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THE RIGHT OF

PROPERTY
OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
"
AND THE
By W. T. HARRIS.
(Reprint from the Journal of Social Science, Number XXII.)
}
HURD & COMPANY,
SOYLSTON STREET,
BOSTON.
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Congress in the year 1887 by W. T. HARRIS in the office
brarian of Congress, at Washington.
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The Right of Property and the Ownership of Land.
(Read before the National Social Science Association, at Sarataga, September 10,
ALY
1886, by WILLIAM T. HARRIS.)
WITH ADDITIONS.
REVISED
Social science seeks to understand the laws of the structure of
human society with a view to use its knowledge for the increase of
human welfare.
Man's nature is so complex that social science has difficulty in
grasping all its phases. It has again and again found itself in er-
ror, because it has omitted some essential phase of society, in com-
puting the elements of a social problem.
In this session of our Congress, we have already discussed the
importance of a complete inventory of the topics that lie within
the province of Social Science. We must comprehend the scope
of the whole, and be able to make clear to ourselves by a
definition the essential items in our general survey. We must dis-
cover one by one, all the elements that condition the problem of
society, and learn to keep them in view when we seek an answer
to any given question.
We are all aware of the dismal failure of political economy to
explain the phenomena of wealth and poverty as an isolated prov-
ince of human welfare. Man is a property-using animal, indeed,
but this definition does not exhaust the nature of man. For man
has three other provinces of activity equally essential. He repro-
duces his race by the institution of the family and sets up a pro-
cess of compensation for the inequalities of sex, age, and other
limitations of individuality, such as disease and personal peculi-
arities.
•
Property and its production, exchange, distribution and con-
sumption demand a social combination which we call the commu-
nity or civil society, an institution quite distinct from the family.
Nevertheless there can be no science of the community if the
family is ignored. For the entire structure of the community or
civil society must be conformed to the essential requirements of
the family. The preservation of the species and the preservation
of that portion of the spiritual heritage of culture that takes the
2
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
r
form of manners and customs and language constitute the two-
fold function of the family, and without these there would be no
human race conscious of objects and purposes for whose attain-
ment it could use wealth. Indeed, without the family there would
not be any human race at all to need wealth.
A political economy, therefore, that ignored the laws of family
life, would be a fatal mistake just as a doctrine of the family
that ignored the institution of civil society and made no prepara-
tion for it in family nurture, would fail to provide for the object
of human life.
M
M
But the family and the community do not make up a complete
inventory of the institutions of human life. They must not only
have consideration for each other, but they must both have con-
sideration for another province- for two other provinces or insti-
tutions the State and the church.
Without the State there can be no perfect development of the
family or of civil society. The State protects and defends, orders
and arranges the family and the industrial process by which wealth
is created and used.
The institution by which man gains truth and wisdom - spirit-
ual wealth and by it feeds the immortal soul, is still another in-
stitution, and we shall agree to call it the most sacred of all, for it
is that alone which makes life entirely worth living. I like to call
this spiritual institution the Invisible Church. It includes espe-
cially all forms of the Visible Church, and besides these, all labors
in science and philosophy, all poetic and literary art, all the fine
arts, in short, all free insight into the true, the beautiful and the
good, and all practical endeavor that realizes and actualizes them
among men.
For art, religion and philosophy enable man to par-
ticipate in the divine, and thus they furnish a sufficient reason for
human existence. Without this participation in the divine, the
preservation of the species through the family is not a matter of
infinite importance; nor is the production and consumption of
wealth; nor, finally, the organization of a political whole in the
form of a nation.
Political economy, therefore, must not only look backwards to
the family, it must look forward to the State and build its science
with a view to the higher functions of men as citizens of a free
State. It must keep in view still more the absolute goal of human
life which is participation in what is divine forever and ever.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
3
It will happen that any one of these provinces will demand a
different treatment when viewed in its relation to the total of hu-
man life, from that treatment which it could naturally receive when
viewed by itself alone.
If productive industry be regarded as the supreme object and
the creation of wealth be alone considered, we shall have the same
spectacle that was beheld in the first era of the application of in-
vention to the art of weaving, in the shape of the power loom and
the spinning-jenny. We shall see men and women toiling four-
teen hours a day in close, ill-ventilated rooms, and dwarfing their
bodies and their souls. We shall see children hardly out of in-
fancy working the same hours and under the same terrible condi-
tions as the men and women. The community thus organized is
at war with all the other institutions of society.
The State, on the other hand, may neglect the needs of civil
society and the family, and devote itself exclusively to the military
training of its young men, keeping them in the army through the
prime of their lives: preventing seasonable marriages and neglect-
ing the occupations of productive industry.
Even the church, in the too exclusive pursuit of holiness
highest end of life though it be may encourage the abnegation
or the family, civil society and the State - all the secular institu-
tions by setting up as its ideal of the noblest life of all individ-
uals, celibacy (attacking the family), poverty (condemning the
production of wealth), and obedience (to the church authorities
instead of the State). The defect of this isolation of man from
the secular world is seen in the history of monasticism and hermit
life, as illustrated in the Christianity of the Greek Church, as it
appeared in the first five centuries.
These reflections on the necessity of studying every phase of
society in full view of the whole may seem unnecessary to the nov-
ice, but they will justify themselves in the sequel.
THE DISMAL SCIENCE.
The question which we have before us for discussion this morn-
ing that of property is one that is very complicated; it is
hard to seize the idea of property, on account of the one-sided
treatment it has received from various schools of political economy.
We need only name the great writers on this science to suggest
dismal doctrines which have cast shadows over an entire literature
Getty
4
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
1
of economic discussion. Even Adam Smith, venerable name in
political economy, isolated the function of wealth-getting from
national welfare, and in a reactionary spirit set up principles for
absolute ones which serve only for a nation of mere shopkeepers.
Malthus set up a principle of population which has been the
Gorgon of social science. Population, he said, increases in geo-
metrical ratio, while the production of food increases only in an
arithmetical ratio. Unless immoral or criminal means are taken
to check population, it continually presses on the means of sub-
sistence, and squalid poverty is the result.
In spite of the fact that no age of the world can be pointed out
in which the limit of production has really been an obstacle to the
increase of the population,* this law has been accepted as a priori
truth.
Still more amazing is the fact in view of the history of produc-
tion in the past one hundred years. Population has increased un-
precedentedly since the epoch of labor-saving machines; but means
of subsistence have increased in a far greater ratio than popula-
tion. And yet this dreadful Jeremiad is chanted in chorus by pol-
itical economists, and the Gorgon face of inevitable starva-
tion or destruction of the family stares out upon the highway of
philanthropy.
Ricardo arrived at an a priori theory of rent. Mankind uses the
best land first. Woe to the after generations; they till an impov-
erished soil. In the golden age when land was plentiful, there was
no such thing as rent. When poorer soils have to be occupied be-
cause all the best land is taken up, then rent is required on the
choice lands in proportion to their desirability over the yet unoccu-
pied lands.
Inevitable poverty and misery appear again through this a priori
vista of Ricardo. It matters not though the facts of history show
that the most fertile lands are the last to be occupied, nay, are not
occupied yet, even to-day, because human combination and the ap-
plication of machinery is not able to cope with them. Witness
the entire Amazon River basin, two-thirds as large as all Europe,
* It seems to be the law that education and social refinement gradually diminish
reproductive power-the virile forces taking another direction than in increase of
the species. If this is so, the over-population of the earth becomes impossible — a
lower stage of civilization keeps down its rate of increase by war and its attendant
evils, while a higher stage of civilization becomes less productive by the law of
nature.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
5
Its
and as yet scarcely any of it subdued for agricultural uses.
vegetable growth is so luxuriant that all higher animal life is ut-
terly dwarfed by its overpowering presence. Only reptiles and in-
sects or still lower forms of animal life can hold their own against
such vegetable life. Mechanical invention will some day tame the
Amazon valley, and produce from it ten times as much food for
man as is to-day produced on the entire earth.
Thorold Rogers shows us that in England the soil has increased
in fertility so that four bushels of wheat are now produced where
only one was raised two hundred years ago. Beef cattle now
weigh twelve hundred pounds, instead of four hundred pounds as
then. A sheep yields seven to nine pounds of wool where it
yielded only one pound of very inferior quality ("half hair, half
wool".)
HENRY GEORGE'S "PROGRESS AND POVERTY."
An eloquent and earnest American writer-Henry George-
while he repudiates and confutes the Malthusian doctrine of pop-
ulation and subsistence, yet yields assent to the doctrine of Ri-
cardo, and, in fact, produces a new a priori theory as a sort of
corollary to that famous rent theory, but equally dismal. His
discovery is that private property in land is wrong, and that
the true and only remedy for poverty and its attendant miseries is
the confiscation of private ownership in land and the assump-
tion of all land by the government.
Mr. George writes so clear and convincing a style and is withal
so transparently a well-wisher of his race and so endowed with a
sense of justice, that his book has had nearly as wide an influence
as the books of Malthus and Ricardo and that influence is
still rapidly spreading.
We have indeed been told that many of the leaders in the labor
agitations in this country are disciples of this new doctrine.
Many scientific thinkers have been led to similar views, moreover,
through the influence of Herbert Spencer, who likewise holds that
there can be no private ownership of land without essential injus-
tice to mankind.
As this doctrine of Henry George and Herbert Spencer strikes
against the right of property in an essential particular, it
is evident that our present discussion of the radical grounds of
the right of Property and the ownership of Land must deal with
it in its details.
6 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
Let me give in briefest outline the contents of the book on
"Progress and Poverty."
(a) The rich are growing richer and the poor are growing
poorer. This fact is assumed as a matter which does not require
economical statistics for its proof. Everybody knows of some
rich men who are increasing in wealth, and likewise of poor men
who are growing poorer.
But, I ask, does not everyone know also of rich men who are
losing their wealth and of poor men who are gaining in wealth?
