Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-01
LUXURY ABOVE LIFE.

Inc special correspondence Oh IHE us
PATCH from Scotland brings out in detail
the fact that the expulsion of the crofters
from the Highlands is because those noun
tains and locks yield a revenue greater when
turned into game preserves than when
settled by the shepherds and farmers. In
other words, the striking assertion is made
by the unimpeachable testimony of the
rent-rolls that the English social system of
to-day places higher commercial value on
the pleasures of the extremely wealthy than
on the means of life Cor the masses.
There is no escape from this conclusion,
which reflects the reverse of credit upon the
civilization that produces it. The eviction of
thousands of the crofters from their homes
is not an act of merely wanton tyranny. 1t
is simply concrete expression OF the fact
that on one side there is q concentration Of
wealth so great that it will pay more for
the idle pleasure of shooting game over
these mountains than the farmers and
shepherds can pay for the privilege of get
ting living from them. And the fact is
50 general that the farming population
of territory half as large as the State of
Pennsylvania is being steadily depopulated
in order that it may be turned into forests
to afford the extremely wealthy people of
Great Britain the costly pleasure of killing
game there.
This is evidence of an utterly abnormal sys-
tenn which has carried the workings of eco
nomlc laws far from their natural basis. The
foundation of all values in a natural condi-
tion of society is the contribution which any
staples or property can make to the supply
of human needs or the satisfaction of human
wishes. Fertlle land is worth more than
barren, because it will yield more food for
mankind; but in this case we find
barren land increased in value by the de-
sire to take it away from its normal func-
ton of yielding food. and to turn it into
means of ministering to the pleasures and
vanity of the rich. 1t is only when the con-
centration of great wealth in few hands by
the action of privilege, favoritism, or other
practical injustice in the operation of laws
and government has reached its extreme
degree that it is possible to find the 6eclara-
tion of the economic fact that the pleasures
OF few rich people are worth more in dol
lars and cents to society than the means of
living to the tens of thousands of industri-
Gus and self-supporting, though poor,
peasants.
The example is one to which the people of
this country should pay attention. In the
early part of this couutry's history care was
taken to avoid the causes which created
over-weening fortunes in the old country,
in the shape OF primogeniture and entail.
But in the development of the new fields of
corporate enterprise, while the principles of
law which would guard against the perver-
sion OF legislation for the creation of great
fortunes at the cost of the masses were nom
inslly recognized, they have been ignored
in actual practice. Immense aggregations
of wealth, rivaling in magnitude those of
Great Britain, have grown out of such per-
versions of our corporate legislation. The
democratic condition of our land system and
the immense amount of new land ready for
anyone who wishes to occupy it, have so far
prevented any such manifestation of the
superior importance in society of wealth
and luxury to the needs of the masses; but it
is not improbable that in some other form
we may be confronted by the economic as
sertion Of the fact that when the pleasures
of the rich come in collision with the means
of earning bread for the poor, the latter will
be found to be of the least Importance.
In former ages such contrasts were the re-
suit OF military power or aristocratic priv
ilege, a prominent example being almost
the identical thing which now appears in
Scotland, namely, the establishment Of
forest laws In England for the pleasures of
the Norman Kings. The temperance in
the nineteenth century of the same tendency
on the part of excessive wealth to place
its pleasures above the needs of the masses
is striking indication of the need of guard
ing against the abuses which create great
fortunes at the cost of the masses.