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THE FALLACIES 
 
 "PROGp AHJ) POVEp" 
 
 — IN — 
 
 Henry Dunning Macleod's Economics, 
 
 AND IN 
 
 " Social Problems ; " 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 The Ethics of Protection and Free Trade, 
 
 AND 
 
 The Industrial Problem considered a-priori. 
 
 WILLIAM HANSON. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 Fowler and Wells Co., Publisher: 
 1884. 
 
Entered according to A£t of Congress, in the year 1884, by 
 
 WILLIAM HANSON, 
 
 in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 NO well-informed person will deny that among the 
 wage-workers of all nations there is an immense 
 amount of privation and consequent misery. This desti- 
 tution cannot be wholly ascribed to improvidence, or to 
 the transgressions of hygienic or physiological law. For 
 in these respects the rich, equally with the poor, are guilty. 
 To other causes must we therefore trace the wretchedness 
 observable in the midst of unremitting toil. 
 
 The author has given eighteen years of constant thought 
 to a solution of this difficult problem. Sympathy for the 
 distressed is the motive force of this protracted investiga- 
 tion. He has found that the Political Economists are 
 contradictory, inconsistent, and illogical. They seldom 
 agree upon anything, and are therefore scientifically un- 
 reliable. Nor can the writer see that God is the author 
 of these miseries ; rather must they be traced to a trans- 
 gression of His laws. Nor, in the opinion of the author, 
 does the recognition of, or a belief in a Supreme Being, 
 detract in the least from the scientific quality of his essays. 
 Agnosticism has its legitimate uses and merits respect. 
 
IV. PREFACE. 
 
 So long, however, as there are Laws of the Universe, and 
 a moral order discoverable, it is legitimate to infer the 
 existence of a supreme and infinite cause. 
 
 There are those who maintain that Economics have 
 nothing to do with morals. From this opinion the author 
 dissents in toto. The Industrial Problem demands a moral 
 solution, and this it must have, ere a settlement can be 
 gained. The author, therefore, invites a careful examina- 
 tion of the Induftive and Deductive demonstrations of his 
 book, and prays that a perusal will convince the intellect, 
 and quicken the heart of the reader* to an abiding sense of 
 his own moral obligations. 
 
 WILLIAM HANSON. 
 
Macleod's Economics. 
 
 HENRY Dunnjng Macleod, M. A., of Trinity 
 College, and the Inner Temple, Barrister at 
 Law selected by the Royal Commissioners for the Digest 
 of the Law of Bills of Exchange, Bank Notes; &c, 
 and Lecturer on Political Economy in the University 
 of Cambridge, England, — has written a Book on Eco- 
 nomics to show that Political Economy may be reduced to 
 an exact Science on the basis of Physical Science. 
 
 Macleod overwhelms one by his learning. If a knowl- 
 edge of Greek, Latin, French, German, Ancient and 
 Modern History, Greek and Roman Law is wisdom — 
 then indeed is he supremely wise. But wisdom is not 
 necessarily the companion of great learning. 
 
 Macleod's first Treatise is divided into two Books. 
 The first book treats of the History of Economics : and 
 the second book of the Fundamental Conceptions of 
 Economics. And the entire Treatise culminates in this — 
 
 Wealth and Value are Caused by Demand : and 
 Economics is a Physical Moral Science. 
 
6 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 One might as well essay to establish Medical Science 
 on all of the diseases to which mankind is heir, by a 
 single formula, as to essay the erection of a Physical- 
 Moral Science on Demand, or the varying selfishness of 
 the human nature. ' Tis impossible and absurd, as I shall 
 now endeavor to show. 
 
 In the Preface to his book, Macleod says : — "A pro- 
 found knowledge of Mathematics and Physical Science, 
 and the methods and principles by which the various 
 Physical Sciences have been constructed, is necessary to 
 enable a person to express the Laws which govern the 
 varying relations of Economic-quantities in strict har- 
 mony and analogy with the Laws of the other Physical 
 Sciences. ' ' 
 
 " Economics is the noblest and grandest creation of 
 the human intellect. It is the crown and the glory of the 
 Baconian Philosophy. No one can thoroughly realize 
 the awful sublimity of the genius of Bacon until he studies 
 Economics ; because it is the literal realization of his 
 matchless discovery that the same principles of Mathe- 
 matical and Physical Science which govern the phenomena 
 of nature equally govern the practical business of life. ' ' 
 
 In harmony with this eloquent declaration, he lays 
 down the following fundamental canons for the formation 
 of Definitions and Axioms : 
 
 He says, (Page 27,) — 
 
 1. The Fundamental Conceptions and Axioms of 
 every Science must be perfectly General. 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS, 7 
 
 2. No General Conception and no General Axiom 
 must contain any term involving more than one Funda- 
 mental Idea. 
 
 He then seeks for a definition of Wealth which harmon- 
 izes with the above canons. The first eminent mind behind 
 which he fortifies himself is that of Aristotle who says ; 
 
 ' ' And we call Wealth all Things whose Value is 
 measured in Money." " Thus Aristotle makes Ex- 
 changeability, or the capability of being bought and 
 sold, to be the sole essence and principle of Wealth. 
 Consequently everything: whatever which can be bought 
 and sold is Wealth, whatever its nature may be." 
 
 Since Aristotle's definition of Wealth accords with the 
 above canons, he conceives that " it is therefore fitted to 
 form the basis of a great Science." 
 
 He next proceeds to number " the distinct kinds of 
 Quantities which can be bought and sold, or whose 
 Value can be measured in money." They are three 
 in number. 
 
 1. " Material things, such as lands, houses, cattle, 
 corn, timber, money, jewels, furniture, manufactures of 
 all sorts, &c. , which can all be bought and sold, or whose 
 value can be measured in money." 
 
 2. Immaterial things, such as products of the mind, 
 which include all of the sciences, poetry and inventions r 
 and all services which are of an immaterial character and 
 which are needed, bought and sold, ' ' or whose Value 
 can be precisely measured in Money." 
 
8 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 3. Rights which are Exchangeable, and which 
 can be bought and sold ; "or whose Value' can be 
 measured in Money." They consist of Bank Bills, 
 Promissory Notes, Bills of Exchange, Mortgages, Bank 
 Checks, and all other paper evidences of Debt. 
 
 He thus concludes that there are three distinct orders 
 of Economic Quantities which can be bought and sold 
 " (1) Material things ; (2) Labor or Services ; (3) Rights 
 of various kinds." "And as we have found that the 
 Quality of things which constitutes them Wealth, "is 
 Exchangeability, it necessarily follows that the Science of 
 Wealth, or the Science of Economics is the Science 
 of Exchanges or of Commerce in its widest extent." 
 
 To sustain himself in the view he has of Wealth, and 
 the three distinct Quantities as given above, he quotes 
 largely from Greek and Roman Law and uses the emi- 
 nent names of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Ulpian, 
 and others. 
 
 On Page 39, he makes this qualification of Wealth : 
 
 " That whether a thing is Wealth or not depends 
 entirely upon human wants and desires ; i. e. on De- 
 mand. Exchangeability being the sole essence of 
 Wealth, a thing is not Exchangeable when there is no 
 demand for it ; hence the same thing may be Wealth at 
 some times and in some places ; and not at other times 
 and in other places, Socrates showed by the instances of 
 the different moneys of different countries. No thing, 
 therefore, is Absolute Wealth. Anything whatever, 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 9 
 
 whether it is a material product, or a Labor or Service, 
 is Wealth only where and when it is demanded and paid 
 for : it is not Wealth where and when there is no want, 
 desire, and Demand for it, and nobody will give any- 
 thing in exchange for it. ' ' 
 
 Having thus given a clear conception of Macleod's 
 theory of Wealth, it is now my purpose to show that his 
 definition is subtle and misleading, because it is derived 
 from the selfishness of the human nature, and not from 
 the nature of things. I now ask this pertinent question : 
 Can Money measure Wealth ? 
 
 Let us see. Can coal in the mines be measured with 
 money? Yet coal h bought and sold. Can land be 
 measured with money ? Yet land is bought and sold. 
 Can the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, and the 
 beasts of the field, be measured with money ? Yet fishes, 
 birds, and beasts are bought and sold. Can the musical, 
 mathematical, constructive, and reasoning faculties in 
 man be measured with money ? Yet these faculties are 
 bought and sold. Can we measure with money the 
 physical strength of man ? Yet the physical strength of 
 man is bought and sold. Can bank notes, checks, bills 
 of exchange, mortgages, stocks, bonds, or other paper 
 evidences of debt, be measured with money ? Yet these 
 things are bought and sold. Can houses, furniture, 
 books, statuary and paintings be measured with money ? 
 
IO MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 Yet these things are bought and sold. Can the bodies of 
 women be measured with money? Yet the bodies of 
 women are bought and sold for the uses of men. Do not 
 these questions reveal the inherent impossibility and ab- 
 surdity of his Fundamental Definition ? If so, is not the 
 basis on which he erefts a great Physico-Moral Science a 
 stupendous fallacy ? and are not the conclusions derived 
 therefrom equally fallacious ? 
 
 Macleod fails to see the fundamental quality of a true 
 and scientific measure. He has watched the selfish opera- 
 tions of the human nature, and gained his definition from 
 that blind guide, instead of looking at the nature of things, 
 which always reveals the truth to one who has an eye to 
 see. Science is systematized truth. If it be not truth, 
 then it is of no practical utility to mankind. Can the 
 material universe be measured with money ? If it cannot, 
 neither can any part, since the whole is the sum of its 
 parts. The following is a Scientific Concept of a True 
 Measure : 
 
 " A True Measure of anything must possess the same 
 Property and Quality as the thing to be measured, and 
 the Measure itself must be measured." 
 
 The length of a pendulum, beating sixty seconds to the 
 minute, is taken for the Unit of measure in England and 
 America ; hence the yard-stick. 
 
 The Pound Avoirdupois is equal to 27.7 cubic inches 
 of distilled water, and is the Unit of weight. 
 The Unit of Land Measure is the Square Acre. 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. II 
 
 The Unit of Liquid Measure is the Gallon, which con- 
 tains 231 cubic inches, or 8.338 lbs. of distilled water. 
 
 And, the Measure of an Angle is the Arc of a circle 
 included between its two sides. 
 
 Now, the utter impossibility of measuring angles with 
 money is seen at once. Nor can we measure liquids, 
 solids, lands, or length with money. Because money 
 does not possess the same Property and Quality as these 
 things. And, for precisely the same reason, it is absolutely 
 impossible to measure Work or Services of any kind 
 with Money ; and, therefore, it is equally impossible to 
 measure Wealth with it. As a logical sequence Macleod's 
 fundamental definition of Wealth is a Myth, and the 
 Physico-Moral Science which he has erected upon it 
 necessarily falls. 
 
 The following Definition of Wealth will be found to 
 be perfectly Scientific, because in harmony with the nature 
 of things, but not in harmony with the selfishness of the 
 human nature : 
 
 Wealth consists of all Labor Products and Services 
 that gratify human desires, and whose Commercial Value 
 can be measured with Work. 
 
 What Macleod says of his definition of Wealth, I now 
 say of mine. 
 
 ' ' Here we have a perfectly good General Conception, 
 which exactly satisfies the canon laid down in the pre- 
 ceding chapter, as it contains only one General Idea — and 
 it is therefore fitted to form the basis of a Great Science. 
 
12 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 It is a Conception as wide and general as the dynamical 
 definition of Force. This single sentence is in fact the 
 germ out of which the whole Science of Economics is to 
 be evolved, just as the huge oak tree is developed out of 
 the acorn." 
 
 These two definitions of Wealth are as opposite to each 
 other as the antipodes. Which then is the true definition ? 
 Both cannot be used as the basis of a great Science. I 
 have already analyzed Macleod's definition of Wealth, 
 and have proved it to be a Myth. I shall now proceed to 
 show that my Definition of Wealth is in harmony with the 
 nature of things ; and is, therefore true. 
 
 Macleod says : (page 31) "The Quality which con- 
 stitutes things Wealth must be some single Quality of 
 the most general nature : and the Science of Wealth must 
 be the Science of the phenomena relating to that single 
 Quality :" 
 
 Now, the single Quality which he alleges constitutes a 
 thing Wealth or Value is — Demand. This idea he 
 iterates and reiterates throughout his book, and fortifies 
 it by great Names, and by Greek and Roman Juris- 
 prudence. 
 
 He says: (page 115) "All ancient and all modern 
 writers, except the English ones, have shown that De- 
 mand is the true cause and source of Value ; and even in 
 those cases in which Labor is connected with Value, it is 
 not the Labor which is the Cause of Values, but the De- 
 mand for them. For, however much Labor may be 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. I ftftjty rfi "ng- 
 
 bestowed upon things, if there is no DenTM&A&them, « ^ 
 they have no Value." X§^& 
 
 On pages 241 and 242, he says : — 
 
 ' ' Now a very popular and widely spread doctrine is 
 that Labor is the Cause of Value." 
 
 ' ' Locke, as far as we are aware, was the earliest writer 
 who maintained that Labor is the Cause of all Value. ' ' 
 
 ' ' The doctrine that all Wealth is the produce of ' Land 
 and Labor ' became very common among early writers 
 on Economics. Smith constantly repeats the phrase : 
 though he contradicts himself." 
 
 Ricardo also adopted Labor as the Cause of all Value ; 
 in which he is followed by McCulloch. — ' ' An object 
 which may be appropriated or adapted to our use without 
 any voluntary Labor on our part may be of the highest 
 utility ; but as it is the free gift of nature, it is quite im- 
 possible that it can have the smallest Value! — 'In its 
 natural state matter is very rarely possessed of any im- 
 mediate or direct utility, and is always destitute of Value. 
 It is only through the Labor expended on its appropriation, 
 and on fitting and preparing it for being used, that matter 
 acquires Exchangeable Value, and becomes Wealth. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Carey also maintains that all Value is due to Labor, 
 and says that the exceptions are so few as only to prove 
 the rule." 
 
 After these quotations Macleod then says : — " We 
 have now to apply the Principle of the Baconian Induc- 
 tion to investigate the doctrine that Labor is the sole 
 Cause or Source of Value." 
 
14 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 We may lay down this Lemma,—" If Labor is the 
 sole Cause of Value, then whatsoever thing Labor has 
 been bestowed upon must have Value.'' 
 
 ' ' For if there be two things produced with the same 
 amount of Labor, and the one has Value and the other 
 not, then there must be some other Cause of Value besides 
 Labor ; which is contrary to the hypothesis. ' ' 
 
 ' ' We will now examine some of the necessary con- 
 sequences of the doclrine that Labor is the Cause of all 
 Value." 
 
 ' ' I. All Differences or Variations in Value must be 
 due to Differences or Variations in Labor'' 
 
 ' ' This doctrine, however, is contrary to all experience : 
 because there are many material things upon which no 
 Labor was ever bestowed which yet have Value, and 
 also great difference of value. ' ' 
 
 " i. The space of ground upon which a City is 
 built has great value ; but which is in no way the result 
 of Labor." 
 
 " Land in the heart of London has often been known 
 to sell for more than ,£2,000,000 an acre ; quite exclusive 
 of any buildings upon it. But no Labor has been be- 
 stowed upon it." 
 
 "As we recede from the centre, the Value of Land 
 rapidly diminishes ; at Charing Cross it is much less than 
 in the City ; and at Kensington much less than at 
 Charing Cross." 
 
 " How are these differences of Value due to Differ- 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 15 
 
 ences in Labor, when, as we have seen, there has been no 
 Labor at all bestowed on the Land? " 
 
 ' ' 2. The doctrine that no natural product has Value 
 before Labor has been bestowed upon it, is contradicted 
 by the plainest experience. The proprietor of a coal 
 mine, or a stone quarry, demands and receives a price 
 for the coaL or the stone, or the marble, as it exists in the 
 mine or the quarry before a human being has touched it. ' ' 
 
 " If a person found a diamond or a lump of gold by 
 chance, would they have no Value ? And is it the Labor 
 of picking up which gives them Value ? ' ' 
 
 " It is said that in 18 10 an oak tree was cut down at 
 Gelenas in Mommouthshire, whose bark sold for ^240, 
 and the wood for ,£670 ; was this Value due to Labor ? ' ' 
 
 " 3. There are, again, cattle, herds, and flocks of all 
 sorts. These increase and multiply by the agency of 
 nature. How is their Value due to Labor ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Some time ago a large whale was stranded on the 
 the shore of the Firth of Forth : it was sold as it lay upon 
 the beach for ^70. : no human being touched it ; how 
 was its Value due to Labor ? " 
 
 " Mr. Buckland, says — ' When examining the cast-off 
 skins of the snakes at the Zoological Gardens, we ob- 
 served some white-looking substance it a box. This is 
 the deje£la of the snakes. It is a perfectly white sub- 
 stance, looking very like plaster of Paris, and is com- 
 posed of nearly pure uric acid. It is bought by a doctor 
 for the high price of nine shillings a pound. ' Were the 
 excreta of the snakes the product of human Labor ? ' ' 
 
16 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 "II. If Labor be the sole Cause of Value, then all 
 things produced by the same Quantity of Labor must be 
 of equal Value" 
 
 ' ' But this doctrine is contrary to all experience. For 
 if it were true, a diamond and the rubbish it is found in 
 ought to be of the same Value ! So a pearl and its 
 shell ought to be of the same Value. A lump of clay 
 ought to be of the same Value as a lump of gold, if ob- 
 tained by the same Quantity of Labor. If a sportsman 
 were to shoot a pheasant with one barrel and a crow with 
 the other, they ought to be of the same Value. If a 
 fisherman were to catch a salmon and a dogfish together 
 in the same net, they ought to be of the same Value. 
 And similar cases might be multiplied to any extent. 
 Here we have products obtained by exactly the same 
 Quantity of Labor which have manifestly very different 
 Values ; which proves decisively that Labor cannot be 
 the sole Cause of Value." 
 
 " III. If Labor be the sole Cause of Value, the Value 
 must be Proportional to the Labor." 
 
 " But this doctrine is contrary to the most manifest 
 experience. Suppose that a gold-digger by good luck 
 found a nugget of gold lying on the surface of the 
 ground ; another digger works for six months and finds 
 an exactly similar one ; then, according to this doctrine, 
 the latter nugget ought to be immensely more valuable 
 than the first. Or suppose that some gold were brought 
 from some diggings near the market, and that an exactly 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 17 
 
 equal amount were obtained by enormous Labor among 
 mountains many hundreds of miles off. The latter is of 
 course produced, i. e. placed in the market at an enor- 
 mously greater amount of Labor and cost than the other. 
 But would it be more valuable ? The least experience 
 shows that it would not be so, but that things of exactly 
 the same Quality would be of exactly the same value at 
 the same time in the same market." 
 
 " IV. If Labor be the sole Cause of Value, a thing 
 once produced by Labor must always have Value and the 
 same Value." 
 
 ' ' If any one were to set up a manufactory of watches, 
 or reclaim land, and grow fine fields of wheat in the centre 
 of Australia, where there was no demand for the watches 
 and the corn, where would their Value be ? " 
 
 " Moreover, if Labor be the sole Cause of Value, if a 
 thing is once produced, its Value could never vary, which 
 is Ricardo's express doctrine. But this is contrary to all 
 experience. Because things after they have been pro- 
 duced, and all Labor upon them has been ended, con- 
 stantly vary in their value from day to day, and from 
 hour to hour, and from year to year. Thus, pictures by 
 one master constantly rise in Value, and pictures of 
 another master diminish in Value long after the hands 
 which painted them are cold in the grave. The pictures 
 themselves remain exactly the same : it is the taste of the 
 public which has changed." 
 
 ' ' Hence we see that even with respect to material 
 
1 8 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 things there are many upon which no Labor was ever 
 bestowed which have great Value : and even of those 
 upon which Labor has been bestowed the Labor is not 
 the Cause of their Value. ' ' 
 
 Again, he says : — " Now, with respect to the second 
 order of Economic Quantities, namely, Immaterial 
 Property, which comprehends all species of Labor, one 
 simple question will suffice : " — 
 
 " If Labor is the sole Cause of Value, what is the 
 Cause of the Value of Labor ? " 
 
 Before I answer this question I will give his summing 
 up of his great argument. 
 
 He says — ' ' From the consideration of the result of 
 practical experience and observation, the undeniable in- 
 ference is — That Labor is not in any way whatever the 
 Cause of Value or even necessary to Value." 
 
 "Now, by the Laws of Inductive Philosophy, if we 
 could find a single case of Value which was not the 
 result of Labor, that single instance would be sufficient to 
 overthrow the doctrine that Labor is the sole Cause of 
 Value. But, instead of one instance, we have found a 
 multitude of cases ; the enormously greater proportion of 
 Valuable Property is not even associated with Labor at all." 
 
 ' ' In short, there never was any doctrine in Science 
 which has received such a crushing and overwhelming 
 overthrow as that Labor is the Cause of Value : and 
 hence we see that that system of Economics which founds 
 its ideas of Value and Wealth on Labor is fallacious. ' ' 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 19 
 
 It can hardly be said that the author has not been 
 largely quoted, or that his argument has not been fairly 
 presented. Let us now return to the above question. 
 
 ' ' If Labor is the sole Cause of Value, what is the 
 Cause of the Value of Labor ?" 
 
 I answer : —The Cause of the Value of Labor is its in- 
 herent power to gratify human desires ; and the Cause 
 of ValUe is Work. 
 
 Can the demands of a hungry stomach produce the 
 food that satisfies it ? or a hungry brain the books that 
 enlighten it ? 
 
 Can the demand for a steanvengine produce a steam- 
 engine ? or the demand for a physician the medicines that 
 cure diseases ? 
 
 Can the demand for a plow make a plow ? or the de- 
 mand for flour the mill that grinds it ? 
 
 Can the demand for a house make a house? or the 
 demand for cotton and woolen goods the factories which 
 produce them ? 
 
 Can the demand for a statue make Power's Greek 
 Slave ? or a demand for painting produce the Sybils and 
 Prophets in the Sistine Chapel at Rome ? 
 
 And yet we are told that " Intensity of Demand " 
 is the sole Cause of Value. Evidently there is a 
 stupendous delusion in the mind of the Author. Can the 
 whole truth be stated ? Let us see. 
 
 Demand is aft act of the Mind only, and is the initial 
 Incentive of Work : but Work is the Productive 
 
20 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 Cause of all labor-products and services whatsoever 
 that gratify human desires. 
 
 This is the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but 
 the Truth, so far as Production is the primary element 
 in Economics. 
 
 When Macleod, therefore, says, — "That Labor is 
 not in any way whatever the Cause of Value ; or even 
 Necessary to Value, " I am tempted to say that he is 
 afflicted with aberration of mind, or a sort of intellectual 
 vertigo which blinds his mental vision to such a degree 
 that he cannot see the Natural Laws that stare him in the 
 face. Moreover, the statement is contradicted by the 
 every-day experience of life, because every one knows 
 that Work is the productive cause of all labor-products 
 and services that gratify human desires. 
 
 He states less than the half of the Truth, and then 
 palms it off upon the world for the whole Truth — the 
 Product of the Science of Inductive Philosophy ! 
 And then, to substantiate his fallacies, with arrogant 
 pride he quotes Lord Bacon's aphorism, — "What in 
 Theory is the Cause, in Practice is the Rule." 
 
 That is to say — Demand is the Cause of Wealth, 
 and Demand is the Cause of Value : therefore, Value 
 is equal to x, 2x, 3X, 4X, ad-infinitum, or o as the De- 
 mand is very great, or nothing. 
 
 In other words, the selfishness of human nature is the 
 Cause of all Wealth, and determines the Price of all 
 Commercial Values whatsoever. Therefore, " The 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 21 
 
 Value of any Economic Quantity is any other Economic 
 Quantity for which it can be exchanged." 
 
 Hence Macleod gives us this singularly edifying de- 
 duction — Since mankind, all the world over, practice, in 
 their commercial dealings with each other, — " Take all 
 you can get," therefore, Economics is a Physico- 
 Moral Science ! 
 
 This is what he says : 
 
 ' ' The business of the Economist is to determine the 
 Laws of the phenomena of Exchanges." 
 
 " Thus it is clearly seen to be a Physical Science : but 
 it is also a Moral Science ; because its Laws are based 
 upon the mores of men. For we find that the same 
 general laws of exchange hold good among all nations, 
 among the rudest and the most civilized in all ages and 
 countries. We find that the same causes are invariably 
 followed by the same effects ; and that is the reason 
 why Economics may be raised to the rank of an exact 
 Science : a permanent and universal science of the same 
 nature as the Physical ones ; because it is based upon 
 principles of human nature which are found to be as 
 permanent and universal as those of the physical sub- 
 stances upon which the Physical Sciences are based. 
 And therefore it is a Physical Moral Science, and the 
 only Moral Science which is capable of being raised to 
 the ranks of an exact science," 
 
22 macleod's economics. 
 
 We thus perceive that these conclusions are logically 
 deduced from his Fundamental Premise, that : 
 
 " Wealth is anything whatever whose Value can be 
 measured in Money : or which can be bought and sold ; 
 or exchanged." 
 
 Now, let us return to the Definition of Wealth which 
 I gave above : 
 
 Wealth consists of all Labor Products and Ser- 
 vices that gratify human desires, and whose Value can 
 be measured with Work. 
 
 Now, What is Work? Is it not the expenditure of 
 energy, or animal force in productive industry ? When 
 one works with his brain, or with his muscles, is not 
 animal force evolved in either case ? Is the animal force 
 expended through the brain while at work, any different 
 from the animal force expended through the muscles 
 while at work ? If not, can there be any difference 
 between brain work and muscle work, so far as their 
 essential essence is concerned; ? Is not Work, in either 
 case, simply expenditure of animal force ? Certainly. 
 
 Therefore : — A True and Scientific Measure of 
 all Laboi -Products and Services is an Average 
 Day's Work. Divide it into Hours and Minutes 
 and we have the fractional Units. 
 
 Here we have a Measure which possesses the same 
 Property and Quality as the thing to be measured. 
 Hence it is perfectly Scientific, because it meets the re- 
 quirements of a True Measure of all Labor- Products and 
 Services whatsoever. 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 23 
 
 On the contrary gold and silver coins and Bank Bills 
 are purely arbitrary measures ; and are, therefore, as 
 unfit to measure Work as a Pound Avoirdupois would 
 be to measure the height of a mountain, or the depth 
 of the sea. 
 
 Moreover, Macleod says there are three distinct orders 
 of economic Quantities : (i) Material Products ; (2) La- 
 bor or Service ; (3) Rights to Property at some future 
 time. 
 
 On the contrary, I have shown that there is but one 
 Economic Quantity, viz. : Work. By Work mankind 
 carry on ten thousand different trades and professions. 
 'There are not, therefore, ten thousand different kinds of 
 Work, but only One Kind of Work having ten 
 thousand different applications. 
 
 By this great truth, Economics is reduced to a very 
 simple theory, and, " What in Theory is the Cause, in 
 Practice is the Rule." Work is the productive cause 
 of all labor-products and useful services ; and, therefore, 
 in practice, Work only is exchangeable. 
 
 Thus we have obtained a pure a-priori principle by 
 which we can eliminate arbitrary prices and injustice 
 from all commercial transactions. 
 
 This is the boon which all great moralists and religious 
 thinkers have been seeking since the world began. In- 
 stead of harrowing competition, monopoly, and greed, 
 which are the outcome of human' selfishness, we need 
 Natural Justice applied in all of the commercial rela- 
 
24 MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 
 
 tions of life. This is the supreme need of the times. It 
 is absolutely fatal to the happiness of mankind if Justice 
 be eliminated from Economics. But Macleod does not 
 mention justice from the beginning to the end of his 
 book. He does say, however, that ' ' Jurisprudence 
 is the Science of Rights." But nowhere does he speak 
 of Justice as a component element in Exchanges. His 
 book appeals entirely to the selfishness of the human 
 nature. It is, therefore, a very dangerous book ; subtle 
 and misleading ; for if his premises be accepted for the 
 Truth, his conclusions must be accepted also, hecause he 
 is logically consistent. It is, therefore, my purpose to 
 oppose the practical application of his Fundamental 
 Principles. 
 
 I have said that an average day's work is a true 
 measure of all Work or Service. 
 
 I must now explain what is meant by an average day's 
 work. 
 
 There are two elements which enter into this Measure, 
 viz. : The element of Time, and the element of Force. 
 But as Time is commercially valueless, Force is the only 
 Quality that is exchangeable. An average day's work 
 may be determined, as follows : 
 
 Suppose there are ten thousand farmers who raise 
 wheat, their conjoint product is 2,000,00a bushels, and 
 their conjoint labor 50,000 day's work, ten hours a day. 
 The average cost of a bushel of wheat would be four 
 hours' work ; and an average day's work would be 2}i 
 bushels. 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 25 
 
 One thousand diamond diggers work 300 days, ten 
 hours a day, and produce 15,000,000 carats, two carats 
 would thereby cost an average day's work. 
 
 Five thousand gold-diggers work 300 days, ten hours 
 a day, and their conjoint product is 6,000,000 dwts. 
 of gold. Four dwts. would be the product of an average 
 day's work. 
 
 Hence the Value of 2% bushels of wheat = 2 carats of 
 diamond =4 dwts. of gold, because each of these eco- 
 nomic quantities cost an equal amount of work to pro- 
 duce them. In the absence of accurate statistics, these 
 illustrations convey the idea of an average day's work. 
 
 Now, since a true measure of anything must possess 
 the same property and quality as the thing to be 
 measured, how can we measure with money the Value 
 of land, trees, stranded whales, diamonds, or the excreta 
 of snakes ? If these things cannot be measured with 
 money, neither can any other natural product be 
 measured with mqney. Therefore, all natural things are 
 Priceless. This is a Law of Nature ; and a law 
 of nature is a Law of God. 
 
 The logic of this reasoning is simply this : When man 
 arbitrarily puts a money value on land, or human capa- 
 city, or any other natural product to gratify his selfish- 
 ness, he is flagitiously transgressing a Law of God. 
 This is the supreme wickedness of the world. 
 
 If the mores of men — i. e. the commercial manners 
 and customs of mankind, were righteous, there would be 
 
26 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 no need of moral and religious instruction. But be- 
 cause the manners and customs of mankind, in their 
 commercial relations with one another, are notoriously 
 unjust ; therefore, the greater the need for moral and 
 religious instruction. Natural Justice must be made 
 known to men, or there can be no anchorage, no harbor 
 of safety, no happiness for mankind in general, and no 
 Politico- Moral Soience. 
 
