Full text of "Labor, land and law; a search for the missing wealth of the working poor"

D, AND LAW

From the collection of the

Prelinger
v Jjibrary
t P

San Francisco, California
2006

LABOE, LAND AND LAW.

LABOR, LAND AND LAW

A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING WEALTH
OF THE WORKING POOR

WILLIAM A. PHILLIPS

* / *

MEMBER COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS, FORTY-THIBD CONGRESS, AND ON BANKING AND
CURRENCY, FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1886

TK 1 .

GRANT <fe FAIRES
PHILADELPHIA

MY DEAR WIFE

ANNA B. S. PHILLIPS

WHO HAS VERY MATERIALLY ASSISTED IN

THE PREPARATION OF THIS WORK, IT

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

SINCE this work -was first undertaken questions involving the
rights of workingmen and the forms of landholding have steadily
grown in general interest. For the better study of these subjects
the facts herewith submitted have been collated. Care has been
token to present in as readable shape as possible, a large part of
what is known of the various kinds of land tenure among men.
The effects of the different forms of landholding on the indus-
trial interests, have been traced, and, also, the origin and growth
of many of those individual and family rights which have left
their marks on our social system. Slavery, vassalage, serfdom,
and the various modes of employing and remunerating or robbing
labor have been placed before the reader, and the change from
master workman to capitalist employer, the organization of cap-
ital, the formation and growth of guilds, trades unions and labor
societies, considered.

A long experience amidst the wonderful developments of the
Western states, and the privilege of having taken part in the
public discussion and consideration of great economic questions,
while they have furnished an interesting field for observation
and study, have also tended to modify previous opinions and
mould the views which are here presented. The works of many
other writers on the subject have been referred to and discussed.
The purpose being to throw all possible light on the subject, their
books have been analysed in all frankness. It is the hope of the
writer that the references to them may not be considered unfair
or iincourteous.

WASHINGTON, D. C., December, 1885.

vii

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Raising the wind The relations of law to labor and land Distribu-
tions of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property
Natural and commercial price of labor Contracts as a basis for
society, versus the doctrine of right and wrong Inventors only
enjoy limited rights Chattel titles to land a monopoly Titles
based on discovery, conquest or first .use Causes of inequality
between rich and poor Organized capital and corporations Gam-
bling in stocks and breadstuffs Slavery and land monopoly twin
robbers of labor Prof. Sumner Walker Henry George, ....

CHAPTER I.

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SYSTEM OP ANCIENT ISRAEL.

Scope of the Hebrew laws The patriarchate the primitive govern-
ment, of the Semitic races Laws framed to regulate land tenure
before land was possessed Available area of Judea Distinction
between property in the country and in walled cities Land nation-
alization rejected Family tenure of land The year of jubilee
Usurpations of the monarchy Tithes and taxes The peculiar and
advantageous features of Jewish polity, 30

CHAPTER II.

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIRES.

; CONTEXTS.

ing money In Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the
sole tyrants The king as landlord Persian political economy
Laborers should not be robbed beyond the point when they would
cease to produce Carthage a combination or corporation fur mer-
chandising, piracy and slave dealing Carthage called a republic, but
drifted into three classes : slaves, a mercenary army and an aristoc-
racy Theory and practice of government in Greece Land laws of
Lycurgus Gold and silver banished Constant struggle between
the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece Solon and Athens
Debt on land and slaves abolished Lejjal value of silver coin in-
creased by law Timocracy, or man's rights measured by his property
Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats, surrenders to
tyrants Koine a robbers' den Reduction of the aristocracy and rise
of the republic Division of land among the people Seven acres
enough Land assigned on two year terms Gradual absorption of
land and money by the equestrian order Slaves take tli$ place of free
laborers Death of Tiberius Gracchus Overthrow of the republic
Citizens subsidized Swallowed up by despotism and immorality, 46

CHAPTER III.

CONDITION OF LABOR AND LAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Aryan emigration to Europe Allodial title the distinction for free-
men The village council the ancient foundation of government
Division of conquered lands Women's property rights invaded
The feudal system erected on breach of public trust Primogeniture
Freemen reduced to villeinage Game laws for the pleasure of
aristocrats Social rights invaded Marriages between commoners
and nobles declared unlawful Laws of escheat The civil list The
" Younger Son " Banditti Parliaments represent landowners
Guilds and trades societies Free cities and towns Gunpowder as a
democratic element Titles the insignia of luxurious vagabondage, . 82

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM AS ITS PRINCIPLES AFFECT SOCIETY AND
ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.

CONTENTS. XI

woman's rights Polygamy Keformations Sects Denominations
Agnostics and the supernatural Prof. Sumner's doctrine of a
" free state " and the law of " contracts " Startling effect of " ecclesi-
astical prejudice " Dives and Lazarus, 108

CHAPTER V.

THE MAHOMETAN SYSTEM, AND THE GOVERNMENTS AND FORMS OF
SOCIETY FOUNDED ON IT.

Arabia the blest and curst The robber of the desert a founder of em-
pires Democratic tendencies of Mahometanism Its foundation
Plunder and polygamy Furnished an occupation for the large class
who seek to subsist by war or their wits Slavery legalized Women
degraded War on property rights of women Mahometan laws of
taxation Land tenure Divorce Wills forbidden Temperance .
and abstinence by law Licentiousness established on earth and
deified in heaven Pure Mahometanism, or Theism Worship of the
Prophet an innovation Christianity and Mahometanism the only
cosmopolite religions Informations in the Mahometan church
The Wahabees Mahdis Causes of Mahometan decay, 131

CHAPTER VI.

LAND AND LABOR IN RUSSIA AND ASIATIC COUNTRIES.

Chattel title to land unknown Struggles of Turanian and Tartar
Central Asia rendered a desert by misgovernment Rents and graz-
ing taxes Tartar greenbacks India the seat of allodial title and
village government Emperors, kings, warriors and corporations,
merely organized robbers Tax collecting the chief feature of impe-
rialism The British attempt to plant landed aristocracy in India-
Lord Cornwallis From Yorktown to Bengal Sale of land for debt
formerly unknown in India Land speculation introduced " Mu-
tiny " China and " cheap labor " Dense population Chinese laud
tenure Hung Ki Rate of rent No landed aristocracy Banks in
China Paper money Pawnbrokers Secret societies Rates of in-
terest Civil service reform Opium vs. whiskey Russia a network
of colonies Great and Little Russia The Mir The vetche The
village commune Land systems of Eastern and Western Europe
compared Usurpations of the Tzars Overthrow of popular rights
and government Recent attempts to liberate Russia from aristocrats
and tyrants Russian politics Despotism and nihilism, 155

Xll CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE VII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF MODERN EUROPE.

Lavergne Agrarian legislation of this century Lawns and deer parks
versus cottages French small holdings Number of proprietors in
France and Britain Condition of the French peasantry Exports
of England and France Effect of small farms on wages Oppressive
debts of the aristocracy Improvements under large and small hold-
ings Code Napoleon French law of inheritance Belgium Lave-
leye Made lands Gross production of a hectare Spade husbandry
Short and long leases Average food of workingmen in Europe
Spain Aristocracy and decay of husbandry Average wages Afor-
amento Portuguese tenure Austria Hungary Size of estates
Number of cultivating farmers Tenants and farm laborers Wages
and work of men and women Italy Relative population Number
of landowners Tenants and leases Rent Wages Production
Land tenure in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden Number and
kind of landowners Size of estates Food of working people
Wages Emigration from Scandinavian nations Prussia Per cent,
of landowners Price of land Abolition of Villeinage Agrarian
legislation Rent Food Wages, 199

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Cultivated and uncultivated areas Acreocracy Extent and value of
aristocratic holdings Number of landowners Urban and country
population Rent during six hundred years Prices of wheat and
beef Aristocratic debts saddled on the people Primogeniture and
the younger sons Loss of cottage and pasture privileges by working-
men Law of parish settlement Food and wages No law to secure
a tenant for his improvements A " retired tenant farmer " Board
and wages three centuries ago Prices Watt Tyler Growth of
cities Manufacture and commerce Mr. Giffen searching for the
laborer's wealth Mallock Modern wages Houses and food Ire-
land Arthur Young Subjection of Ireland Landlords in tripli-
cate Noblemen, perpetual landholders, middlemen and cultivators
Rents in Ireland Redpath ^Tenants and evictions Number of
land proprietors Battersby and compensation Argyle and Henry
George The duke as a philosopher and as a sheep raiser Defense
of British aristocracy Agricultural decadence Growth of manufac-
tures and commerce Food produced and food imported Rival
aristocracy of money, 233

CONTENTS. Xlll

CHAPTER IX.

THE ABORIGINAL AMERICAN SYSTEM OP LAND TENURE.

Agricultural and roving populations Tribal government Aboriginal
money and exchange Tribal boundaries Homes and hunting
grounds Male and female occupations Sparse populations Decay
and degradation of the Aborigines under European pressure Relig-
ious beliefs Rights in land not bought and sold Communal land,
but individual property Caribbee and Arowaks Three classes of
Aborigines Land laws of Cherokees and Choctaws The soil com-
mon, but improvements personal property John Ross Corn Plant
Bushyhead Land in severalty prescribed by the whites Treaties
used to secure foothold and land Repudiated when the Indians
grow weak Washington Gen. Knox Chief Justice Marshall
Cass and Jackson versus the Supreme Court Indian inertia Zuni
and its rich man A Caribbee political economist, 278

CHAPTER X.

ERA OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA
RIGHT OF DISCOVERY RIGHT OF CONQUEST.

European discoverers visit America for gold, silver and trade A cen-
tury of robbery, rapine and murder Comparison between European
and American society at date of discovery Slavery and Las Casas
Dates of actual settlement in the West Indies Dates of actual settle-
ment in North America W T hat led to it Settlements of the North-
men Discovery a better title than possession Conquest on pretense
of Christianizing Native rights disregarded French and Spanish
colonies fraternize with the natives English colonies refuse to min-
gle The Indian must " go West " Attempts to plant white aristo-
cracy First speculations in sales and gifts of American lands
Popes, kings and parliaments granted land they had never seen
Colonial boundaries Annexation, wars of conquest Treaties De-
gradation and extermination The Henderson purchase Baron
Graffenreid John Locke's constitution American lords and pala-
tines Aristocracy Slavery Free settlements, 299

CHAPTER XI.

HISTORY OF THE LAND POLITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Land tenure shaped in colonial days Conflicting colonial claims
Continental Congress Plea to pay expenses of Revolutionary War

XIV CONTENTS.

from public lands First land bounty for soldiers Proposed North-
west colony Washington's landed estates The Walpole Land
Company The Ohio Company The Quebec bill Ordinance for
the Northwest territory Madison's comments First modes of land
sale French commons^John Adams Property in soil the founda-
tion of power Land sold from 1796 to 1885 Proceeds in money
Less than a year's customs and revenue The surplus funds The
years of great land speculation Borrowing public money to Isuy
public lands Distribution of the proceeds Graduation bill Grants
of lands to states To schools and colleges To canals To corpora-
tions Preemption law Homestead law Great and small land
speculators Squatters Residue of public lands Frauds under a
bad system Texas and her lands Mexican grants Letter from the
commissioner Aggregate homesteads filed and taken Timber cult-
ure grants Area disposed for bounty land warrants Number of
farms in the United States Number of landholders Of renters
Of farm laborers Gradual transfer of land from settler to land
speculator, 320

CHAPTER XII.

CORPORATIONS.

Unsatisfactory statistics of corporations Corporations known to Roman -
law Early town corporations East India Company Supposed legal
powers of corporations Plea of vested rights A legislature cannot
grant power that strips its successors of authority Public and pri-
vate companies Corporations a subordinate power of the State
Eminent domain Railroads public highways A curious charter
Craftsmen employers and corporate employers Money as an em-
ployer Crafts, guilds and trades unions William Pitt Imaginary
political necessity for cheap labor Organization of capital in cor-
porations The organization of labor John Stuart Mill on co-op-
eration Consolidation among the autocrats of transportation
Stocks, assets, liabilities and income of railroads Miraculous expan-
sion of capital under the fingering of corporations Revenues of rail-
road companies A greater power than the State Army of em-
ployees under direction of a few National debts Corporate debts
greater than all public debts combined Banking on the confidence
plan Dealers in money becoming jobbers in labor The accu-
mulated property in the country and who owns it Piratical stock
jobbing Rights of individuals and powers of the State threatened
by corporations, 3GO

CONTESTS. XV

CHAPTER XIII.

SHADOWS OF THE COMING AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY.

The fetters of want American and French republics Free and slave
labor in the young American republic Aristocracy as first planted
almost submerged Failure of political amendments to secure equal
power to landless freedmen The exodus Capitalist and wage
worker Duke of Argyle Necessity of maintaining republican sim-
plicity Great increasing wealth Where it goes Rich, middle and
poorer classes Wages and incomes of tradesmen Aggregate accu-
mulated wealth What workingmen have no interest in What they
have a small interest in Gradually ceasing to own lands and lots
Statistics of labor and of employees, professional men and capitalists
Family and individual property Laws of inheritance Life Prop-
erty Reputation Interest and compound interest The cumulative
power of capital Atkinson on national debts Paper credits carry
on business Profits of directing energy Capital which is used, and
capital which is of little use Non-producing classes always an aris-
tocracy We must cultivate respect for honest poverty, 396

CHAPTER XIV.

REMEDIES.

Is the body politic disordered Great wealth cannot insure national
stability Inequality in condition steadily developing Workers not
getting their share What has caused the unequal distribution of
wealth In the early republic no great millionaires and few beggars
Number of monopolies embraced in land monopoly Allodial title
Two pleas for rent Can improvements constitute an alienating
lien Bastiat The natural and indestructible powers of the soil
What rights in land are in accord with public policy Length of
tenure necessary to secure high improvements Land should only be
held by occupying cultivators Reduction of farms with increase of
population Money should be refused speculating investment in land,
or investment to secure rent Henry George's plan Tax and rent
must not be permitted to increase the price of bread and meat Tax
must come out of accumulated capital Large farms and landholders
Land speculation and wholesale farming should be taxed out of
existence The destruction of artificial land values no calamity
What is just and what is practicable Cyrus Field and Henry George
Timber lands Grazing lands Mineral lands Railroad land
grants Various communal experiments Mormonism Icaria

XVI CONTENTS.

Kobert Owen Fourierism Shakers Oneida perfectionists Indi-
vidualism and socialism How are wages to be raised Combination
and organization Law, the servant of labor Assassination and
dynamite the suicide of labor interests What is the legitimate
business of government How to control railroad and other corpora-
tions Justice but not pauperism Public improvements Homes for
workingmen Will-making and inheritance, 424

LABOR, LAND AND LAW.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Raising the wind The relations of law to labor and land Distribution
of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property Natural and
commercial price of labor Contracts as a basis for society, versus the
doctrine of right and wrong Inventors only enjoy limited rights
Chattel titles to land a monopoly Titles based on discovery, conquest
or first use Causes of inequality between rich and poor Organized
capital and corporations Gambling in stocks and breadstuffs Slavery
and land monopoly twin robbers of labor Prof. Sumner Walker
Henry George.

IT is related that a certain Eastern potentate fell into
the impecunious condition, common to many of his prede-
cessors, and all of his successors, and set his wits to work to
devise a remedy. A farmer of imposts who had often aided
him, in this dilemma came to his rescue. He offered him
sixty thousand tomans for all the winds that should ever blow
over Cashmere. The monarch at first affected to be staggered
at the proposition. He was unable to find anything in prece-
dents to warrant it, but, although a believer in the doctrine
that whatever is, is right, he was forced to admit that a mon-
arch may introduce useful innovations. Of course, it was
assumed that he was the supreme owner and disposer of all
things in his dominions, not only for his own brief, erratic
span of life, but for all time, and so he came to the conclusion
that as everything in the world had been sold which could be
sold, there was no good reason why the winds, unstable

2 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

though they might be, should be exempted if a purchaser
could be found. After a proper amount of preliminary hag-
gling a sale was made and the transaction legalized by all that
signatures, seals and parchment could do for it.

Before the public had fairly got over laughing at the
absurdity of this novel bargain, the owner of the wind issued
a proclamation forbidding all persons in Cashmere from using
his wind to turn their windmills, winnow their corn, propel
their vessels or employ it in any other manner, until they had
first entered into agreements with him and obtained leases for
the various localities, covenanting to pay certain amounts for
the privilege. Then the laughing turned to lamentation.
The monarch met the torrent of petitions and complaints by
affecting to deplore the circumstance. He could not, of course,
foresee all that had occurred, but his sacred word was involved.
Rulers of that type are usually very particular about their
sacred word. Driven to desperation, the inhabitants contrib-
uted the amount that had been paid for the wind and tendered
it to their sovereign so that this unheard of transaction could
be cancelled.

The matter was not to be so easily arranged. The owner
of the winds of Cashmere would not think of such a thing.
He had acquired a vested right in them. Since it had become
purchasable the wind had greatly risen, in price at least.
Wind stocks were on an upward market. The owner insisted
that his title was good. He did not claim it merely by his
right of discovery of the commercial value of the wind, or
that he had been the first to preempt this privilege, but he
had fairly bought it from the representative of government,
and declared that his title was begirt, and founded on all that
was sacred in law or the theory of eminent domain and
supreme authority. It would be altogether unfair to ask him
to surrender this valuable privilege for anything less than
what it might bring him in case he should be allowed to keep
it. The proposition of the people was merely a bald scheme

RAISING THE WIND. 3

of robbery. It was subversive of all property rights ; was
socialistic, agrarian and revolutionary ; and to force him to
accept of a price so inadequate would strike a fatal blow at
the best interests of society and undermine the whole fabric
on which the rights of property rested.

This reasoning was, of course, entirely conclusive to the
monarch, who was undoubtedly the confederate of the farmer
of imposts, but, as human endurance can only be stretched to
certain limits, it was agreed between them that a fair price for
the wind, at that date, would be ten times what was originally
paid for it. This amount was finally raised by a long-suifering
people, who merely exacted a promise from the commercial
monarch that he would never sell the wind again, but permit
it in God's providence to blow over them free and unrestricted
as of yore.

I have introduced this incident with the hope of throwing
some light on the preliminary question What is property?
The public mind has become a good deal confused about the
meaning of the term, and questions of meum and tuum embar-
rassed by doubtful words and more doubtful doctrines of
political economy. Originally the word "property" referred
to the quality of a thing, but as it is with its modern meaning
we have to do, we find Webster's definition of it to be "The
exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing,
ownership ; " and adds from Shakespeare, " To take as one's
own to appropriate." Assuming that property is the exclusive
right (or power) to possess, enjoy or dispose of a thing, the
question occurs as to what things are justly subject to indi-
vidual interest and will. Are the winds of the air, the waters
of the deep or the surface of the earth, things from which one
man can justly exclude all others, or which he has any right
to speculate in or buy and sell ? Can anything properly be
treated as property but that which is produced by individual
labor, effort or genius? It is now getting to be pretty gener-
ally conceded, according to the morals, religion and law of the

4 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

highest types of modern civilization, that a man has a right to
the proceeds of his own labor. It must not be forgotten that
this is by no means universal among mankind, and that little
more than twenty years have elapsed since, in our own country,
a portion of the population, nearly ten per cent, of it in fact,
and they of the producing classes, had no right to the proceeds
of their own labor, did not even own their own persons, and
that local law placed the ownership of the proceeds of their
labor in the hands of a privileged and aristocratic class.
When, therefore, we come to consider the question of property,
we are forced to consider another element besides natural
resources and human labor, and that is law. Property does
not so much consist in what a man may have in his hands at
the time, as in that which is respected as property by the com-
munity in which he lives : that which law will protect him
in ; that which the law declares to be his, and to the extent,
and in the manner, and for the purposes for which the law
declares it to be his, and subject to its changes and limitations.
In estimating the foundation of property or wealth, according
to the present accepted maxims of society, we of necessity
include the three great elements of labor, land and law.