(b) Without stopping to prove so obvious a proposition as the
one first enunciated, Mr. George next unfolds his doctrine that
capital and labor are conditioned by private ownership of land in
such a manner that all the advance that is made by labor and capital
in the way of increased productive power is swallowed up in the
form of rent- the income of mere land as such increases at the
expense of all that is produced by labor and capital over and
above an amount sufficient for the bare subsistence of labor, and
for the lowest rate of interest on capital that will induce its em-
ployment in producing new wealth. This doctrine is established
not by an analysis of the statistics of rent, interest and wages,
(the products of land, capital and labor,) but by an a priori anal-
ysis of the nature of rent, interest and wages. Land has the
under hold in the contest and can extort compliance by its ultima-
tum: "Give me my rent or go away off of all land, if you pre-
fer,”— an ultimatum of a highway robber species "Your money
or your life."
Sp
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(c) The problem thus stated, he proposes its solution.
"The
persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth," is to be remedied
by abolishing private property in land, either by taxing it until its
owner cannot afford to keep it, or by some other more direct mode
of getting it into the possession of the State. The State should
lease it to the individual or the family, after the manner of the
ancient communism in land, which prevailed in the primitive
germ of civilization, the village community, as in India, Russia,
the tribes of Africa, of the ancient Germans.
(d) Finally, the effects of this remedy are painted in glowing
colors.
"The whole enormous weight of taxation in the form of rent
would be lifted from productive industry." "The rise of wages,"
he says, "(p. 409), the opening of opportunities for all to make
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
7
an easy and comfortable living, would at once lessen and would
soon eliminate from society the thieves, swindlers and other
classes of criminals who spring from the unequal distribution of
wealth."
"With the surplus revenue arising from the common property,
applied for public benefit," says he, (p. 410), "we could estab-
lish public baths, museums, libraries, lecture rooms, music and
dancing halls, theatres, universities, technical schools, shooting
galleries, play grounds, gymnasiums, etc. Heat, light, and
motive power, as well as water, might be conducted through
our streets at public expense; our roads be lined with fruit trees;
discoverers and inventors rewarded; scientific investigations
supported; and in a thousand ways the public revenues made to
foster efforts for public benefit."
There is no wonder that a vision of the future like this has
powerfully affected the imaginations of such people as could grasp
the thought of Mr. George's book. All misery and crime
removed and universal comfort prevailing in the home and in the
community! No wonder, too, that the kind heart of Mr. George
himself swells with the conviction and that his " thought still
mounts," in the concluding chapter of the book, to final problems
of civilization, and in view of the future an inextinguishable hope
is lighted up in his bosom.
But, alas! the question remains: Will the abolition of private
property in land lead to all this? Will it not lead rather towards
the degeneration of all higher spiritual interests and to the utter
ruin of all that has been achieved, even in the realm of produc-
tive industry?
Before looking at this question let us ask another one as to the
adequacy of the remedy proposed. Is the amount of rent all told
sufficient to accomplish a sensible amelioration of the condition of
the poor if it were all distributed? The conclusion of Mr. George
is reached a priori. An examination of the census tables will
give us information as to actual quantities and amounts.
How much per day does the laborer produce on an average, and
how much does land get of his earnings?
THE INCOME AND RENTAL VALUE OF THE UNITED STATES.
In the United States, according to the census of 1880, the total
∞
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
amount of all property,* including land and all other property
such as permanent improvements in the shape of buildings, ma-
chinery, etc., or such as floating capital in the shape of raw mate-
rial, manufactured products and money amounted to over forty-
three billions (thousand millions) of dollars, all told, in the follow-
ing items :
Farms,
Residence and business property,
Railroads,
Live stock and farming implements,
Stock of productions on hand, agricultural and manufac-
turing,
Churches, schools, asylums and public buildings,
Household furniture, etc.,
Telegraphs, shipping and canals,
Mines, quarries, oil wells, and ½ of average product,
Bullion,
Miscellaneous,
Total,
•
Millions of dollars.
10,197
9,881
5,536
2,406
•
6,160
2,000
5,000
419
781
612
650
$43,642,000,000
In the above table it is seen that the actual value of the farms
is placed at a little above ten billions, while the residence and busi-
ness property is placed at a little less. There is no clue given in
any of the census volumes, as to the relative values of land and
of buildings. It would be certain, however, that the land could
not exceed in value twenty billions, however small the value set
on buildings, as that is the total value of all real estate.
Comparing this table with another giving the assessment for
local taxation as, in the aggregate, $16,902,993,543, of which
$13,036,766,925, stands for real estate and the rest for personal
property, we see that the true value stands to the assessed valua-
tion as 20 to 13. It is stated by Mr. Gannett that in response to
inquiries made as to the ratio of assessed value to true value in
various parts of the United States, 25,000 replies were received,
showing that this ratio varied from 40 to 100 per cent.; the aver-
age, however, proved to be 65 per cent.
Fortunately for our inquiry, the State of Massachusetts pub-
*See Vol. VII. p. 10 of U. S. census for 1880. The estimate is by Henry Gannett. See
his account of the careful manner in which he obtained the item household furni-
ture, etc., and verified it by another calculation of the average amount of furniture,
etc., manufactured, and its average durability.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
9
lishes a document showing the "Aggregates of Polls, Property,
Taxes, etc., Assessed May 1, 1886," in which it appears that -
Personal property of the State amounts to
Buildings, exclusive of land of the State amounts to
Land, exclusive of buildings
، ،
6.
((
66
، ،
•
Eastern and Middle,
Southern Section,
Western States and Territories,
Total, .
Total,
$1,847,531,422
The ratio of the value of land to that of buildings in Massachu-
setts is as 11 to 14 - land being 44 per cent. and buildings 56 per
cent. of the total value of real estate.
Strange as it may appear, land seems to be worth less than build-
ings in all the counties of the State. In Suffolk County (contain-
ing Boston), land is 226 millions, and buildings 314 millions. In
Barnstable, down on Cape Cod, buildings count 64 millions, and
land only 34 millions of dollars. In Berkshire, among the moun-
tains of the west, buildings 15 millions, land 12 millions. In
Hampshire and Franklin, with small towns and the fertile lands
of the Connecticut River Valley, buildings count 11 and 7 mil-
lions, while land counts 9 and 63 millions respectively.
In the assessments of certain towns, however, the land is valued
at a higher rate than the buildings.
Connecticut and Rhode Island, on account of their large manu-
facturing interests, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, for
the same reason, may be safely counted as having an equal or even
larger proportion of property in buildings. In fact the ratio may
be assumed to hold good for the entire Eastern and Middle sec-
tions of the country; and this would give for assessed valuation,
3766 millions of dollars for buildings, and 2948 millions for land
alone.
•
In the southern and western sections of the country, it may be
assumed as a reasonable estimate that land and buildings are re-
versed in the ratio, or making larger allowance, say as 60 to 40,
and that the ratio of lands to buildings in the whole country
stands substantially as follows:
$507,037,749
752,669,001
587,824,672
Ratio of Buildings. Land.
buildings
to land.
Millions. Millions.
56-44
40-60
$3766
671
40-60 1857
6294
$2948
1000
2787
6735
Uor M
10 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
Estimating the assessed valuation at 65 per cent. of true valua-
tion, the total land value of the United States, counting building
lots and farms, amounted in 1880 to about ten billions of dollars,
perhaps three per cent. more or three per cent. less. Mulhall, in
his Dictionary of Statistics (p. 469), estimates land and forest.
in the United States at $10,750,000,000, which is a little more
than my estimate. (He gives the land of France at 14,650 mil-
lion dollars; of Germany at 12,100 millions; Russia at 9,700 mil-
lions; of the United Kingdom at 9,400 million dollars.)
Counting rent at four per cent. on the actual valuation, (which
would be 6.1 per cent. on assessed value), we have the sum of
$400,000,000 as the total rental of land in the United States.
Four per cent. is probably a larger average rent than land brings
in, because land-owners raise prices on land when it produces more
than three per cent. after paying taxes.
For a population of fifty millions the ground rent amounts to
eight dollars apiece per year, or 2 cents per day. This result
must be surprising to all who have been interested in Mr. George's
explanation of Progress and Poverty.
To be sure, this amount would be a considerable item were the
income very small say eight or ten or even fifteen cents. For,
in that case, one-fourth or one-seventh of the income would go
for ground rent. But the total average income of the population of
the United States is forty cents per day apiece, or $146 per year.
Mr. Edward Atkinson, in his "Distribution of Products," (New
York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1885,) a valuable contribution to the`
intelligent discussion of economic problems, estimates the average
annual income at 55 cents per day. Mr. Atkinson's method is a
correct one. He estimates (see p. 129) the wheat crop not ex-
ported as converted into bread, three-fourths of the corn crop as
converted into meat, and applies average retail prices (this
counts in the aggregate labor of farmer, butcher, carrier, and domes-
tic help of the consumer.) Next, he estimates the textile product
not exported as manufactured and made into clothing, and calculates
its value at average retail prices, as before. Thirdly, he reckons the
products of mines and forests in the same way in their final form,
distributed for consumption; finally, he estimates the value of
imports made ready and distributed for consumption. The total
labor of the entire fifty millions, whether in the shop, the field or
in the house, is thus obtained.
Maou
'
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
11
Mr. Atkinson does not give us the items thus carried out,
but prints a letter from Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Chief of the Bureau
of Statistics, who estimates as follows:
The total value of the annual products of the United States:
Agriculture,
Manufactures,
Illuminating Gas, (partly estimated,)
Mining,
Forestry, (partly estimated,)
Fisheries,
Meat production and wool clip on ranches. (esti-
mated,)
Petroleum, manufactured product,
•
C
$3,600,000,000
5,369,579,191
30,000,000
236,275,408
455,000,000
43,046,053
40,000,000
44,000,000
Total, (materials out,)
$9,817,900,652
The estimate here given is evidently intended as the gross
annual product without deducting materials used in manufactures,
or other duplications of products, notwithstanding, the parenthe-
sis after “Total" says “materials out." In the census volume
giving the statistics of manufactures, for example, the materials
used are given at $3,396,823,549 and deducted from the $5,369,-
579,191, leaving $1,972,755,542 as the total net product of man-
ufactures (see p. x. of that volume). The materials used"
include products counted already in the agricultural items and also
a duplication of items counted as products of manufacture (cot-
ton and wool, for example, appearing as such, and also as cloth,
and again as clothing.)