 Hence Macleod's attempt to erect Economic Science 
 on his definition of wealth, or on the selfishness of human 
 nature necessarily fails ; because it does not secure to 
 mankind Equity in commercial exchanges. 
 
 <3*,e 
 
Macleod's Economics. 
 
 CONTINUED. 
 
 IN the preceding paper I considered Macleod's en- 
 deavor to erecT; a Science of Economics on Aristotle's 
 definition of wealth. ' ' Wealth is any thing which can 
 be bought or sold, and whose Value can be measured in 
 money. ' ' Judging his definition by his own canon or rule, 
 I proved it to be fallacious, and unfit to form the basis of 
 the Science of Economics, by showing that his definition 
 of wealth is not a true one, and that wealth cannot be 
 measured in money. 
 
 I also showed that his statement that Wealth is caused 
 by "Intensity of Demand" is not only not true, but is 
 not so much as a half truth ; since I proved that Demand 
 is but the incentive of work, while work alone is the 
 productive cause of all labor-produfts and useful services 
 that gratify human desires, and whose Value can be 
 measured with a unit of itself, viz : — an Average Day's 
 Work. Having thus demolished the base of his pseudo 
 science, I now proceed to examine his definition of Value, 
 
28 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 with the hope that I shall succeed in proving it, also, to 
 be equally fallacious, and thereby overthrow the super- 
 structure which he has so proudly erected. 
 
 On pages 252 — 254 the Author says : "Seeing that 
 Labor and Utility altogether fail to stand the necessary 
 tests of Inductive Logic as being the Cause of Value, 
 what remains ? In what consists the essence of Value ? 
 The only thing which ancient writers, Aristotle, the 
 author of the Eryxias, the Roman Lawyers, and in 
 modern times the Physiocrates, the Italian Economists, 
 Smith, Condillac, Whately, J. B. Say, and hosts of 
 others, have observed, is — Exchangeability. And 
 what does Exchangeability depend upon ? If I offer 
 something for sale what is necessary in order that it 
 should be sold ? Simply that some one else should 
 Desire and Demand it.'" 
 
 "Aristotle long ago said that it is Demand which 
 binds society together : the author of the Eryxias over 
 and over again points out that things are Wealth only 
 where they are Demanded : and things are not Wealth 
 where they arejiot demanded." 
 
 ' ' Here it is quite clear that we have now got to the 
 true Source, Origin, or Cause of Value : it is De- 
 mand. Value is not a Quality of an object, but it is an 
 Affection of the Mind. Value in Latin is ^Estimatio. 
 The sole Origin, Source, and Cause of Value is Human 
 Desire : when there is a Demand for things they have 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 29 
 
 Value : when the Demand increases (the Supply being 
 supposed the same) the Value increases : when the De- 
 mand decreases, the Value decreases : and when the 
 Demand altogether ceases, the Value is altogether gone. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Value, then, like Color, and Sound, and Odor, 
 only exists in the Human Mind. There is neither Color, 
 nor Sound, nor Odor, nor Value in external Nature : 
 they exist only in Man." 
 
 ' ' Hence we see that Demand is the sole Origin, 
 Source, and Cause of Value. It is Demand, or Con- 
 sumption, and not Labor, that gives Value to a product. 
 It is not the Labor which gives Value to the product, but 
 the Demand for the product which gives Value to the 
 Labor. Hence, it is not Labor which is the Cause 
 of Value, but it is the Value which is the In- 
 ducement to Labor : and it is not the Labor of 
 the Producer which constitutes a thing Wealth, 
 but the Demand of the Consumer." 
 
 Therefore — ' ' The Value of any Economic Quan- 
 tity is any other Economic Quantity for which 
 it can be exchanged." 
 
 I now give a lucid example of what Macleod conceives 
 to be a perfectly moral commercial exchange, in harmony 
 with the above principles : 
 
 He says, (page 50,) — When our ships first traded to 
 the South Sea Islands they took with them axes, beads, 
 and other trifles, which were of very little value, in this 
 
30 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 country, and bartered them for all sorts of curiosities, 
 shells, &c, which were very valuable in England. A 
 pair of fine shells from the South Seas in many cases is 
 worth ten guineas in England, which, perhaps, an Eng- 
 lish sailor obtained for an axe, which cost 2s. 6d. The 
 English sailor thought the natives very simple to give 
 away so many valuable curiosities for such common 
 things. The natives probably also thought the sailors 
 very simple to give away such valuable things as axes, 
 beads, &c, for such common things as shells. Each 
 party, however, exchanged what was common and cheap 
 in his own country for what was scarce and valuable. 
 The axes were many times more valuable in Feejee than 
 the shells ; the shells were many times more valuable in 
 London than the axes. An English sailor gave away 
 what cost him 2S. 6d., and gained in exchange what 
 was worth ten guineas ; and the difference was his profit. 
 Thus both parties gained by the exchange. The shells 
 were worth many axes in London ; the axes were worth 
 many shells in Feejee ; - and this is the genuine spirit of 
 commerce. The value of the shells in London arises from 
 their scarcity, and the desire of the people in London to 
 possess them, and their willingness to give a high price to 
 gratify that desire. The value of the" axe in Feejee arises 
 from the scarcity of axes there, and the desire of the 
 Feejeeans to possess them. The colored beads were just 
 as valuable to the Feejeeans' as diamonds to Europeans. 
 The commerce of all nations is exactly similar in principle 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 31 
 
 to that between the sailor and the savages. It all consists 
 in exchanging what is cheap and common in two countries 
 for what is scarce and dear ; and of course both parties 
 must gain by the very nature of the transaction. ' ' 
 
 In harmony with this view of commercial morality 
 Bastiat says : "Whatever two persons mutually 
 
 AGREE TO, IN A MATTER OF EXCHANGE, IS JUST." 
 
 We thus perceive whence the author gains his definition 
 of Wealth, and his definition of Value : namely, from 
 the selfishness of the Human Nature., And upon This 
 he claims to have erected a Science of Economics. 
 
 I have already shown that Macleod's definition of 
 Wealth is a fallacy. If I can now show that his defini- 
 tion of Value is also a fallacy, then his boastful claim 
 of having erected a perfect Science of Economics ne- 
 cessarily fails. 
 
 Wealth consists of all Labor-Products and 
 Services that gratify human desires and whose 
 Commercial Value can be measured with Work. 
 
 This definition is in harmony with the experiences 
 of mankind, and with the nature of things. It is also in 
 harmony with the fundamental conceptions of a perfectly 
 Scientific Definition or Axiom : because it contains all 
 that should be included, and excludes all that should not. 
 Wealth possesses two qualities : — (i.) Utility. 
 (2.) Exchangeability. 
 
 Value also possesses two qualities, viz.: — Utility 
 and Exchangeability. 
 
32 MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 
 
 Value and Wealth are therefore interchangeable 
 terms. A labor-product is neither Value nor Wealth 
 when it has no power to gratify human desire. And as 
 Wealth cannot be measured with money ; neither can 
 Value, because Value is Wealth. Macleod's definition 
 of Wealth consists of all exchangeable things which 
 can be measured with Money. But as Money does not 
 possess the same property and quality as Wealth, it 
 cannot be a true measure of it. Neither can Money 
 measure Value, because Value is Wealth. 
 
 Hence his boasted declaration that his definition of 
 Wealth "is * * * fitted to form the basis of a great 
 Science" is a great fallacy, and as Value is Wealth, his 
 definition of Value is as Mythical as his definition of 
 Wealth. Therefore, the superstructure which he has so 
 confidently erected necessarily falls, and there is not, as 
 yet, a pure Science of Economics. 
 
 From the above considerations I infer that there is an 
 irreconcilable conflict between the Selfishness of the 
 Human Nature, and the Nature of Things. Man is at 
 enmity with God. There can be no pure Science of 
 Economics until we have determined what is the true 
 basis of a Just exchange. 
 
 Macleod says (page 29,) : — "There is a fundamental 
 principle relating to Physical Science which is of the 
 greatest importance in Economics. The special Idea or 
 Quality which is the central one of the science, may ap- 
 pear in substances of the most unlike natures, and which 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 33 
 
 agree in no other respect than in possessing that Quality. 
 But all of these substances or natures, however unlike or 
 dissimilar they may be in other respects, so long as they 
 agree in possessing that single Quality on which the 
 science is based must be reckoned as elements or consti- 
 tuents in that science. ' ' 
 
 Hence, — " The Quality which constitutes things 
 Wealth, must be some single Quality of the most general 
 nature : and the Science of Wealth must be the Science 
 of the phenomena relating to that single Quality." 
 
 That single Quality which constitutes a thing Wealth, 
 Macleod declares, is Demand : and since Value is 
 Wealth, therefore Value is Demand : Hence the Science 
 of Wealth must be the science of the phenomena relating 
 to that single quality, viz : Demand. 
 
 Moreover, Macleod says (page 44,) : " If it be possible 
 to obtain a general philosophical rule, it must be ap- 
 plicable to all cases. It is the very test of the truth of 
 rival theories to explain particular cases. There is no 
 other way of testing their truth : and accordingly when 
 two apparently plausible theories have been brought to 
 the trial, and one of them has failed to account for phe- 
 nomena, it has invariably been rejected. A true theory 
 therefore must account for all the phenomena of a science. 
 It must be true in all classes of cases, and to any extent. 
 A single case which can be shown to be absolutely irrecon- 
 cilable with a theory must be fatal to it. ' ' 
 
 I now seize this trenchant weapon of Macleod' s brain 
 
34 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 to slay him. Last Summer I priced peaches in Fulton 
 Market, New York. The first dealer said, " One dollar 
 a basket." The second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, 
 the sixth dealer said, " One dollar a basket." Peaches 
 had come into New York by successive train loads ; they 
 were very abundant and the Demand for them was very 
 great. Now I ask, Why were they so uniformly 
 one dollar A basket ? Because the dealers had 
 combined to sell them at that price. Therefore the Value 
 of peaches was not determined by Demand, but by 
 Monopoly. 
 
 Yankee sewing machines, for a series of years, sold 
 uniformly at sixty-five dollars retail, in the United States. 
 In Great Britain the same stamp of machine sold at 
 thirty-five dollars retail. Was the Value determined by 
 the Demand ? or by the selfishness of the manufacturers 
 and the middle-men ? 
 
 Yankee clocks, which sell uniformly at four and five 
 dollars each at retail, in the United States, are sold in 
 Great Britain at retail, at half the price. Is their Value 
 determined by Demand ? or by the selfishness of the 
 manufacturers and the middle-men ? 
 
 There is a nautical tool, manufactured in New York, 
 called a Taffrail Log ; it is used to determine the speed of 
 vessels at sea ; the retail price of which, for a series of 
 years, has been twenty-five dollars. Is the Value of these 
 machines determined by Demand ? or by the selfishness 
 of the patentee and manufacturer ? 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 35 
 
 Are Corners in wheat, cotton, petroleum, gold, coal, 
 butter, quinine, or any other agricultural product, — the 
 legitimate outcome of free trade, or the outcome of 
 monoply ? Are ' ' watered ' ' stocks the effect of Demand ? 
 or the effect of monoply? Is the President's salary, or 
 the salaries of Governors or Legislators determined by 
 Demand ? or by the selfishness of the stipendiaries them- 
 selves ? 
 
 I might multiply examples of this character indefinitely, 
 and even in Trades Unions show that wages are deter- 
 mined by monopoly and not by Demand. 
 
 Does Macleod's theory of Demand account for these 
 phenomena? And yet he says : "A single case which 
 can be shown to be absolutely irreconcilable with a theory 
 is fatal to it." 
 
 Is not, therefore, his theory that Demand is the sole 
 Cause of Value utterly annihilated by the above ex- 
 amples ? 
 
 Having thus demolished his theory by his own weapons, 
 I now return to the Definitions of Wealth and Value. 
 
 As Wealth and Value are interchangeable terms, 
 since both imply useful labor-products and services that 
 gratify human desires ; it logically follows that Work is 
 the philosophical principle pervading all Wealth and 
 all Values, and not Demand, which must ultimately 
 become the only recognized Quantity on which to erect 
 a true Science of Economics. 
 
36 macleod's economics. 
 
 An Average Day's Work is therefore the Unit 
 of Measure of all Labor-Products and Services 
 whatsoever. It must be borne in mind that the 
 Utility of any labor-product, or any useful service, or 
 any natural product is absolutely incommensurable by 
 money. Therefore, in the nature of things Utility is 
 Priceless and Valueless, and cannot be counted as a com- 
 mercial Quantity in the Science of Economics or as a 
 thing which can be exchanged, bought, or sold. If a 
 price be put on the utility of any labor-product, or any 
 useful service, or any natural, thing, it is purely arbitrary 
 and, therefore, Unlawful. 
 
 As a logical sequence of this great truth there is nothing 
 left to be exchanged but Work. Therefore, it is the 
 only Quantity which can, by any possibility, form the 
 basis of the Science of Economics. The universe is 
 priceless : and what is true of the whole universe is logic- 
 ally true of its parts. 
 
 Thus do we see that Wealth' and Value are Work 
 conserved to human uses ; and that Work only can be 
 exchanged. 
 
 Now, Macleod says that, Economics is a Physical-Moral 
 Science — physical, because it deals in material things 
 which can be measured with money ; and moral, because 
 all mankind, he alleges, exchange wealth on the basis of 
 Demand. I now propose to show that Justice, and not 
 Demand, is the true basis of all commercial exchanges, 
 and that Work is the true measure. 
 
. MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 37 
 
 Let us now determine the Value of the whale which 
 was stranded on the Firth of Forth, and which sold for 
 .^70 as it lay there on the beach. 
 
 Macleod claimes that the wha^e has Value or Wealth 
 because it sold for £70, when no human being had 
 touched it. Suppose that no human being, subsequently 
 to the sale, had taken out the oil and the whalebone by 
 Work, where would be the Wealth or Value of the 
 whale ? Demand paid £jo for it, but did Demand get 
 ^70 worth of whalebone and oil out of it without Work ? 
 Then what is the Cause of Wealth or Value ? Is it De- 
 mand or Work ? Can we conceive of Wealth or Value 
 without Work ? If we cannot, then the whale was 
 Valueless as it lay there on the beach untouched by human 
 hands. Consequently it was not Wealth. But the mo- 
 ment the first blow was struck into the whale to extract 
 the bone and oil Wealth began : and when all of the bone 
 and oil had been taken out of it, the Wealth or Value 
 obtained resided in the Work wrought into the product. 
 Hence Work is Wealth or Value, and not Demand. 
 Idleness cannot produce Wealth, neither can Demand 
 produce Wealth. But Work produces Wealth or 
 Value, and it is the only Quantity, in the nature of 
 things, that can produce it. Therefore, the Value of the 
 bone and oil is the amount of work wrought into the 
 product, and that is its Natural Value, and the natural 
 value is the Equitable Value, and the equitable Value 
 is the only Value ordained of God by which mankind 
 
38 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 should establish commercial exchanges. Hence Equit- 
 able Value =Equitable Price. 
 
 The author alleges that " In 1810 an oak tree was cut 
 down at Gelenas in Monmouthshire, whose bark sold for 
 ^240, and the wood for ^670 : was this Value due to 
 Labor?" 
 
 No ! It was due to the arbitrary selfishness of the 
 human nature. That sale was a transgression of Natural 
 Law : because it sold for ,£910, when there was not 
 a particle of Value or Wealth in the tree. Suppose that 
 not a soul on the planet ever did a stroke of work ; would 
 there be any Wealth ? How then could there be any 
 Value or Wealth in the tree when no Work had been 
 done upon it ? But the moment work begins, wealth 
 begins ; and if the work be continued until the bark and 
 wood are transformed into products adapted to gratify 
 human desires, then the total amount of value or wealth 
 wrought out of the tree, equals the total amount of Work 
 done ; and the Work done is the Equitable Price of the 
 product. While, therefore, human needs or Demand is 
 the provoking Cause of Work — Work is really, and 
 solely, the productive Cause of all Values and all Wealth. 
 
 Again the author queries : "There are cattle, herds 
 and flocks of all sorts. These increase and multiply by 
 the agency of nature. How is their Value due to Labor ? ' ' 
 
 There is no more Value or Wealth in them than there 
 is in a wild boar, if they have not been housed, superin- 
 tended, fed, and adapted to human uses. Hence the 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 39 
 
 Value of flocks and herds depends upon the amount of 
 Work expended in caring for them, and preparing them 
 for consumption : and the total amount of work done is 
 their Commercial Value, and their Commercial Price. 
 
 The Author says : ' ' Some time ago when it was the 
 fashion of European ladies to pile large masses of hair, 
 termed Chignons, upon their heads in imitation of their 
 swarthy sisters of Central Africa, it was not uncommon 
 for a girl's fine head of hair to sell for £5 : was the Value 
 of the girl's hair due to Labor ? " 
 
 No ! It was due to the selfish competition of fashion- 
 able women, who were willing to pay an arbitrary price 
 for the hair to gratify a whim. But the arbitrary price 
 was not the natural price. The Natural Price of the hair, 
 while on the head of the girl, was nothing. There was 
 no Wealth there because there was no Work to produce 
 it. But the Wealth in the hair began when the shears 
 were first applied to it, and the subsequent Work done 
 to make it a marketable commodity constituted its 
 Wealth or Value. When a Price is arbitrarily put upon 
 human hair, it is a transgression of the Law of Nature, 
 which makes human hair priceless, and commercially 
 valueless. But when human hair is moulded into jewelry, 
 or an oject of beauty for commercial purposes, then it 
 becomes Wealth ; and the total amount of work wrought 
 into it constitutes its Value or Price. 
 
 It is immoral to put a money Value on the works of 
 God. Natural Things are necessarily incommensurable 
 
40 MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 
 
 with money ; they are therefore Priceless, and com- 
 mercially Valueless. 
 
 The circumstances which require that a girl should sell 
 a beautiful head of hair to buy bread, or to save hersell 
 from a life of prostitution, are horrible. And such cir- 
 cumstances are the logical outcome of the selfishness and 
 injustice of the human nature, the logic of Demand. 
 
 The Author again says : " If Labor be the sole Cause 
 of Value, then all things produced by the same Quantity 
 of Labor must be of equal Value." 
 
 ' ' But this is contrary to all experience. For if it were 
 true, a diamond and the rubbish it is found in ought to 
 be of the same Value. So a pearl and its shell ought to be 
 of equal Value ! ' ' 
 
 How facetious and philosophical is our author ! 
 
 The Koh-i-noor, the Crown Jewel of England, weighed 
 7935^ carats when it was dug out of the ground. It now 
 weighs io&h carats in its finished state. An unwrought 
 diamond is as Valueless as mud. It is only when Work 
 has been wrought upon it in digging it out of the earth, 
 transforming it into an objecl of beauty, or in using it for 
 mechanical purposes, that it acquires Value or becomes 
 Wealth. The more Work is bestowed upon it, the more 
 Valuable it becomes ; and when it is finished for con- 
 sumption, or for the market, its Wealth is the total 
 amount of Work wrought into it. All the Demand of 
 all the rich men on the planet, bidding in competition 
 for it, could not increase its Value one jot or tittle. The 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 41 
 
 rubbish and chips cut from the raw diamond are as 
 Valueless as the chips which fell beneath Power's chisel 
 while he moulded his matchless Greek Slave. 
 
 To allege that Demand is the sole Cause of Value, is to 
 affirm that Wealth can be produced without Work as a 
 basic principle, which is a manifest fallacy and contrary 
 to all experience. Hence the Koh-i-noor, as it lay in the 
 ground, was as priceless and valueless as a newly dis- 
 covered gold mine, the gold of which is neither Value nor 
 Wealth until it be dug out of the earth and formed to 
 gratify human desires. Hence arbitrary prices put upon 
 diamonds is a transgression of Natural Law, which cannot 
 be justified of Reason, whatever the selfishness of the 
 human nature may do. The selfishness of the human 
 heart is at enmity with God. 
 
 Again the author says : — " The space of ground upon 
 which a City is built has great Value : but which is in no 
 way the result of Labor. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Land in the heart of London has often been known 
 to sell for more than ^2,000,000 an acre : quite exclusive 
 of any buildings upon it. But no Labor has been bestowed 
 on it." 
 
 Granted : and what does this prove ? Does it prove 
 that Demand is the sole Cause of Value ? It shows that 
 the selfishness of the human heart is at enmity with God, 
 and the nature of things. It also shows that the author 
 is oblivious of the fact that by the ordination of the 
 Almighty— -Land is as priceless and valueless as gravity, 
 
42 MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 
 
 air, or sunlight. Two million pounds sterling for one 
 acre of Land ! The statement is both startling and 
 appalling ! 
 
 Who ordained that Land should be sold at the enormous 
 figure of two hundred and twenty-five dollars per square 
 foot ? Moses declares prophetically, ' ' The Land shall 
 
 NOT BE SOLD FOREVER, FOR THE LAND IS MINE, SAITH 
 
 the Lord." But who has heeded the words of wisdom ? 
 We hear much about the exceeding sinfulness of sin ; but 
 the sale of Land is not so much a sin, as it is the sin of 
 sins. If no one had any more Land than he could in- 
 dividually and economically use without the aid of others, 
 would Rent be possible? If the farmer, the market gar- 
 dener, the manufacturer, the mechanic, and the laborer had 
 no more Land than he could use without help from others, 
 how would Rent be possible ? What, then, is the Cause 
 of Rent ? Is it Demand or Monopoly ? The author says it 
 is Demand which causes Land to sell, in the heart of Lon- 
 don, at the enormous figure of two hundred and twenty- 
 five dollars per square foot. I declare the contrary : It is 
 Monopoly only which is the Cause of Rent, and the Sale 
 of Land. 
 
 The monoply and sale of Land is the prolific mother 
 of innumerable evils. It produces artificial class distinc- 
 tions by creating on the one hand a body of landlords and 
 aristocrats, a privileged class, protected By laws of their 
 own making, and on the other hand millions of plebeians 
 whose very existence depends upon the sufferance of the 
 rich few. 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 43 
 
 Henry George, in "Progress and Poverty," has demon- 
 strated that the monopoly of land is the Cause of Rent — 
 that landlords absorb the major part of the world's wealth. 
 Two millions pounds sterling paid for an acre of land is 
 an evidence of the absorbing power of land monopoly. 
 This enormous sum of money is gained by the landlord 
 without having done a single stroke of work, or a useful 
 service to any human being. Ten million dollars gained 
 in this way would absorb the product of one thousand 
 men, working 16^ years, at two dollars a day. 
 
 Mr. W. B. Astor is the reputed owner of six thousand 
 houses in the City of New York. If we assume the aver- 
 age rent to be five hundred dollars a year, his annual 
 gross income would be three million dollars. This enorm- 
 ous rent would absorb the work of five hundred first class 
 mechanics for ten years, each working at four dollars a 
 day. Here are but two cases out of millions of cases of 
 a like character. Consider London, Paris, St. Peters- 
 burg, Berlin, Vienna, Constantinople, Pekin, and New 
 York — the absorbing power of Rent, in these cities alone, 
 is utterly appalling in its magnitude. 
 
 If, in addition to this, we consider the absorbing power 
 of Rent throughout the whole world, its poverty en- 
 gendering effects among the wage workers of every 
 nation, added to this the suffering, the wretchedness and 
 the agony of despair which the evictions and exactions of 
 landlords produce — the heart palls and sickens while we 
 contemplate the facts. And yet Macleod essays to ereft 
 
44 MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 
 
 a Science of Economics out of the selfishness which pro- 
 duces these horrible conditions ! 
 
 But land monopoly is not only the cause of rent, it is 
 also the cause of profit or increase. When men are 
 obliged to pay rent, they are compelled to take every 
 commercial advantage they can of their fellows to meet it, 
 and obtain the gratification of their desires. Hence we 
 have patent monopolies, railroad monopolies, manufac- 
 turing monopolies, telegraph and telephone monopolies, 
 bank monopolies, grinding competition, adulteration and 
 fraud as the logical effects of land monopoly. 
 
 Moreover, interest on loans is also a sequence of the 
 same fundamental cause. When rent and profit are 
 demanded, then interest is possible for the same selfish 
 reasons. If landlords can gain rent, and merchants 
 profit, why should not money lenders gain interest ? 
 
 Thus it is that the entire social fabric is steeped in im- 
 morality. And the immorality which permeates society 
 every where, is the all-pervading desire to gain some- 
 thing for nothing. The landlord gains something for 
 nothing ; the merchant gains something for nothing ; and 
 the interest-taker gains something for nothing. The 
 Protectionist victimizes the people of his own nation ; 
 and the Free Trader victimizes the foreigner. Hence 
 the disposition of mankind everywhere is to tak*. advan- 
 tage one of another. The grab game is universal. There 
 is no Equity in Commerce. 
 
 Nowhere on the planet are exchanges made ou the 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 45 
 
 basis of the service rendered, or the work done. No 
 one dreams of doing business in this way. Everybody is 
 looking inwardly to selfish ends ; and to do this, is to 
 gain more work from another than is given in exchange. 
 This is the way riches are made. If A can gain two 
 day's work from B, in exchange for one day's work, 
 then A is enriched by the amount of one day's work at 
 the expense of B. In other words, A has gained one 
 day's work for nothing. And if A can keep up the 
 business of gaining one day's Work for nothing every 
 day in the year, at the expiration of the year, A is 
 enriched to the amount of one year's work at the ex- 
 pense of others, and the victims, by this system of in- 
 justice, are poorer by one year's work. 
 
 No one ever asks the question, in an exchange, How 
 much work is wrought into that hat ? into that pair of 
 boots ? into that suit of clothes ? into that furniture ? into 
 that medicine ? into that legal service ? into that sermon ? 
 into that music ? into that opera ? into that house ? or 
 into that machine ? 
 
 No landlord, when he makes his rent bill, ever 
 estimates his rent by the destruction of his house, which 
 is the destruction of work. But justice requires that 
 the landlord demand no more of the tenant than the re- 
 placement of the work destroyed by the tenant. For 
 if the landlord gains any more work than this, he gains 
 something for nothing, at the expense of the tenant. 
 This is immoral, because it is unjust. 
 
46 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 A tailor makes a suit of clothes in six days, and the 
 cloth cost two day's work to produce it ; then the suit 
 of clothes is worth eight day's work. If, however, the 
 tailor adds two day's work for profit, he is guilty of an 
 immorality, an act of injustice, because he gains two 
 day's work for nothing, by selling the suit for ten, when 
 it really cost but eight day's work. Hence the party 
 who buys the suit is victimized to the amount of two 
 days work. 
 
 The owner of a cotton mill knows, to the fraction of a 
 day's work, the value of the cotton cloth produced in 
 one week : because he knows how much wages have 
 been paid, and the number of hands employed. It is 
 therefore just as easy to determine the value of one yard 
 of cloth by the work required to produce it, as it is to 
 determine its value in dollars and cents. If to this cost 
 be added the value of the wear and tear of machinery, 
 and the value in work of the service rendered by the 
 mill owner, the total value of one week's product of 
 cotton goods is readily determined. Any profit therefore 
 which may be added to the natural cost of a yard of 
 cotton cloth, is robbery, because it is taking something 
 for nothing. 
 
 A money lender loans on ample security $1,000, at 
 ten per cent, interest. At the end of a year the borrower 
 returns the principal, and the interest which amounts to 
 $100. One hundred dollars of interest represents one 
 hundred dollar's worth of work done. If a day's work 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 47 
 
 be equal to four dollars, then the lender gained twenty- 
 five day's work for nothing, because he gave no work in 
 exchange for the interest received. 
 
 Interest is a method of gaining riches at the ex- 
 pense of others, and is therefore immoral. " In the 
 sweat of thine own face shalt thou eat bread, ' ' and not in 
 the sweat of another. This is the universal Law of God. 
 
 Hence the three typical methods of gaining wealth 
 without work are by rent, profit, and interest or 
 dividends. Now since land monopoly is the cause 
 of rent, and rent the cause of profit, and profit the 
 cause of interest or dividends — it logically follows if 
 there were no land monopoly, rent would be zero. 
 Consequently, if the base of the social structure be de- 
 stroyed the superstructure falls. In other words abro- 
 gate land monopoly and rent, profit and interest would 
 cease as men become righteous. Then every man and 
 woman would be free to pursue happiness agreeably to 
 their own will ; and the hardest worker, expenditures 
 being equal, would be the richest person in every com- 
 munity. This would be in harmony with Natural Justice, 
 the converse of which is now the deplorable condition 
 of mankind. Those who do the least work are too fre- 
 quently the richest persons in every community, while 
 those who work the hardest are too frequently the poorest. 
 These are the victims of rent, profit and interest, and 
 constitute the vast majority of every nation. If every in- 
 dustrious man and woman, boy and girl, who work for 
 
48 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 wages, gained as much work in the things they buy as 
 they give for their wages, none would be poor. Hence 
 Justice would satisfy everybody and produce peace. 
 
 The logic of this reasoning culminates thus : The 
 Value of a bushel of wheat, an ounce of gold, a house, 
 a steamship, a telegraph plant, a railroad, a sermon, a 
 poem, a picture, a discovery, or a book, is measured 
 by the amount of Work wrought into it. And the 
 value of any service whatsoever, be it medical, surgical, 
 mathematical, scientific, legal, literary, or philosophical— - 
 is also determined by the amount of Work done. And 
 the value of coins, bank bills, promissory notes, checks, 
 drafts, bonds, mortgages, and all other evidences of debt 
 — is determined by the amount of Work they righteously 
 represent. " Intensity of Demand " cannot by any pos^ 
 sibility increase their value or the wealth they naturally 
 contain or represent. Because Work is the only quan- 
 tity that produces wealth, and is therefore the only 
 righteous measure of it. 
 
 When the United States Government, in 1863, per- 
 sistendy refused against wise entreaty, to make Treasury 
 Notes, or Greenbacks, a tender in payment of ail public 
 dues, it was guilty of inexcusable and cruel perfidy. 
 This piece of iniquitous legislation has cost the nation 
 untold millions of dollars, glaring national corruption, 
 and transformed Wall Street into a den of unscrupulous 
 thieves and public robbers. When a government dis- 
 honors its own paper, it is simply despicable. And yet 
 
MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 49 
 
 there are journalists who prate with religious horror 
 about the payment of the national debt in Greenbacks ; 
 and yet have nothing to say of the unsurpassable mean- 
 ness of depreciating them by refusing to honor them in 
 three particulars. 
 
