MR. HENRY GEORGE ON LAND REFORM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 45, 7 March 1884, Page 23

MR. HENRY GEORGE ON LAND REFORM.

Thb following is the principal portion of Mr. George's address at St. James's Hall, Londoa, on Jan. 9 .—He desired to express to them simply his own opinions, and not to bind anybody bat GSelf no* the gentlemen at whose request he was there that nighTfnot the chairman whs presided, nor yet thone on the platform or in thl audience. He claimed the right of speaking freely and frankly tab what he thought (cheers). If his doctrines were good. Sen iS them ;if they were not, then toss them aside (chelrs).' 0a 8 thinhowever, was absolutely certain, and that was, that the present eon*-' dition of no country m the civilised world was satisfactory (hear latin!' ft S 6y rS 8 BitUa . ted iQ the Vety CeQtre of wealth and nopula.' lation, and yet the great mass of the people of this immense Londoa LL e n/,h alda sda.5 da . ™ aerab ] elife Cohamfc «id there were «to£2S oft£°^\ tTOd f en /f™ $S which was below that Sh2? ?O8? O8 £ deba3ed aad degraded savages on the face of the earth Sft ?' flfcf Ifc Z** not , necesaarT fOT Wm to speak of those things to talk about, or to real about; but they all knew thoa (hoar, hear) They existed and anyone who shrunk from owning it Shrunk from tieir duty (hear, hear). What he wanted to ask them wm. « wh* were they going to de about it?" Men and women about Londoa had heard the bitter cry of "Outcast London." It came home to hne"-Sh n e "-S ne ""ted toknow what was to bs done for these womoa, fhJ ? lilT < chee ">' Chve dwellings to them? Give charity to \)XI i? hat W f Putti^ g $ bit of coart P lMter over a cancer (cheers" If charity could cure destitution, they need have none iv Ludoa for their charities were noble (laughter). But, on the contrary charity, whether it blessed him wSo gave it or uot, certeiulHt ?fn f Ti, CUrße th ?f lT h0 received ifc < cheer3 >« *«& goS dwellings J They would have them crowded in the same way The trouble of those poor people was that they were poor, and that was the reason of their living in such misery ani squalor. The Datty Ncm in an issue which he saw on tha other side of the water about six months ago, said, hard as it might be to conceive, yet the very squalor and misery of these quarters of London were the only barrier which prevented greater over-crowding, What was coming up in the question was the land question (hew, hear). You can do nothmg.fortbese people by charity. If you would do anything for them you must appeal to something greater and higher than charity You S?t«?i^ to L Mti « Ccheera). (A Voice-Who brought .them into the world ?) Mr. Henry George-God Almighty, in my opinion (laughter). And whom the Almighty brings into the worldf they dared not put out o£ it. If that man believed what he said why had he not the courage of his conviction. For his own part he believed it would be better, far better, to kill those children if there were no other way of saving them than to allow them to grow ud in that condition of want and misery (hear, hear). But to allow sucn a state of things to go on year after year and to greatly lay the blame on tfao Eternal Father was a blasohemy (cheersW worse than all other blasphemy (hear). Was it the* fault of God the Creator that m this world anyone starved ? Or that anyone was in want whilst there was in fact more than sufficient for all ? It was because we scrambled and crowded, and pushed the poorer and weaker out, that these things existed (hear, hear). Supposing some one made a feast and invited to it one hundred guests, and provided enough for them all, and the first half-dozen that got in pushed un the chairs and gathered the food together, and declared that the others must stand up or serve them, or in fact, take the orumbg that tell, what would there be but waste and hunger where there wag plenty ? (Hear, hear). There was enough for all of us here if we could only respect the rights of each. The state of London showed tbe condition of the whoJe country. It was because wages were low and a living was hard to get throughout the country distrieta that men crowded to the capital (hear, hear). Two years ago he saw a small army of English soldiers, wearing that red uniform that had gleamed on so many hard-fought and well-won fields, marchin- ia long and brilliant array up in Donegal, turning ont at tha beheab of a man who had never seen the country, families of poor people who had lived on that land. Some weeks after that he met in a neiflhbounng town a clergyman who took him to see one of these samo families. There they were driven off the land, compelled to get work tor what wages they could at any price, the little children gone imo the factories, and the mea and women going round to see what work could be obtained. Go to Liverpool and they would see boats coming ovet crowded with email cottiers coming here to get what work they could, undercutting English labourers in order to earo money enough to go home and pay their rent (cries of shame) Tha esseutial foundation of this unjust inequality in the distribution of wealth that existed all over the civilised world, and which was becoming more and more glaring with improvement, manifestly was iv our treatment of the soil—nve one man the ownership, secure him ia the ownership, and he°was the absolute master of the rest of it. Make the soil of the country the property of the people, and as the population increa?es, aud the demand for land rises, the few must be masters and the mauy serfs. All human production in its lowest analysis, was but the union of £? v lt!a labour * Without land