Again, as the meat product is counted, the hay crop ($409,505,-
783), and three-fourths of the corn crop (equal to $521,000,000),
should also be deducted these three deductions reducing the
total value of the annual product to $5,490,571,320. Add to
this (deducting materials) the household manufactures, home-made
clothing, etc., ($250,000,000), the buildings of all kinds erected
within the year, ($100,000,000), the miles of railroad added
($200,000,000); amount consumed on the farm, products of forests,
farm and kitchen gardens, etc., and not reckoned in the census.
($750,000,000); freight transportation on railroads, shipping and
canals—as adding to the final value of products-($516,000,000),
and a total of $7,300,000,000* is found without reckoning the
*Mr. Mulhall, in his "History of Prices," estimates the annual product of the United
states at $7,100,000,000.
12 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAnd.
✔
household work of final preparation of food, etc., for consump-
tion. This gives exactly 40 cents per day to each inhabitant. Mr.
Atkinson estimates the consumption on farms at one billion dol-
lars, or $40 a year for each member of the farmers' families -
an estimate seemingly too large. His estimate of the value of
the final processes of preparation for consumption would be 2,500
millions, perhaps not too much for the 20 million domestic workers.
The average ground rent, then, amounts to only one-eighteenth of
the average annual production (or one twenty-fifth according to
Mr. Atkinson's estimate). If this sum should be regarded as
making any great difference in the wages of the poor, it is certain
that a grain of thrift or economy will much more than compensate
for it. This sum is only a trifle more than the amount of the local
taxation (State, County, town and district), while if the national
taxation were likewise placed upon land values instead of col-
lected by tariffs and excises it would swell the ground rent to the
sum of 7 per cent. per annum on the true valuation. This result
would make it impossible for farmers in the eastern part of the
United States to get a living by raising staple crops, as we shall
see later on when we discuss Mr. George's plan for collecting all
revenues from land directly.
For a country where the rents may fairly be supposed to be
exorbitant most persons would select the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland. In that country there prevail enor-
mous inequalities of land ownership. They have arisen partly by
military conquest and partly by a survival of the old system of
tenure which prevailed in the village community, an institution
which underlies all present civilization.
Primogeniture implies the theory that there is not absolute
ownership in land, but a sort of life-estate only. Its effects are
seen in the massing of large possessions in few hands.
But even in the United Kingdom land does not exact a very large
average amount of rent per inhabitant — only 2 cents per day
only a slightly larger sum than in the United States. Meanwhile
the production in Great Britain has become so large that land
values are dwarfed in comparison. The relative increase of land
in price has been twenty-three per cent. in thirty years.
1850
100
Myou
1860
104
1870
116
1880
123
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
13
1850
100
Houses, on the other hand, have, in the meantime, gained 138
per cent. in aggregate value.
1850
100
1860
130
1870
164
1860
125
The aggregate incomes from manufactures, mercantile employ-
ments and professions have more than doubled.
1880
238
1870
174
1880
228
In fact, land in 1801 was assessed at 990 millions sterling and
in 1882 at only 1880 millions sterling, having scarcely doubled in
eighty years; while the value of houses had increased from 306
millions to 2280 millions sterling, or to more than seven times the
amount. The miscellaneous items of wealth in Great Britain had
increased in the same eighty years from 734 millions to 4560 mil-
lions.* Land, it would seem, in Great Britain, grows relatively a
less important item in national wealth, and this proves again that
Mr. George has been mistaken in his solution of the problem.
And this would be true were rent twice as large a sum in the
aggregate,—were it, for instance, four cents a day instead of two
cents, it would be no insupportable burden with our income of
forty cents. †
*Mulhall, Hist. Prices, p. 111. This work of Mr. Mulhall and the work of Mr.
Atkinson, above referred to, are commended to the general reader as the most useful
books on this subject.
M
+ Mr. George in "Progress and Poverty" (p. 260) refers to Professor Fawcett's
estimate of the "Capitalized rental value of the Land in England" as £4,500,000,000,
over twenty thousand million dollars. This estimate must include both land and
buildings and is very large even for the entire United Kingdom. Every critical
student of this subject knows how difficult it is to reconcile the conflicting state-
ments regarding the items of English wealth. Even Mulhall, who is an industrious
compiler and who has become quite sagacious in his estimates, through much study
of the comparative statistics of the twenty first nations of modern times, is oc-
casionally confusing in his technical terms. In his "History of Prices since 1850,”
(p. 84), he gives the total "agricultural capital in land" at 1737 millions sterling for
the United Kingdom, evidently meaning farms, farm buildings, and fences by the
term "land;" on page 111 he gives the total "wealth in lands" at 1880 millions sterl-
ing for the United Kingdom, meaning land used for farms and for building lots by
the term "land" in this place, for he gives houses at 2280 millions sterling and sun-
dries at 4560 millions sterling in the same table. The one authority that commands
universal respect, Robert Giffen, head of the Statistical Department of the London
Board of Trade, estimates the total land value of the United Kingdom at 2007 mil-
lions sterling and the buildings at 1420 millions sterling, for 1875. This would give a
total of about $17,000,000,000 for all real estate except the canals, railroads, mines,
iron works, and gas works, which amount in the aggregate to 817 millions sterling
additional, swelling the total real estate to 4244 millions sterling, or a little less than
14 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAnd.
THE CAUSE OF MR. GEORGE'S ERROR.
If one goes carefully over the arguments of Mr. George in the
first half of his " Progress and Poverty," he discovers that there
is no account made of the difference between land used for agri-
culture and land used for building sites. Land for building pur-
poses is prevented from demanding high prices by competition
with suburban agricultural lands. The rapid transit of the rail-
road produces this competition, offering to the laborer in the city a
cheap building lot carved out of a country farm, in a healthful
locality. On the other hand, capital in the form of cheap trans-
portation keeps down the price of farming land on the Atlantic
coast by bringing into competition with it the border lands of the
west. Mr. Atkinson has shown us that one day's work of the
eastern laborer will pay for the transportation from the far west
of all the meat and bread he consumes in one year. Under this
competition, we find a general decline in the value of farms in the
older sections of the United States, in those localities removed at
a distance of three miles or more from a railroad station. Capi-
tal has its hand on the throat of land property, contrary to the
theory of Mr. George, who supposes that land has the advantage
over capital and labor.‡
Professor Fawcett's estimate for the land alone. The land alone according to Mr.
Giffen's estimate, (adding 13 millions sterling for the land in the items excepted)
would amount to 2020 millions sterling or about 10 billions of dollars. (The total cost
of land and buildings used for railroads in the United States is only 103 millions,
about one-fiftieth of a total expense of over 5000 millions of dollars.) In 1876 a parlia-
mentary commission published a "blue book" in 2 vols. entitled "Land owners in
England and Wales: Return of the owners of Land of one acre and upwards in Eng-
land and Wales exclusive of the Metropolis, with their names, addresses, extent of
lands and estimated gross rental." The items collected were for the year 1873 and
gave as the "estimated rental" of England and Wales, (with London omitted) the
sum of £99,352,301. Adding to this the rental for Scotland and Ireland a total of
£131,468,758 is found. Call this sum 3 per cent. on the "capitalized rental value of
the land" and that value is found to be £4,382,291,933 for the United Kingdom. This
is very nearly what Professor Fawcett gives for England alone. It is clear enough
then that the "gross estimated rental" included the rental for buildings and all
manner of improvements as well as land. Schedule A. of the Income Tax in 1875
showed that the total income from lands and houses to their owners was £132,720,684,
almost exactly the same item as the "gross estimated rental," given by the commuis-
sion. (see Encyc. Brit. article England, pp. 223, 257 and 258). One must conclude that
no statistics are given which do not include some buildings with the land. Mulhall's
estimate at £1,880,000,000 is taken above and at 3 per cent. the rent would ave age
about 2 cents per day—or at 4 per cent. it would average about 3 cents per day per
inhabitant. At Mr. Giffen's estimate which is doubtless too liberal, the amount per
day must be increased by one-fifth of a cent.
Capital frees labor from the tyranny of land, and the present ratio of land to the
total wealth of the United States is about 1 in 4}. In Great Britain and Ireland it
+
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
15
Whatever may be the solution of the phenomenon of poverty
persisting amid growing wealth, it is clear that private property in
land is not the cause of it. But we may well inquire at this point
for the more exact statistics of wealth and poverty. How many are
rich? what amount of wealth have they? How much do the poor
receive of the productions of their labor?
DO THE RICH GROW RICHER, THE POOR POORER?
It was Karl Marx who announced the pessimistic view regard-
ing modern industrial society: "The rich are growing richer and
fewer; and the poor are growing poorer and more numerous; the
middle class are growing poorer and fewer.” Mr. George seems
to think that private property in land necessarily produces this
state of affairs. But in Great Britain, where Marx spent the
last thirty-three years of his life, statistics prove that the general-
ization is an error.
In Great Britain, the Income Tax, under Schedule D, furnishes
statistics regarding the number of persons, companies and corpora-
tions in mercantile, manufacturing or professional employments,
whose annual incomes exceed £150 (or say $750). Schedule A gives
like statistics regarding incomes from ownership of lands, tenements
and tithes; Schedule B regarding incomes from occupation of lands
and tenements. In Schedule D, in 1851, incomes from public com-
panies, besides individuals, engaged in manufactures and trad-
ing, etc., were included; and in 1867 these companies were
increased by transferring to them from Schedule A the companies.
managing mines, quarries, iron works, gas works, railroads, water
works, canals, etc., but in 1879-80 these latter companies were
excluded, leaving only companies of tradesmen, textile manufac-
turers, and similar, besides individuals. But the vast mass of in-
comes reported are those of private individuals, and hence the
numbers may be taken as directly proportional to the increase or
decrease of individual incomes.§
J
forms one-fifth of the total wealth; it is 1880 millions sterling, with an annual rental
of £65,442,000 (or 3½ per cent, on actual value). The total wealth of the United King-
dom is £8,720 millions. See Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, pp. 266, 268 and 469.
See also the cautious estimates of Robert Giffen, head of the Statistical Department
of the Board of Trade, in an address read before the London Statistical Society,
January 15, 1878-published in the journal of the Statistical Society, 1878.
