The independent., 1903-05-14

4 lliC liAuOCl tC5lOuSJ III luc iC-
gions, and wherever else society has
advanced or is advancing.
Think of the tremendous Industrial
forces that are held in check by that
enormous monopolization of land
land which no one can touch for in
dustrial purposes without first mort
! gaging his future. Men are thereby
| forced to go to poorer lands, and thus
all the productive power of labor as
i whole, of business as whole, is
| checked A smaller quantity of con-
sumable objects is consequently pro-
/ duced with given expenditure of ef-
fort-smaller than could and would
be produced with the same effort if
the natural and social opportunities
were not forestalled. The influence
OF this condition in restricting the
production of wealth is incalculable.
Its influence in diverting wealth from
those who earn it to those who merely
| appropriate it is enormous. Its infiu-
ence in perpetuating poverty among
the workers, and in stimulating crime
in low places and high, is oversha-
dowing.
All those effects of social injustice
would sink into insignificance, or dis
appear entirely, if public revenue were
derived exclusively from land values.
The explanation is simple. If this
reform were adopted, men would be
taxed only in proportion to the land
they monopolize. They would be taxed
regardless Of whether their land were
used or not, provided only it were
tradaDle for Consumable objects and
could therefore be measured in the
market in terms of value This tax
would necessarily be SO high relative
ly to land values that no one could af-
ford to monopolize valuable land-no
one could afford to hold out of use
any land for which there was a de-
mand. Consequently industry woul!!
utilize better lands than now; would
utilize better lands upon easier terms
than it now utilizes the poorer; and
with equal or less effort would pro-
duce larger aggregate of wealth and
distribute larger shares among the
workers.
For competition would be free, AMI
freedom of competition would solve
the Industrial problem. 1t would en-
able all of us to bargain on equal
terms. No one would have an adyant-
age OF life and death over any one
else. Competition would solve the in
dustrlai problem, not in favor of the
1dler, whether poor or rich, but in
favor OF the worker, whether rich
or poor. The plundering power OF
privilege would be gone.
! am aware of the prejudices against
competition. But they have no foun-
dation. Competition, free competi-
tlon, is not warfare. 1t is emulation.
Its victories are not to be likened to
those OF bloody battlefield, nor to
those OF the fierce struggle for exist
ence among wild animals, where the
gains OF the victorious are at the ex-
pense of the vanquished. The victor
les OF free competition In the indus
trial world are more like those of tbs
school room, where even he who loses
the prize nevertheless retains all that
ne has gained in his struggle for it.
NO ones gain is another's loss.
1t IS not free competition that has
produced the monopolies of which W.
complain today. These are the nat
ural fruit, not of unshackled compe-
tltion, but of the systems of monop-
oily with which in varying ways and
degrees competition has been shack
led all down the centuries. We have
not progressed through competition
to monopoly. There has been no free
competition IN historical times. There
IS such thing as historical evolution.
OF course, but evolution produces each
thing after its own kind. Monopoly
leads to the perfection of MONOPOLY:
free competition leads on to the per-
fection of freedom. We cannot safe
ly depend, then, upon social evolution
for the benefcent social conditions we
dream OF, unless we give to social
evolution beneficent direction. If
we foster social disease, social dis
ease will evolve; if we foster social
health, social health will evolve. To
foster monopoly is to strengthen mo-
nopoly, and to tolerate it is to foster
1t. 1t is like weeds in a garden.
Of all monopolies, only two are finn
damental; one is enslavement of men.
the other is monopoly of land. Abol-
ish all others, but retain either of
these, and you have germ that will
OrOua gate in iuetico in cD;+o - ri -