There are but two titles to property of any kind : law or
force. The old free-booting maxim of " They may take who
have the power, and they may keep who can," or the bulwarks
established by organized and enlightened law : power, or the
highest human sense of justice. A strong brute tears from the
grasp of a weak one the food it is eating, and the latter
relinquishes it with a whine. The eagle seizes from the fish
hawk the trout the latter has piratically taken from the deep,
and thus the robber from the robber rends the prey. In the
dusky pool the big fish eat the little ones. In barbarous society
the strong oppress the weak, but there never was a condition
of human society so barbarous that a sense of justice did not
remain to protest against wrong. Human nature, as light and
opportunity is given, seeks protection in organized society.

We can rejoice, therefore, that at the present stage in the
progress of our country, the legitimate fruit of a man's labor
is recognized as his exclusive property. It is his, not only as
an abstract proposition of right, but as a proposition entitled to
the protection of law. It does not militate against this doc-
trine that he may, occasionally, be cheated out of a part of it.
He is no longer the victim of despotic violence, and intelligent,
progressive law is rapidly entering every field where chicanery
is endeavoring to do the work once done by violence.

What are the products of human labor ? The value of a
day's labor is what it can under ordinary circumstances produce.
Some men can produce more in a day than others. Skilled
labor is worth more than unskilled labor, because you have to
add to the value of each day of such labor the time and expense
of educating and preparing the workman for his work. All
of these circumstances enter into the commercial value of a
man's labor, but do not destroy the principle that a man has
a right to what his labor fairly produces. In order to work
effectively, especially in dense and civilized society, laborers
need to have certain privileges, and to use certain appliances
which may or may not be the laborer's own. The laborer is
thus forced to earn not only as much as will furnish him with
food and clothing, but enough to pay for the use of the appli-
ances, machinery or improvements he uses. Accumulated
capital thus becomes a sharer in what is produced by labor,
and if the distribution is perfectly fair, society can exist and
nourish. It is just here the wrongs of modern society begin.
If the streets were hemmed in with palaces and filled with
gold, men and women would suffer and starve for the food and
clothing of each year, unless some one worked to produce it.
Labor alone produces. Capital at best is inert and can only
facilitate. Why should it distribute the proceeds? The
capital accumulated yesterday is not so much entitled to the
consideration of society as the living, toiling, suffering pro-
ducing labor of to-day. Capital is entitled to a share of the

6 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

profits, but before they can be properly distributed, a sufficient
amount to provide for the laborer and his family, according to
the conditions of the society in which he lives, must be
deducted. The theory of one school of political economists is
that labor must use capital and appliances before it can pro-
duce. Instead of labor hiring capital or appliances, as a mat-
ter of fact capital and appliances hire labor. They do more :
they fix the price. Capital, moreover, is restive under any
interference with its bargains. It insists that the law of sup-
ply and demand is the only thing that should regulate the
price of labor. This is the fundamental basis of modern
theories of political economy. It is the law of selfishness
organized. There may be a certain degree of conscience or
consideration on the part of an employer mixed with it, but
these are purely accidental or unnecessary elements. If a man
with capital or able to be in active business only wants five
laborers and is offered ten, it is his privilege to haggle with
them, and reduce the price from one dollar to fifty cents ; and,
on the other hand, if two capitalists, or men in business, each
need ten laborers and only ten are offered, they are to bid
against each other and raise the price, say from fifty cents to
one dollar. When not interfered with by an outside power,
or law of organized society, this is the law of supply and
demand pure and simple. It will be observed, however, that
capital, acting intelligently under this law of self interest,
never bids the price of labor much above what it can profitably
employ it at. On the other hand, it is always the selfish interest
of capital to get labor as cheap as it can, and thus enhance its
profits. The operation of this rule must and does work to the
disadvantage of the laborer. It is the operation of this unre-
stricted law of selfishness that constantly tends in highly civil-
ized societies to make the rich grow richer and the poor poorer.
In a rude or barbarous condition of society the personal
rights of property are easily defined, The hunter finds and
kills a wild animal. Assuming that all things in nature are

OKGANIZED SELFISHNESS. 7

the property of man, he claims it by right of first discovery,
and he and his family eat it, and clothe themselves with its
skin. He discovers fruits, roots and nuts, which others have
not found. He catches and spears fish. Even he must have
capital. He makes and accumulates bows, arrows, knives,
spears, fishing tackle, a boat, and finally the hut or skin tent
that shelters him. This home, rude although it may be, he
considers his own. If he is able, he defends it against all
comers. Even barbarous society recognizes his right to it.
He probably does not make it an article of merchandise. He
certainly does not attempt to sell every foot of earth on which
.it may have stood : that he claims merely by an occupancy-
right. His right over it ceases when he migrates. In this
primitive condition of society, we do not find that the posses-
sor of the rude capital we have described obtains the services
of some young man, or wanderer without such capital, to use
his tools, and hunt and fish for both while he slumbers indo-
lently in his abode. According to the law of supply and
demand he could do this ; and if it was done in barbarous
society, we would soon have a lower depth of degradation
than even barbarism presents to us, and a privileged class,
contributing but little to the public interests. Barbarous so-
ciety does not admit of this, and is, therefore, not burdened
by a large non-productive class.

Artificial society is something altogether different. Its
conditions force us to ask if the law of organized selfishness
is the only possible producer of civilization and luxury?
There are not lacking those who tell us that wealth, pros-
perity and a high degree of civilization can only be pro-
duced under the rule " every one for himself and the Evil One
take the hindmost." That emulation to produce its highest
fruits must be stimulated by the hope of making profit out
of the ignorant, inexperienced, poverty-stricken and unwary,
and that law must not be permitted to interfere with the
sanctities of a bargain, no matter how unfair.

8 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Highly civilized and densely populated communities can
only exist where there are great accumulations of what men call
property. It is a singular and sad circumstance, moreover,
that where we find the greatest wealth, we also find the most
fearful poverty. In our modern civilized society, property,
when created by human labor, runs into ruts. Those who do
the hardest work, with few exceptions, get the smallest por-
tion of its proceeds, and gradually settle to the bottom.
Those who, by the aid of capital, manage and direct labor,
live better and are more apt to get rich than those who
merely labor. Capital, through usury, increases its gains out
of all proportion to the benefits it confers upon society. When
a young man in a great city or densely populated commu-
nity gets old enough to work, if he has not the capital to
develop his own labor, he must accept what the man who
has, or controls capital, is willing to give him. The political
economist cries : " Would you compel an employer to give
more for labor than he can buy it for ? "

" The real value of a thing
Is just as much as it will bring."

In answering such questions intelligently, we must take a
broader view, and carefully examine the modes of distribu-
tion and production, and the assumption by capital of the
power to fix its profits and the wages of labor. Philosophers,
moralists and lawgivers all tell us that the greatest happiness
and prosperity of all the component parts of society is a con-
dition demanded by a just public policy. It is not in accord-
ance with public policy that property when created should
drift 5nto enormous, princely fortunes on one hand ; creating
pauperism on the other. The laboring producers are entitled
to a full share of the blessings they create, and any cause of
unequal distribution of proceeds is wrong, and such opera-
tions may be properly inquired into. When we find the offi-
cers of a great corporation, such as a railway company, sitting

DIVIDING RAILROAD INCOME. 9

down to fix expenses and salaries, determining that they
can only pay a laboring man one dollar per day, or three
hundred dollars a year; skilled laborers and mechanics six
hundred ; engineers and conductors ten or twelve hundred,
and so forth, we may consider it a reasonable and prudent
management of the great corporate interests intrusted to them.
If, however, they also vote the president ten or twelve thousand
dollars a year, the general superintendent eight or ten thousand,
and each of the board, for certain duties, real and imaginary,
similar amounts, it might strike an impartial observer as
hardly a fair distribution of what the enterprise produces.
When we also find that the capital invested has been dupli-
cated or triplicated by watered stock ; that mortgages have
been placed on such properties without adding anything
to their real or productive value ; that these great interests
have been distorted and perverted, in order to make real or
fictitious fortunes for a few men ; when we further see, as a
result of these proceedings, ruin threatening the enterprise,
and the laborers and employees so ground by reduced pay for
their labor that they cannot properly maintain their families,
those who have thus mismanaged should be required to give
a better reason for their oppressive orders than a desire to
pay heavier dividends on such inflated capital, or greater sal-
aries to the managers.

The law of supply and demand as a measure of values is
only true in certain conditions, and subject to certain limita-
tions. When we find a condition of society in which niue-
tenths of the people subsist by hiring their labor, and when
we find these laborers or producers of the wealth of society,
instead of growing richer as society grows richer, aggregating
capital as the wealth of the community they live in increases,
constantly growing relatively poorer as compared with those
who own and represent the capital engaged, the causes which
lead to this public calamity are also subject matter for legiti-
mate inquiry. It has been said that there is no necessary an-

10 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

tagouism between labor and capital. They supplement each
other. All partnerships, to endure, must be perfectly fair,
and of mutual benefit. Capital, if employed, should increase
the laborer's wealth. If it does not do this, he is better with-
out it. In order to preserve society prosperous and continu-
ous, the laborer must be preserved. All society is interested
to prevent the accumulation of enormous fortunes out of the
wealth produced by the exertions of workers for wages. Fol-
lowing great fortunes we inevitably find the poorly clad,
poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly educated, children of the
laboring classes. In an era of great development they are
poorly developed. In an era of great luxury they have few
luxuries. The very grandeur of the civilization they are
helping to build becomes a mockery to them. It really
makes them poorer to see the evidences of wealth all around
them, yet out of their reach. The wide differences of such a
society may be said to inflict a species of moral degradation
on them. Living in poorly ventilated houses or hovels, how
can it benefit them to look at the palaces of the rich ? When,
in addition to these inequalities, we see an increasing pauper-
ism developed, we are startled, and must become convinced
that there are fundamental wrongs existing, and that these dis-
eases must find a remedy before there can be a healthy condi-
tion of the body politic.

Ricardo, in his writings on wages, says : " The natural
price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the
laborers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their
race without either increase or diminution." He also says :
"The market price of labor is the price which is really paid
for it, from the natural operation of the proportion of the
supply to the demand." And again : " It is when the mar-
ket price of labor exceeds its natural price that the condition
of the laborer is flourishing and happy, that he has it in his
power to command a greater proportion of the necessaries
and enjoyments of life, and, therefore, to rear a healthy and

RICARDO. 1 1

numerous family." And agaiu : " When the market price of
labor is below its natural price, the condition of the laborer is
most wretched."

The foregoing views will be found almost in the same lan-
guage in Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations." He is the
founder of the peculiar theories that have been put in circu-
lation under the name of "Political Economy." Ricardo
gave to these theories their extreme but logical sequence. Ac-
cording to him it is not the interest of laborers that their
numbers increase, and thus weaken the demand for them.
Malthus is chiefly distinguished for suggestions in the same
direction. If this was logically true it would be for the in-
terest of laborers to produce as little property as possible. If
the laborer, by reducing the hours of labor from ten to five,
can enhance the value of what he produces so as to get as
much for it, why work ten ? The folly of this proposition
would be best shown if all laborers in a country adopted the
same rule. There would be just half as much produced, and
consequently just half as jnuch to distribute. While there
may be over-production in a few fancy or unusual articles, it
may be safely assumed that there is never over-production of
the necessaries of life so long as any considerable class is de-
prived of them. The evil, therefore, does not lie in over-
production but in unfair distribution. Under our mercantile
system there is no such thing as the natural price of a day's
labor. Neither can the value of a laborer's -day's work be
measured by what it requires to feed and clothe a laborer and
his family, because it may take a dollar or ten dollars to do
that. A system of political economy that suggests that the
true interests of a laborer are best promoted by having two
children rather than four, is as monstrous as that doctrine of
the survival of the fittest which in China takes supposed
sickly children and drowns them in the canal. A true politi-
cal economy is that which secures the greatest prosperity and
happiness of the industrious classes, giving them a proper

12 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

share of the fruits of their labor, thus enabling them to pur-
chase a larger number of manufactured articles.

Prof. Sumner, the political economist of one of our first
universities, and a fair representative of the class which
endeavors to preserve the doctrines of Ricardo and Malthus,
against the innovations of modern thought and ancient morals,
in his recent work " What social classes owe each other,' 7
assumes that they owe nothing but " civility." His doctrine
is that the basis of modern civilized society is "Contracts"
or bargains, and that capital alone produces civilization. On
page 59 of the work referred to, he says that man, as a brute
in the state of nature, has nothing, and merely exerts himself
to appropriate the productions of nature. Civilization makes
a change. On page 60 he tells us that this change is wrought
" by capital." As change has produced the " capital " it is
difficult to see how capital could have produced the " change."
Brute man had, of course, nothing when he started. What
made him start ? On the same page in which the Professor
says capital wrought the change he naively says : " It is won-
derful that primitive man could have started." If the Pro-
fessor's theory is correct it would have been altogether impos-
sible. The desire to overestimate the power and productiveness
of capital leads this school of philosophers into many strange
doctrines. On page 61 he says : " From the first step man
made above the brute, the thing that made his civilization pos-
sible was capital." On page 63, however, he inadvertently
wanders into another theory and says : " It is in the middle
range, with enough social pressure to make energy needful
and not enough social pressure to produce despair, that the
most progress has been made." Besides capital, it would
seem that the Professor has stumbled on such a thing as
" energy." Is it not possible that in tracing the causes that
may have led a barbarous man to be something better, richer
and more learned than he was, we may discover the main-
springs of human aspiration, energy and desire? Energy,

PROF. SUMNER. 13

even according to the Professor, is not stimulated by " capital,"
but by the want of it. What produces and has always pro-
duced capital is labor. Political economists need not waste
their time trying to demonstrate that a bag of dollars placed
in a barrel can be hatched into two bags. What they should
consider is how best to stimulate labor to the greatest produc-
tiveness consistent with the health and moral culture of the
laborer. Buckle, on the second page of his first volume of
the " History of Civilization/ 7 says : " The unequal distri
bution of wealth is the fertile source of social disturbances."
Can we escape the dominion of moral law? Is it possible
to found a healthy, prosperous and continuous society on con-
tracts? It is the end of modern enlightened law that all
customs, mercantile systems and schemes of finance must be
founded on fair dealing. Formerly gambling debts could be
collected. Hard and dishonest bargains when they passed
into written obligations claimed sanctity and observance. Ac-
cording to our modern system a man goes into court and pleads
want of consideration. It is not enough that a matter be-
tween men is a bargain : it must be a just bargain. From
this it is a short step in jurisprudence to sit in judgment on
all distributions and exchanges. Do you say this is inter-
meddling? If so, it is only intermeddling with wrong. Is
no one interested in a transaction or bargain except the two
who enter into it ? Yes, the state as much as the individual,
is vitally interested in seeing that bargains are founded on
the doctrine of perfect equivalents. Modern law even goes
beyond this. It asserts, and the assertion is maintained, that
the inventor of a valuable machine is not entitled to the ex-
clusive benefits flowing from it. The public have certain rights
therein. If the inventor had an absolute right, he and his
descendants ought to be secured in a patent for all time. So-
ciety does not permit this. It says that the inventor of a
useful machine, or the author of a book, shall have a share in
its profits for a limited number of years, when the product of
2

14 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

his genius and labor shall become public property. It will
not do to say that this is a peculiar case, and that the author
or inventor accepts a limited interest in his property, in con-
sideration for the protection he gets during the limited period.
The protection he gets is the protection of law, which, if
necessary, he has to vindicate in the courts. So, also, has
society and nations the task of protecting all property. Civil-
ized society has to bear the expensive system of legislatures,
executive officers, courts, sheriffs, policemen ; nor jean it be
shown that communities and nations have not as deep an in-
terest in accumulated property as the individual claimant
or owner thereof.

When capital has grown to be in excess of the moderate
competence which industry and thrift can fairly produce, it is
a just subject for the heaviest burdens of the state ; and this
not only because it is most able to bear them, but because
there is good reason to believe that great fortunes have been
accumulated by a system of distribution of the proceeds of
labor unfair to the laborers. There is nothing communistic or
agrarian in such propositions. While the case of the help-
lessly poor is one of the legitimate burdens of society, and
one which should be borne kindly and humanely, largely
from accumulated capital, and while no property should be
recognized as such save what has been honestly earned, no
good can ever be accomplished by a leveling process between
the poor and the justly rich. Such a step would destroy that
enterprise which is the very life of society. If, according to
Professor Sumner " Energy " lies at the foundation of pros-
perity, we must take care that its back be not broken. This
is the rock on which many social reformers split. To pre-
serve that independent, hopeful spirit which makes a man
work, economise and struggle for the comfort of himself and
family is one of the vital principles of true political economy.
After all, it only means that a man shall be protected in his
honest earnings. It does not mean that the lazy shall fare

EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE. 15

as well as the industrious. A sound form of society will
repudiate non-producing classes, whether they be lazy paupers
or sturdy capitalists who draw the lion's share of the annual
outputs of human labor by ingenious financial devices. You
can find in society, we will say, twenty men ; one of them is
a capitalist, and nineteen who are workers for wages under
him. He is successful. He expends for himself and family,
we will say, eleven thousand a year. Pie lives in an elegant
house. He and his family "dress in purple and fine linen
and fare sumptuously every day." He drives in a carriage
and his children are educated in the best colleges. Under
the law of supply and demand, he pays his wage workers,
we will say, an average of six hundred dollars a year each.
He, of course, manages the concern. He expends for him-
self almost as much as he gives his nineteen workers for
wages. If he is very rapacious, and wishes still further to
accumulate, he screws them down until they can hardly keep
soul and body together. It is true, they can seek out a new
employer who is probably like the old one, or, by close
economy, may haply save enough to become employers them-
selves. Should this law of bargains govern society, it would
destroy the weak, and repudiate every doctrine of religion
and morals. The essential conditions of a thriving and per-
manent community are that labor shall command and secure
the highest rate, and capital be procured at the lowest rate
of interest. The most eminent of the Rothschilds declared
that a business that continuously paid three per cent, for its
capital would inevitably fail. There is, therefore, a just
and honest limit to the earnings of accumulated wealth, and
it has been maintained that only such capital as exists in the
shape of productive machinery or improvements is entitled
to any share in what is produced.

Of all the systems of human oppression, none have been
more fertile of mischief and wrong than landed aristocracy :
individual claims to portions of the earth's surface, to the

16 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

exclusion of the rights of others. To " have and to hold "
means that other men and women shall not have and hold.
Land holding is the monopoly of what Aristotle styled " the
bounty of nature." When a man buys a section of six hun-
dred and forty acres, a mile square, of the earth's surface,
and has it conveyed to him, his heirs and assigns forever, it
is not a piece of property he can put in his pocket or tie
behind his saddle. In law we call it "real property" in
contradistinction to "personal property." Is it property at
all ? It is really an agreement between this owner, or pre-
tended owner, and some other power or person to defend him
in his attempt to exclude all the rest of the human race from
using it, except in his interest. It is really a mortgage, not
on this particular piece of the earth, but upon all the men
and women who may happen to be born upon the earth, with
the necessity of raising and eating bread. This so-called
property is simply law for the benefit of the few against the
many. There is not any other thing recognized by society
as property so absolutely dependent on public recognition
and defense as titles to land. Some king or government
claimed to have the right to grant land or certain uses of it.
Whether that grant was a lease, a holding under the feudal
system, a sale for a certain period, or on certain conditions,
or pretended to be an absolute sale of it as a mere chattel, the
essence of it was military or political power.

This brings us to the next view of the subject. What is
known as a government or a nation is not merely a thing of
geographical limits ; it is a combination of men, a body politic.
It is, however, almost inseparable from geographical limits.
You can scarcely imagine a nation without a country. Our
maps and our histories divide the earth's surface into certain
distinctly marked tracts and divisions. For convenience, on
our modern maps they are colored differently. Each portion
is recognized as belonging to the nation named ; we will say
France or Germany, or Mexico, or the United States. Why?

