WHERE TITLES BEGIN.

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Demand being the cause of value, all things are produced, i.., brought forward, because they are foreseen to possess value. Nothing is demanded merely because it has been produced.

But

because man did not create or produce land therefore he can not own it. For the tribe came no nearer to creating land than the individual. Where, then, did one tribe get a greater right to exclude another than one individual has to exclude another? Nor, since the state did not produce the land, can the state own it. It simply can not be owned at all. And since, except as we own the land on which things are produced we can not own the things produced, it follows that neither the individual, the tribe, nor the state, can own any thing. Mr. George's doctrine therefore lands us in that of Pradhon, that "all property is robbery." Mr. George doubtless thinks that he thinks, but the present writer can only acquit Mr. George of being destitute of the thinking faculty in the degree essential to a rational creature, by assuming that in the above extracts, and indeed throughout his work, he has been impelled by an impulse of intensely active and burning thoughtlessness. Mr. George's remedy is as follows: "What I, therefore, propose, as the simple yet sovereign remedy, which will raise wages, (1) increase the earnings of capital, (2) extirpate pauperism, (3) abolish poverty, give rumunerative (5) employment (6) to whoever wishes it, (7) afford free (8) scope 9) to human powers, lessen crime, (10) elevate morals, (11) and taste, (12) and intelligence, (13) purify government, (14) and carry civilization (15) to yet nobler (16) heights, is-to appropriate rent by taxation.

"In this way, the state may become (17) the universal landlord without (18) calling herself so, and without (19) assuming a single new function. In form, the ownrship of land would remain just as now (20). No owner of land need be dispossessed, (21) and no restriction need be placed (22) upon the amount of land any one could hold. For, rent being taken by the state in taxes, (23) land, no matter in whose name it stood, (224) or in what parcels it was held, (25) would be really (26) common property, and every member of the community (27) would participate in the advantages of its ownership" (28). Here are twenty-eight distinct prophecies in thirteen lines, to entertain any one of which requires, not a more profound faculty of thinking than that possessed by a majority of mankind, but only a more superb egotism, combined with the eccentric retrogression which enables a man brought up in civilization to prefer barbarism. Two thousand years ago Aristotle (Politics, Book ii., ch. v.) said concerning this system: "This system of polity does indeed recommend itself by its good appearance and specious pretenses to humanity; and the man who hears it proposed will receive it gladly, concluding that there will be a wonderful bond of friendship between all its members, particularly when any one censures the evils which are now to be found in society, as arising from property not being in common; as for example the disputes which now happen between man and man, upon their contracts with each other, the judgments passed to punish perjury, and the flattering of the rich; none of which arise from properties being private, but from the corruption of mankind. For we see those who live in one community and have all things in common, disputing with each other oftener than those who have property separate; but we observe fewer instances of strife, because of the very small number of those who have property in common, compared with those where it is appropriated. It is also but right to mention not only the evils from which they who share property in common will be preserved, but also the advantages which they will lose; for, viewed as a whole, this manner of life will be found impracticable."

The singular fact in Henry George's mental obliquity is that he admits all the historical facts essential to justify private property in land, if he formed his opinion on a basis of historical evidence, and then denies its justice on the high metaphysical basis that its injustice has been directly revealed to him from God. For, that a policy promotes the freedom of man is to an economist its most complete vindication. Yet on p. 275 the

before a thing can be produced, in the literal and economic meaning of that word, i. e., brought or led forward, it must first be owned, and only one who owns it can lawfully produce it or lead it forward. Instead of labor being the source of title, i. e., instead of its being true that a man only comes to own things by having first produced them, it is true that a man only labors productively with and upon things that he has previously appropriated and made his own, either by seizure, gift, finding, purchase, descent, contract, bequest, or some other mode of acquiring title.

