I Fallacies of Henry George | i;XFOSED AND REl-UTEl). THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY I OF THE LAND QUESTION. By REV. EDW. A. HIGGINS, S. J. I'l t siilent St. Xavier College, Cincinnati. PRICE, 10 Cts. Address all Communications to ST. XAVIER conkere^nce:, Box 167, Cincinnati, u. Fallacies of Henry George EXPOSED AND REFUTED. THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF THE LAND QUESTION. By REV. EDW. A. HIGGINS, S. J. President St. Xavier College, Cincinnati. CINCINNATI : Press of Keating & Co., 130 Walnut Street. 1887. A. M. D. G, PREFACE. To the Members of the St, Xavier Conference : Gentlemen: — This lecture was in substance prepared during the winter as one in a course of post-graduate lectures. Since then several articles have appeared in the magazines and periodicals covering portions of the same ground, and an active propagandism has been carried on by Mr. George and his followers, keeping up the public interest in the question. At jour request and under jour auspices I delivered it in the Odeon, the daj after Mr. George's chief lieutenant had preached the " New Crusade " to the working- men of this citj, and vou have since asked me to publish it as a refutation of Mr. George's errors on the ownership of land. The opinion so generallj expressed bj those who heard the lecture, that the argument was clear and easilj followed, leads me to believe that its publication maj do further good, bj exposing before a larger public, Mr. George's fallacies, and establishing the true basis of ownership. If its sale enables you to help the destitute poor, whom it is jour privilege to assist, I shall feel happj to have had a share in jour charitable work. I send jou the lecture for publication, and subscribe mjself. Your friend, EDW. A. HIGGINS, S.J. St. Xavier College. Copyrighted 1887, By Rev, Edw. A. Htggins, S. J, Cincinnati. Ladies and Gentlemen : — There can be no doubt that we are in the imme- diate presence of a great social problem, which every year becomes more urgent and more clamorous for solution. Through all the organs of public opinion we catch the ominous mutterings of a dis- contented multitude. The laboring classes are all astir. Sideb}^ side with the movement of Socialism,, which is revolutionary and destructive, which aims at the forcible reconstruction of society and the forc- ible redistribution of wealth by the State, there exists an agitation, serious but not yet violent — a genuine labor agitation, quite distinct from Socialism. The working classes are undoubtedly discontented. They have grievances. They have burdens to bear which should be more equally shared by the other and more fortunate portion of the community. They do not ask favors ; they demand justice. To obtain redress of grievances, and to remedy abuses which undoubtedly exist, they are combining and agitating. They are organizing, as they have a right to do, for co-operation, for self-protection, for the enforcement of their rights. What shall the community or State do in answer to their demands? THIS IS THE SOCIAL QUESTION OF THE DAY. How it presents itself in the United States is thus described by our American social agitator and re- 4 THE PHILOSOPHY former, Mr. Henry George: "The same social difficulties [he says] apparent on the other side of the Atlantic, are beginning to appear among us. Only the shadow of power belongs to the people ; the substance is being grasped, and wielded by the wealthy speculators, the bandit chiefs of the stock ex- change. In any matter in which they are interested, the little finger of the great corporations is thicker than the loins of the people * * * What does legal equality amount to when the fortunes of some citizens can only be estimated in hundreds of millions, whilst others, just as good, if not better, have nothing? Under present conditions [Mr. George goes on] material progress is developing two diverse tenden- cies, two opposing currents. On the one side the tendency of increasing population and of all im- provement in the arts of production, is to build up enormous fortunes, to wipe out the intermediate classes, and to crowd down the masses to a dead level of lower wages and greater dependence. On the other side, by bringing men closer together, by stimulating thought, by creating new v\^ants, by arousing new ambitions, the tendency of modern progress is to make the masses discontented with their condition, and to feel bitterlj- its injustice." The lot of the wage workers in our cities is be- coming more and more precarious and wretched. Crowded and crushed together in the great centers of production, they are forced by free competition in wages to accept the lowest ; by low wages the}' are compelled to huddle together in foul tenement houses ; the children are driven into factories ; women and girls wear out their lives over machinery, and, withal. OF THE LAND QUESTION. 5 the family barely keeps its head above starvation. " If w^ork fails, they are thrown on public charity. How long will this be borne? The masses have come to know their strength. Already there are signs of a flood which may soon rise to fury." Should there not be a more just division of profits, a more equal distribution of wealth ? How can this be accomplished ? BEHOLD THE SOCIAL PROBLEM. How shall it be solved? Who shall devise a remedy? We shall put aside all the old methods of sociology from Plato to Adam Smith, all the recog- nized doctrines of political economy from Aristotle to Malthus, which undertake to deal with this question, and shall confine ourselves at present to the theory proposed by Mr. Henry George. This social philosopher, after a long and anxious study of the question, has discovered that the true explanation of the great poverty and misery among the working classes, the true reason of the unequal and unfair distribution of wealth is to be found in the PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND. Let Mr. George state the case himself: "The wide-spreading social evils which everywhere oppress men amid an advancing civilization, spring from a great primary wrong, the appropriation, as the ex- clusive property of some men, of the land on which and from which all must live. From this fundamental injustice flow all the injustices which distort and endanger modern development, which condemn the producer of wealth to poverty, and pamper the non- 6 THE PHILOSOPHY producer in luxury ; which rear the tenement house beside the palace, plant the brothel behind the church, and compel us to build prisons as we open new schools/' If this theory be true, if individual ownership of land be the original, primeval cause of poverty and all its attendant woes, then the remed}' is as plain and simple as it is bold and direct. Let all private ownership of land be abolished. As the land was originall}^ meant for all the people, let it be given back to the people, or, rather, to the State, which is the agent of the people. For the use of the land let the occupier pay rent to the State ; this shall be the one only tax levied by the State, all others must be abolished. This will at once put a stop to all the evils of landlordism ; to all the abuses of land-speculation. It will throw open to settlement and cultivation millions upon millions of acres now held unimproved ; it will give a home and means of livelihood to a great multitude at a merely nominal rent. The remedy then for all the evils of poverty is to NATIONALIZE THE LAND ; wipe out as with a sponge all private titles to land in cguntr}^ or city. Make the land, as by nature it was meant to be, the property of the whole community or State. To confiscate it is only to take one's own. To compensate land-owners for the loss of their land would be as preposterous as to compensate thies^es for the restitution of their spoil. Perhaps the position of Mr. George will be better understood from the words of his most distinguished follower : OF THE LAND QUEvSTION. 7 WORDS OF DR. MC GLYNN. " I have taught [he says] and I shall continue to teach as long as I live, that land is rightfully the property of the people in common ; and that private ownership of land is against natural justice, no mat- ter by what civil or ecclesiastical laws it may be sanctioned. And I would bring about instantly, if I could, such change of laws, all the world over, as would confiscate private property in land, without one penny of compensation to the miscalled owners:" for [says Mr. George] private properly m la7id zsYodderyy and renl exacted by landlords is theft. The reasons Mr. George offers for these strong assertions are directed to prove that land is of such a a nature as to be incapable of ever rightfully becoming private property, and for any one to appropriate land as his own is against natural justice. This is the issue I propose to examine : THE JUSTICE OR INJUSTICE OF LANDED PROPERTY. If it is unjust, then restitution should be made. If it is just, then Mr. George's proposal to confiscate it to the State is a proposal to rob one class for the benefit of another. By this test (of justice) Mr. George is willing to stand or fall. If [he says] private property in land be just, then is the remedy I propose a false one ; if, on the contrary, private property in land be unjust, then is the remedy a true one." Here, then, is the land question, as a question of ethics to which I am to apply the principles of philosophy. I will examine