NATIONAL TITLE. 17

Every one recognizes the portion in question to belong to the
nation it represents. How do they get or maintain this title ?
Occupancy, violence and power are the sole bulwarks of these
possessions. Nine-tenths of the wars among mankind have
been about the boundaries of these subdivisions. Do the
British own their islands because they speak English ? Did
those who speak French naturally inherit the region of earth
between the Rhine and the Bay of Biscay ? Is the Spanish
language the patent to the peninsula ? No ! These divisions
are not created by differences of language, but differences of
language are created by these divisions. Separate men into
distinct nations, with a different polity and segregated inter-
ests, and they soon cease to understand each other's forms of
speech. Language, that wonderful garment of thought, is
subject to hidden laws of fashion, and is the most mutable of
all things.

This political or governmental assertion of title to land is a
proper matter to inquire into. It rests on the sword. It
must not be forgotten, however, that this is merely an asser-
tion of one nation as against another. Each nation claims
the right to maintain the integrity of its territory. Into the
minds of its people this lesson is instilled as the highest sense
of duty, and affectionately called patriotism. Countries have
been over-run and conquered many times in history. In bar-
barous periods a wandering horde crossed a frontier, and, if
successful, butchered the inhabitants ruthlessly, and left their
bodies to fertilize the soil that now belonged to the conquerors.
Fortresses were built, armies mustered and disciplined, navies
created ; all these to defend the country and consecrate a por-
tion of the earth to the Hun or the Sclav, the Goth or the
Latin race. Without for a moment assuming that all coun-
tries thus shaped, or governments thus created, were justly or
properly founded, or that their present existence is- for the
benefit of the race, it is, nevertheless, necessary, as they do
exist, to consider them. The world as constituted is not Uto-

18 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

pia. We do not know whether the world would be better
and men happier if all dwellers on the earth were one
people, but they are not. The supposed hostile interests and
prejudices between nations have been the occasion of great
wrong and misery upon the earth. An armed mob, called an
army, wins a victory in the enemy's country, and through
this accident claims the right to rob the helpless tillers of the
soil. Theoretically, governments are the essence of law,
but this government is mere brute force. I take it for granted
that it is the business of civilization to devise remedies for this
evil. All men are interested in the establishment of justice
and equity, protection and order, against mere violence. In-
ternational law is ill-defined and crude; but when the honest
judgment of combinations of nations acquire power and can
dictate to physical strength, something will be gained. We
have, to some extent, established the rights of the man as
against the state, and we can hope for a more intelligent
mode of determining the rights of nations toward each other.
The divine right of kings over the lives and property of
their subjects is pretty well exploded among civilized nations.
Let us hope that the divine right of violence and fraud can
also be brought to an end. Let us remember that much of
what we call rights to-day, grew out of force and usurpation.
When men and societies who have and claim such privileges
rest them solely on violence, we can understand them. They
are likely to maintain them just so long as no one else has
the power or the spirit to resist them. This age, however,
presents new problems. We have inherited the fruits of vio-
lence and fraud, and are endeavoring to reconcile them to the
doctrines of enlightened law.

Let us accept the situation that a government asserts its
rights to a land or country. Against this stands the broad
axiomatic truth-that the earth is the equal heritage of all men.
In the United States we have practically asserted the broad-
est right. Not only our native population, but emigrants

ROBBING POSTERITY. 19

from all countries have been invited to equal participation in
the soil. Whether this has been done wisely in all things
will be considered hereafter. Narrowed down to the state or
nation, this organized government neither has nor should have
any power to dispose of the soil save upon terms, now and for-
ever, for the benefit of all men alike. The government of the
United States has been founded on the doctrine of the per-
fect equality of the rights of all men. " Governments derive
their just power from the consent of the governed." Laws
for the benefit of the few against the many are in violation of
its fundamental principles. If we start with the doctrine
that everything must be subservient to the best interests of
all, the maxim we have quoted must be maintained and all
else treated as usurpation and resisted. The government of
the United States is merely an aggregated body of men,
bound together on the understanding that all shall be per-
fectly equal before the law, with equal justice, equal privi-
leges, equal power. We get the best inspiration of law from
divine laws, and they are distilled to us through the highest
and purest human conscience. Recognizing the necessity of
power to give effect to human law, we accept that power as
the attribute of the majority, and therefore recognize that
nothing is law, or can have the sanctity thereof, save the will
of the people legitimately expressed.

The function of the majority is to determine what is best
for all. Where it has not done this it has violated the com-
pact on which all came together, and the mistakes must be
corrected. The right or power of the state over land should
be to see that it is used for the equal benefit of all. To give i
a monopoly of land to a few is to give the bread and meat of I
the people to a few. The state never had any right to do I
that. In making the attempt it exceeded its powers. The
unjust systems that have grown up under it call for reform.
By the state we mean a government, and by a government
we must understand a government of to-day. The govern-

20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

ment of to-day has no right to govern the people fifty or a
A hundred years hence. Admitting their right of determining
/ for the generation or the year they represent, the kind of usu-
/ fruct title, lease or sale of the earth's surface that may exist,
they certainly have no right to dispose of it against all future .
generations. On what conceivable plea of power can they ^f^- *
create mischievous and unequal systems thaTThall harass
generations after the bodies of these short-sighted rulers are
dust ? Because they represent the people to-day, how shall
they pretend to despotize over the people of all time, and in
their own interest lay a mortgage on the bones and sinews of
millions yet unborn ?

When the " right of discovery " and the " right of con-
quest," as doctrines, begin to be subject to a very heavy
strain, the advocate for this property created by fraud or
force pleads the statute of limitations. When reminded that
lapse of time cannot sanctify a wrong, he further pleads the
law of " use and wont." Again he urges that the public in-
terest demands that there shall be a limit to all human con-
troversies. If the doctrine " whatever is, is right," cannot
be fully recognized, he insists that at all events sudden
changes in the existing status of society are dangerous ; that
interference with long-settled property interests is unsafe and
agrarian ; and that all property holders, from the owner of
an acre to a principality, should make common cause against
those who would inquire into their title to what they are now
holding.

Let it not be urged that the condition of laboring people
gives no occasion for intelligent inquiry and reform. We
present to the world a nation increasing in riches faster than
any other nation, and, at the same time, the laborers whose toil
produces this wealth, if not growing poorer, are relatively
sinking as a class. We have multiplied innumerable labor-
saving machines, and yet the workingmen and women of the
country labor as hard as their ancestors did. Our unexam-

SELLING AND PRODUCING VALUE. 21

pled prosperity is 'followed by a steadily increasing poorer
class, while vagrancy and crime also increase. Our country
presents a comparatively boundless empire, of almost virgin
soil, and yet we see the singular anomaly of a rapidly increas-
ing class of tenants and renters. Instead of a thriving yeo-
manry, there is a tendency to farming by the wholesale, on
speculation or by joint stock companies. Before we have
fairly passed the squatting era, and while there are still unoc-
cupied homesteads to be taken, the evils of the system of land
tenure we have permitted confront us. We are certainly lay-
ing the foundation of a landed aristocracy. We have allowed
our timbered regions to be devastated and destroyed, until the
condition thus produced affects the productiveness of some
of our agricultural regions, and the comfort of many of our
people. We present a startling picture of speculation in lauds
and lots by those who add nothing to their improvement,
and fortunes are made without labor by the increase of popu-
lation and the efforts of those who do not benefit by it. Spec-
ulation, and the fact that land has been made a chattel, en-
hances the valuation of lands and lots so as to put them
'beyond the reach of those who are poor or even those in
moderate circumstances. An acre of land produces no more
wheat or corn when it is valued at one hundred dollars than
it did when it was valued at ten, and yet this has a tendency
to increase the tax called rent to the producer. A house and
lot valued at five hundred dollars offers as great comfort or
conveniences as when the same house is valued at five thou-
sand, and yet it costs the man who occupies it much more.
This price, caused by speculation, is not conducive to the
public interest. It is true it enables a few to acquire great
fortunes without giving the public an equivalent. The con-
dition of affairs arising from these speculative values, so far
as they are created by an increase of population, raise prices
without corresponding public benefit, the public do not share
what they thus create, and, on the contrary, it actually in-

22 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

creases their burdens. Not the least evil of this system is
that it disturbs that fair distribution of the wealth produced
by industry, and founds aristocratic classes, raised above the
necessity of labor.

Men do not properly estimate the evil of an increasing non-
producing class. In England, a certain school of political
economists said the non-producing classes were a blessing, be-
cause they furnished a market for the surplus production
arising from the labor of the poor. The larger the non-pro-
ducing class in any country, in proportion to the laborers, the
harder must the laborers work, and the more poorly must
they be paid. If wealth maintained the power of keeping up
its profits until fifty per cent, of the population lived upon it,
the other fifty per cent, would have to work to keep them.
If, then, the end of civilization is to increase wealth to such
an extent that we are to have a large aristocratic class, we
must, of necessity, have a large class of poor laborers. If
the- laborers should get a much larger proportion of what
their labor produces than they now do, they would have better
houses, be better clothed and fed, be better educated, have
more books and more time to read them ; but then we would
not have so many palaces, or so many magnificent, luxurious
households. Is the elegant architecture of our civilization
the best evidence of its greatness and power ? If this is all
that it can produce, is it worth the price ? Above all, how
long can it last? We may shut our eyes and exclaim,
" After me, the deluge." It remains to be seen whether a
written constitution will prove a sufficient shield for the
rights of the people. An aristocracy is even more abhor-
rent than a king, and aristocracies are usually created by
great wealth, and fostered by unequal privileges. The foun-
dations of American aristocracy are already laid, and this
has partly arisen from carelessness about the true foundation
of a free republic. It seems, unhappily, to be the ambition
of too many men to place their families at once above want

MANUFACTURING STOCKS. 23

and work. The public interests are lost sight of in the
scramble. While age may justly have accumulated moderate
wealth, and live in comfort or even luxury, there is no reason
why youth should be exempted from toil by the curse of
a competence. Hereditary wealthy families are not in har-
mony with American ideas. A just public policy should
tend to scatter and redistribute wealth. The only thing that
renders this inequality of condition endurable, is the hope en-
tertained by most poor men that they and theirs will happily
rise above the calamities that affect so many others in the
community. When all unoccupied land is taken, and a dense
population confronts us, the lines of society will grow more
inflexible, and the disparity of condition will be greater and
more clearly defined. Such changed conditions are rapidly ap-
proaching, and will produce one of three things : The destruc-
tion of the representative power and freedom of the people ;
peaceful remedies wisely taken in time which will secure per-
fect equality of rights, or the overthrow of the aristocracy by
violence and anarchy.

Our progressive and scheming civilization has developed
new forms of speculation and new organizations to give power
to capital. Corporations have already become more formida-
ble than the government. Law has clothed them with arti-
ficial power without placing proper restriction on its selfish
and unjust exercise. There is not adequate security against
the frauds they perpetrate. Aggregated capital is managed
by boards of directors or trustees whose first business is to
advance their own individual interests, and then, so far as
consistent with it, the interests of the stockholders. Every
dollar of actual cash contributed by stockholders to build rail-
roads, telegraphs or other public enterprises, under great cor-
porations, is apt to be represented on its books, certificates
of stock and in the public markets by what* are called its
stocks, to twice, thrice or even ten times its true value. Cap-
ital thus manages and demands that it shall be multiplied,

24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

and that this fictitious wealth shall make equal charge out of
the profits of an enterprise created by labor and a small
amount of capital. Contracts are given for construction, by
directors to their partners and confederates for more than the
construction costs, and thus the public and the innocent stock-
holders are cheated. Mortgages are sometimes placed on
these properties and much of the money thus raised expended
extravagantly in bonuses, salaries and pretended dividends as
profits. While there may be a few well-conducted corpora-
tions and companies, the corporate system as it exists, in the
main, is a hive of gigantic swindling, into which absolute fair
dealing and equity among men does not enter. It is indeed
amazing that the intelligence of this nineteenth century should
have permitted such a system of unequal distribution and
fraud to have been created; and, seeing the system operate,
that law, which ought to be the safeguard of perfect equity,
should for any length of time permit it to continue.

Then we have gambling in corn. Meat and bread put up
to be the football of stock-jobbers. Of all gambling this is
the most iniquitous. It is bad enough that shrewd operators
are thus allowed to fleece inexperienced dupes, but that these
two between them should be permitted to put up and down
the price of the bread and meat of sixty millions of people
is perfectly monstrous. It is useless to say that they merely
speculate in the natural rise of these articles. This unnatural
speculation cannot get into successful operation until the bulk
of what is produced in the current year goes into the hands
of middle men. Then combinations are formed to force up
and down prices. This system is fed by trickery and mis-
representation as gross as the trickery by which a jockey ever
palmed off a blind horse on an innocent customer. Foreign
markets and the condition of the coming crops have a little
to do with pieces, but for all the artificial changes in the price
of the food of the people, the gamblers in what are called
" options," " puts " and " calls " are responsible. Of course,

GAMBLING IN BREAD. 25

there is a legitimate business in buying, storing and disposing
of surplus bread and meat, but there is scarcely a business
requiring in greater degree the safeguards of law, and from
which all gambling and artificial speculation should be so
thoroughly banished. If what is sometimes termed "free
competition " means that the more cunning and adroit shall
profit by unfair bargains with the illiterate or unsophisticated,
enlightened law must make an end of all such phases of
" free competition."

There have been two favorite modes of robbing laborers.
First, by the slavery which seized his person, and by threats
and violence which compelled him to work for the tyrant
who claimed to be his master. Second, by seizing the surface
of the earth from which human sustenance must be drawn, and,
on the plea of exclusive ownership, compelling the cultivator
to give half of what he produced from the earth to another.
Political economists have preached about the "Doctrine of
rent," and, accepting the claim of ownership as an inevitable
fact, have proceeded to demonstrate that rent was the differ-
ence between good land and poor land, when every one knows
that rent could not exist but for monopoly. The doctrine that
the surface of the earth can be made a chattel independent of
its use is a modern conception, and of evil tendency, and our
American land tenures are the result of a chapter of accidents.
We inherited all the bad parts of the English system, and
launched on a career of speculation in which we were reckless
of human rights.

The writer is not insensible to the embarrassments that a^
highly refined and artificial condition of society throw around
these questions. He is aware that many of the most splendid
of ancient empires have been founded on robbery, piracy,
slavery and murder. The palaces of kings cannot always
hide the hovels of the laboring poor. Great modern cities
seem to afford a better field to able, unscrupulous and adroit
\managers, than to quiet, honest mediocrity, or even to quiet,

\ 3

26 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

honest ability. There bargains rule. At the very threshold
of reform, we are met with the assertion of " vested rights "
which are probably only vested wrongs. I am loath to believe
that if you strip enterprise and energy of every element of
dishonesty, men will lapse into barbarism. It may be styled
agrarianism, when a reformer of abuses endeavors to set bolts
and bars against the unjust exactions by which the accumu-
lated capital of yesterday seeks to place its foot on the necks
of the laborers of to-day.

There will be just inequalities in the condition of men so long
as there are differences among them as to industry and thrift.
The accumulation of enormous fortunes is always a calamity,
and often a crime. It is doubtful if the unfair transactions
that lie at the base of colossal wealth are as great misfortunes
as the wielding of such a giant power by an unscrupulous
person. Some men might be compared to magnets, having
the power to draw to them gold from every avenue of society.
We are too much in the habit of admiring this accomplish-
ment. It is high time that we had a code of morals that
would cease to hold it up to emulation. In founding the
government of the United States, great strides were made in
the progress of civil liberty. The principles then enunciated
must not be permitted to become mere " glittering generalities."
It took nearly a century to abolish slavery in a free country,
and aristocracy and inequalities founded on injustice have not
yet found their remedies.

I shall discuss the remedies in the proper place. There is
much to admire in the ideas of Mr. Henry George, but making
the government the landlord is a proposition it will be well to
carefully consider. Those who own the land rule the country.
Government is not an abstract theory but an organization of
men who may closely follow or conspire against its principles.
Frequent elections and oft-renewed responsibility are checks,
yet there may be danger in giving even to those who happen
to administer our free government the power to decide the

HENRY GEORGE. 27

length and character of land tenures, or, what is of more sig-
nificance, to provide an enormous revenue, which would flow
in as rent to fill the treasury, no matter what the wisli of the
people may be in each year as to taxation or expenditure. Of
course, it will be said that this rent is only another form
of tax, but it is not an annually assessed tax ; on the contrary,
it would be a steadily growing revenue, which the national
landlord might soon assume to be his own property. It is
possible that in this way the government would become
stronger than the people. The rulers, moreover, who would
demand the rent would, at the same time, have the power to
distribute, divide and fix tenure to the national inheritance.

Instead of the assumption that the laud belongs to the nation
or government, let it be asserted that the land belongs to the
people. Fundamental and specific law should secure and conse-
crate it for the use or benefit of all the people, to be redistributed
as the changes in society occur, and instead of the details of
tenure being managed by the general government, they should
be under local supervision as near as possible to the people.
The old town organizations offer the primitive model.

Mr. Francis Walker, in his "Land and its Kent," follows
the theory that rent is created by the difference between rich
and poor land. The necessity of ownership by somebody is
assumed. His general conclusions, in the work referred to,
are that it is the interest of all classes to have an agricultural
system that will yield the largest production of wealth. This
does not reach or touch the question as to whom it properly
belongs.

The system of agriculture that would produce the largest
amount at the smallest possible cost would be a wholesale farm-
ing that would abolish small farmers. Instead of the independ-
ent yeoman, cultivating his land and living in his house as
the head of his establishment, we would have the agricultural
community in three classes: the landlord, the farmer, or over-
seer, and laborers. In the same way and 011 the same prin-

28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

ciple, an enormous dry goods house swallows up in its growth
and progress a thousand of the small establishments of inde-
pendent traders. By this wholesale process the men become
dependent salesmen and clerks, workers for wages. In this
way goods may be sold cheaper and the power of capital is
augmented, but the independence and comfort of the individual
is reduced. We propose, therefore, to inquire whether the
happiness and comfort of the great mass of the people is not
the first consideration, and all others subordinate to it. Mr.
E. H. G. Clark, in a recent essay, " Man's Birthright," thinks
that he has found the philosopher's stone, that is to correct
the errors of Mr. George, in a two per cent, annual tax, which
he believes will confiscate the entire property in fifty years
and be a "patent made easy" year of jubilee. He does not
inform us who is to pay the tax, or show us that it will not be
the man who rents and cultivates the laud, or the man who
buys the corn, rather than the man who is the landlord and
claims to have title to the soil. If Mr. Clark would take the
ground that the rent should be paid in lieu of taxes, to support
public burdens, he would approximate to Mr. George's plat-
form. A two per cent, tax on fixed values is what we have
in many states now.

In approaching a subject of such magnitude with the
becoming diffidence imposed by its perplexities, I shall, as
succinctly as possible, glean from history the salient points
that throw light on the establishment of existing land systems.
Men have often a slavish disposition to respect precedents
without stopping to scrutinize the circumstances on which they
were founded, or to remember that for much of what is good
in modern society we are indebted to innovation. Systems
and principles must be considered in so far as they affect
governments and men. In an age when it is announced that
bargains or contracts should alone govern society, and that
men owe each other nothing but politeness, let us not alto-
gether forget, that the brotherhood of the race and equity and

DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 29

religion are a fundamental basis for society. Cool, calculating,
selfishness may be deemed the best balance wheel of society,
but experience shows us that it brings communities into a
condition when organized benevolence or revolution are indis-
pensable.

CHAPTER I.

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SYSTEM OF ANCIENT ISEAEL.

"THE LAND SHALL NOT BE SOLD FOREVER, FOR THE LAND IS MINE; FOR YE ARE STHAXQERS
AND 80JOURNEHS WITH ME." LEV. XXV. 23.

Scope of the Hebrew laws The patriarchate the primitive government of
the Semitic races Laws framed to regulate land tenure before land was
possessed Available area of Judea Distinction between property in
the country and in walled cities Land nationalization rejected Fam-
ily tenure of land The year of jubilee Usurpations of the monarchy
Tithes and taxes The peculiar and advantageous features of Jewish
polity.