51. Title Dates from Seizure or Appropriation.-That the act of appropriation, by which a thing becomes property, must precede any productive labor upon it, becomes evident both by a priori reflection upon the motives which ordinarily govern human action, and by an observation of the mode in which legal rights to property come to exist. In no race or condition of society has the mind of man entertained the idea that the property of B could become the property of A merely by the voluntary act of A in working upon it knowing it to belong to B. Societies have,

only revelator who has yet re-enforced economic science by super-mundane wisdom, says:

"The reason, I take it, that with the extension of the idea of personal freedom has gone on an extension of the idea of private property in land, is that," &c., &c. His supposed reason is immaterial. The fact, as he admits, is that private property in land and human freedom have increased together.

Again, on the same page he says: "Thus with the extension of personal liberty, went on an extension of individual proprietorship in land." He might have added that one of the chief forms of personal liberty consists in the liberty of a person to own land, to have a home, which he can call his own, not merely as a fiction by paying rent to the State, but which he can transmit to his children free of rent. Deprived of the liberty to own land no man could be said to have any personal liberty. He would be the slave of his tribe, without a home, a wanderer and a nomad. Having admitted that personal liberty grows with ownership of land, which is all the warrant one uninspired would want to justify private title, Mr. George then assumes the altitudinous attitude of a revelator:

"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."

To so much of this utterance as purports to make known that the Creator has issued a decre to the effect "Thou shalt not own land," the majority of mankind will listen with profound reverence as soon as they shall be satisfied that Henry George has heard from the Creator since they have. To so much as states as an economic doctrine that labor is the only, or is any source of title, they will ask what he means by labor. If by labor he means labor performed, then, since all labor performed is capital, and capital will always buy land, it is true that labor in this sense deserves land and always gets it. But labor unperformed-to buy land with that is the rub indeed!

TITLE PRECEDES LABOR.

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when and where land was owned communally, provided that the neglect of the occupant to till, improve, fence, occupy, irrigate, or mine it, should be deemed by the law to be an abandonment, by the occupant, of his possessory title. In that case, the new appropriator would be justified in regarding it as unappropriated land, and could enter in and work the land. In this case, as in that of the previous possessor, his new title would begin in the act of appropriation or seizure. Even his title to the crops and products, produced by him on the land, would either depend on the validity of his act of appropriation, or upon some rule of law whereby his good faith concerning the land, i. e., his belief that he had the right to appropriate it, was made a ground for giving him title to the crops produced by him while in possession. In no case, we repeat,* was an intentional and confessed trespasser permitted to acquire title by his trespass, whatever might be the value of the labor he had blended with the article during its intentionally wrongful possession by him.

Nor is it in the nature of any man, in any race, to hope to gain title to a thing he does not own, by working upon it, unless it lies open to appropriation. In this case he first appropriates it, afterwards works upon it, and then bases his title on his act of appropriation and not on his labor. The phrases of the early Roman law show definitely that title in all cases arose in appropriation. All dominion or title, whether to wife, children, slaves, cattle, or land, was called manus-hand power, or the grip, grasp, or grapple by which the owner held them. The act of acquisition by which his title vested was mancipium or the "giving them into his hand," a word which included the idea of capture. The common form of closing hands in ratifying a trade is believed to be a survival of the old grapple or wrestle in which the victor carried off his booty as prize. Our modern purchaser thus succeeds the ancient victor, and our modern vendor takes the place of the vanquished. The early English word seizin, meaning the occupancy of land under a claim of title, as distinguished from mere possession, discloses and incloses the fact that all titles began in an ancient seizure, or act of appropriation of title, which a modern seizure could not aspire to be or undo. The title having once been appropriated by seizure could not be the subject of a second appropriation, but all subsequent acts of acquisition must be by transfer from the original appropriator.†

* Vide Ante.