it from two points of view ; in the light of logic I will inquire into the 8 THE PHILOSOPHY position of Henry George, whether his arguments are sound, his premises true, his reasoning correct and conclusive. From the standpoint of ethics, I will consider what constitutes the primitive and original title to property in general, and to landed property in particular. I propose to study the land question in its first principles, not under the guidance of Mr. George, but in his company ; and if I can not admit his principles, I will endeavor to establish the true basis of ownership springing from the law of Man's nature, and recognized by the laws and customs of all civilized nations. STATE OF THE QUESTION. Let me put the question before you in its simplest and clearest form. There are many issues raised by Mr. Henry George ; there are many momentous questions involved in the proposal to nationalize the land : I address myself to the one central and supreme issue — the justice or injustice of private ownership of land. We are not going to discuss the abuses which have arisen from the power tyrannically exercised by landlords ; we are not inquiring whether it is harmful to Society for one person or for a corporation to hold immense tracts of land intended for the wants of the whole community ; whether the plan of taxing the land and only the land may not have piany advantages ; nor can we stop to analyze that ingenious but vision- ary speculation which Mr. George styles the "im- earned increment " — we must restrict ourselves to the first and most fundamental question of all — Can any man rightfully own land as. his own exclusive prop- erty? If he can, on what principle, by what title OF THE LAND QUESTION. 9 If he cannot, why not? We are to go back then to the very last analysis of ownership. Land, like every other kind of property, is now held by a variety of titles ; by simple purchase or under pre-emption or homestead laws ; by inheritance, prescription, exchange, barter, donation ; all of which are good, provided the original title was valid. But our inquiry concerns the original title itself. It is this that Henry George finds defective. If his con- tention be correct, private ownership of land began in robbery, and it must by its very nature always remain robbery and injustice. This then is the ques- tion : IS THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND UNJUST? Does it violate the natural rights of others? Henry George holds that it does — and on this issue he stakes his whole theory ; by this simple and supreme test he is willing to stand or fall. He argues its injustice with force and eloquence ; he exhibits it under every form of pleading, of illustration, and of sentiment. I will now proceed to subject Mr. George's rea- soning to a logical review, and in doing this I beg leave to say that I am willing to give Mr. George credit for all the unselfish zeal in behalf of the work- ing classes which his friends claim for him. I am to deal, not with his motives as a man, but with his theories and argument as a social philosopher. Our inquiry shall be a calm, dispassionate study, with the sole purpose of ascertaining and vindicating the truth. In what regards truth and justice I recognize among my fellow-citizens no distinction of class or party. The principles from which springs ownership in land 10 THE PHILOSOPHY or in any kind of property concern all classes alike. In restricting myself to the one main issue selected as the test and basis of his whole theory, I face a question not of political economy, but of simple, natural justice. Private ownership of land (says Mr. George) is unjust, is nothing but robberj' , because there is not, there never can be, a valid title to it. Why not? Let Mr. George state the argument in his own words. I quote from Progress mid Poverty^ Book VII., ch. I : What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What is it that enables a man to justly say of a thing, ' It is mine I' From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against all the world? Is it not primarily the right of a man to him- self, to the use of his own powers, to the enjoyment of the fruits of his own exertions? * * * As a man belongs to himself, so his labor, when put in concrete form, belongs to him. -^^ * * And for this reason, that which a man makes or produces is his own, as against all the world — rto enjoy or to destroy, to use, to exchange or to give * * * This is not only the original source from which all ideas of exclusive ownership arise * * but it is necessarily the only source. There can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title which is not derived from the title of the producer. * * * As nature gives only to labor, the exertion of labor in production is the only title to exclusive possession." Now land is not and cannot be the product of labor — it is a gift of nature, meant for all men ; and for one man to appropriate it is to rob the others of that to OF THE LAND QUESTION. 11 which all have an equal right. "For all have a natural and inalienable right to live by the land.'' To this I answer, first, if this argument proved anything, it would prove too much ; it would prove that land can no more belong to a community or State, than it can to an individual, for the land is no more the product of the community's labor, than it is of the individual's toil. But THE WHOLE ARGUMENT IS UNSOUND AND ILLOGICAL. It is not true that the original and exclusive source of private ownership is the labor of production, or that labor which makes or produces a thing. Nature, we are told, gives only to labor. Not true. Nature minis- ters to man's necessities, to his comfort, his pleasure, his enjoyment — sometimes with, and sometimes with- out, labor ; but even granting that Nature does give to labor^ what kind of logic is it which concludes, "therefore the labor of -production is the 07'iginal and exclusive title to private ownership, '' thus putting a clause in the conclusion that is not in the premises ? " Man has a right to himself: therefore the labor which makes or produces a thing is the original and exclusive title to ownership. '' What kind of reason- ing is this? Let us even concede the antecedent — which, however, is not true in Mr. George's sense — what connection is there between this proposition and the conclusion? The truth is that the producing or making of a thing is neither the original nor the exclusive source of private ownership. That which you make or pro- duce is yours, provided the materials out of which you produce it are yours. If the materials are not 12 THE PHILOSOPHY yours, no amount of labor can make the product yours. The pen which you have made from the little nugget of gold is justly yours, if the gold was your property. The house which you have built is justly yours, if the materials belonged to you. Should a thief take a bar of gold which belongs to another, and melt it and run it into coin, no honest man will say that his skill and toil give him a just title to the product of his labor. Neither the house you live in, nor the clothes you wear, nor the food that nourishes you, nor the fire that warms you, can ever become your property, if the materials can never be justly yours. Now, on Mr. George^s principle, they never can become yours by a just title. For, the original and exclusive title to property, he says, is the making or producing of a thing, and you have not made the materials. Admit this principle, then, and there is an end of all private ownership, and Proudhon was right when he declared that all property is theft. There must therefore be some source or title to ownership antecedent to the labor of production. You can not begin to make or produce until you have the materials. Now, by what title do you take as your own and use the materials? When we have accompanied Mr. George to what he calls the original and only source of private ownership, we discover that we have not yet reached the origin or source of individual property ; but have to journey still farther back and inquire into the right and title by which, in the beginning, man could make the material gifts of nature his own. In that right, if such a right exist, we shall discover the original and ultimate source of private ownership. To make the OF THE LAND QUESTION. 