IF we are to discard the study of abstract propositions and
recondite theories, as foundation for social economics and law,
and gather data from the records of human experience and
history, no finer study presents itself than the wonderful polity
of the ancient Jewish nation. Accepting their own record,
and studying the early portions from the five books of Moses,
we have facts differing from those of all other human history.
Other nations, like them, have begun by being nomads and wan-
derers. Other nations, like them, have had a government of pop-
ular acceptance followed by a monarchy, with all its despotisms,
splendor and mishaps. Perhaps no other nation ever before had
a government without a country, and a complete code of law
before they had courts or recognized earthly executive au-
thority. Human history affords us no similar accepted code.
It was a strange compound of simplicity and minute inter-
meddling. Their religious duties and ceremonials were set
forth with a wonderful perspicuity. The food they should eat
was prescribed. Habits oY cleanliness were systematized into
law. Their laws of marriage were rigid. The laws of hos-
30

ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 31

pitality, even, were defined, and law dictated the duties of
charity. Of course, there is much in the books of the law
adapted to only such a people and such a time, but the great
essentials are the highest conception of purity and equity.
In regard to those regulations which refer to food, the culti-
vation of the soil, cleanliness and other things which are now
considered as of little importance, or not properly within the
scope of governmental powers, the result proves that in ne-
glecting them we have not gained, and that the books of
Leviticus and Deuteronomy might still be read to great ad-
vantage.

The ten commandments we have carefully preserved, but
while the books of the Mosaic law remain in the Old Testament,
they are practically considered as abrogated. Neither does
there appear to be a full realization of all that the ten com-
mandments involve. The fourth commandment, for instance,
enjoins the observance of the Sabbath. While the portion of
the commandment enjoining rest is often caviled at, many
seem to overlook altogether the binding force of the other
portion of the command : " Six days shalt thou labor."
Among the ancient Jew r s the law of labor was as imperative
as the day of rest. The Jewish economy furnished neither
opportunity for nor toleration of a non-producing class. All
men were compelled to work.

The patriarchal system did not originate with the Jews ;
they inherited it. This primitive form of aristocracy was,
and still is, common to Arabia, and, indeed, to all that region,
the Sheik (elder) being the head. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
were each the chief and ruler of a great household. The
elder or head assumed a regal authority, exercising even the
power of life and death. Seventy souls of the family of Jacob
entered Egypt. They maintained a distinct identity, but
were invited guests and friends, one of their number being a
chief ruler under Pharaoh. They were assigned a locality in
the laud of Goshen. For four hundred and thirty years this

32 HEBREW TENURE.

germ of the Jewish nation grew r , and when they went forth
from Egypt they had an army of six hundred thousand men.
It is estimated that this gave a population of two millions
and a half. Of the form of local government they main-
tained in Egypt, we have very meagre accounts, yet each tribe
kept its genealogies and distinct political existence, the num-
ber of fighting men of each tribe being stated. The law had
not been given, or the five books of Moses written, but they were
a people bound together by blood, religious customs, and
cemented into a nationality by their hopes and traditions.
Had the Jews followed the usual course of emigrants to for-
eign countries, and merged in the population of Egypt, be-
coming part of it by absorption, they would not have been
the victims of hatred and jealousy. They were a distinct
people, not mingling with their neighbors. They rejected the
religious belief of the Egyptian. They acquired no foothold
as owners of the land ; in fact, all of the valuable land in
Egypt was then held by the priests, the sovereign and the
army. The common people of Egypt were renters under one
of these three. Egypt had at that time one of the best devel-
oped forms of ancient civilization. It has been said that it
was in Egypt that these shepherd patriarchs acquired a knowl-
edge of written language, of the arts and sciences, of public
works and manufactures.. They acquired a knowledge of
slavery through the hardest of all lessons, a bitter experience.
We are simply told that another king arose who knew not
Joseph. Old services and the hospitality evoked by them
were forgotten. In point of fact, a new dynasty had arisen,
and Hebrew and Egyptian alike were under the power of the
conquerors. The religion of Egypt had not changed. Its
land system, always bad, had not improved. So far as the
Egyptian people were concerned it was merely a change from
one tyrant to another. With the Israelites it was worse.
Always isolated, and subject to the jealousies of the people,
they were ijow -stripped of the friendship or favoritism of the

NO LAND SPECULATION. 33

rulers. They had, indeed, a chequered experience of the
power and barbaric splendor of Egypt. They had seen a
king of Egypt use the surplus revenue, or wealth of his king-
dom, to buy all the corn in the years of plenty, and had also
seen him with that corn buy the title to a large portion of the
laud of Egypt. As they refused to become a homogeneous
portion of the Egyptian people, it was morally certain that
they must strive for ascendency or sink to the bottom, and, as
they continued to multiply, equally certain that a disruption
had to come sooner or later. Fugitives from slavery, with-
out a polity or a country, the Jewish nation crystallized in
the wilderness. Forty years wandering inured them to pri-
vation and gave them nerve. The generation that had trem-
bled at the commands of its Egyptian taskmasters passed
away. They had not forgotten that Abraham, while a wan-
derer upon the face of the earth, had purchased in Canaan, of
Ephron, the Hittite, for four hundred shekels of silver, the field
and cave of Macpelah, and that the Lord had promised to
give them a country flowing with milk and honey.

It is certainly an interesting study to contemplate the code
of law and ethics in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and
Deuteronomy. Here we have the most thorough system of
legislation for land before they possessed land, and the order
of crops and the seventh or fallow year, in which the land was
to rest and recuperate, prescribed before they had sown a seed.
Then followed after the seven times seven, the year of jubilee,
when all the land that had been alienated, mortgaged or sold,
should go back to the original family to whom it belonged.
The land should not be sold forever, only and excepting a
house with its lot within a walled city. That was a chattel.*
Within one year from the date of its sale it could be redeemed.
The houses in villages and cities not walled were " counted as
the fields of the country," and went back to the original family
in the day of jubilee. Even the temporary sales were rigidly
* Lev. xxv. 30.

34 HEBKEW TENURE.

regulated. There was little room for speculative prices.
According to the fruits they would produce for the years of
cultivation between the period of sale and the year of jubilee,
the price was to be computed. At any time the person so
selling was permitted, if able, to redeem, or redeem through a
friend, by paying for the years that were to intervene before
the year of jubilee. At that time, without pay, the transaction
was at end. The law which authorized six years for crops
and one year for fallow and rest, prevented the land from
being scourged and rendered barren by temporary occupants.
In the year of jubilee, captives taken in war and all servants
and debtors were set free. Even the servants, who at the
expiration of their six years of service voluntarily relinquished
liberty, and had their ears bored through with an awl, went
out in the year of jubilee.* The laud law of the Jews, we are
told, was somewhat famous among ancient nations, and several
of them attempted to copy it.f The permission to sell for
limited periods was not considered an alienation of land such
as we permit. Dbdorus Siculus informs us that it was not
lawful for the Jews to sell their own inheritance. This law
of the Hebrews prevented the rich from absorbing the lands,
and for this reason the Jews were never cursed with a landed
aristocracy. The rulers neither owned nor controlled the land,
and were, therefore, unable to draw great revenues from it to
support armies, by which the rights of the people could be
overthrown. When military service was required, the family
supplied the soldiers with needed food from home. They had
the spoil of the enemy, but a hireling soldiery was unknown,
at least in her earlier history. Slavery existed, as it existed
in every nation at that time, but in Israel the slaves were
protected by law; were treated as part of the household, and
the year of jubilee fixed the limit of bondage. The Israelites
had learned more than the arts and sciences during their
experience in Egypt.

* Jennings' Antiquities of the Jews, page 468. f Ibid.

FAMILY LANDHOLDING. 35

A careful study of the ancient Jewish polity will show that
the lands were kept as the equal possession of all the people
of each generation. It was impossible it could aggregate in
large tracts in a few hands. The term of alienation may be
said to have been limited to a period that on an average would
cover the generation that so disposed of it, and was merely a
limited privilege to secure payment of debts. An increase of,
population would diminish the amount of the estate that
would revert to each of the descendants, and vice versa.
Their whole system was carefully founded on the idea that as
population increased the redistributions and reduction of
amounts held for use should keep pace with it.

It has been estimated, at a moderate computation, that the
land to be divided among the Israelites in the time of Joshua,
on both sides of the Jordan, that is, of available land, was at
least twenty-five millions of acres. One estimate of the num-
ber of acres to each head of a family is about forty-two.*
The lowest estimate of the number of acres to each family was
twenty-two. In addition to this there was the pasture lands
in the mountains and the oasis of the desert. It has also been
computed that, as population increased, if it should be necessary
to reduce this to six acres to each family, it could support an
agricultural population of four millions of families, or twenty
millions of people, besides those in the cities who might be
engaged in other pursuits, f

It will thus be seen that the outlines of the Jewish land
policy were : First, a division for each tribe. Second, a
division for each family in each tribe. Third, while temporary
alienations were permitted on a clearly defined basis, once in
each fifty years it went back, with all its belongings, to the
descendants of the family originally owning it, and, of course,
had to be subdivided according to the number of interested

* Wine's Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews, page 388.
t Ibid., page 391.

36 HEBKEW TENURE.

families. Fourth, the land was not permitted to be exhausted,
but must have a fallow or rest once in seven years, no matter
who occupied it. Fifth-, that while all improvements and
farms in the field, and in villages, were thus held for the use
of each succeeding generation and could not be alienated from
them, the piece of ground on which a house stood in a walled
city Avas held to be a chattel, which, if sold, could not, after
the lapse of one year, be redeemed. This was, no doubt, on
the theory that the lots in a walled city could produce nothing ;
that they were only the foundation for the buildings that
covered them, and probably because the population of these
cities constantly fluctuated. These were the peculiar features
of the Jewish land laws. In the laws of inheritance, all the
succeeding generations were considered. "To many thou
fihalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give
the less inheritance. To every one shalt his inheritance be
given according to those that were numbered of him." * Sons
and daughters had their share, but if a woman married out
of her tribe she lost her share of the tribal inheritance of
land.t

In many respects, this Jewish polity differed from that of
ancient nations. With most of these the land was claimed by
the sovereign. The cultivators were tenants and paid rent or
tribute to the government, and with them this was one of the
main sources from which revenue was derived. The Jewish
monarchs were not recognized as having any title or claim to
the land. One of the serious offences committed by the kings
being the attempt to appropriate the laud of other men, as
witness the case of Ahab, who took the vineyard of Naboth
the Jezreelite. In fact, the Jewish plan of government was
essentially democratic or popular. { The will of the peo-
ple was the highest law, consistent with the fact that it

* Num. xxvi. 54. t Num. xxxvi. 7, 9.

} Von Ranke's Universal History, page 49.

THE MONARCHY. 37

recognized the will of the Deity as the source of all law.
Even the question of worship was submitted to them. " If God
be God, serve him, and if Baal, serve him." It was indeed a
theocracy, but a theocracy that recognized no man as the vice-
gerent of God. Popular assemblies settled the most important
questions, and the doctrine of equal, popular rights lay at the
foundation of their religion and morals.

The early days of the Jewish nation, before the monarchy,
were the days of its simplicity and power. It then existed
according to the spirit and tenor of its laws. A throne was
oifered to Gideon, but he patriotically rejected it, and said :
"Jehovah shall rule over you." Their religion was the wor-
ship of the unseen God, and a repudiation of all idols. Of
the whole nation it was said : " And ye shall be unto me a
kingdom of priests."* The law as given originally by
Moses will be found much simpler and purer than a good
deal that was engrafted on it. The penalty of stealing a man
and making a slave of him was death. A species of slavery
to extinguish debt was allowed, but these slaves were not per-
mitted to be oppressed, and, as has been said, slavery had its
limit. False weights and measures were an abomination. A
laborer was not to be defrauded, but what was due him was
to be paid ere the sun went down. Usury was forbidden,
and, although they subsequently exacted usury from the hea-
then, it had originally little color of law.f A stranger so-
journing with them was to be treated as one born among
them. They were not permitted to oppress strangers. In
their buying and selling they were enjoined " not to defraud
one another." They were not to glean their fields and vine-
yards bare ; a part was to be left for the poor, and on all
rested the obligations of hospitality in its broadest extent.

On this government of the people a species of monarchy
was engrafted. It was an accident, and worse than an acci-

* Ex. xix. 6. t Ex. xxii. 25, 26.

38 HEBREW TENURE.

dent. Samuel warned the people of their folly when they
demanded a king, and they had abundant reason to repent of
it. The reign of the first monarch, Saul, was disastrous, its
decadence dating almost from its beginning. The Jewish gov-
ernment was a theocracy ; grave questions were referred to the
Lord, and answers obtained by the priests from the Urim and
Thummim. Saul undertook to consult the Lord himself, and
from that moment Samuel took issue with him. Had Samuel
failed to do this, there would have been no check upon an
ambitious ruler. Although the sceptre had departed from
'Saul's house, he remained on the throne until his death, when
the Jewish kingdom was rent in twain. David at first only
established his authority over Judah and Benjamin, and Ish-
bosheth, Saul's son, had an uncertain kingly authority over
the other ten tribes. Ishbosheth proved to be neither a
statesman nor a politician, and soon quarrelled with his men
of might. David was a good politician and adroit ruler.
He cemented the tribe of Benjamin to Judah, and to the for-
tunes of his house by removing the capitol to Jerusalem in
the country of Benjamin. The capitol played no small part
in the polity of the Jewish government. Every man was
required to go up thither at least once a year. There many of
the tithes were received. The whole system eventually built up
much wealth and power about Jerusalem. This power, and the
religion centreing there, were the anchors of the Jewish state.

As has been said the government of Israel, whether of
judges or monarchs, did not claim the land. It belonged to
the people, and to the people alike of each succeeding genera-
tion. The government and the church were supported by
tithes. One-tenth of all the increase was assessed under the
Levitical law, whether of fruits, grain or herds. Tithes have
been denounced as the most iniquitous of all taxes. It is not
the purpose of this chapter to argue that question, but to state
the facts.

This one-tenth of the annual production supported the

TITHES AND POLL TAX. 39

church with its priests and ceremonies, and a system of
education the most general, and, for that reason, the best of
the ancient world. Other nations, like the Greeks, had
schools of a very high order where a few great men were
taught. Tithes also maintained the complete judicial system,
and preserved the public records which were carefully and
jealously kept. Indeed, the whole government machinery
was maintained by tithes. It is proper to add that there was
a poll tax. It was levied the first time when the Jews were
numbered in the wilderness, and was "appointed for the ser-
vice of the tabernacle of the congregation." * It was at first/*
and in all the earlier and better portions of Jewish history,
an exigency tax.f Originally, it amounted to half a shekel,
but in the later period of the Jewish history, when it be-
came annual, and in the Roman days it was about one-fourth
of a shekel, equal to about twenty-five or thirty cents. Jo-
sephus informs us that Vespasian directed the same tax to be
paid, but into the Roman instead of the Jewish treasury.
How often the kings levied taxes, and what they consisted of,
is not very well known, but the record shows that the people
groaned under their exactions.

Let us compare the tithes with our own taxes. With
us, land is taxed to the owner. It is safe to say that land
does not produce much more, over and above the seed and the
necessary expense, than from ten to twenty per cent, of its
fixed value. If ten per cent, of this latter was taken for tax
it would be from one to two dollars per acre. If we average
our taxes for all purposes, they are not much less, and it
must be borne in mind that we place a tax on the land at a
fixed valuation, whether there is a crop or not.

We must remember that the tithes were not necessarily the
property of the Jewish sovereign, but were really or nomi-
nal ly controlled by the church. The Jewish monarchy was

* Ex. xxx. 12.

f Lowman's Civil Government of the Hebrews, page 96.

40 HEBREW TENURE.

weak. Property in the soil is the natural foundation for power,
because everybody is dependent on it. The Jewish king had
nothing to do with that. So far as he was able, he became
a part of the theocracy. He had in that way some control
over the tithes. David, as has been said, was an astute poli-
tician. His reign was chiefly distinguished by efforts to
build up the monarchy. By caution and forbearance he was
finally enabled to stretch his authority over all the twelve
tribes. These tribes were, however, independent states. The
kingly authority was exercised very gently upon them. On
^11 important questions they held their own councils. David
did not attempt to concentrate the great wealth and power at
Jerusalem, which his son, after him, succeeded in doing. By
conquests over his neighbors he extended the boundaries of
most of the tribes. He was thus able to add to their landed
inheritance, and to enrich them with the spoils of their
enemies.

His son Solomon became the head of the theocracy as well
as king. He commenced the great temple by voluntary con-
tributions. In his reign the Jewish empire extended from
the Mediterranean to the great river (Euphrates). With the
exception of a few cities and limited territories of the Phoeni-
cians, it touched Egypt at the south, and reached almost to
the gates of Damascus. His father David had succeeded in
taking Damascus, one of the most important of his con-
quests, for it lay at the threshold of overland commerce be-
tween the great empires of the East and West.* During the
early part of Solomon's reign this was lost. He, however,
erected fortified places on the great commercial roads in order
to control them, and made alliances with Pharaoh, of Egypt,
and the Phoenician kings of Tyre. In cementing his power,
his father, King David, had organized an independent military
force, instead of depending on the armies furnished by the

* Von Ranke's Universal History, page 48.

THE LEVTIES LANDLESS. 41

tribes. At the muster of all the tribes, in David's reign, the
valiant men who drew the sword were one million three
hundred thousand. The Gibborum was a separate force, and
was the army of the king. With this he placed garrisons in
the cities. Thus a military aristocracy began to grow up in
his reign, which was continued and increased during that of
Solomon, becoming very objectionable to the tribes. This,
and the burdens laid upon the people to maintain such a sys-
tem were fertile causes of the future evils that befell the
kingdom. The reign of Solomon was not so much a period
of conquest as had been that of his father. He cemented his
power, but in building the temple and the palaces of ivory
his reign became one of splendor and luxury, and these began
to sap the life of the people. The seeds of dissolution were
sown, and when the son of Solomon ascended the throne of
his father, the ten states of the Jewish empire made de-
mands before they would acknowledge him. "All Israel
came to Shechem to make him king." It was really an elec-
tion. As a preliminary, they demanded : " Make thou the
grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he
put on us, lighter, and we will serve thee." Not being a
statesman, this he refused to do. Even in the days of Sol-
omon, a prophet had marked out a man of another tribe
and house as his successor. Jeroboam, of the tribe of
Ephraim, had assisted King Solomon in securing compulsory
service for his great buildings. While so engaged, he be-
trayed ambitious schemes, and fled into Egypt to escape
the wrath of Solomon. In Egypt he married a princess,
the sister of the then Pharaoh, and she aided him in his de-
signs. When the ten tribes revolted, exclaiming, "What
portion have we in David, neither have we inheritance in
the son of Jesse/' then the Jewish empire was forever
rent in twain, and the conspirator, Jeroboam, now appeared
as the king of the ten tribes. Rehoboam at first intended,
at the head of an army, to subdue them, but was admon-

42 HEBREW TENURE.

ished by a prophet to desist, which was evidently judicious
advice.

The two ambitious ruling tribes were Ephraim and Judah.
Usually, all the kings were chosen from one or the other of
these tribes. Joshua was of the tribe of Manasseh.* Gideon
was of the tribe of Manasseh, as was Deborah. Ephraim and
Manasseh were the two tribes who trace their origin to Joseph
and his Egyptian wife.f The Jewish law was stringent in
forbidding marriages with other nations for the avowed reason
that it might lead to idolatry. It is difficult to say just how
strictly this rule was observed. Moses had an Ethiopian
wife, f Benjamin, the full brother of Joseph by Rachel, and
the tribe which sprang from him, furnished the first King of
Israel, Saul. Strangely enough, and although David over-
threw the house of Saul, by his arts as a statesman he con-
verted the tribe of Benjamin, until Judah and Benjamin were
fast allies. It is not surprising that jealousies grew up between
the ambitious rulers of the great tribes of Judah and Ephraim.
Before the monarchy each of these states was comparatively
independent, consulting upon, and to a great extent determin-
ing their own affairs. The Levites, to whom was assigned the
administration of the law and religious ordinances, were not
permitted to own land. Certain cities were set apart for their
residences and the immediate suburbs for their cattle. They
were thus stripped of the means of consolidating their power,
and, practically, had little more than a sufficient income. The
wisdom of David for a time checked the jealousies among the
tribes, but his descendants, in their pride and aristocracy, for-
got his maxims. The great tribe of Ephraim was the fitting
rival of Judah when an opposition wanted a head. Jeroboam,
jealous of the power of Jerusalem, borrowed the idolatry of the
Philistines. When Ephraim revolted, the Jewish monarchy

* Von Kanke's Universal History, page 34. f Ibid., page 37.