 On January 1, 1879, the day that greenbacks were 
 honored for duties on imports, they immediately rose to 
 par with gold, and no one now wants the gold for do- 
 mestic exchanges. This fact proves that Treasury Notes 
 issued in times of war or peace, to the extent of the 
 National Budget, or the annual needs of the government, 
 and made receivable for all public Dues never would de- 
 preciate. And now that Greenbacks are at par with 
 gold, no moral reason can be given why the national 
 debt should not be paid with them. To prate of honor 
 is more than absurd — it is bad economy. What the na- 
 tion needs, is honesty and consistency. By all means 
 possible pay the national debt in Greenbacks ! 
 
 What I have said of the National Budget I wov.ld say 
 of the State budgets respectively. The National Govern- 
 ment should issue all the currency, and each State should 
 have as much currency allotted to it as its own honest 
 budget amounts to, and be made receivable for all State 
 dues. Such a currency would expand and contract with 
 the needs of the General Government, and with the needs 
 of the States respectively. Moreover, being issued with- 
 out interest it would be an unprecedented national blessing, 
 and all of it would be at par with gold or silver dollars ; 
 
SO MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 
 
 and being definite in quantity there could be no inflation, 
 except through dishonesty. 
 
 Such a currency, however, should not be a promise to 
 pay dollars on demand, or at some indefinite time in the 
 future; but should simply state on its face that — The 
 
 United States, or the State of will pay to bearer 
 
 the Value of One (or more) Dollars,, in work or service ; 
 the gold or silver dollar, being taken as the arbitrary 
 measure of work or service. 
 
 This, however, is not a perfectly scientific currency, 
 because it does not accurately measure work. A perfect 
 currency is one which will do this beyond the possibility 
 of a doubt. An Average Day's Work is a perfectly scien- 
 tific Unit of measure of all work. But as the world is not 
 yet ready for such a currency, I shall make no further 
 remarks on it. 
 
 When bank depositors shall have become sufficiently 
 wise to require the administration of pure Economics in 
 banking, they will then demand a system which will 
 practically prevent speculative gambling, revulsions and 
 bank panics. The remedy is simple. All moneys de- 
 posited in banks should remain on deposit until with- 
 drawn by the depositors. The service of safe keeping 
 and check collecting rendered by the banker should be 
 paid for by the depositors. The cost of the service would 
 not exceed, perhaps, one quarter of one per cent, or 
 twenty-five cents on a hundred dollars. As all revulsions 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 5 1 
 
 and bank panics are caused by lending other people's 
 money on interest, and on all sorts of collateral securities, 
 it is obvious that to remove the cause is to apply the 
 remedy. Interest is the cause of bank loans or dis- 
 counts. Abolish interest and the immorality in banking, 
 and the cause of bank panics are gone forever. So long 
 as depositors allow bankers to lend their deposits on in- 
 terest, this unrighteous temptation for unholy gain will 
 ever remain a prolific cause of revulsions and commercial 
 disasters. God's law of Justice must obtain in banking 
 as in all other commercial transactions, or His wrath, 
 with all its vexatious punishments, is inevitable. But 
 the punishments fall disastrously on the least guilty, or 
 upon those who have not the remotest conception that 
 they are participes criminis. For he who tacitly consents 
 to a loan for the interest thereby gained, is as guilty 
 of immorality as the lender. Therefore, to abrogate the 
 cause of bank panics, and their dreadful sequence of 
 simultaneous bankruptcies and enforced idleness among 
 the industrial masses, is but to religiously observe and 
 obey the will of God. 
 
 In conclusion, we see that Demand is not the sole cause 
 of value, but is the inciting or provoking cause of work : 
 while work is the productive cause of all wealth and 
 values which are equitably exchangeable. 
 
 We also see that Work is the constant economic 
 quantity which enters into all Values. It is therefore the 
 only quantity which can be numerically measured by a 
 
52 MACLEOD'S ECONOMICS. 
 
 unit of itself. An average day's work is therefore the only 
 true measure of work. Divide the average day's work 
 into hours and minutes, and we then have the fractional 
 units by which to measure all work less than one day's 
 work. And since all wealth and all useful services are 
 produced by work, it is therefore the only Economic 
 Quantity which can be used in the erection of the Science 
 of Economics. 
 
 We also see that natural things are incommensurable 
 with money, and among these are man's mental and 
 physical endowments. Hence arbitrary prices demanded 
 for human capacity mental or physical, land, mines,, 
 forests, water courses, and all other natural things — are 
 transgressions of Natural Law. 
 
 We also see that these transgressions produce caste 
 and artificial distinctions among mankind, when there 
 should be none so far as natural opportunities are con- 
 cerned. Each individual is naturally entitled to perfectly 
 free access to the land, and all other natural things to the 
 extent of his needs without price. This is the rightful, 
 natural and just claim of every human being. Conse- 
 quently the improvements he makes upon the land, the 
 houses he builds, and the things he produces, and the 
 work he does are the only quantities which have com- 
 mercial value. And their Value is determined always by 
 the amount of work wrought into them. Competition or 
 monopoly cannot righteously increase their commercial 
 value one jot or tittle. Any increase caused by monopoly, 
 
MACLEOD S ECONOMICS. 53 
 
 competition or demand to the natural cost of any product 
 or service, is an unrighteous increase, because no moral 
 reason can be given for it. It is therefore Robbery. 
 
 We likewise see that land monopoly thwarts justice, by 
 producing innumerable evils, the chief of which are rent, 
 profit and interest with their logical effects — poverty for 
 the many and riches for the few. Therefore the responsi- 
 bility which attaches to the Rich to do all that lies in 
 their power to remove the artificial distinctions and the in- 
 justice which everywhere crushes mankind, is a very 
 grave and imperative responsibility. It is within the 
 power of the rich, and the noble in intellect and heart, to 
 take hold of these grave matters and prevent an avalanche 
 of blood and horror, which is inevitable if they do not 
 voluntarily stop the grind of injustice and oppression 
 which now afflict mankind. The power and influence of 
 the Clergy for good cannot be estimated if they would 
 give Political Economy that profound consideration 
 which the importance of the subject demands. There 
 can be no settlement of the labor question until Justice 
 be gained. 
 
THE FALLACIES 
 
 "Progress and Poverty." 
 
 MY object in reviewing ' ' Progress and Poverty ' ' 
 is to set forth, as concisely as possible, what the 
 author has clearly demonstrated to be true, and to criticize 
 him where he is vulnerable. While I venture to do this, I 
 deem it a great book, since it contains truths given in a 
 masterly fashion, such as no other political economist, I 
 have read, has thought of or expressed. But its truths are 
 but a partial solution of the great problem it undertakes 
 to solve. And the author's remedy I deem utterly imprac- 
 ticable and unjust. Therefore do I venture to criticize 
 him, for by so doing I hope to render the cause of truth 
 a valuable service. 
 
 " Progress and Poverty" is subdivided into ten books. 
 Each book treats of a particular theme, and agreeably to 
 the author's opinion they are naturally correlated into 
 one harmonious whole. 
 
 Book I. treats of wages and capital, and the question 
 which the author essays to solve is this : 
 
56 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 " Wliy, in spite of increase in pj-oductive power, do 
 wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare 
 living T" 
 
 The answer which the current political economy gives 
 is that, wages are determined by the number of laborers 
 and the amount of capital devoted to their employment, 
 and constantly tend to the lowest amount on which 
 laborers will consent to live and reproduce, because the 
 increase in the number of laborers tends naturally to over- 
 take the increase of capital. 
 
 Mr. George combats this theory in a vigorous and 
 matter of fact way, by showing that in all new countries 
 where capital is comparatively scarce, interest and wages 
 are high ; while in old countries, where capital is abundant, 
 wages and interest are low. These fafts completely 
 annihilate the theory that wages are determined by the 
 number of laborers and the amount of capital devoted to 
 their employment. 
 
 Having upset the theory that wages are determined by 
 the number of laborers and the amount of capital em- 
 ployed, Mr. George then proceeds to show : — 
 
 " That wages, instead of being drawn from capital, are 
 in reality drawn from the product of the labor for which 
 they are paid." 
 
 The current theory is that, there must be an accumu- 
 lation of capital before labor can be employed. But the 
 facts are diametrically opposed to the theory. For the 
 theory implies the absurdity that capital could be accu- 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 57 
 
 mulated before any work was done. All wealth is the 
 product of work, and all capital must therefore be a part 
 of the accumulated wealth of every nation. But as be- 
 tween the employer and the employee, where do the 
 wages come from ? 
 
 In all production the universal rule is that work must 
 precede the payment of wages, or no wages would or 
 could be paid. Hence the deduction — " That wages, 
 instead of being drawn from capital, are in reality drawn 
 from the product of the labor for which they are paid." 
 
 Mr. George, however, is not satisfied with an argu- 
 ment by deduction to prove his proposition to be true, 
 but, in a truly scientific spirit, proceeds to show that it is 
 true in an elaborate argument by induction. That is to 
 say, he starts with the beginnings of production and 
 traces them up to the more elaborate and complicated 
 methods which now obtain in the manufacturing and 
 commercial world. But before he does this he takes up 
 the words, wealth, capital, rent and wages, and accurately 
 defines them agreeably to his own will, so that he may 
 not be misunderstood. 
 
 Wages are — Whatever is received as the result or 
 reward of exertion. 
 
 Wealth, he says, Consists of natural products that 
 have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in 
 other ways modified by human exertion, so as to fit them 
 for the gratification of human desires. Nothing which 
 nature supplies to man is wealth. 
 
58 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 Capital, he says, Is that part of wealth which is de- 
 voted to the aid of production, ?iothing that is freely 
 supplied by nature can be properly classed as capital. 
 
 Land, he says, Is the whole material universe outside 
 of man himself. 
 
 We are now prepared to follow the author's argument 
 by induction to prove that wages are drawn from the 
 product of the laborer and not from capital. 
 
 He says, " If I devote my labor to gathering bird's eggs 
 or picking berries ; the eggs or berries I thus get are my 
 wages. Surely no one will contend that in such a case 
 wages are drawn from capital. There is no capital in the 
 case. An absolutely naked man, thrown on an island 
 where no human being has before trod, may gather bird's 
 eggs or pick berries. ' ' 
 
 " Or if I take a piece of leather and work it up into a 
 pair of shoes, the shoes are my wages, the reward of my 
 exertion. Surely they are not drawn from capital — 
 either my capital or any one else's capital — but are 
 brought into existence by the labor of which they become 
 the wages ; and in obtaining this pair of shoes as the 
 wages of my labor, capital is not even momentarily 
 lessened one iota. For, if we call in the idea of capital, 
 my capital at the beginning consists of the piece of 
 leather, the thread, &c. As my labor goes on, value 
 is steadily added, until, when my labor results in the 
 finished shoes, I have my capital plus the difference in 
 value between the material and the shoes. In obtain- 
 
"PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 59 
 
 ing this additional value, my shoes, how is capital at 
 any time drawn upon ? ' ' 
 
 The next example he gives is where one works for 
 another and receives his wages in kind. 
 
 " If I hire a man to gather eggs, to pick berries, or to 
 make shoes, paying him from the eggs, the berries, or the 
 shoes, that his labor secures, there can be no question that 
 the source of the wages is the labor for which they are 
 paid. ' ' 
 
 *' The farming of land on shares, which prevails to a 
 considerable extent in the Southern States of the Union 
 and in California, the Metayer system of Europe, as well 
 as the many cases in which superintendents, salesmen, 
 &c, are paid in a percentage of profits, what are they 
 but the employment of labor for wages which consist of 
 part of its produce ? ' ' 
 
 " The next step in the advance from simplicity to com- 
 plexity is where the wages, though estimated in kind, are 
 paid in the equivalent of something else. For instance, 
 on American whaling ships the custom is not to pay fixed 
 wages, but a ' lay, ' or proportion of the catch, which 
 varies from a sixteenth to a twelfth for the captain down 
 to a three-hundreth to the cabin boy. * * * Can any 
 thing be clearer than that these wages — this oil and bone 
 which the crew of the whaler have taken — have not been 
 drawn from capital, but are really a part of the produce 
 of their labor ? And if they are paid in money, after the 
 catch is sold, it is but the equivalent of the bone and oil. ' ' 
 
60 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 "Now, is not what may be seen in all such cases 
 the identity of wages in money with wages in kind — true 
 of all cases in which wages are paid for productive labor ? 
 Is not the fund created by the labor really the fund from 
 which the wages are paid ? ' ' 
 
 " Production is always the mother of wages. Without 
 production, wages would not and could not be. It is 
 from the produce of labor, not from the advances of 
 capital that wages come." 
 
 " Here is a blacksmith at his forge making picks. 
 Clearly he is making capital— adding picks to his em- 
 ployer's capital before he draws money for it in wages." 
 
 ' ' Here is a machinist or boiler maker working on the 
 keel-plates of a Great Eastern. Is not he also just as 
 clearly creating value — making capital ? The giant steam- 
 ship, as the pick, is an article of wealth, an instrument 
 of production, and though the one may not be completed 
 for years, while the other is completed in a few minutes, 
 each day's work, in the one case as in the other, is as 
 clearly a production of wealth, an addition to capital. In 
 the case of the steamship, as in the case of the pick, it is 
 not the last blow, any more than the first blow, that 
 creates the value of the finished product — the creation of 
 value is continuous, it immediately results from the 
 exertion of labor." 
 
 So that the wages paid to the blacksmith and the ship- 
 wright are simply an exchange of one form of product for 
 another ; that the money paid in wages is the product of 
 
"progress and poverty." 6i 
 
 the sales of merchandise previously produced by wage- 
 workers. 
 
 ' ' And so we shall find in every branch of production. 
 Capital has never to be set aside for the payment of 
 wages when the produce of the labor for which the wages 
 are paid is exchanged as soon as produced. ' ' 
 
 Hence the author concludes that — "The man who 
 works for himself gets his wages in the things he pro- 
 duces, as he produces them, and exchanges this value 
 into another form whenever he sells his produce. The 
 man who works for another for stipulated wages in 
 money, works under a contract of exchange. He also 
 creates his wages as he renders his labor, but he does not 
 get them except at stated times, in stated amounts and 
 in a different form. In performing the labor he is ad- 
 vancing in exchange ; when he gets his wages the ex- 
 change is complete. During the time he is earning the 
 wages he is advancing capital to his employer, but at no 
 time, unless wages are paid before work is done, is the 
 employer advancing capital to him." 
 
 'Tis useless to multiply examples. Against all opposi- 
 tion Mr. George maintains his ground. Even where 
 groceries and clothing are advanced in anticipation of the 
 wages to be paid for them, capital is not advanced, 
 because capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to 
 production, and not that part which is devoted to con- 
 sumption. ' ' The precise time of the payment of wages 
 is immaterial," says Mr. George; "the essential point, 
 
62 "PROGRESS and poverty." 
 
 the point I lay stress on is that it is after the performance 
 of the work. ' ' 
 
 Hence the demonstration is complete, the proposition 
 is maintained — ",That wages, instead of being drawn 
 from capital, are in reality drawn from the product of the 
 labor for which they are paid." 
 
 The important deduction derived from this demonstra- 
 tion is this : " If wages are drawn, not from capital, but 
 from the produce of labor, the current theories as to the 
 relations of capital and labor are invalid, and all rem- 
 edies which look to the alleviation of poverty either by 
 the increase of capital or the restriction of the number of 
 laborers, or the efficiency of their work, must be con- 
 demned." 
 
 '.' If each laborer in performing the work really creates 
 the fund from which his wages are drawn, then wages 
 cannot be diminished by the increase of laborers, but, on 
 the contrary, as the efficiency of the labor manifestly 
 increases with the number of laborers, the more laborers, 
 other things being equal, the higher should wages be. ' ' 
 
 Book II. treats of Population and Subsistence, and the 
 question the author discusses is : 
 
 " Do the produclive powers of nature tend to diminish 
 •with the increasing drafts made tLpon them by increasing 
 population ? " 
 
 Mr. George answers this question with an emphatic 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 63 
 
 negative and proceeds to answer the theory of Malthus 
 which affirms the absurdity that : — 
 
 ' ' Whatever be the capacity for production, the natural 
 tendency of population is to come up with it, and, in the 
 endeavor to press beyond it, to produce that degree of 
 vice and misery which is necessary to prevent further 
 increase ; so that as productive power is increased, popu- 
 lation will correspondingly increase, and in a little time 
 produce the same results as before. ' ' 
 
 Mr. George maintains that nowhere is there an in- 
 stance, in any stage of civilization, that will support this 
 theory. That the vice and misery attributed to over- 
 population can be traced to " warfare, tyranny and 
 oppression " which prevent the retention of the product 
 of the laborer in his own possession. Go where you will, 
 into India, China, Ireland, Egypt, Russia, Germany, 
 England, anywhere, yea, even in the United States, and 
 like causes produce like results. The masses are robbed 
 by bad governments, by landlords, and by increase, and 
 that in no case can vice and misery be traced to the 
 niggardliness of nature, or to the increase of population 
 over the means of subsistence. 
 
 In conjunction with these facts Mr. George shows that 
 the analogies adduced in support of the theory are not 
 true. He says : " The strength of the reproductive 
 force in the vegetable and animal kingdoms — such facts 
 as that a single pair of salmon might, if preserved from 
 their natural enemies for a few years, fill the ocean ; that 
 
64 "progress and poverty. 
 
 a pair of rabbits would, under the same circumstance, 
 soon overrun a continent ; that many plants scatter their 
 seeds a hundred fold, and some insects deposit thousands 
 of eggs ; and that every where through these kingdoms 
 each species constantly tends to press, and when not 
 limited by the number of its enemies, evidently does 
 press, against the limits of subsistence — is constantly 
 cited, from Malthus down to the text books of the present 
 day, as showing that population likewise tends to press 
 against subsistence, and, when unrestrained by other 
 means, its natural increase must naturally result in such 
 low wages and want, or in such actual starvation, as will 
 keep it within the limits of subsistence. ' ' 
 
 Mr. George maintains that the analogy is not valid ; 
 because it is from the vegetable and animal kingdoms 
 that man gains his food ; and since the reproductive 
 force in these two kingdoms is much greater than the re- 
 productive force in man, therefore the increase of popula- 
 tion cannot exceed the means of subsistence. It is a facl: 
 every where observable, that all kinds of fruits, cereals, 
 vegetables, fishes and animals, multiply a thousand 
 fold faster than man. Moreover, by the application of 
 man's inventive genius and skill he can mightily increase 
 everything needed for the gratification of his desires. 
 Unlike the wild beast which lives upon, and is supplied 
 by, the wild product of bounteous nature, man's capacity 
 to produce is limited only by Nature's capacity to furnish 
 the raw material. Man is correlated to the remotest star. 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 65 
 
 He draws from everywhere. There is nothing he does not 
 utilize. Even weeds contain virtues which he will orie day 
 know and use. Man will never lack for anything he may 
 need, by reason of the niggardliness of Nature, until the 
 resources of the planet on which he lives are exhausted, 
 which can never be. To suppose otherwise is to impeach 
 the wisdom of God. We may therefore dismiss the 
 Malthusian doctrine as absurd, since it is not in harmony 
 with the facts, and is opposed by the nature of things. 
 
 Book III. We are now prepared to trace the causes 
 which produce poverty in the midst of increasing wealth. 
 Book III., which treats of The Laws of Distribution, 
 pretends to have done this. We will now proceed to ex- 
 amine it. 
 
 In the first book the author has clearly shown that all 
 wages are paid out of the product of the worker. And 
 in the second book he has shown that population does 
 not increase faster than the means of subsistence. Then 
 the cause of poverty in the midst of increasing wealth 
 must be found in its distribution. 
 
 That part of wealth which goes to land-owners for the 
 use of land, Mr. George calls Rent ; and that part 
 of it which goes to capital he calls Interest. 
 
 He says that ' ' Rent is the price of monopoly, arising 
 from the reduction to individual ownership of natural 
 elements which human exertion can neither produce nor 
 increase." 
 
66 ' ' PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 Were it possible for man to monopolize sunlight, air 
 and water, he would as surely do it as he now monopo- 
 lizes land to gratify his unholy selfishness. Think for a 
 moment, of the monstrous immorality of selling sun-light, 
 air and water ! Taxing mankind for the use of these free 
 gifts, the bountiful provisions of God ! And yet it is just 
 as monstrous, in a moral point of view, to sell land, as it 
 would be to sell sunlight or air, and equally flagitious to 
 rent it for increase. 
 
 Mr. George says — "Rent is the price of Mon- 
 opoly " — which he illustrates substantially as follows : 
 We will suppose that a certain piece of land will produce, 
 on the average ioo, by the application of a given amount 
 of work and capital, and that this land is private property. 
 Adjacent to it is some free land, which we will call the 
 margin of cultivation, and by the application of the same 
 amount of work and capital will produce but 80. The dif- 
 ference between 100 and 80 is the rent which will have to 
 be paid to the owner of the first piece of land. The rent 
 will therefore be one-fifth, or 20 per cent, of the product. 
 
 If the same amount of work and capital applied to 
 manufactures will produce on the free land, or the margin 
 of cultivation, 90 ; then agriculture will rush to manu- 
 factures until, by competition, the equilibrium is restored. 
 If manufactures produce less than can be gained by agri- 
 culture on the free land, or the margin of cultivation, then 
 manufactures will rush to farming until, by competition, 
 the equilibrium is again restored. 
 
"progress and poverty." 67 
 
 The same principle applies to city lands as obtains in 
 agricultural lands. A building lot in the heart of a city 
 will bring a much higher rent than a lot of equal dimen- 
 sions on the border. If a business planted on a lot in the 
 heart of a city will produce 100, and the same amount of 
 work and capital applied to a business on a lot on the 
 border will bring but 50, then the rent for the lot in the 
 heart of the city will be 50. 
 
 The difference between the total product of work done, 
 in any country, and what is paid for rent, determines 
 what is left for wages and capital. In other words, the 
 product which is realized by the same application of work 
 and capital to the poorest lands, or lands on which there 
 is no rent, determines the amount of the total product of 
 work which is paid to landlords. 
 
 Hence wages, and interest for capital, do not depend 
 upon the product of work and capital, but upon what is 
 left after rent is paid ; or what they could gain without 
 paying rent from the margin of cultivation, or the poorest 
 land in use. Therefore, no matter what may be the in- 
 crease in productive power by the application of machinery 
 and the division of labor, if the increase of rent keeps 
 pace with it, neither wages nor interest can increase. 
 
 Mr. George wherefore says : ' ' The moment this 
 simple relation is recognized, a flood of light streams in 
 upon what was before inexplicable. * * * The increase 
 of rent which goes on in progressive countries is at once 
 seen to be the key which explains why wages and interest 
 
68 ' ' PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 fail to increase with increase of productive power. For 
 the wealth produced in every community is divided into 
 two parts by what may be called the rent line, which is 
 fixed by the margin of cultivation, or the return which 
 labor and capital could obtain from such natural oppor- 
 tunities as are free to them without the payment of rent. 
 From the part of the produce below this line wages and 
 interest must be paid. All that is above goes to the 
 owners of land. Thus where the value of land is low, 
 there may be a small production of wealth, and yet a high 
 rate of interest and wages, as we see in new countries. 
 And, where the value of land is high, there may be very 
 large production of wealth, and yet a low rate of interest 
 and wages, as we see in old countries. And, where pro- 
 ductive power increases, as it is increasing in all progressive 
 countries, wages and interest will be affected, not by the 
 increase, but by the manner in which rent is affected. 
 If the value of land increases proportionally, all the 
 increased production will be swallowed up by rent, and 
 wages and interest will remain as before. If the value of 
 land increases in greater ratio than productive power, 
 rent will swallow up more of the increase ; and while the 
 produce of labor and capital will be much larger, wages 
 and interest will fall. It is only when the value of land 
 fails to increase as rapidly as productive power, that wages 
 and interest can increase with the increase of productive 
 power. All this is exemplified in actual fact." 
 . This reasoning, and the facts thus set forth by Mr. 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 69 
 
 George, develop this important' revelation, viz : That the 
 monopoly of land is the cause of universal competition in 
 its virulent fo%.m ; and also the cause of other monopolies, 
 and of interest. 
 
 Having thus developed the origin of Rent, we will 
 now examine Mr. George's theory of the origin of 
 Interest. It is in the discussion of this question that he 
 is unscientific, illogical and absurd. I regret it exceed- 
 ingly. For he is one of the finest writers and logical 
 reasoners on political economy it has been my fortune to 
 read. Like all other political economists I have read, 
 excepting Mr. Macleod, he has failed to stick logically 
 to his definitions and premises. He has therefore gone 
 astray and arrived at very erroneous and misleading con- 
 clusions. These things I shall show as we proceed with 
 his argument. 
 
 He first essays to find the cause of Interest as follows : 
 " Why should interest be ? Interest, we are told, in 
 all the standard works, is the reward of abstinence. But 
 manifestly, this does not sufficiently account for it. Ab- 
 stinence is not an active, but a passive quality ; it is not a 
 doing — it is simply a not doing. Abstinence in itself 
 produces nothing. Why, then, should any part of what 
 is, produced be claimed for it ? If I have a sum of 
 money which I lock up for a year, I have exercised as 
 much abstinence as though I had loaned it. Yet, though 
 in the latter case I shall expect it to be returned to me 
 
70 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 with an additional sum by way of interest, in the former 
 I will have but the same sum, and no interest. But the 
 abstinence is the same. ' If it be said that in lending it I 
 do the borrower a service, it may be replied that he also 
 does me a service in keeping it safely — a service that 
 under some conditions may be very valuable, and for 
 which I would willingly pay, rather than not have it ; and 
 a service which, as to some forms of capital, may be even 
 more obvious than as to money. For there are many 
 forms of capital which will not keep, but must be con- 
 stantly renewed ; and many which are onerous to main- 
 tain if one has no immediate use for them. So, if the 
 accommodator of capital helps the user of capital by loan- 
 ing it to him, does not the user discharge the debt in full 
 when he hands it back ? Is not the secure preservation, 
 the maintenance, the re-creation of capital, a complete 
 offset to the use ? Accumulation is the end and aim of 
 abstinence. Abstinence can go no farther and -accomplish 
 no more ; nor of itself can it even do this. If we were 
 merely to abstain from using it, how much wealth would 
 disappear in a year ? And how little would be left at the 
 end of two years ? Hence, if more is demanded for 
 abstinence than the safe return of capital, is not labor 
 wronged ? Such ideas as these underlie the wide-spread 
 opinion that interest can only accrue at the expense of 
 labor, and is in fact a robbery of labor which, in a social 
 condition based on justice, would be abolished." 
 This reasoning is unanswerable except in one point. 
 
"PROGRESS and POVERTY." 7 J 
 
 Is it true that a lender renders a service to a borrower ? 
 If William lends a jack-plane to John who wears it out 
 by use, what does justice require of John ? Common 
 sense responds by saying — "John must return to 
 William another jack-plane in as good condition as the 
 one he borrowed." Is that a complete answer? No. 
 Why incomplete? Because, in order that the transaction 
 be perfectly just, John must lend to William some article 
 of utility of equal value with the jack-plane and for the 
 same length of time. When this is done, justice is per- 
 fectly satisfied. But he who lends does no service to the 
 borrower, because he does no work. A loan is only an 
 accommodation and not a service. If John had returned 
 to William a new jack-plane and a day's work besides, 
 William would have received a day's work for which he 
 had given no equivalent. William would therefore have 
 been enriched, at the expense of John, to the amount of 
 one day's work, which would be manifestly unjust. And 
 if William had not received a similar accommodation from 
 John, but had received a new plane, he would have lost 
 nothing. Both would have stood exactly in the same 
 relative position as they were before the loan was made. 
 How, then, can interest be justified? Is it equitable? 
 There is nothing in this illustration to show it to be. 
 What, then, is the cause of interest ? See what Mr. 
 George says : 
 
 ' ' All wealth is not of the nature of planes or money, 
 nor is all production merely the turning into other forms 
 
72 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 
 
 -of the mere inert matter of the universe. It is true that 
 if I put away money, it will not increase. But suppose, 
 instead, I put away wine. At the end of a year I will 
 have an increased value, for the wine will have improved 
 in quality. Or supposing that in a country adapted to 
 them, I set out bees ; at the end of the year I will have 
 more swarms of bees, and the honey which they have 
 made. Or, supposing, where there is a range, I turn out 
 sheep, or hogs, or cattle ; at the end of the year I will, 
 upon the average, also have an increase." 
 
 ' ' Now what gives the increase in these cases is some- 
 thing which, though it generally requires labor to utilize 
 it, is yet distinct and separate from labor — the active 
 power of nature ; the principle of growth, of reproduction, 
 which every where characterizes all the forms of that 
 mysterious thing or condition which we call life. And it 
 seems to me that it is this which is the cause of interest, 
 or the increase of capital over and above that due to 
 labor. There are, so to speak, in the movements which 
 make up the everlasting flux of nature, certain vital 
 currents, which will, if we use them, aid us, with a force 
 independent of our own, in turning matter into the forms 
 we desire — that is to say, into wealth. ' ' 
 
 " If wealth consisted of but the inert matter of the uni- 
 verse, and production of working up this inert matter 
 into different shapes, then interest would be but the 
 robbery of industry, and could not long exist. ' ' 
 
 But because Nature has the power to transmute new 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 73 
 
 wine into old wine ; of increasing a flock of sheep one 
 year into two flocks the next year ; of increasing a herd 
 of cattle one year into two herds the next year ; of in- 
 creasing a calf to an ox ; of increasing one swarm of bees 
 to several swarms of bees : of increasing one grain of 
 wheat into an ear of wheat ; therefore, this power of na- 
 ture to increase, combined with the element of time, con- 
 stitutes the basis, or cause of interest to capital. And, 
 therefore, Mr. George says : 
 
 " In any circle of exchange, the power of increase 
 which the reproductive power of nature gives to some 
 species of capital must average with all ; and he who 
 lends or uses in exchange, money or planes, or bricks, 
 or clothing, is not deprived of the power to obtain an 
 increase, any more than if he had lent or put to a repro- 
 ductive use so much capital in a form capable of increase. ' ' 
 
 " Thus interest springs from the power of increase 
 which the reproductive forces of nature * * * give 
 to capital. It is not an arbitrary, but a natural thin j ; it 
 is not the result of a particular social organization, but 
 of laws of the universe which underlie society. It is, 
 therefore, just." 
 