§See Leoni Levi's "Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes," London: John
Murray, 1885, pp. 48 and 58. Compare with this Robert Giffen's "The Progress of the
Working Classes," Economic Tracts, No. XVI., New York.
16 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
Great Britain.
£150 to 300
300 to 500
500 to 1,000
1,000 to 2,000
2,000 to 3,000
3,000 to 10,000
10,000 to 50,000
50,000 and over.
Totals,
Average income,
1950-51.
Number.
68,864
21,367
12,258
4,708
1,342
1,551
312
26
1812
1850
1860
1870
1880
144,322
470
1879-80.
Number.
In the above table we see by the increase of incomes in 1879-
80 that there are now 3 times as many in the lowest rank of the
middle class as in 1850 (incomes $750 to $1,500); 3 times as
many in the next rank (incomes $1,500 to $2,500); 24 times as
many with incomes from $2,500 to $5,000; 2 times as many with
incomes from $5,000 to $10,000; 23 times as many from $10,000
to $15,000, meanwhile the population has increased only 33 per
cent.
241,568
61,615
29,839
11.495
The middle class (incomes $750 to $5,000) has trebled-102,489
(in 1850) to 333,022 (in 180). The moderately wealthy class
(incomes $5,000 to $15,000) has more than doubled (6,050 to
14,969).
A
£200-5000.
3280
3059
2896
4139
6225
3,474
4,065
910
77
398,835
424
The laboring class, whose annual incomes are less than $750,
averaged in 1850-51, £53 ($265); in 1881 the average had risen to
£83 ($415).* Very many, 180,000 or more, had ascended from
the poor class into the class paying an income tax. Mulhallt
gives the number in each million of inhabitants.
Over £5000.
34
56
53
67
88
In America we have no complete returns, but we can prove the
same results by the increase in wages.
In cotton manufacturing, the wages of operatives in Massachu-
setts in 1840 were $175 a year, with 13 hours of labor; in 1883,
*Leoni Levi, ibid, p. 53.
+Mulhall: Dict. Statist., p. 28. These figures show not only the incomes of Schedule
D, but also of Schedules A and B.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
17
wages $287, hours of labor, 11. In iron manufacturing, wages in
Pennsylvania, 1860-64, $353 per year; in 1875-79, $486.* On this
topic the investigations of Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Chief of the
Bureau of Statistics of Labor for Massachusetts, and recently called
to the office of United States Commissioner of Labor, are of the
highest value, and suffice to prove that the wages of laborers in
Massachusetts are at present 42 per cent. higher than in Great
Britain, as regards power of purchasing comforts, and that they
have increased in amount over what they were, to such an extent
that the laborer is constantly moving away from that "minimum
which will give but a bare living."
It is understood that all statistics regarding wages must be com-
pared with tables of "price levels," showing the cost of necessary
articles of food and clothing, etc.‡
According to the statistics of price-levels§ grain counts for 25
per cent. of the aggregate consumption; meat for 16; iron and
steel wares for 7; dairy products for 62; cotton goods for 6;
lumber for 5; woollen goods for 4 (and other items for less than
these). That is to say: the chief articles that affect the cost of
living rank according to these numbers in their power to raise or
lower said cost of living. In comparing the actual average cost of
living in one epoch with that in another, reference must be had to
these ratios. It will not do to count, for example, meat, which is 16
per cent., against woollen goods, which amount to only 4 per cent.
of the value of products of human industry. Taking the twenty
items that comprise 90 per cent. of all human industries, the result
is found that prices of the period from 1841-50 are over 5 per cent.
higher than those of 1881-84.
Meat has risen but grain has fallen. Agricultural products
average somewhat higher prices. Manufactures are much lower.
* The Distribution of Products," see Mr. Atkinson's instructive exhibits, on pp. 355
and 360.
†See Mass. Report on the Statistics of Labor, for 1884, pp. 432, 469. See also First
Report of U. S. Commissioner of Labor, 1886, pp. 411, 466, on cost of living.
Thorold Rogers' "Six Centuries of Work and Wages," is a storehouse of informa-
tion regarding wages and their purchasing prices. Though it shows vast original
research, and contains valuable general reflections, perhaps it fails to connect
properly the history of economical changes with their causes as found in political
revolutions and continental wars.
§See pages 8, 9, 179, 117, 122 and 177 and 178 of Mulhall's Hist. of Prices for the impor-
tant method of ascertaining the price-level by the total volume of trade instead of
by index numbers.
18 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
The increase of steam power all over the world and especially
in the United States continually works to make prices lower and
wages higher.
(6
.،
Steam engines* in Great Britain amount to 9,740,000,000 horse power.
،، "Continent of Europe (6
14,820,000,000
"United States,
"10,540,000,000
(C
"C
เ
،،
It is evident that the conquest of nature by labor-saving ma-
chinery continually increases the amount of production per inhab-
itant, provided the distribution is properly effected.†
The average daily production of each inhabitant of the United
States was found to be 40 cents on the basis of 7300 million dol-
lars total annual product. The average daily production of an
inhabitant of the British United Kingdom is 38 cents on a basis
of one thousand million sterling total annual product. But, at
1247 millions sterling, the figures usually given for that product,
it is 49 cents a day, making by far the largest average income, per
inhabitant, in the world.
+
The total income of Russia is 4240 million dollars, and to each
individual this gives 14 cents per day. For the agricultural pop-
ulation north of the black soil belt the earning is barely 4 cents
per day on an average through the year, for each inhabitant.
I
The production of the United States has risen to 40 cents per
day for each inhabitant from an average of 25 cents in 1830.§
*Mulhall's Estimate for 1885-p. 53 Hist. Prices.
"It is easy to prove that the great movement of modern days, the employment
of mechanical in the place of human forces, operates ultimately in cheapening pro-
duce and in bettering the wages of labor." Thorold Rogers' "Six Centuries of
Wages," p. 496.
+Leone Levi (loc. cit. p. 7) speaks of £1,274 millions as the gross income, and
intimates that there is duplication of items in that estimate. "The net income of
the nation is probably less than £1,000,000,000 per annum." Mulhall, however, gives
£1,247,000,000, as the net income.
Agriculture (including live stock),
Manufactures as reported,
From transportation in enhanced value of products,
Agricultural product consumed in household and not
reported,
•
§The estimate here made for 1850 compared with that for 1880, given in cents per
day, is as follows:
Household manufactures, .
Building of railroads and houses, mining, fisheries
and miscellaneous,
Total,..
1880.
18 cents
10.8"
3.7 "
"6
(6
4.1
1.4"
<<
•
(6
2.
40 cents
1850.
12 cents
5.8"
1.2"
3.2 "
1.8"
1.
(6
25 cents.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
19
Since the rental of the land of the country in 1850 (estimating
the land at the low estimate of 3 billion dollars), at four per cent.
amounted to 1 cents (1.43 cents) per day to each inhabitant, it
is seen that while the income has increased 15 cents per day the
average rental per inhabitant has increased in thirty years only
3 cents per day.
;
DOES THE WAGE-EARNER GET HIS SHARE?
9
At 40 cents per day and $146 per year for each inhabitant it
follows that each person following a gainful occupation (since
according to the census each person enrolled in such occupation
supports 2 persons on an average), should earn $1.35 per day
or $34.80 per month, provided that all production was distributed
pro rata to the wage-earners and that nothing whatever went to
capital as interest, and nothing to land for rent, nor anything for
supervision or superior skill. This would be the basis of distri-
bution according to Proudhon, the Socialist. Mr. George is not
a Socialist, but he believes that labor is robbed of a portion of its
full worth. As this view has been again and again asserted it has
come to be believed by large numbers among the skilled laborers
in the mechanical and manufacturing industries. It will surprise
this class of wage-earners to see that all persons receiving over
$34.80 per month are receiving more than they could possibly
receive were the total annual product divided equally among those
occupied in lucrative occupations, without allowing anything to
capital, or land, or supervision. Inasmuch as skilled labor
receives as wages from two to four dollars per day in most of the
States,* while common laborers in manufacturing establishments
receive $1.25 to $1.50, the wages of labor in the mechanical and
manufacturing industries is already above the average received
by all, rich and poor, to the extent of from 15 cents to $2.65
per day. Whereas, $417.60 per annum should be the average
pro rata if capital, and labor and supervision were to go unpaid,
teamsters in Illinois get $459.59; tailors, $542.94; stone masons,
$467.21; printers, $654, etc., according to investigations of the
Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics.†
*See third biennial report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for Illinois (1884) by Mr.
John S. Lord, Secretary; where $2.12½ is the average given for all skilled mechanics.
766 establishments in Illinois pay $2.50 and over; 1400 establishments out of 1650
from which returns were obtained, pay $2.00 and over.
†See pp. 165-254 Report for 1884. See also Appendix A, pp. 295-410 of the Report
of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor for 1886.
20 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
If some persons get more than the average sum of $34.80 per
month it is clear that others must get less. What laborers get
less than the average annual product? It is easy to reply: It is
the farm laborer, who gets only $22.29, without board, as the
average found by averaging the rates paid in the several States*
and much less than that sum, averaging by number of laborers.
The fact seems forced upon us by these statistics that the work-
ingmen engaged in manufacturing mechanical products as well as
in trade and transportation, have, by their organization and per-
sistent agitation for higher wages succeeded in obtaining a larger
share of the annual production, leaving the farming population
with smaller wages averaging about of the wages paid to those
engaged in manufacturing, mining and transportation.†
THE RESULTS OF THRIFT AND ECONOMY.
Having been for some time comtemplating the spectacle of pro-
gress in population, in facilities for locomotion and communication,
many people have come to believe that the average annual pro-
duct must have increased so much that each inhabitant can live
not merely in comfort but in actual luxury, if he receives his full
share. But while we see multitudes of individuals around us rise
from poverty to affluence by energy and economy practised for
twenty years, yet the great mass of the population does not prac-
tice economy although it exerts much energy. The progress of
the entire nation in productive power is accordingly much slower.
Thrift and economy means: Deny yourself superfluous articles
of food, drink and clothing and invest their cost in durable arti-
cles, and especially in capital which itself aids in producing.
