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Chapter II.

The Consummation.

Factum est—the hook is complete—a handy volume of four hundred and one pages with a copious index to prove method and deliberation, dispel doubt as to the seriousness of the argument, and scout the suspicion that this is the most recent and subtle development of American humour, to raise a horse-laugh against Social Static philosophers. It sells, too, in thousands, and all sorts, from Oxford Dons to asses'-bridge juvenile debating society orators, are smitten with its beauties. Mr. Henry George is famous, has fobbed a heap of money, is furnishing his publishers with more of the like stuff, and is orating to crowds of admiring Britishers.

The number of pages was limited only by book-making considerations of handiness, for as to matter, if the four hundred and one pages had been multiplied by the same number, it would have been an advantage in giving room for the introduction of so many the more side issues to lead contentious critics on Will-o'-the-Wisp digressions, and of unimportant truisms wherewith to gloss over the main point, give a pervading flavour of veraciousness, and present a thicker crust to counteract the tendency of falsehood to behave like butter in hot porridge.

But for this the pages necessary to the work would have been the number which it contains less four hundred. For, all that is original in it, the sole excuse for its production, may be stated in four lines—namely, the assertion that it would be a just act on the part of the State to seize, confiscate, and appropriate without compen-sation the land ownership of all individual landowners, with the incidental right to receive and use the ground rent. This assertion is all that is added to previous literature, and, if it were true, its self-evidence would have rendered a second page needless, but being untrue, it, after the nature of lies, requires an unlimited amount of bolstering, and remains an untruth to all eternity. Hence for what is stateable in four lines, we have four hundred and one pages, and regrets that opportunity will not admit of more. And yet the assertion is no more proved at the end than at the beginning of the volume.

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The whole force of this assertion, ergo, the truth or falsehood, God-inspired or devil-prompted character of the entire work, rests upon the meaning of the one word Just. Conscious of this, Mr. George demonstrates in set terms his knowledge of the reverence which is popularly paid to justice, and adopts what he is pleased to call a test to prove that his proposal tallies with this sentiment. He proceeds as follows: "When it is proposed to abolish private property in land, the first question that will arise is that of justice. Though often warped by habit, superstition, and selfishness into the most distorted forms, the sentiment of justice is yet fundamental to the human mind, and whatever dispute arouses the passions of men, the conflict is sure to rage, not so much as to the question, 'Is it wise?' as to the question, 'Is it right?' This tendency of popular discussions to take an ethical form has a cause. It springs from a law of the human mind, it rests upon a vague and instinctive recognition of what is probably the deepest truth we can grasp. That alone is wise which is just, that alone is enduring which is right. In the narrow scale of individual actions and individual life this truth may be often obscured, but in the wider field of natural life it everywhere stands out. I bow to this arbitrament and accept this test."

But he takes care that the test shall be of his own concoction, and a most characteristically curious one too. It is this. "If private property in land be just, then is the remedy I propose a false one; if, on the contrary, private property in land be unjust, then is the remedy the true one."

Now this is an impudent juggle. First, observe that the "remedy" which he pretends to test the justice of is not the same thing that he a moment previously mentioned as certain to give rise to the question of justice,—namely, the proposal "to abolish private property in land," and which, as advocated by Englishmen, i.e., with compensation to landowners, might perhaps meet the inquiry,—but an altogether different thing which he craftily puts forward under colour of it—viz., to punish landowners as robbers by confiscating their property, giving them no compensation, and terrifying them with threats of liability to greater ill-usage. And, whilst as to this no question of justice can arise, because the proposition has flagrant injustice on the face of it, he pretends to be unconscious of that fact, and professes to test page 9 whether it is or is not just by discussing a third and still further different matter—namely, whether private property in land is just, and submits this precious "remedy" of his to no test whatever.

A glance is sufficient to reveal the monstrous roguery of this piece of legerdemain. Suppose private ownership of land to be unjust, how does that decide that Mr. George's "remedy," the punishment which he would inflict upon landowners for such injustice, would not be inadequately lenient, or unduly severe, and therefore in either case unjust?

Paraphrase his test. Suppose some Draconic farmer's friend to recommend hanging as the penalty for stealing a turnip from a turnip-field, the justice of the punishment might be tested by the same formula. "If stealing a turnip be just, then is the remedy I propose a false one; if, on the contrary, stealing a turnip be unjust, then is the remedy the true one?

Or suppose the crime to be willful murder, and the suggested punishment a fine of five shillings, and the same formula gone through; and both stealing and murder being unjust, would the "test" decide that the suggested punishment or "remedy" in either case would be a just one?

In fact, like a cuttle-fish, he involves himself in an ink-fog, and takes advantage of the obscurity to practice a deception. And having done so, it is as interesting as to observe through a microscope the voracious energy of one of the infusorial animalcula in a drop of ditch-water, to watch him, with a velocity which prevents his unsuspecting reader from noticing the trick which he has played, dash off upon the false issue he has raised, and in a torrent of historical, legal, economical, political, poetically-imaginative, and awe-inspiringly encyclopedic erudition fulminate a furious indictment of robbery against landowners, charge the jury, which is himself, to bring in a unanimously prompt verdict of guilty with a faint recommendation to mercy, and pass sentence upon the culprits, with solemn admonition that they merit even greater severity. And all the while he is in seeming unconsciousness that the many parts which one man in his life is said to play are few as compared with his: first, accuser; second, prosecuting counsel; third, jury of say twelve; fourth, judge; fifth, legislature of Crown, Lords, and Commons; or if that be shocking to his republican nerves, say President, Senate, and Representatives, page 10 the accredited legislative voices of nations, to prescribe the penalty for the crime which he is pleased to create, charge with, prosecute, find guilty of, and pass sentence for. Nor does it seem to strike him as anything unusual to allow the unfortunates no opportunity to be heard in their own defence before even verdict should be given against, not to say sentence passed upon them. Nor that even Fouquier Tinville gave some pretence of a hearing to those whom he intended to send to the guillotine. In short, he tests what is just by begging the argument that landownership is unjust, and asserting that the punishment which he is pleased to prescribe for such assumed injustice is just.

