The record-union., 1892-03-05

improvements on 1921, 00O, 900 worth OF real
estate in the country increased but Sl6,-
100000, the increase on the city real estate
assessed at 1888, GOO, 900 was $50, 600 coo, or
more than three times the aggregate
amount, and more than 400 per cent. on
the increased value of improvements on
country property. II the improvements
on the country realty had kept pace with
those on the city real estate at the end of
the period of seven years we reach an
astonishing disproportion between the
value of the improvements on country
real estate and that observed in the cities
The figures are as follows: The value of the
country property in 1890 was S3SS, 440, 900,
improvements thereon, S53, 9a1 600. Value
OF city real estate, 1926. 229, 600; improve
ments on the same, $153, ZOO, 900. The re-
lation of the value of improvements on
country property to the whole value of
the property is but IA per cent, while the
improvements on city real estate is APP
proximately 81 per cent. of the value of
the real estate.
For long time both population and
wealth have been congested in the cities
and towns. Absentee landlordism i'm
poverishes a country. The money dis
trlbuted back from the products of the
land goes chiefly to single family. That
family resides in the nearest town if the
holding aggregates three or four thou
sand acres; in the nearest city if the
holding aggregates from five to ten thou
sand acres; and in the metropolis of the
nation If the holding reaches fifty or a
hundred thousand acres. Some of our
largest holders reside in the cities of New
! DIRK and Washington. These are men
holding from fifty to two hundred thou
sand acres. A still larger NUMBER reside
IN San Francisco, the metropolis of the
coast. These hold from ten to forty
or fifty thousand acres. The annual wage
bill ofagriculture is paid to a labor which
is not III any respect attached to the soil or
identified with the country. AS soon,
therefore, as the crop is made and the
money obtained from its sale distributed
back to the labor and to the owner, the
former disappears to thevillages and towns
where their only savings bank is the
saloon; the latter deposit their surplus in
the banks or use it for the purchase of
more land, and their families spend their
money in the city. Thus it is that the
rural districts are impoverished while
the great commercial cities are over
crowded. In the instances cited herein
more than all the actual increase of the
population of the Sacramento Valley is
attributable to its towns. There is still
greater disparity between the accumuIa-
ton OF wealth between the rural and the
urban populations. In the fifteen South
ern States of the Union there was in 1889
deposited in the national banks SI58. OOO.-
600. In the city of New York alone the
deposit in these banks amounted to
S4lS,0OO,000, and yet the fifteen States
mentioned produce single agricultural
article which yields an income of $780,
100000 per annum. The wealth is not
accumulated in the country. It is only
created there. This tendency carried
to lis ultimate results-results which are
plainly inevitable-wil eventually evolve
three general classes of citizens: the low
est the agricultural laborer; the middle
class, those engaged in commerce; and
the highest and most influential, the land
holding class. Free institutions like ours
depend for their perpetuity upon the in
dependence, self-reliance, self-respect
and virtue of its citizenship. A system
which is overcrowding the cities, depop-
ulating the interior, eliminating the class
heretofore existing of independent small
holders, is fraught with danger to the per
petuity of republican institutions. In
the face of such q menace the natural
question is, what is the remedy? 1 have
already devoted so much more time than
was originally intended, that promise
the utmost brevity in the concluding por-
ton of this paper.
The rights of property are the creation
of legislation. While men have the nat
ural right to acquire property, the exer-
else of that right is subject to regulation.
1t is absurd to say that society has no
right to protect itself against ultimate de-
struction through the regulation of the
right of ownership. My investigation of
this subject has led to two general con-
illusions: First, the lands are being ag-
gregated through the rapidly increasing
accumulation of wealth and the constantly
augmenting volume of idle capital. This
capital seeks safe investment. An acre of
land that will pay 81 per annum is better
than Government bond for 500 with a
2 per cent. coupon attached, and such
bond would be at a premium if issued
for fixed period time. Theland itself
is preferred security. Loans are easily
effected upon such basis. Values in land
therefore become preferred savings de-
post, while the constantly decreasing
rate of interest makes the acquisition of
land more desirable. Legislation de-
signed to prevent the mortgaging of
land as security for the repayment Of
money and the interest thereon would be
death blow at once to its further accuna-
ulation in large quantities. Limitation
and restriction, as to the extent to which
land may be mortgaged or used as basis
of security for the repayment of loans.
would retard the process, as, for example.
law declaring that no mortgage should
be collectable out of land for more than
Is per cent. of the assessed value of the
property would have the effect of raising
the assessment on the land and limiting
the power of its owner to make further
accumulations. Next, regulation that
the interest accruing upon a mortgage
should not go to the accumulation of the
mortgage nor be collectable out of the
equity of redemption, so that the equity
of redemption, for whatever amount it
might be, would be exempt from execu-
ton in the collection of the interest on
the mortgage. This would prevent the
accumulation of land by landowners and
withdraw the surplus idle capital from
Investment in that direction. The tend