The advocate and Topeka tribune., 1893-12-20

suppose bQRb IN BuCn country 6n0 lhnu
could at the start be divided equally. This
primary equality would, from the very
start, and in proportion to the growth
and progress Of the new community,
tend to inequality. From the changes
and accidents that attend human lie,
some would be driven to sell, and others
would buy. AS discoveries we're made,
as towns and cities arose, as railroads
were built, what was equal in value
would become unequal. AS children
were born and new migrants came in,
the class OF mere lsborers would in
crease. The prospects Of growth and
improvement would stimulate specula-
tion and the same concentration OF land
holding that is seen in every growing
city would 90 on until, in the natural
course of development, there would come
about the same ownership Of land by
few that we to- day see in England.
It is q mistake to think, as many of
our people seem to think, that the con.
Centrstion of land ownership in England
arises from an original inequality Of
division or the mere grasping Of q
selfish sristocracy. IL came about in
greater part from the same process that
Is going on here in Kansas. II you will
take up Macaulsy's History of England,
you will fiud that he states that at the
time of the accession of James II, the
majority Of English farmers were owners
OF the land they titled. Since that time,
there have been no foreign incursions, no
political revolutions that affected the
holding Of land, and yet for century or
more the English farmers have been SO
universally tenants, that owning farmers
are distinguished as gentlemen farm
ers." This came about by the same
process that is going on here, the rise in
the value of land. AS land becomes
more valuable, as mere ownership comes
to command q greater and greater por.
tion of the products OF labor, the
farmer who is both lRborer and land
owner must be driven out, and his place
be taken by the landlord and the tenant,
for as wealth Rccumulates in fewer
hands those whose little capital is
needed in their own employment cannot
afford to own it. The process is the
same a. that taking place In New York
and our other great cities, where such
differentiation is rapidly going as OBJ
tRins in London, where the builders Of
houses do not buy the land they build
on, but rent it, with proviso that the
building shall revert to the land owner
after certain time.
l think / may safely say, in such an
audience as this, that We all know that
the proportion Of American farmers who
vRNallry khn VanA khnwy cultivate hmn
been steadily growing less. But there
are few who realize how rapidly tenancy
and that first form Of tenancy, the hold
ing under mortgage, 10 succeeding own
ership. Kansas is yet q new state. Many
of us here remember when it was tn
home of the Indian and the buffalo, and
there is in this audience at least one man,
Mr., Wakefield Of Lawrence, yet hale and
hearty, who was one Of the first party of
settlers. Its settlement was q part of
the great struggle for freedom against
slavery and it's population has been
drawn from what we are accustomed to
consider as the best Of American ele-
ments. The full returns of the last
census are not yet tsbulated for Kansas,
but 30 far as they are at hand they show
these startling figures: That Of the
farming families of Kansas only some
25 per cent. cultivate free farms; some
33 per cent. are tenants, hiring their
farms on what in Ireland are called rack
rents, and some AZ per cent. though
nominal owners hold their land under
mortgage. Within the last ten years &C.
cerding to these returns the proportion
OF out-snd-out tenants has more than
doubled, that is to say the proportion Of
agricultural tenants in these counties
was IN 1880 some 13 per cent. OF the whole
number Of agricultural families, while in
1890 thev we're some 33 per cent. of the
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