This foolery is mere thimble-rigging, in lieu of which a perfectly true and fair test can be appealed to, which, whether he pleases or not, Mr. George must "bow to the arbitrament" of and accept. The question is: Is the meaning of "just," as used in this book of Mr. George's in support of his contention, that landownership should be confiscated without compensation to the landowners, the same as the word ordinarily conveys and which receives popular reverence? In short, would such confiscation be just?

To test this it may be premised that when a word signifies an active principle, the operation of that principle amongst the people to whose language the word belongs best defines what the word means, and next in value is the opinion of the best-informed of those to whom the language is native. Adopting this duplicate process, let us see whether "just," as used by Mr. George, signifies that which Englishmen mean, and which receives popular reverence under the same assemblage of letters.

1st. Test by active operation of the principle of justice amongst Englishmen.

The English nation when it emancipated the West Indian slaves paid their owners £20,000,000, or, as Mr. George puts it in his currency, $100,000,000, because Englishmen held that the payment of such compensation was just; they have been proud of having done so, and have been universally honoured for it.

The American Government since then liberated four millions of slaves, but gave their owners no compensation. Outside of North America, and doubtless by those in it who were sufferers, this liberation of slaves without compensating their owners was looked page 11 upon as merely one of the cruel expedients of war, adopted from no such humane sentiment or love for freedom as actuated the English people, but to cripple the Southern rebels, and it had no reverence or approval as an act which should be perpetrated in cold blood.

Mr. George, however, cites it as an example to be followed towards landowners whose estates he desires to have forfeited without compensation, and asserts that to be just.

Clearly, then, Mr. George's rendering of "just" is diametrically opposite to the active justice of the people to whose language the word belongs.

2nd. Test by competent English opinion. John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer may be counted well informed as to their native tongue, and whilst advocating that the State should be the sole landlord, they both hold that it would be just to compensate the landowners. In this opinion of theirs as to what is just other Englishmen coincide. Mr. George states the fact at page 255 of his book: "It is this idea that suggests the proposition which finds advocates in Great Britain, that the Government shall purchase at its market price the individual proprietorship of the land." Mr. George's contention is that to pay nothing for the ownership of the land would be "just," and that to pay would be unjust.

Manifestly, therefore, the word "just," as used by Mr. George, has not the same signification as John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and other Englishmen attach to the word of the same form in their language. His word is no doubt American, and would probably be best interpreted by reference to the action of the "Sovereign State" of Pennsylvania some years ago with regard to its bonds. The English designated it by a word of different signification in their language—Repudiation; and Mr. George, in asserting that this is what receives popular reverence, is knowingly guilty of gross slander and insult towards humanity.

The object of the book, therefore, is to corrupt the mind and conscience of the English people into accepting the perversion of an important word of their mother tongue, and of the vital principle which that word indicates.

Let us take these propositions in the order in which they are here stated.

The first of them is amplified into a definition that the right to the whole material universe, outside of man himself, the surface of every habitable inch of the globe at all events, is the equal right of all men,—a right which vests in every human being as he enters the world, and which, during his continuance in the world, can be limited only by the equal rights of others. And the proposition is specifically illustrated by the statement that to the Duke of Westminster's estates the poorest child born in London has as much right as the duke's eldest son. "And though the Sovereign People of the State of New York consent to the landed possessions of the Astors, the puniest infant that comes wailing into the world in the squalidest room of the most miserable tenement house, becomes at that moment seized of an equal right with the millionaire, and it is robbed if the right is denied."

Accepting this as becomes conventionality discarding philosophers, and, as Mr. George elsewhere desires "in reasoning that aims at exactness," why has not the juvenile London pauper as good a title to the property of the Astors as the "Sovereign page 13 People of the State of New York," and the badly lodged, puling New Yorker as good a claim as the sucking Cockney to the lands of Mr. George's favourite duke? Both are human beings, probably even of the same subdivision of the race. Why, then, are their individual rights of common ownership to the entire material universe, to every habitable inch of the globe's surface, to be limited and restricted by "the people of the Sovereign State of New York" or the realm of England? If they be so limited, then on Mr. George's own showing the Sovereign State and the realm named, and scores of other states and realms, are convicted of robbery against every bantling that squeals elsewhere. Indeed, fierce armies of such bantlings grown older, Assyrian, Hyksos, Hebrew, Mede, Hellene, Roman, Goth, Hun, Vandal, Saxon, Arab, Northman, English, Spaniard, German, Russ, Frank, and Filibuster, have, in wild invasion, cruel siege, and bloody battle, affirmed such limitations to be robbery against them, only to re-enact the like against the residue, and leave sovereign states and realms as they now exist, each, if not itself individual owner, at least the accomplice, abettor, and defender of individual owners of land comprising entire countries, held in (according to Mr. George) denial of right, and in robbery of other individuals of the human family who have common and indefeasible right to every inch of the globe's surface, including the portion so improperly appropriated. Wherefore, pursuing Mr. George's theory, "in reasoning that aims at exactness," the land held by each of them, or by each secured to individual owners, must, at least as to its rent, be, without compensation, forfeited and confiscated to "the State," which for that purpose must be a single Government, exercising jurisdiction and care over the entire human species of all countries, colours, languages, and creeds. A grand idea truly, worthy of a transatlantic republican philosopher: And so simple too! Merely the coalescing of the human family into a cosmopolitan republic, to be endowed with the landownership of the entire surface of the globe, taken for that purpose from every separate state and individual, by all of whom it is to be yielded up in obedience to an act of the Legislature, and doubtless cheerfully, for Mr. George declares that this proceeding will inaugurate the reign of the Prince of Peace!