 Did I not believe that Mr. George was an honest man, 
 I should say he was a moral coward, in that he dares not 
 give the logical deductions of his own brain, for fear that 
 Capital would utterly crucify him for giving it no 
 moral ground in justification of the taking of interest 
 or increase. 
 
74 
 
 How different is his process of reasoning to prove that 
 interest is "just," as compared with his inductive method 
 of proving that wages were drawn from the produce of the 
 laborer, and not from capital ! And how much it differs 
 from his scientific demonstration that the monopoly oi" 
 land is the cause of rent ! It is impossible for me to 
 account for this illogical aberration of his reasoning 
 faculty. It must be borne in mind that he has not ad- 
 duced a single fact in support of his conclusion that 
 interest is derived from the reproductive forces of nature. 
 It is merely an assumption on his part, on which he 
 reasons elaborately without giving a single fact in com- 
 merce to show that his assumption is true. 
 
 I shall now endeavor to show that all of his reasoning 
 on interest is fallacious,- and is caused by his utter failure 
 to stick to his own definitions and fundamental premises. 
 
 Mr. George says : — " Land is the whole material 
 universe outside of man." 
 
 "Wealth consists of natural products, modified by 
 labor, so as to fit them for the use of man. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Capital is that part of wealth used in reproduction. 
 Nothing which nature supplies to man is wealth or 
 capital. ' ' 
 
 And with Adam Smith he holds that — " The produce 
 of labor is the natural recompense, or wages of labor." 
 
 Now if land be neither wealth nor capital ; it is, there- 
 fore, necessarily excluded, by the definition, from the 
 category of things having a commercial and exchange-- 
 
PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 75 
 
 able value. Yet, Mr. George has made so egregious a 
 blunder as to declare that the basis of interest is the 
 transmuting and reproductive forces of nature. But 
 the transmuting and reproductive forces of nature are 
 included in his definition of land. It logically follows, 
 therefore, that all natural forces are excluded from all of 
 those things which constitute wealth or capital. Hence 
 all natural forces have no commercial value whatever 
 because they are neither wealth nor capital ; and, there- 
 fore, cannot be the basis or cause of interest. 
 
 What, then, is the cause of interest ? Let us see if it 
 be not land monopoly. 
 
 In Book IV. , c. 2, Mr. George has presented a beautiful 
 picture of a village growing up, in an unbounded savan- 
 na, around a solitary farmer. This village becomes a 
 town, and the town becomes a city. In this description 
 of an increasing population the author traces the progress 
 of rent. But with a singular fatality, for so fine a thinker, 
 he has utterly overlooked the real cause of Interest, 
 which, according to Mr. George's definition, "is the 
 return which capital can secure, less insurance and 
 wages." 
 
 On the principle that man seeks to gratify his desires 
 with the • least exertion, the merchant, tradesman, or 
 manufacturer, who is obliged to pay rent for the use of 
 land, will necessarily put the rent, or distribute it in the 
 price of the merchandise he sells. And if he have to pay 
 interest on borrowed money and taxes they, also, are 
 
76 "PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 
 
 distributed in the annual sales of merchandise. And the 
 only limit to the merchant's, trader's, or manufacturer's 
 selfishness is what buyers are willing to pay, or what com- 
 petition will allow. Therefore, Rent is the cause of what 
 is commonly called profit. 
 
 If one should go to a money lender to borrow money 
 on ample security without interest, the lender would look 
 on the borrower, perhaps, with amazement or indignation, 
 and would be likely to exclaim — ' ' Do you suppose I 
 shall lend you money for your special advantage for 
 nothing ? If you purpose to invest it so as to enable you 
 to gain a large profit, you ought to be willing to share 
 with me a portion of your income by reason of the benefit 
 you will receive from the use of my money. ' ' That argu- 
 ment suffices and the borrower agrees to pay an amount 
 of interest which is satisfactory to the lender, or what 
 competition among money lenders will allow. 
 
 If a borrower of money, or other form of capital, could 
 gain no profit by its use, he eould pay no interest except 
 at a loss to himself. Business men do not borrow on 
 those conditions. They always do it with the expectation 
 of making larger gains than the interest they are obliged 
 to pay. Hence the truth that Profit is the basis of 
 interest. 
 
 Now, as the volume of rents is determined by the 
 margin of cultivation, or by competition among those who 
 desire to occupy monopolized lands ; and as competition 
 largely dominates and determines the profits of manu- 
 
"PROGRESS AfoD POVERTY." 77 
 
 facturefs, merchants and tradesmen ; and since competi- 
 tion also fixes the rate of interest on capital, except in case 
 of monopoly, what becomes of Mr. George's theory that 
 interest is caused by the transmuting and reproductive 
 forces of nature ? Evidently his theory is a mere assump- 
 tion, not having even the merit Of a single fact by which 
 to establish it as a principle or law. 
 
 We thus perceive that mercantile facts inductively 
 prove that rents, profits and interest are caused by 
 the monopoly of land. Moreover, rents would be im- 
 possible and inconceivable were there no monopoly of 
 land. And since the monopoly of land is the fundamental 
 cause of monopoly and competition in the commercial 
 world, Poverty, in the midst of Progress and multiplied 
 wealth, cannot be eradicated except by removing the un- 
 righteous cause which produces it. Therefore, the only 
 logical and legal thing to do, is to repeal all of the de- 
 fensive laws which protect the land monopolist in his 
 selfish iniquity. 
 
 As land monopoly is the foundation of modern civili- 
 zation, with its extremes of squalor and wretchedness 
 on the one hand, and pyramidal luxury and extravagance 
 on the other, what would be the effect of a general repeal 
 of the laws which defend it ? 
 
 It would utterly annihilate the possibility of any large 
 accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few. It 
 would force upon the world equitable co-operation and 
 distribution of the products of work ; and this stupendous 
 
78 "progress and poverty." 
 
 mountain of social injustice, cruelty, and anti-christianity, 
 inherent in modern civilization, would crumble to atoms, 
 and be to the historians of the future what ancient Jeru- 
 salem, Egypt, and Babylon are to the historians of the 
 present, viz : The dust, and ashes, and remains of a bar- 
 barous civilization. 
 
 Mr. George, like Mill, Ricardo, and others, maintains 
 that Land, Labor and Capital are the three factors in 
 production. That land is a factor in production no one 
 will dispute, since production would be impossible with- 
 out it. And it is equally evident that if man did not 
 apply his brains and hands to the land, no production 
 could be had. But that capital is a factor in production 
 that merits reward by unearned increase, . I most emphat- 
 ically deny. 
 
 If that part of wealth not used in production is not 
 entitled to increase, why should capital have any ? Both 
 are the product of work ; and since the produce of work 
 is its natural recompense, how can capital justly claim 
 unearned increase ? Is not the produce of capital as 
 much the natural reward of work, as that part of wealth 
 not used as capital ? How, then, can interest be justly 
 claimed for capital, and no interest be claimed for wealth 
 not used as capital ? If one be entitled to increase why 
 not the other, since both are the natural recompense of 
 work ? 
 
 The great fallacy that underlies Mr. George's reasoning 
 
PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 79 
 
 is the assumption that capital can produce. The truth is 
 that capital can produce nothing without the superintend- 
 ence of man. Capital, therefore, is nothing more nor less 
 than multiplied hands and brains applied in production. 
 But capital without superintendence is as powerless to 
 produce as a stone. In fact it would decompose, by the 
 corrosive power of the elements, a thousand times quicker 
 than a stone were it not economically managed. A cotton 
 mill, which is a huge pile of capital, if left without super- 
 intendence for three years, would be almost worthless. 
 So would a steam-ship, or any other useful machine. 
 When, therefore, capital and labor combine in production, 
 the product is the natural recompense of the work ex- 
 pended. And the natural value of the product is deter- 
 mined, not by the market price which, under present 
 conditions, is purely arbitrary and fictitious, but by the 
 amount of work required to replace the wear and tear of 
 machinery, &c, plus the work wrought into the product. 
 Therefore, if any interest be claimed for capital, a moral 
 reason must be given for it. But as no moral reason can 
 possibly be adduced why interest should be paid, it logic- 
 ally follows that interest is robbery, and that capital is 
 entitled only to its conservation or replacement. 
 
 Contrast this reasoning with that of Mr. George, who 
 says : 
 
 First. — " That it is not capital which employs labor, 
 but labor which employs capital. ' ' 
 
8o " PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 
 
 Second. — ' ' It is manifest that under conditions of free- 
 dom the maximum that can be given for the use of capital 
 will be the increase it will bring, and the minimum or 
 zero will be the replacement of capital ; for above the one 
 point the borrowing of capital would involve a loss, and 
 below the other, capital could not be maintained.' ' 
 
 If the produce of work and capital combined be the 
 natural reward, and the value of the product is the total 
 amount of work expended in its production, how is in- 
 crease possible? I have already shown that interest is 
 caused by profit ; that profit is caused by rent ; and that 
 rent is caused by the monopoly of land. Therefore, 
 where there is monopoly of land freedom is absolutely 
 impossible. All are slaves to landlords. But remove the 
 causes of rent, profit and interest and all mankind would 
 be perfectly free, and perfectly equal so far as natural 
 opportunities fqr the pursuit of happiness are concerned. 
 Under perfect conditions of freedom no one could afford 
 to pay increase, because none could gain* it. In perfect 
 freedom the element of injustice or advantage-taking 
 would be eliminated from all exchanges. Rent would be 
 impossible, consequently every form of increase would 
 also be impossible, except to a very limited degree. And 
 instead of the wage system, as we now have it, we should 
 have social arrangements by which every man, woman 
 and child would be the supreme monarch of what each 
 produced without diminution by the exactions of rent, 
 profit and interest. 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 8l 
 
 In Book V. Mr. George shows that the primary cause 
 of recurring paroxysms of industrial depression and the 
 persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth are not 
 caused by over-production, and under-consumption, but 
 by speculation in land. On this point he says : 
 
 ' ' That land speculation is the true cause of industrial 
 depression is, in the United States, clearly evident. In 
 each period of industrial activity land values have steadily 
 risen, culminating in speculation which carried them up 
 in great jumps. This has been invariably followed by a 
 partial cessation of production, and its correlative, a 
 cessation of effective demand, (dull trade,) generally 
 accompanied by a commercial crash ; and then has suc- 
 ceeded a period of comparative stagnation, during which 
 the equilibrium has been again slowly established, and 
 the same round been run again. This relation is observ- 
 able throughout the civilized world. Periods of industrial 
 activity always culminate in a speculative advance of land 
 values, followed by symptoms of checked production, 
 generally shown at first by cessation of demand from the 
 newer countries, where the advance of land values has 
 been greatest." 
 
 He also maintains that the speculation in, and the ab- 
 sorption of the land by the few, and the consequent 
 increase in land values, makes it harder and harder for 
 every child born into the world to gain its livelihood with 
 its own hands. For with every youth comes a pair of 
 hands to feed its mouth and clothe its back, provided that 
 
82 "progress and poverty." 
 
 nature's storehouse of means are not withheld from him. 
 And with every pair of hands comes increased power of 
 production. For any one can see that every soul, with 
 an average healthy body and mind can at least earn its 
 own living and add somewhat to the aggregate wealth 
 of the world and the weal of man. Why, then, this 
 constant increase of poverty amid the increase of 
 wealth ? This monstrous and distressing anomaly Mr. 
 George has clearly shown is caused by the monopoly of 
 the land. 
 
 " Everywhere, in all times, among all peoples, the 
 possession of land is the basis of aristocracy, the founda- 
 tion of great fortunes, the source of power. As said the 
 Brahmins, ages ago." 
 
 " To whomsoever the soil at any time belongs, to him 
 belong the fruits of it. White parasols and elephants maa 
 with pride are the flowers of a grant of land '." 
 
 In Book VI., Mr. George sets forth his remedy for in- 
 creasing poverty amid increasing wealth, as follows : 
 
 " There is but one way to remove an evil — and 
 that is to remove its cause. Poverty deepens as wealth 
 increases, and wages are forced down while productive 
 power grows, because land, which is the source of all 
 wealth and the field of all labor, is monopolized. To 
 extirpate poverty, to make wages what justice com- 
 mands they should be, the full earnings of the laborer, 
 we must therefore substitute for the individual owner- 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 83 
 
 ship of land a common ownership. Nothing else will 
 go to the cause of the evil — in nothing else is there the 
 slightest hope." 
 
 ' ' This, then, is the remedy for the unjust and unequal 
 distribution of wealth apparent in modern civilization, and 
 for all the evils which flow from it. ' ' 
 
 " We must make land common property." 
 
 ' ' The equal right of all men to the use of land is as 
 clear as their equal right to breathe the air — it is a right 
 proclaimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot 
 suppose that some men have a right to be in this world 
 and others no right. ' ' 
 
 " The wide spreading social evils which every where 
 oppress men amid an advancing civilization, spring from 
 a great primary wrong — the appropriation, as the exclu- 
 sive property of some men, of the land on which and from 
 which all must live. From this fundamental injustice flow 
 all the injustices which distort and endanger modern de- 
 velopment, which condemn the producer of wealth to 
 poverty and pamper the non-producer in luxury, which 
 rear the tenement house with the palace, plant the brothel 
 behind the church, and compel us to build prisons as we 
 open new schools." 
 
 " The recognition of individual proprietorship of land 
 is the denial of the natural rights of other individuals, it 
 is a wrong which must show itself in the inevitable division 
 of wealth. For as labor cannot produce without the use 
 of land, the denial of the equal right to the use of land is 
 
84 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 
 
 necessarily the denial of the right of labor to its own 
 produce. ' ' 
 
 " The right to exclusive ownership of any thing of 
 human production is clear. No matter how many the 
 hands through which it has passed, there was, at the be- 
 ginning of the line, human labor — some one who having 
 procured or produced it by his exertions, had to it a clear 
 title as against all the rest of mankind, and which could 
 justly pass from one to another by sale or gift. But at 
 the end of what string of conveyances, or grants, can be 
 shown or supposed a like title to any part of the material 
 universe? To the improvements such an original title 
 can be shown ; but it is a title only to the improvements, 
 and not to the land itself." 
 
 " But it will be said : There are improvements which 
 in time become undistinguishable from the land itself! 
 Very well ; then the title to the improvements becomes 
 blended with the title to the land ; the individual right is 
 lost in the common right." 
 
 " Yet, it will be said : As every man has a right to 
 the use and enjoyment of nature, the man who is using 
 land must be permitted the exclusive right to its use in 
 order that he may get the full benefit of his labor. But 
 there is no difficulty in determining where the individual 
 right ends and the common right begins. ' ' 
 
 ' ' The value of land, as we have seen, is the price of 
 monopoly. It is not the absolute, but the relative, capa- 
 bility of land that determines its value. No matter what 
 
"PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 85 
 
 may be its intrinsic qualities, land that is no better than 
 other land which may be had for the using, can have no 
 value. And the value of land always measures the differ- 
 ence between it and the best land that may be had for the 
 using. Thus, the value of land expresses in exact and 
 tangible form the right of the community in land held by 
 the individual ; and rent expresses the exact amount which 
 the individual should pay to the community to satisfy the 
 equal rights of all other members of the community. 
 Thus, if we concede to priority of possession the undis- 
 turbed use of land, confiscating rent for the benefit of the 
 community, We reconcile the fixity of tenure which is 
 necessary for improvement with a full and complete 
 recognition of the equal rights of all to the use of land. ' ' 
 
 Thus have I quoted Mr. George at great length in 
 order that I might present the exact idea he wishes to 
 express as the basis of his remedy, which I will illustrate 
 as follows : 
 
 Suppose two adjacent farms of equal dimensions having 
 unequal qualities of soil, one being rich and the other 
 comparatively poor, on which the same amount of capital 
 and labor are employed, each being equally well man- 
 aged, but the average produce of the one is 100, while 
 ' the average produce of the other is but 60. Now the 
 difference of productive power between the two farms is 
 therefore 40. Hence, in the language of the author, 
 " It is not the absolute, but the relative, capability of the 
 
86 "progress and poverty." 
 
 land that determines its value." If, therefore, the value 
 of the produce of the one farm be $i,ooo, the value of the 
 produce of the other will be $600. Hence the rentable 
 value of the better farm would be $400, while the rent 
 of the other would be zero, assuming it to be free land. 
 
 Now, the difference in the productive power of two 
 such farms is what John Stewart Mill calls ' ' the unearned 
 increment." It is what nature does over and above what 
 man does. It is this which Mr. George would confiscate 
 for the benefit of the community. It is this he would tax 
 and put into the common treasury for the public good. 
 It is this that would equalize incomes. It is this from 
 which Mr. George derives his preposterous idea of in- 
 terest. It is this that would produce justice, peace, 
 plenty, prosperity and happiness throughout the world ! 
 
 I know of no proposition, projected by any thinker, 
 for the removal of poverty amid increasing wealth, more 
 absurd or unjust than this. By what right, human or 
 Divine, does Mr. George tax out of the general product 
 the unearned increment ? How, in the nature of things, 
 can he claim that the transmuting and reproductive 
 forces of nature are justly taxable property. He has 
 declared that land is the whole material universe, and 
 that it is neither wealth nor capital. How, then, can he 
 tax it, since it is not property in any sense ? How can 
 land be property any more than lightning, sunlight, or 
 rain ? If an individual can not have property in land, 
 how can the community, or the State ? It is readily seen 
 
"progress and poverty." 87 
 
 how one can have property in what he produces, but how 
 can one have property in what he does not and can not 
 produce ? If land be the whole material universe outside 
 of man himself ; how can it, or any part of it, be prop- 
 erty ? He admits that land is made for use and not for 
 ownership. How then can it be property ? If one dig 
 clay out of the ground and mould it into bricks, has he 
 property in the clay ? or only in the work he has put into 
 the clay ? Is the sun that paints the photographer's 
 picture property, or only the work which he himself has 
 wrought into it ? Are the winds that blow our ships 
 from ocean to ocean, or fill the sails of a wind-mill, 
 property ? Is that productive force in the animal king- 
 dom which makes a flock of sheep one year, two flocks 
 the next year, property ? Does the astronomer who 
 uses the sun, moon and stars, own them ? Or is the 
 navigator, who guides his ship by them, both by night 
 and by day, the rightful possessor of them ? If land be 
 the whole material universe, how can one have property 
 in the planet on which he lives, and no property in the 
 rest of the universe ? If man can have property in the 
 earth, why not in the heavens to which man is so closely 
 correlated ? Can man have property in himself ? in his 
 own powers, physical, intellectual, emotional and moral ? 
 In a word, can one have property in anything he does 
 not do ? or in any thing he does not produce ? Then 
 how can the individual, the community, or the State, 
 have property in land ? Wherein, then, consists the 
 wisdom of this paragraph ? 
 
88 "PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 
 
 Mr. George says : ' ' Would not the land be cultivated 
 and improved just as well if the rent, (namely, the un- 
 earned increment,) went to the State or municipality, as 
 now, when it goes to private individuals ? If no private 
 ownership in land were acknowledged, but all land were 
 held in this way, the occupier or user paying rent to the 
 State, would not land be used and improved as well and 
 as securely as now ? There can be but one answer : 
 Of course it would. Then the resumption of land as 
 common property would in nowise interfere with the 
 proper use and improvement of land." 
 
 Is it not clear that Mr. George is thoroughly muddled ? 
 That he is mixing premises, and is thereby drawing un- 
 philosophical and unscientific conclusions ? Has he not 
 proven that the monopoly of land is the cause of rent ? 
 Why, then, does he now assume that it is the unearned 
 increment which is the cause of rent ? 
 
 The great bug-bear, the thing Mr. George does not 
 know how to dispose of, is John Sewart Mill's "un- 
 earned increment." It is this that has deflected his 
 reasoning faculty. He does not know what to do with it. 
 Hence he says, let the State become the landlord, and 
 then tax the unearned increment and appropriate it as 
 rent paid to the State. 
 
 Can there be, in production,' an unearned increment ? 
 I plant a potato in the ground. The sun warms it, and 
 the rains fall upon it. It buds and grows. I weed it. 
 I hoe it. It grows to be a large plant. I clean it of 
 
" PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 89 
 
 parasites. And the reproductive forces of nature cause 
 ten potatoes to grow where I planted one. Whose 
 potatoes are they? 
 
 My neighbor plants a potato, and cares for it as I did 
 for mine. He worked no more than I, and used no more 
 capital or skill, but he harvested fifteen potatoes while I 
 harvested but ten. Whose potatoes are they? Mr. 
 George says : Wages are whatever is received as the re- 
 sult or reward of exertion. How, then can he, in equity, 
 appropriate for the benefit of the State, my neighbor's 
 excess of five potatoes, over and above what potatoes I 
 received as my wages? '- Is not' this proposition, for re- 
 moving poverty amid increasing wealth, monstrously 
 unjust and strikingly illogical, viewed in the light of his 
 fundamental premise that—" The produce of labor is the 
 natural recompense or wages of labor ? ' ' 
 
 To show that I do not misrepresent him I will quote 
 the words he used in conversation with the corresponding 
 editor of the " Newcastle-on-Tyne Chronicle, " (England). 
 He said — 
 
 ' ' Rent paid to the State would be a payment by the 
 individual user to the community for a special privilege: 
 which the community accorded him, and it ought to be 
 fixed so that there may be taken from the individual user 
 and turned into the common fund, what in political 
 economy is termed ' rent ; ' that is to say, the income 
 which any particular piece of land will yield to the appli- 
 cation of labor and capital, over the ordinary rewards 
 
90 PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 which the same application of labor and capital would 
 otherwise obtain. This would put all members of the 
 community on the same plane. The natural rewards of 
 labor and capital, and that income which arises from 
 special natural opportunities, or from the growth and 
 progress of the community, would go to the community 
 at large. In other words, the people as a whole would 
 take what John Stewart Mill called ' the unearned incre- 
 ment ' in the value of the land, while to individuals could 
 be left that value which their individual exertions produce. " 
 
 What is it " that would put all members of the com- 
 munity on the same plane ' ' and leave to individuals that 
 value which their individual exertions produce ? It is 
 simply this : Tax the excess of my neighbor' s potatoes. 
 This is Mr. George's grand panacea for removing poverty 
 amid increasing wealth ! 
 
 Had Mr. George beheld this natural law that — 
 
 The exchangeable value of all labor-products and 
 services is justly determined by the amount of work 
 wrought into them — 
 
 He would have had no trouble whatever over the un- 
 earned increment. He would have seen clearly enough 
 that my ten potatoes, and my neighbor' s fifteen potatoes, 
 " had precisely the same exchangeable value, because the 
 same amount of skill, labor and capital had been expended 
 in their production. The only economic quantity which 
 enters into all production, and all useful services, and all 
 exchanges — is Work. It is the only quantity which can, 
 
PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 91 
 
 by any possibility, enter into commercial exchanges. 
 Therefore, my neighbor's fifteen potatoes and my ten 
 potatoes had precisely the same exchangeable value. 
 
 It will be said — ' ' No one will give as much work for 
 ten, as for fifteen potatoes. On what principle of ex- 
 change would you dispose of your inferior crop ? " I 
 should be obliged to sell them for two-thirds of their just 
 value. And the wisdom I gain from this experience is 
 this : Never plant potatoes in inferior soil, but always 
 plant them in soil which will, on the average, yield as 
 many potatoes to the acre, as that of your neighbor's, other 
 things being equal. 
 
 This reasoning proves, conclusively, that there is no 
 such thing possible as an unearned increment. The pro- 
 duce of work is the natural recompense of work. 
 
 Therefore, Mr. George's scheme, for taxing an incre- 
 ment which does not exist, that incomes may be equalized, 
 that the State may become the landlord instead of the 
 individual — is an impracticable dream, a vain and idle 
 fancy. 
 
 To tax one class of producers, for the benefit of another 
 class, would be manifestly unjust. It would be equally 
 flagitious to do the same thing to equalize incomes. How, 
 then, shall we gain justice, that poverty may cease amid 
 increasing wealth ? I shall conclude my criticism of 
 ' ' Progress and Poverty ' ' by answering that question. 
 
92 ' ' progress and poverty. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 Mr. George has clearly demonstrated three things. 
 He has shown that wages are not drawn from capital, 
 but from the produce of the worker ; that the Malthusian 
 doctrine, that population increases faster than the means 
 of subsistence, is a fallacy ; and that rent is caused by the 
 monopoly of land. He has utterly failed, however, to 
 prove' that interest is caused by the reproductive forces 
 of nature ; or by the unearned increment. The cause of 
 his failure, in this particular, is attributable to his having 
 dropped the purely scientific method of investigation. 
 He put on the glasses of.the pure speculator. By seeing 
 through them darkly he lost his foothold, and fell. 
 I have picked him up right where he stumbled, and have 
 shown that rent is the cause of profit ; that profit is the 
 cause of interest ; and that rent, profit and interest are, 
 conjointly, caused by the monopoly of the land. 
 
 Before we can properly remove an evil, we must first, 
 by careful analysis, determine its cause. The cause of 
 poverty, in the midst of increasing wealth, is land mo- 
 nopoly, as Mr. George has irrefutably demonstrated. 
 Therefore, to stop poverty among industrious people, 
 we must stop land monopoly. How shall we do this ? 
 The method ought to be the method of peace, and not 
 that of war, particularly in a nation where the ballot is in 
 every man's hand. The first great and almost insuper- 
 able obstacle which stands in the way of reform, is 
 unrighteous selfishness. The second great obstacles in 
 
' " PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 93 
 
 th« way of reform, are the defensive laws, backed by the 
 power of the State, which uphold the monopoly and sale 
 ef land. Were not this giant iniquity — the monopoly 
 of land — sustained by the power of the State, there would 
 be but one obstacle to remove, viz : — The ignorance and 
 perverted moral sense of mankind. 
 
 Two things, therefore, need doing, First, the removal 
 of ignorance ; and, Second, The repeal of obnoxious 
 laws. The removal of ignorance can be gained by general 
 agitation and discussion in the churches and colleges ; 
 and, also, by the general diffusion of thought, on these 
 themes, through the press. When the people shall have 
 acquired an educated conscience in this way, then the 
 ballot can be intelligently used to repeal obnoxious laws, 
 and establish such other laws as are in harmony with 
 justice. 
 
 The effect of such a revolution as this, would cause 
 rents to tumble down to zero ; or, in other words, to the 
 wear and tear of property and taxes. For as soon as the 
 defensive laws are repealed which protect the monopolist 
 of land, that moment will all unused and unoccupied land, 
 now held for speculation, be opened for occupancy by the 
 landless. And since there are thousands and tens of 
 thousands of lots, in and around our great cities, which 
 are now unoccupied and unused, there would begin a 
 demand for them such as the world has never seen. But 
 the rush need not be a disorderly one. For it might be 
 previously arranged by law, or by mutual consent, that 
 
94 " PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 all persons who desire to occupy a given plot of land, 
 should be there at a given hour and day, and then let lots 
 be drawn to determine who should have it, and to whom- 
 soever the lot fell it should be his for use. And so of all 
 other lands which may be unoccupied or unused. 
 
 The effect of such a reform would be well nigh miracu- 
 lous. For so many men, having families and some 
 means, would gladly go to these chosen lots and forth- 
 with cause to be erected their own cottages r however 
 humble they might be, which would necessitate the 
 vacation of all the houses they had been paying rent for. 
 The consequences would be that all the houses they had 
 left would stand humbly begging for tenants, when land- 
 lords would be glad to let their houses to any one who 
 would keep them in order and preserve them from decay, 
 or sell them at a just valuation. 
 
 An objector to this plan might ask : " Would not your 
 scheme work a grave injustice to all who had bought 
 lands for speculation, and who live from the income 
 derived from such investments?" No ! For he who 
 gains an income which enables him to live without work, 
 is either a thief or a robber. An income gained at the 
 expense of others, is always an immoral act — an adit 
 of injustice. Therefore, no injustice can, by any possi- 
 bility, work to any one who may be deprived of the 
 means of gaining an income which he does not earn 
 in the sweat of his own face. The monopoly and sale 
 of land are a grave injustice which cannot be defended 
 
"progress and poverty." 95 
 
 on moral ground. He who has thus selfishly, though 
 innocently, invested his money for unholy gain, when the 
 day of reformation comes, may make up his mind to 
 lose it as gracefully as possible. Stolen goods bought 
 by an honest man, may be taken by the owner without 
 compensation. So lands and mines monopolized for un- 
 righteous gain may be confiscated for the common good. 
 The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind to the 
 end that justice may be gained. Landlords must be 
 taught to voluntarily Telinquish rents which exceed the 
 wear*and tear of property, since they cannot, in any way, 
 give a moral reason for increase. And statute law must 
 be made to conform to Moral Law. 
 
 This scheme of Justice will necessarily supersede Mr. 
 George's plan of taxing the unearned increment and 
 appropriating it by the State. As there is no such thing 
 as an unearned increment in production., the State will 
 have nothing of the kind to appropriate. Consequently 
 Mr. George's plan falls through default of means. 
 
 "^m^ 3 
 
^ THE FALLACIES 
 
 IN 
 
 "Social Problems." 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after the completion of the above 
 paper, I read with profit Henry George's second 
 book entitled, ' ' Social Problems. ' ' As space and pur- 
 pose will not permit me to dwell on the general contents 
 of the book, I cannot refrain from saying a few words 
 more on what he conceives to be the " Law of Rent." 
 
 Better far would it have been had he not dignified rent 
 by endeavoring to show that it originated in natural law. 
 Rent is robbery. Hence it never should be dignified by 
 saying it had its origin in natural law ; for this is virtually 
 .charging the Supreme Being with its production, when in 
 fact it is the outcome of ignorance and greed. 
 
 On page 295 he says : 
 
 ' ' This is the law of rent : As individuals come together 
 in communities, and society grows, integrating more and 
 more its individual members, * * * * there arises, 
 over and above the value that individuals can create for 
 themselves, a value that is created by the community as 
 
Qg "SOCIAL PROBLEMS." 
 
 a whole, and which attaching to land, becomes tangible, 
 definite, and capable of computation and appropriation. 
 As society grows, so grows this value, which springs 
 from, and represents in tangible form, what society as a 
 whole contributes to production, as distinguished from 
 what is contributed by individual exertion. By virtue of 
 natural law * * * all social advance necessarily con- 
 tributes to the increase of this common value ; to the 
 growth of this common fund." 
 