J Num. xii. 1.

PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH LAW. 43

had not sufficient power to check it. Had there been a great
army, well secured revenues, and a powerful king, the ten
tribes and the rights of their people might have been trampled
under foot. The army of the king could not cope with the
army of the tribes. The constitution of the Jewish nation, its
ideas, principles and law, had nothing in common with mon-
archy or absolutism. Until its polity was utterly overthrown
an enduring monarchy could not be placed upon it. It is,
also, well to remember that a great population had grown up
in Israel. It has been estimated that at that time, it was as
dense as it is in England or Bengal at the present day. Then,
and shortly after the disruption, the mountains of Judea were
terraced, even to a greater extent than they now are in China.
Jewish history should, properly, be divided into three
periods. From Abraham to Moses there elapsed upwards of
four hundred years of the patriarchal state, in which the germs
of the nation grew. From Moses to the monarchy nearly four
hundred years passed away. That was the golden era of the
Jewish nation. Its judges and rulers were of popular accept-
ance. During that four hundred years their peculiar political
system was built. Its law was written. Her land system
founded on an idea based not only on the rights of all but the
rights of each generation. The errors in the system were the
barnacles placed there by those who could never have founded
such a polity. Then came the five hundred years of wretched
monarchy. Schism, disunion, disruption, bad rulers, and
attempts to degrade the people and change the principles of the
government. Its degenerate fragments were swallowed up by
conquest when its wealth and its corruption rendered it a rich
prize and an easy prey. The attempt to rebuild and remodel
was but a partial success. It struggled along weak internally
and the victim of conquest after conquest ; on the advent of the
Christian era, it was finally rent in fragments ; and the people
who had been taught by law the evils of usury went forth
wanderers and usurers on the face of the earth.

44 HEBREW TENURE.

Examining it carefully, it was a wonderful polity, that
system of the ancient Jewish nation. It took cognizance of
the fact, that a healthy body could only be enjoyed by eating
healthy food. Surrounded by nations debased by horrid and
obscene crimes, diseased bodies and all manner of uncleanliness,
they were taught that cleanliness was next to godliness. Their
law pointed out the dangers of usury. Their land belonged
to the people, to all the people, and equally to the people of all
time. Much in their legal system appears to us now to be
barbarous. Tried by the standard of a highly refined age, it
doubtless was harsh and perhaps cruel. The laws of a nation
can never be safely placed far ahead of the people they are to
govern. Idealists lay down theoretical principles. Statesmen
adapt the machinery of government to the people and elevate
the standard of law, only as fast as they can be lifted. Vision-
aries chide delay, and visionaries in their place are useful. In
studying the Jewish laws, we are, therefore, to study not the
few acute or startling points, but the circumstances and con-
dition of the people. We have to study, moreover, the nations
by whom they were surrounded, and their besetting sins.
We must look, also, to the tendencies of their government.
Its underlying principles of purity, morality, equality and
justice. Modern men, with all their genius and literature,
inheriting the wisdom and wealth of antiquity, may smile at
some of the Jewish laws and pronounce them not adapted to
the present times ; when they have done so, they should read
and ponder over the wonderful history and law of the ancient
Jewish people. If they can rise above their own prejudices,
they will possess a better conception of human nature, govern-
ment and law. The modern man may boast of the grandeur
of his own civilization, he will also feel that in our progress
we have forgotten many things, a knowledge of which is
necessary for a well-organized and permanent state.

The Jewish nation has passed away, but its history and
law have, to a partial extent, become a part of our civilization.

WHAT IS LEFT OF JUDAISM. 45

Though scattered, the Hebrews have still an identity. They
have left their mark on nearly every later nation, for Chris-
tianity sprang from Judaism, and still reveres the old Bible,
and accepts much of its law. Ten tribes of ancient Israel
have been lost. Like their fathers, they once more became
wanderers, not to a promised laud, but away from the faith
and polity of Israel. Imaginative historians endeavor to
trace them in Arabia, India, Siam, China, or even among
the aborigines of America. These vain speculations merely
show that the great fragments of Israel, wherever they are,
have practically passed into oblivion. The ideas on which
the Hebrew nation was built are older than the theories and
doctrines on which the foundations of Greece and Rome lay,
but they have survived both.

Israel has not a country ; her people have ceased to make
their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the smoke of her
altars does not now ascend to heaven, but there is a wonderful
vitality in what is left of her principles. The Year of Jubi-
lee is but a tradition ; no longer does the trumpet's sound
declare a home for homeless wanderers, or rescue the unfor-
tunate from the grasping hand of avarice. Cleanliness, from
being a statute, has passed into the dominion of taste. The
law regulating food is confronted by the independent as-
sertion of a man's right to poison his body, and sow in his
system the seeds of disease if he chooses. If usury is a crime,
the boundaries of that enormity have been lost in a fog
thrown around them by political economists, and the laws
against it do not seem to be remembered even in Lombard
street or Amsterdam. In spite of all this decadence there is
enough of the old ideas left to crystallize a Hebrew element
at once distinct, and yet certainly potent, in every great
modern nation.

CHAPTER II.

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIRES.

Similarity of populations on the Nile and Euphrates Landlords and rent
in Egypt All below the privileged army and priesthood had to work
Only one occupation allowed Every citizen's home and business regis-
tered, in Ancient Egypt Legislation against borrowing money In
Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the sole tyrants The
king as landlord Persian political economy Laborers should not be
robbed beyond the point when they would cease to produce Carthage a
combination or corporation for merchandising, piracy and slave dealing
Carthage called a republic, but drifted into three classes, slaves, a mer-
cenary army and an aristocracy Theory and practice of government in
Greece Land laws of Lycurgus Gold and silver banished Constant
struggle between the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece Solon
and Athens Debt on land and slaves abolished Legal value of silver
coin increased by law Timocracy, or man's rights measured by his prop-
erty Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats surrenders to
tyrants Rome a robbers' den Reduction of the aristocracy and rise of
the republic Division of land among the people Seven acres enough
Land assigned on two year terms Gradual absorption of land and
money by the equestrian order Slaves take the place of free laborers
Death of Tiberius Gracchus Overthrow of the republic Citizens subsi-
dized Swallowed up by despotism and immorality.

THE recorded pages of ancient history are a very barren
field in which to glean a knowledge of the condition of the
people. Of wars, conquerors, kings and emperors, there is a
surfeit. We read of great temples and palaces ; of mighty
pyramids, towers, walls, artificial lakes and canals, but are
rarely informed whether they were built by an enslaved peo-
ple, or by captives of war dragged from other countries to
perform the menial tasks of the conquerors. We are apt to
measure the greatness of ancient nations by the monuments
erected upon human suffering and degradation. Herodotus
4(3

THE PRIESTHOOD HOLD LAND. 47

estimates that it required over one hundred thousand laborers
for thirty years to build the great pyramid.

The most ancient seats of learning, wealth and power, of
which we have record, are -the Chaldean, Babylonian and the
Egvptian. The empires on the Euphrates in many respects
resembled the empires on the Nile. Both were extremely
fertile regions. In both the agricultural systems depended
on irrigation. Both were almost surrounded by deserts.
The valley of the lower Nile is shut in by hills which ap-
proach within fifteen miles of the river.* Babylon was the
daughter of Chaldea.f The civilization of Egypt and Chal-
dea were identical.^ Their modes of agriculture, religion,
manners and customs, and, to some extent, their architecture
were similar. In each slavery existed, and while laborers
were also hired, the condition of the laboring classes was at
once abject and unhappy. Rawlinson, one of the best author-
ities, informs us that the lands in Egypt were held by three
parties. The king, or monarch, had one-third, the priests
one-third, and the army, which was largely the executive arm
of the government, one-third. About one-fifth of the pro-
duce was exacted as rent or tribute. The enormous labor of
creating and maintaining the canals and lakes for irrigation,
was done, under the supervision of the army, largely by
slaves. To equalize and extend the period of the irrigation
from the Nile, and prevent disastrous floods, a lake (Mreris)
three hundred feet deep was dug ; into this a great portion of
the floods could be drained to prevent an overflow. When
the river fell below the point at which it could easily furnish
water for the canals, the water was drawn from the lake for
irrigation. A shower of rain scarcely ever falls in Egypt.

If representative governments did not exist in Asia, it

* Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., page 51.

f Ibid., page 47. I Ibid., page 57.

$ Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 127.

48 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

would be difficult to trace anything like them in Egypt.
Nearly all these Oriental governments were theocracies. The
priesthood represented the law, supposed to be divine law.
In most of them the priests claimed to have some method of
communicating with the gods. It was so in Egypt, and in
Babylon, and in Greece the utterances of the Delphic oracle
had great acceptance. There is a wonderful similarity in these
governments in that respect. In Egypt the priesthood was a
distinct and privileged class, and ranked next to the king ;
they were not allowed to practice polygamy, although the rest
of the people were. The priest's share of the available land
was free from taxation or tribute.* In addition to their sacred
functions, they promulgated the only law known. The king
had to enter the temple each morning to worship, when it was
customary for the priests to advise him what course to pursue.
Even the food of the king, which was plain, was prescribed
by law.

Next to the priesthood stood the army. In the days of their
power the army, under continual pay, consisted of four hun-
dred thousand men. This army constituted the third estate
or privileged class, and to enter it was considered an honor.
Each soldier was allowed for the purpose of subsisting himself
and family, irrigated land equal to " half a French acre," free
from all rent, tax or tribute: also, five pounds of bread, two
pounds of meat and a quart of wine daily.f The standing
army was, of course, a sufficient menace against all revolt or
rebellion.

The monarch who had an army subject to his authority,
had also the revenue of rent, tax or tribute from at least the
third of all the irrigated lands. Nor was this his only source
of avenue. He levied imposts on commerce, and several
branches of trade. A percentage of certain fisheries brought

*Kawlinson's Ancient History, vol. i., page 143.
f Rollings Ancient History, vol. i., page 151.

PRODUCTIONS OF EGYPT. 49

revenue. Public works were chiefly created and maintained
by slave labor, the slaves being largely aliens, captives of war,
or persons purchased from the Phoenicians, Greeks, or the
semi-barbarous people in central Africa.

As the monarch, the priests and the army owned the land,
they thus held the real substance of power : the remainder
of the people were divided into three classes in the following
order of rank: shepherds, husbandmen and artificers, or
artizans.* Each man had his place of business assigned by
law, and no one was permitted to have two separate occupa-
tions or professions ; nor could he make a change in his busi-
ness very easily. This was done really or ostensibly to allow
a fair field to each occupation. No man was allowed to be a
useless idler in the state. Every man had to enter his name
and business in a register. If he gave a false statement he
was put to death.

Under the law, people were allowed a reasonable liberty in
their individual business, provided they did not attempt to
interfere with the authority of the government. It was the
boast of the early Egyptian rulers that murder was almost
invariably punished, and the murder of a slave was as much
a violation of the law as the murder of a freeman. Xo slave
or foreigner was admitted to the immediate service of the
princ,f an( l thus one of the chief avenues to advancement was
shut against them.

Egypt was styled the granary of the world. Its chief grain
products were wheat, barley and rye. It also produced flax
and cotton.J Cotton was first introduced into upper Egypt
in very early times. It was used to a considerable extent in
manufacturing clothing for the people. The fine cotton goods
of Egypt were greatly prized in Greece. Except the date
palms and the sycamore, Egypt had no lofty trees. Herodotus

* Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 153. f Ibid., page 139.

Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 349.

50 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

informs us, that " when the river is full and the plains are
become a sea, there springs up in the water great quantities
of lilies, called lotus by the Egyptians." These the inhabit-
ants gather and from what is contained in them make a kind
of bread. The root is also made into food. Herodotus says,
that the use of the wine press was unknown in Egypt, although
wine was allowed to be used by the priests and the people
were permitted to drink it at festivals. We have seen that
the military order also consumed it. Wine was largely
imported from Greece, and was also obtained through the
Phoenicians. The "father of history" informs us, that the
common people of Egypt, at other times than festivals,
"drank a kind of beer made from barley." It is proper to
state, however, that vineyards were not altogether unknown
in Egypt. Among other productions spoken of by Herodotus
was the byblus, which is produced in shallow water. From
it the papyrus or paper, cordage and other articles of merchan-
dise was made. It was, in addition, prepared into food and
its stalk chewed for its juice.

Breeding of cattle, swine, horses, asses, mules, camels and
goats, constituted the second great producing interest next to
agriculture. As the Egyptians worshiped the sacred bull,
and as rams as well as serpents were in their pantheon, we
might have been led to expect that the Egyptians, like the
people of India, would not have made food of cattle or sheep,
and that this would have aifected their production. It does
not appear to have been the case, however. Horses were
reared for war and were chiefly used by the military order
and the aristocracy; they were likewise largely used for
exportation.* Cattle were produced for labor as well as food.
Large flocks of sheep were reared for the wool and were used
for food. The period of cultivation was a very brief one in
Egypt, the crops following immediately after the flood.

* Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 356.

LAWS AGAINST USURY. 51

Plowing could hardly be said to be needed, although plowing
and stirring the soil to considerable extent was done. The
great object was to have the crops in at once on the fresh
deposit, when the water abated, so that they could mature
before the earth thoroughly dried out. Irrigating, where it
was practicable, was carried on by canals and ditches, and
water for the purpose was also pumped from the river.
Indeed, the more we are enabled to learn of the Egyptians,
the more we are forced to admit that they were not deficient
in the arts of production. They even hatched eggs in ovens.
Egypt had as colonies a great many cities and communities in
Europe, Asia and Africa. It was almost as famous as Tyre,
for dyes and cloths, and had quite a trade in gold, ivory and
slaves, with the interior of Africa.

Egypt, at one time, had stringent laws against usury, or,
more correctly, against borrowing money. The legislation
of Egypt against borrowing money, while it was done ostensi-
bly in the interests of the people, was also a policy against the
cumulative power of capital in money. The rulers already
held the other sources of wealth and did not intend to have
any rivals. This legislation against the productive power of
money was not peculiar to Egypt, for many of the more
enlightened of the ancient nations did the same thing. The
tendency of the poor and needy to pay usurious rates of interest
is at least as old as Egypt, and when the money of a country
lias added to its other forces the power of addition and multi-
plication, in adroit hands, it will soon draw to itself all the
wealth that there is in any country. The Egyptian law was
designed to prevent such a result. In Egypt, moreover, bor-
rowing had some additional drawbacks. He who ran into
debt in the middle portion of Egyptian history, was very apt
to run into slavery. At the usual rate of interest it would not
have taken very many generations to reduce the whole of the
industrious population to a condition of servitude.

Keren informs us that the later Egyptian governments

52 ANCIENT EMPIRES,

regulated loans, fixed the rate of interest, and partially per-
mitted a creditor to indemnify himself for a debt when he
could do it from other property besides the person of his
debtor. The general policy of Egypt was to prevent the ag-
gregation of capital by usury. During a portion of her his-
tory, the citizens of Egypt proper were not allowed to be en-
slaved for debt.

The manufactures of Egypt were as important and prob-
ably as highly developed as those of any nation. Heren
says that two or three thousand years ago their weaving was
brought to as great or even greater perfection than ours at
present. The same authority tells us that their dyes were
splendid. They had a great business in fabrics of wool, flax,
cotton, gold thread and other material. The Egyptian earth-
enware was of very fine quality. They were also skillful
workers in metals, gold, silver, bronze and brass. After the
waste and destruction of three thousand years her architecture
presents the most imposing monuments of human power and
skill.

While the area of Egypt was limited, its food-producing
power was great, thus creating large populations : for this
reason we find the government had a fixed and continuous
policy of encouraging emigration.* They sent colonies to all
parts of the world, carrying their laws, customs and boasted
politeness with them. Homer tells us that the Ethiopians
were divided from the rising to the setting of the sun. This
appeared to have been more for the purpose of disposing of
their surplus population than with a policy of possessing
colonies and retaining them. For many centuries there was
the closest relations between the cities of Egypt, Phoenicia,
Asia Minor and Greece. To Egypt the scholars of Greece
and other countries resorted to finish their education and
acquire information as to her arts and literature.

* Kollin's Ancient History, Vol. i., page 151.

DECADENCE OF EGYPT. 53

Many changes occurred in the history of Egypt. The Ethi-
opians conquered Egypt and held it for several generations.
After that there were many changes in the rulers and yet no
fundamental changes in the constitution of its government.
Caste ruled in Egypt. The military, the priesthood and the
monarch held the wealth as well as the power of Egypt in
their grasp. So long as these three agreed the people had no
power to resist them.

Heren informs us that Psammetichus overthrew and finally
forced the military caste of the Egyptians to emigrate to
Ethiopia. He and his successors stripped them of their
lands, and the later rulers depended nearly altogether on
mercenary soldiers, chiefly from other countries. To sustain
them, heavier exactions were made from the people. In order
to keep the turbulent spirits of this unpatriotic army employed,
and to offer them the inducement of plunder, indispensable
for such soldiers, foreign conquests were attempted, chiefly
in Asia, and these were not always successful. Weakened,
robbed and dispirited, it is no wonder that Egypt succumbed
to the Persian conqueror. It is significant of the indifference
of the people, that he was able in one battle and a siege of
ten days, to decide the fate of the w T hole country. Cambyses
lost an army of seventy thousand men, endeavoring to pene-
trate the upper Nile, destroyed by the inhospitable deserts
rather than hostilities. From this period forward the history
of Egypt is one of wars, conquests, and political vicissitudes,
in which the people suffer from one set of kingly robbers
after another, Darius, Xerxes, Ochus, Alexander. Then for
nearly three hundred years Egyptian history is again elevated
by the dynasty of the Ptolemys and then came Caesar, Anthony
and the Romans, and for more than three hundred years it
was a Roman province : its wealth was drained to benefit an
alien nation. Then came the conquest of the Persians once
more, and then of the Saracen and Turk. In the midst of all
these, Egypt, the cradle of human civilization and power, has

54 ANCIENT EMPIEES.

sunk so low that no people are now as wretched, spiritless
or poverty-stricken, and this notwithstanding the country
possesses the finest natural resources.

The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates were richer than
even the Nile. Herodotus tells us that no country in the
world is so fertile, and that the blade of wheat is often four
fingers in width. Babylon, Nineveh and all their ruling
cities were dens of plunder. The monarch owned the land
and demanded heavy tribute from it. The system of irrigation
was in charge of the king and his subordinates, while the
wretched agriculturist was ground to death between the exac-
tions of the monarch and his horde of petty princes, deputies and
tax collectors. Herodotus tells us of one governor who derived
from his province two bushels of silver each day in tribute,
and who had a stud of sixteen thousand mares. Hosts of slaves
captured in war were employed to perform the most menial
tasks, but the condition of the poor native laborer was hardly
any better. He was generally so severely burdened by regular
taxes and special tribute for war purposes, that it was almost
impossible for him to retain a bare subsistence. If he made
more he was obliged to conceal it, or expose himself to petty
banditti, or further exaction from deputies of royal robbers.

The worst governments known to men have been govern-
ments of deputies. A royal ruler may have an occasional
gleam of greatness about him, and even his position invites
from him some exercise of magnanimity, but a deputy has all
the vices of his master added to his own. No portion of the
globe has been so governed by deputies as the various Asiatic
countries. These ancient deputies, local governors and petty
satraps, to some extent resemble the directors of our mod-
ern railroads, whose first business is to get rich themselves,
and finally, to extract from their employees all they can for
the benefit of the corporation. An Eastern potentate rarely
made any inquiries of his deputy so long as he sent forward
a liberal amount of tribute.

