the correspondence, with such further comments as he might choose to make.

Dr. Jordan's answer is characteristic of the wise and open-minded man he is: "I have made many notes. Publish what seems to you not trifling or irrelevant and sign them (J), and add as many more as you please and sign them (S). The whole will be instructive and set folks thinking. is all we college men are for."

That

That, too, is all that Single Taxers are for, and

it is for the public to determine what is right. For convenience the notes have been put in an appendix.

J. H. STALLARD, M. B.,

The Bungalow, Menlo Park,

LONDON, ETC., ETC.

San Mateo Co., Cal., May, 1899.

LETTER FROM

DR. DAVID STARR JORDAN,

President Leland Stanford, Jr., University.

DR. J. H. STALLARD:

There are many brilliant and many true things in Mr. George's book, and on the basis of His Holiness' assumption Mr. George gives him a very complete as well as a very courteous answer.

But as a whole, neither this nor any other of George's writings appeals to me. His whole basis seems faulty. He assumes that certain forms of property relation have a divine or sacred right. This assumption entering into his premises, reappears in his conclusions, which are thus regarded as proved, according to his logic. I deny every word of such premises, because I regard them as based on mere figures of speech. There is no such thing as a "right," except as we find experimentally that a certain line of action makes for more and better life among men. As regards the "law of equal access to land" among men, such a law is a mere figment, a mere metaphor. The trees have not equal access. While the present way of paying running expenses of government is very crude and faulty, and while a single tax

would have several advantages, it has also its drawbacks, and a land tax is no more God-given than a beer tax.

Mr. George was a devoted man, had full faith in the sacredness of his mission, and he uses divine metaphors just as preachers do. The methods of science seem wholly unknown to him, and he falls back on his imaginary ethics whenever any one asks him how he would go to work to make land public property—whether, for example, by buying it or by seizing it, or by alone taxing ownership out of existence, and as to how any of these methods could be made to work. Property is not a divine right. It is a creation of social agreement, and the relation best for society is "right" if we can find it out.

If, as Dr. Warner says, "putting air in private hands would yield a better supply on juster terms, there is no divine reason why we should not turn the atmosphere over to an air company."

Take George's work, squeeze out every metaphor, cut out all this stuff from the French dreamers of the last century about the rights of man to one thing or another, and put it all into straight English. You would have considerable practical sense about various men and things drawn from his own extensive observations; but the argument from divine right and the purposes of nature has

not a straw's weight, namely: that men have a natural right to access to land; therefore, all taxes must by divine authority be laid on land rentals.

I am not objecting to the idea of the public use of land rentals, but to the divine or metaphysical argument in its favor. The only true argument must be this: It has been tried, it works, and its results on individual and social development are better than those obtained through other forms of land tenure and of taxation. I do not believe this, either, but I am reasonably open to conviction. Argument from purpose, intention or divine fitness is a mere quibble of words.

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

ANSWER OF

DR. J. H. STALLARD,

The Bungalow, Menlo Park, Cal.

DEAR DR. JORDAN:

I have to thank you for your prompt reply to my request for your opinion of Henry George's address to the Pope on the condition of labor.

You are a prince among educators, the head of the most liberal university in the world—an institution which I trust under your leadership shall become the home of all freedom, and whose professors and students shall determine the lines of action which shall hereafter make for more and better life among men, for which there is more than ample room. I therefore regard the expression of your views on this, as on all intellectual, social, and political questions on which you choose to speak, as the truest representation of modern thought of the highest type, and I shall endeavor to discuss the subject in hand in all seriousness and with due respect.

You say, "That the whole basis of Mr. George's argument is faulty; that he assumes that certain forms of property relation have a divine or sacred