Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-03-27
provement to the city, why should we
make the man who puts one up pay yearly
for his enfernrisaf IL we want The conntr,r

provement to the city, why should we
make the man who puts one up pay yearly
for his enterprise If we want the country
settled, why should we let some dog in the
manager exact high price from the settler
for land. and then, with our taxes, fine
the settler for his improvements I?
You admit that private property in land
cannot be defended on the score of equity
On what score, then, can it be defended
Certainly not on the score of expediency.
And if you defend it merely on the score
that it exists, or on the ground that it is
necessary to maintain hell of poverty in
order to spur men to exertion, then you
must by parity of reasoning defend a
good many other things that am sure you
would not defend.
of the success of people who had not
private ownership in land | say that
there is no instance in history of the sue
cess of people that had that private
property in land has heretofore always re-
duced the masses to slavery and degrade
ton, and by virtue of immutable laws of
the universe, always must and that the
new forces which modern invention has
brought into the world can but hasten the
process.
You ask me whether think my panacea
would have the effect of purifying and ele-
waiting human nature, and whether the adop-
ton of a code or law ever did produce that
result?
Ianswer, that while it seems to me that
human nature is in essence always
the same, its manifestations and de-
velopments are most powerfully in.
fuenced by social conditions. One
set of social conditions will make of boy
thief, loafer, curse to himself and his
kind, while another will produce strong,
honest, virtuous and useful man. One set
of institutions may reduce people to alb
ject crouching slaves, but little above the
level of the brutes; another will make of
them race of independent, self-respecting,
intelligent freemen. When did any code
or law purify and elevate human life !?
Whenever it swept away complexities and
restrictions. Whenever it asserted the
fundamental law of justice and equality.
And if you think of it you will see that
the reform propose lines with all true re-
form-that by simply altering the condi-
tions from which they spring, it strikes at
social diseases that battle our efforts so
long as we approach them from the surface.
Take, for instance, intemperance. To
one who has never thought of it,
nothing at first blush seems more
ridiculous than that to put all
taxation on land values would tend to
reduce intemperance but to whoever will
think of it nothing is clearer. Intemper-
ance largely comes from unwholesome
social conditions exhausting, ir-
regular and ill-paid work, and from the
ABSENCE Vi HOiuc ucCSuCles anu Coih-
forts, and of opportunities for the ra-
tional and healthy satisfaction of desires
which are the spring of some of the most
amiable of human qualities. Now, the re-
form l propose would clearly operate to
destroy all these unwholesome social con-
ditions. 1t would raise wages, open op-
portunities, elevate the standard of COM
fort, and by equalizing the distribution
of population, prevent the unhealthy
crowding of the poorer quarters
of great cities, while also relieving the
tiresome monotony of country life. Under
these conditions the work of the temper
ance societies would become vastly easier,
or rather there would be little need for
their work.
l am confident that the more you think
of this proposition the less objection you
will see to it, and the greater its advan-
tages will appear for it is not mere en-
pirical panacea, but conforming of social
relations to laws as absolute as those of
matter and motion. HENRY GEORGE.
San Francisco, March Is, 1880.