ARTAXEBXES. 55

The gods of the Assyrians were gods of war. War and
conquest ran through their whole dominion. They adopted
a somewhat novel policy intended to open a field of enterprise
to the ambitious at home, and maintain a subordinate popula-
tion in the seats of empire. As fast as they, by force of arms,
subjugated states, they sent all the inhabitants thereof who
might be troublesome to them, as slaves, to the country of
the conqueror, and colonized the countries taken with num-
bers of their own people, who thus became the local rulers of
the conquered provinces.* The vanquished people were sub-
ject to tribute. Phoenicia and Israel fell before them. They
carried their arms with great atrocity into Armenia and the
other northern provinces, and in case of revolt or refusal to
pay tribute, flayed the insurgents alive. They conquered a
portion of Media and built fortresses in that country. Egypt
paid tribute. Damascus became an outpost for their troops,
and while Arabia did not entirely succumb, it was subject to
their influence. Indeed, Assyria is the first great conquering
power we encounter in the history of the world. It united
the Semetic races for the first time of which we have record.f
In all its annals of blood and violence it would be vain to
seek for statutes maintaining human rights, a religion founded
on justice, or a people whose interests were ever considered.
An empire resting on an aristocracy of soldiers, and main-
tained by tribute and slavery, is all that can be discovered.

The founding of a new Persian empire, about 230 A.D.,
under Artaxerxes, was of significant importance in this, that
it re-established an authority strong enough to cope with the
Romans, if not to drive them from Asia, and substituted the
rule of the Aryan Persians for that of the ruder Scyths of
the North. Five hundred years had elapsed between the old
Persian empire and this revival. In the meantime, Jew,
Christian, Greek and pagan had spread their forms of worship,

* Von Rankes Universal History, page 81. f Ibid.

56 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

and, to a more limited extent, their forms of society. Artax-
erxes, as soon as his authority was placed on a secure footing,
re-established the religion of the Magi, and the doctrines of
Zoroaster. In a brief space the places of worship of all the
other religious were closed, and, although the Zoroastrian
doctrines were not supposed to be persecuting, Artaxerxes, at
least, was prescriptive. It is said in the Zendavesta that
there were twin deities^, the spirits of good and evil, Or-
muzd, the creator, and Ahriman, the destroyer, and that
their battle is fought in a being called Time. All created
things are regarded as designed for the struggle against evil.
The doctrine that the good deity only permits evil was not
held by the Persians. Their code of morals taught that he is
a wise man who brings his offering to the altar, and a good
man who has a well-ordered household, and produces the
greatest quantity of corn, fodder, and fruit-bearing trees. In
the sacred books little is said of monarchy.

One of Artaxerxes' maxims was that "The king should
never use the sword when the cane would answer," * which
merely indicated the gradations in despotism. He also held
that it was the true policy of the government to make the
people feel absolute security.! This was a very good maxim,
but how far it was possible, under a satrapy in which the local
ruler was kept in his place by forwarding a certain annual
tribute, is not so clear. Another of his celebrated opinions
was : " There can be no power without an army, no army
without money, no money without agriculture, and no agri-
culture without justice." J This, doubtless, sounds well.
What is meant I suppose by " no agriculture without justice,"
is that the exactions of the rulers must never reach a point
at which the agriculturist would cease producing. This sug-
gests the cause of the ruin of nearly all these governments.

* Rawlinson's 7th Monarchy, vol. i., page 67.

t Ibid., page 61. J Ibid.

PHCENICIAN POLICY AND IDEAS. 57

To temper rapacity with moderation may not require much
"justice/' but some brains. We are further told by the same
eminent authority we have quoted, that " heavy tributes were
laid on the land." * In point of fact these monarchs claimed
to own all the land, not only of their native country, but the
countries they conquered. They were the mighty potentates
who could decide on what conditions men should live upon
the earth.

No great constitutional government was formed in Asia with
a complete code of law, much less a republic. The towns and
communities had their rule and customs, and none of the
empires we have described charged themselves with the faith-
ful execution of what we consider the legitimate functions of
government. They conqtiered, plundered and exacted tribute.
The wars were merely between those who claimed this
privilege.

One of the most wonderful forms of society that ever
existed in ancient or modern times was what is styled the Phoe-
nician. Herodotus tells us that " the Phoenicians emigrated
from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and having made
their settlements, applied themselves to merchandise." There
was an ancient Tyre on the Red Sea, and also a place of
that name on the Persian Gulf. In the time of the Cartha-
ginians there was also a Tyre on the Mediterranean in the
west. They seem, in their migration, to have had a habit,
like the people of these United States, of reproducing and
multiplying the old names. Keren informs us that all the
nations who traded on the Mediterranean were at the same
time pirates, and it was their particular business to kidnap
men from the coasts.f The inlets on the coastline between
Egypt and Greece gave shelter to a thriving and industrious
nation of traders and seamen. J

* Rawlinson's 7th Monarchy, vol. i., page 112.

t Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 369.

i Von Kanke's Universal History, page 60.

58 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

The communities of the Phoenicians might be styled
independent cities. Tyre adopted a constitutional monarchy
in the days of Solomon. There never was a Phoenician em-
pire. They remembered and maintained their own kinship,
and aided each other, and refused to take part in military
operations against any branch of their own people. As they
freely intermarried with all the people where they planted
colonies, their identity was maintained by the distinct reli-
gious and commercial ideas that animated them. Labor was
performed by slaves. Their armies were largely of mercena-
ries hired from all nations. They excelled in the arts and
manufactures. Their ships carried raw material from every
nation, and carried back rich manufactures. Their religion
was a mixture of Babylonian idolatry and Parseeism, and
closely resembled types found in the Arabian peninsula before
the time of Mahomet. Its purpose was to blind and overawe
the masses rather than teach pure morality. They wor-
shiped in " high places." Baal and Astarte were among
their divinities. The sun was an object of adoration, as the
eye of God, and the summer solstice was their great festival.
Their rites were cruel and unclean. Human sacrifices stained
their altars, and oxen, horses and other animals were also
sacrificed. They passed their children through the fire to
Moloch by placing them in the arms of the frightful metal
deity, Baal, that dropped them in the furnace. Immorality
also disgraced their forms of worship.

Gold, however, was the chief god they worshiped. For it
their ships sailed beyond the pillars of Hercules and down
the African coast, where they procured gold dust, not from
the desert sands, which are never golden ; but they obtained
it together with slaves and ivory from the interior and the
great mountainous districts in Africa, which were, and are still
supposed to be rich in gold. They visited Gaul (France),
Britain, Hibernia, and Scandinavia. From Britain they pro-
cured tin, and from the mountains of Greece and Asia Minor,

COMMERCIAL POWER OF PHOENICIA. 59

copper, and lead and tin also from Spain. Their bronzes
and brass ornaments were the admiration of nations. They
procured the murex principally from the coasts of Greece,
and from them produced their most famous dyes. Their
looms wove the finest fabrics. Wool they chiefly obtained
from Greece and Arabia. They manufactured and had a
commerce in amber, and it is believed they traded in the Baltic
and thus obtained it. It would not be surprising if they had
visited what is now China, and it is also believed that they
visited the western as well as the eastern coast of the Americas.

The Phoenicians were a strange nation of commercial
adventurers. They have been styled the Jews of ancient times,
but differ from them very widely in many particulars. Their
ships sailed to "the uttermost parts of the earth." The
rowers and other laborers were slaves; the fighting force,
mercenaries from all countries, organized and governed by
Phoenicians. In their voyages to many of the countries
they visited they were very secretive. None were permitted
to have knowledge of their more important maritime secrets,
save societies or associations bound by obligations of secrecy.
From this has arisen the idea that the masonic order origi-
nated with them.

The purpose of their secrecy was to prevent other nations
from finding out their sources of trade. Their vessels watched
those ships which attempted to pass the straits of Gibraltar
or pillars of Hercules. Besides hand-to-hand conflicts when
vessels were driven together, trained slingers from the Balearic
islands, and bowmen, waged this naval warfare. The most
important manoeuvre in these early naval engagements was
to run each other down. The Phoenicians acquired great
skill in making large and strong vessels for this purpose,
and they had them manned with numerous sweeps worked
by a great body of rowers, in order to turn rapidly and be
driven with great force upon the enemy. To this they chiefly
owed their supremacy on the sea.

60 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

While their traditional policy was to place the world under
tribute by trade, and to plant colonies to aid them in that
purpose, we do not often find them overrunning great landed
territories that could be taken from them by more powerful
nations, and laid under tribute. Their stations were trading
stations, often limited in extent and many of them abandoned
on the appearance of serious opposition. With the Egyptians
they tried to cultivate alliance, but as the dwellers on the
Nile were also a commercial people, they were continually
embroiled in wars with them. The Phoenicians were masters
of the Mediterranean before the Greeks became a maritime
power ; as the Greek colonies pushed out into Sicily and Asia
Minor the wars between the Greeks and Phoenicians began.
When Xerxes the Persian invaded Greece he without much
difficulty effected an alliance with the Phoenicians and Car-
thaginians, both of whom furnished ships. When Alexander
invaded Asia he had not forgotten the share Tyre had in the
former wars and laid siege to it. Nebuchadnezzar had taken
and destroyed the old Tyre on the mainland and the inhabit-
ants never rebuilt it but took shelter on the island where the
city was four miles in circumference. There with their fleets
they supposed they were impregnable. The siege by Alex-
ander lasted eight months. Tyre fell in the year 332 B. c.
It maintained some little importance afterward but never re-
gained its power. Before the last calamity and during its
various troubles, many of its citizens fled to Carthage and
other colonies, and carried with them much wealth.

Carthage had the most remarkable history of any people
of the Phoenician stock. The founders of Carthage in
making the settlement purchased from the native inhabitants
a tract of ground for the use of the city, and as they were a
commercial people they agreed that the greater part of the
price should be an annual tribute. As soon as they became
strong enough they went to war with iheir creditors and thus
cancelled the obligation. They did more ; in a very short time

REVENUES OF CARTHAGE. 61

that region of Africa styled Libya was placed under tribute.*
A part of Libya was susceptible of cultivation. Whether the
inhabitants were originally agriculturists or became so under
the influence of Carthage is not very clear. They produced
not only grain in considerable quantities, but other articles.
To keep these native tribes in subjection, they placed colonies
of their own people among them, who intermarried with
them, and these people were known as Carthaginian-Libyans.
To the east, west and south of them were nomadic tribes.
The nomads were not only in their pay as mercenaries, but as
common carriers, regular caravans to the valley of the Nile
and Central Africa being established. From the foundation
of Carthage to its overthrow, about seven hundred years
elapsed. It always pretended to be a republic. It was the
boast of Carthaginians that for five hundred years there was
no considerable sedition to disturb, or tyrant to oppress their
people. f They selected three diiferent authorities, which
were supposed to balance each other, or act as counterpoises.
They had a senate, two supreme magistrates, called suffetas,
and popular assemblies for deliberation. As Carthage grew,
the tribunal of one hundred was added. The suffetas were
chosen each year. The senate was composed of old, distin-
guished, and, finally, of rich persons, for a man had to be
possessed of a certain amount of property before he was eligi-
ble.! While it has been alleged that no office could be ob-
tained except by election, it is pretty certain that the wealthy
classes filled nearly all positions of power. As no salaries were
paid, they were really the only persons who could maintain
the degree of state required.

Carthage derived her revenue from customs on all articles
exported or imported ; from tribute and from mines which
she worked by slave labor, in all countries where she could

* Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i., page 31.
t Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 191. t Ibid., page 193.

62 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

find them. In times of great necessity, her tribute amounted
to half the production.* Aristotle points out what he calls
the defects in the government of Carthage " First, that it
permitted a man to have more than one occupation ; second,
that a certain estate or amount of wealth was required to
render a man eligible for the higher offices ; and, thirdly, that
they used money to carry elections." While the assemblages
of the people were supposed to be the highest tribunal, every-
thing tended to aristocracy. They were a purely and highly
commercial people. Everything was bought and sold in Car-
thage. The adventurers of her own and every other country
were paid to fight her battles. The great, wealthy families
supplied the generals, although they were supposed to be
elected. The families of Hanno and the Barcas furnished
the most notable, among the latter, Hannibal, Hamilcar
and Asdrubal. Almost half of Africa and Europe were, at
different times, in the pay of Carthage, f Tribes of Gauls,
at an early period, fought in her armies. The small force of
Carthaginians constituted the most splendid corps. Next to
these were the Spanish and Celtic troops. Italy furnished
several tribes, and even Greece. The Balearic stingers could
hurl stones with sufficient force to break shield and buckler.
One of her most formidable forces was the Arab cavalry,
who, in their rapid wheeling and fierce charges, often decided
the fate of battle. Ten thousand of these nomadic cavalry
were in their service at one time. Their armies must have
produced a curious effect in the field, and Polybius says the
Carthaginians purposely composed their armies of people of
different languages so that they could not conspire together
against them. It must, however, have been a difficult force
to handle. We are told that these troops were largely armed
with spear and knife, until after the battle of Thrasymene,

* Keren's Ancient Nations, vol. i., page 149.

t Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i., page 250.

ARISTOCRACY OF WEALTH. 63

when Hannibal exchanged them for the Roman arms. In
the Roman war with Regulus, the Carthaginian fleet was
composed of three hundred and fifty vessels and one hundred
and sixty thousand men, including mercenary soldiers and
slave rowers.*

In this strange organization we find an empire almost with-
out a country : an aggregation of men, with money as the
motive power : great w r ars fought without patriotism, and
whole nations enslaved and purchased by an ingenious, active,
unscrupulous and selfish race. A few great families were
very wealthy. The city was a citadel for spoils. There was
absolutely nothing in their economy upon which a happy,
prosperous working class could permanently thrive. Her
commerce was selfish, secret, exacting. Her morals were low,
and uttered no protest against hopeless slavery, piracy, slave-
dealing, or conquest for aggrandisement. Her religion in-
spired cruelty and melancholy. When it was cheaper to
bribe the councils of her enemies than to fight them, they did
not hesitate to do so, and during her struggle with Rome,
Jugurtha turned his back on the imperial city, and said,
" There is a city for sale if you can only find a purchaser."

Their history instructs us that an aristocracy of wealth
may become as dangerous as a landed aristocracy. The
liberality of the rich chiefly consisted in deporting the poorer
classes to some of their many colonies, where they would
enable the rulers to extend their spider's web, and would not
remain to foment; disturbances at home. Some of the ancient,
moralizing philosophers tell us that when the people permit-
ted the . senate largely to rule, it governed well, as the sena-
tors were wise persons of acknowledged character, who had a
deep interest in the state. Polybius informs us that when the
people attempted, or did take the rule in their own hands,
they were led by factions and demagogues, until this resulted

* Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. i., page 247.

64 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

in the overthrow of Carthage. The truth is that it was im-
possible to govern this central den of pirates, robbers and
thieves, by a government of the people, unless on principles
of equal distribution.

Greece affords us the most elaborate and benignant theories
of government and the most sorrowful aggregate of statistics.
On endeavoring to obtain data we are met by another difficulty ;
it is extremely hard to sift out legend and mythical figures
from plain reliable facts. Most of the old Greek worthies
were, if we are to believe them, descended from the gods.
Their gods, moreover, were much too numerous to afford a
very elevated grade of deity. If we estimate these fanciful
personages, their ways, works and belongings, including all the
satyrs and ' other monsters by whom they were surrounded,
they do not afford us a very high opinion of the morals of a
people who could invent and look up to such a pantheon.

Greece, unlike Egypt and Babylon, had no great river with
its rich grain products, and thus was not naturally adapted
for a despotism. It was mountainous. Most of it was
chiefly valuable for raising flocks and herds, and while it pos-
sessed some fine valleys, no inconsiderable portion of it was
naturally very poor. This wonderful cluster of mountains,
islands, bays, deep gulfs and peninsulas, seemed to mark the
region as the home of shepherds aud fishermen, or the com-
mercial marts for Asia, Africa and Europe. There is little
reason to doubt the fact that Greece, in remote periods, had
been the theatre on which horde after horde had settled and
ship-load after ship-load found a haven from the horrors of
war or the pressure of tyranny. It was the boast of the
Hellenes that they were descended from the gods, and the people
of Attica, lonians, claimed to be autochthones. From all that
can be gathered, the tribes or race styled Pelasgi, seemed to
have occupied all lower Greece and most of the islands, when
they were intruded upon by the lonians and Dorians. One
or two irruptions came from the north, from or beyond Thrace,

LAKED^EMON. 65

and seemed to be a martial people driven from their homes by
some political convulsion. It is also equally certain that the
Phoenicians had stations and trade on these shores and con-
tinued to have them until the commercial and political rivalry,
incident to the growth and progress of the Greeks, drove them
elsewhere. The first money used in Greece was Phoenician
money.* Even before the time that the Phoenicians had
passed from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to the Medi-
terranean, or at least, before they had risen to be a great
maritime power, Thothmes III. of Egypt, had conquered
Cyprus and Crete, and many islands and parts of Greece, and
founded colonies there. "j" It is not a little singular, that one
of the early cities founded in Greece, Thebes, should be named
after the capital of Egypt.

Herodotus relates that the Phoenicians who came with Cad-
mus to ThebeSj introduced letters along with other branches of
knowledge to the Greeks. He also informs us that the Ionian
books were made of Egyptian papyrus. It is sufficient for the
purpose of this work, to show that the elements out of which
intellectual Greece grew were of mixed origin, and that some of
the most enlightened of ancient nations contributed toward it.

The Lakedaemonians long maintained their contempt for
literature and the arts. The ambition of the citizen was to be
trained in athletic exercises and inured to hardship and war.
Slaves were obtained to perform their menial labor. In early
times, according to Herodotus, the Spartans were the most
lawless of all the Greeks, and foreigners were afraid to approach
them. Their early history is one of turbulent disorder and
incessant war. Some time between 820 and 996 before Christ,
it is related that a prince or philosopher named Lycurgus,
after having visited foreign seats of learning, undertook to
restore order and give a constitution to LakedaBmonia.J .As a

* Von Ranke's Universal History, page 128.
f Ra'.vlinson's Ancient Egypt, vol. ii., page 255.
J G rote's Greece, vol. i., page 464.

66 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

preliminary, he consulted the Delphic oracle in Boetia, proba-
bly to give an appearance of religious authority to what he
intended to do. We learn, that even in that early period,
nearly every city in Greece had an aristocratic and a democratic
or plebeian class. The avaricious and grasping spirit of a few
had reduced the masses to great poverty, which they, as a
martial people, were no longer inclined to endure. As Lycur-
gus belonged to the privileged orders it is more than probable
that his attempts were tolerated by the rich in order to prevent
worse mischief. Before his time the land had been monopo-
lized until the masses of the people had no land. He induced
the people to ordain that the land should belong to the com-
monwealth, and succeeded in procuring a new distribution of
it, founded on the idea that each citizen of the state was entitled
to a share sufficient to produce a maintenance.* Observing
the aggressive power of money, he adopted the novel expedient
of banishing it from the state. Whatever we may think of
some of his measures, he was, undoubtedly, conscious of the
dangerous tendencies of accumulated capital in money. Plu-
tarch, in his sketch upon Lycurgus, says, that in banishing
gold and silver from the community he substituted stamped
iron, which had little or no value in itself, and therefore could
not be exchanged for foreign luxuries. To correct the abuses
of luxury and the enervating eifect of refinement, indolence
and excess, laws were framed to provide plain diet, plain
garments, and induce simple habits and self denial. The
children at a certain age were the property of and under care
of the state, and their training was rigid. The system was to
make them warriors rather than peaceful citizens. The form
of government he adopted, whatever it might pretend to be,
was certainly anything but democratic. It was a close,
unscrupulous, well-obeyed oligarchy.f The senate was a body

* Kollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 332.
f Grote's Greece, vol. i., page 474.

