crease, whether the greater efficiency spring from augmented skill, or more abundant capital, or from the mutual helpfulness and greater economies which attend a greater density of population. If these advantages continued to increase indefinitely, as Mr. George imagines, then wages would increase indefinitely but, unfortunately, greater numbers upon a given space and with given skill and capital come at last to press upon the means of subsistence; and then, however disagreeable it may be to face the fact, the only recourse by which the population can avoid increasing poverty is to avoid increase in numbers.

All the eloquence in the world, all the passionate declarations that such an opinion impeaches the goodness of God, etc., will not change the disagreeable fact. It is just as well to admit it and act accordingly; and this is exactly what every workingman does who considers before he marries whether he can or cannot support a family and bring up his children so that they will be good and useful and happy members of society.

Mr. George in effect tells this good citizen to make no such calculations; that, in all cases, there comes with each additional pair of hands a more than equal means of production: but Mr. George's conclusions, though inspired by a very good heart, are arrived at by a very bad logic, and he gives fatal advice, which can only impoverish and destroy those whom he desires to lift up and enrich. Up to a certain point each additional pair of hands increases the average production; beyond a certain point it is diminished. No one who dispassionately reflects upon this matter for an hour can be in any doubt with regard to it.

The next and last chapter will be devoted to what Mr. George has to say about the wickedness and impolicy of individual property in land, etc.

V.

We now come to Mr. George's views as to justice. He says:"If we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his bounty, with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers."

Afterwards he says:

Though the sovereign people of the State of New York consent to the landed possessions of the Astors, the puniest infant that comes wailing into the world, in the squalidest room of the most miserable tenement-house, becomes at that moment seized of an equal right with the millionnaires. And it is robbed if the right is denied."

Many intelligent readers, who are not afflicted with a little knowledge of formal logic, but who retain, unimpaired, their natural common-sense, will see at a glance that the above passages contain a vast amount of rhetoric. It is assumed that the value of land of these United States is the product of nature; but nearly the whole of it is the product of capital slowly acquired by self-denial. Mr. George himself estimates that of the present annual product nine tenths are due to the efficiency which capital lends to labor. Take away then the capital,take away the farm improvements, the tools, the mills, the machinery, the forges, the houses, etc., and it would seem that a very large portion of the population must perish. They do not perish, because those who have gone before have labored and saved. But for this antecedent labor and thrift no piece of ground would command any rent. The whole value then would seem to belong of right to those who are here.

We welcome annually to our shores, it is true, nearly a million of persons, - from every nation that will assimilate with us and adopt our habits, feeling that there is still room enough for many more. But what would the people of the United States think if each of these immigrants, not satisfied with an equal chance to share in our opportunities to labor to advantage, should, upon landing, claim for every man, woman, and child a pro rata right to the land of the country?

The contrast which Mr. George avails himself of, between the puny infant and a wealthy millionnaire, is rhetorical in the highest degree. It appeals at once to our natural and laudable compassion for the poor, and to our natural but not laudable envy of the rich. To pillage the latter and pass the plunder over to the former, gratifies at once two strong passions. But how if, in thus gratifying our blind inclinations, we should miss our aim, and prevent that development of society to which alone the puny infant can look for a chance of unfolding its faculties and rising in the world? How if, in robbing the rich, we rob a thousand times as many deserving persons who cannot afford to be robbed?

RENT NOT MONOPOLY.

Let us look at some illustrations which, if a little rhetorical in the opposite direction, are still many times nearer the true statement than is that of Mr. George.

Here is a brave-hearted woman, sixty years old, left destitute, with three children, long years ago. With thrift, intelligence, and self-denial, she faced the world. She saved, after many years, a few thousand dollars. She bought a house in a city, paying half the cost, and being able, upon its security, to raise the other half upon mortgage. She has denied herself fine clothing, amusements, every kind of unthrift. She has brought up her children to be good members of society. She has barely enough to support her without charity until she passes away. George proposes to take her all in the name of justice.

Mr.

Again: There was, forty years ago, a young man, son of a New England farmer, who had many children. The young man loved a young woman, and she loved him,

to face every hardship, if it were with him.

loved him enough

They two went

into the wilderness, knowing that a life of privation was before them, but knowing that in course of time the country would become settled, and that their farm would in the meanwhile be their bank, in which many years of labor might, under the laws of their country, be safely deposited. They looked forward to an independent old age, and something with which to give their children a start in life. Even now, in their declining years, their farm has no rent which can be distinguished from the rent for improvements. Then, says Mr. George, let the rent of all be taken. And this in the name of justice!

To the mind of Mr. George, rent is monopoly. He imagines one man owning all the land, and infers that under such circumstances the whole population would be his slaves. But what light does such an imagining throw upon the case of the United States, where there are certainly many millions of land-owners? The land-owners of the country cannot possibly combine to make food scarce, nor can the land-owners of the city combine to make commodities dear. There are plenty of other sites for cities, and there are plenty of competing cities already. The rents which are paid are paid simply because the sites are worth more than is paid for them. They would not be any lower if they were paid to the government instead of to individuals; and if city governments are the sinks of corruption Mr. George believes them to be, the transfer of the funds into their hands would not seem to be in the interest of civilization. It would be infinitely better to leave them in the hands of the present owners, to be by them distributed as they must be for services and for commodities, and for the formation of new capital, by which the annual product may be still further augmented.

-

Mr. George instances several cases in which land-owners in Great Britain have manifestly abused their power and pushed the rights of property beyond their just limits. Such instances are proper for legal restraint. It is not necessary to confiscate all property in land in order to prevent some abuses. To turn Mr. George's favorite illustration upon him: it is not necessary to burn down your house because there is a pig in it. The pig can be driven out.

RENTS IN A GROWING COUNTRY.

Our author appears to have knowledge of only one kind of rent that of Ricardo which arises from a pressure of population upon subsistence forcing inferior lands to be taken into cultivation, and is thus an evidence of diminishing comfort. But there does not seem to be any rent of this description in the United States. The rent of farming lands generally is as yet the rent of improvements, and the rent in cities and the vicinity of cities is spontaneous ascending rent arising out of an improvement, not out of a diminution, of the productiveness of labor. Capitalists set themselves down beside one another and carry on certain industries at so great an advantage that more capital can be applied to the adjacent farms, and their product be greatly increased. The distant farms produce just as much as before. As the city grows, rents in some portions increase; and some capitalists, enticed by this chance, build stores and houses rather than engage in manufacturing. For the opportunity to do this they are willing to pay high prices for land, and the capital they would otherwise employ themselves is employed by others, from whom they buy land.

Some persons or families who have made fortunate or sagacious investments of this sort have benefited largely; they have drawn the prizes in the Land Lottery. But others, many others, draw blanks. I have in mind not a few. One where $50,000 were loaned upon property, the property foreclosed, and, after twenty years, sold for one third of the sum advanced, not a cent of interest having been ever received. Another, a case of property held twenty years and not yet salable at first cost, having never yielded any income, and being taxed all the time at its full value. These cases were in a city. The city in the latter case grew the wrong way! That it is best for society that property in land should be under individual management is so manifest that even Mr. George admits it; but he proposes to take the income of it for the State, because every infant born in the world has an equal right to his individual proportion of the planet!

To the writer the proposal appears to be unwise, useless, un