13 inquiry thorough, let us ask, what is there in the nature of man and in his environment that makes him capable of possessing anything as his property, that is, as exclusively his own? To give a clear and con- clusive answer to this question, we must first define WHAT THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY MEANS, and what constitutes ownership, A right in general, is a moral power to do, or require, to command or forbid something, implying a corresponding duty or obligation on the part of others to allow the exercise of that power. The right of property or ownership is, ''The moral power or faculty of claiming an object as one's own, and disposing both of the object and its utility according to one's own good will, without any right- ful interference on the part of others." * * * Being a moral power or faculty it can belong only to a rational or intelligent being. But what is there in man's nature as a rational being that gives him a moral power or faculty to claim a thing as his own, to the exclusion of all others? Mr. George answers, ''it is man's right to himself." But mark the consistency of this social philosopher. He has just laid down the principle that the making or pro- ducing of a thing is the original and only source of exclusive ownership. On this principle we should say, therefore, MAN HAS NO RIGHT TO HIMSELF. He does not belong to himself; he does not own his faculties, and therefore has no title to the fruit of his own exertion, for it is self-evident that he has not 14 THE PHILOSOPHY made or produced himself. Yet it is upon this prin- ciple of man's right to himself, which Mr. George has blindly copied from Herbert Spencer — on this he builds his whole theory. What is there then in man's nature and environ- ment that originates the moral power, or right, to claim a thing as his own? First, man is the head and crowning glory of this world of ours, of this splendid terrestrial hierarchy which includes all forms of being^ and of life on the earth. Man alone, by his intelli- gence, knows the purpose of the Creator, and the proper use of creatures. By reason of his dignity as a rational being, man is to all creatures below him as the end towards which they are directed, and for which they were made. For this reason, as in keep- ing with man's nature, God gave him dominion over the whole earth, the land and sea, and all the treasures therein. Even Aristotle, without the light of revelation, could see in man's rational nature the end for which all things else existed. They are all for man, for his use, for his needs, for his profit, for his enjoyment. On the other hand, man needs the creatures around him for self-preservation and the support of his life. The necessity which nature has thus imposed upon him, the duty of self-preservation^ which he owes his Creator, gives him the right to take, possess and use the good things which boun- teous nature has provided for him. More than this: Since man is a rational and moral personality, every human being is, as man, on a footing of perfect independence of every one else. This is a necessary corollary of man's dignity as a person. Not only are all equal as men — equal in their specific nature, but OF THE LAND QUESTION. 15 each as man is independent of every other. By reason of this personal independence, whatever a man needs for the support and preservation of life he has a right to take, possess and use, to the exclusion of others. Now in this consists the right of ownership, namely so to . possess, hold and use a thing as to exclude others from it. This is an important con- sideration. There is not, there never can be, true ownership without the right of excluding others from the thing possessed and owned. That only can be called one's own which does not belong to others, but excludes them. Should the object used be of such a nature that its use by one will not preclude its use at the same time by another, then it is not capable of be- coming the exclusive property of any one. if it can be possessed and turned to use by everyone, without limiting or restricting its possession and use by others, it is by its very nature removed from the category of property. It can not be owned. Its nature is to escape all bounds of ownership. This is the reason why the air we breath and the light of the sun can never become personal, individual property. It is not because, as Mr. George asserts, they are so necessary for all men — food and drink, and clothing, and fuel are also necessary for all men — but it is be- cause light and air are of such a nature that their use by one does not exclude their simultaneous use by another. And this is the answer to Mr. George's fallacy, so often and so eloquently repeated. " Land," he tells us again and again, *'land, like light and air, is the gift of our Common Father ; all men have equal rights to their Father's bounty. The 16 THE PHILOSOPHY land is as necessary for man's subsistence as the light and air from heaven." All very true, but not to the point. They are all necessary ; they are all the gift of our Common Father, and so are all the treasures of the land and of the sea. But the difference lies in this : the land is by its nature capable of being possessed and used by some to the exclusion of oth- ers ; light and air are not capable of being thus ex- clusively possessed and used ; and therefore the first can become property, and the others cannot. I have now, I think, made clear THE ORIGIN OR SOURCE OF PROPERTY. It is to be found, in its last analysis, in man's right of self-preservation, his need of Nature's gifts for the support of his life, and therefore his right to take, use and consume them ; and finally in his personal, individual independence, which gives him the moral power or faculty of so possessing and using w^hat he needs as to exclude others. Briefly, the origin or source of ownership is a man^s right to life, and therefore to the necessaries of life. The first means by which man began to exercise his right to live, the first act by which he became an owner, a holder of property, was the act of occupation — that is, the taking posses- sion of a thing by the exercise of his physical activity and bodily faculties with the intention of making it his own. Remember, we have now gone back to the beginning, before any government or any State ex- isted. We are witnessing the birth of a community in the life struggles of its first members. How can this man provide himself with the necessaries of life, with food and clothing, except by appropriating the OF THE LAND QUESTION. 17 gifts of nature, the fruits of the earth, the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, or the plot of ground from which, by labor, to derive his sustenance? The man who first gathered fruit from a tree, found a wild fowl's nest, or snared the wild fowl itself, or trapped a wild beast, or took a fish from a stream, then and there gave rise to rightful ownership. He did not make or produce the things he then began to possess ; he appropriated them, and whatsoever by natural increase or by his skill and labor resulted from them became his property. Mr. Henry George scouts the idea of ownership originating in appropriation. ''It is sometimes claimed [he says, p. 49, Prof, in Land^ that property in land is derived from appropriation. But those who say this do not really mean it. Appropriation can give no right. The man who raises a cupful of water from a river acquires a right to that cupful and no one can rightfully snatch it from his hand. But this right is derived from labor, not from appropria- tion. How could he acquire a right to the river by merely appropriating it ? * * * If there were but two men in the world, the fish which either of them took from the sea, the fruit which he gathered, or the hut which he erected, would be his rightful property, which the other could not take from him. But how could either of them claim the world as his rightful property by merely appropriating it? Or if they agreed to divide the world between them, what moral right could their compact give, as against the next man who came into the world." 18 THE PHILOI-^OPHY This is a good specimen of MR. George's fallacious reasoning. Who has ever claimed for anyone the right of arbitrarily appropriating the world or the rivers? Appropriation is not a title ; it is an act by which a man exercises his right to provide for his needs. We ask whence comes this man's right to take or ap- propriate to himself the cupful of water, the fish, or the materials of the hut he has built? Mr. George de- rives it from labor. But, first, it is certainly not the labor of production which we have just been told is the original and exclusive source of ownership; and, secondly, no amount of labor can make a thing yours unless you have a right to take and use the materials. Whence, then, comes your right to these material things provided for you •by Nature? I answer, it comes from your right to life, and therefore to all the necessaries of life. Appropriation Mr. George will not listen to, because by some freak of his im- agination he takes appropriation to mean arbitrarily claiming the whole world, or its rivers, or the right to divide the world between two persons. What we claim for any man is the right of holding, as his own, the material object, bird or beast, not yet belonging to another, which he takes for his own use ; or the plot of land not yet appropriated, which he occupies and cultivates, on which he builds his house with the materials which he appropriates from the land. The question of how much land one man may occupy and claim as his own, is quite another question with which we are not now dealing. I know that man's right to appropriate is a limited right. It is limited by its OF THE LAND QUESTION. 