LAND IN GREECE MONOPOLISED. 67

of twenty-eight "ancient men" appointed for life. They had
two kings, who also sat in the Agora and took part in its
deliberations, thus making it a body of thirty persons.* In
addition to these senators, and to give this oligarchy a popular
aspect, Sparta had periodic assemblages of the people, in the
open air, between the river Knakion and the bridge. No
discussion was permitted in these assemblies. No amendments
could be offered. They simply voted on the propositions sent
them by the aristocratic senate. Such was the constitution of
Lycurgus. It is only surprising that he should have been
permitted to carry out such reforms as he instituted. Nothing
but the desperate condition to which society was reduced
rendered it possible.

Among the struggling Grecian states the great rival of
Sparta was Athens. Its institutions, simple at first, soon
drifted into disorder. Athens almost from the beginning
until the time of Solon was in the hands of an oligarchy.
A few great families controlled her concerns. They had done
so in a manner to threaten the very existence of the state.
The rich and most productive land, the plains and valleys
w r ere monopolized by them. The masses were driven to the
poor land in the mountains. Commerce and sea-faring were
one great source of Athenian wealth. This also fell into a
few hands. The real estate held by the poorer classes was
mortgaged, the common mode being to set up a pillar with
the amount of the debt and to whom due engraved on it.
Under a law general in all that region a man who ran in debt
could be sold as a slave, sold to labor in his own country,
or sold to a foreigner. Sometimes to escape from debt a man
would sell his children. Families were thus torn and scat-
tered. As the citizens of Attica were not totally spiritless, it
is scarcely wonderful that they were ready to end this intoler-
able state of affairs at any cost. To facilitate the matter the

* Grote's Greece, vol. i., page 468.

68 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

leading aristocratic families fell out among themselves.* In
this condition of affairs Solon appeared. He had been elected
archon 594 before Christ. The archons had succeeded the
kings and were at first hereditary and then appointed for
ten years and finally every year : at that time there were nine
of them having varying functions. Their duties were execu-
tive and judicial. The chief archon had the power of life
and death. The archons had to be selected from families
that had been free for three generations. Solon belonged to
one of the first aristocratic families, an ancestor, Codrus, being
one of the most eminent archons. It is said that his father
had wasted much of his substance in prodigality, which caused
Solon in his earlier years to devote himself to commerce, and
in this way he visited many parts of Greece and Asia. It
seems that about the time of his election as archon, the long-
continued suffering and debasement of the poor, the injustice
of the rich, the corruption of the ruling powers and the attend-
ant evils had readied a point when the laws could not be
administered. The mutiny of the poor Thetes and uneasiness
of the middle classes made all parties willing to confer extra-
ordinary authority on Solon.

His first great act was the abolition of slavery, so far as
the citizens of Athens and Attica were concerned.")" This,
however, did not include the abolition of alien slavery. Not
only did he prohibit the enslavement of citizens for the future,
but all who had been enslaved were declared free. His next
step modified the cruel law of Draco, which inflicted death
for any offense. The death penalty was now only to be
inflicted in cases of homicide, or treason against the state. J
The next step of Solon was to cancel at once all debts in
which the debtor had borrowed on his person or his lands.
It swept off all the numerous mortga'ges on the lands in

* Von Ranke's Universal History, page 138.

f Ibid., page 141.

| Plutarch's Lives, vol. i., page 135.

CHANGE OF COIN STANDARDS. 69

Attica, leaving them free.* These, however, were not the
only debts in the state. Those who were a little better off
than the poorest were still in debt; and, as the first measure
of relief, the Seisachtheia, rendered the middle class less able
to meet their creditors, as a measure of general relief for the
'debtor class, he increased the legal value of the silver coin,
making what was worth seventy-three drachms worth one
hundred. f It appears, however, that the Greeks, in common
with other nations, had the two standards of gold and silver.
Gold had flowed into Greece until it was worth, as the
standards stood, considerably less than silver.J In our day,
when the more rapid production of silver has reduced its com-
mercial value relatively below gold, there is a demand from the
moneyed interests of the country that the silver standard be
changed, by purchasing and putting into the coinage a suffi-
cient quantity of silver to bring it up to the present price of
the gold standard. Solon's remedy was just the other way,
I presume on the theory that, if in a time of public distress
it was necessary to disturb the standard, it was better to do
it in the interest of the debtor, rather than the creditor class.
In these measures of relief, Solon did not provide a distribu-
tion of the land, which the popular, or democratic party
expected. The poor railed against Solon for not doing so,
and the rich railed against him for the loss of their money.
The most careless observation of the work of Solon will show
that he was no democrat, but merely sought to effect in that
crisis a compromise between the aristocracy and the people.
An amazing circumstance is recorded which exhibits the state
of society. Three friends in whom he had confidence saw
him while engaged on his laws, and learned from him that he
had concluded not to touch the land question, but confine his
relief measures to the abolition of citizen slavery and debt.

* Grote's Greece, vol. i., page 582. f Ibid., page 583.

$ Von Kanke's Universal History, page 142.

70 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

Profiting by the information thus obtained, they borrowed
largely, and with the money purchased lands. By this sharp
performance they were, when Solon's laws were promulgated,
absolved from their debt, and owners of the land. The
sufferers were not slow to charge Solon with the transac-
tion. The lawmaker, to remove the suspicion this affair
occasioned, discharged his debtors to the extent of five tal-
ents.* Solon was willing to continue the magistracy in the
hands of the rich men, but resolved to take the people, in some
shape, into the other parts of the government. He consti-
tuted the areopagus of those who had been archons for one
year. He, as an archon, became a member of this new
body. The people, Solon divided into four classes. First,
those whose annual income was equal to five hundred me-
dimni of corn, or upwards. Five hundred medimni of corn
is nearly seven hundred bushels. One medimni of corn, at
that time, was equal to one drachma in money. Those whose
income equalled from three to five hundred drachma composed
the second class. Those who had between two and three
hundred, the third class. The fourth class, by far the most
numerous, was composed of those persons who did not possess
land that could yield two hundred medimni. The first class
was alone eligible to the archonship, and to all commands.
The second class were called the knights, or horsemen of the
state, as being able to keep a horse and perform military ser-
vice in that capacity. The third class, called the Zeugitae,
formed the heavy-armed infantry, and were bound to serve
the state, each with his full panoply. Each of these three
classes were entered in the public schedule as possessing tax-
able property, but this tax diminished according to the scale
of the income, being a graduated income tax. The first class
was rated at twelve times the size of his income, the second at
ten and the third at five. The fourth, and largest class, was

* Plutarch's Lives, vol. i., page 140.

INHERITANCE IN LANDS. 71

not considered to have taxable incomes, and were styled
Thetes. Many in the fourth class who had incomes from
one to two hundred drachmas were not exactly poor, and the
term Thete, as ultimately applied to a poor citizen without
property, did not properly belong to them. Aristotle called
this a Timocracy, in which a man's rights, duties, functions,
honors and responsibilities were measured according to his
property. To show the relative values it has been stated that
a sheep was worth a drachma, the price of a bushel and a third
of grain, and an ox five drachmas. It is almost impossible
to get even an approximate estimate of the wages of a poor
landless Thete. He worked at the harvest and at odd jobs ;
traveled over the country to pick up work where he could,
and, it is stated, was generally very glad to get work for his
board and clothes. The new legislative body, the council of
four hundred, determined all questions submitted to them.
As the fourth estate could hold no office, they had merely a
voice in selecting from among the other classes. Under
this system the middle classes were intended to be a counter-
poise or balance against the aristocratic classes. With this
government all the citizens were forced to be contented. Solon
enacted other laws regulating inheritance or bequests. Land
could not be devised to any but the legal heirs, and personal
property only in certain cases. He enacted laws regulating
marriage and expenditures at weddings, funerals, etc. He had
a singular law disfranchising all who remained neutral during
a revolution or disturbance. He attempted to regulate ex-
ports by providing that nothing should be exported except
oil. Attica, however, was largely a commercial community,
and it does not appear that this law was, to any extent, en-
forced. He had, also, statutes regulating trades, and forbid-
ding emigrants from entering the state, except useful artisans,
who renounced their old state and came to be permanent
citizens.

It does not appear that the special enactments of Solon

72 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

survived very long, except laws relating to slavery and the
punishment of crimes. The aristocracy, as matters quieted
down, had great advantages from possessing the best part of
the country, and they soon had the state as full of intrigues as
ever. Solon gave the people some power, but he left them
too weak to cope with a rich oligarchy.

Perhaps the oldest and happiest form of government is a
city or town with its surrounding country, independent in
itself, and controlling its own interests. With a free govern-
ment within, and secure against the invasion of outside
tyrants, possessing political organizations designed solely for
the public welfare, we can conceive that such a state offers the
highest field for human development. Greece affords the
world a precedent for part of this picture. She did not lack
theories of government, but in the turbulent beginnings of
each state the seeds of inequality were planted, chiefly by
permitting the lands to drift into the hands of a privileged
class. The Persian invasion unified Greece. The states had
been, to some extent, held together by the Olympic, Pythian
and other games, and the Delphic oracle. While the com-
mon danger aroused patriotic feeling against the Persian, and
all shared in the historic glory of Marathon, Salamis and
Plataea, it unfortunately encouraged the martial spirit. The
aristocrats of Athens, when the battle of Plataea was still
pending, contemplated treason to their country, and the over-
throw of the growing democracy by Persian rule.*

The Peloponnesian war was not only a war against the
growth of Athens, but of aristocracy against the growing
democracy of the capital of Attica. With the triumph of
the oligarchs came the change. The conquest of Greece by
the Macedonian king was only rendered possible because the
people everywhere had been placed under the feet of aristo-
crats. Then followed the Roman conquests and the steady
decline of the Grecian people.

* Timayenis Greece, page 97.

GRECIAN SLAVE LABOR. 73

Her artists had filled Greece with splendid monuments.
Her philosophers and historians filled the world with their
ideas, and gave history its first clear, intelligent record. The
science of government was profoundly studied. Plato's ideal
republic still allures, and the speculations of the adroit, shrewd
Aristotle, still interest. It is reported by Plutarch, that when
Solon was planning his reforms and new constitution for
Athens, he was laughed at by Anardin, who asked him if he
supposed he could " restrain the covetousness and avarice of
his countrymen by written laws, since these were but spider's
webs that might catch the poor and weak, but were easily
broken by the mighty and rich." Every convulsion which at
its close left the aristocrats in possession of their privileges
was followed by their slowly regaining political power. The
other cause of Grecian decay was slavery. Only in a few
cities and states of Greece were the citizens exempt from being
made slaves, and in them all, at least one third of the popu-
lation were alien slaves. These were of every race and color.
The aristocrats worked their estates with slaves. Among
these slaves were mechanics and artisans. It was no wonder
that the poor Thetes, poor citizens without land, were in more
wretched plight than even the slaves. All the philosophy of
her schoolmen could not rise above such a condition of society.
Their literature, science and art, only illuminated its ghastly
horrors.

There was an ancient city and state near the city of Rome,
from which it is said Rome, in its youth, derived a knowledge of
letters, the arts, architecture, weights, measures and surveying.
The Etruscans, if not of Phoenician origin, resembled the Phoeni-
cians so closely in the arts they possessed, their manufactures,
their city by the sea, and their general habits and characteris-
tics, that they at least copied after them. They were merchants,
manufacturers, sailors, pirates and slave dealers. Their city
was of massive architecture. They employed mercenary sol-
diers, and appear to have been an independent state or city of

74 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

aristocrats. All the menial or disagreeable labor was per-
formed by slaves. Other nations warred on the land, they
warred and plundered on the sea, and where the prisoners
they took were not ransomed by their friends, they were
treated with terrible and merciless cruelty. The government
of the Etruscans was an oligarchy with hardly a redeeming
trait. The lucumones were at once civil rulers, military
rulers, landed proprietors and priests. * The government
was maintained by, and for, class interests, and the condition
of the people was helpless, depressed and wretched. There
was no separation of the functions of government. The same
men were law-makers, judges, governors; they imposed and
collected taxes, and commanded her armies and navies.

It was from this people, that the men who founded Rome
claimed to have learned nearly all they knew of civilization.
In its original state, Rome was but a small castle on the sum-
mit of the Palatine Hill. The founder, to give it strength and
a distinct nationality, hoisted a standard, which indicated that
it was a common asylum for criminals, debtors or murderers
from all countries. Before the death of the founder, these
outlaws had covered with their habitations the Palatine, Capi-
toliue, Aventiue and Esquiline hills, with Mounts Coelius
and Quirinalis.

After a turbulent history, in which Rome and the provinces
she was continually acquiring steadily increased in plunder
and population, the people began to obtain a -higher concep-
tion of government. It may be imagined that a monarchy
beginning with an election, and liable to end in assassination,
whenever the ruler grew unpopular, was not without its safe-
guards : but, as is always the case with such governments,
Rome went steadily from bad to worse. The Tarquins
seemed, in spite of elections, to be quietly settling themselves
upon the throne, when the vicious conduct of one of them led

* George Rawlinson's Early Civilization, page 128.

FREE LANDS OF ROME. 75

to the abolition of royalty, and the banishment of the family.
It is probable that too much importance has been given in
history to the rape of Lucretia, as that was merely the last
straw that broke the camel's back. The theory on which the
Roman colony was founded was the equal rights of all its
citizens. When provinces were conquered, the lands were to
be divided, and, first, a portion given to those who had none,
as it w^as assumed that each citizen must have within his own
possession the means of subsistence. The remainder of the
land acquired was to be equally divided among all the citi-
zens. Proper steps were not taken to permanently secure
such a distribution, and as everything was subject to the com-
mercial test, it was not long before a landed and moneyed
aristocracy was built up. Ferguson, in his Roman Republic,
informs us that under the early monarchy the people were
divided into patricians and plebeians. It was intended that the
official positions and dignities should only be conferred on the
patricians, and the patricians were, in fact, those who had a
certain amount of property. We therefore need not be at all
surprised when the above accomplished historian informs us,
that on the overthrow of the monarchy the government of
Rome was entirely aristocratic. The patricians had absorbed
the greater portion of the land and other wealth. They had
reduced many of the citizens to peonage through debt. They
held all the offices, and there was no distinction in the legis-
lative, executive and judicial functions. They levied and
expended taxes, commanded armies, and officered them by
virtue of their position and wealth.

It may well be supposed that the expulsion of the Tarquius
was an easy task, compared with that of building a free republic
on such a foundation. The Romans, however, were not destitute
of courage and vigor, and their first effort was to separate the
functions of government, and create offices to be filled by the
people. They sent commissioners to Greece to study the laws
adopted there; in fact, Rome borrowed her religion and law

76 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

largely from Greece. The patricians were, of course, alarmed
at all these proceedings. They did not hesitate to denounce
them as mere agrarian violence. They were, indeed, too
prudent to call in question the power of the people, as the
highest authority in the state, but they did their best to foment
jealousies among their opponents. They adroitly hired
claqueers to hoot and deride the popular champions, and finally
the senate, on the pretext that the state was menaced by
enemies from without and turbulence within, appointed a
dictator. Having consolidated this power sufficiently, as they
thought, the patricians again commenced oppressing the poorer
citizens, reducing many of them to slavery under the pretext
that they were in debt to their patrons. They continued their
tyrannical practices until the mass of the laboring people left
the capital and camped on the sacred hill. For months this
continued, and business may be said to have been suspended.
It was a very famous strike. The patricians vainly invited
them to return to their homes and their labor, but they replied
that free men own no country where they are not permitted to
enjoy their freedom. While the patricians had retainers suffi-
cient to guard the approaches to fortified Rome, they suffered
for want of that which the people alone could produce. This
led to a compromise. The populace created the Tribunes of
the people. The patricians could neither vote for, nor be
elected to this office. A safer plan would have been to abolish
the distinction of patrician and plebeian, and change the senate
into a purely elective assembly. The conservative element is
always a strong one in society. Even the exclusive rights of
the patricians were not without supporters among the lower
orders. The people, instead of reducing the aristocratic
powers to a republican basis, created a government machinery
of their own. The two existed together, conflicting, of course,
whenever either party felt strong enough. As the populace
always were in majority, the senate and patricians worked
adroitly in an underhanded way, and as they possessed wealth.

THE AGRARIAN LAW. 77

the real sinew of power, were still able for a time to maintain
their privileges and authority. The next step of the people
was what has been styled the agrarian law, and was simply a
proposition to redistribute the lands among the citizens. A
wealthy citizen, Sp. Cassius, was one of the champions of the
people in this demand, and to evidence his sincerity divided a
large portion of his surplus lands among the indigent citizens.
Against him all the venom of the patrician order turned.
He unfortunately held to some opinions, one as to the intro-
duction of aliens, that were not popular. Taking advantage
of this and the extreme jealousy of the people against any one
who was supposed to be aiming at royal authority, this popular
leader Avas denounced as a dangerous demagogue aiming to
subvert the power of the government, and was destroyed by
the hatred of patricians and the jealousies of the populace.

The patricians met the demand for a fair distribution of
the lands of the republic by specious arguments. They urged
that these lands were originally the property of none of them,
but were derived from conquest ; that if they had been equit-
ably divided at first, and a provision made that they should be,
through all time, the property of all the people, it would have
been all right. That, however, had not been done. Law
and custom had permitted them to drift into theliands of the
present owners, who had vested rights in them, and that all
these leveling measures could not now be applied without the
subversion of all government, and all rights of property.
The Tribunes and the people, however, succeeded in sending
a commission to Greece to procure a code of law suitable for a
free people. These commissioners first returned with a table
of ten laws. To gain time, the patricians used their arts on
the commissioners, and the latter, who had usurped a great
many powers never intended to be delegated to them, en-
deavored to perpetuate their authority, on the pretext that
they had not completed this work. Finally, however, twelve
tables of Roman law were adopted. These laws involved

78 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

assignments of land on a fair prescription for two years, a
jury system for trials and other propositions for the popular
welfare. The barriers that had shut the people from the
highest offices were swept away. Ultimately, the law fixed,
the amount of land that any citizen should be permitted to
own. The theory was that the cultivator, under the state,
should, for the time, own and control the land he cultivated.
Pliny informs us that Curius Dentatus looked upon the
Roman as a pernicious citizen, who was not content with
seven acres, and the Roman law restricted each holder, at one
time, to that amount. The power of the patrician order,
although reduced, was not altogether broken. Restrictions
had been placed upon the practice of enslaving for debt.
Rome, however, was full of alien slaves, and persons born in
slavery. The ranks of slavery were increased from con-
demned criminals. It is needless to say that labor can never
be independent and honorable under such circumstances.

Rome grew in power and wealth. The title, Roman citi-
zen, became, of itself, a sort of aristocracy. It was not con-
fined to the natives of the republic, but was conferred upon
individuals inhabiting other cities or provinces. Since the
animosities of patrician and plebeian had been partly extin-
guished by the division of power and honor between them,
more than two hundred years elapsed before new conditions
menaced the rights of the people. The patricians had been
compelled to open the channels to the highest offices to those
eminent among the plebeians. The Roman senate, although
it was originally aristocratic, contained many of the most
eminent Roman citizens of all orders, and, in spite of its
faults, maintained a character for magnanimity and greatness
longer than any similar body known among men. The
changes in the Roman condition gradually undermined the
principles of the government. A career of conquest furnished
an ample field for the active and ambitious Roman citizens
of every grade. The offices of state and the command of the

TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 79

armies now became lucrative as well as honorable. Citizens
contended for offices in the state as the road to wealth-pro-
ducing appointments abroad, and brought back from the
positions they thus obtained a profusion .of ill-acquired
wealth, to corrupt the people, and make themselves leaders
of factions. The comparative seclusion of the equestrian
order, from political positions, turned them into traders,
usurers, government contractors, farmers of revenue; and
they thus in turn absorbed the lands and capital, and con-
trolled the labor. The citizens abandoned agricultural
pursuits, and flocked to the capital, where the gratuitous
distribution of corn, and the splendid shows amused and
gratified them. The exercise of their powers, as members of
the popular assemblies, gave them a voice in controlling the
affairs of the world, and an opportunity of selling their suf-
frage in the markets, which gradually debauched them. Once
more the small farms were swallowed up by the large ones
cultivated by slaves. Wealth was permitted to have undue
power. In point of fact, the republic was hastening to a sure
decay.