This is the reductio ad absurdum, and if to avoid it Mr. page 14 George objects that by "State" he means not one universal republic, but the political Governments of various places, then he will advocate that portions of the earth's surface, down even to those which most nearly resemble the Sovereign State of Monaco, no larger than a well-sized park, and with a single individual practically the political government, may be held to the exclusion of other individuals of the human race entitled by right of birth to joint ownership in the whole; and therefore that the holding of land by individuals is just, notwithstanding such alleged right of joint ownership, and consequently, according to his own "test," that individual landowners are not robbers, and that to despoil them of their estates on pretence of their being such would be unjust; therefore the remedy which he proposes is false and needless, there being no wrong to remedy. He is welcome to the alternative.

Pass on to the second proposition: That the rent paid to individuals for land absorbs all the gain of labour and capital. This is exemplified specifically as to capital by the statement (page 158) that capital is robbed of its interest by the rent which is paid for land on which a manufacturing or commercial city is built, and as it is stated that similarly labour is robbed of its wages, "rent swallows up the whole gain."

This statement of the effect of rent upon capital is unsupported by a scintilla of evidence. Is that because it is a truism of which proof would be surplusage? If so, owners of land, and they only, get the whole gain of the exertions of labour and investment of capital; they alone, therefore, can become rich.

Is that true? People unindoctrinated with the results of Mr. George's manipulation of the thimbles of political economy have strong justification for believing it possible to invest capital in commerce or manufacture in a manufacturing or commercial city without further connection with land than the very small consideration of the value or rent of the site of an office, warehouse, or manufactory, and so far from its being the case that such rent or value "swallows up the whole gain," that a return for capital may be obtained permitting the payment of rent and of the wages of labour in full, and leaving a surplus sufficient for the building up of a handsome fortune. Amongst instances by the thousand may be cited the story of Josiah Mason spending his starving wife's page 15 last ninepence in flour to make tea-cakes to sell and gain sixpence profit by, and afterwards, as a steel-pen maker, rising to the possession of wealth, the honour of knighthood, and the gratification of endowing Birmingham with an industrial college. If Mr. George's proposition be true this man never existed, nor Stewart of New York, nor Lord Overstone. The biographies of men who have risen are romances for children, and the phrase "Merchant Princes" is a fancy from the Arabian Nights. Not being landowners, their existence would be contrary to Mr. George's discovery that "rent swallows up the whole gain;" therefore they not only never did, but they never could have existed, so there is an end of them, as also of the fallacy contained in the records of the House of Commons, and in Mr. Justin McCarthy's statement in his "History of Our Own Times," that previously to 1858, when the property qualification for Members of the House was abolished, "men who were rich enough to spend thousands of pounds in contesting boroughs and counties, had often to go through the form of having a fictitious conveyance made to them because they did not happen to have invested any part of their wealth in land. Great city magnates, known by their wealth, and known in many cases for their high personal honour as well, had to submit to this foolish ceremonial."

If "rent swallows up the whole gain," how came these people by their wealth, and having it, why should they be exempt from the expense of good government, which secures them with great care and cost in its possession, and be allowed to shuffle the whole burden on to the shoulders of owners of land, which no thief could carry away? Objectionable questions, for it is clear that for the consistency of Mr. George's "patter," the alleged wealth of such miserables does not and never did exist, and is, therefore, not taxable, because anything which would throw doubt upon the desirableness of the French revolutionary expedient of impôt unique, a tax on land and on nothing else, would peril the building up of the city of God upon earth out of the abolition of duties on cotton fabrics and hardware.

Which brings us to the third proposition, so softly, elegantly, and unalarmingly put, that "to appropriate rent by taxation," or, in other words, that to mercilessly snatch away by a villainous act of inhuman political tyranny the property of "old men and babes, page 16 and loving friends and youths and maidens gay," whilst with slanderous malice foully branding all those as robbers, and insulting them with a cynical sneer that they deserve, and may rejoice that they do not receive, worse treatment, "would raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify Government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights."

To suppose this scoundreldom possible we must imagine a national electorate of swindling fools inflicting wrong upon themselves by electing a popular representative house of thieves, and with no second chamber possessing a grain of honesty or common sense; and the first result a constitutional revolution in the direction of arbitrary power, by placing "the Sovereign as the representative of the collective rights of the people" in permanent possession of a superabundant revenue, with no need to apply to Parliament for supplies, and free to govern at his own sweet will. And the effect of the outrage is to "raise wages." Yes, temporarily to the extent of their being equivalent to a greater quantity of the commodities cheapened by the removal of duties, but only until the temporary disturbance should be settled by wages being forced (quoting Mr. George) "by competition amongst labourers to the minimum at which labour will consent to reproduce."

"Increase the earnings of capital." Not a whit, if the argument be true that capital is robbed of interest by land-rent, for eventually land by sub-letting will be raised in value upon all who require to use it, and an irresponsible and dishonest Government will corruptly appropriate and misapply the revenue, and so necessitate other forms of taxation.

