There in a little moonlit room She sees a weird and withered crone, Who sat and spun amid the gloom, And turned her wheel with drowsy drone. With mute amaze and wondering awe A passing moment stood the maid, Then entering at the narrow door, More near the mystic task surveyed. She saw her draw the flaxen thread, She feels a drowsy torpor creep In deathly trance her senses locked: And gloomy towers the castle rocked; Shall echo to a bugle-horn; A hundred Norland winters pass, Nor wake thee from thy long repose; A hundred times the golden grain Shall wave beneath the harvest moon, Twelve hundred moons shall wax and wane Ere yet thine eyes behold the sun." She ceased, but still the mystic rhyme The long-resounding aisles prolong And all the castle's echoes chime In answering cadence to her song. She bore the maiden to her bower, An ancient chamber wide and low, Where golden sconces from the wall A faint and trembling lustre throw; A silent chamber far apart, Where strange and antique arras hung, That waved along the mouldering walls, And in the gusty night-wind swung. She laid her on her ivory bed, And gently smoothed each snowy limb, And all around, on every side, In every bower and hall, The steed within his stall. No more the watch-dog bayed the moon, The raven on his tower- Await the appointed hour. And stretched for many a mile; Above the mouldering pile. Yet oft, as from some distant mound A hundred Norland winters passed, A warrior from a distant land With helm and hauberk, spear and brand, By visions of enchantment led, To break her charmèd rest. O'er deserts waste and wide; Where baleful swamp-fires gleam and glare, Well might the warrior's courage fail, Till, issuing from the dangerous wood, With all its flanking towers. He crossed the threshold's magic bound, A deathly silence reigned. No fears his venturous course could stay; It echoed to his mailed heel; He sees a glimmering taper gleam, Athwart the midnight gloom; The lady of his dream. And gently heaves her breast; A rising blush begins to dawn Across the eastern sky; And slowly as the morning broke As the first kindling sunbeams threw And tipped the hills with flame, A mingling murmur came. A cloud of fragrant incense stole, Loud neighed the steed within his stall, The warder wound his horn; But fresher than the rosy morn, The maiden's heart doth prove, TO SHAKESPEARE. Oft when my lips I open to rehearse Thy wondrous spells of wisdom and of power, And that my voice and thy immortal verse On listening ears and hearts I mingled pour, I shrink dismayed, and awful doth appear The vain presumption of my own weak deed. Thy glorious spirit seems to mine so near, That suddenly I tremble as I read; Thee an invisible auditor I fear. Oh, if it might be so, my master dear! With what beseeching would I pray to thee To make me equal to my noble task; Succor from thee how humbly would I ask, Thy worthiest words to utter worthily! FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. THE INJUSTICE OF PROPERTY IN LAND. [Henry George, an American author and publicist, born in Philadelphia, Sept. 2, 1829. He emigrated to California in 1858, where he served as a journeyman printer till 1866, becoming a journalist shortly PRIVATE | source of social evils show a wrong. If it will not do this, it is disproved. If it will do this, it is proved by the final decision. If private property in land be just, then is the remedy I propose a false one; if, on the contrary, private property in land be unjust, then is this remedy the true one. after in San Francisco. Entertaining radical views on property and labor, his principal writings are devoted to the discussion of these questions, which have so largely come to the front in nearly all civilized nations. Mr. George bases his reform system upon the postulate that it is not capital but the rent of laud which keeps down the wages of labor, and that the remedy is the appropriation of rent by the community or the State. This, he claims, will abolish poverty, while it gives to the occupants of the land secure possession, the usufruct (or rent of the land) becoming virtually common prop erty. Mr. George removed to New York in 1880, and has three times visited England and Scotland, where he lectured effectively in behalf of land reform. Nominated for Mayor of New York in 1886 by the Labor party, he received 68,000 votes against 90,000 for the Democratic and 60,000 for the Republican candidate. He founded, in 1886, The Standard, a weekly paper, devoted to the propagation of his theories, and his principal writings are Progress and Poverty (1879), Social Problems (1884), and Protection or Free Trade (1886).] When it is proposed to abolish private property in land the first question that will arise is that of justice. Though often warped by habit, superstition, and selfishness into the most distorted forms the sentiment of justice is yet fundamental to the human mind, and whatever dispute arouses the passions of men, the conflict is sure to rage, not so much as to the question "Is it wise?" as to the question" Is it right?' This tendency of popular discussions to take an ethical form has a cause. It springs from a law of the human mind; it rests upon a vague and instinctive recognition of what is probably the deepest truth we can grasp. That alone is wise which is just; that alone is enduring which is right. In the narrow scale of individual actions and individual life this truth may be often obscured, but in the wider field of national life it everywhere stands out. I bow to this arbitrament, and accept this test. If our inquiry into the cause which makes low wages and pauperism the accompaniments of material progress has led us to a correct conclusion, it will