The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-12-03
SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT.
Titles to Land.

What are land titles? Not what trc
but what can they be by the laws of
nature? What do they imply where
! construed to conform to the order of
| things which nature, or the God of
| nature, has established? All titles are
| from the civil government andshave no
higher sanction. What can the state
grant in the nature of things2 Can it
| grant what. is not susceptible of being
granted and the grantee IS not capable
of being invested with--what is not in
the power of community to bestow?
Governments only the representative
of the people and can confer no interest
in lands but what rests in the people
| in mankind at large. But what is that
| interest? In mans relation to land, to
| the earth, what power has he? What
can he do with land but to occupy it,
use it, and leave it to others to use?
What is land capable of, so far as man
is concerned, but to be used in the sup
| ply of human wants. Man did not Gre
ate the lands; he can not remove them;
he can not consume them nor destroy
| one particle of them. 1t is the doctrine
| of the special creationists that God Gre
ated the lands and gave or granted
them in his bounty to all men in COM
mon. But this is inaccurate and illog-
zeal SO far as it implies any vestiture in
the lands by the Creator.
If God created the earth there is no
warrant for the assumption that he has
-
any man or men. The earth, it is be-
lieved, was either created by God or
was dcvelored in the order of nature,
or has existed cternally. But it is nom
sense to speculate as to the origin of
things. What we know is that the
earth is and that man is placed upon it
with no power to exist apart from it,
with wants and needs which can only
be supplied from it by his labor. He is
but part of the earth; arose from it
and in short time passes into it 1t is
preposterous that he who is but prod
uct of the soil should own it or should
be able to make title to anything but
its use. The products of industry, what
we call personal property, by law of
nature belonging to the producer, be-
cause he created them and thereby
originated the title in himself, and he
has title against all the world by the
same right he has to his own person.
But instead of man creating the earth,
or any foot of the land of which it is
composed, the visible facts are that the
earth, which is part of the infinite,
created him. Our reason, which is our
highest guide, must conform to facts
"What can we reason but from what
we know" 1t is a travesty upon every
known standard of ethical reason that
any man or number of men can own as
private property any part of the earth
TO the exclusion of all others, for if they
can, then they can own the whole and
exclude all the balance which is the ad
absurdum; and moreover all men are
equal in the right to the usufruct. Ma
ture has created no special privilege,
but the power of community to regu-
late the use among the members is
plain. Men are created as individuals,
and as individuals they must have the
use of land; they can not exist
moment without it, and SO society,
acting upon its power to regu-
late, does through its governments,
parcel out the land to individuals and
execute titles thereto Now the forego-
ing ideas have been abundantly assert
ed, and elucidated by writer's ADLER than
myself; but what / wish to assert is
that such titles, no matter what they
purport in themselves, are nothing but
the assurance of the community,
through the pledge of the government,
securing the use and only the use of sep
arate parcels of the earth to the grant
ees and their assigns. This is the ut
most effect any titles can have. But if
community can regulate the distribu-
ton of lands to private use, of course it
can do SO upon any conditions or terms
necessary to the cause of equal justice
to all, and SO under the present system
of conveyancing, the community does in
all cases reserve the right of what is
called eminent domain, and the right of
taxation which in case of necessity is
unlimited. What is this but the right
of the community, the body polite, to
assert its sovereign power of control
whenever the exigencies of the public
demand IL? And this is utterly incon-
sistent with private property in lands.
But the grant of the public to private
use can in no proper sense convey or
vest in the holder the right to the "un-
earned increment. e., the value
which the growth of the community
and surrounding population gives to
land. For this value is a thing apart
from its use, and accrues as much to
vacant as to improved land. 1t is sep
arate from any use or improvement
which can be made of the land; and,
moreover, it has no existence at the
genesis of any title, but is altogether
prospective-to be realized in the fu-
ture, and accrues from an outside
source-from the community at large,
and of right continuous in the COM
munity.
IL . A. Il