"Extirpate pauperism and abolish poverty." By robbing of their property and rendering destitute thousands of the middle and working classes to be comforted only with the assurance that the Duke of Westminster will not, after all, be really badly off!

"Give remunerative employment to whoever wishes it." Remunerative until over-production renders it otherwise, or as to agriculture, the subdivision of land brings Englishmen to the same condition as the peasants in France, Belgium, and Holland (pages 231-2), whose "material progress has not been so rapid page 17 with a minute subdivision of the land, and where the condition of the labourer is worse than in England, whilst the tenant-farmers are rack-rented with a mercilessness unknown in England, and even in Ireland;"—a sort of levelling which Mr. George looks forward to for England with hope, if it will only despoil the large landowners.

"Afford free scope to human powers." Heaven forefend if in the same direction!

"Lessen crime, elevate morals, taste, and intelligence." If it lessen crime it must be on the principle of similia similibus curantur. But the assertion that morals, taste, and intelligence would be elevated by such means, is simply false and impudent balderdash.

"Purify Government." By handing over the wealth procured by a gigantic swindle to a Government having no necessary dependence on Parliament.

"And carry civilization to yet nobler heights." Yea, even to a very apotheosis; to "the golden age which poets have sung and high-raised seers" (by the way, for the satisfaction of grammatical curiosity, what is a "high-raised seer"?)" have told in metaphor; the glorious vision which has always haunted man with gleams of fitful splendour; what he saw whose eyes at Patmos were closed in a trance; the culmination of Christianity; the city of God on earth with its walls of jasper and its gates of pearl; the reign of the Prince of Peace." Prince of what, Mr. George?—Peace! Then why walls and gates, whether of jasper, pearl, or cobweb? Peace! Perhaps in America, from fear of mob tyranny; but Englishmen, Mr George, are free, and by no means prone to submit tamely to ill-usage. There is an anecdote in their history about a generation or so after the Norman Conquest, of a sturdy old baron, whose lands were coveted by the "Sovereign as the representative of the collective rights of the people," giving answer to demand for production of his title deeds by clapping hand on his sword; and be assured, Mr. George, that the working-man of to-day in England, whose freehold homestead you would dishonestly rob him of, by converting it into a precarious rent-paying tenement, would not be a whit less prompt to find weapons wherewith to defend his property.

Peace! With fierce indignation and wrathful resistance against cruel and brutal wrong!

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City of God! With wailing, railing, curses, hatred, misery, and strife.

Culmination of Christianity! With a tyrannous doing of that to others which no man would desire to have done to himself. Truth, decency, and common sense revolt against this Yankee hifalutin, rhapsodical trash, in adoration of a bogus, shoddy millennium of free trade in slops and ironmongery.

But though common sense spurns the insult and patience rebels against consideration being wasted upon it, let us examine some of the materials which Mr. George's book affords us to draw our own conclusions as to the effects which would follow the adoption of the notable expedient which he advocates; for example, as to the beatitudes which he declares would inevitably spring from a return to the custom of holding land as common property, we shall do best by inquiring whether the like effects did spring up and exist in times and places where that custom prevailed. Take two of his instances, the one comparatively ancient, and the other of almost our own day—viz., "the tribal rights of the Irishman," and those of "the Aboriginals of New Zealand," and remembering that in both those cases the custom was not an innovation suddenly effected with brutal and exasperating cruelty and insult, as proposed by Mr. George, but one to which the people were "native and to the manner born." We may from Mr. George's rhapsody be warranted in expecting to learn that Ireland, under the Brehon land-tenure, and New Zealand, at the advent of Europeans, were respectively illustrations of "the culmination of Christianity, the city of God upon earth, and the reign of the Prince of Peace."

Do we find this expectation verified?

1. As to Ireland. An Irish historical writer^* may answer. "Scarcely a single page of the uncouth annals of the period is clear of the record of some dark crime or faithless cruelty," and the story of what preceded and led to the invasion of the Normans, inter-tribal wars, deceitfulness, violence, lust, bloodshed, and devilish inhumanity are curious realizations of Mr. George's fancy picture; whilst as to the economical effect of the Brehon land-tenure the same writer^† declares that "The gavelkind of Ireland was about the worst of all laws; no people could page 19 possibly advance in civilization under such a system. By that law all property was a common holding in principle, but the division was made by the Chief, so that whenever, the head of a sept or family died, or, as oftener happened, was violently removed, his successor distributed all the lands anew, and naturally rewarded his own followers with large shares to the prejudice of all who had supported his enemy." Now, in this statement, if for death of the head of the sept or family we read change of governing party, we shall have exactly what would occur under Mr. George's system and republican morality, and with the result indicated by the Irish historian. "The general confusion and poverty inseparable from a tenure of property at once so precarious and arbitrary requires no comment."

2. As to New Zealand. The like story of inter-tribal war, bloodshed, and cruelty might be repeated, but with this difference as to economical results, that there was no poverty; for, as to those who might have suffered from it, their countrymen providently ate them.

But, in addition to such blessedness as this, Mr. George has yet another boon in store for Englishmen wherewith to crown their happiness in the good time coming; they are to abandon monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy, and follow the example of America, by adopting republican government. The one hundred years' history of the United States, and Mr. George's experience as a citizen "raised" and matured in the great Republic, enable him to speak of its institutions with knowledge, which gives confidence that is utterly wanting in regard to his wild speculations and fervid rhodomontade as respecting the necessity for, and anticipated benefits from confiscating rent.