19 origin and nature, for it is based upon his needs, not his avarice. Man, it is true, is independent, but he is not isolated ; much less is he at war with his fellows. He is destined for Society, to live with others who have the same rights as he. The limits of his possession are to be defined not so much by his wishes as by his wants and the wants of others. And therefore it is that w^hen men come together and a community is formed, the actual division of land is eflfected by mutual agreement and is protected, regulated and controlled by civil law. We are not concerned now about the quantity ; the question is, can a man by his own exertion take and hold for his own use, and make his own by his labor, by the skill and industry he expends upon it, the piece of ground, belonging to no one, from which he hopes to derive the means of subsistence? To this question Mr. George answers by rhetorical clap- trap about arbitrarily appropriating a whole river or the whole world. Here, then, is the SPECIAL QUESTION OF PROPERTY IN LAND. In what respect does landed property differ from any other species of property? Not, as Mr. George would have us believe, because land is a gift of God, whilst all other kinds of property are the fruits of human exertion. Every species of property is ulti- mately as purely a gift of God as the land. The food that nourishes life, the clothes we wear, the fuel we burn, the metals w^e forge into instruments of art and industry, the money we use, are all from the bounty of God. Is it only the bare earth that comes 20 THE PHILOSOPHY from the hands of our heavenly Father? Is not the seed His, and His the rain and the sunshine that ripen the grain, and the substances in the earth that are transformed into the pith and fibre of tree and herb, of fruit and flower? and the treasures buried in the earth, are they not his? What Mr. George fails to perceive is that all things that constitute the materials of property are equally the gift of the Creator. In this respect moveable wealth and immoveable stand on precisely the same footing. Here Mr. George has been misled by John Stuart Mill. ''The land," says Mill, ''is not of man's creation, and for a person to appropriate to himself a mere gift of nature not made to him in particular, but which belonged to all others until he took posses- sion of it, is prima facie an injustice to all the rest." But what is of man's creation? In every case he finds his materials already created, and he merely appropriates them, and adapts them to his own uses by labor, exactly as he does with the soil that in his hands becomes fertile fields. So far as creation is concerned, a farm or a garden is as much a creation of man as anything else is, and everything is as much a gift of God as land. That distinction therefore is futile. There is, however, a distinction between land and perishable objects which are consumed by use. We have already seen by what title and on what principle these can be taken possession of, owned, and used to the exclusion of others. Now we are to inquire by what title one can hold as his own private property, the piece of land which he has brought under cultivation. Is he allowed only the use of it? Must he relinquish all claim to it, OF THE LAND QUESTION. 21 and give it up as soon as he has reaped what he sowed? He has changed it from the state of raw material, made it productive, drained it, fertihzed it; with his own hands he has cleared it, felling the trees, and building on it a shelter for his family. He has made it' a farm ; every rod of it bears the impress oi his labor. He has caused it to be fruitful ; every crop tells of his untiring industry ; he has spent on it his time, the skill, the labor of mind and body ; and shall he not hold it as his own? Who has a better or prior right to it? No one. The community? There is no community : it has not yet been formed. He is one of those by whom the primitive community is to be founded. There was therefore no prior owner. Shall he-hold it only till some one else comes to claim it? If he is justified in excluding others, and if the com- mon consent of mankind confirms him in this ex- clusive ownership, surely there must be some principle which gives him a right to permanent possession of it as his own. What is that principle? I answer that the right to permanent ownership of land rests primarily on the same basis as the right of ownership in perishable goods, viz. : the right to live, the right of self-preservation, and the right (by virtue of personal independence) to exclude others from what is necessary for us. The right to provide for one's life is to be taken in its most generous sense. Man is gifted with intelligence and foresight. He does not 0 live, like the brute beast, at haphazard, from day to deiy, seeking his prey b}^ instinct : he lives in the future as well as in the present, and it is his duty to provide for the future ; not only for his own future but 22 THE PHILOSOPHY for that of his family ; for the origin of property goes back to the origin of the family. More than this. He has a right, as a rational being destined for Society, to provide for his rational, intellectual life, to provide for the education of his children, to provide for the social and religious life of his family. Having such large rights as these — and who can deny that man has them? — he must have the right to procure the means of exercising them ; the means of providing, as far as in him lies, for the permanent support of that complex life, which belongs to him as an individual, as the head of a family, as a member of human society. Now, reason pointed out from the beginning that Nature had provided no better or fitter means . of permanent support than the cultivation of the soil. For this purpose the husbandman took possession of a portion of the land, tilled it, made it productive, and by these very acts of his became the owner of the land he cultivated, and of the whole fruit of his labor. BEHOLD THE ORIGIN OR GENESIS OF LANDED PROPERTY. The land was needed by men ; it was intended for men ; and now this individual man has established a claim to this portion of the land, which no one else can justly assail. For every man has a full right to the fruit of his skill and toil. The fruit of his personal labor is his own. Not because, as Henry George erroneously puts it, he owns himself, for he does not ; not because he has a right to himself, but because he has a right to preserve the life his Creator gave him. That life is a free gift of God ; once that it is his, he has a right to it against all the world. As a human OF THK LAND QUESTION. 23 life — as the life of a human personality — it is inde- pendent of other men, and therefore his labor right- fully belongs to himself alone. No man can be consti^ained to work for another. Whosoever gives his labor to another is justly entitled to compensation for it. His labor is himself; it is his own human personality, expressed in external action. It is his manhood translated into material terms. His labor is the exercise of all his faculties, of his mind, his senses, his brain, his whole body ; it is the expression of his whole being ; his work is the out- going of his individuality into the sensible objects on which he spends himself. These material things are thus stamped with the sign and seal of man's per- sonality ; and by that very fact, in the very nature of things, they cling to him and belong to him by an exclusive right. They belong to him thus exclusiveh^ until by his own free act he cancels the seal which marks them as his, and transfers them to the dominion of another. The gold that is found by man's in- genuity, the coal that is freed from the clutches of the earth, the marble cut from the quarry, the hillside that is cleared and prepared for the vine, the field that is broken and made to yield its harvest, all these bear upon them, distinct as a clear-cut seal, the mark of the toiler's personality. The land especially bears the stamp of the cultivator's individuality. x\s mere land, as the mere raw material given to man to be cultivated, it is precisely on the same footing as the other crude materials which man must use to make anything he needs. If he can claim the pen he has made out of the raw material, because as a pen it is the product of his labor, much more can he claim the 24 THE PHILOSOPHY farm or garden as his own ; because, inasmuch as his continuous labor has transformed the raw material of loams and clays, of sand, or marsh into a farm or garden, it is pre-eminently the product of his toil. He has put into it his time, his patience, his hopes, his ambitions, his anxieties ; he has watered it with his sweat. He has made it a part of himself. He has established between it and himself a bond of relation- ship, a connecting tie which attaches it to him as to no one else — to the exclusion of all others. THIS IS OWNERSHIP. This is what makes the land his property ; his against all the world. It became his to hold and use, by reason of his needs ; it is his to own, by reason of his labor. This is the source and title of private ownership of land. Here are the true rights of labor, which the whole human race has acknowledged and acted upon. In this plot of ground is the fruit of man's toil in con- crete, tangible form, and the judgment of the civil- ized world proclaims his inalienable right to it. There is no cultivated land which is not the product of man's exertion. Yet his right to it is denied — by whom? By Henry George, the friend of labor. On what ground does he deny the farmer^s right to the land his labor has redeemed from the wilderness and his sweat made fruitful? On the ground of a theory, built on an equivocation, as I shall presently show you. Mr. George recognizes property in improvements, but not in the land improved. When the improve- ments become indistinguishable from the land by long-continued and multiplied labor^ then the fruit of OF THE LAND QUESTION. 