 Mr. George thus maintains that there is a value that 
 " is contributed by individual exertion," and a value 
 ' ' which is created by the community as a whole. ' ' Here, 
 then, are two kinds of value in a treatise on Economics 
 that is supposed to be scientific ; and this is — "By 
 virtue of natural law." 
 
 I recognize but one Value in Economics, viz — Value 
 in Exchange. There is no other estimable value ; and, 
 therefore, there is none other which we need to consider. 
 To assume that there are two values is to be unscientific. 
 Now, let us examine Mr. George's theory of value that 
 he alleges is created by the community as a whole, in 
 contradistinction to that which is produced by individuals. 
 
 Suppose that in the heart of a city/ five hundred men 
 have assembled upon an acre lot, that is to be sold at 
 auction to the highest bidder. The bidding begins at 
 $10,000 and ends at $1,000,000. Has any value been 
 created ? If so it must have been created by the com- 
 munity as a whole, since it was not created by any 
 
" SOCIAL PROBLEMS." 99 
 
 particular individuals. But in what does this value con- 
 sist ? Is it caused by the integration of individuals who 
 have done no work ? If this were so, then value can be 
 created out of nothing. But this is incredible and im- 
 possible. Is land Value ? If it is, then it is wealth. Bui 
 Mr. George says land is not wealth : therefore it is not 
 value according to his definition. Hence this value, which 
 " society as a whole contributes to production," must be 
 an abstraction, a myth. He says, however, it is " tangible, 
 definite and capable of computation and appropriation. ' ' 
 And, " By virtue of natural law * * * all social ad- 
 vance necessarily contributes to the increase of this 
 common value ; to the growth of this common fund. ' ' 
 
 However intense demand may be, it cannot produce 
 this " common fund." Demand did not produce the lot, 
 neither did it produce the dollars paid for it. Whence, 
 then, this " common fund" which is the product of " the 
 law of rent ? ' ' Evidently there is none. Nature pro- 
 hibits it. Analysis denies it. Hence it is a pure fiction. 
 And his "law of rent" is just* as mythical as his 
 ' ' common fund. ' ' 
 
 If, then, there be no common fund, how can it be 
 tangible, definite and capable of appropriation ? I deny 
 the existence of it. Hence there is nothing for society to 
 appropriate, through taxation, which is Mr. George's 
 remedy for landlordism. 
 
 Wealth or Value cannot be produced without work. 
 The million dollars paid for the hypothetical lot were the 
 
IOO SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 product of work, if they were honest dollars, which is the 
 hypothesis in this example. Consequently they were not 
 the product of society as a whole ; they were the product 
 of previous individual exertion. And the lot which sold 
 for a million was purely an arbitrary sale, arising from 
 the competitive selfishness of the human nature, and not 
 in consonance with natural law ; for land is naturally and 
 economically valueless by the ordination of the Supreme 
 Being. Man's selfishness alone is the cause of this trans- 
 gression. Hence Mr. George's common fund, and com- 
 mon value are purely figments of the imagination. There 
 never was a theory more utterly devoid of essential truth 
 than John Stewart Mills' " unearned increment," or Mr. 
 George's " common value," or " common fund." 
 
 The corollary to this truth is simply this — the State 
 has nothing to tax from the landlords. All that the State 
 can legitimately do is to prohibit by law the monopoly and 
 sale of land. Or in other words, repeal all the defensive 
 laws that protect this iniquity. Having repealed the 
 defensive laws, then co-operate to the end that landlords 
 be paid no more for rent than the replacement of property 
 destroyed by the tenant, including equitable taxes. Rent, 
 when it is increase, is Robbery. 
 
 A single example taken from — " Land Nationalization, 
 Its Necessity and Aims" — by Alfred Russel Wallace, 
 London, England, will suffice to show the evil which 
 British landlords are able to do when protected by 
 defensive laws : — 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS. IOI 
 
 " To the Editor of the Echo." 
 
 "Sir. — Through the medium of your valuable columns 
 allow me space to explain my grievance. Two years 
 ago I purchased a house on the Portman Estate (eighteen 
 years lease,) at £10. ios. per annum. I spent more than 
 ^300 to put it into tenantable repair, thinking that I 
 should get a renewal at a fair ground rent. I applied, 
 and the agent came to inspect the premises, and a few 
 days after sent me the terms as follows : — 
 
 " Lease for 34 years — 'ground rent to be ^80 instead 
 of ,£10 ; fine _£i,ooo renewal, to be paid from the day of 
 application, or 5 per cent, interest on the £1,000 from 
 that date, which would be principal and interest for eight 
 years, ,£1,400 ; improvements to be done as stated in 
 agreement, amounting to about .£500, before a new lease 
 is granted ; all Viscount Portman' s solicitors fees to be 
 paid by me. For the simple drawing of this agreement 
 I paid ^15. The last year of the 34 year's lease the 
 house to be redecorated throughout ; the property to be 
 insured by me in the Portman Fire Office. Upon remon- 
 strating at the exorbitant terms, I received a letter from 
 the agent that I could accept them or not, but in the 
 event of my not accepting I should not have any further 
 opportunity of applying. 
 
 " Now, Sir, what right can the landlord have to take 
 away my house ? He has never spent one penny towards 
 its improvement. Of course the ground has increased in 
 value, but that is through the tradespeople, and not 
 
102 'SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 through the landlord. The ground rent is increased 
 eight times ; then what right has the landlord to demand 
 ;£ 1,400 for a house that I bought, and what right has he 
 to dictate improvements that I have to pay for, so that 
 after the expiration of a few years he may get larger 
 premises, and another larger premium, without him 
 spending a fraction, not even to pay the solicitor for 
 getting the money ? It seems incredible that people 
 endure such extortion without seeking redress. I trust 
 that others who are suffering the same wrong will come 
 forward, so that effective action may be taken to alter 
 the law, which beggars tradespeople to enrich the aris- 
 tocracy." 
 
 " Englishwoman," 
 
 " Baker St., Otl. 26." 
 
 Whoever reads this letter and does not feel rising 
 within him the keenest sense of moral indignation, must 
 have a conscience so seared by contact: with the world 
 and its unrighteous methods, that the rays of God's 
 justice and righteousness cannot penetrate his hardened 
 soul. A highway robber pointing a pistol at the head of 
 this " Englishwoman," and demanding ,£2,295, or her 
 life, would not be more guilty of a heinous crime than 
 this lordly Portman who demands it under cover of law. 
 She can gain no redress through the law. The landlord's 
 will is supreme. He who holds the land is monarch 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS. IO3 
 
 of all he surveys. The Englishwoman must comply 
 with the demands of her robber landlord or vacate the 
 premises. 
 
 If she comply, from whom will she gain the ,£2,295 to 
 gratify the tyranny and greed of her landlord ? There 
 are but two sources whence it can be obtained : from her 
 patrons by the exaction of profit ; and from her em- 
 ployees by reducing wages to the lowest point through 
 competition, and by exacting from them the utmost work 
 through long and weary hours. Thus it is that land- 
 lordism complicates and multiplies injustice, until there is 
 nothing left from one's toil but destitution, want and 
 misery. In confirmation of this conclusion I give some 
 examples taken from a pamphlet published by " The 
 London Congregational Union," entided : 
 
 "The Bitter Cry of Out-Cast London." 
 
 " A child seven years old is known easily to make 
 10s. 6d. a week by thieving, but what can he earn by 
 such work as match-box making, for which 2^d. a gross 
 is paid, the maker having to find his own fire for drying 
 the boxes, and his own paste and string ? Before he can 
 gain as much as the young thief he must make 56 gross 
 of match-boxes a week, or 1,344 a day. It is needless 
 to say that this is impossible, for even adults can rarely 
 make more than an average of half that number. How 
 long then must the little hands toil before they can earn 
 the price of the scantiest meal ? ' ' 
 
 " Women, for the work of trowser finishing, (i. e. 
 
104 " SOCIAL PROBLEMS." 
 
 sewing in linings, making button-holes, and stitching on 
 the buttons,) receive 2j4d. a pair, and have to find their 
 own thread. We ask a woman who is making tweed 
 trowsers, how much she can earn in a day, and are told 
 one shilling. But what does a day mean to this poor 
 soul ? Seventeen hours ! From five in the morning 
 to ten at night — no pause for meals." 
 
 " For making men's shirts these women are paid iod. 
 a dozen ; lawn tennis aprons, 3d. a dozen ; and babies' 
 hoods, from is.6d. to 2s.6d. a dozen." 
 
 " In St. Georges-in-the-East, large numbers of women 
 and children, some of the latter only seven years old, are 
 employed in sack-making, for which they get a farthing 
 each." 
 
 ' ' In one house was found a widow and her half-idiot 
 daughter making palliasses at ij^d. each." 
 
 " Here is a woman who has a sick husband and a little 
 child to look after. She is employed at shirt finishing at 
 3d. a dozen, and by the utmost effort can only earn 6d. 
 a day, out of which she has to find her own thread. " 
 
 " My master" — says one man visited by a recent 
 writer in the Fortnightly Review — ' ' gets a pound for 
 what he gives me 3s. for making." And this it is easy 
 to believe, when we know that for a pair of fishing boots 
 which will be sold at three gziineas, the poor workman 
 receives 5s. 6d. if they are made to order, or 4s. 6d. if 
 they are made for stock." 
 
 ' ' An old tailor and his wife are employed in making 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS. I05 
 
 policemen's overcoats. They have to make, finish, hot- 
 press, put on the buttons, and find their own thread, and 
 for all this they receive 2s. lod. for each coat. This old 
 couple work from half past six in the morning until ten at 
 night, and between them can just manage to make a coat 
 in two days. ' ' 
 
 " Here is a mother who has taken away whatever 
 articles of clothing she can strip from her poor little chil- 
 dren without leaving them absolutely naked. She has 
 pawned them, not for drink, but for coals and food. A 
 shilling is all she can procure, and with this she has 
 ' bought 7 lbs. of coal and a loaf of bread. We might fill 
 page after page with these dreary details, but they would 
 become sadly monotonous, for it is the same every where." 
 
 ' ' And then it should not be forgotten how hardly upon 
 poverty like this must press the exorbitant demand for 
 rent. Even the rack-renting of Ireland, which so stirred 
 our indignation a little while ago, was merciful by com- 
 parison. If by any chance a reluctant landlord can be 
 induced to execute or pay for some long-needed repairs, 
 they become the occasion for new exactions. Going 
 through these rooms we come to one in which a hole, as 
 big as a man's head, has been roughly covered, and how ? 
 A piece of board, from an old soap-box, has been fixed 
 over the opening with one nail, and to the tenant has been 
 given a yard and a half of paper with which to cover it ; 
 and for this expenditure — perhaps 4d. at the outside — 
 three pence a week has been put upon the rent." 
 
106 " SOCIAL PROBLEMS." 
 
 " If this is enough to arouse our indignation, what 
 must be thought of the following ? The two old people 
 just mentioned have lived in one room for fourteen years, 
 during which time it has only Once been partially 
 cleansed. The landlord has undertaken that it shall be 
 done shortly, and for the past three months has been 
 taking 6d. a week extra for rent for what he is thus 
 going to do." 
 
 " This is what the helpless have to submit to ; they 
 are charged for these pestilential dens a rent which con- 
 sumes half the earnings of a family, and leaves them no 
 more than from 4d. to 6d. a day for food, clothing and 
 fire ; a grinding of the faces of the poor which could 
 scarcely be paralleled in lands of slavery and of notorious 
 oppression. ' ' 
 
 " This, however, is not all ; for even these depths of 
 poverty and degradation are reached by the Education 
 A<5t, and however beneficent its purpose, it bears with 
 cruel weight upon the class we have described, 'to whom 
 two-pence or a penny a week for the school fees of each 
 of three or four children, means so much lack of bread. ' ' 
 
 " So far from making the worst of our fails for the 
 purpose of appealing to emotion, we have been compelled 
 to tone down every thing, and wholly to omit what most 
 needs to be known, or the ears and eyes of our readers 
 would have been insufferably outraged." 
 
 Are not these harrowing details utterly appalling? 
 And do they not confirm our conclusions that Land- 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS. L07... 
 
 lordism is the most insidious, disgraceful, and heartless 
 system of robbery that human selfishness can possibly 
 devise ? And yet the vast majority of mankind have not 
 the remotest conception of the cause of the bloated 
 satiety and wealth of the few ; and the demoralization and 
 pandemonium of rags and destitution of the many. 
 
 ' ' What more preposterous, ' ' Mr. George says, ' ' than 
 the treatment of land as individual property. In every 
 essential land differs from those things which, being the 
 property of human labor, are rightfully property. It is 
 the creation of God ; they are. produced by man. It 
 is fixed in quantity ; they may be increased inimitably. ' ' 
 
 It is perfectly scientific and philosophical to affirm that 
 all kinds of labor-products are rightfully property. But 
 it is unscientific and unphilosophical to hold that land 
 may not be treated as individual property, while it may 
 be treated as property by the State or nation. For land 
 is as much a product of God to the State or nation, as it 
 is to the individual. Consequently neither the individual 
 nor the nation can hold land as property. Land is but 
 the passive element in production, and becomes property 
 only when it is converted by work into human uses. 
 
 " To those who have never given thought to the 
 matter, it may seem irreverently presumptuous to say 
 that it is the evident intent of the Creator that land values 
 should be the subject of taxation ; that rent should be 
 utilized for the benefit of the whole community. Yet to 
 whoever does think of it, to say this will appear no more 
 
108 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 presumptuous than to say that the Creator has intended 
 men to walk on their feet, and not on their hands. " 
 
 I am one who has given, perhaps, as many years of 
 thought to these matters as Mr. George, and I differ with 
 him toto coelo. I deem it very presumptuous — in the ab- 
 sence of facts — to say that, ' ' The value of land is in its 
 nature and relations adapted to purposes of taxation, just 
 as the feet in their nature and relations are adapted to 
 the purposes of walking. ' ' Every one knows that the feet 
 are adapted to walking ; but every one does not know, 
 nor does every thinker see that land values are ordained 
 of God for taxation. It would be just as presumptuous to 
 say that the intellectual faculties or the physical powers 
 of man are ordained of God for taxation, as it is to say 
 that land values are. Land has no value in economics 
 any more than man has. Land values are purely ar- 
 bitrary, the output of human selfishness and greed. How 
 then are land values ordained of God for taxation ? As 
 well say thai profit and interest are of God, as to say that 
 land values are. And none of these in my opinion, are 
 matter for taxation. The only thing on which taxes may 
 be levied is the product of one's toil. For this is the 
 only thing man has to exchange with his fellows ; and is 
 the only thing which can be computed. Land, air, water 
 and all other natural forces, including human capacity, 
 are incommensurable. It logically follows, therefore, 
 that human product is the only rightful thing to tax to 
 meet the expenses of government or public improve- 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 109 
 
 ments. An equitable tax would be one in which the 
 estimated rate per cent, was levied on the monthly or 
 annual product of the individual. Land values are 
 purely arbitrary, unrighteous, and unlawful, because 
 they are flagrant transgressions of God's natural laws, 
 which ordain that all natural things are priceless, and 
 commercially valueless. 
 
 Hence Mr. George will be compelled to recast, or re- 
 model, his entire system of practical economics, and make 
 them conform to natural law, and not to human selfishness 
 and greed ; expressed through competition and monopoly. 
 Economics is a moral science which has to deal almost 
 exclusively with exchanges. And the only element which 
 enters into them is Work. And as work is always the 
 same in kind, whatever the product may be, it becomes 
 the simplest of all the sciences, and at the same time the 
 most beautiful in its morals, because its special function 
 is to establish justice in exchanges. Selfish competition 
 and monopoly are immoral because they are utterly devoid 
 of justice. Society Must make its exchanges conform 
 to moral law. God has ordained that there shall be no 
 peace in this world until this is done. 'Tis not enough 
 to have an intellectual apprehension of justice, we must 
 love it for its own sake, and make it a matter of Religion, 
 seeing that God is supreme, and that His will must be done. 
 
 What more monstrous in morals, than the monopoly 
 and sale of land, mines, forests, fisheries, water courses, 
 and water power — for gain ? As well think of selling the 
 
no 'social problems. 
 
 ocean by the cubic yard because man needs it for use. 
 As well think of selling little children, fathers and mothers, 
 brothers and sisters on the auction block. As well think 
 of selling lightning by the ohm ; or air by the cubic foot ; 
 or light by the square yard. Because there is a demand 
 for these things have they ' ' a value which is created by 
 the community as a whole ? " If not ; how, then, can 
 land have a value which the community creates when it 
 has not been transformed by work into human needs ? 
 
 Thus do we see how utterly absurd is the idea that de- 
 mand creates value ! It is as devoid of truth as that 
 wealth can be produced without work. Wealth may be 
 obtained without it I grant, but in every such case it is 
 theft or robbery. An exchange to be just must be equal. 
 And as work is the only thing that man can righteously 
 exchange, and the only thing which can be righteously 
 taxed, it logically follows that Mr. George's theory of 
 taxing land values to equalize incomes, or to subvert 
 the blasting unrighteousness of landlordism, must be 
 abandoned. 
 
 This, however, ought to be done, viz : — There should 
 be a voluntary relinquishment for the public weal of lands 
 monopolized for speculative ends in the form of city lots, 
 or land estates now held by the force of law. This should 
 be done as a social and religious duty, just as one should 
 voluntarily refrain from highway robbery, stealing, perjury 
 or murder. 
 
 Landlords should also voluntarily cease taking un- 
 
" SOCIAL PROBLEMS." Ill 
 
 righteous rent ; and instead of this they should offer for 
 sale to their tenants the houses they occupy, on equitable 
 terms, which would be the cost of their erection less their 
 depreciation by age. City houses or flats occupied by a 
 single family, could be sold on the installment plan, with- 
 out interest. When the installments amounted to the 
 value of the house or flat, a title deed should be given to 
 the occupant. I say, they should be sold without interest, 
 because interest is unrighteous gain, as no moral reason 
 can be given for it. 
 
 No account should be made of ' ' the value of land 
 created by the community as a whole," when the value 
 of such land has already been paid for by rents previously 
 received. When, however, a house and lot is new and 
 the land on which it stands has been paid for, as a com- 
 promise the value of the land might be added to the value 
 of the house, and when both are sold it should be at their 
 prime cost. 
 
 The same plan might be applied to business houses, to 
 mills and factories and other manufactories. In this way 
 tenants might become pbsolute owners of the properties 
 they occupy. In this way rents could be gradually 
 abolished. 
 
 The almost insuperable difficulty to be encountered in 
 the way of reform is the universal practice of monopolizing 
 and selling land. So common is this that hardly one in a 
 million dreams of it as an iniquity. Only here and there is 
 a thinker who adequately realizes the power for evil which 
 
112 "SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 this stupendous immorality produces. And yet when one 
 really does see it, he becomes well nigh overwhelmed by 
 the force of the revelation. We know it is wrong to 
 murder because it produces, direful distress. We know 
 it is wrong to steal because it deprives one of that which 
 is supposed to have been righteously gained for personal 
 enjoyment. We know it is wrong to bear false witness 
 because it deprives one of the righteousness of truth, and 
 that public confidence which attaches to an honest, upright 
 mind. In like manner, I do profoundly realize the 
 enormity of the evil of land monopoly by the universal 
 injustice, destitution, misery and immorality which every 
 where prevail because of it. What Garrison said of chattel 
 slavery may with greater propriety be affirmed of Land 
 Monopoly that — " It is the sum of all villainies," because 
 slavery is but an effect of land monopoly. In fact slavery 
 were impossible without it. The blacks of the South, 
 though legally free, are virtually slaves to-day, because 
 they are deprived of free access to the soil which is the 
 basis of liberty. Their former masters are really gaining 
 more riches out of the productive toil of their black hire- 
 lings, than they gained from them when they were slaves. 
 As regards the freedom of the franchise for the blacks it 
 is a cruel farce. Had all who wanted to till the soil, at the 
 close of the rebellion, received what they were led to be- 
 lieve they would, namely — " Forty acres and a mule" — 
 they would have been freemen now, whereas they are 
 virtually slaves. This is a sad and inglorious anomaly in 
 
SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 113 
 
 a country which boasts of its Constitutional freedom ! A 
 land aristocracy is the bane and curse of the nations ! 
 The aristocrats of the South and North will hold on to the 
 land with the grip of gravity to the universe. This will 
 provoke, I fear, another civil war. To deprive the freed- 
 men and other humble citizens of land is virtually to 
 murder them, and to subject them to every device of 
 commercial injustice and petty tyranny which heartless 
 greed can invent. There is, therefore, no hope for the 
 toiling poor, except in the abrogation of iniquitous land 
 laws ; and no true freedom for them but in untrammeled 
 access to the soil, to the extent of individual or co- 
 operative needs. 
 
THE ETHICS 
 
 OF 
 
 Protection & Free Trade. 
 
 THE competitive aspect of Protection and Free 
 Trade is readily seen and stated. 
 
 The manufacturer who desires to make all the money- 
 he can by the production and sale of his specialty, and 
 who resides in a country where land is very dear, money 
 and labor very cheap, his machinery and hired skill the 
 best, with competition at a maximum — will necessarily 
 be a Free Trader from purely selfish motives. Because 
 these economic advantages would secure him competitive 
 success against the whole world. 
 
 These are the economic conditions of industrial Eng- 
 land to-day. She can therefore successfully compete, 
 in her staple productions, with every other nation on the 
 globe. Her manufacturers are the richest in the world ; 
 but the condition of hundreds of thousands of their em- 
 ployees is most wretched and deplorable. 
 
 The causes which produce this state of things are 
 patent to every careful and thoughtful observer. Com : 
 
Il6 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 petition among like producers gradually reduces profits 
 and dividends to a minimum. When profits and divi- 
 dends are reduced so low that the manufacturers and 
 stock-holders are not receiving as much money on their 
 investments as they deem it right they should have, they 
 then impinge on the wages of their employees by re- 
 ducing them 10, 15, 20 or 30 per cent, in conformity 
 with their own selfish purposes. This makes the em- 
 ployees poorer. Competition, however, does not end 
 here. It still goes on between the manufacturers for the 
 home and foreign markets. When profits and dividends 
 are again reduced so low that the manufacturers and 
 stock-holders are dissatisfied with their rewards, they 
 again reduce the wages of their employees, which makes 
 them poorer than before. This process of reducing 
 wages from time to time, under competition, gradually 
 puts wages so low that tens of thousands of the toiling 
 classes of the British Isles are reduced to the most abje6l 
 condition conceivable. This is what Free Trade Eng- 
 land has done for her toiling millions ! 
 
 We will now put a hypothetical case for the Pro- 
 tectionists. 
 
 A manufacturer resides in a country where land is 
 very cheap, wages and interest very high, competition 
 at a maximum, and whose machinery and hired skill are 
 as good and efficient as can be found anywhere. These 
 economic conditions would necessarily cause him to be a 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 117 
 
 Protectionist ; because he could not successfully compete 
 with the Free Trader under free-trade conditions. Com- 
 petition, however, under Protection, would necessarily 
 reduce profits and dividends to a minimum. When the 
 profits and dividends were reduced so low that the 
 income derived from manufactures did not meet the 
 selfish requirements of the manufacturers and stock- 
 holders, they would then impinge on the wages of their 
 employees by reducing them 10, 15 or 20 per cent., 
 agreeably to their preconcerted selfish arrangements. 
 This would necessarily make their employees that much 
 the poorer. When competition for the home market 
 again reduced profits and dividends to a minimum, 
 another reduction of wages would be enforced and the 
 employees would thereby be made still poorer. This 
 periodic process of reducing wages, by competition 
 under Protection, would finally culminate in reducing 
 the wage-workers to abject penury, with moral and 
 intellectual destitution. 
 
 These are the conditions which are rapidly befalling 
 the wage-workers in the United States of America. In 
 Pennsylvania, the most heavily protected State in the 
 American Union, colliers are now working at the low 
 figure of sixty-five cents a day, and for one-quarter or 
 one-third of the year they are in enforced idleness. 
 When the United States shall have had Protection as 
 long as England has had Free Trade, her wage-workers 
 will be in as deplorable a condition as any of England's 
 
Il8 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 industrious poor. Hence there is absolutely no hope 
 for the toiling millions under either Protection or Free 
 Trade ! Competition will ultimately grind them down 
 to abject destitution and despair. To the philanthropic 
 thinker this is the severest logic that ever appalled the 
 heart of man. 
 
 Having examined Free Trade and Protection in the 
 light of selfish competition, we are now prepared to ex- 
 amine them in the light of Ethics or practical Justice. 
 Read what David A. Wells, once a Protectionist, now a 
 Free Trader, said before the Brooklyn Revenue Reform 
 Club, February 8, 1882. 
 
 ' ' China is the great cotton producing and cotton con- 
 suming country of the world. A great majority of her 
 people are clothed exclusively in cotton ; and yet until 
 within the past year there was not a power-loom or 
 spindle at work in the whole of this vast empire. An 
 ordinary Chinese laborer requires about eighteen yards 
 of heavy cotton ' ' drills ' ' for his annual clothing, and 
 this represents about thirty day's labor to produce, 
 according to Chinese methods. But the production of 
 this same quantity of cloth in the United States repre- 
 sents, at present, only about one day's labor, apportioned 
 in the ratio of about one -third of a day for the production 
 of the fibre ; one third for its manufacture in New Eng- 
 land into cloth ; and one-third to cover the labor of 
 transportation, from the place of production to the place 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. Iig 
 
 of manufacture, and from the place of manufacture to the 
 point of consumption, be it China or elsewhere. It is, 
 therefore, evident that if we could sell cottons to China, 
 that the transaction would be in the nature of an exchange 
 in our favor, of thirty day's labor for one ; to which must 
 be further added that the Chinaman is desirous of paying 
 for such cottons as he may buy, with tea, which he will, 
 grow for us, for a compensation of twelve to fifteen cents 
 per day. But now comes in our Government with a 
 policy which excludes us from this advantageous system 
 of exchange and turns it almost all over to Great 
 Britain ; and then, as if this was not sufficient, proposes 
 to supplement it with a measure for diverting our labor 
 from its present highly productive employment, into the 
 industry of growing tea, in which to succeed, it must 
 successfully compete with Chinamen working at twelve 
 cents per day. And yet this plan developed into such 
 favor on the part of Congress and the public, that the 
 President in his message of two years ago, alluded to it 
 as a matter worthy of all encouragement. Had the plan 
 succeeded, which owing to fortunate circumstances it did 
 not, the next step in order would have been to greatly 
 increase the price of tea in the United States in order to 
 protect the American producers against the pauper labor 
 of China. Was any more absurd scheme ever recorded 
 in commercial history ? ' ' 
 
 Most truly this is an " advantageous system of ex- 
 change." A highway robber could not take a much 
 
120 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 greater advantage of his neighbor than that proposed by- 
 Mr. Wells. Thirty day's work in the production of tea, 
 in exchange for one day's work in the production of 
 cotton drills ! Viewed in the light of Justice, or Chris- 
 tianity, the proposition is monstrous ! 
 
 This proposition of Mr. Wells is on a par with the 
 practical application of it on the part of certain British 
 manufacturers in their dealings with the people of Bur- 
 mah. I clipped the following from the New York 
 Tribune, of May 4th, 1883. 
 
 " The trade in idols is unusually brisk in Birmingham, 
 England. A thousand glass gods, which cost thirty -seven 
 cents apiece and sell for four dollars, have just been sent 
 to Burmah." 
 
 Is that a practical application of the Christian law, 
 " Love thy neighbor as thyself? " Is it doing to others 
 as we would that others should do to us ? Is it just ? Is 
 it the way to establish the kingdom of righteousness on 
 the earth ? And yet Great Britain sends Christian mis- 
 sionaries to the Burmese to convert them to Christianity ! 
 Is manufacturing glass gods at thirty-seven cents apiece, 
 and then selling them to the Burmese at four dollars apiece, 
 the way to convert them to Christianity ? And yet this 
 is the way that Mr. David A. Wells, an American free- 
 trade Christian, proposes to convert Chinamen to Chris- 
 tianity by selling them one day's product of cotton drills 
 for thirty days product of tea. What a stupendous sham 
 is our so-called practical Christianity ! 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 121 
 
 Now listen to the grand eloquence of Mr. Wells while 
 he discourses on the ethics of the Protectionists. 
 He says — 
 
 " Did any one ever know, or hear of an American 
 who, however much of a protectionist at home, did not 
 consider it a privilege on visiting Europe that he was able 
 to buy clothing and other articles of luxury, cheaper than 
 in his own country, and who did not to the extent of his 
 ability avail himself of his opportunity for so doing ? I 
 recollect traveling some years ago in Europe with a promi- 
 nent member of the Industrial League of Pennsylvania, 
 who had accumulated a large fortune Uirough an iniquitous 
 and selfishly arranged prevision of an existing tariff, and 
 whose expenditure for a great variety of products of foreign 
 labor, for no other reason apparently than their compara- 
 tive cheapness, was most lavish ; and whose pleasure and 
 exultation over what he termed his bargains was so ex- 
 cessive as to almost border on simplicity. And from 
 what I learned from his own lips, I doubt if any ore of 
 these numerous purchases on his return to his own country 
 ever came under the cognizance of an American Custom 
 House and paid duties. Now, if this man's principles 
 had been any thing more than a selfish sham, he would 
 have scorned to use the money which protection had 
 brought him, for the purchase of any other merchandise 
 than that manufactured by American operatives under 
 protection equally well if not cheaper, and would not 
 have taken advantage of any opportunity to increase his 
 
122 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 abundance which he had helped by law to deny to his 
 fellow citizens." 
 
 Now, this is what I call sublime moralizing on the selfish- 
 ness of protectionists, and I deem it well merited. But 
 can not Mr. Wells also see that the free traders, of which 
 he is one, are equally guilty of "an iniquitous and 
 selfishly arranged provision ' ' of free trade ? and that their 
 philanthropy is "a selfish sham," and their Christianity 
 too, and that they also should scorn to take the advantage 
 of any opportunity of acquiring thirty day's product of 
 tea in exchange for one day's product of cotton drills ? Is 
 it any the less iniquitous and selfish to victimize foreigners 
 than it is to victimize Americans ? Is not commercial 
 morality as binding at the antipodes as on this side of the 
 globe, or at home ? Is it wrong to rob your fellow men 
 here, and right, to rob them there ? Is not, therefore, the 
 patriotism and philanthropy of the free traders as much 
 an illusion and ' ' selfish sham ' ' as the patriotism and 
 philanthropy of the protectionists ? When we shall have 
 learned to love our neighbors at the antipodes equally 
 with our neighbors at home ; when we shall religiously 
 seek commercial justice and conscientiously apply it in 
 our daily avocations, then all iniquitous and selfishly 
 arranged provisions of protection and free trade will cease. 
 Then will justice become an infallible power which builds 
 for righteousness and the brotherhood of all mankind. 
 