It is to be remembered also, that he is no maker of "goaks" or humorous satire—no Artemus Ward, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Josh Billings, or Hosea Biglow—but an advanced politico-economical and social philosopher, disposed to "argument which aims at exactness;" therefore, the facts being within his knowledge, we may accept his statement of them, and therefrom contemplate the inestimable blessings which he anticipates our enjoyment of.

Some of the products of the republicanism which has made the United States "the most advanced of all the great nations" he enumerates as follows: "gross corruption and fraud," "constant page 20 under-valuations of the Custom House," "ridiculous untruthfulness of income tax returns," "absolute impossibility of getting anything like a just valuation of personal property," "douceurs to assessors" [This, by the way, is invaluable evidence as to what would occur when a Government which had stolen the ground ownership of the land of the country should depend upon ridiculously untruthful returns or unjust valuations, made by corruptly-elected, douceur-receiving assessors for assessment of the annual rent to be got out of the plunder], "bribes to Customs' officials," "money expended in electing pliable public officers or procuring acts or decisions which avoid taxation."

These, however, are mere incidentals, and, though it be to borrow verbatim nearly a whole chapter from "Progress and Poverty," it would be wrong to fail to do so for the purpose of impressing most strongly upon Englishmen and others what are the effects of republicanism in the United States according to so competent and (on this point) indisputable an authority as Mr. Henry George.

His testimony to the republicanism of his country is as follows—

"In all the great American cities there is to-day as clearly defined a ruling class as in the most aristocratic countries of the world. Its members carry wards in their pockets, make up the slates for nominating conventions, distribute offices as they bargain together, and though they toil not, neither do they spin, wear the best of raiment, and spend money lavishly. They are men of power, whose favour the ambitious must court, and whose vengeance he must avoid. Who are these men? The wise, the good, the learned—men who have earned the confidence of their fellow-citizens by the purity of their lives, the splendour of their talents, their probity in public trusts, their deep study of the problems of government? No; they are the gamblers, saloon-keepers, pugilists, or worse, who have made a trade of controlling votes and of buying and selling offices and official acts. They stand to the government of these cities as the Prastorian Guards did to that of declining Rome. He who would wear the purple, fill the curule chair, or have the fasces carried before him, must go or send his messengers to their camps, give them donations and make them promises. It is through these men that the rich corporations and powerful pecuniary interests can pack the page 21 Senate and the Bench with their creatures. It is these men who make school-directors, supervisors, assessors, members of the Legislature, Congressmen.

"In theory, we are intense Democrats; the proposal to sacrifice swine in the temple would hardly have excited greater horror and indignation in Jerusalem of old than would among us that of conferring a distinction of rank upon our most eminent citizen. But is there not growing up among us a class who have all the power without any of the virtues of aristocracy? We have simple citizens who control thousands of miles of railroad, millions of acres of land, the means of livelihood of great numbers of men; who name the Governors of Sovereign States as they name their clerks, choose Senators as they choose attorneys, and whose will is as supreme with Legislatures as that of a French king sitting in bed of justice.

"There is no mistaking it; the very foundations of society are being sapped before our eyes.—It is a matter of fact that, in spite of our laws, anyone who has money enough and wants to kill another may go into any one of our great centres of population and business and gratify his desire, and then surrender himself to justice with the chances as a hundred to one that he will suffer no greater penalty than a temporary imprisonment and the loss of a sum proportioned partly to his own wealth and partly to the wealth and standing of the man he kills. His money will be paid not to the family of the murdered man, who have lost their protector; not to the State, which has lost a citizen, but to lawyers who understand how to procure delays, to find witnesses, and to get juries to disagree.

"And so, if a man steal enough, he may be sure that his punishment will practically amount to but the loss of a part of the proceeds of his theft; and if he steal enough to get off with a fortune, he will be greeted by his acquaintance as a Viking might have been greeted after a successful cruise. Even though he robbed those who had trusted him; even though he robbed the widow and the fatherless; he has only to get enough, and he may safely flaunt his wealth in the eyes of day.

"All this is matter of common observation. Though we may not speak it openly, the general faith in republican institutions is, where they have reached their fullest development, narrowing page 22 and weakening. It is no longer that confident belief in republicanism as the source of national blessings that it once was. Thoughtful men are beginning to see its dangers, without seeing how to escape them; are beginning to accept the view of Macaulay and distrust that of Jefferson. And the people at large are becoming used to the growing corruption. The most ominous political sign in the United States to-day is the growth of a sentiment which either doubts the existence of an honest man in public office or looks on him as a fool for not seizing his opportunities. That is to say, the people themselves are becoming corrupted. Thus in the United States to-day is republican government running the course it must inevitably follow under conditions which cause the unequal distribution of wealth.

"Where that course leads is clear to whoever will think. As corruption becomes chronic, as public spirit is lost, as traditions of honour, virtue, and patriotism are weakened, as law is brought into contempt and reforms become hopeless, then in the festering mass will be generated organic forces, which shatter and rend when seeming accident gives them vent. Strong, unscrupulous men rising up upon occasion, will become exponents of blind popular desires or fierce popular passions, and dash aside forms that have lost their vitality. The sword will again be mightier than the pen, and in carnivals of destruction brute force and wild frenzy will alternate with the lethargy of a declining civilization."

Mr. George holds all this to be due to "conditions which cause the unequal distribution of wealth."

That an equal distribution of wealth is synonymous with patriotism, virtue, and intelligence.