25 labor must be sacrificed; "for," says Mr. George, the title to the improvements becomes blended with the title to the land : the individual right is lost in the common right." On the one hand he lays down the principle that man has a right to the product of his own industry. Yet when that product is identified with the land, so as to be indistinguishable from it, he denies the right either to the product or to compensation for it. The more labor you expend upon the land the less right you have to the fruit of your toil. Can Mr. George be the laborer's friend when he tells him that all his toil must count for nothing, because it has become identified with the land? Why, it is against this iniquitous principle that the wretched peasantry of Ireland have been fighting for their lives, as against the heaviest of their grievances. This very principle of Henry George has been all along the gospel of the alien landlords of Ireland, who took advantage of the labor and sweat of the half-starved tenant, raised the rent by reason of the tenant's improvement, and, if he could not pay this rack-rent, turned him out without a penny of com- pensation, because the improvement was identified with the land. And how does Mr. George justify this right to confiscate the product of the workman's labor? On the principle that " the individual right is lost in the common right." But what IS the common right which thus robs the individual of that fruit of his exertion which Mr. George elsewhere declares to be his as against all the world? '^The land [he says] belongs to all men in common. ^ ^ It is the gift of the 26 THE PHILOSOPHY Creator to all men. There is in nature no such thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive own- ership in land. ^ ^ The equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air. It is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. The land is equally nec- essary for all : therefore all have an equal right to it.'' Here is ANOTHER SPECIMEN OF xMR. GEORGE's SOPHISTICAL REASONING. Every sentence in the paragraph is a fallacy. There is in nature [he says] no such thing as a fee simple in land.'' I add there is in nature no such thing as a fee simple in anything. A fee simple is not derived from nature, but is acquired only by the exercise of man's faculties, and is the result of his industry, the fruit of his exertions. Put the argu- ment of Mr. George in this form and see to what it leads. Nature has given no fee simple in any kind of property ; therefore no power on earth can sanction or grant the exclusive ownership of any kind of property. WHAT IS THIS BUT PURE COMMUNISM? And all this arises from Mr. George's inabilit}' to distinguish the true sense in which the land is given to all men in common from the erroneous sense which leads to Communism. Let us establish this true sense and put an end to Mr. George's equivocation. Nature has given not the land onl}^ but aU the treasures of OF THP: l.AND (QUESTION. 27 land and sea, to all men in common ; that is, to the whole human race, to supply the wants of alK but without determining how the gifts of her bounty should be held and possessed. The expression " in common " rnay be understood in two ways. It may be taken in a negative sense as meaning that Nature made no division, did not directly give anything to any individual as his exclusive property ; that she be- stowed no object in particalar on anyone, but gave all things in general for the use of all. In this sense it is true. But what kind of right springs from this gift of Nature to all men " in common?" It is an abstract right, a general right which merely signilies that ever3^one has a moral power or right to become an owner, and will find in nature the means of subsist- ence as the reward of his industry. But the individuaPs right to anything in the concrete must be established by his own positive acts. This, however, is not the sense in which Mr. George takes it ; that meaning would not serve his purpose. He wishes us to under- stand that every human being that comes into the world at anytime, has an actual, positive right to a share in every foot of land in the world ; that he enjoys a real, positive though partial ownership of the whole soil of the earth ; and is robbed if this is denied him. " The puniest infant born in a tenement house [he says] becomes at that moment seized of an equal right with the heir of the Astors " to the broad acres and city lots of the millionaire; ''and to deny it, is robbery." 28 THE PHILOSOPHY Here it is evident that Mr. George endows everyone with something so real and positive that the denial of it is an act of injustice. He makes not only the soil of one's country, but of the whole world, the joint property of all mankind, and gives to every individual a positive share which he can call his own^ Now what does this mean? As we have already seen, there is no such thing as ownership without the moral power or right of excluding others from that which is claimed as one's own. This belongs to the very essence of ownership ; it is involved in the very nature of .property. What you rightfully call your own, so belongs to you as to give you the moral power or right to shut out all others. Without this right of exclusion there is no real ownership. There maybe possession, there may be use, but there can be no ownership. To say then with Mr. George that the land belongs by nature to all men " in com- mon," in the sense that everyone enjoys a real, positive ownership of the land, is the same as to say that everyone has the right to exclude from the land everyone else : and as the rights of all are equal, all men mutually exclude each other and are excluded — and this is the same as saying, there is no ownership at all. And thus we find ourj^elves again driven by Mr. George's erroneous theory, into the ABSURDITIES OF PURE COMMUNISM. In a voluntary association or society, as a religious order, where all things are possess-ed in common, there is no individual ownership, for that is vol- untarily renounced; but there is a real, positive ownership vested in the community ; for that com- OP THE LAND QUESTION. 29 munity not only possesses and uses property, but it excludes from its possession all who are not associates or members of that society. It enjoys real owner- ship, because it so possesses its own goods- as to exclude others from them. But it is not so in the case of mankind in general, or the whole human race as forming one community. As they include all men, there can be, in such a society, no real, positive ownership in common, for there is no one to exclude. The only sense then in which we can say with truth that the land and all things else were given to men in common, is the negative sense ; namely, that nature made no division, nature gave no fee simple, she offered her treasures to all, and gave each one a right to make those treasures his own by his labor and skill for the sup- port and enjoyment of life, but with due regard to the wants and rights of others. There is no precept of the natural law which commands the division of property, whether in land or other goods. If men, therefore, choose to possess "in common" rather than in severalty, they are not violating the natural law. But if they prefer to own land and other things by exclusive individual ownership, they are not act- ing against natural justice. What precept of the natural law forbids individual ownership and posi- tively enjoins a community of goods? It will not do to make a distinction between land and other things. Nature has made none in her bounteous provision for the wants of men. She neither commands nor forbids a community of goods. She leaves it to man's reason, to determine how her gifts can best be used. Mankind has determined the question, and THE PHILOSOPHY the decision is the voice of man's rational nature, the expression of the natural law, in the conscience and the experience of the human race. The practice of mankind, including all periods and all grades of civilization, has been to sanction and approve the individual ownership of property, including landed property. HUMAN LAW DID NOT CREATE The right of ownership in land or in anything else. It found that right in actual existence ; it threw around it the aegis of its protection ; it can control and regulate it in the interest of the community ; but it can no more abolish the right of personal ownership than it can pretend to have created it. This right is recognized and sanctioned by divine law in the Old and the New Testament ; it has been taught and exercised in every age by the CHRISTIAN RELIGION. The great teachers of ethics, the great doctors and theologians of the church, have unanimously in- culcated it ; the wisest and holiest of mankind have acted upon it ; it is embodied in the laws and customs of every civilized state ; therefore it is a just right. For, in the words of St. Augustin, " Securus judical orhis terrarum; the world cannot go astray on a vital principle of natural justice. The people of any community or state may, if it so please them, agree to hold land in common, t|) nationalize it, or to tax the land exclusively ; but they can neither confiscate without compensation the land of actual owners, nor deny to any man the OF THE LAND QUESTION. 