 We are now prepared to search for the causes which 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 123 
 
 necessitated Free Trade in England, and Protection in 
 the United States. But before we do this it is well to 
 state the essential points of agreement and of disagreement 
 between these two schools of economic thinkers. 
 
 The Free Trader maintains that perfect freedom to 
 work, and to dispose of the product of one's work, when 
 and where he pleases, without restrictive legislation, is 
 co-equal with the right of freedom of speech, of the press, 
 of religious opinion, of one's person, and the right to 
 choose whomsoever he will to represent him in the 
 councils of the State or nation. He also maintains that a 
 tax imposed by government on the importation of foreign 
 merchandise, except for revenue, is a pernicious and un- 
 warrantable assumption of power, detrimental to the 
 material prosperity of a people who may be the victims 
 of such restrictive legislation. 
 
 He further maintains that if freedom of commerce may 
 be legitimately restrained by law, then, by parity of 
 reasoning, freedom of speech, of the press, of the con- 
 science, of one's person, and the right to choose one's 
 representative may be curtailed by law. He also alleges 
 that a tax on imported goods is robbery to the amount 
 of the tax, when the consumer is forced to pay it. This 
 is simply a corollary to the principles as stated above. 
 
 He also maintains, with Bastiat, that — " Whatever two 
 persons mutually agree to, in a matter of exchange, is 
 just." So much, then, for the basic principles of the 
 free trader. 
 
154 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 The Protectionists, per contra, hold the same funda- 
 mental doctrines with one main exception, viz — Infant 
 industries, they say, like infant children, need the pro- 
 tecting and fostering care of paternal government ; other- 
 wise they will certainly be annihilated by foreign 
 competition. Let us examine this doctrine and see if it 
 be really based on facts. 
 
 One hundred years ago, the American colonists had 
 precisely the same kind of tools for quarrying stone, 
 making bricks, building houses, felling trees, and sawing 
 them into boards, as their English cousins had. They 
 had also the same kind of farming implements, with 
 forests right at hand, and an abundance of cheap land. 
 They had likewise the same kind of tools for building 
 ships, spinning yarn and weaving cloth, tanning leather, 
 making boots and shoes, clothing, hats and caps, manu- 
 facturing furniture, horse-shoes and horse-shoe nails. 
 There was an abundance of water power, the seashore 
 and streams abounded in fish, the land in minerals, and 
 the forests were filled with game. 
 
 Having these artificial and natural advantages, with 
 inventive genius and skill, and ambitious industry, why 
 did the colonists need a protective tariff to enable them 
 to establish infant manufactures on a permanent basis? 
 Only three economic reasons can be given, viz. : Cheap 
 land, high wages, and high interest. 
 
 In all new colonies where land can be had for little or 
 nothing, labor commands the highest price. The reason 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 1 25 
 
 is that no one will work at mechanical or manufacturing 
 industries where land is cheap, for much less wages than 
 the market value of an average day's product of wheat or 
 other agricultural produce. Hence mechanic's and ar- 
 tizan's wages are always relatively high in new countries. 
 
 The third cause which makes a protective tariff a 
 necessity, under a selfish competitive system of com- 
 merce, is the market value of money. In all new settle- 
 ments money always commands the highest rates of 
 interest, because it is always sparse. Thirty years ago 
 I knew men who loaned money to Illinois farmers at the 
 rate of 35 and 40 per cent, interest. 
 
 Therefore, where land is cheap, money dear, and wages 
 high, it is impossible to establish a system of manu- 
 factures against the competition of old countries where 
 machinery has grown to a high degree of perfection, and 
 where labor and money are cheap, and land dear. Con- 
 sequently, a tariff on foreign products becomes an abso- 
 lute necessity if it be desirable to establish manufactures 
 on a permanent basis in new countries. 
 
 How, then, can Free-Traders and Protectionists be- 
 come reconciled ? Both are right on the fundamental 
 principles of freedom, as I have already shown. And 
 both are right from their respective standpoints of com- 
 petitive greed. The manufacturing protectionist seeks 
 to gain riches by compelling the consumer at home to 
 buy goods at a price which far exceeds what a free com- 
 petitive market would allow. While the free trade 
 
126 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 manufacturer seeks riches by selling his goods at an 
 enormous profit to the foreign consumer. This is the 
 way England has impoverished Ireland, Germany, India 
 and Turkey and all other countries with which she ex- 
 changes her manufactured goods for raw materials, or 
 purely agricultural products. And the American Free 
 Trader, now that American manufactures and skill have 
 risen to a high degree of perfection so that in many 
 things America can successfully compete with Gre"at 
 Britain, wants to follow England's cruel example. This 
 I have already shown by what David A. Wells said 
 before the Brooklyn Revenue Reform Club. 
 
 We are now prepared to point the causes which pro- 
 duced Free Trade in England. 
 
 England is the typical free-trade nation of the globe. 
 Her commerce is on every sea and permeates every nation. 
 All are made to pour treasure into her coffers. Her 
 competition is dreaded by every nation on the globe. 
 For in this she is the master of the world. Although 
 wages in Russia, Austria, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, 
 Belgium, Netherlands and in Scandinavia — are less by 
 reason of home competition, yet none of these nations can 
 sucessfully compete with Great Britain in the cheapness 
 of her staple productions. Even Americans, who boast 
 of their manufactures, their inventive genius and their 
 skill, also dread her competition, and have about 4,000 
 articles of commerce well protected against her. Why 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 127 
 
 all this anxiety and dread, and this enormous protection 
 against England, when she pays the highest wages to her 
 working people of any country in Europe ? The answer 
 is this : It is because her inventive genius and acquired 
 skill enable her to produce more things of a like kind, by 
 the same expenditure of energy and capital, than any 
 other nation can. Therefore, she can successfully com- 
 pete with and undersell every nation on the globe. 
 
 The reason that European nations dread her competi- 
 tion is accounted for in this way : ■ — Competition in 
 these countries having already reduced wages to a 
 minimum, so that the wage-workers are well nigh re- 
 duced to absolute want and beggary, a further reduction 
 of wages they cannot endure. It is only by the most 
 rigid economy that the masses maintain an existence. 
 Therefore do they necessarily dread the competition of 
 Great Britain which inevitably reduces them to greater 
 destitution. Hence these countries are rapidly establish- 
 ing protective tariffs to counteract the competitive power 
 of England's corporate greed. 
 
 In like manner competition operates in England, with 
 the same dreaded certainty among her own manufacturers 
 and wage-workers. The manufacturers of like products 
 are constantly competing with each other ; not only for 
 the home, but also for the foreign markets. This neces- 
 sarily reduces profits, dividends and wages to a minimum 
 in England. When competition has reduced profits and 
 dividends so low that the manufacturers and stockholders 
 
128 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 can not gain what incomes they deem it necessary to have, 
 they then impinge upon the wages of their employees 
 by reducing them 10, 15 or 20 per cent, according to cir- 
 cumstances. What is thus abstracted from wages is added 
 to profits and dividends. Competition, however, still 
 goes on and on ; and when the profits and dividends are 
 again wiped out by competition, another reduction of 
 wages is made, followed, perhaps, by strikes, lockouts, 
 arbitration, idleness, destitution, pauperism and crime. 
 Thus England maintains her ascendency as the supreme 
 competing nation, because, as I have already shown, her 
 genius and culture enable her to produce more merchan- 
 dise with the same expenditure of energy and capital than 
 any other nation can. But what is the present condition 
 of tens of thousands of her working people ? Listen to 
 what Carlyle wrote in his " Latter Day Pamphlets." 
 
 ' ' British industrial existence seems fast becoming one 
 huge poison-swamp of reeking pestilence, physical and 
 moral ; a hideous living Golgotha of souls and bodies 
 buried alive ; such a Curtius gulf communicating with the 
 nether deeps as the sun never saw till now. Thirty 
 thousand outcast needle women working themselves 
 swiftly to death ; three million paupers rotting in forced 
 idleness, helping said needle women to die ; these are but 
 items in the sad ledger of despair. Thirty thousand 
 wretched women sunk in that putrefying well of abomi- 
 nations ; they have oozed in upon London from the 
 universal Stygian quagmire of British industrial life ; are 
 accumulated in the well of the concern to that extent." 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. I2Q 
 
 Now, listen to what John Bright, one of England's free 
 traders, said, in a recent speech to his constituents : — 
 
 " In the city of Glasgow alone 41,000 families out of 
 every 100,000 families live in houses having only one 
 room. In Scotland nearly one-third of the whole people 
 dwell in houses of only one room. In fact, looking at 
 the past — to me it is a melancholy thing to look at — 
 there is much of it which excites in me not astonishment 
 only but horror. The fact is there passes before my eyes 
 a vision of millions of families — not individuals but 
 families — fathers, mothers, children, passing ghastly, 
 sorrow-stricken, in never-ending procession from the 
 cradle to the grave. ' ' 
 
 Chambers Journal says : 
 
 ' ' No abjectness in any city in Europe sinks to the dis- 
 mal level of rags and wretchedness observable in the fetid 
 alleys of Edinburgh and Glasgow." 
 
 Do not these quotations present a horrible picture of 
 the condition of the working people of Industrial England ? 
 And yet there is not one British statesman, to my knowl- 
 edge, who has the genius, the moral courage and 
 eloquence to set forth, in befitting terms, the iniquitous 
 cause of all this social horror and woe, namely — The 
 Monopoly and Sale of Land. 
 
 Let us now turn, for a few moments, to the United 
 States of America. Is it not patent to every thoughtful 
 observer, who takes cognizance of the progress of events, 
 that the toiling classes of the United States, the great 
 
130 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 body of wage-workers, are rapidly becoming the inheritors 
 of social conditions, akin to those in England, so graphi- 
 cally described by Carlyle and John Bright? 
 
 Do we not know that there are tens of thousands of 
 boys and girls, under fourteen years, who are obliged to 
 go out to daily toil to earn their own livelihood, because 
 their parents' wages are utterly inadequate to support and 
 educate them ? 
 
 Do we not know that in all of our large cities there are 
 thousands upon thousands of young and middle-aged 
 women driven into the paths of prostitution and shame, 
 because of the hardness of their lot as industrial citizens ? 
 
 Do we not know that in the tenement districts of New 
 York City, there are as many persons, male and female, 
 young and old,, crowded into single rooms as can be 
 found in the most densely populated districts of London ? 
 
 Do we not know that there are needle women who make 
 gentlemen's and ladies' linen dusters at five and six cents 
 a piece, furnish their own thread, and if perchance, they 
 can make twelve dusters by working twelve hours a day, 
 their income is but sixty cents a day, or $3.60 per week ? 
 
 Do we not know that young girls are compelled to 
 work in loathsome tobacco establishments and homes, 
 thirteen hours a day on the average, for the miserable 
 pittance of fifty cents, or $3.00 a week, and for lost time 
 they are ' ' docked ' ' a cent a minute ? 
 
 Do we not know that our State prisons, poor-houses 
 and jails, are crowded with inmates taken from the ranks 
 of labor ? 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 131 
 
 Do we not know that throughout the length and breadth 
 of the land, strikes against corporate greed have become 
 chronic ? 
 
 Are not rents on the increase, and wages on the de- 
 crease, and competition and monopoly rampant with 
 greed, producing misery and destitution every where ? 
 No greater mistake was ever made by imaginative states- 
 men, when they oratorically proclaim the perfect freedom 
 of American citizens, and their emancipation from unjust 
 and unequal laws 1 We are told that the United States 
 is a free and glorious Republic, with equal opportunities 
 for all. Glorious, I grant, in material achievements ; 
 but zraglorious in the methods by which these material 
 achievements have been gained. The wealth, which is 
 now being piled up so rapidly in the coffers of the few, is 
 the wealth of sin ; and the ambitious greed, which is the 
 initial incentive of these vast accumulations of wealth, is 
 born of flagrant injustice. 
 
 Most of the protective tariffs of the United States are 
 the product of unscrupulous avarice, since they do not 
 now need economic protection. 
 
 Take the cotton industry as an example. In a letter to 
 The New York Tribune, dated June 1 1, 1883, Mr. David 
 A. Wells makes this statement : 
 
 ' ' While exporting for sale in foreign countries during 
 the year 1882 American manufactured cottons to the value 
 of $13,222,979, we imported (under duties ranging from 
 thirty-one to seventy-fix per cent.) for home consumption 
 
132 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 the products of foreign cotton manufactures to the extent 
 of$34.35i>292." 
 
 Where did most of these exported American manu- 
 factured cotton goods, to the value of $13,000,000 go to ? 
 Let Mr. Robert P. Porter, in his letter to the New York 
 Tribune, dated May 24th, 1883, answer. He says : 
 
 " American exports of cotton goods reached in 1881 
 nearly 150,000,000 yards. It has been claimed in some 
 quarters that the export of American cotton goods to 
 Manchester was merely made to ' ' raise money,' ' but this 
 is most explicitly denied by Mr. James Thornby, an 
 Englishman, who visited the United States a few years 
 ago for the express purpose of investigating the matter, 
 and whose report seems an impartial and exceedingly in- 
 telligent one. Mr. Thornby says : " In no case have the 
 Americans sent cloth here in order to ' raise money ' upon 
 it, nor, as has been suggested, have the exports been 
 merely relief shipments on which a loss could be afforded 
 in consideration of the higher prices to be obtained in 
 the protected home markets. The goods have always 
 been sold at such prices as left a profit to their makers, 
 and the transactions have, in every instance, been con- 
 ducted upon a purely mercantile basis. ' ' 
 
 My point is this : — When American manufacturers of 
 cotton goods can successfully compete with Manchester 
 in her home market, and sell at a profit, then I declare that 
 the duties of thirty-one to seventy-six fiet cent., imposed 
 upon American consumers at home, is bare-faced legis- 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 133 
 
 lative robbery, and that the cotton manufacturing cor- 
 porations of the United States are a body of greedy, 
 unscrupulous men, unworthy of the respect and confi- 
 dence of their fellow citizens. 
 
 When protection is pleaded and sustained for the sole 
 purpose of enriching manufacturers to the amount of the 
 tariff, under a competitive system, then it is high time 
 that all such tariffs were repealed. It is a notorious fact 
 that American watch, clock and sewing machine manu- 
 facturers sell, at a profit, their goods in Europe at half the 
 retail price they are sold for in the United States. These 
 facts prove that American watches, clocks and sewing 
 machines are sold to the home consumers at a profit ex- 
 ceeding one hundred per cent, of their competitive 
 value ? 
 
 Moreover, the manufacturing statistics of the city of 
 New York attest that the value of the products in 1880 
 exceeded the wages paid and the value of the materials 
 employed, to the.amount of $201,450,022 which is more 
 than fifty per cent, gross profit, and the average wages 
 paid were about one dollar and twenty-five cents per day. 
 These facts incontestably prove that the manufacturers 
 of the City of New York can abundantly afford to pay 
 their employees higher wages, but they never do it except 
 when they are compelled by sucessful strikes. Hence 
 New York City is a nucleus of perpetual warfare between 
 Labor and Capital. 
 
 With these facts before us where is the use of 
 
134 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 prating about the advantages of Protection to the toiling 
 classes of America. Granted, that wages in the United 
 States are one hundred per cent, higher than in Great 
 Britain. The purchasing power of a dollar in England is 
 from fifty to seventy-five per cent, greater than in the 
 United States. Consequently the average condition of 
 the wage-workers in England is nearly equal to the 
 average condition of the wage-workers of America. Any 
 impartial, fair-minded traveler, who has gone through 
 the large cities of England and the United States, will 
 attest that these statements are virtually true. 
 
 How, then, does protection protect American work- 
 men ? That it protects the manufacturers we all do 
 know. But what of the workmen ? Competition oper- 
 ates among like producers in the United States as it 
 does in Great Britain ; but profits are not ground down 
 by it to so small a scale, as is shown by the enormous 
 increase of wealth among the landlords, merchants and 
 manufacturers during the past twenty, years. On the 
 other hand wages are gradually decreasing. The enor- 
 mous immigration to the United States, of European 
 artizans, farm-hands and laborers, produces a com- 
 petition which reduces wages to a minimum, while 
 at the same time it increases the riches of the wealthy. 
 This is the immediate cause of all the strikes that are 
 now and have been taking place during the past decade, 
 and the strikes are on the increase. We may, therefore, 
 anticipate solider combinations of Trades Unions in the 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 135 
 
 future, whose united power will be wielded against 
 aggressive capital ; supplemented, perhaps, by bitterness, 
 riot and bloodshed. 
 
 Thus are we instructed alike in Republics as in 
 Monarchies, that like causes always produce like effects. 
 The monopoly of the land and competition, under Free 
 Trade or protection, will ultimately reduce the wage- 
 workers in every country to abject destitution. Nor 
 would it avail for good if every nation were Free Trade, 
 or every nation adopted Protection. So long as the 
 toiling millions are prohibited from gaining free access to 
 the soil, to the extent of their needs, there is absolutely 
 no hope for them. Granted this natural and inalienable 
 right, grinding poverty would cease ; and monopolies of 
 all sorts would ultimately become an impossibility. 
 
 In the preceding papers, on Macleod and George, I 
 have shown the precise causes of penury and destitution 
 among the industrious poor, outside of the effects pro- 
 duced by transgressions of physiological law or domestic 
 economy. Therein have I shown that man's selfishness 
 has overridden the Law of Nature and of Justice which 
 have ordained the pricelessness of all natural things and 
 forces. Every rational mind may behold this law, for it 
 inheres in the nature of things. The monopoly and sale 
 of land are the primary cause of all the despotisms and 
 social agony of the world. Aristocracies are based on it, 
 and would therefore be impossible without it. Remove 
 
136 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 this selfish iniquity from the heart of man, then co-opera- 
 tion would take the place of monopoly and competition. 
 Had the Pilgrim Fathers, and their immediate descendants, 
 been as wise as they were religious ; had they perceived 
 the law of the pricelessness of natural things and forces, 
 including the mental and physical forces in man ; and had 
 they also perceived the law that Work is the only econ- 
 omic quantity that is commercially exchangable, no 
 rational mind could doubt that the social status of the 
 American people would be altogether different from what 
 it now is. 
 
 Had they started a civilization with a recognition of the 
 fact, as Moses and Isaiah did — That land should not 
 be sold or monopolized ; — they would have seen that 
 Rent was an immoral tax. They would also have seen, 
 what all wage-workers now experience but do not see, 
 that those who work for wages pay the rents, the profits, 
 the dividends, the interest on capital, and the taxes, and 
 are, at the same time ground as between the upper and 
 nether mill-stones of monopoly and competition. This is 
 what we do now see, but what our Pilgrim Fathers did 
 not see. Nor did the framers of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence behold these great truths ; for had they done 
 so, they would doubtless have given them statutory force 
 by putting them into the Constitution, the fundamental 
 law of the land. 
 
 What they failed to do, we must do sooner or later. 
 The laws of God are supreme and must be secularize^. 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 1 37 
 
 Wisdom must combine with religious zeal to overthrow 
 existing evils, by planting in their stead a social system 
 havings Natural Law for a foundation, with wisdom, re- 
 ligion and love, the building materials,— the bricks and 
 mortar for a new social state. One thing is certain, there 
 must be an end of unrighteous greed or there can be no 
 peace. We must do not as statesmen who see the 
 light and then shrink into base conservatism, but boldly 
 declare the will of God. Nothing short of this will help a 
 suffering world, travailing in poverty, which is not of God 
 but of man. 
 
 Moreover, honest toil asks not for charity, or even a 
 magnanimous use of riches. Honest toil demands its own, 
 believing that " the produce of labor is the natural recom- 
 pense or wages of labor. ' ' Nor does it require or demand 
 a fictitious value of the things it produces, on the principle 
 of supply and demand. For no demand can make a pro- 
 duct or service worth more than the work put into it. 
 Nor can any amount of supply make a product or service 
 worth any less than the amount of work put into it. What 
 righteous toil demands is Justice. Give labor this, then 
 there would be no more rent ; no interest ; no increase ; 
 and, consequently, no wasteful wars ; no unjust taxation ; 
 no poor-houses ; no State-prisons ; no houses of ill fame ; 
 and woman would assume her rightful prerogative in the 
 State, and would no longer be the tool of the selfishness 
 and tyranny of man. There would be no Customs 
 Houses and therefore no customs dues. Free Trade 
 
138 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 would be universal, because the exchangable value of all 
 labor-products and services would be determined by the 
 amount of work wrought into them. Justice would wield 
 the sceptre of power. Pure, practical Christianity would 
 then gain a foothold and become a truly regenerating 
 force in the social state, instead of being the hypocritical 
 and ostentatious thing it now is. The possibility of its 
 realization would no longer be deemed a chimera, but a 
 substantial reality of which the world at present has no 
 adequate conception. Charity would cease to be charity, 
 and in its stead we should have magnanimity and love 
 emulating the Almighty in an honest, unselfish endeavor 
 to build up the kingdom of righteousness and love into 
 the pillars of the social state. 
 
 If you, dear Reader, do not see that these good effects 
 would logically flow from a cessation of the monopoly 
 and sale of land ; if you do not see that rent would be 
 impossible where no one had more land than he could 
 individually use ; if you do not see that profit is the effect 
 of rent, and interest the effect of profit ; if you do not see 
 that the wage system is the effect of land monopoly ; if 
 you do not see that poverty among industrious wage- 
 workers, aside from what they spend in intoxicants and 
 pleasure, is the effect of rent, profit, interest and taxation ; 
 and that these are based upon and caused by the monop- 
 oly and sale of land ; if you do not see that crimes of all 
 sorts are largely the result of destitution ; if you do not 
 see that State prisons are the effect of injustice and 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 139 
 
 avarice, backed by defensive laws which perpetuate this 
 gigantic iniquity, viz.: The monopoly and sale of land ; 
 if you cannot see that the artificial, anti- Christian civili- 
 zation in which we live, generates a festering injustice 
 and moral rot — then I confess my inability to enlighten 
 you. 
 
 Moreover, if you can not see that obedience to the will 
 of God is the salvation of the nations ; if you cannot see 
 that statute law, when it shall be made to harmonize with 
 the Revealed Law, in reference to the monopoly and sale 
 of land, usury and increase, will help to bring peace and 
 plenty ; if you cannot see that such measures of righteous- 
 ness would undermine this stupendous fabric of social 
 injustice, called modern civilization, with its caste of 
 wealth, and its caste of poverty, and remove the inherent 
 extremes of bloated satiety on the one hand, and pinching 
 wretchedness on the other — Then I say, there is no' hope 
 for the toiling masses of this generation. Reform becomes 
 a forlorn hope, and the kingdom of God an unrealizable 
 dream. 
 
 Workingmen ! A word to you in particular, and I am 
 done. 
 
 I have shown the injustice and despotism of compe- 
 tition. No combination of Trades Unions will ever 
 release you from its relentless grind and tyranny. Nor 
 will your selfishness by preventing young men and young 
 women, from learning a trade, help you. Nor will your 
 tyranny against ' ' scabs ' ' help you. Nor will your asso- 
 
140 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE; 
 
 ciated efforts to gain higher wages by strikes help you, 
 except as a means of agitation. Agitation is better, far 
 better, than indifference and deathly stagnation. But 
 you are powerless as against the inexorable force of uni- 
 versal competition. Moreover, your strikes militate 
 against the interests of the working-women, who as a 
 class do not strike ; because an increase of your wages 
 lessens the purchasing power of their wages which im- 
 poverishes them to enrich you. 
 
 For more than one hundred years American working- 
 men have struck against the grind of competition. You 
 might as well attempt to stem the torrent of Niagara 
 with a broom, as to imagine for one moment that your 
 strikes will arrest the crushing power of universal com- 
 petition combined with the monopoly of the land. This is 
 a gloomy picture, I grant. It is well, however, to state 
 the facts as they are. For hundreds of years the work- 
 ingmen of Europe have struck against the tyranny of 
 monopoly and competition, but all to no successful end. 
 
 Soberly, then, " What are you going to do about it?" 
 Will injustice to Chinamen gain justice for you ? Will 
 the abolition of competitive convict labor gain for you the 
 product of your toil, while outside competition grinds 
 you to misery and despair? Will monopoly, protected 
 by law, yield to your appeals for justice, and the cry of 
 your children for bread ? Money has power, and rich 
 men will buy the votes of workingmen by the bushel 
 when the contest at the ballot-box comes around. 'Tis 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 141 
 
 hard for the very poor and the idle to resist these power- 
 ful temptations. Bur woe be unto them from whom 
 these temptations and grievances come ! Better were it 
 for them that a mill-stone were tied about their necks 
 and they were cast into the sea. 
 
 Will a law which ordains that eight hours shall consti- 
 tute a day's work annihilate competition, put money into 
 the hands of parents and keep the children from those 
 death-traps, the cotton and woolen-mills, and fetid work- 
 shops of the world ? Will the prohibition of factory 
 child-labor, under fourteen years of age, send them to 
 school, clothe their backs, feed their stomachs or educate 
 their hearts and brains ? Will these things stop the 
 eternal grind of competition, or crush the power of 
 monopoly ? Away with all such delusions ! Nothing 
 will stop these Titanic forces except Education and the 
 repeal of all laws which sustain Injustice. 
 
 There are innumerable rich men with grand and mag- 
 nanimous hearts, who are as ignorant as the poor of the 
 blighting causes of the poverty of the many. And there 
 are thousands of rich men who have hearts of adamant, 
 — proud, cold, selfish, tyrannical, cruel and unyielding. 
 But the agitation and the education must go on. We 
 must show the rich and the poor alike that the bottom 
 cause of Nihilism, German Socialism, French Communism, 
 Irish Rebellion, Labor Reform and Strikes — is The 
 Monopoly and Sale of Land. No one should have 
 or occupy any more land than he can economically 
 
142 PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 
 
 use, or than can be profitably applied in co-operative 
 industry. 
 
 A selfish act done without regard to the rights of others 
 is an act of injustice. Therefore do I advise repeal. 
 This advice would be unnecessary if monopoly did not 
 thwart legitimate competition, and if there were no fixed 
 salaries out of all proportion to the actual service rendered. 
 As working-men and working-women are the chief victims 
 of competition, while the monopolists in a large measure 
 escape it, I therefore say — Repeal the laws. Take 
 away the power of the State which defends these rapacious 
 corporations and let them stand or fall on their own 
 merits. How long would they then remain common 
 robbers ? Just so long as they would be able, of them- 
 selves, to defend their gigantic iniquities. 
 
 How long, without defensive laws, would the monopo- 
 lists of the coal mines and petroleum oil of Pennsylvania, 
 hold iniquitous possession ? How long would the land 
 monopolists hold their vast estates ? The gold mon- 
 opolists, the gold mines ? The stone monopolists, the 
 quarries ? The lead monopolists, the lead mines ? The 
 iron monopolists, the iron mines ? The copper monopo- 
 lists, the copper mines ? The silver monopolists, the silver 
 mines ? And the timber monopolists, the forests of the 
 nation ? 'Tis the greed of abnormal selfishness that pro- 
 duces the extremes in society, and causes the downfall of 
 nations. 
 
 Protection and Free Trade are but forms of abnormal 
 
PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. 143 
 
 selfishness, and both are powerless to help you. Pro- 
 tection and Free Trade protect manufactures only. Strikes 
 will not save you. The abolition of competitive State- 
 prison labor will not save you. Laws preventing Chinese 
 immigration will not save you. Nothing will save you ex- 
 cept Christianity, which is practical Justice and Love, 
 taking possession oi the human heart. Nor will that spirit 
 of selfishness, which you condemn in the successful rich and 
 which you would so readily practice had you the chance, 
 save you. Would you in the spirit of greed monopo- 
 lize land, take rent, profit, interest, dividends or any 
 unearned increment to the impoverishment of others ? then 
 are you no better than those whom you condemn for 
 doing likewise. 
 
 I beseech you, then, for the sake of yourselves ; for the 
 sake of your children and your children's children ; for the 
 sake of justice and humanity every where, that you com- 
 bine as a unit, to repeal the iniquitous laws that crush 
 you, and at the same time persuade rich men to help you. 
 Then will you be blessed of your children, and blessed of 
 God in your righteous and praiseworthy endeavor. 
 
/ TgE ^Industrial Problem 
 
 Considered a-priorL 
 
 ^IS Adam Smith who says : " The produce of labor 
 is the natural recompense or "wages of labor. ' ' 
 Had he stuck logically to this fundamental premise he would 
 have solved the problem of commercial justice for all time. 
 Like all other political economists I have read, not ex- 
 cluding Henry George, in ' ' Progress and Poverty, ' ' he 
 failed to trace the law of justice which necessarily inheres 
 in every commercial transaction. It is a singular and 
 painful fa£t that when they are on the very verge of a 
 solution of the problem of commercial justice, they allow 
 their minds to be diverted into a discussion of such sub - 
 jects as — Wealth, Value, Price, Cost, Utility, Supply, 
 Demand, Competition, Monopoly, Productive and Un- 
 productive Production and Consumption, Protection and 
 Free Trade. By so doing they have plunged into an in- 
 extricable web of contradictions and absurdities. They 
 are, therefore, the blind leaders of the blind. I do not 
 mean by this that they have not discovered truths useful 
 to mankind ; but I do say they have utterly failed to dis- 
 cover the law of commercial justice. Had they sought 
 to know the Natural Law in the premises, instead of con- 
 forming to the selfish spirit of the world, they would not 
 have made so miserable a failure. 
 
146 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 My object, therefore, is to propound and answer the 
 following question with such ability as I possess ; 
 
 Is the law of Moses, which forbids the sale of land, 
 usury and increase, in harmony with Christianity and 
 natural justice ? 
 
