St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-02-04

uOCtIiHCS luHlltIlS UdCh W tHc tiIllc VI
Aristotle, at least"
Any existing social institution is I'M
doubleday entitled to justice and fair
play, but no institution, no matter what
may have been its standing or its pop
ularity, is entitled to exceptional ten
derness and forbearance if it can be
shown that it is intrinsically unjust and
cruel. Worse institutions by far than
any system oil land tenure can be have
had a long and prosperous career, till
their true character became generally
known and then they were suffered to
exist no longer.
Slavery is found to have existed, as
social institution, in almost all nations,
civilized as we'll as barbarous, and in
every age of the world up almost to our
own times. But to arrest public atten-
ton and fix its gaze effectively on the
intrinsic character and constitution of
slavery was to seal IFS doom.
The practical approval, therefore,
which the world has bestowed on So
cial institution that had lasted for cen
turtles is no proof that it ought to be al
lowed to live on longer, if, on close eX-
animation, it be found to be intrinsiealiy
unjust and cruel and
MISCHIEyoUS AND INJURIOUS
besides to the general good of mankind.
The fact of the worlds having thus ap-
proved of an Institution which was eS-
sentially unjust, cruel and degrading to
human nature only proves that the
world was wrong. but it furnishes no
arguments or justification for allowing
it to live on moment longer. Secondly.
the professor says: THAT only a limp
ing. one-legged philosophy OF property
can bolster up such vagary that every
<xf l,o
planet; that property is an Institution,
not a theory which has grown out OF
human existence"
We single tax crankS believe that the
whole people are the true owners of
the land. and that, therefore, when a
privileged class arrogantly claims
right of private property in the land
of country, that claim is simply unn-
telligible, except on the broad princi-
pie that the land of country is not
free gift at all, but solely family in
heritance; that it is not a free gift
which God has bestowed on his Great
ureS, but an inheritance which He has
left to His children; that they, there
fore, being Gods eldest sons, inherit
this property by right of succession;
that the rest of the world have no share
or claim to it, on the ground that their
gitimacy. The world. however, will
hardly submit to this shameful iHputa-
ton of its own degradation, especially
when it is not sustained by even
shadow of reason.
infer, therefore. that no individual
or class of individuals can hold right
of private property i'll the land of a
country; that the people of that eeun-
try, in their public corporate capacity,
are. and always must be, the real own
ers of the land of their cOuntry-hOld-
ing an indisputable title to it, i'm the fact
that they received it as free gift from
its Creator. and as a necessary means
for preserving and enjoying the life He
has bestowed upon them. Usufruct,
therefore, is the highest form of prop
erty that individuals can hold in land.
Mr.. Mill, i'll his great work on political
pie of property being to assure to all
persons what they have produced by
their labor and accumulated by their
abstinence; this principle cannot apply
to what is not the product of labor, the
raw material of the earth" And again.
when the
SACREDNEss OF PROPERTY
is talked of, it should always be remem-
bered that any such sacredness does
not belong in the same degree to landed
property. No man made the land; it is
the inheritance of the whole Species"
/ think, therefore, that | may fairly
infer, on the strength of authority, as
we'll as of reason, that the people are
and always must be the real owners of
the land of their country. I'm the third
part of his address Prof. Folwell said he
proposed tOShOw that the single tax plan
ic rlop of confederation. fhat Ha,ry
George advocates the c0nfScation of
rent, which in reality would be confis-
eating the land" Let us see. What is
rent? Political economists, who have
written with scientific precision on the
nature and properties of rent. confine 1t
exclusively to the moneys which the
landlord receives for allowing the ten
ant the use of the original and natural
productiveneSs of the soil. Adam Smith
says: Trent may be considered as the
produce of these powers of nature, the
use of which the landlord rents to the
tenant. 1t is the work of nature which
remains after deducting or cOmpensat-
ing all that can be regarded as the work
of man.
Ricardo, the inventor of the celebrated
defines rent to be THAT portion of the
produce of the earth which is paid to
the landlord for the use of the original
and indeStructible powers of the soil.
Scrope thus writes of it: The value
of land and its power of yielding rent,
are due to two circumstances: First.
the appropriation of its natural power.
Second. the labor applied to its anchor
alton. Under the first OF these relations
rent is monopoly. 1t restricts our
usufruct and enjoyment OF the gifts
which
GOD HAS GIVEN TO MEN
for the satisfaction of their wants."
Senior thus speaks of rent: "The in
struments of production are labor and
natural agents. Natural agents having
been appropriated. proprrietors charge
for their use under the form of rent,
which is the recompense of no sacrifice
whatever, and is received by those who
have, neither labOred nor put by, but
who merely hold out their hands to ac-
cept the offerings of the rest of the COM
munity." Lastly, Mill thus speaks of
rent: 1.-THE land is the principal of the
natural agents which are capable of be- |
ing appropriated, and the consideration
paid for its use is called rent. 1t is at |
once evident that rent is the effect of a
monopoly"
Thus. on the highest and most I'M
questionable authority, are we forced to |
conclude that. owing to the monopoly |
which the landlords have usurped in |
the land of the nation, they sell out the
use of Gods gifts like so many articles |
of private property, and as if they were |
purely the result of their own toll and |
labor. Therefore however unpalatable |
it may be to Prof. FOlwelD, the sooner |
we con6scate rent the better 1t VIII be |
for the people. o. SAvARD.
st. Paul, Feb. 2.