Samuel Belcher Clarke

“ If now we annually exact from each occupant of land a sum equal to what such land alone, irrespective of its improvements, would rent for, and if we divide annually the fund thus raised equally among all the people of the State, or apply it to the use of all, is it not evident that all the people will stand on equal terms, or substantially so, with reference to the land? And if that is a result which justice requires us to bring about if possible, why are we not bound to make the exaction? ”

“ It is only the old, true, and indisputable function of the State; and in working for a redress of wrongs and a correction of legislative abuses, we are only struggling to a fuller realization of it, — that is, working to improve civil government. We each owe it to the other to guarantee rights. ”

“ If there be natural rights to life and land (and whether there are or not depends upon other considerations than the one now noticed) they must be dealt with by governments and states as the natural right to liberty is dealt with — must they not? There are no laws of the world which uphold private ownership of land any more than there are universal laws which maintain slavery or peonage. The institution in either case exists by force of the laws of the particular State within whose jurisdiction the land or the men affected by it are. ”

“ It is said that the plan logically leads to socialism, and that if it be adopted socialism will be the inevitable result. Those who say this, like the socialists themselves, make no distinction between land on one hand and the fixed capital, tools, and instruments of production on the other, which the socialists would have the state take to itself. But if there be a valid distinction between land and these other things as subjects of property, the dread of socialism is groundless; and that there is such a distinction George tries to show. ”

“ With a great population eager for better quarters (a population now so crowded in parts of New York City that on the average families of five persons occupy but three rooms, and 290,000 people find “homes” upon a single square mile of land) capitalists could make few better investments than by putting up comfortable houses for rent on vacant city and suburban lots, if from the value of such lots the speculative element were excluded. Houses would compete for men instead of men cutting each other’s throats, as now, in the competition for houses. ”

“ Yet it is certain that human beings are not rightfully the subjects of property.
The thing forgotten is this: the natural rights are not absolute, but as to every man are limited by the corresponding rights of other men. This is the only qualification, and it is not easy always to keep it in sight; but it is unquestionably a real and a most important one. By virtue of it a man alone upon a prairie may rightfully do pretty much everything that it is within his natural powers to do, while the same man in a crowded church or theatre is practically restricted to keeping his eyes and ears open. ”

“ When all accessible land is taken up, and, through increase of population or otherwise, more is wanted, then all land has a value which will go on increasing as population and the demand due thereto increases; and to such increase there appears to be no limit save that those who want land must retain enough of what they have or earn barely to keep soul and body together. Hence, it follows that the value of land in any community at any given time measures both the natural differences in the quality or desirableness of land and also the need of the people of the community generally for land. ”

“ If we add a human being to the list of typical things which we have taken for illustration, we shall be certain that some essential consideration is ignored by those who argue that because by the exertion of mind and muscle the land, the animalcule, and the marble statue can be, and are in fact, reduced to possession, therefore no distinction is to be made between them, and all are to be deemed rightful subjects of property; for men can make slaves of their fellow-men, and they have done so frequently, with the exertion of considerable mental and much physical force. ”

“ That the power to regulate the use of land must be regarded as an essential function of government if such regulation is the only way in which the natural rights of all can be secured, seems scarcely open to fair doubt. So as to the third point; the Marquis of Salisbury’s dilemma is unjust only if the laws upholding private property in land as we now have it are unjust, and those laws are unjust only if there be a natural right to land which they deny. ”

“ Our conduct in matters outside the domain of positive law, in a social club, for instance, is governed by it. In desperate emergencies, as at Cape Sabine, we unflinchingly exact the forfeiture of life itself from the man who will not conform to it. By its light, as by a beacon, our courts steer in construing constitutions and statutes, and in modifying the traditions of the common law to meet changed conditions. ”

“ Upon so much of present market value as can be shown to be due to this cause there would be no tax under George’s plan.
It will serve no useful purpose to comment further upon objections. Enough has been said to make it clear that George’s argument has not been understood. That being so, it would be strange if critics did not go astray in their objections.
Has every man, as against all other men, a natural right to land unlimited, save by the equal rights of others? Is it the primary function of government to secure to all its people their natural rights, including the right to land? ”

“ Everybody knows that such considerations must be rigorously pushed aside, and that, though the orphans appeal most powerfully to the capitalist from the side of charity and mercy, they must be cast in the suit unless his claim of better title fails; he must have his right, if he insists; yea, if he demands it, the peremptory writ shall issue, though the orphans go upon the street to beg in cold and hunger. So in the farmer’s case, is it not the only question whether the title which the government patented to the grandfather was qualified or not? ”

“ Everywhere not to a right which obliges, but to a force which compels. And when a title rests but on force, no complaint can be made when force annuls it. Whenever the people, having the power, choose to annul those titles, no objection can be made in the name of justice. ”

“ Land is, literally, indispensable to life. “How long,” asks George, “could the strongest and most resourceful human being maintain life in interplanetary space?” The land is man’s foothold, his resting-place, his opportunity; the only source whence the materials which his faculties require to work upon can be extracted; the only part of space where nourishment can be obtained. The right to life, therefore, involves a right to land, title to which vests at birth and by the fact of birth in every human being ”