 If it can be shown that it is, then the moral obligation 
 to faithfully apply it, in spirit and in truth, is paramount to 
 all selfish considerations, honorable agreements, and legal 
 claims whatsoever. The very statement of the question 
 reveals its momentous import. No considerations of 
 delicacy or preconceived notions of right and wrong 
 should deter the sincere thinker from probing this ques- 
 tion to the bottom. And no respectful allegiance to the 
 teachings of political economists should prevent lovers of 
 truth from giving respectful consideration to the thoughts 
 of others that may be diametrically oppoped to economic 
 ideas previously imbibed. Long accustomed practice and 
 prejudice in favor of established customs, the right or 
 wrong of which has rarely been questioned, become a 
 part of one's moral constitution. If, however, one does 
 question the rightfulness or wrongfulness of well estab- 
 lished customs, he will very likely be deemed Quixotic, 
 moonstruck or insane. Whether I shall be deemed alto- 
 gether wrong-headed in what I am about to say of the 
 causes of riches, and of poverty among industrious people, 
 outside of transgressions of physiological, law and do- 
 mestic economy, remains to be seen. 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 147 
 
 Ignorance is the bane of mankind. And the rich are as 
 
 ignorant as the poor in their relation to these vital ques- 
 
 • • tions. It is on this account that I desire to appeal to the 
 
 former, since it is through them, in my humble opinion, 
 
 that a peaceful evolution and revolution is to be gained. 
 
 Moreover, the rich are not less conscientious or mag- 
 nanimous than the poor. And I am certain when they 
 shall have learned to know what is right and just, or what 
 is the will of God in the premises, they will as readily 
 conform to it as those who are now the victims of uni- 
 versal injustice. 
 
 It is a recognized fact that man seeks to gratify his 
 desires with the least exertion. This selfish tendency of 
 the human nature is manifested in palpably unlawful and 
 immoral methods. When one becomes a thief, a house- 
 breaker, a pickpocket, a bank robber, a counterfeiter, a 
 highwayman, a bandit, or a pirate, he seeks to gratify his 
 desires with the least exertion. No one would be so 
 foolhardy as to sincerely defend these methods of gratify- 
 ing desire. Nevertheless, startling as it may seem, I pur- 
 pose to show that the transgression of the Mosaic law in 
 reference to the sale of land, usury and increase, is pre- 
 cisely akin to these unlawful methods, which every honest 
 mind condemns. It is therefore a question of justice: 
 and justice ought to satisfy everybody. But, what is 
 justice ? A simple illustration will help us to a solution 
 of the problem. 
 
 Thomas has a lump of gold that cost him an average 
 
148 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 two day's work to dig out of the ground. Robert has 
 made a hat which cost him an average day's work. 
 Thomas wants the hat; and Robert wants the gold. 
 Without any outside interference whatsoever they mutu- 
 ally agree to make an exchange. Thomas taking Robert's 
 hat, and Robert taking Thomas' gold. 
 
 Now, I ask, Is that a just exchange? Bastiat says: 
 " Wliatever two persons mutually agree to, in a matter of 
 " exchange, is just." If this be true then one day's work 
 is equal to two day's work. A conclusion so manifestly 
 absurd that any school boy ten years old would disgrace 
 Bastiat by his decision. Justice is always an equation. 
 It is also admirably represented, on the domes of our 
 court-houses, by the goddess of Liberty holding in her 
 left hand a pair of scales exactly poised, the emblem of 
 justice. I am sorry to say, however, that no such thing 
 as justice is ever gained for litigants in our courts of law ; 
 except, perhaps, in cases of willful murder, when the 
 culprit is hanged. A single example will suffice to show 
 my statement to be true. 
 
 Suppose that Thomas, after he had agreed to exchange 
 his gold for the hat, suddenly realized that he would be 
 victimized, to the amount of one day's work, and there- 
 fore he backs out of the bargain by peremptorily refusing 
 to make the exchange. Thereupon, Robert sues him for 
 a breach of contract. The Court, after hearing the evi- 
 dence on both sides, decides the case in behalf of the 
 plaintiff. Has Robert thereby gained justice? Not at 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. I49 
 
 all ! He has gained the point of honor at the expense of 
 justice. Since, by the decision of the Court, Thomas is 
 victimized to the amount of one day's work. Hence the 
 Court flagrantly transgressed the law of justice by en- 
 forcing the point of honor. 
 
 I am aware that the common understanding of the word 
 justice is : What the statute law allows. But this is not 
 that lofty conception of justice which we term Equity. I 
 therefore wish it to be distinctly understood that I use the 
 words Justice and Equity interchangably. 
 
 Hence it is apparent that honor is one thing, justice 
 a very different thing. I repeat, no one ever gains justice 
 in our courts of law. Courts should never enforce the 
 point of honor at the expense of justice. Honor is based 
 on mutual consent. But justice is a law of God, absolute 
 in the nature of things, and is in no respect correlated 
 with the honor, the caprice, or the avarice of man. 
 
 I now pass from this simple illustration of justice to its 
 more complex ramifications in trade and commerce. But 
 before I do this I must premise a few thoughts. 
 
 When a mathematician essays to demonstrate a problem 
 in geometry, he first lays down certain self-evident pro- 
 positions, and a few definitions of terms to which all 
 geometricians are agreed. No matter what may be the 
 varying methods of reasoning by which they demonstrate 
 the same problem, they always arrive, at last, at the same 
 accurate and truthful conclusions. 
 
 By a similar method of reasoning I purpose to conducl 
 
150 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 this investigation. The following axiom is the basis of my 
 reasoning : 
 
 The universe is priceless and commercially valueless. 
 
 By this I mean that all natural things, which are the 
 product of God, have no pecuniary worth whatsoever. 
 They are necessarily priceless. What is true of the uni- 
 verse as a whole is true of every part, because the whole 
 is the sum of its parts. It is therefore obvious that 
 the sun with its innumerable rays of light, and heat, and 
 its fructifying forces, is priceless. The moon, as it re- 
 volves about the earth, causing the ebb and flow of the 
 tides, is priceless. The winds that fan our- cheeks, and 
 fill the sails of our merchant marine, driving them from 
 ocean to ocean, and from continent to continent, are price- 
 less. The air we breathe and the waters of the ocean are 
 priceless. The fishes of the sea, the wild birds of the air, 
 and beasts of the field are priceless. The passing clouds, 
 which drop their freight of rain, are priceless. Time, 
 gravity, electricity and magnetism are priceless. The 
 globe on which we live is priceless. The gold, silver, 
 copper, lead, iron, coal, petroleum and precious stones 
 are priceless. The quarries of all stones and the forests 
 of all woods are priceless. The arable lands are price- 
 less. Man, from the crown of his head to the soles of his 
 feet, is priceless. And all the forces that are in him, 
 physical, nervous, intellectual and moral, are priceless. 
 Work, which is neither more nor less than the expendi- 
 ture of animal force in productive industry, is priceless. 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 15 1 
 
 And the utility of all work, whether it be physical or 
 intellectual, is priceless. Because a true measure of any 
 thing must possess the same property and quality as the 
 thing to be measured. Length must be determined by a 
 measure which possesses length, hence the yard-stick. 
 The quantity of liquid in a hogshead must be de- 
 termined by a measure which will hold a given quantity 
 of liquid ; hence the gallon. Iron in the bulk must be 
 weighed by a weight which possesses a certain specific 
 gravity ; hence the pound avoirdupois. Honesty must 
 be measured by honesty ; magnanimity by magnanimity ; 
 love by love ; intellectual power by intellectual power, 
 &c. , &c. Hence work must be measured by work, since 
 it cannot be measured by a pecuniary standard. What 
 is true of work is equally true of the utility of all useful 
 service, and also the utility of all labor products. Utility 
 can be measured only by utility. The utility of a drink 
 of water to the thirsty ; of medicine to the sick ; of a beef- 
 steak, or a barrel of flour, to the hungry ; of a house for 
 shelter ; of paintings and statuary to the aesthetic taste ; 
 of books to the understanding ; of inventions and scientific 
 discoveries to production ; of morals and love to the weal 
 of the human race — is absolutely inestimable by money 
 or work. Hence utility is priceless. What is true of the 
 whole universe is true of every part. 
 
 Thus do we see the universal law of God — That all 
 
 NATURAL THINGS ARE PRICELESS, AND THAT WORK 
 ONLY IS EXCHANGEABLE. 
 
152 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 This argument, a-priori, is verified by Adam Smith in 
 what follows : 
 
 In his " Wealth of Nations," page thirty -eight, he 
 says : — " The real price of everything, what everything 
 really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the 
 toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is 
 really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who 
 wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, 
 is the toil and trouble which he can save to himself, and 
 which it can impose upon other people. What is bought 
 with money or with goods is purchased by labour, as much 
 as what we require by the toil of our own body. That 
 money or those goods indeed save us this toil. They 
 contain the value of a certain quantity of labour, which we 
 exchange for what is supposed at the time to contain the 
 value of an equal quantity. Labour was the first price, 
 the original purchase money that was paid for all things. 
 It was not by gold or silver, but by labour, that all the 
 wealth of the world was originally purchased ; and its 
 value, to those who possess it, and who want to ex- 
 change it for some new productions, is precisely equal to 
 the quantity of labor which it can enable them to pur- 
 chase or command. ' ' 
 
 On page forty-three, he says: — "Labour * * is the 
 only universal, as well as the only accurate measure of 
 value, or the only standard by which we can compare the 
 values of different commodities at all times and at all 
 places. ' ' 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 153 
 
 On page fifty-one, he says : — " In that early and rude 
 state of society which precedes the accumulation of stock 
 and the appropriation of land, the proportions of labor 
 necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the 
 only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchang- 
 ing them for one another." 
 
 ' ' If one species of labor should be more severe than 
 another, some allowance will naturally be made for this 
 superior hardship ; and the produce of one hour's labor 
 in the one way may frequently exchange for that of two 
 hour's labor in another." 
 
 " Or if one species of labor requires an uncommon de- 
 gree of dexterity and ingenuity, the esteem which men 
 have for such talents, will naturally give a value to their 
 produce, superior to what would be due to the time em- 
 ployed about it. Such talents can seldom be acquired 
 but in consequence of long application, and the superior 
 value of their produce may frequently be more than a 
 reasonable compensation for the time and labor which 
 must be spent in acquiring them." 
 
 " In this state of things, the whole produce of labor 
 belongs to the laborer ; and the quantity of labor com- 
 monly employed in acquiring or producing any com- 
 modity, is the only circumstance which can regulate the 
 quantity of labor which it ought commonly to purchase, 
 command, or exchange for." 
 
 These quotations are sufficient to show how certainly 
 and truly Adam Smith saw the Law of Equitable Com- 
 
154 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 merce. It is to be deplored, however, that he allowed 
 his mind to be deflected, by land ownership and stocks, 
 from a rigid application of this Law in all the departments 
 of industry and commerce. He assumed that land owner- 
 ship, including rent, interest and stock dividends are 
 righteous in and of themselves ; and therefore did not 
 consider the equity involved in gains made in these ways. 
 This is a fatal oversight, if not a great blunder. For it is 
 impossible to treat of Economics and at the same time 
 ignore duty and morals. Every exchange ought to have 
 a practical moral basis, instead of being effected by and 
 through pure selfishness which is the method of the com- 
 mercial world bounded by monopoly and competition. 
 'Tis worse than useless to say that Economics have 
 nothing to do with morals. Why are theft, gambling, 
 and robbery morally wrong? Does the rightfulness or 
 wrongfulness of such deeds depend upon human assent 
 or dissent ? Certainly not. Why so certain ? Because 
 gains effected by theft, gambling and robbery are made 
 wholly at the expense of the victims. They are devoid 
 of Justice, therefore they are morally wrong. In like 
 manner, every exchange, to be a moral one, must have 
 equal Work wrought into the products exchanged, or 
 the services rendered. Otherwise, the exchange being 
 unequal, one gains and the other loses ; and the extent 
 of the gain measures the injustice of the exchange and the 
 consequent immorality. 
 
 As Work is the only economic quantity which enters 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 155 
 
 into equitable commerce, as proven by the above argu- 
 ment a-priori, and affirmed by Adam Smith, and as every 
 commercial transaction to be a moral one must be Just, 
 we are prepared to determine the morality of Rent, 
 Profits, and Interest or Dividends. Before giving an 
 example of any one of these forms of increase, we must 
 first determine the value of an average Day's Work ex- 
 pressed in some exchangeable commodity. 
 
 I have somewhere read that the average product of gold 
 per diem, for each worker, in the gold mines of the 
 world, is about four dollars a day ; and the average 
 product of wheat about four bushels. For convenience, 
 I shall assume the average value of a day's work to be 
 four dollars, and apply it in the following example of 
 Rent. 
 
 A builds a house which cost him one thousand day's 
 work, or $4,000, and rents it to B at the rate of $400 per 
 annum. We will assume the wear and tear of the house 
 at the end of the year is covered by an expenditure of 
 thirty dollars. Taxes, including water rates, we will 
 assume to be three per cent., or one hundred and twenty 
 dollars. Now, what does justice require the rent should 
 be ? We have already seen that honor demands four 
 hundred dollars, because B has agreed to pay that amount. 
 But justice requires that the landlord be paid but one 
 hundred and fifty dollars. We thus perceive that the 
 difference hetween what honor demands and justice re- 
 quires, is two hundred and fifty dollars. This is increase, 
 
156 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 in the Biblical sense. If B's wages be four dollars a day 
 he would have to work sixty-two and a half days to gain 
 two hundred and fifty dollars, the amount of the increase 
 demanded by the landlord. It is therefore obvious that 
 B is thereby robbed by the force of custom, honor and 
 law to the amount of two hundred and fifty dollars, or 
 sixty-two and one-half day's work. 
 
 As the produce of labor is the natural reward or wages 
 of labor, he who builds a house, which another consumes 
 by use, is entitled to the value of the house in work or 
 service. No one can righteously claim more than the 
 replacement of the house. What is true of the whole 
 house is equally true of any fractional part of it. Damage 
 by use should be restored to make the owner of the house 
 whole. This is all that Justice requires. If the landlord 
 gain any more than this, he is in duty bound to give a 
 moral reason for it. There is no escape from this obliga- 
 tion. He must render an account of every dollar he re- 
 ceives, or the tenant becomes a victim of increase. Thou 
 shalt not rob thy neighbor by rent, is as morally obliga- 
 tory upon landlords, as " Thou shalt not steal" is a law 
 obligatory upon every citizen. 
 
 Nor can he screen himself behind the fact that the 
 tenant agrees to pay rent. Such agreements are enforced 
 by law and custom ; but they are none the less immoral 
 for that, than would be a purse relinquished to a high- 
 way robber, who obtained it at the point of his pistol. 
 Any system of force by which men are compelled to re- 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. I57 
 
 linquish their money, or their work, without receiving a 
 corresponding equivalent in work or service is — Robbery. 
 Every landlord is guilty of it, honorable though it be, 
 for no one would pay rent, except under compulsion, and 
 the compulsory circumstance is the fact that Land is 
 monopolized and sold. Banish this stupendous in- 
 iquity, then Rent would be impossible. It must be done, 
 because it is a flagrant transgression of Natural Law. 
 That men are permitted to live in idleness and luxury 
 through the accumulations of Rent gained at the expense 
 of their neighbors and equals, only reveals the deep 
 depth of moral degradation and destitution to which 
 mankind has sunk. This unsuspected moral destitution 
 has grown out of the fact, that a few men, in all ages, 
 under the brute law of the strongest, have had the power 
 to deprive their neighbors of free access to the soil. This 
 is the Damnable fact of all ages, and the suffering it has 
 entailed upon the human race can never be known or 
 recorded. It is therefore high time that mankind 
 gnashed their teeth at this stupendous and universal 
 iniquity ! 
 
 It may be asked — " What inducement would landlords 
 have to build houses for the benefit of others if they could 
 not make a profit out of them ? ' ' That is simply begging 
 the question, or offering an excuse for robbing by rent, 
 when it. is utterly indefensible from the standpoint of 
 justice. It must be borne in mind that no one would pay 
 rent except under compulsion. The compulsory circum- 
 
158 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 stance is, that land is monopolized and thereby commands 
 a price. Were the land free and priceless, as it is by the 
 will of God, no one would be under the necessity of pay- 
 ing rent. All could have homes and other needful build- 
 ings at the simple cost of their erection. The price put 
 upon land is purely arbitrary, and therefore fictitious. 
 The land valuations of all countries are purely arbitrary, 
 having no existence in the nature of things. Land is 
 priceless. The question, therefore, simply points the 
 selfishness of the human nature. No one would build 
 houses if there were no profits to be derived therefrom. 
 Nor would any have occasion to do so if no one had more 
 land than he could individually and economically use. 
 There is land enough for all and to spare. And were 
 it not that this stupendous fabric of iniquity, viz., the 
 monopoly and sale of land, is upheld by law, it would 
 crumble to atoms, and the adhesive power of wealth, — 
 the backbone of monopoly, — would be broken. 
 
 When land can command increase, it then becomes 
 possible for merchandise and money to command in- 
 crease also. Thus it is that the trade and commerce 
 of the world is vitiated by this subtle system of in- 
 justice. When the land monopolist can command 
 tribute for the privilege of working the land and the 
 mines, then the way is opened for every form of increase, 
 and every kind of satanic device by which it can be 
 gained. It is the basis of every lie in trade or com- 
 merce. It debases the moral nature of man and trans- 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 159 
 
 forms him into an agent of evil. He becomes morbidly 
 selfish and cruelly exacting, and seeks in every way to 
 gain advantage of his neighbor. The cost and selling 
 price of merchandise are marked in cipher, that the 
 purchaser may not know how much he is victimized by 
 profit. Food is adulterated, goods are misrepresented 
 in quality, and clerical honesty is at a discount. Specula- 
 tion in stocks, bonds, agricultural products and other 
 merchandise, " corners," and modern banking are trace- 
 able to the monopoly and sale of land. Vice, destitution 
 and crime are the logical outcome of this stupendous 
 iniquity. " Vengeance is mine, I will repay,'' 1 saith the 
 Lord. And he does repay for every transgression of his 
 laws. In the economy of God the innocent are the victims 
 of the transgressions of the unrighteous. The wage- 
 workers of the world are the foot-ball of greed. They are 
 robbed on every hand by rent, usury and increase to the 
 amount of three-fourths of their wages, and their wages 
 are two-thirds too low. " The produce of labor is the 
 natural reward or wages of labor. " But the wage-worker 
 never gains it. He is robbed, insulted, maltreated and 
 enslaved. The only reason he is permitted to exist is 
 that the landlord, manufacturer and merchant cannot 
 prosper without him. 
 
 We will now consider the Economic Value of acquired 
 talents and genius. While reading this paper to a friend 
 he interjected this query — " Suppose that two boot and 
 
160 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 shoe factories have equal capitals, say $100,000, and both 
 employ an equal number of hands. The superintendent 
 of the one has superior mental endowments to that of the 
 other, so that he is enabled to save, by certain economic 
 arrangements, ten thousand dollars a year for the firm by 
 whom he is employed. Is he not thereby entitled to a 
 much larger compensation for the utility of his services 
 than the other superintendent ? ' ' 
 
 This question confounds supply and demand, or the 
 methods which now obtain in the commercial world, with 
 natural justice. It is a sophistical question, and, there- 
 fore, misleading. Let us analyze it. 
 
 The question assumes that native superiority of mind 
 has a price, since it is in harmony with the current cus- 
 toms of the manufacturing and commercial world, which 
 has always, for purely selfish ends, arbitrarily rewarded 
 men of superior mental endowments, or men who have a 
 peculiar adaptability for a special calling. As good 
 superintendents are not to be had on call, it is assumed 
 that he who possesses such a gift is entitled to a larger 
 compensation than he who does not. 
 
 This assumption, however, is not in harmony with 
 natural justice. All that any superintendent can justly 
 claim is an equitable compensation for work done. The 
 utility of his economic suggestions or ideas is no greater 
 than the utility of the boots and shoes made by the other 
 employees. When he has honesdy rendered an account 
 of the work done in the production of his economic 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. l6l 
 
 thought, and has received as much work in return, or its 
 equivalent in money, justice is done to him. Moreover, 
 the $10,000 saved by his economic devices are not 
 saved by him alone, but by the conjoint labor of all 
 the employees in the factory. Hence, the honor of the 
 saving belongs to all ; and the value of the product of 
 boots and shoes is determined by the total amount of 
 work wrought into them, which includes wear and tear 
 of machinery, &c. And since a year's product; cost 
 $10,000 less than the product of the other factory, the 
 consumers would thereby be the gainers by that amount. 
 The factory producing the dearer goods must ultimately 
 fail, or be compelled to reduce the price of boots and 
 shoes to the level of the more successful factory. 
 
 It must be borne in min4 that supply and demand is 
 no more a law of nature than monopoly is. The former 
 is simply the human nature trying to gain something, 
 which another is trying to gain at the same time ; while 
 monopoly is the sole power of rendering a particular 
 service. One is antagonized selfishness ; the other is not. 
 The former gets what it can ; the latter takes all it cari. 
 Both, however, have their root in lawless selfishness, and 
 cannot, therefore, have a spark of natural justice in them. 
 
 While, therefore, the honor of devising economic plans 
 attaches to the best superintendent, justice requires that 
 he be paid only for the work he does. " The produce of 
 " labor is the natural reward or wages of labor." If the 
 superintendent be rewarded for the utility of his services, 
 
162 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 what must be the reward which attaches to farmers, upon 
 whose products the existence of the human race depends ? 
 Since it would be impossible to reward these producers 
 upon the basis of the utility of their products, so would it 
 be equally futile to attempt to reward the utility of any 
 service whatsoever. A true measure of anything must 
 possess the same property and quality as the thing to be 
 measured. Hence, utility, per se, is priceless. 
 
 This fundamental truth applies not only to acquired 
 talents, but also to genius. Genius is but an uncommon 
 working capacity in a given direction, agreeably to the 
 will of God. And since it cannot be measured with 
 money, the only economic quantity which genius can ex- 
 change, is the product of genius. The righteous value 
 of the product is the amount of work wrought into it. 
 And as genius usually works indefatigably, the value of 
 the product is uncommonly great. A conscientious state- 
 ment, upon honor, of the amount of work wrought into 
 any product of genius, should be accepted as the economic 
 value of such product. 
 
 This principle applies righteously to all inventions and 
 discoveries. Their utility, as useful products, cannot be 
 estimated with money. Their true value is their cost. 
 As well attempt to estimate the value in use of Newton's 
 discovery of the law of gravitation, or Harvey's discovery 
 of the circulation of the blood, -or Shakspeare's plays, or 
 the mariner's compass and chronometer. The utility of 
 anything is simply inestimable. Hence arbitrary money 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 163 
 
 Values put upon human or natural products, is a willful 
 contravention of the Law of Nature which has ordained 
 that the utility of all products, natural aud human, shall 
 be had without price. 
 
 Thus do we see that the Economic Value of a man, be 
 he a genius, a man of talent, or an ordinary workman — 
 is measured by the amount of useful, honest work he does 
 for the weal of mankind ; and not by the amount of wealth 
 he is able to accumulate through selfish cunning, or greedy 
 monopoly. For all wealth gained in excess of what one 
 really produces by the work of his head and hands, is 
 gained at the expense of others. This is Robbery, and 
 is therefore condemned by Justice and morality. 
 
 There is a machine which manufactures chain auto- 
 matically. I am informed that it is fed from a large coil 
 of wire which is inserted at one end of the machine, and 
 is then so manipulated that the iron comes out at the other 
 end a perfect chain, such as is used to chain dogs, and 
 for other useful purposes, and resembles the old-fashioned 
 pump chain without the knobs. 
 
 We will assume that this machine cost one thousand 
 dollars, and that each day's use diminishes its value one 
 dollar, so that in one thousand days the machine is worn 
 out. What would be a just price of a day's product of 
 chain, assuming the wire to cost nothing, and no super- 
 intendence to be required ? 
 
164 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 If it be true that the produce of labor is the natural 
 reward or wages of labor, it logically follows that a day's 
 product of chain is equal in value to the wear and tear of 
 the machine for one day, which is one dollar. Now what 
 is true of this machine is equally true of all productive 
 machinery whatsoever. Were it possible to produce 
 automatically all things needful for man, then the total 
 daily product would be equal in value to the total wear 
 and tear of the machinery. For any charge added to 
 this a moral reason must be given. Now since no moral 
 reason can be given for profit, all incomes gained from 
 fixed investments are necessarily immoral, as no equiva- 
 lent in work or service is given for them. 
 
 " If I invent a steel plow and thereby enable farmers 
 to produce ten spears of wheat where but one. could 
 be raised by the use of the spade - T am I not entitled 
 to a part of the increase in addition to the cost of the 
 plow ? ' ' 
 
 No ! and for the following reasons : If one year's work 
 was consumed in the production of the plow, you would 
 be entitled to receive one year's work in return. If you 
 gain more than this you must necessarily rob some one ; 
 for all that you can justly claim is an amount of work, in 
 exchange, equal to the cost of the plow. Should you 
 gain more than this, the increase thus obtained must be 
 taken from the product of the farmer, the value of whose 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 165 
 
 crops is determined by the average amount of work re- 
 quired to produce them. If, therefore, you take increase 
 of the farmer, he must take increase of the miller ; the 
 miller of the flour merchant ; the flour merchant of the 
 retail dealers, and these of the consumers. Thus it is that 
 commercial justice becomes vitiated ; and the chief vic- 
 tims of this system of iniquity are the wage -workers, who 
 at last bear the entire burden of profits, since they have 
 no opportunity to make their loss whole by taking in- 
 crease of others. 
 
 ' ' A owns a flock of one thousand sheep, and is a well- 
 to-do farmer. B is a friend of A's, but poor. A proposes 
 to lend B five hundred sheep for two years. There are 
 adjacent government lands on which B can feed, tend and 
 fold the sheep. At the end of two years the flock has in- 
 creased one hundred per cent. How much of the fleeces 
 and the lambs should B return to A for the loan ? ' ' 
 
 You will at once perceive that this is a test question, put 
 expressly to determine the truthfulness of the premises on 
 which all my reasoning is based. What per cent, of the in- 
 crease of wool and lambs does justice require that B should 
 return to A ? Shall it be one, ten, twenty, fifty, or zero 
 per cent. ? I hold it to be a self-evident truth that, " The 
 produce of labor is the natural reward or wages of labor. ' ' 
 The converse proposition is equally true, viz. : Idleness 
 produces nothing, and is therefore entitled to nothing. 
 
166 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 With these axioms before us, I now proceed to solve the 
 question. 
 
 One thousand sheep would require twice as much work 
 to provide fodder for winter feed ; twice as much work to 
 feed them ; twice as much work to doctor them when 
 sick ; twice as much work to wash them in the Spring 
 previous to shearing ; twice as much work to clip the 
 fleeces ; twice as much work to pack the wool and pre- 
 pare it for market ; and twice as much work to care for 
 the lambs as would be required to superintend and feed 
 five hundred sheep and their progeny. I therefore con- 
 clude, from the axiom, that B is entitled to the entire 
 increase incidental to his services, while A is entitled 
 to nothing except the return of five hundred sheep in as 
 good condition, and with as much wool on their backs, as 
 they had when he loaned them. For when A transferred 
 to B the work and care incidental to the preservation 
 of five hundred sheep and their lambs, he necessarily 
 transferred the increase which is the natural reward 
 of B's industry. Thus is the law of justice completely 
 filled, and the theory of interest, promulgated by Henry 
 George, in "Progress and Poverty," is thereby utterly 
 overthrown. 
 
 Moreover, by the very definition of a loan one is pre- 
 cluded from taking increase, since it means — "Anything 
 furnished for temporary use to a person at his request, on 
 condition that the specific thing shall be returned, or its 
 equivalent in kind." And Christianity enjoins, that if a 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 167 
 
 borrower be utterly unable to return the loan, the debt 
 shall be forgiven, as in the example of the Parable of the 
 Two Debtors. Hence increase demanded for a loan is 
 neither just nor magnanimous. "He that hath ears to 
 hear, let him hear." 
 
 Thus have I demonstrated that loans, whether they be 
 in the form of money, flocks or herds, machinery, houses, 
 or personal property, are entitled, in equity only to their 
 conservation and return. And the commercial value of 
 the products of machinery, in so far as it automatically 
 displaces work, is determined by its depreciation from 
 use. The cost of replacing the wear and tear is the com- 
 mercial value of the product. And the commercial 
 value of flocks and herds is determined by the amount 
 of work evolved during their superintendence and care. 
 
 Charles E. Hill, Chief Special Agent o£ the Census 
 Office in New York City, has compiled a table showing 
 the manufacturing industries of the city. The statistics he 
 has gathered do not include the manufacture of cotton, 
 wool, silk goods and mixed textile fabrics, oyster canning 
 and packing, breweries and distilleries, ship building, 
 railroad car repair shops, salt, petroleum mining and re- 
 fining, and the mining interests of the country. The. total 
 number of manufactories outside of these was 11,068. 
 
1 68 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 The amount of capital invested was $157,581,749. The 
 greatest number of hands employed at any one time was 
 262,459. The amount paid in wages in the year was 
 $89,513,934. The material used was valued $267,043,236, 
 and the product was $435,422,102. 
 
 Here we have all the data necessary from which to de- 
 termine the average wages paid, and the average per- 
 centage on the capital invested. The wages were $1.12 
 per day, and the gain for capital was fifty per cent. The 
 average income for the year for each employer was $7,125, 
 or twenty-two dollars per day, which was twenty times 
 more than the daily wages of each workman. When we 
 consider that the management by employers is of no 
 greater utility than the work done by the humblest em- 
 ployee, such a division of the product is morally monstrous. 
 No wonder there is universal disaffection among em- 
 ployees. No wonder there are strikes, destitution and 
 wrath. 
 
 Alas ! for the poor and oppressed wage-workers of the 
 world. They are not only victimized by rents and profits, 
 they are also plundered by usury and taxes. Every 
 national, state, municipal and county debt, including the 
 vast accumulations of annual interest, is paid by the 
 farmers, artisans and laborers. Apparently landlords, 
 manufacturers, merchants and bankers pay taxes, but in 
 reality they do not pay one dollar of them, when their net 
 incomes exceed fifteen hundred dollars a year; for I have 
 already shown that work only is exchangeable and that 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 1 69 
 
 no one can earn more, by an average day's work, than 
 four or five dollars, measured by an average day's 
 product of gold or wheat. Consequently the vast 
 accumulated riches owned by a comparatively few men 
 is sheer robbery. It must be borne in mind that a life- 
 time of fifty years, given to constant industry, three 
 hundred days to the year, at four dollars a day, would 
 produce a net income of but $6o,ooo. How then is it 
 possible that any mortal can justly gain sixteen times that 
 amount or one million dollars ? And yet there are men 
 whose reputed wealth is from one hundred to two 
 hundred millions. What a stupendous curse is this ! 
 And what a monstrous mockery of Christianity J 
 
 It is said, in defense of interest, that a money-lender 
 renders a useful service to the borrower, and is therefore 
 entitled to compensation for the service rendered. 
 
