The record-union., 1892-03-05
CALIFORNIA LAND-HOLDINGSS.
Thoughtful and Interesting Paper
by Wm. II. Mills.
No Form of Monopoly Usurps the OPP
portunities of Men to Such an Ex-
tent as the DIonopolized Ownership
of Land.

regular monthly dinner OF the Chlt-Chat
Club of San Francisco, for the month Of
December, 1891. Its publication is in re-
Spouse to many urgent requests:
Benjamin Franklin said that any one
species of plant found upon the earth
would take possession of its entire sur
face but for the resistance of other species.
Inherently both the power and the in
stincts of multiplication and increase pro-
coed in utter disregard of the exercise of
the same attributes in other species. We
find something analogous to this in the
disposition of men to accumulate wealth.
There is nothing to prevent single indi-
vidual from acquiring all the property in
the world except the resistance offered by
the acquisitiveness in others. The ac-
quirement of wealth is correlated with
the faculties of the mind. The value
perceiving faculty is possessed in differ
ent degrees, and the accumulation of
wealth (other attendant circumstances
being equaD viii be found proportioned
to this perception.
Habits and tastes, however, have much
TO do with the disparity of fortune among
men. One uncovers vein of iron, but,
possessing no mechanical genius and no
commercial instincts, it does not occur to
him what vast wealth is imbedded in that
vein. He may not be deficient in imagi-
native power, but his imagination has
taken on another form. Itrelates to other
things. He may have a most excellent
poetic faculty, and for that very reason
abhor the associations of the smoke and
CRIME of the iron-mill. Another discov-
ering vein of iron sees through its re-
duction to the uses of man the CONNER
cial activities it will set in motion. His
Imagination is pleased with the con-
temptation of the smoking Chin
ney, the whirl of busy machinery
the glow of the furnace, and beyond
these to the ships constructed from the
product of the iron mill and to the COM
merce carried in these ships, and still on
ward and upward to the commercial
relation between nations-to the closer
intimacy of peoples, even to the COM
mercial unity and social sympathy of all
mankind. The value-perceiving faculty
in the instances cited determines the di-
vergence of two careers. The poetic
instinct which saw nothing but the dull,
rusty color of the ore and felt nothing but
surprise at its unexpected weight when
lifted in the hand, may find in the ex-
preston of the surrounding forest, in the
ever changing beauty of the sky, in the
brilliancy of the sunlight, in the song of
the birds, and even beyond these pleas
ing objects, the very highest aspira-
tons of the human soul or the profound
est contemplation of human destiny.
But it is notin this direction that personal
wealth is found. Reduced to its simplest
terms, however, the difference in the
value-perceiving faculty of men de-
termines the difference in their fortunes
The vast disparity between men in this
regard is measured by a corresponding
disparity between their powers of ac-
emulation, their financial perceptions
and their acquisitiveness.
The most modern manifestation of this
difference in the faculty for accommodating
wealth takes on the form of monopoly.
This is accomplished chiefly through the
corporate relation of property. But in
its individual aspect the economies of
commerce favor monopoly. It has been
contended that it is Of no consequence
what species of thing capable of private
ownership is monopolized; that monopoly
OF one thing is quite as injurious to the
interests of the many as monopoly in any
other thing; that the individual owner
ship of five million dollars in gold may
exert an influence as deleterious to the
rights and interests of the poor as the
ownership of five million dollars worth
OF land. In my opinion this is a radical
error. 1t is true that money acquires
power in a geometrical ratio by its asso-
citation; that the single dollar in the mill
ion owned by an individual has vastly
greater power than the single dollar when
that sum measures the fortunes of an
other.
But there is no form of monopoly which
usurps the opportunities of men to the
extent attending the nlonopolized owner
ship of land. All values are primarily
derived from the soil The earth is the
source of all wealth; and while it re-
mains true that labor and skill create
wealth, it is at the same time true that
labor and skill find only in the pro-
ducts of the earth the opportunity for
such creation. The products of the
upon which skill and labor are expended.
Deprive labor of this opportunity and it
would have no field of exercise. Thus,
in its latest and best analysis, the earth is
the source of wealth. The difference.
therefore, between the ownership of
100000 900 worth Of land and the owner
ship of an equal value in personal prop
erty is the difference between the control
of force and the ownership of an ac-
emulation. In the first, you have the
ownership of the very sources of wealth.
In the second, you have simply the owner
ship of that which has been distracted or
created. The difference is analogous to
the difference between the ownership OF
q river and the ownership OF reservoir.
The ownership of the river would con-
fer the prospective right to all the
water precipitated upon its catchment
area in all time The ownership of
the reservoir would simply mean the
accumulation of long-past flow. Land
monopoly is, therefore, a monopoly OF
the opportunity of the right of men to
lie, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
and safety. Whatever may have been
the manifestation of land monopoly in
other countries and in past time, l
am prepared to maintain that the worst
phase of land monopoly has set up
within the past twenty-five years. This
has been due largely to the fact that
wealth within the period named has ac-
cumulated rapidly: that a large volume
of idle capital has been created and has
been amassed by individuals; that the