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lectual, personal and industrial freedom, to spoil their just and equal action. Social agreement is impotent to provide either food or employment for all mankind.13 History provides us with many examples of its baneful interference. In the reign of Henry VII, when in England "every rood maintained its man," the English yeoman occupied his rood in comfort and happiness on definite and easy terms. But when Henry VIII made land a commodity to be bought, sold, and controlled by individuals (called Steplords by Latimer), the masses of the people were evicted from their homesteads by the exaction of rent they could not pay. In a few years the whole island swarmed with the destitute, who became vagabonds and thieves in order to sustain existence. The nation was threatened with anarchy, and in the reign of Elizabeth social agreement, as represented by the English Poor Law, endeavored to remedy the evil, by giving to the destitute a legal right to food, clothing and shelter, making this a first charge upon the land. The result was pauperism; the greatest curse ever inflicted upon a thrifty and industrious people."

15

After 300 years the sermons of Latimer are reechoed by Mr. Henry George, and happily their doctrines will never again be stifled at the stake. In Spain, social agreement attempted to control

the intellects of men, and the result was the miseries, tortures and murders of the Inquisition.

In America and elsewhere social agreement sought to control personal freedom, and the result was "slavery."

And to-day social agreement continues the practice of that tyrant, Henry. Still treats land as a commodity of sale and purchase. Still gives the landlord power to exact a steadily increasing rent. Still gives him power to evict those who refuse or are unable to pay him toll. Still enables the landlord to live in ease and luxury on the labor of other people, and make serfs and paupers of the industrial class.

The conclusion is unanswerable, social agreement cannot successfully control the conditions of independent human life, the only fixed law which makes experimentally for more and better life among men.16

THE LAW OF COLLECTIVE HUMAN LIFE.

Now, the law of independent human life is also the law of human life in general. That which is true of "all men" in the individual sense must also be true of "all men" in the collective sense. All men collectively must have intellectual, personal, and industrial freedom, which are, therefore, the essential elements of both individual and collec

tive life. The law of individual life is simply fortified and extended by collective action. Thus whilst individual industrial freedom secures for "all men" individually little more than a "bare subsistence," collective industrial freedom is able to satisfy the millions of intellectual and phil desires of "all men" living in civilized commulities; and if this result is not reached, the failure cannot be charged upon the law but on its violation and neglect. As access to land is an essential element of individual life and freedom, so it must be an essential element of collective life and freedom, for without land no community can live or find material on which to operate." It is this inseparable relation of land to labor which gives the land such paramount importance, for unless "land" be equally free to all mankind, industrial freedom becomes impossible both to individuals and to mankind in general.

Again, as the law of independent life secures to every individual the products of his own industry, to consume, to hoard, or dispose of at his will, so the law of collective life demands co-partnership in the products of collective industry, to be hoarded, consumed or disposed of by the collective will. The collective operators cannot appropriate and use the products of individual industry nor can individuals appropriate and use the products of col

lective industry. Either violates the general law of human life, which makes for more and better life among men. From this it follows that wherever there is co-operation in production, there must also in justice be co-partnership in result, and both become equally essential elements of the general law of human life. The nation, state, city or community which takes the products of individual labor without his consent and adequate compensation destroys individual freedom, and acts like a thief who robs him of the same, and as this is done by modern governments, they fail to make for more and better life among men.

On the other hand, every individual who appropriates the products of collective labor, and thus denies co-partnership in the collective result, is equally guilty of robbing the collective units. As this also is sanctioned and upheld by modern governments they fail on both accounts to make for more and better life among men.

Now, it is not difficult to discover the source of collective products, nor where they go. They spring from the fact that in collective industry no individual can work for himself exclusively, because the combined industry of two or more men is necessarily stronger and more efficient than that of the same two or more men acting separately each in his own behalf. Therefore, after award

ing to each individual that portion of the collective product which represents his individual exertion (technically called his wages) there is invariably a surplus produced by the co-operators in their corporate capacity, in which, nevertheless, the individuals have a co-partnership interest.18 In the millions of complicated conditions of collective life and labor it is impossible to segregate the share of each producer in the collective result, but it is universally admitted that the larger part is faithfully conserved and concentrated in land value, and that it constitutes that increment of value which attaches to land in consequence of the increase of population, and is technically called "rent."19 Without collective industry land has no valueand there is no "rent"—which "coeteris paribus" increases directly in proportion to the population. It is the collective industry of the population which alone produces it. It is the population who are co-partners and who are authorized by the general law of human life to hoard, consume or dispose of as they please, and as it cannot be equitably divided amongst the individual producers, it can only be applicable to the provision of their common wants, of which the current expenses of government is a fair example. Hence it is the only source of taxation provided by the general law of human life. It is the "Single Tax.”