+The chief function of laws and courts is to protect titles. It is natural that jurists

52. Private Title Is Monopoly.-In the infancy of society titles were at first almost wholly in the tribe, the individual owning only his food, clothing, and shelter; then in the state, and finally, in a mixed degree, in the state and the individual. The title attached either to persons, chattels, or land.* The economic principle underlying society is that no person will devote much labor upon that which he does not own, and will not work except for his personal and private benefit, but will work assiduously and industriously where the full return for his labor is to come to himself. In the degree, therefore, that private titles are multiplied and perfected, protected by law and vindicated by courts, differentiated in kind, extent, and duration, and adapted to the wants of a people in complexity of quality and and simplicity of transfer, in like degree is the production of wealth and increase of values promoted. Moreover, as all private title is carved out of what was previously a possession in common by the tribe or state, and as this process of carving out private titles is entered upon in order to stimulate activity in production by substituting the strong motive of private interest for the weak one of public interest, it may be said that the progress of industrial civilization is attended by a continual increase in the number and extent of the private monopolies through which society distributes at the most economic rate the services of its members to each other. The growth of productive energy is proportionate to the growth of private property. Private property is in all cases the conversion into a personal monopoly of something previously enjoyed in common. As private property advances, in the volume and quantity held by one owner, and in the number of owners, society, including the non-owners, gets constantly a larger measure of its use at a lower cost. Thus, at least in

should have the clearest views of the origin of Title. Blackstone (" Commentaries on the Laws of England," Book ii.) first divides Title, as to its vulnerability, into title by possession, by right of possession, and by right of property. The two last are intensi fications of the first, due to the continuance of possession in a manner indicating a greater or less acquiescence by others. He then divides it, as to its mode of acquisition, into title by descent and by purchase, both of which point back to possession as their origin. Under title by purchase he includes the several modes of acquiring by Escheat, Occupancy, Prescription, Forfeiture, and Alienation, which latter included alienation by will, by marriage, by gift, or by deed. Neither in English, Roman, Jewish, nor any other law was it recognized that title to property could be acquired by labor. As law is but the generalization of facts, it follows from this unity in the law that in fact labor never gave rise to a title, even in a single instance,

* "Outlines of Roman Law," by Morey, p. 23.

THE STATE AS A FORM OF MONOPOLY.

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certain marked instances, an increase of monopoly in title works out a great diffusion of socialism in use, or the greater the number of exclusive ownerships of property the fewer are they who are excluded from its enjoyment, since it is only by having an exclusive title to many things we do not want, that we are furnished with the means wherewith to exchange for the many other things we do want.

In the communal life no man's time and labor can be his own or subject to his own direction. They must belong to the commune. In the completely communistic life, i. e., where the relation extends to the sexes, even his wife and children could not be his own, and no one would own any relatives, since he could not distinguish his father from his uncle or his sister from his most distant cousin. Aristotle* pointed to these vagaries in Plato's Republic, twenty centuries ago, in much the same terms as they are exposed to-day, remarking, "For there are two things which principally inspire mankind with care and affection, viz., the sense of what is one's own, and exclusive possession; neither of which can find place in this sort of community." * *Prosperity will increase as each person labors to improve his own private property."

53. The State as a Form of Monopoly.—A monopoly of the privilege or power to allot land, decide controversies, punish crime, levy taxes, and make laws is called the state or government.

It consists of a mechanism for vesting in a few persons certain general rights which may be supposed to have been previously diffused throughout the mass. The State begins therefore as a monopoly (compared with anarchy) of the privileges of compelling service, holding and exchanging property and making war, which is the primal form of making law. Later on it extends its supervision to worship, commerce, education, art and industry. In theory, in a republic the whole voting class take part in the creation of this mechanism for making laws. Still the mechanism when created becomes, for the time being, a monopoly of the law-making and law-executing power, to the direct exclusion of its creators. The title by which each officer performs his functions is a monopoly power, created by law, though he may be said morally to hold the power in trust, that he will exercise it for the public weal.

* "Politics and Economics," Bohn's Edition, p. 41.