The herald., 1895-02-18

ing the people great deal, and everyone
is giving advice; why should not I try
and help? What | present to you for pub
licaton IS given with an earnest hope
that it may be of some little service, no
matter how small.
In the first place denounce the holding
of large tracts of land without making use
of them; there is an old Massachusetts
law, providing that if any man holds land
idle for three years he loses all title to it,
and the courts shall make it free to those
who will use it. If such u law was in
effect now, what boon it would be to the
long suffering people of our country.
The land speculator is allowed to seize
on all the land about our cities and cut 1T
into city lots long before it is necessary
to do so; and the price of the land is
raised so high as to drive the farmer to
the remote districts, where he is sepa-
rated from his fellow men and forced to
live the life of hermit, without the COM
forts and advantages that are to be OBJ
tanned by associating with his fellows.
Let the Government take charge of these
large tracts of land now held idle and
issue titles to those who wish to occupy
them for use only, and they will soon be-
gin to fill up with earnest, hard workers; !;
the overworked and careworn OF the cities
will come, and when they see that they
can have farm without paying rent and
that all they earn will be their own, their
faces will brighten and they will once more
be the happy beings that God intended
them to be. But nothing can be done un-
til our immigration laws are changed, so
that the riff-raff of every nation cannot get
into our country at all; they are not
wanted, and we might as well make the
laws so stringent that they will stay out
and none but those who by nature and
are already in the United States can have
access to the distribution of lands Past
experience is enough for us.
Towns will be built up quickly with new
people, a merchant will build his store
and stock it with the best of goods and be
able to compete with everyone, for he has
no landlord to gobbe up all his profits,
and his clerks will be paid better wages.
The people could own their street cars and
tracks and keep them in repair at public
expense, and lease them to the company
who will run them at the least expense. In
other words, | might say it is best to dis
courage monopolies of all descriptions and
extend private enterprise into every branch
of business that is controlled by competi-
ton. All public improvements could be
paid for by the people in proportion to
the benefit they receive. The users of land
has sewers. or paved streets, or any
other public improvement, pay for these
lust in proportion to the benefit conferred,
and in this way all expenses of govern
ment are paid. You will probably ask:
How do you define the relative proportion
that each should pay? You can see that
land which is located so as to give the
user all these adval tages would be more
desirable than other land which gave
only Il part or none of them, and that
these various improvement values would
correctly determine the relative proper
ton each of the users should pay. This
public improvement value which attaches
to the land is, therefore, the basis upon
which we estimate the amount of benefit
the user receives, and from this we easily
arrive at the proportion he should pay for
the use of these public improvements.
Wages would BE- high in all industries,
but they could be paid easily for the pro-
ducer gets all he earns and does not have
to pay third or one-half of his produc-
ton for the Use of the land he is on. The
men in cities give about the same pro-
portion Of their wages or profits for the
land they use. 1t would seem fair to as
sumo that the industrious classes are
forced t. give from onethird to onehalf
OF all they produce to the owners of the
land as tribute for its use. AS | would
have it, the producer pays nothing. Sit
uated so ! certainly think that the peo-
pie would be benefited to the extent of a
third to one half of their total production,
and probably much more. Say, for in
stance, the amount mentioned was taken
from them, would they not be much
poorer? And their purchasing power
would be lessened in proper
tion, and therefore their production
would have to be reduced to prevent
congestion of the products of their labor.
Their work would become scarce, some of
them would become idle and a struggle
for chance to work would be the result.
Business would stagnate, factories would
close their doors, and wages i'll all occupa-
tions would fall TO the lowest level; as it
now is In this country, Thus thousand
bad results would follow tho loss of their
earnings, in comparis on to which the
tribute taken would be quite insignificant.
You would then see plenty of your care
worn, hunger-haunted human machines,
whose only hope in life is that they may
so that they may get bread to give them
strength to contine work until death ends
their misery. During the slavery
times, the black slaves laughed
and sang their negro melodies,
regardless of their bondage but the in
dustrial slavery has accomplished what
chattel slavery never could. 1t has crushed
hope even in the black man. He no
longer has the heart to sing. The strug-
gle for existence is too intense. Why were
the negro slaves liberated and slaves made
of the whites? If the Government made
land free there would be more than
enough opportunities for all to support
life. but, as it is the land speculator holds
them out of use until the dispairing mer-
chant and workers are forced by their
necessities to agree to give everything
thew obtain above living. The moment
these opportunities are such that men
NAV freely use them, you will find not
even the appearance of antagonism re-
mains.
If land could be held for use only, there
would be no strikes, no riots, and all
would be prosperous and free from care.
Free land makes free men. With free
land we would have purified blood, and
the whole nation would be hale and
hearty. A farmer wishes to buy a farm
and has no money-what can he do? In
the first place he would have to find the
farm that suited him, and pay whatever
was asked for it by mortgaging the farm,
and live scantily for good many weary
months, or probably years. After gather
ing his first crop and having sent it to
market, it had to pay it's share of the
rent the commission merchant paid, as
well as that of the wholesaler and
the retailer and when it reached the
consumer he could only pay very little for
it, so that when the whole expense of
these several rents was taken out of the
price the poor consumer paid, he would
hardly have enough left to cover the cost
of raising; what little he did receive
would have to be paid out to keep up the
farm and pay interest.
1t is often the case with farmers to
send few dollars worth of stuff to market