nothing whatever coulU be produced Without land man himself could not exist, and necessarily, whoever commanded the laud must command the people (hear, hear). Historically it was tbe origin of aristocracy everywhere. No man ever originally got land by money. The forefather of one of our aristocrats said "It will be a very good thing for me to be a duke, and to have revenues, and for you, the people, to have to work for m»." He got hold of tha land, and he af terwads became a duke. So with slavery. Slavery, however, plays but a small part in connection with tyranny compared with the taking possession of the land on which the people mubt live. It makes no difference whatever. Bobiiißua Crusoe took Friday as his slave. What difference would it have been to Crusoe or to Fiiday if he had hailed him as a brother. He was' Crusoe's property. He had the power to compel obedience. So lon» as Friday could not fly up through the air or swim through the seas

so long must he live on the island on Crusoe's terms. Here was the root of the great labour problem. Why wa3 it that they found men forced by competition with each other to take wages that would give them but a bare existence? It was simply because the natural opportunities for employment were shut off. It was no more natural that workmen should compete with each other to obtain an employer than employers should compete with each other to obtain a workman, and in a state of freedom there would be as much competition on the one side as on the other. But men shut off from the natural means of labour for the natural material of existence were absolutely helpless. They must find some one who would grant them permission to live on this world that God made. Their chairman had referred to a plan, but he did not attach much importance to a plan. He cared very little what plan was advocated. The essential principle was the one that the land of every country belbDged to the whole people of that country (loud cheers). For his own part, he thought the best, the easiest way was to go back to the plan adopted by their forefathers. The ancestors of the present landlords of England obtained their land simply by throwing the tax upon the masses of the people. He believed the best way and the easiest way was simply to reverse the operation, and to tax the present landlords (cheers). As a mere matter of taxation that was the best way of raising the public revenue, and as a mere matter of taxation no political economist would deny that it was theoretically perfect. The tax on land did not interfere with production as did nearly all other taxes. It could not be shifted from one to another as could other taxes, and it was collected with the greatest degree of certainty and at least expense. They had begun in free trade. Why not go to the end (cheers). That was only a bastard free trade. Their coasts were encircled with revenue cutters, and every traveller that reached our shores had his trunks examined by custom-bouse officers. Why not banish it ? Free trade after all must be perfect free trade, and it must mean something more than free exchange. Free trade if it meant anything at all mut-t mean " Free production." Why should a man be taxed who built a honse ? Why should they levy a tax upon the railroads ? Were they not works of public improvement ? Did they not benefit the country ? The more houses, the more railways, the more forms of wealth they had the better. But they could not have more land. Here it was, and no tax which might be levied upon it could make it one whit the less. So long as they confined the taxes to the value of land it did not at all interfere with the use of land. On the contrary it was brought easier and more quickly into use. He asked them to look at the monopolies which existed in holding back valuable land under the present system of taxation. Just outside London — Herne Hill— in the centre of a populous suburb, he was shown a tract of 100 acres with nothing on it but a few cows, which he was told annually increased in value to the extent of £3,000. The annual rates for it were £76 . In another part of London a friend of his hired a house which cost £500 to build, and was taxed at £75. In connection with that he also hired, as a garden, some 200 acres of land adjoining. The land was worth £40,0U0, and it was taxed annually at merely £50. Put a tax upon that land something near or commensurate with its returns, and they would see how soon those dogs in the manger would drop it (cheers). When he was over here before he was down in Wiltshire, and there he was shown some thousands of acres of fine rich land lying absolutely idle because the owner could not agree with the tenants as to the rent. He wanted a higher rent than they were willing to pay, and the land was lying absolutely idle, and he was not paying a cent of the taxes (shame). As a mere matter of fiscal change, as mere matter of expediency, that would be one of the greatest reforms that could be made (cheers). But they could easily go a deal further than that. They could not merely pay all the public expenses as they were paid in the ancient times, out of the rent of land. They could heve an enormous surplus for the use of the nation. What that surplus would amount to it was hard to say. He had never been able to obtain the data for making any figures ; but as closely as he could get it it would not be less than thre« hundred millions of pounds a year. When people spoke about rent, and wrote about rent, they generally meant agricultural land. Twothirds of the population of England and Wales was urban population. Besides the value of the agricultural land, they had the far