At first thought it would seem that economy is a virtue which
accomplishes most when it is scarcest that, in short, if all were
economical each would save less than a thrifty person in a com-
munity of spendthrifts. But it may be seen that if a whɔle com-
munity consumed less intoxicating liquor but used the labor
Sta
*See statistical table of Mr. J. R. Dodge, of the National Agricultural Bureau,
printed by Mr. Atkinson (p. 111). If it is true, as Mr. A. supposes, that farm laborers
consume $40 per annum, $3.33 per month, or 11 cents per day of produce not counted
their wages will be equivalent to $25.62 per month.
!!
†This increase of wages on the part of the trades and manufacturing industries,
of course,
is not at the expense of the farmer, for his wages, too, have increased by
reason of a home market and cheap manufactures. But his income has not
increased so fast as that of the manufacturing laborer.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
21
required to pay for it in making better buildings, or in bring-
ing land under a high state of cultivation, or in perfecting means
of transportation, that wealth would be saved permanently instead
of being consumed. So, too, it follows that the consumption of
expensive (and often deleterious) food or the wearing of expen-
sive and showy clothing is a loss in permanent wealth entirely
unnecessary because its cost might be put into permanent improve-
ments which would aid in production. Labor, too, by this
process, would be diverted more and more from the production of
articles of mere show or the gratification of sensuous appetite
The more
and devoted to the production of permanent wealth.
production of articles of enduring usefulness, the greater the skill
and productive capacity in those lines, and hence the easier it
becomes for each inhabitant to accumulate such articles of perma-
nent wealth. Hence, one economical person benefits another, and
the average accumulating power of each individual in a thrifty
community is greater than that of a single thrifty person in a
community of spendthrifts.
·
Chap
NOT PRODUCTIVE POWER ENOUGH FOR LUxury.
But as yet we produce as a nation only 40 cents daily per inhabi-
tant, and so much is certainly not enough to supply all the desirable
elements of necessary food, clothing, comfort and culture, not to
speak of articles of luxury. Certainly, the only remedy for this is
increased production by labor-saving machinery. Double the
number of steam-engines and set them to work producing profit-
ably by the aid of inventions in machinery, and the force will be
an addition of 11,000,000 horses or of 110,000,000 able-bodied
men, to our industries. This would so increase the product of
articles of wealth and cheapen their price that the day's earnings
of each inhabitant would purchase more than one dollar can at
present. The 40 cents daily production now purchases more than
42 cents did in 1850.*
The conclusion is, therefore, that each person ought to practice.
economy, not only as a duty to himself and family, but as a duty
that he owes to the community. It is clear enough, too, that it is
*See Mulhall's Hist. Prices. p. 117-showing price level of the twenty items that
comprise ninety per cent. of all human industries, See also p. 177 where it appears
that one dollar will buy the same amount of agricultural production that $1.51 could
buy in the decade 1811-1820, and the same amount of manufactured products now
that $2.41 did then.
22 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
+3
the accumulated wealth that renders possible a large public reve-
nue and renders possible the support of unfortunate or profligate
people who become paupers.
Great Britain and Ireland supported, in whole or in part, 1,308,-
000 paupers in 1850 (one in twenty-one of the population!); in
1860, only 973,000; but in 1870, 1,279,000 (the American
war having raised prices of food and other items 52 per cent.
during the years 1863-65 and caused the incomes of half a mil-
lion to prove insufficient for support); in 1880 the total number of
paupers had fallen to 1,016,000 (803,000 in England and Wales).
In the terrible period of the final struggle with Napoleon, the na-
tional wealth enabled Great Britain to support its immense number
of paupers, but at a yearly cost of 34 per cent. of the entire annual
product of the nation. (The poor-rates amounted to nearly one
per cent. in 1870 and to 0.84 per cent. in 1880.)
To see in what way national wealth acts to support those who
are so unfortunate as to require aid, consider the case of Russia,
where the total annual product is only 14 cents per inhabitant and
less than half as much in the agricultural districts where there
is annually much suffering.* This suffering is not alleviated as
with us by the distribution of help at public cost. If there were
wealthy people living among the rural population their accumu-
lations would be drawn upon to support the starving.
But, with the doctrine that accumulation is robbery (a doctrine
proclaimed by Proudhon and many other Socialists), it is evident
that each person is taught the lesson of improvidence. Each
should squander his earnings as fast as received. Squalor and
misery must come to a people who adopt this pernicious doctrine.
The leaders of labor-unions have to see to it that there is
enlightenment in regard to the total amount of wealth and to its
*“The crops in Russia are, however, very unequally distributed. In an average
year there are 8 governments which are some 6,930,000 quarters (say 3,500,000 bushels)
short of their requirements, 35 of which have an excess of 33,770,000 quarters (17
million bushels), and 17 of which have neither excess nor deficiency. The export of
corn (grain) from Russia is steadily increasing, having risen from 6,560,000 (3,280,000
bushels), in 1856-1860 to an average of 23,700,000 quarters (11,850,000 bushels) in 1876-83
and of 26,623,700 quarters in 1884. This increase does not prove, however an excess of
corn (grain), for even when one-third of Russia was famine-stricken during the last
years of scarcity, the export trade did not decline; even Samara exported during
the last famine there, the peasants being compelled to sell their corn in autumn to
pay their taxes. Scarcity is quite usual, the food supply of some ten provinces
being exhausted every year by the end of the Spring. Orach and even bark are then
mixed with flour for making bread."-Encyclopædia Britannica, article on "Russia.”
See also D. Mackenzie Wallace on Russia, chapter VII.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
23
manner of distribution. This would prevent a large part of the
population from supposing that their shares would be increased if
there was a more equable distribution of products. We have seen
that all persons getting over $34.80 per month are getting more
than the total amount of annual production would give if divided
among the 17 millions of wage-earners, equally the farmers
getting less than the average product, while the workers in the
mechanic arts and trades get more, as already shown.
1
CODE
READJUSTMENT OF VOCATIONS.
Invention makes obsolete the skill of the previous generations,
and the people of the feeblest intellect, not being able to readjust
their vocations and to learn new trades, are not able to work at
sufficiently remunerative employments. They must become pau-
pers. They must receive help from the others, from relatives,
from friends, or from the State. Doubtless there is room for in-
definite improvement in regard to humane methods of treating this
class of our population. But to suggest that we change our whole
form of civilization, and all become paupers, in order to re-
move the difference between the highest and lowest of our popula-
tion, that is no solution of the difficulty.
Our form of civilization is calculated to develope as much as
possible the individual self-activity, and this is the goal of all
civilization. To return to the old village community is to retro-
grade to the level of society just one remove from barbarism.
The Russian "Mir" shows us what that would be; to earn from
four to six cents per day, and to wear one suit of sheepskin cloth-
ing for twelve years, night and day; to have little domestic and
foreign commerce ;* to have no career for the individual that
would never again answer for the race we belong to. On the con-
trary we aspire to a missionary career, teaching all nations to be
self-active and to conquer the earth by industry, aided by labor-
saving machinery.
"There are no paupers in Russia," says Laveleye. But he
means only that there are no poor rates and no alms-houses in
which to support paupers. For there are, as we have seen, sixty-
three millions of peasants of so small productive power, that
whole provinces suffer during the last two months of winter for
*Mulhall, Hist. Prices: p. 34: The foreign commerce of Great Britain was $95 per
inhabitant for the year 1884; that of Russia, $5.75.
Uor M
24 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
the want of even
even the plainest food. Our sense of humanity
would distribute alms to such sufferers, and we allow 22 cents a
day even for paupers; the Russian is content with his four cents'
worth of food per day, and does not starve until that fails.*
Obviously human destiny points towards the realization of
the possibilities of all men in each man. Each must contribute
the sum of his experience, his successes and failures, the net
result of his life experiment to the race, and in return re-
*I allude to Russia often in this paper because it is in that country that we find a
practical type of socialism still existing. In Russia the village community still pre-
vails. Laveleye has shown us (in his Primitive Property ") that this is one of
the stages of development in the political hi-tory of all peoples who have advanced
to civilization. There are several stages below it-the tribal life, subsisting by
hunting, the roving nomads, that subsist by grazing, the migrating agricultural
tribe, that burns a new forest to prepare its grain field, and after three or four
crops moves on to a new section and burns another forest. Russian civilization had
advanced to this form of migratory agriculture, when the Czar, in 1601, fixed the
peasants to the soil, establishing serfdom and replacing the migratory agriculture
by the next higher form, the three-fold rotation of crops and the village community.
In our time (1861) we have seen the emancipation of the serfs from the feudal sys-
tem under which a long process of education had gone on that eradicated the no-
mad spirit from the Russian mind. But the village community (the "Mir") still
remains in the rural districts, although the wise policy of the government has been
to introduce urban life and the new status of free labor from western Europe.
Accordingly labor-saving machinery and railroads have been introduced, and skilled
labor has been imported into towns. Under this influence Russia has advanced to a
daily production equal to 14 cents per inhabitant, although the 63 millions of peas-
ants produce much less and have not yet advanced to the degree of wealth and luxury
that wears cloth for clothing. A suit of sheepskin that lasts for a dozen years and is
worn night and day is used instead of cloth. With the slow development of individ-
uality, and the conservatism of the village community, nine-tenths of human possi-
bility is necessarily wasted.
•
The enterprising spirit where it develops is repressed and turns into rebellion
against the patriarchal authority vested in the starosta, or village elder, by the vil-
lage assemblies. The consequence is that the strongest individuality is threatened with
conscription into the army, or even with exile to the Siberian mines. This waste of
enterprising talent produces the backward condition of an immense population. The
Russian has good material in him for the highest culture, only the survival of a
crude social organization holds him back. But the brightest intellects-the individ-
ualized elements among the population—thus become restive under the patriarchal
rule of the village community. In the army they are reduced to machines by its dis-
cipline and its habits of indolence. See D. Mackenzie Wallace's Russia. Wallace
gives a "budget," or statement of family expenses for one year (p. 116) of a fisher-
man's family, consisting of two able-bodied men, one boy and two women.
Expenses.
Revenue.
Game, fish, caviar, timber, wood, $61 00
Rye meal,
Taxes,
Clothing and boots,
Fishing tackle and ammunition,
·
$35 00
11 00
12 50
2 50
$61 00
After deducting taxes, each of the five persons has $10.00 per year or three cents
per day!
