The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-04-07
HENRY GEORGES LAST WORK
1t Lacks the Fire and Force of Some
of His Earlier Productions.

Henry George died fighting one Of the most cor
rupt political organizations of the civilized world
"a sufficient epitaph for any worthy man. But
he has larger claims to respect and consideration
He made a creditable attempt to solve the root
problem of material life-poverty-and his just
published posthumous book. 1.-The Science of
Political Economy" excites that pathetic interest
| which attaches to the memory of one who tried
! to aid his fellow-man. He was eloquent, but he
was free from the hysteria Of demogogy. His
sympathies, born of bitter vicsstude, were acute,
| but they were tempered with reason. He be-
| lieved in the equality of opportunity but he be-
| leved also (as an American and an Individuality
in the natural inequality of capacity. When he
saw the Industrial evils of the old world re-
appear in of the richest and fairest parts or
| the new-commercial depression, involuntary idle
ness, wasting capital, pecuniary distress, want,
suffering anxiety-he was startled, and he set
about to discover the cause. We value him for
what he tried to do Progress and Poverty
was an immensely interesting and attractive
book on seemingly sapless science. 1t struck
fire from flint and lifted the author from obscur-
| ty to worldwide celebrity. Emerson says that
every man is eloquent in that which he under
stands. 1t would be, perhaps, tTuer to say that
every man is eloquent in that in which he fer
vently believes, and George believed that he had
given a message. To quote his own words: ION
the night on which 1 finished the final chapter OF
| Progress and Poverty felt that the talent in
trusted to had been accounted for-was more
fully satisfied. more deeply grateful. than If all
the kingdoms Of the earth had been laid at my
! feet" No one doubts his sincerity, his intel
| ectual integrity, the cleanliness Of his soul. His
expectations were infinite, his faith simple. The
poverty of the world lay not in nature, but in
vicious economic system; and he thought that
he had found a sovereign remedy which would
raise wages. increase the earnings OF capital,
extirpate paupersm' abolish poverty give reit nun
free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate
ment and carry civilization to yet nobler heights
This was, of course faulty His suggestion OF
versal corrective and solvent, has been thorough
| ly discredited by political economists; and ne
| felt this fact keenly. The assent OF the unthink-
| ing multitude did not satisfy him. He craved
recognition from the technically instructed, and
Gus work He complains that: while few of
| these professional economists driven to say
to Misrepresentation, the majority preferred to
| rely upon their official positions in which they
| class. and to treat as beneath contempt book
circulated by thousands in the three great Eng,
| disappearing countries and translated into all
| the important modern languages Thus the pro,
! fessors OF political economy seemingly rejected
! refrained from meeting with disproof or argu
ment what it had laid down, and treated 1t with
Wishing to justify himself to the specialist,
| he embraced the mistake of an elaborate, formal
duer work has not appeared within year
and day. We look in vain for the dramatic
Progress and Poverty No two books written
on the same subject and by the same hand could
merely a repetition of the first in the that
| it embodies no new important principle John
Morley says in the preface to his smaller Burke:
it said-he cannot say it twice"
In this book Henry George reiterates that land
is not wealth; that agriculture is not subject
to the law of diminishing return; that Nautilus
not limited by capital; that wages paid out
of the current product and not out of capital
the increase Of laborers; that wages are low
where rent is high; that rent tends to absorb
earned increment All of which Progress and
Poverty to the contrary Notwithstanding
served the elaboration of nearly all these prop
ositons to Book ". part of which remains UNI
written.
He approaches the arduous task of compre-
hensive definition with simplicity of confidence
decessors, and he enters into the usual wrangle
over Technology. When John Stuart Mill said
that everyone has notion, sufficiently correct
for common purposes, of what is meant by
wealth. that we all know that it is one thing to
be rich and another thing to be enlightened
brave or humane, he was hooted for his want
of precision. He was even heretical enough to
other natural acquired power of body or mind
shall be casa wealth + bs nGT 81 very
thought made the pedants gasp, and 10! and now
Marshall has reformed it altogether; In passing
George takes hit at him, which appeals to
the American sense of humor. He ridicules his
Occasional bursts of such thunderous sound as
external material transferable goods internal
non-transferable goods NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. mon
fera bic goods with all their respective singuiars
There Is in English no singular for the word
for one. since when we want to express the idea
Of single item or article In lot OF goods, 1t
is better to use the specific nouE."
George endeavors to identify the laws of poltt-
ical economy with nature, and this is not diff
fcult because everything that exists or happens
natural. The primary DOStulate is selfish
ness, but it is that men seek to crafty their de-
slres with the least exertion The science of pot-
ical economy is concerned he says with the
permanent not with the transient. II deals not
with human enactments or municipal laws. but
natural laws, and has no more reference to poIit-
zeal divisions than have the laws of mechanics,
optics or gravitation Is this true? Would not
the advent of Bellamyism, and the consequent
abolition of competition, exchange and money,
make modern political economy a heiroglyPh?
George excludes land as wealth under the fol-
lowing definition: Wealth consists of natural
products that have been secured, moved COM
bned separated in other ways modified by
human exertion so as to fit them for the graft
fcation of human desires" But surely land is
modified, improved or exhausted by human labor;
the physical possession of it is transferable 1t
products Of human labor. Why. then. is it not
wealth? Every business man knows that it is.
Properly considered, the science Of political econ
omy, like the SCIENCE of astronomy, is OBJ
servation and analysis of what is, not of what
conceivably might be- 1t Is not an ethical pre-
cept and the failure to recognize this vitiates
Georges whole treatise.
he attacks the law OF diminishing return IN
agriculture talthough afterwards he bases his
whole doctrine or rent upon III on the ground
that it is not benevolent But nature is not
benevolent; else wig should half million of
people have died of starvation in India last year?
Why is everyone born under death sentence?
Even If space permitted it would be tedious and
profitess to follow him in detailed criticism
through his theory of value; his fallacous anal
ogies in physical science and pseudo metaphysics;
his laborious exploitation of naturalism. The
reader himself will look into the book IL he deems
1t worth while But save chapter money,
which is remarkably lucid account OF fatism,
it would seem hardly worth while.
1t is interesting to note that George dsavoWed
socialism. 1t takes account of natural laws,
neither seeking thehi nor striving to be governed
by them 1t is a proposition to bring
back mankind to the socialism of Peru" And
yet Georges scheme Of rent conhscation leads
straight to socialism. 1t is inconceivabe that
four million and half of farmers in the United
States, not to speak Of city householders, could
be dispossessed OF title without retalatng. What
would be done with the mortgages on the farms
Would the state assume them, would it con-
fscate them? Is there not an unearned incre-
ment in railway shares, wages. professional fees
and all material personal property? Wherein,
tco In the realm of absolute ethics. Is the title
of a nation better than that OF individual?
1t is founded on discovery, conquest or purchase
and is maintained by force. Assuming that there
such Great Britain, equal division of agri-
cultural and ground rent together. apart from the
interest ON capital invested, would give TO each
person there about dollar month"; Would
that abolish poverty?
In Georges second book. Social Problems" he
hints at the cOnfiscation 0f the national debt
He asks II the pecuniary obligations OF ones
grandfather should bind posterity- Once adj
NIT the principle of confisearion II grows Won
derfully. In debate with Hyndman, the Eng