 A lends a check for one hundred dollars, at ten per 
 cent, interest, on ample security, for one year. At the 
 expiration of the year he is the recipient of one hundred 
 and ten dollars. Now what equivalent has he given in 
 work or service for the ten dollars of interest ? None 
 whatever, except the work of writing the check, which is 
 an amount of service so small that it is not worth men- 
 tioning in a commercial transaction. Hence he has 
 gained ten dollars for nothing. In other words, he has 
 robbed his neighbor, under cover of law and custom, of 
 two and one-half day's work, at four dollars a day. 
 
I70 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 Thus we perceive how it is that the la* given by Moses, 
 " Thou shalt take no usury or increase of thy brother" 
 harmonizes with the law of natural justice. We also per- 
 ceive that an accommodation is not a service. I accom- 
 modate my neighbor when I lend him any thing. I 
 render him a service when I do some useful work for 
 him, and not until then. Hence an accommodation is not 
 a service. The latter implies work, the former does not, 
 and work only is exchangeable. 
 
 Nor is this all. Both the borrower and lender are 
 guilty of an immorality, because both are dealing in the 
 spirit of injustice. The lender wants something for nothing, 
 and the borrower gives something for nothing, in order, 
 perhaps, that he may take advantage of some one else. 
 
 The law of Christian morality" is this ; '.' Do good, and 
 "lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall 
 " be great." I am astonished that noble minded Christian 
 people should quote the Parable of the Talents in justifica- 
 tion of the wicked custom of taking usury, or interest. 
 This Parable is simply a material, yet very forcible, 
 illustration of the law of spiritual increase, and is not in 
 any respect a justification of interest. It shows how every 
 a<5t of the mind reads upon the individual, and transforms 
 him into his deed. If the thought be good the effeS will 
 be good ; if the thought be evil the effect will bedevil. 
 Spiritual increase comes to him who religiously observes 
 this law. Christians, therefore, are in no respect justified 
 in quoting this Parable to screen the conscience from the 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 171 
 
 guilt of sin. Knowing the while that Jesus took a scourge 
 and drove the money changers from the Temple, because 
 they were guilty of the transgression of the law. 
 
 Paul, however, says : " Sin is hot imputed to him who 
 " knoweth not the law!' No conscientious Christian who 
 studies his Bible, and has read Nehemiah, Ezekiei, Jere- 
 miah and David can consistently or truthfully claim that 
 he knew not that usury was unlawful. For Nehemiah, 
 while he was governor of Judea, compelled the nobles and 
 the rich men of Judea to return the one per ce!nt. of the 
 money, wine and oil, which they had exacted of the poor 
 during a great famine. Moreover, he compelled them to 
 relinquish the houses, lands, olive-yards and vine-yards, 
 and also the sons and daughters of the poor who had 
 been sold into bondage as security for loans made by 
 these very rich men and princes. He further declared he 
 would shake them out of Judea, as a man shaketh crumbs 
 out of his apron, if they refused to take an oath before 
 the priests and do as he bade them. They took the oath, 
 and solemnly promised not to again transgress the law. 
 As a consequence the walls of Jerusalem, the holy city, 
 were built up, and the people of Judea became once more 
 prosperous and happy. 
 
 Moreover, during the twelve years that Nehemiah 
 reigned as governor of Judea, he refused to receive the 
 salary of the governor, and there were fed at his tables 
 one hundred and fifty of the Jews, and rulers, besides 
 many outsiders. The daily amount of food prepared was 
 
172 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 one ox and six choice sheep, including fowls, and wines 
 once in ten days. Yet Nehemiah required not the bread 
 of the governor. 
 
 I venture the affirmation, there is not, in the history of 
 all the governors, princes, potentates and bishops of the 
 world another example of such glorious magnanimity, 
 patriotism, statesmanship and religious zeal as this. It 
 captivates the imagination, enobles the heart, and imparts 
 wisdom. 
 
 From these things I infer that Christian leadership is 
 worth no more, in dollars and cents, than any other honest 
 toil day for day. Nor has the dignity which attaches to 
 governors, princes, potentates, priests or bishops any 
 pecuniary value whatever. Witness the marvelous dignity 
 of Jesus. Has it, or can it have any pecuniary value ? 
 The very thought is sacrilegious. Dignity is priceless, 
 like virtue and veracity, or benevolence and love. The 
 clergy are the proper conservators of the morals of the 
 people and while it is their duty to say to the members of 
 their flock, Thou shalt do no murder ; thou shalt not 
 steal, or bear false witness against thy neighbor, &c. ; it 
 is equally their duty to say — Thou shalt not sell land ; 
 nor take usury or increase of thy brother ; nor use false 
 weights and measures. 
 
 It is true the churches have established everywhere 
 eleemosynary institutions to relieve the distress of the 
 poor. And contribution-boxes are passed around with 
 uniform regularity to the same end. And yet right there, 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 173 
 
 in the foremost pews, sit the men and the women, listen- 
 ing to the exposition of the Word, whose conduct, wittingly 
 or unwittingly, is the supreme cause of the very distress 
 they are constantly called upon to relieve. These are the 
 landlords, merchants, bankers, dividend-takers, stock- 
 gamblers, money changers, and those who make corners 
 in gold, currency and . agricultural products. These 
 things are done wittingly and brazenly, day by day. O, 
 Jesus, what stupendous crimes are committed under the 
 garb of thy holy name ! 
 
 Therefore, Adam Smith was in the right when he said 
 — ' ' Labor is the only universal, as well as the only 
 accurate measure of value, or the only standard by which 
 we can compare the values of different commodities at all 
 times and at all places." And he might have added — 
 ' ' And the only standard by which all services whatsoever 
 can be measured and exchanged. ' ' 
 
 It will thus be seen we have been obliged to supply his 
 logical omissions. He recognizes clearly enough that all 
 natural things and forces, including all the forces in man, 
 have no exchangeable value. His fatal omission is the 
 logical application of this law. His mind was warped by 
 watching too closely the selfish operations of the pro- 
 ductive and commercial world. He failed to show the 
 immorality of the monopoly and sale of land. While he 
 had the intellectual perception of the pricelessness and 
 unmerchantability of land, he had not a vivid moral con- 
 sciousness of it. Neither did he morally realize that it is 
 
IJ4 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 a transgression of Natural Law to put arbitrary pricey on 
 the native capabilities of man. Hence, with all his genius, 
 which was great, he was unwittingly a blind leader of the 
 blind. His statistics avail us little or nothing of essential 
 good. They do not instruct in Moral Law, or teach 
 equitable commerce. 
 
 Acquired talents have unquestionably an equitable value. 
 He who has learned how to manipulate his tools, has 
 learned his trade or profession. The work evolved in 
 the school of preparation must be paid for. Assuming 
 the preparation for a given trade or profession to require 
 five years of honest toil, and the average working years 
 of those who follow it to be thirty ; then each day's work 
 would be equal to four dollars, plus one-sixth of four 
 dollars which is four dollars, and sixty-six cents per day; 
 the sixty-six cents being the daily cost of preparation. 
 This is all that equity allows, and comports with the 
 proposition that " The produce of labor; is the natural, re- 
 ward or wages of labor. ' ' 
 
 I am aware that to conduct commerce on equitable 
 principles requires a high degree of moral excellence and 
 Christian love. One must be thoroughly alive to duty, 
 and have unbounded faith in perfect righteousness. He 
 must love his neighbor as himself, and God supremely. 
 It is no easy matter to educate the world up to the prin- 
 ciples herein set forth for the elimination of commercial 
 injustice and poverty. This task, however, ought to be 
 undertaken by some one. The endeavor cannot be 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. I75 
 
 begun too soon in our schools and colleges. At present 
 our institutions of learning, are seminaries of instruction 
 in intellectual gymnastics, and the commencement day is 
 but the beginning of a course of instruction in law, 
 medicine, surgery, theology, the fine arts, banking and 
 commerce ; the ultimatum of which is a system of 
 cunningly devised selfish schemes for victimizing every- 
 body. 
 
 This is strong language I aver. It is, however, indis- 
 putably true. For every intelligent person will bear me 
 witness, that learning is made a mount of advantage to 
 enable the possessor to enrich himself at the expense of 
 others whose circumstances, by reason of their environ- 
 ment, are much lower in the scale of material prosperity 
 and intellectual power. It is also true that the learned 
 and well-to-do victimize each other. Witness the debase- 
 ment of morals in the professions ! Their exactions and 
 greed are known and despised of all men ! Nothing can 
 transcend their selfish meanness and hypocritical pretence. 
 The professional fraternities are infected with moral rot ; 
 and their example poisons the atmosphere with their in- 
 fectious lies and religious hypocrisy. Their morbid 
 ambition for wealth demoralizes society, disgraces religion, 
 and transforms so-called Christian churches into emascu- 
 lating palaces of fashion and sin. 
 
 Witness also the demoralizing influence of the wealth 
 of the Astors, who are the reputed owners of 6,000 houses 
 in the city of New York. Their net income cannot be 
 
176 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 less than $3,000,000 a year. They are the wealthiest 
 landlords in America, and disastrously mephitic to pure 
 Christianity. 
 
 " I stood, the other day," says a keen observer of 
 events, ' ' in the vault of the formidable fortress of iron 
 and masonry on Forty-second street, where, last year, 
 the richest nabob in the world locked up his two hundred 
 millions of dollars in stocks, bonds and other securities. 
 It is one of the most redoubtable works of defense on the 
 American continent, though you may not be entirely 
 certain of that by surveying the building from the outside. 
 Its foundations were blasted out of the rock ; the front 
 wall is five feet in thickness, and the side and rear walls 
 are three feet, the material used being pressed brick with 
 brown stone trimmings. The beams, girders and main 
 pillars are iron, encased in fireproof material. The doors, 
 window frames and minor partitions are iron, marble and 
 glass. No wood is to be found in the structure. The 
 Great Vault, thirty-six by forty-two feet, of wrought iron, 
 steel and Franklinite iron, is imposing in strength and 
 proportions, and is situated on the ground floor, its four 
 outer doors weigh 8, 200 lbs. each, and have every effective 
 and known improvement in defensive devices. A massive 
 wall of masonry surrounds the iron work. The vault, 
 which is burglar, fire and water proof, constitutes a dis- 
 tinct building in itself. The armed watchmen who guard 
 the building day and night are under the strictest discip- 
 line, their hourly movements being recorded by an electric 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 177 
 
 clock connecting with various points on each floor of the 
 structure, and there are also wires running to Police 
 Headquarters and the offices of the District Telegraph. 
 In one corner of this great vault, behind heavy iron bars, 
 are the heavier iron doors of the works containing the 
 Vakderbilt securities, which can be opened only by 
 skeleton keys held by the owner alone. I suppose that 
 a hundred trained men in this building, with Gatling guns, 
 could easily defend it against a mob of one hundred 
 thousand assailants ; in fact, it could be reduced by 
 nothing less than the continued play of heavy artillery. 
 
 ' ' It may be a year since Vanderbilt, then ' worth ' 
 two hundred millions of dollars, put the larger part of his 
 possessions in the Great Vault. He could not, perhaps, 
 put more than two hundred millions under guard here at 
 that time ; but he has added over twelve millions to his 
 fortune within the year, though it has been a poor year. 
 
 ' ' Thus rapidly does the stupendous volume of his un- 
 paralleled pile enlarge ! Nothing like such growth of any 
 man's wealth was ever before known in the world. Every 
 year, in the nature of things, the growth increases, so 
 that the estimate of the best informed men is that, by the 
 year 1890, he will be able to pile up not less than three 
 hundred millions in his great iron vault behind walls five 
 feet thick." 
 
 Can any thing exceed the demoralizing force of such a 
 pile of wealth as this ? Behind it one thousand men, 
 with an average wage of two dollars a day, have wrought 
 
178 THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 one hundred thousand days, or three hundred and thirty- 
 three working years to produce it. Then there is the 
 bribery of judges, juries, lawyers, statesmen, lobbyists 
 and witnesses in the damnable business of the getting 
 of it. 
 
 " He has added over twelve millions to his fortune 
 within the year, though it has been a poor year. ' ' 
 
 Twelve millions a year is $32,876.00 a day ; $1,369.83 
 an hour; or $22.81 a minute. Sleeping or waking, idle 
 or industrious, thus does his wealth increase. Unable to 
 count it himself, and being distrustful of men, he has 
 caused to be erected a rock-bound fortress to protect his 
 immorally begotten pelf, and by an electric wire he can 
 call on the police force of the State to protect what 
 has been gained by the basest immorality and flagrant 
 robbery. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that I am not inveighing 
 against men, but against a system of unrighteousness 
 which makes possible such conditions and effects. 
 
 I can conceive only two remedies : Persistent educa- 
 tion in moral commerce. The repeal of all laws guaran- 
 teeing protection in the monopoly and sale of land ; and 
 all laws guaranteeing the collection of interest or increase. 
 As these methods of gaining riches are proven to be im- 
 moral and detrimental to the weal of mankind, they 
 ought not to be protected by Statute Law. 
 
 In harmony with the thoughts I have thus presented, 
 the Sage of Concord grandly says : — " Thus is the world 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 179 
 
 delivered into your hands, but on two conditions, — not 
 for property, but for use ; use according to the noble nature 
 of the gifts, and not for toys, not for self-indulgence. 
 Things work to their ends, not to yours, and will certainly 
 defeat any adventurer who fights against this ordination. 
 
 " The effort of men is to use them for purely private 
 ends. They wish to pocket land and water, and fire and 
 air, and all fruits of these for property, and would like to 
 have Aladdin's lamp to compel darkness, and iron-bound 
 doors and hostile armies, and lions and serpents to serve 
 them like footmen. And they wish the same service 
 from the spiritual faculties. A man has a rare mathe- 
 matical talent, inviting him to the beautiful secrets of 
 geometry, and wishes to clap a patent on it, or has the 
 fancy and invention of a poet and says : ' I will write a 
 play that shall be repeated in London a hundred nights ; ' 
 or a military genius, and, instead of using that to defend 
 his country, he says : ' I will fight the battle so as to give 
 me place and political consideration ;' or Canning or 
 Thurlow has a genius of debate, and says: — 'I will 
 know how with this weapon to defend the cause that will 
 pay best and make me Chancellor or Foreign Secretary. ' 
 But this perversion is punished with instant loss of true 
 wisdom and real power. 
 
 ' ' This world belongs to the energetical. It is a fagot 
 of laws, and a true analysis of these laws, showing how 
 immortal and how selfish they are, would be a wholesome 
 lesson for every time and for this time. 
 
l8o THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. 
 
 ' ' All our political disasters grow as logically out of our 
 attempts in the past to do without justice, as the sinking 
 of some part of your house comes of defect in the foun- 
 dation. One thing is plain ; a certain personal virtue is 
 essential to freedom ; and it begins to be doubtful 
 whether our corruption in this country has not gone a 
 little over the mark of safety, so that when canvassed we 
 shall be found to be made up of a majority of reckless 
 self-seekers. The divine knowledge has ebbed out of us, 
 and we do not know enough to be free. 
 
 ' ' The illusions that strikes me as the masterpiece in 
 that ring of illusions which our life is, is the timidity with 
 which we assert our moral sentiment. We are made of 
 it, the world is built by it, things endure as they share it ; 
 all -beauty, all health, all intelligence, exist by it ; yet we 
 shrink to speak it or to range ourselves by its side. Nay, 
 we presume strength of him or those who deny it. Cities 
 go against it ; the college goes against it ; the courts 
 snatch at any precedent, at any vicious form of law to 
 rule it out ; legislatures listen with appetite to declama- 
 tions against it, and vote it down. Every new asserter 
 of the right surprises us, like a man joining the church, 
 and we hardly dare believe he is in earnest. 
 
 " The cause of right for which we labor never dies, 
 works in long periods, can afford many checks, gains by 
 our defeats, and will know how to compensate our ex- 
 tremest sacrifice. Wrath and petulance may have their 
 short success, but they quickly reach their brief date and 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM. l8l 
 
 decompose, whilst the massive might of ideas is irre- 
 sistible at last. Whence does this knowledge come ? 
 Where is the source of power ? The soul of God is 
 poured into the world through the thoughts of men. 
 The world stands on ideas, and not on iron or cotton ; 
 and the iron of iron, the fire of fire, the ether and source 
 of all the elements is moral force. ' ' 
 
 Thus is my thought corroborated and supported by the 
 grandest thinker in America, — Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 The monopoly of land and the inventive genius of man, I 
 have demonstrated, are the prime factors productive of 
 universal want, destitution and misery, and constitute the 
 chief incentives to all manner of crimes, from petty 
 larceny down to justifiable regicide. 
 
 If you have understood my words you have not read 
 in vain. Would we make the world better, nobler, happier, 
 we must make ourselves virtuous by religious discipline. 
 Self-purgation of abnormal selfishness and the spirit of in- 
 justice, is the supreme need of the times. When we shall 
 have grown to that exalted state of moral purity which 
 enables one to love his neighbor as himself ] then shall we 
 be prepared to enter into that ideal state of co-operative 
 life dreamed of by the Apostles, and taught by Jesus of 
 Nazareth. The commercial law given by Moses, which 
 is the ba^is of the civil polity of Christendom, must be 
 religiously observed, in spirit and in truth, since it has 
 been abundantly proven by eminent, yet obscure thinkers, 
 to be in harmony with the nature of things — which is 
 the will of God. 
 
The Ideal Man. 
 
 I MIGHT rest the argument right here, without any 
 fear of successful contradiction from any quarter. In 
 order, however, that I may make assurance ' ' double 
 sure," I will state succinctly what Christianity is when 
 practically applied to the social state, and thereby show 
 that monopoly and increase are impossible. 
 
 Christianity is a system of divine government in imita- 
 tion of the Infinite Father's love and impartiality to the 
 children of men. God's goodness is never withheld from 
 the human race for a single moment of time. His love is 
 a constant presence like gravity. The evil equally with 
 the good, are the recipients of the divine tenderness and 
 love. In sickness the recuperative forces, which God has 
 planted in every human being, are as instant in their power 
 to restore health and strength to the wicked as to the 
 righteous. The winds and the waters : the rising and the 
 setting of the sun ; the auroral light ; the twinkle of the 
 stars ; the exuberance of the air ; the odor of flowers ; the 
 blue etherial ; the green-carpeted earth ; the sombre light 
 of the moon ; the glory and majesty of the universe, are 
 mixed blessings to the human race. This impartiality of 
 the love of God, to the children of men, was the special 
 function of Jesus to imitate. The love of the Nazarene 
 
184 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 Carpenter was- precisely analogous to the universal love 
 of God. His magnanimity was on the scale of the Infinite. 
 His love was marvelously impartial in his application of 
 it to the well-being of men. Not the least vestige of sel- 
 fishness found lodgment in his glowing heart. The rich 
 and the poor, the evil and the good, were equally the 
 recipients of his love. His scathing rebukes of the rich 
 were the chastisements of his love. Perfect love, as it is 
 in Jesus, absolutely excludes every taint of selfishness. 
 Each deed done, every parable spoken, and every speech 
 uttered by him prove it. His entire system of moral 
 philosophy is built on it. 
 
 To the rich young man who enquired of Him what he 
 should do to enter into the kingdom, Jesus made this 
 startling response : "If thou wilt be perfetl, go and sell 
 " that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shall have 
 " treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.'' When 
 " the young man heard that saying, he went away sor- 
 " rowful, for he had great possessions." 
 
 This largeness of magnanimity and love is the touch- 
 stone of Christian perfedtability. The absolute abnega- 
 tion of self is the only condition possible whereby one 
 may enter into the kingdom of heaven. Hence Chris- 
 tianity, in its practical relations to the human race, is 
 Unreserved, Universal and Impartial Love. 
 
 The love of Jesus is like the rays of the sun, a peren- 
 nial warmth to the heart of the race. It is the salvation 
 of the world. Into the kingdom of heaven, no selfishness 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 185 
 
 can enter. God's glory is His love. Hence Jesus was 
 the Son of God in this, that he was the expressed image 
 of the Father. The rock on which his church was built 
 was the Love of the Most High. His chosen apostles 
 stood in it, wrought in it, and Judas held the bag, the 
 common treasury of all. Nothing they had or received 
 was mine or thine. In that primitive church, selfishness 
 had no anchorage. The heart, mind and body of Jesus 
 and the apostles were a gratuitious offering to both Jews 
 and Gentiles alike. 
 
 After the Pentacostal gathering, the 120 disciples also 
 held all things in common. No one had anything he 
 could call his own. Each wrought in the Lord, in their 
 respective callings, to the extent of his or her ability. 
 
 The three thousand converted by Peter also held all 
 things in common. Many were priests and some were 
 very rich men. Barnabas had rich possessions, which 
 he sold, and placed the proceeds at the apostles' feet. 
 Ananias and Sapphira sold a possession, but made a false 
 return of the proceeds of the sale. And Peter, beholding 
 Ananias, said : 
 
 " Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to 
 " the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of 
 " the land ? Whilst it remained, was it not thine own ? 
 " and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power ? 
 " Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? 
 " thou- hast not lied unto men, but unto God." 
 
 Peter beheld the lie, although neither Ananias nor 
 
1 86 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 Sapphira had said a word about the sale of the land. 
 How true is it that selfishness cannot enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Among all the apostles, Paul is the most conspicuous, 
 the most learned, and the most glorious and sacrificial 
 example of loyalty to God and the will of his Master. 
 He spent himself day by day, going about from city to 
 city, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and establish- 
 ing churches, with a zeal and ardor of love, marvelous to 
 behold. He declared, with obvious authority, that he who 
 would not work neither should he eat. Moreover, to en- 
 force this law by a memorable example, he ministered to 
 his own needs,, by his. own hands, and scrupulously re- 
 frained from being a charge to. the churches he had estab- 
 lished. He earned his living by tent making, and what 
 he had to spare he gave to those more needy than him- 
 self. Thus did he fulfill, in his daily life, for nearly half a 
 century, the law of perfedl love, as it- is in Christ Jesus. 
 He died a poor old man, filled with the riches of the per- 
 fect love of God. 
 
 In the midst of that noble galaxy of disciples, there 
 stands out, like a star of the first magnitude, a woman, 
 whose Christian virtues shine with such conspicuous 
 brilliancy, that she is immortalized by the writer of the 
 Ads of the Apostles. Her name is Tabitha, surnamed 
 Dorcas, who kept an open house, and who made gratui- 
 tously, day by day, and year by year, coats and cloaks 
 for the brethren. Her'years were filled with the love and 
 
TtfE IDEAL MAN. 187 
 
 goodness of her Master; and she died in the heart of 
 God. 
 
 Thus did the Church of Christ hold all things in common. 
 " Neither was there any among them that lacked ; for as 
 " many as had possessions of lands or houses sold them, 
 "and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and 
 " laid them down at the Apostle's feet." 
 
 From this meagre history of the primitive Christian 
 Church, I infer the character of the government established 
 by Jesus and his Apostles. It s is pre-eminently Divine, 
 because it is in imitation of God's impartial goodness to 
 man. Any conduct, therefore, on the part of professing 
 Christians or others, which militates against it, is neces- 
 sarily immoral and Anti-Christian. "Love thy neighbor 
 " as thyself" is a law so overwhelmingly exacting, that 
 anything like murder, theft, lying, duplicity, deceit, false 
 weights or measures, monopoly of land or labor-produces, 
 selfish competition, patents or "corners," rent or increase 
 in any form, are immoralities so monstrous, and so dia- 
 metrically opposed to the law of perfect: love in Christ 
 Jesus, that they have not, and cannot have, any place 
 whatsoever in the Divine Government. When all the 
 produces of industry and all the strength of the body, and 
 the faculties of the mind are consecrated to the common 
 good, every species of selfishness is necessarily excluded. 
 This is the divine government, because it yields the great- 
 est good to the largest number. To this end all Christian 
 morals tend. 
 
188 THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 If these conclusions be true, then there is not, any- 
 where on the planet, a single Christian Church, held 
 together in the bonds of perfect love, as it is in Christ 
 Jesus and the apostles. 
 
 This will be an unsavory statement to the Christian 
 reader who rests in the complacency of his own right- 
 eousness, and who at the same time is guilty of the trans- 
 gression of the Law. For he who is under the law of 
 Moses is not subjecT: to the law of Christ. Christianity is 
 the fulfillment of the law of righteousness in the spirit of 
 love. Who, in the church, will voluntarily put himself 
 outside the pale of the selfishness of the world, so that 
 while he is in it, he is not of it ? 
 
 What a splendid opportunity is the present for organ- 
 izers of capital and of men to set a glorious example of 
 perfect love to the race! Could they do this with 
 humility, as Jesus did when he washed the apostles' feet, 
 we should behold a million hearts lifted up with respect, 
 and love, and gratitude, in a manner this world has never 
 seen! 
 
 Glory to the church which will set the example of 
 holding all things in common for the common good ! 
 
 Glory to the rich farmer who will establish commercial 
 justice on lands now called his own, and recognized as 
 such by law ! • 
 
 Glory to the manufacturer who will hold the manage- 
 ment of his factory or mill, and distribute the product 
 equitably among those who produce it ! 
 
THE IDEAL MAN. 189 
 
 Glory to the merchant who shall say to his employees, 
 I am now prepared to share with you, on equitable terms, 
 the profits resulting from our conjoint labor ! 
 
 Glory to the great inventor, scientist, discoverer, civil 
 engineer, architect, astronomer, lawyer, statesman, presi- 
 dent or king who shall set the example of unselfish 
 service for the weal of the race ! 
 
 Glory to the clergyman who preaches Christ in his 
 purity and unselfish devotion to man, and his love to 
 God! 
 
 'Tis ideal men like these, with women devoted to God 
 and the Saviour, from whom we may expect the regenera- 
 tion of the human race. Justice would satisfy everybody. 
 But Christianity would fill all hearts with the kingdom 
 of God, and realize to the human race an amount of 
 liberty and happiness of which it has never dreamed. 
 We need a greater consecration to the Most High, a 
 holier aspiration after the ideal life of Jesus. He who will 
 set this example, will glorify himself, glorify God, and 
 hasten the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 The Rev. Thos. K. Beecher says : " When we have 
 " wrought the mechanical equities into our system, so 
 " that there are no longer cruel wrongs out-crying ; then 
 " come the graces, the noblesse oblige of true Christian 
 " chivalry." 
 
 Great talents, in any direction, imply great obligations. 
 In the economy of God, no one can use them to selfish 
 
igo THE IDEAL MAN. 
 
 ends. They are given in trust for a noble purpose. He 
 who uses them selfishly, in a measure, thwarts the plans 
 of the Almighty. As there is no joy equal to that of 
 giving freely what we can easily spare ; so there is no 
 task so easy as the outflow of talents or genius agreeably 
 to the gift. The gifts, whatever they may be, should be 
 to universal ends. Man cannot live to himself alone. 
 And as each has a working faculty of some sort, it should 
 be magnanimously used for the common good and to the 
 glory of God. 
 
 The diversity of working force should be cemented by 
 the moral sentiments and by love. "A society of equals 
 " were simply intolerable. But he that is greatest will 
 " serve because he is great."* 
 
 This is pure Christianity. He who would gain it, must 
 keep his heart clean and spotless. The Holy Spirit is 
 strong only by purity* Then do we dwell in the presence 
 of God and He in us. Each beholds the other face to 
 face. Then does the heart hate evil, and the possibility 
 of wrong-doing is inversely as we are anchored in the 
 Most High. 
 
 To see God truly is to love Him with all the heart, 
 might, mind and strength. And the second great law — 
 "Love thy neighbor as thyself" — becomes easy and in- 
 evitable. Selfishness corrodes and imbrutes the Spirit. 
 'Tis the father of lies and murder; the cause of war, 
 bloodshed, national enmity, malice, uncharitableness, 
 
 * Rev. T. K. Beecher. 
 
THE IDEAL MATT. 101 
 
 hatred, revenge, heartburnings, universal misery and 
 despair. While Christianity, devoutly embraced, dis- 
 solves these evils and makes possible a true Christian 
 chivalry. 
 
 Whether, therefore, we view the Industrial Problem 
 from Adam Smith's axiom — " The produce of labor is 
 the natural reward or wages of labor;" or from the 
 standpoint of natural justice, or that of pure practical 
 Christianity — we find that the Mosaic law, which pro- 
 hibits the sale of land, usury and increase, is in harmony 
 with the nature of things, and is, therefore, divine. We 
 perceive that the transgression of it is the primary cause 
 of the involuntary distress of nations. Nihilism, Socialism, 
 Communism, Internationalism, Labor Reform and Ire- 
 land's strike against landlordism, are the inevitable se- 
 quences of universal injustice. 
 
 Every good man, therefore, should plant his sym- 
 pathies with those who are the victims of it. They should 
 insist that all statute laws which strengthen and foster 
 these iniquities be immediately repealed. Peace, happi- 
 ness and permanent prosperity may be predicated of 
 Justice ; but there can be no peace, happiness, or per- 
 manent prosperity till God's justice is done on earth as it 
 is in the kingdom of heaven. 
 
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PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY, 
 
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 The Phrenological Miscellany; of,. 
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 Practical Instructions in Animal 
 Magnetism. By J. P. F. Deleuze. Trans- 
 lated by Thomas C. Hartshorn. New and 
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 Tient Physicians, and others. $2.00. 
 
 History of Salem Witchcraft. — A 
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 STOWE, and Dr. Doddridge's Dream, fi. 
 
 Fascination ; or, the Philosophy of 
 
 . Charming, illustrating the Principles 
 of Life in connection with Spirit and Mat- 
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 Six Lectures" on the Philosophy of 
 
 * Mesmerism, delivered in Marlboro' Chap- 
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 The Philosophy of Electrical Psy- 
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 Charming. Illustrating the Principles 
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 Without : being an unfolding of the plan 
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 Truths.— The Philosophy of Electrical 
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 Notes of Mesmeric and Psychical experi- 
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 Nervous System. 1 vol. $3.50. 
 
 How to Magnetize ; or, Magnetism 
 and Clairvoyance. — A Practical Treat- 
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 Victor Wilson. i8mo, paper, 35 cts. 
 
 The Key to Ghostism. By Rev, 
 Thomas Mitchel. $1.30. 
 
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■L. 
 
 
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