What, and what alone, is needed to secure the proper proportion of the different forms of production, the health and symmetry of the industrial organism, is freedom. Idle labor, wasting capital, the glut of markets, the co-existence of poverty and of unused wealth are the results of restrictions which prevent the free circulation of productive forces. The remedy is in the removal of restrictions. This may be accomplished in a simple way.

Taxation upon the production, exchange, or accumulation of wealth checks production; but taxation which falls upon land values reduces a barrier to production. Therefore, to give productive forces freedom, all we have to do is to concentrate our taxation upon land values.

And in thus making land free to the laborer, in thus removing the restrictions which now hamper the interaction of supply and demand, we should so simplify our governmental machinery, so remove corrupting influences from our politics that we might, without fear of jumping from frying-pan to fire, include in the province of public administration such properly public functions as the working of telegraphs and railroads.

HENRY GEORGE.

NATIONAL DEFENSE.

THIS subject has received the attention of the ablest official minds in the United States-civil, military, and naval. The general principles of the national defense have never been questioned by the men whose duty it has been to make the subject their study. There have been disagreements in matters of detail, and of the two branches of the service each has, at times, been led by zeal to place too much stress upon the importance of its own duties. But consultation and discussion among those members of the army and navy who have in view the single object of doing that which is best for the country's defense have always brought about the best results; and I venture the assertion that there is but one opinion to-day among those who have thought seriously on the subject as to the proper method of defending the United States against foreign attack.

During the War of Independence the sea-coast defenses which existed at its commencement were but little improved. The evacuation of Boston by the British was hastened by the erection of entrenchments on Dorchester Heights. The forts in the harbor were afterward occupied by our troops, and Boston was not again molested during the war. Charleston was successfully defended against the attack of a British squadron. The shipsof-war built by order of Congress and privateers inflicted great injury on British commerce between 1775 and 1783, and descents were even made on the coasts of England and Scotland by Paul Jones.

The improvement of the national defense between 1783 and 1812 was small, so far as the land service is concerned, although something was done in the fortification of the principal harbors and sea-ports. All towns of considerable size on the sea-board, from Portland, in Maine, south to New Orleans, were defended by small fortifications. From the close of the Revolu

tionary War until 1797 there was virtually no United States navy, although a few small vessels were kept in commission by some of the States. From 1797 until 1812, several large shipsof-war and many smaller vessels were built and commissioned. The ships did good service during the war of 1812, and with the smaller vessels did credit to the American flag in the Tripolitan war. A few of them remained in existence until lately, and one, the Congress (rebuilt), was sunk by the Confederate ram Virginia (the Merrimac) in Hampton Roads, in 1862.

During the war of 1812, the Canadian frontier was defended by forts and fleets. The other frontiers then to be defended were those of the Atlantic and the Gulf, leaving the Indian frontier out of the question. The enemy was repulsed at Stonington, landed on the Potomac with little opposition, burned Washington, failed in the attempt to capture Baltimore, being checked at North Point and Fort McHenry, and was again foiled at Charleston, and Mobile, and New Orleans. The history of the navy from 1812 to 1815 is as well known to this generation as it was to its contemporaries. It does not seem, from the record of the war of 1812, that Great Britain attempted the invasion of the United States with the hope of making a permanent lodgment, but only for raiding and destructive purposes, as in the case of the burning of Washington.

Immediately after the close of the war of 1812, in the year 1816, President Madison formed a board of engineer officers, upon which was imposed the duty of devising a system of works of defense of the frontier of the United States. He also, by authority of Congress, called General Bernard, a French engineer officer of distinction, to preside over this board, a selection which caused the resignation of some of our best engineer officers, notably that of General Joseph G. Swift, at that time chief of engineers. This board did its work faithfully, and devised a system of fortification for the frontiers which was adopted by the General Government, and had been in a spasmodic course of execution from 1816 until the commencement of the Civil War in 1861. The Indian frontier, which extended from our Northern boundary to the mouth of the Sabine River, skirting the one hundredth degree of west longitude, was an important feature of the national defense at the time. In any discussion of the subject to-day, no account need be taken of any such frontier. The acquisition of Califor

nia, the settlement of the Far West, and the consequent elimination of the Indian race, have destroyed it; and, indeed, in the quietest times it moved westward continually, and was never a fixed line.