And that the "great cause of inequality is the natural monopoly which is given by the possession of land."

As to which he may be answered that inequality in wealth, as inequality in stature, physical strength, health, temper, disposition, intellect, education, morality, wholesome associations, opportunities, and accident, and because of them, is incidental to or inherent in the nature and social relations of men, and will outlast any "sovereign remedy" which he or any other man can prescribe.

One whom it would be blasphemy to put Mr. George in comparison with for love towards humanity, or for acquaintance with human nature and its tendencies, who knew all men and needed page 23 not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man,:and to whom the world is indebted for all the progress it has since made towards the realization of the city of God on earth and the reign of the Prince of Peace, and will ultimately owe their full enjoyment, so far from holding opinions such as these of Mr. George, refused to have anything to do with equal distribution of wealth, replying, when asked by one brother to bid another to share the inheritance, "Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?" and he went on to caution against the spirit which had prompted the request—covetousness; and gave as a reason that "a man's life "[which embodies patriotism, virtue, and intelligence] "consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth and whilst advising the rich to put no trust in wealth, but rather to divest themselves of and give it to the poor, held out no expectation that equality of wealth or abolition of poverty would result, but, on the contrary, said, "The poor ye have always with you," and gave a graphic illustration of one amongst the causes where from poverty will be continuous, the distribution of wealth notwithstanding, in the case of that young man who, having claimed and got the portion of his father's substance falling to him, that is equal distribution of wealth as between him and his brother, wasted his share in riotous living, and came to want even to the degree of filling his belly with the husks that the swine did eat.

But suppose that, instead of giving such answers, Mr. George's argument be conceded, and it be admitted that inequality in the distribution of wealth results solely from the natural monopoly which is given by the possession of land, and is the root of all evil, and that the abolition of such possession of land is the "sovereign remedy," and would result in an equality of wealth and countless blessings.

Then, with a ludicrous inconsistency which justifies the suspicion that, like Barnum, and others of his famous countrymen, spiritist mediums, and so forth, Mr. George is really perpetrating a transparent piece of refined humour, and laughing heartily in his sleeve to find that a solemn, savagely-earnest, and semi-sanctimonious style has not only humbugged gullible old John Bull into a belief that the argument is serious, but has filled the humourist's pockets, and procured him the reputation and fame of a philosopher; page 24 Mr. George does not advocate the abolition of the monopoly of the possession of land, nor the equal distribution of wealth, and as without these his unhappy country is, as he declares, doomed to swift perdition, thither he patriotically lets it rip.

Here (page 288) is his own final and supreme statement of the practical application of his proposal:—"Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them buy and sell, bequeath and devise it; we may safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent."

Be it noted this does not do away with the so-called monopoly given by the possession of land, for it continues the possession.

How does it prevent inequality?

1st. As between those who now own land and those who do not, the latter will remain landless, or, if they want it, be compelled to pay rent to the former, or purchase with money, which is aggregated rent; and as to the benefit gained by relief from other taxes, that would not remedy the inequality, for it would be equally shared in by the landholders and the landless.

2nd. As between different holders of land. As Mr. George puts it (page 320): "The Duke of Westminster, who owns a considerable part of the site of London, is probably the richest landowner in the world. To take all his ground-rents by taxation would largely reduce his enormous income, but would still leave him his buildings and all the income from them, and, doubtless, much personal property in various other shapes, he would still have all he could by any possibility enjoy." How would this alter the inequality between this pet Duke of Mr. George's and the owner of one single tenement, the ground-rent of which would be taken from him? Relatively they would remain as unequal as before. And as regards the "equal right of all men to the use of land," the Duke, in addition to having one house for his own use, which is all that by the equal right-of-all-men doctrine he could properly claim, could grant or refuse five hundred houses to others.

To argue upon such incongruous nonsense is absurd, but again, if only for amusement, it may be worthwhile to follow this genius one wing-flap further in his flight.

page 25

As to appropriation of rent, into which he has resolved his "Sovereign remedy," he declares (page 366) that the appropriation of rent for public purposes, becomes, when political and religious power pass into the hands of a class, the ownership of the land by that class, and the rest of the community become merely tenants."

Now Mr. George must be perfectly well aware that the government by a class has given way to government by party; therefore, in plain English, the political party in power is to be made more powerful still by being constituted the owner of the land of the country, and its political opponents merely tenants.

Vœ victis in a party struggle under such conditions. As the Irish writer before referred to, has it: "The chief" (i.e., victorous party) "distributed all the lands anew, and naturally rewarded his own followers with large shares to the prejudice of all who had supported his enemy; no people could possibly advance in civilization under such a system."

The addendum is worth repeating: "The general confusion and poverty inseparable from a tenure of property at once so precarious and arbitrary requires no comment."

So it amounts to this, that on the advice of this Yankee joker the English people are to abandon monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy, and take instead republicanism under the same conditions as have reduced the inhabitants of the United States into slaves of mob tyranny and of scoundreldom. With the additional infamy of accompanying this dive into perdition with the villainous perpetration of an act of foul national dishonour and cruel wickedness, which would have the effect of adding immensely to the importance and profits of the "gamblers, saloon-keepers, pugilists or worse," the class who in the great republic govern all elections and appoint to all offices, and of intensifying and embittering party strife and hatred, by adding to the already baneful effects of government by party the demoralization of enormous pecuniary advantage in the spoils of victory.