“ But if the land is not his, if others have as good a right to it as he has, and he is suffered to have the exclusive occupancy and use of it, then he ought in justice to make compensation to such others, and the question is, how much?
Land has no value when and where equally desirable land can be had by every man who wants it. But land varies greatly in fertility, accessibility, and, generally, in desirableness. Hence, if many want it they will pay money to get the better quality rather than put up with the poorer quality. ”

“ We say now that the man who puts his faith in a municipal ordinance assumes the risk that the ordinance may be found to conflict with the statutes of the State. We say now that he who relies upon a statute does so at the peril that the statute may be held unconstitutional. Why do not the reasons which lead to these conclusions also compel us to say that he who lays out his money and his labor in reliance upon our written constitutions does so at the peril that those constitutions may be found and declared to be violative of the principles of right which underlie all positive laws. ”

“ But when the question is of the relations of human beings among themselves, he says (and who does not agree with him?) that each, as against all others, and so far as interference with him by them is concerned, is entitled to himself, to his life, to his liberty, to the fruits of his exertions, to the pursuit of happiness, subject only to the equal correlative rights of every other human being. Nor is he peculiar in his general idea of the functions of government and the proper scope of positive law. ”

“ Now, land can be acquired by the exercise of one’s natural faculties as really and effectually as can any other physical thing, e. g., a marble statue; for possession can be taken of it, the trees on it can be felled, the roots dug up, the weeds destroyed, the moisture drained off, the stones removed, the soil made mellow by the plough and rich with manure, — acts essentially similar to the quarrying of the marble and the chiselling of it into form. In neither case is any matter created, that being beyond man’s power to do. ”

“ The fact that the supply of material things which are adapted to the satisfaction of human wants is practically unlimited, is the sole justification for permitting them to be acquired and held without restriction. ”

“ The discoveries of the economists as to the nature of rent lie at the base of George’s plan. With this acknowledgment I beg to be permitted to suggest that the economists would do well to drop the question of justice, stick to their proper functions, and tell us frankly and distinctly, with reasons, what the economic effects of George’s plan, if adopted, would be. I conceive that as economists they have nothing to do with the question of justice. ”

“ Land varies in fertility, salubrity, accessibility, and generally in desirableness. Laws, therefore, securing to some men as absolute property the best parcels of land within the government’s jurisdiction are unjust inasmuch as the natural right of other men to the best parcels is as good as and equal to that of the favored ones, and such other men are not compensated for the difference in desirableness between the best lands and such lands as are open to them. ”

“ In his sense of the words there would be private property in land if George’s plan were followed. But the existing legal institution means that one man and his heirs and assigns, without doing anything whatever, may perpetually exact a part of the loaves which other men by their labor get out of the land. It means the holding of land out of use in anticipation of increase of population and increased general need for land. It means that one man may own a thousand-fold more land than he can by possibility use, and may, if he please, exclude all others therefrom. ”

“ Grant that the land is his property, and necessarily he is entitled to it at any particular time, that is, he has a right to exchange it at that time for other things, if he will and if he can, and it is nobody’s business whether he receives for it upon exchange many other things or few, much money or little; if he actually make an exchange, no other person, not even the State, as representative of all the rest of the community, can thereby acquire a right to take toll out of what he receives ”

“ If there can be any reliance whatever on the census and Professor Harris’ calculations, the aggregate of present land values, deducting nothing for the destruction of the speculative element, would not yield a tax equal to one-half the necessary expenses of government; and making that deduction the proceeds of the tax would very likely not equal one-quarter of those expenses. Population must greatly increase, therefore, and many years pass before any question of what to do with a surplus can arise. ”

“ If A has taken a piece of land, and is at work getting his loaf out of it, B cannot use the same land at the same time for the same purpose. Priority of appropriation is the only title of right which can supersede the title of greater force.” Force may be laid out of account altogether, for no one can base a title of right upon it alone without admitting that mere force, whether of ballots or of bullets, can to-day rightfully wipe out existing titles and confer others in their stead. Priority of occupation is a mere straw of barely sufficient weight to turn balanced scales ”

“ Unless the answers to it are seen clearly and in right perspective, any judgment that may be made upon their sufficiency is bound to be defective. George gives two answers. The first, which is founded on purely economic considerations, in effect is: because material progress, in a community where absolute private property in land is maintained by law, acts, by force of that fact, like a wedge thrust midway into a social structure, to raise a few, without effort or merit on their part, and to grind down the masses of men however meritorious they may be ”

“ In contrasting land with public health, it will be necessary to disregard whatever constitutional recognition there may be that property in land is precisely like property in buildings or chattels, and also to use the term “legislature” broadly so as to include the people themselves when performing the supreme legislative function of making or amending constitutions, as well as the particular bodies to whom legislative power under our system is delegated. ”

“ The appropriation of things other than land, such as brute animals, grain, timber, minerals, and generally the raw materials, of which all the commodities which men need or desire are made, does not so interfere; for there is no limit, or no known limit, to the supply of things of this class which men by labor can acquire, if the land, which is the source of supply, be not monopolized. ”

“ This, however, will not produce equal results, but it is right just because it will produce unequal results — that is, results which shall be proportioned to the merits of individuals. We each owe it to the other to guarantee mutually the chance to earn, to possess, to learn, to marry, etc., etc., against any interference which would prevent the exercise of those rights by a person who wishes to prosecute and enjoy them in peace for the pursuit of happiness. ”