current expenses of the municipal, state and federal governments would have been a mere bagatelle. The municipal government might have erected gas works, water works, electrical works, and street car lines. Light, electricity, water and public transportation might have been free to all, whereas, these works have been erected by capital furnished by the rent belonging to the citizens and for the use of which the citizens now must pay. Public buildings not dreamed of in the palmy days of Greece and Rome could have been erected at the public cost; also, free schools, universities, libraries, theatres, museums, art galleries, parks and observatories; and a score of public utilities by which the co-partner profits might have been indefinitely increased. And at our public festivals we could have emulated the citizens of Potosi, by paving our streets with silver and adorning our public processions with gold and precious stones. And all this without taking one cent of taxation from individual industry. It is impossible to conceive the effect of the Single Tax on the morals and intellectual progress of the people, but it may be safely stated that the fear of poverty being gone the need of policemen, judges, jails, and poorhouses would have been reduced to a minimum.22

Tested experimentally the existing relation be

tween land and population is a grievous violation of the general law of human life. The vast fund created by co-operative industry, the administration of which belongs to the population as copartners, has been diverted by social agreement to individuals who have no claim. It is the object of the "Single Tax" to restore this fund to the control of its original producers, and thus relieve industry of the millstone of rent hung about its neck by landlords. Thus giving individual and collective workers the full enjoyment of the wealth they respectively produce. The fulfillment of the general law of human life is the only line of action which makes for more and better life among men.

CONFUSION AS TO PROPERTY IN LAND.

And here I have to note your statement "that Mr. George falls back on his imaginary ethics whenever anyone asks him how he would make 'land' public property, whether by buying it or seizing it, or taxing ownership out of existence, or how any of these methods could be made to work." I am indeed grieved to notice so complete a misapprehension of Mr. George's doctrine. There is throughout Mr. George's writings no proposal whatever to make land public property by buying it or seizing it, and, consequently, no attempt at explanation as to how either method could be

made to work. On the contrary, he states that a redivision of land is not possible, and if possible could not be permanent. That possession for use is necessary for the sower to reap his crop, or the builder to recoup the cost of the improvements he may make. He nowhere proposes to disturb the present occupiers of land; and insists that any such disturbance would amount to revolution.

You seem to confound property in use with property in so-called ownership; and to suppose that ownership is necessary for land improvement and development. But this is not even a general experience. Half London, including many hundreds of its finest palaces, half New York, and of many other cities have been constructed on land not owned by the builders.23 The landlords of London and New York are not such fools as to alienate their perpetual right to constantly increasing rent. It remains only to governments like that of the United States to give away the national heritage for the price of pens, ink and paper, and enable landlords forever to collect a continually increasing toll on labor. It is quite true that Mr. George rests most of his arguments on the foundation of moral right, as when he states that a laborer is entitled morally to the products of his own industry. And there are thousands who believe that this is the stronger ground, but a close analy

sis distinctly proves that his ethics are not imaginary, and that his metaphors are supported by substantial facts, namely, those laid down at the beginning of this letter.

Instead of demanding an accounting such as would be ordered by the Courts in the case of individuals wrongfully possessed of land, Mr. George proposes to let by-gones be by-gones, and the landlord having had his turn it is now more than time that the people, who have been so long defrauded of the product of their collective labor, and have suffered so deeply for the want of the "rent" which they have earned, should be restored to their collective heritage.

Mr. George's proposal is just, clear and practical. He desires that "all men" in their collective capacity should assume their undoubted right to the ownership of land, and that all men individually shall have equal opportunity to its use and occupation on the payment of rent representing its value to the entire community. This rent to be collected as a single tax, and used to provide for common necessities and the satisfaction of common desires. The result, no doubt, will be the ultimate destruction of the landlord-a consummation devoutly to be wished.

But Mr. George did not expect that the "rent" could be taken from the landlords all at once.

They are much too powerful, and the masses of producers much too ignorant and venal. But the time is coming, and it is not far distant, when the producers of wealth shall have learned their "rights" under the general law of human life, and with the aid of universal suffrage and the ballot will not fail to take them. It is the duty of universities to conduct the necessary change with wisdom and moderation.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF LABOR.

Mr. George, in Progress and Poverty, described the present condition of the laborer in the lowest ranks of civilized society, whose life is spent in common labor, or in producing one thing or an infinitesimal part of one thing, out of the multiplicity of things that constitute the wealth of society. How he is a mere link in the enormous chain of producers and consumers; helpless to separate himself, and helpless to move except as they move. The worse his position in society the more he is dependent on society, the more utterly unable does he become to help himself.

The very power of exerting his labor for the satisfaction of his most reasonable wants passes from his own control, and may be taken away or restored by the action of others, or by general causes, over which he has no more influence than