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
25
ceive from the race the sum total of its wisdom aggregated into
principles. Each thus contributes a finite product, but receives
back an infinite. Since this result can be attained only by devel-
oping the individual to his highest potency, it follows that educa-
tion and culture are demanded for each individual as the supreme
condition of his highest usefulness, whether as producing ma-
terial products or as communicating to one's fellow-men the net
results of the experience of life, or, on the other hand, for the
participation in the life of the whole.* Hence it is that the part
of the civilized world that has emerged, or is on the way of
emerging, from the village community and the succeeding stages
of the manor and the caste system of labor, adopts a system of
common schools open to all. After the Crimean war the govern-
ment of the Czar perceived clearly that Russia could not cope with
western Europe without adopting its system of free individuality,
and therefore it began a radical change by emancipation of the
serfs and a more active importation of industries. After the
Franco-Prussian war, western and southern Europe perceived
another step indispensable - popular education--and it is now
fully inaugurated. With culture in general studies, language,
mathematics, science, the inventive power of the individual in-
creases and the industries undergo a gradual or even a rapid
metamorphosis in the direction of the substitution of machinery
for human muscle, and the transformation of the hand laborer
into a brain power that directs and guides the machine which does
the drudgery.
ta
G
Hence a constant readjustment of vocations becomes necessary,
and all laborers who are mere "hands," work at a continually
growing disadvantage, in comparison with those who use machin-
ery, a fact that leads Mr. George to speak of the new forces of
material progress as "a wedge that presses down the lowest class,
while it raises the higher classes." Stated correctly, it elevates and
emancipates all educated people but leaves the uneducated laborer
where he was, unless he is capable of doing something that a ma-
chine cannot do, i. e. some sort of skilled labor. To be able to do
only by hand what a machine can do, is to be a pauper.† To the
*Think, for instance, of the instrumentality for this participation, the morning
newspaper, in which each individual gets a glimpse of the life of the world every
day.
†One thinks of the typical case of the poor widow with a large family of young
children, living in a garret, and trying to gain a living by sewing 16 to 18 hours per
Uorm
26 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
}
credit, however, of the industrial civilizations they support their
paupers comfortably giving them food, clothing and shelter to
the amount of 22 cents or even 40 cents a day.
TOO MANY AGRICULTURISTS.
Universal education enables all to make a good living. But in
America there are too many people living directly off the land—
more than a due proportion of agriculturists, considering the
producing power of our agriculture and the increasing use of
machinery. Hence, there is a continual pressure of the agricul-
tural population upon the mechanic and manufacturing trades ;
the enterprising sons of farmers wish an opportunity to make the
higher wages given to mechanics and tradesmen. This tendency
to increase the number of artisans constantly works against the
efforts of skilled labor in the trades to increase wages, and pro-
duces often unlawful efforts on the part of organized unions of
laborers to limit the number of apprentices and to exclude
the farmers and common laborers applying for admission. It is
not, perhaps, a conscious selfishness, but it is really a very hard
species of selfishness, after all. Otherwise benevolent and kind-
hearted mechanics and manufacturing people, under the influence
of abstract theories such as "the iron law of wages"—are
sometimes led to do violence against the plainest rights of the
laborer in a free country — the right to contract his labor freely
-
day, sickness and starvation being the result. This story is always heart-rending.
But it is not caused by the "grinding extortions of the proprietor of the clothing
factory," any more than by Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine, which
cheapens the cost of clothing, or than by common school education which has in-
creased the resources of labor, by adding brains to mere hands. There is no other
way than to organize public and private help for such cases. A feeble woman was
never better able to provide bread for a large family of young children than just
now. But she ought never to be permitted to do this. This is a matter of charity
that the State should look to with the aid of all citizens. As productive power in-
creases it will doubtless become easier for a feeble woman to support herself and
others, if she possesses education. But the progress in production makes at its
present speed only an advance of 60 per cent. in thirty years.
‡“In all kinds of work," says Turgot, "it must and does come to pass that a work-
man's wages are limited to what is needful for his subsistence." Laveleye explains
that "less than this starves the workman and reduces the number of workmen, and
the fewer the workmen the higher the wages. While if he gets more, easier cir-
cumstances cause more rapid increase of population and a consequent return of
wages to their minimum." This is called by Lasalle "The Iron Law of Wages."
This law, like all other varieties of the Malthusian law, is sheer à priori and pure fic-
tion. There is no such law of more rapid increase of population among the well-to-
do people, bit quite the contrary.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
27
•
and the right to security of life and limb while he peacefully
pursues his chosen vocation.
According to Laveleye (Polit. Econ. Eng. tr. p. 64) there are
five freedoms that belong to labor. "Guided by self-interest
where he has any light, man will devote himself to the most profit-
able form of labor. It follows that the more labor is free the
more it will be productive.
Freedom of labor comprises,
1. Freedom to choose a trade. Monopolies and guilds violate
this freedom.
2. Freedom to labor wherever one pleases; no privileges for
certain districts; freedom in the choice of a dwelling.
3. Freedom of partnership.
Freedom to buy and sell to the best advantage. Freedom
4.
of trade.
5. Freedom to lend money; abolition of the laws against
usury."
This free individuality of labor cannot be secured in our modern
society without the principle of absolute property in land. Any
other form of tenure would be a lapse into a lower stage of civil-
ization-the manorial system or the village community-in which
the freedom of each person depends on his neighbor's tolerance
without the possibility of protection on the part of the general
government from meddlesome interference in his private opinions,
his business, his amusements and his culture. Free thought and
general culture become impossible under such circumstances, and
the whole atmosphere of the village community is filled with super-
stition. Jealousy prevents any from rising above the general
level except by brute force or cunning.
VOCATIONS, HOW READJUSted.
The progress of the world in invention necessitates, as we have
seen, perpetual readjustment of vocations a constant ascent
out of mere hand labor into intelligent directive power. The ruder
vocations minister directly to the satisfaction of the wants of
food and the coarser forms of clothing and shelter.
The higher
vocations relate to the satisfaction of man's spiritual wants and
the supply of means for luxury and amusement. Here is a con-
spectus showing these vocations:
Uor M
Com
28 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
I. THE LOWER Order.-ProdUCTION OF NECESSITIES.
1. Procuring of raw materials.
(a) Agriculture and grazing.
(b) Hunting, fishing.
(c) Mining (including petroleum wells, etc).
2. Transportation.
(a) Teaming.
(b) Railroad.
(c) Water transportation.
3. Transformation of Products.
(a)
IT @
Textile fabrics, cloth and clothing.
Wood and metal work.
(b)
(c) Leather.
(d) Miscellaneous.
:
*
*
II. THE HIGher Order.— PRODUCTION OF MEANS OF LUXURY,
OF PROTECTION AND OF CULTURE.
The vocations that provide:
1.
Means of Luxury and creature-comfort, including manufac-
tures that require a higher order of educated, technical skill.
Means of Protection, including
(a) Those who provide amusement and recreation.
(b) The medical profession.
(c) The legal profession.
(d) Officials managing public works or public charities,
also Government officials.
Kladdk
(e) Insurance companies and the directive agents of com-
panies formed for guarding the interests, general or special, of
society as a whole or of any particular part of it- charitable
associations, trades unions, etc., etc.
3. Instrumentalities of culture.
(a) Moral and religious churches, etc.
(b) Intellectual and moral education schools and libraries.
(c) Aesthetic-including all trades that produce orna-
ment on useful goods or that produce works of art in sculpture,
painting, music, poetry and literary art, landscape gardening,
etc., etc., also all influences that cultivate taste,-- the formation
and care of art museums, etc.
Maou
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
29
(d) The collection and diffusion of information, editing and
printing of books and newspapers, telegraph operators, etc., etc.
(e) Pursuit of science and the invention of devices useful
in the arts.
The number required in these latter spheres, especially in the
production of articles of luxury and of ornamented goods, and in
the collection and diffusion of information, is increasing rapidly.
OVER-PRODUCTION.
We hear of over-production in manufactures and at the same
time in agriculture. Over-production can only happen because
too many people are fitted only for the lower order of occupations.
The persons fitted for the higher occupations that minister to lux-
ury, protection and culture, can perform the lower order of work
whenever it is necessary, without waste of time in readjusting their
vocations. Those of the lower orders of work cannot fit for the
higher vocations except with much expenditure of time in general
and special education and training. With a whole people educated,
complete preparation is made for the changes incident to material
progress.
As to the general question of over-production, it is evident-
(a) That when there are produced more agricultural produc-
tions than are necessary for the population of a given country,
and likewise more than it can export, a readjustment is required,
leaving fewer laborers in agriculture and providing for more labor-
ers in the manufacturing and exchanging departments of industry.
(b) When there are produced likewise, too many articles of
manufactures to supply what are called the necessities, a readjust-
ment is required that will increase what we call the higher order of
production that is to say, the labor that ministers to luxury or
protection or culture.
(c) If there is a temporary retrograde movement in society, as
there is sure to be in case of war, * or pestilence, a readjustment
will be effected by the transfer of laborers from the higher order
of vocations to the lower order, a transfer easily and naturally
made because the wages in the lower order will increase, while
those in the higher will decrease in such epochs.
*See Mulhall's History of Prices, the diagrams (frontispiece and opposite pages
130 and 154) showing the tremendous effects of the Napoleonic war and the American
civil war on the price-levels all over the world.
30
THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
All people consume food, clothing and other necessary articles;
all want articles of luxury, means of protection, and the ministry
of culture, in proportion to their degree of civilization.
The more application of machinery the less laborers are needed
in the departments where a narrow special education will suffice,
and the more the laborer is required to have a general and humane
culture. This doctrine contains the cheering gospel of final eman-
cipation from drudgery. The only condition attached to it is that
all shall be educated, and this condition is indeed the best part of
the gospel. It makes it the business of society and of every mem-
ber of it to see that each and all are educated. It becomes the
interest of the selfish man as well as the ideal of enlightened phi-
lanthropy to have each member of society so intelligent that he can
find his vocation in the higher order of human occupations.