greater value of the urban and of the mineral land. He did not think that the value of the agricultural land could be more than quarter, certainly not more than third of the value of the whole land of the United Kingdom. He would call theii attention to one or two things in. regard to the figures that were sometimes stated. For instance, he found in the pamphlet by his friend Mr. Hyndman (laughter) the statement that agricultural land amounted to thirty-five million pounds, and the aggregate income to something like twelve hundred million pounds. Now, in taking rent, it was not only necssary to include the urban land and the mineral land as well as agricultural laud, but it was also necessary to take much more than the ground rent. That which the leaseholder got was, economically speaking, as much rent as that which the landlord got. The profit that the tenant made as much belonged to the nation as that which went to the landlord. And again in taking the income of a nation, by adding up the incomes of all classes, they got the same items of "wealth necessarily counted over and over again. The income of all classes of the people must be very much larger than the gross produce of the land and labour of the country. They would find as they came to examine the matter, that the amount of the produce of the land and labour of England was all over the country taken by the land owners or their assigns, taken from the labor of the country for the privilege of allowing the people of the country to live and work in that country. Also nearly half of the gross produce. However that might be it was an enormous sum. Two hundred millions, or even one hundred million, was far more than the expenditure of the country. The first thing he would like to see done would be to take care of the widows* and orphans. He would like to get the widows and orphans out of the way so that they would not be in front of the landlords (laughter). There were in England about two hnndred thousand widows of all kinds and of all ages (laughter). There could be given to every widow, from the lady who sat on the throne (laughter, cbeers and hisses), from the Queen down to the poorest labourer's widow, a

pension of £100 a year (laughter) That would be the way to do it, give to everybody, so that there would be charity to none (cheers), whether they be rich or poor, as their part of the general property. Care could be taken of the orphans, and to every girl, whether rich or poor, could be given a small dower, and to every man, when he attained a certain age, enough to live on for the rest of his life (laughter). All this could be done, and there would still be more to spare. There were some people who were constantly saying with regard to the poorer classes that it was a very demoralising thing to allow people to get money for which they did uot work. He noticed that they did not apply that principle when it went higher up (cheers). Their bishops, their masters of the buckhounds, and la Ues-in-waiting — to all those people*there was no fear of demoralising in that way (cheers). The truth was that money given as charity did degrade (hear, hear), because it lessened self-respect, and when self-respect was gone a man was worth nothing. But when it was given as a right then it did not injure self-respect — it it did not degrade (hear, hear). They could by this one thing abolish poverty, and yet this would be only the beginning. The relief that would be given to industry and trade, and improvement by throwing open all over the country the natural means and'material of wealth, labour, and capital would give such a stimulus to production that rich England would grow richer with a rapidity that had never been dreamt of. There were those who said, however, that, while all this might be true, it would be very wicked to do anything of the kind without first compensating the landlord (hear, hear, cheers, no, no, and a voice — They have had their pull.) He respected gentlemen who held such opinions, but he differed from them. He believed that to say they could not resume the people's property until they paid those who unjustly held it, was simply to put off the day of resumption. He did not care to ask how the landlords got this land. They got it simply because their fathers robbed our fathers (cheers). But he would care nothing for that. That was a long time ago, and he did not care to fight over again the battles of the past ages. He contended against the samn principle in the United States, where the land has been sold and was being sold to purchasers, for he held that every child who came into this world was seized in a full and naturarright to the land, and it was not inthe power of kings or parliaments or congresses, or one generation or another generation to deny or do away with that right. It belonged by virtue of its birth to the child, by grant of its Creator, and no parchments and no prescriptions could determine it. What were vested interests compared with natural rights ? That there should be a statute of limitations was true. That after a certain time we should take possession of real property as a guarantee of title was true. But let them mark, was it right that the landlord should claim to be compensated for his— what ! Was it right to take from them the produce of their labour even for that year 1 If they took their horses, or money, or goods, or anything of that kind let the Statute of Limitations " run." They had it — let them keep it— but let them have no more of that kind of work. The Duke of Westminster, for instance (hisses and groans), owned a very large part of this London of theirs. What did he care for ? Was