The Louisiana Democrat., 1890-09-03
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
A SCOTCHMAN'S VIEW.
The Moral and Social Effects of the 81
oil

directly from the confiscation Of rent to
the common exchequer. These effects
would have been mostly economic, and
have been deduced from generally ad-
mitted economic laws. But beyond
these economic effects there are moral
and social effects resulting from the
economic conditions to which the i'm
position of the single tax would give
rise. For the opening up of natural op-
portunities to labor and capital, and the
taking from off the shoulders of industry
the burden which at present weighs up
on it would make it possible for every
man to make an honest living by his
labor. This would do away with the
army of tramps and beggars and other
parasites of society which are the prod
uct of the unequal distribution of
wealth. 1t would eliminate forever the
unemployed and the criminal classes
who are recruited from the unemployed.
Such things as prisons and reformator-
les would be unnecessary. The civil
law would be greatly simplified for dis
putes would be fewer, and would be
more easily settled. In short, it would
do away altogether with government, at
least as a repressive agency, and this
simplifcation and curtailing of the func-
tions of government would make it capa-
BILE of assuming certain other functions
which at present it can not successfully
undertake.. These are the running of
bo tr,,, icoi IF ta1o 20
and the maintaining and controlling of
many other things which in their nature
are monopolies. The great increase of
material prosperity would tend to the
increase of rent which could be used for
the common benefit, and which would
enable us to establish baths, libraries,
museums, halls, theaters, gardens, etc.
Water, gas, electricity and other motive
powers might be conducted through our
streets at the public expense, and these
same streets might be lined with trees,
as is the case with many cities on the
continent, notably Paris.
To put it shortly, Government would
not be as at present an expensive and
almost useless burden, but would simply
become the instrument whereby the
public property would be administered
for the benefit of every individual.
Now, to the man who has been reared
amidst the present chaos and confusion,
all this foretaste of what might be seems
only like the vague and impracticable
vision of an imaginative dreamer, but
all the great things and all the good
things that we have achieved were at
one time but visions in the brains of
those who conceived them. And if we
but consider for a moment the change
that would be wrought in a social life if
labor received it's full reward, we shall
come, l think, to the conclusion that
perhaps after all such visions may be
possible of realization. and such dreams
may indeed come true. Want, and the
fear of want, as factor in human life,
would be eliminated. And this is the
element that would work the change;
for poverty, as Carlyle says, is the hell
of which the modern Englishman is
most afraid. 1t is poverty and the fear
of poverty, and the struggle to keep out
of it, that makes civilization such a
mass of evil. 1t is but natural that men
should strive to keep themselves and
those dependent upon them from falling
into this terrible abyss. And it is this
struggle to rise above the fear of poverty
that makes men lie and cheat and steal,
and renders them Indifferent as to
whether they trample their neighbors
underfoot
1t is this continual struggle to raise
themselves above the fear of want that
makes men admire the rich and the for
tunate, and that causes tho struggle for
existence to become even tiercer and
more fierce, and it is now becoming evil
dent to the mass of mankind that unless
they go to the root of the evil and
destroy it, the more fiercely they strive
the worse it will be for their children
who are to come after them. But give
labor free field, choke off the dog in
the manger that stands between man
and the bounty of his Maker, and let la
Dor have its full reward. Take and use
for the benefit of the whole community
that value which the preference of &he
community creates, and production be-
ing set free would enormously increase,
the margin of cultivation would rise to
its natural level, and men would not re-
quire to worry about finding employ
ment, any more than they worry about
finding air to breathe; the worship of
wealth would become thing of the
past, and the man who strove to get
more than he required would be looked
upon with something like commissera-
tion and pity. 1t is unnecessary to en-
large. Any one with the requisite imag-
ination can fill in the picture and con-
ceive for himself the vice that would be
stayed the sorrow that would be soothed,
the hearts that would be healed. For
when labor freed from the restrictions
that now hamper it, can get across to
natural opportunities and these necessi-
ties of production can come freely to-
gether, our civilization will have entered
upon newer and brighter era, and in
time we shall attain to arealization of the
golden rule as enunciated by the great
Democrat of Nazareth, Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. ."-Brechin, Scot
land, Herald
Would Take Clogs Off of Industry Every
where.
The city of Newport, KY, just across
the Ohio from Cincinnati, is about to try
the experiment OF letting all money,