The history of industry goes back to a time when only one in a
thousand of the able-bodied population could be spared for the
creation of ornament or the ministry of culture. Great progress
had been reached when one in a hundred could be spared for
such purposes. The United States and Great Britain have reached
the point where five in a hundred of the laborers are actually
pursuing vocations that have for their object the addition of orna-
ment to what is already useful, or the direct ministration to cul-
ture in some form. When the ratio is reversed and only five in a
hundred are needed to provide the crude necessary articles of con-
sumption, and the remnant of society may devote itself to the
higher order of occupations - then the economic problem will be
solved.
G
ECONOMY CONDITIONED BY A HIGHER PRINCIPLE.
The trend of social history now becomes apparent. It is not
merely the emancipation of man from thraldom to nature. The
plentiful supply of his material wants would be only a curse if
there did not remain a high state of activity in the work for the
spiritual perfection of man. If it were so that nature provided
food gratuitously, and furnished such a climate that clothing and
shelter were unnecessary, the condition of man would be hope-
lessly low in the scale, as witness Central Africa to this day.
The emancipation must be of such a character that it can be
achieved and sustained only by tense activity and the most com-
plete development of man's higher powers. Long training in
REMARKS OF W. T. HARBIS.
31
youth, necessary to master the conventionalities of civilization and
the view of the world attained by culture, must develope and fix
habits of industry and rational endeavor.
THE FUNCTION OF PROPERTY.
The function of industry in the perfection of man becomes clear
when we consider the true nature of property.
Property is the means for transfering the products of the will
of the individual to the race, and at the same time the means of his
participation in the products of the race. Human labor cannot be
stored up and transferred except in the form of property. A
thing becomes property when
(a) It is held in possession by one individual or a company of
individuals;
}
*
(b) and that possession is recognized, confirmed and defended
by the community.
This interchange between the individual and humanity is essen-
tial to spiritual life. The division of labor by which production is
increased through mutual inter-dependence, bears greater fruits
than food, clothing and shelter. Its chief fruit is the spiritual
gain; each man learns the experience of all men and gives in re-
turn for it the small lesson of his own experience.
Possession and the recognition of that possession are essential
to property. Hence, property implies the unity of a social whole.
It implies, too, the interchange of ideas as well as of material
things.
The social combination which recognizes individual ownership
is of a sort that does not crush out the individuality of its mem-
bers. Social organization is absolutely essential for the develop-
ment of man above the animal. For human life, as such, signifies
the perpetual assimilation, on the part of the individual, of the
aggregate experience of the whole community. All that society,
as a whole, experiences, aggregating the experience of all individ-
uals, becomes by intercommunication the possession of each.
Take away private. property and each one's individuality, as
manifested in his private wants, gets in the way of the individual-
ity of every one else. Universal collision results in the necessity
of the subjugation of all wills in the community to one will; hence
arises despotic absolutism as the lowest and rudest form of
rational society, the relation of master and slave.
-

32 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
The possession of private property makes possible the exercisé
of many wills in the community. without collision with each other.
It is a greater invention than the discovery of the primitive arts
of fire and metallurgy. It is the discovery of the possibility of
human freedom.
But the possession of private property does not secure freedom
except in a community where private property in land is also re-
cognized. With private property in land there is secured a
province within which the individual becomes sovereign. With the
principle of private property in land once recognized, there goes
on a culture in individuality which is impossible without it.
Where the land is the property of the community, each one's will
in some degree lacks a sphere in which it is sovereign (it lacks a
“dominium "). There must be one absolute will which limits all
others, and deprives them of perfect freedom to that extent.
Such is the fact in the patriarchal family and in the village com-
munity. But when the individual obtains the perfect sovereignty
over his own land, then the will of the community does not share
with him nor subordinate him any longer, but re-enforces his will.
It takes the form of recognition rather than that of dictation
and obedience.
History looks upon the invention of private property in land as
one of the mightiest steps towards human progress. The Romans
invented the forms of corporation, the formulæ for contract
and the forms of government for municipal and State governments,
clearly distinguishing the legislative, judiciary and executive func-
tions. They also invented the forms of acquiring, holding and
transferring property, and especially property in land. But the
right of private property in land and the forms of free competi-
tion on the part of individuals have done more to develope per-
sonal individuality than all other devices. These Roman forms
have been the nurture of individuality, just as play is the nurture
of spontaneity and originality in the child. The child exercises
his caprice and arbitrariness until he developes the strength and
stuff to form a rational and consistent character. So private
property over which the owner may have absolute control nur-
tures his individuality. That individuality which is mediated
through other individuality may be called personality-one man
recognized by all others as acting rationally and to be protected
in his acts, for this reason becomes a person.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
33
1
:
THE UNEARNED INCREMENT."
Mankind, through the development of private property, makes
progress as never before.* Let an owner improve his piece of
land and he expresses in full his caprices and inclination, devel-
oping a visible expression of his internal tendencies and procliv-
ities. In this he becomes a revelation to himself and to others.
What he originates that is useful or valuable may become the prop-
erty of all his neighbors. What is not useful may be avoided.
So that if he builds a house he attempts to realize his ideals and
sometimes adds permanently to the beautiful or to the useful
models of building. But, abolish free ownership and you abolish
the expression of this innermost inclination and proclivity. The
owner of a leasehold is careful if he builds, to study how to build
so that in case the land passes away from his possession he may
get the most for his building. Hence, he adopts a conventional
style, and there is no self-revelation in his work and no culture that
comes from it. He tries no new experiment and there is no gain
that comes to humanity when, by experiment, a new form of the
useful or the beautiful is added to the stock already possessed.
If one hundred persons build, perhaps 90 and 9 will introduce
capricious variations that do not add anything valuable to what
is already invented. But the one-hundredth person adds a form
of real beauty or a device of utility. All society profits by the
work of the one and loses nothing by the experiments of the
ninety-nine. If society had to support its inventors at the cost of
the public, it would lose so much by the ninety-nine foolish exper-
imenters that it could not afford to reward the one wise discoverer.
By the principle of free competition society gains constantly at
the least expense.† As it pays nothing to the ninety-nine who
*Competition is the only true method of ascertaining the cost or price; all other
methods are purely arbitrary. If the principle of competition is done away with
things must be distributed arbitrarily, not by earnings but by allotment, and all
standard of value is set aside. Under such an arrangement the primary condition
of freedom is abolished. A free man should be able to recognize his own deed. When
it is undistinguishable from the deeds of others he soon loses a sense of responsibil-
ity. By the law of competition each one constantly sees the measure of his exertion by
comparison with others. See W. B. Weeden's valuable work on "The Social Law of
Labor," (Boston, 1882), p. 98. "The only means of arriving at a true cost in economics
is to put two men at work against each other; by working against each other they
work for the whole of society.”
†As a matter of fact Socialism can not show any example where a department has
been taken charge of by the general government in which any progress has been
made in the methods of management except by borrowing directly from methods
invented in private business affairs. Were private business affairs to be merged in
Socialism there would cease to be any progress.
34 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
fail to discover a valuable process, it can afford to reward the one
successful man who invents a great benefit to society. Bessemer
saves by his invention thirty millions of dollars a year to Great
Britain and double that amount to America. How large a per
cent. of this added wealth does he receive? The great "Railroad
Kings" who invented cheap transportation by combining lines of
railroad under one management and adopting a system of regula-
tions which have resulted in making railroad travel the safest
known means of travel safest for man, safest for goods, — and
chief among these railway inventors is the Vanderbilt family-
have reduced the cost of transportation of freight from 34 cents
per ton per mile, to less than 7 cents per ton per mile, and thereby
saved the sum of more than 500 millions of dollars per annum to
the country (the actual freight charges being 416 millions, but at
old rates would be over 1000 millions). How large a per cent.
have these men been able to secure as reward for their talents?
Mr. Atkinson points out (in his essay on the "Railway, the
Farmer and the Public,") that Ohio in one year (1883) saved
the sum of 89 millions of dollars on railroad transportation over
the prices of 1869, reduced to a gold standard. $60,000,000 of
this was for local traffic.
8
B
In the case of the inventors, society invests nothing in the
unsuccessful ones but gains much in case of the successful.
Arkwright, Hargreaves, Watt, Whitney, Fulton, Morse society
reaps a thousand millions where these individuals reap one mil-
lion. The 99 who fail do much negatively to close up the by-
paths that lead no whither. They explore and map out the realm
of non-fruitful discovery. They study science. They inventory
nature in its humblest aspects as well as in its sublimest.
Through the complete and exhaustive inventory of nature dis-
coveries become possible in every direction. This inventorying
of nature is something that is so uncertain in its immediate fruits
that the community as a whole is never justified in undertaking it
on an extensive scale.
The community in fact is so conservative that it rarely purchases
great discoveries or even uses them until after long and cautious
delay. It is apt to heap ridicule and contempt on the men who
bring it the most precious gifts. It seems like irony to suggest
that the social whole will invest anything in the way of
REMARKS OF W, T. HARRIS.
35
He
encouraging invention as a profession. The Greek fire* invented
by an Arabian could not be sold to his own countrymen.
brought the secret to the Byzantians who used it successfully in
keeping out the Moslem power from eastern Europe for nearly
eight centuries.
U
Communities as a whole do not spend money on investigations
leading to inventions, nor do they willingly avail themselves of
the inventions after they are made. They mobbed Hargreaves and
Arkwright and ridiculed Fulton. They prefer to eat their half
crust sitting in the ashes, to eat a whole crust sitting on a chair.
What nation fitted out Columbus for the voyage on which he was
willing to risk his life for a geographical discovery? No nation
but only the religious missionary zeal of a Christian Queen.
Who rewarded Columbus? The home government - with chains
and a prison.
The State indeed purchases the solid and fruitful benefits of use-
ful inventions, of adventure and discovery, chiefly by conceding to
the inventor what he can make by the monopoly of his invention
for a limited period of years. The reward is a stimulant which
secures the glad service of the one successful and of the ninety-
nine unsuccessful explorers.
There is adventure in many phases of life. Not to speak of
hunters and fishermen, there is risk in the expectation of a crop
on a farm, in the possibilities of profit in the manufacture of
goods and in mercantile traffic. Still more risky is the under-
taking of the pioneer, the investment in real estate,† the purchase
of railroad stocks and above all the business of mining. Perhaps
the remuneration in wealth and comfort is smallest on the average
to the discoverers and openers of mines.
