The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1884-04-03

land it is apparent in this country
In our new States the quarter sections
of homestead settlers are being alb
sorbed into great farms of thousands
of acres.
The small land owners of old Eng
land, their boosted yeomanry Of a
few centuries ago, have been wiped
out, and the small tracts now form
large landed estates, and are kept SO
by entail and primogeniture. This
concentration is advancing rapidly in
America.
And modern industry, with its in
ventions and improvements, is NOV
ing in the same direction, namely to
concentration, and hence monopoly.
The factory of the great corporations
has wiped out small establishments
that used to be scattered throughout
the country. And this absorption
can concentrate population in large
cities, and more distinct is becoming
employer and employe.
When government is run in the in
terest of this tendency to concentra-
ton and monopoly, the status be-
comes doubly alarming to patriotic
American citizens. The influences
referred to, aided by our general gov
eminent under Republican sway, have
done much to cause alarm. All are
familiar with the enormous railway
land grants; and under the specious
name of protection" the evils of
monopoly are extended, all to the
injury of labor and honest business.
We hear much of starving In Ire
land and the horrors there resulting
from landlordism and concentrated
wealth. Are we not here on the same
road? Is not our government in Re
publican hands helping this along
During the hard times few years ago
in this country, Northern highways
were crowded with men in search OF
work. We here know something OF
poverty and distress, of scarcity Of
work and tramps. all under Republi-
can protective tariff rule
| II seems poverty keeps along with
progress. Invention and improve
ment do not seem to remove poverty
or even to diminish it. AS towns
grow and factories multiply, rents
advance and so absorb the increase
of production and the laborer's con-
dition remains substantially the same,
So it is, and progress does not seem
to remove, even lessen poverty in the
aggregate. Millionaires multiply but
the poor continue.
The history of the world shows thai
the most endurable and most danger
GUS shape for concentrated wealth il
in land. Landed estate passes from
generation to generation in the same
family; and the evils of land monopo
II are thus transmitted. Landlordisn
no doubt curses Ireland and it alst
curses England and Scotland.
J Property in land endures, not 81
: with property in other shapes. 1
financial crash destroys business, anC
frequently reduces to poverty men o
reputed wealth. Other property. as
: rule, is perishable. Fire may destroy
competition may interfere; new in
yentions may divert. In various way
? created wealth may vanish. Not s
t land. The fertile Wales of Englan,
are there to-day as they were whel
{ Julius Cesar invaded, near two thou
= sand years ago. So in Ireland, thos
l fair estates wrested from the nativ
Irish centuries ago by their Englisl
!; conquerors. The great and endurinI
curse is undoubtedly land monopoly
Human existence depends upon til
productions of mother earth. A
wealth comes from that source. Th
: clothing we wear; the dwellings, W
occupy; the iron and other articles W
use at home and in business, and th