81 right, if he choose to exercise it, of private ownership. To teach the contrar}'^ is to preach a gospel of robbery. Community of goods flourished in its most perfect form among the early Christians ; it has flourished ever since among the religious orders of the Catholic Church. It has been tried with varying success by other associations, generafly from a religious motive. But who does not know that this was of counsel only, and not of precept? Along with this voluntary prac- tice of communism there existed the full recognition of man's right to individvial ownership. They sold all they had, including landed property, and gave it to the poor ; not because they were robbers and had to make restitution, but to follow Christ in the path of perfection. Let Mr. George, if he can, persuade men to do the same, and no one w^ill quarrel with this form of communism. Meanwhile, is it quite certain, from the evidence of our own histoiy and experience, that the lot of the poor man would be bettered by making the state or community the sole and universal landlord? We have seen the public domain, the heritage of the American people, given away by the millions of acres, to great corporations, which have waxed so insolent by reason of their pkinder as to defy the very government that made them rich. ARE MEN MORE PURE AND HONEST When they act in public capacities as members of a state or city government than when they act in their private capacity as landlords or employers of labor? Is it not notoriouslv the reverse? Have we 32 THE PHILOSOPHY not often seen men doing as politicians what they would be ashamed to do in private life? Who has proclaimed the corruption of municipal and state governments more emphatically than Mr. George? Yet it is to such bodies as these he would confine the rights of absolute ownership ; and as if to extend the field of pickings and stealings, he would entrust to them the duty of assessing and spending the rents of everybody all over the area of every state. And this, he would persuade the workingman, would soon bring about a vast improvement in his lot and restore to him at last the equal rights of which he is now robbed by the owners of land. Equal rights I ! Ah I equal rights ! ! Here is ANOTHER OF MR. GEORGE's MISCHIEVOUS SOPHISMS. What does he mean by equal rights? Is it equality of political, or civil rights, or equality of natural rights, or equality before the law? When you come to analyze it, he seems to mean equality of social con- dition, an equality which never existed and never will exist except in the dream of socialists. In this actual, everyday world of ours, it is not the law of equality but that of inequality which prevails. Men are indeed on a footing of per- fect equality, in the abstract, when you consider their specific nature as men, but when you come to indi- viduals, in the real concrete world of fact, the true proposition is, ''all men are unequal unequal in size, in health, in talent, in personal gifts, in edu- cation, in manners, in strength, in wealth, and, there- fore, in social condition. As men, and in all that be- OF THE LAND QUESTION. 33 longs to their essence as men, viz., as rational beings, as composed of soul and body, as free agents, as children of the same Father, as destined to the same end — all men are equal. The rights which spring from man's nature as man are undoubtedly the same in all, for the specific nature of all is the same. But as individuals, one man may by his own acts estab- lish rights which do not belong to another. All men have aright, as men, to procure the means of subsist- ence ; but A., by his activity, his exertions, his skill, or his labor, may establish his right to this par- ticular object, to which B. can lay no claim. The occupation and ownership of the land by one does not deprive others of their rights, as men. They, too, have a right to live by the soil if they choose, but they have no right to this particular spot which A., by his industry and toil, has made his own. This is the ANSWER TO MR. GEORGE's MOST FALLACIOUS ARGUMENT, That no generation can own land, since they would defraud the succeeding generations of their rights. " Had the men of the last generation [he asks] any better right to the use of this world than we?" No, they had no better right ; their rights and ours, as men, are precisely the same. But because they had the same right as we to become owners, and as indi- viduals exercised their right, performing certain pos- itive, concrete acts, they thereby established their title to certain definite objects, to which we can lay no claim. In making those objects their own they robbed us of none of our rights. We have precisely 34 THE PHILOSOPHY the same right to become owners as they had. " But," says Mr. George, " they have taken away from us the means of subsistence. The land is meant for all. Have not we," he goes on to say, " the same right as preceding generations to live by the soil? How can we do so if they are allowed to monopolize what is necessary for all?" And then Mr. George treats us to a rhetorical illustration : " Has the first-comer at a banquet the right to turn back all the chairs, and claim that none of the other guests shall partake of the food provided, except as they make terms with him ? Does the first man who presents a ticket at the door of a theater possess by his priority the right to shut the door, and have the performance go on for him alone?" Mr. George's illustration is neither novel nor appropriate. It was used as an objection and answered by St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, and he cited it from St. Basil, in the fourth century. The answer is obvious. The first-comer at a banquet has no right to turn back all the chairs, but he has a right to turn back or reserve one for himself; and in doing so, he infringes upon no right of those who come after. The first man who presents a ticket at the door of a theater acquires no right to shut the door against all others, and keep the per- formance all to himself. But he has a right to a seat for one ; those who come after have the same right, but not to oust him from his place. And so it is in regard to the land. The title of ownership to land established by one generation does not take away the rights of the next generation. The succeeding generation has no right of ow^nership OF THE LAND QUESTION. 86 till it has established its title by its own exertions. But (argues Mr. George) there will be no place left for the later generation, and you thus deprive them of the means of subsistence. I answer, in the first place, robbing the present owners, and making the state the landlord, will not remedy the scarcity of land arising from the growth of population. The quantity of land will remain the same, whether the state or the indi- vidual is the landlord. If it needs to be more equally distributed, that can be effected without plundering the landowners. In the second place, there are other v/ays of earning a livelihood besides that of culivat- ing the soil. All men have a right to till the land if that manner of life pleases them. They may believe or pretend to believe with Horace, that it is the only happy life, but there is no law^ that all should be hus- bandmen. The earth must be cultivated, else )i^e could not live ; but it need not be cultivated by ever}^ individual. This obvious truth seems to have escaped the penetrating mind of Mr. George. Some may pre- fer another manner of life, some may find no oppor- tunity to follow the vocation of a farmer, or the chances may be less favorable at one period than at another. This, however, deprives them of none of their natural rights. To use an illustration : The right to marry is a natural right. It is not the creation of any human law, but springs from the very nature of man as a social being. Matrimony is absolutely necessary for the pre- servation and propagation of the species ; but this does not impose on every individual the obligation to marry. Without matrimony human society could not subsist. It is a necessity for the human race ; but the 36 THE PH1L080PHY individual is free to marry, or not, as he chooses. So is it a necessity for the human race to cultivate the soil, but the individual is free to adopt that or any other lawful avocation. If in old and thickly-inhabited countries the land is crowded, and a later generation finds no lands unoccupied, that constitutes a serious PROBLEM FOR THE PRACTICAL STATESMAN : Whether to encourage the still further subdivision of the land or to turn the tide of population towards col- onization, or to find in the multiplication of industrial pursuits means of occupation and subsistence for all. In any case, as already remarked, it is no solution of the problem to expropriate the actual owners of the soil, and make the state the universal landlord. When a population becomes too large for the means of subsistence, a mere change of landlords will not remedv the evil. Mr. George would distribute the w^ealth of the community more evenly and fairly, and to accom- plish this benevolent design see what he would do ! He would rob the widow of her title to her farm, the home secured to her by the long labor of her de- ceased husband, and recognized as rightly hers by the laws of all civilized countries. He would rob the disabled soldier whose country has rewarded his valor and his wounds with a gift of land ; he would confiscate their land without a penny of compensa- tion, for reasons which are nothing but shallow sophisms. But the capitalist, the owner of houses, of ma- chinery, of stocks and bonds, the employer of thou- sands of men, Mr. George not only frees from all OF THE LAND QUKSTION. taxation, but