The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-07-27
Commerce in Honey and Commerce
in Land.


mess and follow it up with his personal
and mental labor, but rents the money
loans ito one or more Of the industrial
c1ass-the wealth producers. The wealth
producer employs the borrowed money as
tool. Out of the products of his labor
he pays the money rent. The owner of
that capital has produced nothing, has
earned nothing. The laborer has pro-
duced all.
The capitalist concludes to exchange
his money for land and rent the land.
How is his position to society and pro-
ductive industry changed? 1t has not
changed in any material respect.
Land was created for the use of the
people, we will say-leaving beasts and
birds out. Money is created by the State
or by the mutual consent of society, for
the use of the people. 1t has the func-
ton of representing property but is not
property 1t possesses the function of
transferring value but has no value.
Lock the spade up and it has no value.
The garden will not be dug. Put the
spade in the hands of the laborer and he
causes the earth to TEEN with wealth.
The man who locked the spade up and
held it for rent, and the man who held
the garden for rent are both idle drones,
waiting for the laborer to produce wealth
that they may claim part of it. The
land renter and the money renter are
cousin-german. The landlord holds land
out Of use, makes it artifcially scarce, i'll
order to make productive industry bid for
the privilege of using it. AS society i'll
creases its numbers the competition for
privilege of using it increases, and the
rent resembling the bids at an auction,
becomes higher. The money nonopolist
holds money out of use, contracts the
volume of currency, makes it artitcially
scarce Productive or business industry
bids for it. The bid differs i'll form. More
produce is offered for given quantity of
money, and as the increase of population
makes its possession and use more i1nper-
ative, still more products of industry, the
wealth labor creates, is offered and given
for the possession or use of money. We
say price of goods is low. The real fact
is the price and rent of money have been
made artifcially high by making it scarce.
The landlord under similar conditions
oe1-e n 1,;o1 ~. ,,r;ca fo,- 1,ic loud o,- roicac
the rent If the price property remains
norinal-doesn't change, he is enabled to
purchase more of it by his increased rent
or the receipts from the sale of his land.
If prices of property are forced down,
money increased i'll its purchasing power
by cornering it, holding it out of use,
contracting the quantity i'll circulation by
any or all Of the several methods i'll vogue
for that purpose, the capital will buy
more property or the rent or interest for
its use will purchase all increased guam
tity as scarcity of money forces prices
down. These are the two great economic
abuses, the merchandise of land and the
merchandise of money-speculation in
tllem-wlich afflict society at the present
time.
That taxing the rent of land and ex-
empting every species of personal prop
erty from taxation, would have any
influence on money is one of the decisions
which befog the most clamorous of the
single tax economists. They never
attempt to justify or support this opinion
by any facts or advancing any kind of
reasonable argument for the assumption.
They seem to fear that all admission there
is any other question i'll political economy
than the single tax, would weaken their
pet cause. This is weakness which the
present class of propagandists must get
clear of. Or what is more likely TO
occur, they will be pushed aside by more
practical reformers, with broader views
and more comprehensive understanding.
There are many branches of the social
and economic reform which is agitating
society and the proposition to collect all
teA iOl Liz support vi government nom
the rental value of land is only single
item.
III order to understand the immense
influence money exerts on the civilization
of the present time, we must look at
things as they really exist. Who can use
land at this time without money? All
business is taken from the individual by
the corporation, and he is compelled to
become an employee of the corporation
The homeless thousands, if all had land
given them, could do nothing with it.
They could not build home OH it with
out borrowing money and paying rent for
it. They could not draw subsistence from
the land by their own labor in majority
OF the cases, and would apply for employ.
ment to some of the many large corpora
ton industries. Those who attempted to
set up an independent industry of what
ever kind could not do it without borrowed
capital, and the low prices of the products
OF their industry would not suffice to meet
the interest and support self and family.
View the question as you will, in all its
most favorable aspects, and unless we can
have radical money reform the single
tax could have but small influence i'll
banishing poverty and alternating present
expressions under which society suffers.