bear translation from terms of political economy into terms of ethics, and as the What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What is it that enables a man to justly say of a thing, "It is mine!" From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against all the world? Is is not, primarily, the right of a man to himself, to the use of his own powers, to the enjoyment of the fruits of his own exertions? Is it not this individual right, which springs from and is testified to by the natural facts of individual organization-the fact that each particular pair of hands obeys a particular brain and are related to a particular stomach; the fact that each man is a definite, coherent, independent wholewhich alone justifies individual ownership? As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him. And for this reason, that which a man makes or produces is his own, as against all the world-to enjoy or destroy, to use, to exchange, or to give. No one else can rightfully claim it, and his exclusive right to it involves no wrong to any one else. Thus there is to everything produced by human exertion a clear and indisputable title to exclusive possession and enjoyment, which is perfectly consistent with justice, as it descends from the original producer, in whom it vested by natural law. The pen with which I am writing is justly mine. No other human being can rightfully lay claim to it, for in me is the title of the producers who made it. It has become mine, because transferred to me by the stationer, to whom it was transferred by the importer, who obtained the exclusive right to it by transfer from the manufacturer, in whom, by the same process of purchase, vested the rights of those who dug the material from the ground and shaped it into a pen. Thus, my exclusive right of ownership in the pen springs from the natural right of the individual to the use of his own faculties. Now, this is not only the original source from which all ideas of exclusive ownership arise as is evident from the natural tendency of the mind to revert to it when the idea of exclusive ownership is ques tioned, and the manner in which social | relations develop-but it is necessarily the only source. There can be to the ownership of anything no rightful title which is not derived from the title of the producer and does not rest upon the natural right of the man to himself. There can be no other rightful title, because (1st) there is no other natural right from which any other title can be derived, and (2d) because the recognition of any other title is inconsistent with and destructive of this. For (1st) what other right exists from which the right to the exclusive possession of anything can be derived, save the right of a man to himself? With what other power is man by nature clothed save the power of exerting his own faculties? How can he in any other way act upon or affect material things or other men? Paralyze the motor nerves, and your man has no more external influence or power than a log or stone. From what else, then, can the right of possessing and controlling things be derived? If it spring not from man himself, from what can it spring? Nature acknowledges no ownership or control in man save as the result of exertion. In no other way can her treasures be drawn forth, her powers directed, or her forces utilized or controlled. She makes no discriminations among men, but is to all absolutely impartial. She knows no distinction between master and slave, king and subject, saint and sinner. All men to her stand upon an equal footing and have equal rights. She recognizes no claim but that of labor, and recognizes that without respect to the claimant. If a pirate spread his sails, the wind will fill them as well as it will fill those of a peaceful merchantman or missionary bark; if a king and a common man be thrown overboard, neither can keep his head above the water except by swimming; birds will not come to be shot by the proprietor of the soil any quicker than they will come to be shot by the poacher; fish will bite or will not bite at a hook in utter disregard as to whether it is offered them by a good little boy who goes to Sunday-school, or a bad little boy who plays truant; grain will grow only as the ground is prepared and the seed is sown; it is only at the call of labor that ore can be raised from the mine; the sun shines and the rain falls, alike upon just and unjust. The laws of nature are the decrees of the Creator. There is written in them no recognition of any right save that of labor; and in them is written broadly and clearly the equal right of all men to the use and enjoyment of nature; to apply to her by their exertions, and to receive and possess her reward. Hence, as nature gives only to labor, the exertion of labor in production is the only title to exclusive possession. 2d. This right of ownership that springs from labor excludes the possibility of any other right of ownership. If a man be rightfully entitled to the produce of his labor, then no one can be rightfully entitled to the ownership of anything which is not the produce of his labor, or the labor of some one else from whom the right has passed to him. If production give to the producer the right to exclusive possession and enjoyment, there can rightfully be no exclusive possession and enjoyment of anything not the production of labor, and the recognition of private property in land is wrong. For the right to the produce of labor cannot be enjoyed without the right to the free use of the opportunities offered by nature, and to admit the right of property in these is to deny the right of property in the produce of labor. When nonproducers can claim as rent a portion of the wealth