Thank you, Mr. George. John Bull may be an obfusticated old buffer, but he is not fool enough for that. He thought when your countrymen were playing up Yankee Doodle a hundred years ago, that it was to the devil they were going, and you are remarkably candid in proving how very far they have already got on the page 26 road, and how rapidly they are hastening to complete the journey. It will be as well for him to wait and see the finish. In the meantime, would it be possible to point out to so transcendentally distinguished a philosopher that monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy are exactly the influences which protect England from the anarchy towards which, as he declares, the United States is tending? That there are influences arising from these institutions powerfully operative upon the entire community towards the development of the highest, the holiest, the purest, and the noblest impulses by which humanity can be affected: Influences which knit and bind Sovereign, aristocracy, prelacy, and people into a mutually trusting, law-abiding, self-reliant, and progressive nation. For, bethink you, Mr. George, the poorest child in England may become by ability and the qualities which deserve confidence and respect, and no otherwise, a polished and honoured gentleman, the gentleman a knight or baronet, the commoner a peer, the peer a stage higher in the scale of nobility; and so any boy may become a clergyman, and the clergyman may reach a bishopric or archbishopric, but ever and always by the qualities which gain and secure respect. And for the Sovereign there is as strong an ambition to deserve and enjoy the confidence and love of all her subjects.

If testimony were needed of the inestimable benefit of monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy to England, and the damnable injury of republicanism to America, it is afforded by Mr. George's statement that those who in England are elevated for public admiration and example, by the honour and distinction of rank and title, "the wise, the good, the learned, men who have earned the confidence of their fellow citizens by the purity of their lives, the splendour of their talents, their probity in public trusts, their deep study of the problems of government," have in America the places in which we should look for them filled by "gamblers, saloon-keepers, pugilists, or worse," who hustle them out of public life into uselessness to the State and political oblivion.

In fact, John Bull has no valid inducement to pull down the partition walls of his drawing-room and dining-room so as to add the extent of those apartments to that of the kitchen and scullery, and mix his books, pictures, mirrors, statuary, art-treasures, and bric-à-brac amongst slop pails, coal-scuttles, cooking utensils, kitchen- page 27 furniture, and rubbish. He may be excused for objecting, that this is contrary to his notions of good order and of beauty; that to his thinking it is right and seemly that his rooms should be suited to those who have to occupy them, and that in his state apartments there should be picture-rods and pedestals and shelves, on which to lift and place that which is worthy of being studied, admired, and copied; that he thinks it quite right to have so placed Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Christopher Wren, Sir Isaac Newton, and scores of others, and as to yet more elevated pedestals, he is proud of having lifted up Bishop Ken, Bishop Heber, Archbishop Whately, Lord Bacon, the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Macaulay, Lord Lytton, the Earl of Beacons-field, Lord Tennyson—everyone of whom and crowds of other ennobled worthies began as plain Mr.

What does the knighthood of England serve as? A reward to naval and military commanders for long, arduous, and valiant service, to public officials for zealous, faithful performance of duty and avoidance of scandals of the General Belknap sort, to good citizens for public-spirited and clean-handed fulfilment of shrievalties, mayoralties, and honorary positions of public importance, undefiled by practices of the Boss Tweed description, and to the honour and distinction of private worth, and of excellence in the liberal professions, science and the arts. And so with the higher ranks, the baronetage and the several grades of the peerage, rewards for highest qualities of statesmanship, of administration and command, and for devotion of brilliant talents to the service of the best interests of the nation—so charily conferred withal as to avoid their inordinate increase, whilst their heredity (a pet republican objection) has the advantage of producing youths reared to the memory and emulation of great and worshipful deeds, and bound by the obligations of nobility to stainless honour end scrupulous rectitude, not the less so because some individuals fall short of their obligations, and when they do, are the more justly reprobated. And this hereditary nobility, whilst constantly fed and strengthened by accessions from the commonalty, as constantly and regularly sends back its cadets, carrying with them the recollections and associations of their family's honour, as the ocean sends up by evaporation healthful supplies of moisture to clouds, which page 28 dissolve and fall again to feed the rivers and fertilize and beautify the country.

Any man's son, if he have talent, good conduct, and good luck, may rise to be a lord, but a lord's younger descendants are mere commoners, which is the advantage of the English system of nobility over that of some other countries.

Clearly, then, as to monarchy and aristocracy (of which prelacy is only another form), these influences are inspiring, purifying, ennobling. What has Yankee republicanism to offer in exchange for them? The worship of the almighty dollar—Mammon in all his grovelling filthiness.

Mr. George himself has said it: The people of the United States are becoming so corrupted that they do not believe there is such a person as an honest man in office unless he be a fool. Any wealthy man may murder whom he pleases, and with a hundred chances of his being able to bribe away severe punishment. Men of the highest ability and character are compelled to eschew politics; the arts of the jobber count for more than the reputation of the statesman; and he who is ambitious must court and avoid the vengeance of corrupt and characterless ruffians, with whom rest all elections and appointments to public office, to both branches of the Legislature and the Judicial Bench.

