New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-07
land AND LABOR.

A Congress. has met in Switzerland, the OBJ
iect of which is to define the demands and
principles of modern labor. Its proceedings
have been especially characterized by resou-
tons fayoring the abolition of private property
in land and the right Of inheritance. The
former, as it passed the Congress, declares that
the abolition of private land property and its
conversion into common property is necessity.
Many of the Congress were OF opinion that the
land should be cultivated under the immediate
control of organized communities, and minor
ity held that society should transfer the land
either to individual agriculturists or to CO.
operative associations, the latter to be pre-
ferred providing it would pay q rent to society.
In short, the Congress, by vote of "a to 81,
showing an increase in favor of the resolution
since last year. made Socialism and Communism
it's platform.
The second resolution is supplementary, and
was passed because the inheritor's right is an
obstacle to converting the soil into com mon
property. The General Council of the Congress
argued that land gave the actual proprietor
the power to take to himself in rent the pro-
duce of other peoples labor; capital the power
to do the same under tho name of profit and
interest property in funds to live without la
Dor on the labor of others. This was too
much. Inheritance did not make this power of
monopoly; it was rather the consequence Of
the false social distribution; and if labor was
turned from private into common property, the
right Of Inheritance would die of itself. Still,
it was observed that il would be foolish to
abolish the right of inheritance in public funds
as long as there was public debt. Why, then,
abolish it in private funds as long as there is
private debt If property cannot be iRher-
tied, why should obligationsf
But the fiat of the Basic Congress encounters
more obstacles than one. Land is held by right
of power-physical, intellectual, moral, or even
religious power; inheritance exists by the right
of the father to have a son; the right to ac-
quire is as old as the right to have family.
Unless the Basic Congress can abolish natural
powers and relations, or so distribute them
that each man shall have his mathematical
share Of Drawn, brain, virtue, and family, we
do not see how the land inequality is to be
quite got over When man has too large
a family, will society relieve him of its
excess, as it is proposed to do in the
case of land7 VIII it be guardian to
his orphans as well as a sequestratOr and
administrator of his estatef How will it
manage to make useful the powers which he
holds in superiority over his fellows, and which
must find their exercise in acquisition of some
kindf When, as one of the Congress sug-
gested, children work with their father till
upward of twenty-five years, what logic can
destroy their rightful hold to the land which
they have earned by toil7 What will make a
successful author less able, or skillful farmer
less of an ownerf What man owns that he
is, in some respects, and it would be as hard
10 abolish property by law as to abolish per-
;onal gifts. The Jewelers. proceed upon the
principle that the earth is naturally fiat. |
whereas it is hill and dale.
After ALL our greatest fear is that society, |
ourdened prematurely with responsibility too |
may be as Enthusiastically as ndi-
RITUALS. 1t is hard enough in all conscience |