created by producers, the right of the producers to the fruits of their labor is to that extent denied. There is no escape from this position. To affirm that a man can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in his own labor, when embodied in material things, is to deny that any one can rightfully claim exclusive ownership in land. To affirm the rightfulness of property in land is to affirm a claim which has no warrant in nature, as against a claim founded in the organization of man and the laws of the material universe. What most prevents the realization of the injustice of private property in land is the habit of including all the things that are made the subject of ownership in one category, as property, or, if any distinction is made, drawing the line, according to the unphilosophical distinction of the lawyers, between personal property and real estate, or things movable and things immovable. The real and natural distinction is between things which are the produce of labor and things which are the gratuitous offerings of nature; or, to adopt These two classes of things are in essence and relations widely different, and to class them together as property is to confuse all thought when we come to consider the justice or the injustice, the right or the wrong of property. A house and the lot on which it stands are alike property, as being the subject of ownership, and are alike classed by the lawyers as real estate. Yet in nature and relations they differ widely. The one is produced by human labor, and belongs to the class in political economy styled wealth. The other is a part of nature, and belongs to the class in political economy styled land. the terms of political economy, between | sion of the Creator, we are all here with wealth and land. an equal title to the enjoyment of His bounty-with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers.' This is a right which is natural and inalienable; it is a right which vests in every human being as he enters the world, and which during his continuance in the world can be limited only by the equal rights of others. There is in nature no such thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully make a grant of exclusive ownership in land. If all existing men were to unite to grant away their equal rights, they could not grant away the right of those who follow them. For what are we but tenants for a day? Have we made the earth, that we should determine the rights of those who after us shall tenant it in their turn? The Almighty, who created the earth for man and man for the earth, has entailed it upon all the generations of the children of men by a decree written upon the constitution of all things-a decree which no human action can bar and no prescription determine. Let the parchments be ever so many, or possession ever so long, natural justice can recognize no right in one man to the possession and enjoyment of land that is not equally the right of all his The essential character of the one class of things is that they embody labor, are brought into being by human exertion, their existence or non-existence, their increase or diminution depending on man. The essential character of the other class of things is that they do not embody labor, and exist irrespective of human exertion and irrespective of man; they are the field or environment in which man finds himself; the store-house from which his needs must be supplied, the raw material upon which, and the forces with which, his labor alone can act. The moment this distinction is realized, that moment is it seen that the sanction which natural justice gives to one species of property is denied to the other; that the rightfulness which attaches to individual property in the produce of labor implies the wrongfulness of individual property in land; that, whereas the recognition of the one places all men upon equal terms, securing to each the due reward of his labor, the recognition of the other is the denial of the equal rights of men, permitting those who do not labor to take the natural reward of those who do. Whatever may be said for the institution of private property in land, it is therefore plain that it cannot be defended on the score of justice. 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. If we are all here by the equal permis In saying that private property in land can, in the ultimate analysis, only be justified on the theory that some men have a better right to existence than others, I am only stating what the advocates of the existing system have themselves perceived. What gave to Malthus his popularity among the ruling classes— what caused his illogical book to be received as a new revelation, induced sovereigns to send him decorations, and the meanest rich man in England to propose to give him a living, was the fact that he furnished a plausible reason for the assumption that some have a better right to existence than others-an assumption which is necessary for the justification of private prop erty in land, and which Malthus clearly states in the declaration that the tendency of population is constantly to bring into the world human beings for whom nature refuses to provide, and who consequently "have not the slightest right to any share in the existing store of the necessaries of life;" whom she tells as interlopers to begone, "and does not hesitate to extort by force obedience to her mandates;" employing for her purpose "hunger and pestilence, war and crime, mortality and neglect of infantine life, prostitution and syphilis." And to-day this Malthusian doctrine is the ultimate defense upon which those who justify private property in land fall back. In no other way can it be logically defended. |