If society is to waylay the few who are successful either from
sagacity and peculiar qualities of character or from pure good
luck, and rob them of their gains, as unearned increment, this
whole system of the development of individuality will collapse,
and with a fearful result on the progress of society.
*It was the invention of gunpowder, except that it used naphtha instead of char-
coal as an ingredient.
+Land investments are not so profitable as investments in trade with equal busi-
ness sagacity. By the year 1912 the $24 paid for Manhattan Island in 1612 at 6 per
cent. compound interest for the 300 years intervening would come to over 800 mil-
lions of dollars, a sum quite equal to the value of all the land in New York city in
· 1912, judging from its present price and rate of increase.
36 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
One has only to see how many and how great advantages accrue
to society from this spirit of adventure, which scales the bound-
aries hitherto reached and enters a new world of thought and
action, to realize the pernicious tendency of the socialism of Karl
Marx. To confiscate what is called the "unearned increment
the reward of good luck and sagacious outlay of labor and cap-
ital-is to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Society would obtain immediate possession of a given amount
of wealth, but it would paralyze all elements of adventure in the
souls of its bravest men and well-nigh destroy all self-dependence
on the part of the weaker members of society. In the Middle
Ages the inventor had to keep the process of his manufacture a
secret or sell it as a secret if any gain was to reward him for his
investments of time and talents.
C
If society deals violently with the individual, the latter strives
to repeat the lesson upon his fellows. The dealings of the world-
spirit towards the individual, furnish him a model on which to form
his own character. The selfish greed of the corporate whole that
envies the individual his good luck or the fruits of his sagacity, is
the most pernicious influence for educating the individual in pure
selfishness.
Faust discovers that the Erdgeist spurns him with contempt—
for pantheism teaches that the world-process is only a gigantic
process of birth and decay that moves in the tides of life and the
storm of deeds, a birth and a grave, and engulfs the individual in
its universality. Whereupon Faust assumes the same attitude
towards his fellow-men, making the world his oyster. By this he
adopts the Mephistophelian principle and sells his soul to the
Evil One. For Mephistopheles is the human counterpart of a
World Spirit that is unscrupulous towards the rights of individuals
the individual counterpart of a social whole that robs its individ-
ual members of their good luck and of the fruits of their sagacity.
A State that invests nothing in the encouragement of invention,
adventure or discovery, and stands ready to rob its citizens of the
fruits of their enterprise, will develope in all its strongest individ-
uals in all its directive citizens the same spirit of jealous
and unscrupulous selfishness. Each will learn to reap where he
has not sowed. Tyrants will multiply, and the only cure will be
fierce and bloody warfare-like the collision between English and
Scotch on the border in old feudal times. Such a condition can
be healed only through a status of absolute monarchy.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
37
WHAT EFFECT WOULD MR. GEORGE'S LAND TAX HAVE?
In conclusion let us ask: In what way would the new plan of
collecting taxes help the poor? At first there would be no diminu-
tion in the amount of rent paid for houses. After a little while,
however, the rent of the largest and most expensive houses in the
centre of cities would fall somewhat, because only the land and not
the building is to be taxed. But the rent of all small cottages
and cheap tenement-houses would greatly increase as a conse-
quence of the attempt of land owners to recover a portion of the
tax that would fall with undue weight on their property. The
consequence would be that the poor would be far worse off than
now as regards the rent of dwellings. They would pay relatively
more than the rich.
Two lots of equal size, side by side, would be taxed equally,
according to Mr. George's plan, the buildings being free from tax-
ation. But on one of these lots is the palatial mansion worth half
a million, while on the other lot is a tenement house worth a tenth
of that sum. The ground tax falls with ten times the weight on
the amount of capital invested in the tenement. According to the
present system, the rich man would pay a proportional tax for his
palace, ten times as much as the tenement-house pays.
It is obvious that, according to Mr. George's plan, the cheap
houses, such as the poor build or live in, would pay an undue
amount of the burden of the support of the State.
The land of Massachusetts is taxed at present two-thirds of one
per cent. on its true valuation for State and local taxes. If all
these taxes were collected from land alone it would be taxed two and
two-thirds per cent. on its true value; and if the national taxes
were also collected from land, there would be 7 per cent. col-
lected from the true value of the land, a larger sum than its pres-
ent rental yields. This enormous tax would fall to a much larger
extent on the poor than on the rich, for personal property and pal-
atial mansions, stores, warehouses and manufacturing estab-
lishments would all pay taxes only according to the amount of
land they occupied. The cottages of the poor would be taxed
not according to their value as now, but according to the value of
the ground on which they were situated.
But we are asked would not this taxation of land bring into
market at cheap rates all the unoccupied building lots, and would
}
38 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF LAND.
it not divide up the large farms into smaller ones, so that the poor
in our cities could get possession of land? Alas! no. If the
present national and local taxes were all assessed upon land, land
could not avoid the taxes by becoming cheap. If the value of
land sank to five per cent. of its present value, the Government
would simply be obliged on Mr. George's plan to raise the rate of
taxation to twenty times the rate before assessed and thus make it
pay every year 150 per cent. of its total value, in order to get the
requisite amount of revenue that it collects at present. There
could be no question of collecting larger revenues than at present
revenues that would supply music and dancing, halls, theatres,
shooting galleries, gymnasiums, and such institutions for public
benefit as Mr. George (p. 410) proposes, in addition to those fur-
nished now because the taxation of land sufficient to produce
the present revenue would be 7 per cent. on its present valuation,
and this alone would be sufficient to crush farmers completely.
The removal of taxation from improvements on land, from all pro-
ductions, and from all personal property, would, of course, relieve
the wealthy from the bulk of their taxes, at least from taxes on
the wealth that they use for comfort and luxury.
M
But the poor people could not resort to agricultural lands, for
the reason that these would be taxed up to the point of confiscat-
ing all that could be raised upon them.* In New England, on
most of the farms at the present day, the farmers do not find them-
selves able to make what would be called a "decent living" by
the manufacturing classes and the mechanics, unless their farms
are located so near the cities that they can raise garden crops.
Corn, potatoes, stock-raising, dairy products, hay, wheat, rye, and
oats, do not return profit enough on land entirely free to pay the
wages that the family can earn as skilled mechanics or common
laborers in the mechanic arts. Take the State of Maine, for ex-
ample, with its 82,130 farmers, and its $21,945,489 of all farm
productions sold, consumed or on hand;" adding one-third of its
$16,499,376 for live stock, and the amount per farmer is $28.33 per
month, or less than $340 per year apiece, without setting aside any-
thing for land or capital, while the total average earnings of the
whole nation amount at $34.80 per month to $417.60 per annum,
and skilled mechanics get from $500 to $700.
aut
*In Chapter VIII., p. 133, Mr. Wallace gives an amusing account of the resistance
of the Russian peasantry in the northern provinces of Russia when an attempt is
made to assign them large allotments of land where every allotment brings more
taxes than profits.
REMARKS OF W. T. HARRIS.
39
7
Contrast farming in Maine at $340 per year with farming in
Massachusetts, consuming great quantities of garden products and
farm earnings at $438 per year. Connecticut furnishing vegeta-
bles for its own cities and for New York, averages $492 for its
farmers. But, even in Maine there is much garden farming to be
accounted for, and this raises the average farm production.
If the farms were burdened with an enormous tax, as in Russia,
there would be suffering, and in many places actual need of help
from the Government, as there is quite often in Russia toward the
latter end of winter.
Mr. George's kindly meant help to the poor, to save them from
migrating west for farms, would result in driving the whole farm
population, except the market gardeners, to the extreme border
lands to escape a taxation that would rob them of all their earn-
ings.
As it is, the paupers are people of feeble intelligence and feeble
will power. But incapacity is no crime and should not be pun-
ished as such. But to offer people of such incapacity in matters of
thrift the use of land for cultivation at an annual rental of taxes
equal to 7 per cent. - where the most economical and skilful
farmers at present do not make more than one dollar a day
throughout the year is cruel irony.
Laveleye, in his "Elements of Political Economy (Eng. tr., p.
59), says that "As a means of forwarding agricultural progress
a scale of the different systems of land tenure may be
formed, arranged according to the encouragement which they give
to labor. The order will be in descending scale: 1, proprietor-
ship vested in the cultivator; 2, hereditary tenancy; 3, long lease-
holds; 4, cultivating on shares; 5, short leaseholds; 6, tenure at
will." And again the same author says:
"Man will work with so
much the more care and zeal the more exactly his reward is in
proportion to the quantity and quality of his labor. Pay the
industrious and the idle workman the same wages and it will be
to the interest of both to do as little as possible." This meets
the case of the appropriation of land by the State in order to
provide land for all.
'q
But, inasmuch as the grounds for apprehension as to any dan-
ger from the private ownership of land have been removed, there
remains no necessity for Mr. George's remedy, the nationalizing
of land, for any reasons of progress and poverty. Land has not
40 THE RIGHT OF PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP of Land.
increased in value during the present century so fast as capital and
labor. In thirty years the total rental has increased three-quar-
ters of a cent per day for each inhabitant of the United
States, while the total daily income has increased fifteen cents
each. For each inhabitant of Great Britain eighty years ago, the
total land value was 25 per cent. greater than it is now, while the
value of buildings and miscellaneous wealth has increased since
then to almost three times as much per inhabitant. Our total
annual production is 40 cents apiece per day while land takes
only two cents of it. Land does not domineer over capital, but
capital continually gets the advantage over land by means of
rapid transit, bringing the agricultural lands of the suburb to
compete with city building lots and bringing the farms of the dis-
tant frontier to compete with the farms of the Atlantic coast in rais-
ing staple crops. The consequence is that the farmers are not able
to hold their own with the other laboring classes in the progress
towards high wages, and if Mr. George's plan were adopted they
would be utterly ruined. Moreover, since the great bulk of wealth
in the city consists in buildings and personal property, the wealthy
would escape taxation to a greater extent than the poor.
Gaylord
PAMPHLET BINDER
Syracuse, N. Y.
Stockton, Calif.
Trend NATO, SIRA PA
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