The principles upon which the board of 1816 acted were founded upon the art of war; and if this assertion is true, the same principles should guide to-day, with the understanding that such modifications should be made as have become necessary from the improvement in war material of all kinds, the introduction of steam in the navigation of the ocean, and the building of railroads. The approaches from the sea to all large cities were to be defended by fortifications, which could not only resist attacks from fleets, but would require a regular siege, if attacked from the land side. The defenses for smaller places and harbors of refuge were to be correspondingly weaker, but strong enough to prevent a foreign fleet from taking refuge therein, and to defend our own vessels which might be forced to seek shelter from attack by an enemy's fleet. In time of war all of these permanent defenses were to be garrisoned by volunteers and militia taken from the nearest inhabitants. The reg. ular army was to be the merest nucleus, only kept up for the purposes of caring for the forts, teaching new levies when war began, and protecting the Indian frontier. The navy was to be

kept at such strength that it was to be able to protect our commerce and the honor of the flag in time of peace, and to cope with an enemy's fleet in time of war on the open sea, or to assist in the defense of our harbors. Such, in brief, was the system of defense adopted under the spur of the experience of the war with Great Britain. When this system was adopted, the infantry weapon was the flint-lock musket, the largest cannon afloat or ashore did not throw shot exceeding forty-two pounds in weight, ships of war were propelled by sails, and their strength was determined by the forces of the winds and waves. The strength of the forts, too, was what was required to resist breaching by the naval batteries of those days.

Shell guns were not then in use. Mortars of ten inches caliber were used, but mortar fire from or against vessels in a seaway had never been considered efficient. In the interval between the British war of 1812-15 and the Mexican war of 1846-48, the improvements in arms and ships were small. The percussion lock had been invented, but was not in use by our infantry.

Shell guns for fortifications and ships, of caliber as great as ten inches, had been brought into use; steam ships-of-war had been built, but these were regarded as experimental rather than practical, and the construction of railroads between important points in the United States had been commenced. During this same interval the system of defense adopted had been sharply discussed by advocates and enemies. Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Poinsett, Mr. B. F. Butler, of New York, Mr. Conrad, all as Secretaries of War; Commodore Morris and General Totten, and other engineer officers, all writing officially, sustained it; while it was attacked, with different degrees of violence and ability, by General Cass, as Secretary of War, in the Cabinet of General Jackson, who was President of the United States at the time, by General Gaines, and by a few officers of the navy and engineer officers of the army. But the system progressed in spite of opposition, and at the commencement of the Civil War the United States were reasonably well protected against foreign attack, considering the conditions of the attacking and defending forces.

Between the end of the Mexican War and 1861, the forces of attack and defense had greatly increased in power, and the United States, although lagging behind other nations, had to some extent kept up with the improvements in ships and guns and small-arms, but no large quantities of war material had been accumulated. Screw war steamers of great size, but not of great speed, the engines partially protected from shot, had displaced side-wheel steamers, and their armaments were nine-inch and eleven-inch guns. For coast defense, eight-inch, ten-inch, and twelve-inch guns were substituted for the old forty-two and thirty-two pounders, and the guns afloat and ashore were equal in efficiency to those in use among other nations. Rifled guns were, up to that time, experimental, and were not in general use. The rifle-musket had taken the place of the smooth-bore, and the soldier had confidence in his weapon, a feeling which he never before possessed. But the Civil War found the country entirely unprepared for the strain that was brought upon it, and the poverty which existed in military material of all kinds necessary for the organization of armies would have brought permanent disaster, except for the fact that our enemy was as badly off as we were. The men were present, but the arms were wanting.

The impetus given by the Civil War to the manufacture of small-arms, cannon, and iron-clad ships excited the inventive