It is probably in individual resentment of this shameful despotism that the good people of the United States revenge themselves by each insisting on taking the mote out of his neighbour's eye, and tyrannizing over him to the full extent that is possible without amenableness to the law, and even combining to exceed that limit by the Vehme Gericht of Vigilance Committees inflicting domiciliary nocturnal visits, flogging, tarring and feathering, and hanging under the judicial authority of mob fury and savage passion personified in His Honour Judge Lynch, whose efforts to override the decision of the regular tribunals have recently had practical illustration in the Cincinnati riots and bloodshed of April 1884. Thus the most laudable aspirations of the American mind become acrid and tyrannical. The saloon-keeper and his whisky-mill must be put down by mob vote of local option, or by prohibiting the sale of all intoxicants, but here, as in their prohibition of aristocracy, the over-righteous, by sweeping intemperance, sacrifice a good and gain an evil. In attempting to wholly prevent the use page 29 of that which makes glad the heart of man, and the Bible commands him to take, they induce sly drinking, hypocrisy, and falsehood. And, to the extent to which they succeed, it would seem that they produce a worse evil, by sharpening, cynicising, and souring the tempers and dispositions of their people, to the embitterment of domestic life and the rupture of matrimonial bonds; insomuch that, quoting from the New York Nation, "The facility and frequency of divorce in the Eastern States are such that societies are organizing to discourage the practice, as there are associations to prevent intemperance in other things; as, for instance, whisky drinking. In a lecture in the Centre Church of New Haven, the Rev. S. R. Dyke, Secretary of the New England Divorce Reform League, presented some startling statistics. It appears that while in the year 1849 there were only 91 divorces in Connecticut, now the average is 440 a year. The population of the State has increased less than 70 per cent, in thirty years, while the number of divorces has increased 500 per cent. In Connecticut the ratio of divorces to marriage is 1 to 10.4; in Vermont, 1 to 13; in Massachusetts, 1 to 21; and in Rhode Island, 1 to 10; while New Hampshire, which is sometimes regarded as the type of bucolic simplicity and primitive purity of manners, stands first on the list, with a ratio of 1 to 9; though Maine follows hard after with about the same figures." And these are the puritan and anti-liquor law regions! Imagine English society with one divorce to every nine marriages!

Mr. George says that, in theory, his countrymen are intense Democrats; that the proposal to confer a distinction of rank upon their most eminent citizen would create horror as of the vilest sacrilege. In theory, but how about truth and fact? That for the most part they are veritable tuft-hunters, who admiringly worship a lord's title and console themselves for the absence of legitimate distinctions by dubbing themselves with substitutes of their own creation, honourables, and what not. Why, how many times does the title of the Duke of Westminster occur in Mr. George's book! He rolls it about with as much satisfaction as a cow does her cud, and how unctuously he takes care to prefix the title "Sovereign" when making mention of one of the States!

As to the assumption of titular military rank by his countrymen, it is told of Abraham Lincoln that he once said that he page 30 could not throw a stone in Washington but it would be sure to hit a Major-General.

And it is certain that if, in the civil war, General M'Clellan, whom the love for titles caused to be styled "The young American Napoleon," had won a battle or two, and got Napoleonized into Emperorship (which was easily on the cards), and had created a score or so of dukes, lords, and things of that sort, converting Senator Thaddæus Washington O'Reilly's better half into Lady Orailly, Congressman Larry Delaney's wife into the Countess De Lainny, and Mrs. Mackay into the Princess Tas d'Argent, the General might have been shot the day after, but those noble peeresses would not only not have given up their titles, but would have been the envy of their sisterhood throughout the Union, and the fashion would have spread like a fire in Chicago.

Where American republicanism is leading to, Mr. George has told us; it is to carnivals of destruction, brute force, and wild frenzy, alternating with the lethargy of a declining civilization.

And this is to be all prevented by a national crime, having the effect of increasing the means and rewards of corruption. Mr. George may tell that to the Marines. John Bull will not believe it; he is quite aware that republicanism is the dead level of decomposed rottenness, which, when the putrefaction is completed, will constitute the manure out of which other organisms will spring. If any wisdom be secreted in the process in America, the shoot will be a healthy young oak, with sturdy head of monarchy, and bright green leafy branches of nobility to grace the stem with honour, and give grateful shade and beauty to the land.

But whether that, the upas tree, or only noxious weeds, suffice it that John Bull is plainly told that it is to perdition that American republicanism is rushing headlong, and that he would not be a bull, but an ass, if he took Mr. George's advice and did the same.

He is proud to know that in England the rich are growing richer—aye, and the middle class, and those below them likewise; but he also knows that it is absolutely untrue that the poor are growing poorer, more numerous, or at all more helpless, even in English great cities. He rejoices in the knowledge that increasing prosperity is accompanied with decreasing poverty, and not that only, but decreasing crime. In 1870, three years after page 31 the justice of the Englishmen in England towards the Englishmen in Australia had finally abolished transportation, the criminal population amounted to 12,000, and now, after a lapse of fourteen years, they do not number so many by more than one-sixth. So, too, with pauperism; for five years preceding 1870 the pauper class averaged more than 4½ per cent, of the population, whilst for the five years preceding 1883 the average is barely over 3 per cent., and there is a larger sum annually expended on the maintenance of the decreased number.

John Bull does not even object to the utmost publicity being given to the poverty which does exist; he rather desires it, though it should be the mere reproduction from plays or periodicals of typical cases of misery, in sensational pamphlets such as "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London;" for thereby is brought into stronger relief the pleasing fact that in England there is felt towards the poor a warmer sentiment than is expressed by the republican word "citizen"—a recognition of English blood, kindred, and country. The tendency of the wealthy, the fashionable, the talented, and the beautiful, is "Eastward Ho!" For from the Queen—God bless her!—throughout all ranks downward there is an honest, earnest, loving, and humane desire to do all that legislation, liberality, and active benevolence can accomplish to ameliorate the condition and improve the circumstances of the poorer class.

To rob landowners of their property, and abandon monarchy, aristocracy, and prelacy in emulation of the progress of the great American republic, "the most advanced of all the great nations," towards "carnivals of destruction, brute force, and wild frenzy," would be no improvement upon this.