he arms him with absohite power, re- sponsible to no one : " That which a man makes or produces," he says, " is his own, as against all the world, to enjoy or de- stroy, to use, to exchange or give." Here is abso- lute dominion, an unlimited and unrestrained right to enjoy or to destroy what is his. The cruelest task- master that ever ground the life out of his slaves, the most heartless monopolist, the most unpitying spend- thrift that refuses the crumbs of his table to the starv- ing Lazarus at his gate, is sustained and justified by this principle of Henry George. He does what he pleases with his own : " it is his to enjoy or to de- stroy," to do with it what he likes. Now I maintain that no civilized community ever admitted this prin- ciple of absolute dominion in the owner of any kind of property. Man's right of ownership is in every case a sub- ordinate and restricted right. All his rights are de- pendent on his Maker, and the exercise even of his natural rights is modified by the equal rights of others, and the superior rights of the whole community. There is no species of property but is subject to re- strictions imposed by the LAW OF GOD AND BY THE NEEDS OP^ MEN. This is especially the case in landed property. Land is at once limited in quantity, and essential to the production of the general necessaries of life. These make land a unique and exceptional commodity, and subject it to more direct control by the community than any other sort of property. As soon as popula- tion has so increased as to begin to crowd upon the 38 THE PHILOSOPHY means of subsistence, the State has a right to see that the most productive use possible is being made of its land, and to introduce such laws as shall effec- tually secure that end. It can forbid and make null the sale of its lands to aliens or foreign capitalists ; it can regulate the maximum amount of land that could be held by any individual or corporation without be- ing actually occupied and cultivated. The very natural and very just demand of the Irish people through their bishops and representa- tives, that the land should belong to the people — " THE LAND FOR THE PEOPLE'^ — has been distorted by Mr. George and his followers, into the socialistic cry of confiscation. For whom was the land of any country intended by the Al- mighty? Plainly, for the people of that country ; not for aliens, not for enemies, not to be used as a means of oppressing and exterminating the inhabitants whom the providence of God has rooted to the soil. The land of Italy belongs by nature to the people of Italy, not to Spaniards, or Austrians, or Russians. The land of the United States is meant by nature for the people of these United States, nor should it ever be suffered to fall into the hands of foreign syndicates. So does the land of Ireland BELONG BY NATURE TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND, Not to the people of Scotland, nor to the people of England, nor to an English garrison planted in Ire- land to plunder and oppress the natives of the soil. " The land for the people" has a meaning for the Irish people, which others can scarcely realize. To OF THE LAND QUESTION. 'A9 them it means escape from the unspeakable outrages of a heartless and irresponsible landlordism, such as the civilized world has never seen elsewhere. It means escape from hunger, thirst, nakedness, notice to quit, labor spent in vain, the toil of years seized upon, the breaking up of homes, the miseries, sick- nesses, deaths of parents, children, wives, the despair and wildness which spring up in the hearts of the poor when legal force, like a sharp harrow, goes over the most sensitive and vital rights of mankind.'^ That the land should belong to the people is but the expression of a principle of natural justice. But it does not mean that the land of any country belongs to the whole people in common, or to the whole world in common ; it does not mean that land should be taken from those who have earned it, and given to those who have not, whether with or without the guise of law. Mr. George believes that the world owes everyone a living. The world owes nothing to any one. THE LAW OF LABOR IS THE LAW OF OUR EXISTENCE. We must earn our bread in the sweat of our face. The honest toiler has as much right as the rich man to the comforts of life, if he can honestly win them. In our country at least there is yet no lack of land for those who are willing to cultivate it. But to men who are not living in socialistic dreams it is not so very evident that the working classes are pining for a country life. Nor can they see in the plausible phrases of Mr. George any proof that taxing the land and only the land, and taxing it to its full value, will encourage poor people to cultivate it or will put 40 THE PHILOSOPHY them on a footing of equality with the untaxed cap- italist. A just government owes all its citizens the equcil protection of their rights. To take away land from the rich without compensation and give it to the poor, with the aim of equalizing wealth, is plunder under the guise of philanthropy. To allow the rich to deal as they like with tenants, employes, and cultivators of their lands, without holding them responsible for the well-being of their dependants, is oppression under the guise of liberty. No clamor about the rights of property should make us forget that the cultivator of the soil has a right to draw from his labor a decent livelihood according to his station. Nor are land owners the only people who have responsi- bilities. The same principle applies to every species of capital. Neither rent nor interest, neither profit nor dividend is fair, if it encroaches upon the decent support of the workman. That is the first charge to be met, and it is in the nature of a lien upon every form of industry. The whole of a workingman's life should not be a ceaseless struggle merely to exist, merely to procure sufficient food to keep him alive, from day to day. There ought to be a margin for thrift, a fair field for energy, the means of supporting and educating his children, according to their station. It is neither justice nor humanity that his labor should win for him a bare subsistence, whilst it adds enor- mously to the superfluous luxuries of his employer. To secure to labor this just compensation (whether by co-operation or arbitration, or some such means,) is to-day the most important duty of the practical statesman and of wise laws. OF THK LAND QUESTION. 41 THE TRUE P^RIENDS OF THE WORKINGMAN Will encourage him to secure a home for his family which shall be all his own. The community in which the working classes generally own their house and lot, is an unfavorable field for socialistic doctrines. Of all the cities in the United States the one which has suffered least from socialistic agitation is Philadelphia, the city of workingmen's homes. Still, when all has been done that wise and just laws can accomplish, when all has been done that the workingmen themselves can effect by combina- tion, co-operation, and organization, it will be found that POVERTY HAS NOT BEEN ABOLISHED and inequality of social condition has not disap- peared. So long as men are free, and can abuse their free-will to remain idle and vicious ; so long as man- kind is subject to passions and vices, to sickness, losses, misfortunes and death, so long will there be suffering and poverty in the world. Abuses undoubtedly exist, not alone in the tenure of land, but, in general, in the methods of acquiring wealth. Dishonest forms of speculation, corrupt schemes, violated contracts, the crushing out of op- position by unscrupulous means, bribery, forgery, the betrayal of trusts, fraudulent bankruptcy, the perver- sion of the whole machinery of justice in favor of criminals and criminal uses, who can deny the pre- valence of these methods and their deplorable results? But who, except a visionary, can see a remedy for these and the like evils in the 42 th£ philosophy CONFISCATION OF THE LAND TO THE STATE. Mr. George has learned his ethics from unsound teachers. Logic he has learned from no one! His reasoning throughout this book is vitiated by the use of ambiguous middle terms, the most commonplace and the most discreditable of all sophisms. His religious notions are too crude to correct the mis- chievous principles of his philosophy. In his gospel poverty is the one great evil, and man's highest good is the equal distribution of wealth. To escape the one and attain the other is the chief aim of life. These are pagan errors, the necessary outgrowth of an education which ignores Christian ethics. Mr. George seems to forget that poverty is compatible with a virtuous life and the highest moral excellence : that neither riches nor refinement constitutes happiness or virtue ; that wealth may be found in close partner- ship with dishonesty and moral degradation ; that man's highest good is not a mere earthly end to be attained in this life. Not all the eloquent de- clamation of Mr. George can prove that mere inequal- ity of social condition is in itself unjust or unnatural ; nor that all the rich are vampires and all the poor their victims. But, on the other hand, no thoughtful man can deny that the laboring classes have real grievances. They are too often forced to " bear the whips and scorns of time " — " the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the insolence of office — the law's delays" — the defeat