The Labor enquirer., 1884-07-05
AFTER HENRY.
Brother Whyte Establishes an Argu-
ment Against the Doctrines Of
Henry George.
Editor Labor Enquirer.

LaUOT
> LEADvILLE, June 30.-I stated in one of
my previous letters that even so great a
thinker as Henry George failed to see
the distinction between the living forces
of land and labor and the product-a
dead something called capital. And as l
do not intend, in my endeaYors to de-
stroy the prevalent notion or belief that
this dead something ought to be compen-
sated as ought the living factors of labor
and land, to advance anything against
those who hold the opposite opinion
that cannot be proven, 1 shall take the
liberty of making a a citation or two
from Mr.. Georges work, Progress aud
Poverty" so that no one will or can ac-
cuse me of unfairness, and which can
easily be proven by any one desirous of
finding this out for themselves. Mr..
George puts it in an algebraic form as
follows;
Gas produce equals rent plus wages
plus interest, therefore, produce minus
rent equals wages plus interest" st"-page
125. And on page 126 he proceeds to
work this out as follows: "Thus wages
and interest d. not depend upon the pro-
duce of labor and capital, but upon what
is left after rent is taken out, or upon the
produce which they could obtain without
paying rent-that is from the poorest
Hand in use-and hence no matter what
be the increase in productive power, if
the increase in rent keeps pace with it.,
neither wages nor Interest can increase" ."
And on the same page says: "1ti only
when the value of land fails to increase
as rapidly as productive power that
wages and interest can increase with the
productive power. All this is exempli-
fed in actual fact" From these citations
no one can accuse me of charging him
falsely With CHASING interest for capital
and the rewards of labor on the same
footing. In fact, he holds them in every
way to be Identical And so far as his
theory, the mere payment of rent fo1
land, is concerned, it is correct, simply
because.if rent for the land swallowed up
the product of labor as well as the inter
est on capital there would be nothing
left to show for the combined activity of
these two factors; and as consequence
it is only where there is no rent paid, or
where the value of land does not in
crease as rapidly as production that there
is the remotest chance for those two fac
tors to reap anything.
Now, all this is very plain. If it is
shown to be equally plain that there is
another law (Which l have done in my
last letter. in force over and above the
law of rent, by which this (for the pres
ent admitted co-allY of labor product
called capital takes to itself by law OF
its own, entirely ignoring the co-rela-
tionship which we are told exists be-
tween them, then it follows that the
one has acquired an undue advantage
over the other. 1t will not answer the
purpose to say that the one could not
exist without the other, because to make
such an assertion would be an utter
fallacy, and given land labor, man, could
exist without any capital at all, or if not,
will some one tell us where the first man
got his capital to begin with? ~
Toshow that have made no charge
but can be substantiated,, / shall further
quote from the same author In his
opening sentences of chapter four, page
1873, he says; NThe belief that interest
is the robbery of industry is, 1 am per-
suaded, in large part due to a failure to
discriminate between what is really cap
ital and what ID not, and between profits
which are property interest and profits
which arise from'pther sources than the