as much protection from the rich grain fields of the west as New England manufacturers do from the “pauper labor of Europe.”

. . . Of all things, land lies at the bottom. The essence of slavery lies in the monopolization of the land by private ownership. Chattel slavery could never have existed without private ownership of land as a basis. The name has been given to ownership of persons, but the real thing belongs to private ownership of land. We have pretty well learned in this country the iniquity of the one; to learn the still greater iniquity of the other is our next lesson.

The Speculator’s Prayer.

NEW YORK.—I wish to call attention to a remark which I heard at last Saturday’s prayer meeting in John street. When opportunity was afforded for general remarks at the close of the services, a gentleman arose hurriedly saying that he had come to the meeting to thank God for helping him out of his business troubles. He had speculated and had succeeded beyond all expectations. He cared not what might be said of this, as he believed, after prayerful meditation, that it was just as legitimate to hold grain in bulk in Chicago as it was to hold land on the prairies, and he wanted the prayers of all present that he might make a proper use of this blessing of God. At this there seemed to flash through the audience a sensation of pious admiration and prayerfulness, but there was no criticism of the logic of his remarks, though more than one minister of the gospel was present.

SAMUEL TEMPLETON.

p. 8, col. 4

What is the Trust?

For some time I have been thinking over a definition for the new thing which has entered the economic world, namely, the Trust. It has come so suddenly to the front and has taken the throne so abruptly that it staggers one. But one peculiarity about it is that though it is an all powerful ruler, yet when one wishes to present an humble petition to his majesty one finds the throne vacant, while the power of the monarch is constantly and severely felt. For some time I tried to aptly describe this new power. To help myself I defined a corporation as that which in the world of industry exists with as little body as is compatible with existence in any fixed place. But what is a trust? It is something which has taken to itself all the powers of the old corporations, leaving behind, however, whatever little mite of body localized them. It is nowhere, yet it is almost everywhere. It is in the coal by which I am warming myself, in the oil that now lights me, in the sugar with which I sweeten my coffee and in the pencil with which I write. It is now here, now there, but if need be it is not here, not there. It is seemingly like a geometric point, a most real thing, yet without length or breadth or thickness. It is force unlocalized and which cannot be localized—sheer energy, the most ethereal thing in the world of industry. It is like Ariel in the tempest, its voice is heard while it is unseen—an unseen power doing a wonderful amount of mischief. It is something between being and non-being, just on the border, while its language is that of Hamlet in his memorable soliloquy, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” and it is or is not, just as occasion demands. It laughs at boycotts and strikes, defies even free trade, and demands for its destruction that most just and radical means, the taking of the full rental value of the lands and resources which it unjustly claims as its dominion. Thus and thus only can it be reached, and the land freed of the new and most soulless and conscienceless of all tyrants.

ALBERT WALKLEY.