of justice by the wealthy and powerful. Neither patriotism nor Christianity can look on with indifference whilst the weak are devoured by the OF THE LAND QUESTION 43 Strong, and the simple by the crafty. Mr. George draws a frightful, and, alas I a true picture, of the poverty, misery and degradation which have been brought about by the IMPROPER USE OF LARGE FORTUNES. This, however, is not the necessary result of wealth, but arises from the dishonest methods of acquiring it, and from the base, selfish and criminal uses to which it is put by those who hold with Mr. George that they have an absolute right to use their wealth as they choose and do as they please with their own. If society needs to be reconstructed it cannot be done by the methods of disorder and injustice. To cancel the farmer's title to his land, or the working- man's title to his lot, without a penny of compensa- tion ; to change them from owners into tenant-at-will of the state, this transaction theorizers may call " the new political economy" or ''The New Crusade ;'' the owners call it robbery, pure and simple. What kind of moral teaching is it which advises the state to confiscate, without a penny of compensation, the land which it sold, on its own terms, to its own citizens, or to dona fide settlers? Is not this A POLICY OF PLUNDER? True friendship to the poor can not consist in steal- ing their property from those whose title is held valid by the whole civilized world. It is as much against the interest of the laboring man as it is opposed to that of the farmer and the capitalist, to obscure the truth or to confuse men's notions of justice. 44 THE PHILOSOPHY The social question can never be settled till it is settled right. That which is morally wrong can not be politically or economically right. To imagine that human society can exist without the different social strata, is an idle dream. Nature neither in- tended it nor will suffer it. To build a permanent social order, there must be the foundation of justice. To bind the different members together there must be the cement of Christian charity. A few popular treatises on the duties, rather than on the rights of men, on the duties of all, poor as well as rich ; a few popular pamphlets on the virtues of industry and sobriety, on charity and patience ; a few plain homilies on the texts, '' Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods," "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," " Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," would go farther towards a rational solution of the social problem than all Mr. George's fervid eloquence and brilliant so- phistry about equal rights. All the arguments of political economy will not make one rich man un- selfish or prevent one poor man coveting the wealth of Dives. Put before them both, as the highest good to be aimed at, a purely material and earthly enjoy- ment, shutout from the vision of both, the hard duties of life, preach the degradation of poverty, the in- justice of social inequality, the iniquity of wealth, and you will inevitably make the poor discontented and turbulent, whilst the rich will be driven, in self- defense, into a sterner and harsher antagonism. Envy and hatred are always so close to the surface in man's fallen nature, that but slight provocation is needed to make them burst forth into active violence. OF THE LAND QUESTION. 46 The man with much, wants more. The man whh nothing covets everything. What philosophy is there strong enough to subdue the avarice of the one and the covetousness of the other? What incentive will you propose to make these two join hands in a holy brotherhood, the rich man to lift up his weaker brother, the poor man to stand by the other's side, feeling neither abject nor envious? There is only one philosophy on earth capable of this transforma- tion, and that is the DIVINE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CRUCIFIED ONE ; Only one motive, and that is to be found in the charity of the Gospel. Take away this, and what motive can you propose to stay the hands of the masses, excited to fury by the harangues of unprin- cipled or misguided leaders, and conscious of their power? Only under the banner of the Cross ; only in the presence of Christ, who being rich became poor for us, will the divisions and antagonisms of life die away. Poverty is the wedded bride of Christ, and the poor are his children. The rich are the almoners of God, and are blessed in being the instruments of his merc)'. But what meaning have these FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY To men who take their rule of life from the agnostics Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, and their ethical principles from the pantheists Fichte and Hegel ? Here is the 46 THE PHILOSOPHY REAL DANGER OF THE PRESENT AGITATION. Our workingmen are not communists. Our rich men are not all heartless. But there are seeds of communism and of heartless, materialistic atheism sown in the minds of both classes, and scattered broadcast in the literature they patronize and in the favorite books of their children. Whilst the wealthy classes enjoy their Spencer and their Hux- ley, their Taine and their George Sand, and the novels of the unsavory French school, the working- men have their cheap publications, which regale them with strong draughts of socialistic philosophy, well spiced with the ribaldry of Tom Payne, Bradlaugh and Ingersoll. The open advocac}^ of dishonesty would shock the innate sense of justice in the breasts of the working- men : undisguised anarchism they reject. But the plausible theories and sophistical reasoning of vision- aries like Henry George act like poison upon a system relaxed and weakened by an unsound, unchristian education. Here, then, is the place for a remedy which shall go to the root of the evil. The social problem is more A QUESTION OF MORALITY AND RELIGION Than it is of political economy. The time will never come when all inequality of social condition shall dis- appear ; but it is well to remember that inequality of wealth, of talent and of station is a mere trifle com- pared with those things in which the poor and the rich are equal before God and man — that a man's moral conduct is the all-important thing, and this is OF THE LAND QUESTION. 47 not determined by the quality of his clothes or the hardness of his hands. It is not heaven to be rich, nor is it hell to be poor. The true philosophy of life is contained, not in the gospel of discontent and spoliation, by whomsoever preached, but in the Sermon on the Mount, which should form the first and last lesson in the moral training of the rich and the poor alike. \ Fallacies ol Henry George EXPOSED AND REFUTED. — OF THE By rev. EDW. a. HIGGINS, S. J., President St. Xavier College. Cincinnati. ITIIOE, XO Ctis. Address all Communications to ST". XAVIER COISTKERKNCE, Box 107, Cincinnati, O. A. M. D. G. To the members of the St. Xavier Cotiference : Gentlemen: — This lecture was in substance pre- pared during the winter as one in a course of post- graduate lectures. Since then several articles have appeared in the magazines and periodicals covering portions of the same ground, and an active propagandism has been carried on bj Mr. George and his followers, keeping up the public interest in the question. At your request and under jour auspices I delivered it in the Odeon, the day after Mr. George's chief lieutenant had preached the "New Crusade*' to the workingmen of this city, and you have since asked me to publish it as a refutation of Mr. George's errors on the ownership of land. The opinion so generally expressed by those who heard the lecture, that the argument was clear and easily followed, leads me to believe that its publication may do further good, by exposing before a larger public, Mr. George's fallacies, and establishing the true basis of ownership. If its sale enables you to help the destitute poor, whom it is your privilege to assist, I shall feel happy to have had a share in your charitable work. I send you the lecture for publication, and subscribe myself, Your friend, EDW. A. HIGGINS, S.J. St. Xavier College. incent de ST. XAVIER CONFERENCE. Cincinnati, Maj', 1887. Dear Sir : — As the Rev. Father has so kindly donated us his lecture, we have had it printed in pamphlet form of a convenient pocket size. Believing it our duty to give it the most extensive distribution possible, we have placed the price at 10 cents per copy. The entire press of our city has given to this lecture one and two-column notices, and both in this and other cities it has received in addition column editorials. In the words of a Headline of one of our Morning Dailies, it is ''A CRUCIAL ANALTSIS AND MASTERLT REFUTATION OF THE GEORGE DOCTRINEr It appeals to the thinking mind in every condition of life, but, owing to its clearness of diction and simple strength of expression, in a particular manner appeals to the mind of the LABORER AND MECHANIC, No One Can Fail to Follow and Understand THE Argument. In behalf of the best interests of our laboring people who are now in the throes of a social revolution, kindlv lend your assistance in their arriving at a correct knowledge of their true position. Respectfully vours, ST. XAVIER CONFERENCE. In ordering a single copy enclose a two-cent stamp for postage. A liberal discount will be allowed the trade. Address ST. XAVIER CONFERENCE, P. O. Box 107. Cincinnati, O.