it the land ? He did not want to use the land. Of what use was it ? Simply that he obtained annually, from the labour of the people of London, an enormous sum. How? Because a man robbed him jesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, it did not give him any right to continue that robbery in the future. Because a man robbed his (the speaker's) father, was that any reason why he should continue to rob his children (cries of " 3?o "). Supposing he had bought a slave, had he any more right to that slave than they had ? (Crips of " No.") Supposing he had been bought by a hundred men, did it justify the last one in calling him his own any more than any of the others 1 There was no justification that could be urged in favour of private property in land that could not be a3 fully and logically argued in defence of human slavery. He, when a boy, heard a lot of talk about compensation and vested interest. It was said, "We have got this property with our money, and it is ours. Would you strike at the rights of property 1 Would you stiike at its very foundation ? " Men here said, at least some Englishmen pride themselves on the fact that in abolishing slavery in the West Indies, England compensated the slave owner. He believed, for bis part, that that was a national wrong (loud cheer?) and a national crime (renewed cheering). Who paid the slaveholders 1 Tbe men of England, and they were taxed to pay the money. What did they do by paying that ? They strengthened the bondage of the slave everywhere in the world. He knew there were those who believed, as he did, about the human misery they saw everywhere around them, but who thought that as a matter of policy it was expedient to advocate compensation with the idea that the thin end of the wedge would then be introduced and less opposition would be excited. He differed from them there. The simile of the thin end of the wedge had its application, but it was not that. If they wanted to carry forward a fight on principle they should enunciate the whole full and strong principle. The masses could understand a clear principle. They cannot understand a half-way compromise The land of England, by virtue oE the grant of the living God, belonged to the whole people (cheers). That was a clear and comprehensive principle, and no matter bow it might run counter to their prejudices, men would welcome it, and embrace it, and struggle for it (hear, hear). The present state of submission on the part of tbe people only existed because they had not begun to think of it (hear, hear.) How could they defend private property in land and its exclusive possession by a select few when all the people sprang from the same stock and were equally creatures of the Father above. The duty of the subject was said to be passive obedience. But they had got over that (cheers), and they sent the Lord's annointed over the Channel, and did not give him a cent of compensation. There was a sacred right of property that lay at the foundation of all social order, and that right" of property was the right of man to the produce of his labour, lit vras by that, and that alone, that the right of property could be asserted, and that was denied by private property in land. Two years ago, when he was in Ireland, he heard of the distress amongst the widows and children of landowners, and had no doixbt that such was the case at the present time, whilst on

the other hand the poor people themselves had not been relieved. Nothing had been done for the Irish labourers. The tact was that the big landlords, by the Land Act, had to surrender the little landlord overboard in the hope that the shark would have him and stop following the ship (cheers and hear, hear). Where in the annals of legislation would they find a more Communistic measure than that? It established the tribunals tJ decide what price should be paid between man and man, and arbitrarily regulated transactions in private property, which ought to have been left to the people themselves. If on the principle of that Bill the Irish tenant, by a certain amount of agitation, got a reduction of rent, why with a little more agitation could they not get a greater reduction ? Wby should not Parliament fix the rate of wages by the amount of agitation ? They had gone far into communism and had done no good, whereas a fall, true measure, founded upon the principle that the land of Ireland belonged to the whole Irish people, would give such a stimulus to production, and so increase the common welfare, that there need be no poor. A few words to working men. Let them be true to themB l aSa S ' a ° d Bfcand U P for tQeir di S nit y aad *Qe dignity of labour and the dignity of those below them, for as long as tenpenny Jack looked down upon ninepenny Joe, so long would tenpenny Jack and ninepenny Joe be slaves. If the masses were trodden down it wouli be by their own power. It was purely the result of their own ignorance and selfishness. • If they would do anything real and lasting for themselves they must do it by attempting to do it for others. He believed, as he had said in the beginning, that the movement now commenced could not halt. It must go forward. Every wind would fan it, and it was the privilege of every man and woman to help in that work. For the sake of those around them, and for the sake of those v*o would come after them, they ought to enieavour to make this •■pand of theirs really the free home of free men— men equal in their rights— men who knew their duties and who would perform them— and in doingjwhat they might for this they would be doing it not merely for this oonntry alone but for the whole civilised world (cheers).