The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1897-10-23

truder had, during the previous night,
pulled mp his plants and left them lying
on the ground to die, would he not at
once set to work to restore them to the
ground before they wiIted and died2
Migrants and paupers are but human
beings divorced from the land. Prof.
Rogers perceived this fact, for ne says:
'sThe growth Of the poor rate
was duo to the Enclosures, the eense-
quent exclusion Of the poor from small
agriculture. The poor be-
came more and more straitened even
while prices had not seriously risen,
because they were more and more
divorced from the soil. (E. 1. Of
H, p. 246).
The only way in which vagraucy and
pauperism can be cured and prevented
is to restore the vagrant and pauper to
the land. And this the single tax will
do without jar or disturbance. Adopt
the single tax unlimited, and vagrancy
and pauperism will soon become but
the hideous, goblins Of night forever
past.
I have said that have been unable
to find any modern writer who has as
signed any adequate or sufficient cause
for the origin and growth of English
pauperism. Prof. Rogers has assigned
four causes, and they are as valid, I
think, as any l have come across else.
where. They are /. Deluge Of base
money. Q. Coniscation of the guild
lands, and the loss of the benefit soci-
ETY. 8 funds. 3. Rise in prices. And,
4. The enactment of the statute of 8
Eliz., chapter 4, known as the statute
of laborers of that year. The first was
due to the debasement Of the coin in
the later years of the reign of Henry
VIII, which was carried to such an
extent that when Elizabeth called in
the coin, with view to undoinR the
mischief which her father had done,
she found that about go per cent Of the
coins was base metal. The confsca-
ton of the guild lands took place under
Edward vi. During the golden age Of
English labor, which preceded Henry
VIII.s reign, the trade guilds and
labor unions had acquired extensive
holdings Of land all over the kingdom,
the revenues from which supplied a
benefit fund for their members. The
guardians of Ed. VI. confiscated these
lands as Henry had confiscated the
lands Of the church, and under the
same pretense, viz. that they were
being applied to superstitious uses.
The land boom that followed the sale
of the church lands naturally raised
the price of all commodities. OF the
statute of Elizabeth, Prof. Rogers
says: 'This famous act which CON
summated the degradation f the poor.
made paupe rism inevitable and misery
universal, was really no new legisla-
ton. The acts repealed all the old
statutes of laborers, and re- enacted all
the provisions of those acts. 1t did
not provide any new machinery, for
the administration of the old laws had
been in the hands of the justices for
nearly the whole 200 years, and some
times the right of making the ASSESS
ments. What it did was to seize the
helpless, to consolidate all the old
statutes, to draw up rigid rules of APP
premiership, so as to make agriculture
the residuum of all labor, to enact ex-
haustlve penalties, and to leave no
loophole through which workmen could
escape, so as to better themselves in
the struggle with their EMPLOYERS.
The English statute book contains
many atrocious acts, most of them
with hypocritical preambles. This act
of Elizabeth is, in my Judgment, the
most infamous of them, for it was lev
eled against every right of the poor to
live, and entirely in the interest of
rent. - (E. l of H.. PIP. 24O-241).
Now let us test these assumed causes
by the experience of our own time and
country within the last twenty-five
years. / have shown that the same
change has, within that time, taken
place in this country that took place
in England in the sixteenth century.
But we have had no deluge of base
money. On the contrary, we have had
what the gold men call sound"
money during all the time that the
dread change has been going on. As
to the second cause, our trade unions
have had no land to be confscated.
and their benefit funds, such as they
have, have not been interfered with
by the government. As to the rise in
prices our calamities have fallen upon
us at time when prices are lower
than they ever have been known to be
in the history of civilization. And.
finally, we have had no legislation
ike the statute of Elizabeth. Now IL
is apparent that, if an effect
follows when an assumed cause is
absent and when it is present the as
Snmed canSR cannot he the rnnl nn,nr.