At this period a fresh attempt was made to return to the
first principles of the republic. The republic had lasted for
three hundred and seventy-five years. A popular leader
arose, Tiberius Gracchus, who Avas elected Tribune. He saw
and deprecated the decline of virtue and real prosperity. In
the early days of the republic the earth was tilled by freed-
men, and everywhere there reigned a sound prosperity.
The aristocracy, as Livy informs us, had invaded the little
homesteads which had given place to vast estates cultivated
by slaves. That writer, deploring the condition of the Roman
country, said, " Vast numbers of freedmen used to live in
these regions, which now remain a nursery for scarce a hand-
ful of soldiers, and are only saved from actual solitude by the
Roman slave gangs." In one of the oft-quoted speeches of
Gracchus, he is reported as saying : " The wild beasts of Italy

80 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

have their lairs to which they can retreat, the brave men who
shed their blood in her cause have nothing left but light and
the air they breathe ; without house, without any fixed abode,
they wander from place to place with their wives and children.
They fight and die to advance the wealth and luxury of the
great. They are called masters of the world, and have not a
foot of ground in their possession."

He proposed to restore or enforce the agrarian or Licinian
law, which had fallen into neglect. He inveighed against the
practice of employing slaves, and demanded that the laws
should be enforced to prevent it. He also proposed limiting
estates, as under the original Licinian law, but to reconcile the
nobles and rich land owners, proposed that the state should
pay them an appraised value for their relinquishment. He
also insisted on a law to prevent, hereafter, all commerce
in land, or its accumulation in large estates. He considered
it reasonable that what was public should be applied to public
uses. The project of Tiberius Gracchus was strenuously
opposed by the senate and the nobles. Finding that the
people were determined on having such laws, they secured
one of the Tribunes, who interposed his negative, which
stopped further proceedings. Indignant at the course pur-
sued by the patricians, Gracchus now modified his proposition
by striking out the provisions for indemnifying those who
had accumulated great estates, for the surplus thus to be
taken from them to distribute to the people. He further
announced several other propositions, among them, one to
reduce the powers of the senate. His proposed laws were dis-
cussed in all the provinces of Italy, the people generally being
on his side, and the nobles and their partisans on the other.
After a desperate struggle, the laws he proposed were adopted
by the vote of the citizens, the patricians, however, claiming
that it could not be constitutionally done after one of the Tri-
bunes had interposed his negative. The senate refused to
take the necessary steps to carry it out, and once more pro-

TIBERIUS GRACCHUS. 81

claimed a dictator. In the midst of great disorder, a mob, or
band of the clients and attaches of the senators and nobles,
headed by them, broke into the assembly of the people ; Ti-
berius Gracchus and three hundred of his followers were
slain. Some of the more active of his partisans were after-
wards condemned and outlawed. Thus, in blood, did the
nobles destroy the popular assemblies. The senate, with
affected moderation, professed to execute the laws just adopted,
and even appointed the necessary commissioners, but this was
merely to avert another storm. The Gracchi fell one hundred
years before the date of the Christian era, and, although ninety-
four years of the nominal republic elapsed before Octavius,
as Augustus Caesar, became emperor, the republic had, on
the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, received its death blow.
The great events and foreign conquests that filled that period,
diverted public attention from more vital questions. Never
again did there come to the Roman people a leader who was
able to preserve the principles of the republic. It was not
when the CaBsars ascended the throne that the republic per-
ished. All that was vital in it had previously passed away.
It was merely a question between one great tyrant and a
thousand small tyrants. It is not the first time a people have
taken refuge in a despotism to escape an oligarchy. Nor w r as
the downfall of the magnificent, but guilty empire, surprising.
The Roman citizens had ceased to have much interest in Rome,
and why should they stain the soil with their blood to bolster
a tyrant? The bands of Huns, and Goths and Sclavs, many
of whose people had been dragged to Rome, and " butchered,
to make a Roman holiday," came, in their own good time,
to give the tyrants a new lesson in the gladiatorial combat.

CHAPTER III.

CONDITION OF LABOR AND LAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Aryan emigration to Europe Allodial title the distinction for freemen
The village council the ancient foundation of government Division of
conquered lands Women's property rights invaded The feudal system
erected on breach of public trust Primogeniture Freemen reduced to
villeinage Game laws for the pleasure of aristocrats Social rights
invaded Marriages between commoners and nobles declared unlawful
Laws of escheat The civil list The " Younger Son" Banditti Parlia-
ments represent landowners Guilds and trades societies Free cities and
towns Gunpowder as a democratic element Titles the insignia of
luxurious rogabondage.

FOR some time before the Christian era, and for three or four
hundred years thereafter, many hordes or tribes of Asiatics
invaded Europe. These have been variously named Goths,
Huns, Vandals, Suevi, Alani. Some of these emigrants had
been originally from the valleys around the Himalayah moun-
tains and were driven by superabundant population to emi-
grate. After wandering through the steppes of Central Asia
and acquiring the vigor, self denial and warlike spirit incident
to nomadic tribes, they finally consolidated under chosen lead-
ers and precipitated themselves on Europe. It has been one
of the proudest boasts of ethnological science, to trace the
present great nations of Europe to their Indian ancestry. The
Aryans could be traced not only by their language but by
their forms of society and ideas of inheritance and personal
rights. "There was a time," says Professor Max Miiller,
in his " Languages of the Seat of War," page 30, " when
the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs, the
Greeks, Italians, Persians and Hindoos were living together

ALLODIAL TITLE. 83

beneath the same roof, separate from the Semetic or Turanian
races."

It is important to trace the social ideas and principles
regarding the rights of property these people brought with
them to Europe and the changes that were wrought during
the conquering and Middle Ages. The highest authorities
generally agree, that originally, the common possession of land
characterised all the Aryan races.* The indications are, that
allodial land was everywhere the distinctive privilege of free-
men. By allodial land is meant, land equally held under
family rights, this tenure giving no power to the occupants to
reduce or abridge the rights in it of all the family that might
come after them. It was, therefore, founded on equal laws of
inheritance.

Among the earlier arrivals of the great swarm we refer to,
and prior to the Christian era, we read of the Germans. From
Ca3sar, Strabo and other Roman authorities, we learn that
these Germans were scattered in a number of independent
tribes. They elected their kings and other rulers from par-
ticular families. The lauds were allotted to all the citizens
every two years.

The ancient foundation of government for all the branches
of these people was the village community. The " Village
Council " was the voice of law for all the branches of the
Aryan race.f It has been suggested that this council has
furnished the model for all the parliamentary bodies of the
world.

The conquering hordes from Asia first lodged in Northern
Europe, driving before them or subduing the thinly settled
tribes east of the Rhine and north of the 37th degree of
latitude, that being the practical boundary of the Roman
empire. Having acquired sufficient strength, these invaders
precipitated themselves upon the older governments on the
Mediterranean.

* Maine's History of Institutions, page 340. f Ibid., page 388.

84 MIDDLE AGES.

When these warlike races overran the Roman Empire and
captured her colonies, they were in the habit of making a
division of land between themselves and the people they
conquered. The Germans and Goths took one-half, leaving
the remainder to former inhabitants, while the Burgundians
and Visigoths took two-thirds.* The Vandals in Africa
appropriated all the best lands, f

The beginnings of these new nations show us a camp rather
than a civil government, and military leaders rather than civil
rulers. It was a combination of sturdy freemen, however.
The old ideas struggled resolutely and for ages, against the
changes and innovations of the ambitious and selfish. When
the country was divided between the conquered and the con-
querors, military forces could not disband. Especially had
those on the Roman frontiers to maintain their martial
character. The military leaders were elective and had little
power save in time of war, and at first no more land than
their neighbors. They cultivated their own land. Each
soldier had to serve so many days in a year, usually not to
exceed forty. The town assemblage was the government, and
all debated questions of right or claim were referred to it.
In this way the allodial title long struggled against the
encroachments of the feudal system. The original laws and
customs of these people were to divide their inheritance equally
among all childreu.J The Franks did not permit the land
obtained by conquest to be divided among females, as they
desired to secure military service from all holders. Even
among this tribe, lands secured by purchase passed by law to
all the family alike, males and females. The Visigoths, and
other of these nations or tribes, permitted conquered lands to be
fairly divided by inheritance among all without regard to sex.

Whether this idea of setting aside woman's rights w T as the

* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., page 149. f Ibid.

I Ibid., page 151. \ Ibid., page 150.

THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. 85

product of mere violence or was copied from some of the
systems these Indo-Europeans encountered, is not so material
as the fact that it soon led to other innovations.

The first five hundred years of war and conquest were
not more disastrous to the Roman Empire than to the
liberties of the new nations thus peopling the north of Europe.
The seeds of much political mischief were sown, and an aris-
tocracy, the worst the world ever beheld, founded. The duty
of defending the country, they held, gave the military leaders
the right to summon each holder of land to the field. The
wars became burdensome and prolonged and could not have
been continued but for plunder, which had a demoralizing
effect not only on the people themselves but on their social and
political system. Public brigandage was common. Chiefs
hired or bribed their vassals with presents obtained by war.
Hopes of plunder often congregated armed bands of adventur-
ers about the warlike leaders. These, of course, soon became
formidable and dangerous to the peaceful fathers of the Village
Council. Military service exacted for public defense soon
grew into a duty claimed by the chief, and thus by insidious
degrees the foundations of the feudal system were laid. The
term "Feudalism," Mr. Bell says, is but another name for
aristocracy. It was utterly at variance with every social
doctrine of the Aryan race.

The war chiefs did not at once rise to full aristocratic
power or privilege. Nobility was not known among the
Franks until long after the overthrow of the Roman Empire.*

A lord and his vassals were originally a captain and his
men. It is noteworthy that these Teutonic folk seem to have
acquired some of the worst faults of the Roman Empire they
overthrew. The relations of a feudal chief and his vassals
closely resemble, and are said to have been copied after those
of a Roman patron and clients. It is also significant that

* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., page 159.

86 MIDDLE AGES.

many of the titles that originated and grew up in this period,
are from Latin words. Thus, duke, from the Latin duces,
" leader." Counts, from comer (companions of the prince).
Marquis, from marcha, " boundary." Earl, on the other
hand, is from the Scandinavian, but originally signified elder,
like the Arabic Sheik. The Teutonic races, iii their early
history, detested aristocracy, and yet they, through war,
created the germs of military aristocracy. To them a landed
aristocracy was also abhorrent, and it required ages of intrigue
and violence before these military leaders succeeded in estab-
lishing it. Even when the Saxons conquered England, in
the fourth century, and drove the Celtic population into Wales
and the North of Scotland, gavelkind, or land inheritance
by all the members of the family, was their law and custom.
Slavery was originally repugnant to the ideas of these people,
and, although they took captives in war, they had not created
a fixed servile class. Imitating the Romans, they now began to
make one. At first the duties of the vassals were not bur-
densome. They were bouncT to serve their country in war,
and had a personal interest in rendering such service. The
land upon which the yeoman gave this military service was
his home, and he had an interest in its defence, just as every
man had an interest.

At that period the lord had to cultivate his own land.
Military power, however, is never slow in taking care of per-
sonal interests, and in a very short time the lord enriched
himself by taking his retainers on predatory expeditions,
chiefly for his own benefit. For military service due, commu-
tation began to be accepted, and whether there was war or
not, this gradually grew into rent, and in the same way came
to be a perquisite of the lord of the manor. Exactions thus
begun, of course, increased, as avarice inspired the chieftain
who collected it. In the course of a few centuries, the tenants
of an estate began to be considered as a species of slaves.
Slaves, to a certain extent, those who pay rent to a great

PRIMOGENITURE. 87

proprietor, always will be. On the continent they were
styled retainers, or serfs ; in England, villeins. They were,
in the course of time, transferred as chattels with the estate.

It is a crime in a father to desire that his son shall inherit
a public trust. In empires and kingdoms it has been so
common as to be almost universal that a king's son succeeded
him. This custom followed no natural law, and existed only
because a leader, at first of popular acceptance, had been able
to fortify his position so as to render him independent of
popular will. The frequent struggles incident to the crown-
ing of new kings, attest the strength of the popular protest
against it. This continuance of a family in power, conies, in
most cases, from causes equally dangerous to the public in-
terests. No large kingdom or royalty can be formed without
a great and potent machinery. Generals, ministers, depu-
ties, ambassadors, judges, captains and so on, down to the
most petty officials and scavengers of the royal household,
are all concerned in the succession. Whoever is king, each
of these must be " Vicar of Bray." We thus see that a
powerful combination has been created, which, on the death
of the real or nominal head, wants things to go on just
as they are, and who naturally take the king's son and
continue him in order that they may keep in office. Revolu-
tions, or elections that might rotate them out are not to be
thought of. In this way privileged classes are created, hoary
corruptions perpetuated, tyrannies cemented, human equality
blotted out v and the public interests made the football of every
intriguing and ambitious adventurer.

If kingly succession is fatal to popular liberty, an aristoc-
racy by inheritance is a still more fearful scourge. Grafted
on feudalism, the law of primogeniture became the insidious
curse of European society, stepping across the threshold of
home, and over the cradle of childhood, to lay the foundation
for a lordly, privileged class. The law by which property
descended through the oldest son did not exist among the

88 MIDDLE AGES.

Aryan races on their first establishment in the Roman em-
pire.* Not only among the ancient Germans, but among the
Hindoos, from whom they sprang, the endowment of the
family could not be parted with, except by the consent of all
its members. The idea of primogeniture was certainly not
obtained from the Romans, f Neither could it be derived
from Christian teachings. It was first introduced by the
great lords, when they made grants of land to knights, for
the performance of knight service, one person, or head, being
thus created to represent and pay the service, all his brethren
becoming retainers. Such was the original custom, but it led
to the concentration of power in the first born as the head of
the estate. It took some time, and a good deal of fraud,
chicanery and violence to fasten on these independent warriors
the yoke of masters.

This unjust discrimination was, as has been shown, in
violation of the fundamental customs and laws of the people
over whom it was thrust, and was brought about by breach
of public trust. John Adams said that, " Since the promul-
gation of Christianity the two greatest systems of tyranny are
the canon and feudal law." J He added a few pages later :
"The feudal system was inconsistent with liberty and the
rights of mankind." Rousseau styles the feudal system, " The
most iniquitous and abased form of government which shame-
fully degraded human nature," and Lord Kames in "Antiqui-
ties," says : " A constitution so contradictory could never be
brought about but by foreign conquest or domestic usurpation."
While referring to this phase in the history of English titles,
and to primogeniture, Adam Smith says : " While land is
considered as the means only of subsistence and enjoyment,
the natural law of succession divides it among all the children
of the family. When land was considered as the means not

* Systems of Land Tenures in Various Countries, page 94.
f Maine's History of Institutions, page 198.
J Works of John Adams, vol. iii., page 449.

FEUDAL DEGRADATION. 89

only of subsistence, but of power and protection, it was thought
better that it should descend undivided to one." That is a
very ingenious attempt to explain the circumstance by which
a few great families absorbed nearly all the land in the coun-
try. One would think in reading it that it had been a matter
of general acquiescence. Sir Henry Sumner Maine says that
" the great development of primogeniture was in the early part
of the Middle Ages."*

The term " Middle Ages," I suppose, when it is used with
any definite meaning, refers to that portion of European his-
tory beginning at the time of the final overthrow of the Roman
or Western Empire, and drawing to a close with the intro-
duction of constitutional governments in Western and Northern
Europe. In Hallam's History on the subject, he places it
between the fifth and fifteenth centuries of the Christian era.
In styling it the "Dark Ages" is meant the barbarous or
semi-barbarous ages.

When the Aryan races in their great waves of emigration
entered Europe, they brought with them the knowledge and
use of iron, horses, chariots, cattle, and had made considerable
progress in agriculture. It has even been alleged that some
of these nations had letters. When the Franks invaded Gaul
they found considerable wealth and semi-barbaric splendor. f
The wretched squalor and poverty witnessed in the Middle
Ages were the fruits of the avarice, tyranny and misgovern-
ment of feudalism. The crimes and degradation of Rome not
only paved the way for its own ruin but imparted the virus
of its iniquity into the nerves and fresher blood of the Teutonic
race. From the fifth to the tenth century of the Christian
era there was throughout the greater portion of Europe a
decline in all that constitutes national greatness. After the
fall of the Roman Empire and the abandonment of Great
Britain by its armies, the warlike Picts and Scots, hemmed up

* Maine's History of Institutions, page 205. f !*>*> P a ge 350.

90 MIDDLE AGES.

by the Romans in the North of Scotland, invaded the land
now occupied by the Britons. The latter employed Danish
and Saxon navigators, chiefly from the Danish peninsula, to
aid them, and finally the Britons were overrun and conquered
by these Anglo-Saxons. They carried with them ideas of
allodial title, folcland and tanistry, but this primitive condi-
tion had already become imbued with the worst vices of the
systems they found in Europe, and a conflict between indi-
vidual rights and aristocracy began.

For several hundred years England was torn by wars and
dissensions. The eight kings were supplemented by many
military leaders, each of whom was a king or a robber as far
as he had the power. They were largely governed by customs.
Some little of the Roman law remained, but without any
ruler potent enough to administer it. The local chiefs, Tauists
or Thanes, were elective, but the chieftains usually managed
to keep the succession in their own family. The rights of the
ancient Britons were trampled upon by the Anglo-Saxon
conquerors. The Anglo-Saxon people found it difficult to
defend their rights against their own military chiefs. Allodial
titles and folcland still existed, but largely burdened by feudal
duty. The folcmote, or councils of the people, were still a
cherished Anglo-Saxon institution, but were steadily being
undermined by the exactions of the Thanes. Earls and other
titled leaders. The great body of the people comprised two
classes : freemen who held land subject to duty of various
kinds, and slaves who had nothing. The latter could not be
sold out of the county where they lived, and had some few
privileges, in fact, they were about as well off as the poor free-
men. The slaves were the descendants of slaves from the
Roman period, captives in war, and people condemned to
slavery for crime. When England was finally united in one
kingdom under Egbert, in the ninth century, it was not a
closely consolidated government. The nobles were still all
powerful, and between them and the king there was continual

HEREDITARY NOBILITY. 91

dissension. Despotic and selfish though the kings were, their
power was a check to some extent on the aristocracy, but was
unable to strip them of their ill-gotten wealth and authority.
Many laws and codes of law are referred to, but complete
codes did not exist. The old customs of the people, which yet
struggled for existence, were rarely written laws, the latter
were the new and supplemental acts of various reigns. The
old council of the people, folcmote, had been considerably
abridged by the witenagemote, or supreme council, out of
which parliament finally grew. The latter was essentially an
aristocratic body. Whenever the kings grew sufficiently
powerful they struggled to abridge the powers of this assem-
bly. Until the time of Alfred, the nobility had not com-
pletely succeeded in becoming hereditary. After his reign
they were so, and a son might inherit his " father's county."
The Anglo-Saxon law at various times decreed "that no man
should continue without a lord." Laws were also enacted
to prevent the marriage of the aristocratic orders with the
common people, and the children of a marriage between a
noble and ignoble person were held to be illegitimate. The
freemen who still held their lands under tribute of military
service were compelled to accept vassalage under some noble
or lose their lands. In addition to the forty days' service, or
its equivalent, to a knight, all manner of impositions were
continually added. They had to contribute to purchase a
knight's right for the earl's son, to contribute to a dower for his
daughter, and, indeed, there was no limit to the rapacity of
these aristocrats. The nobles continually warred on what was
left of the allodial title. It has been customary to charge the
worst evils of the feudal system on the Norman conquest.
Before that period arrived the agrarian constitutions and
village rights of ancient times had been largely swept away.
Gradually, the chiefs undermined independent holders, the
community became the "Manor," the greater free holders
tenants, and the small holders were reduced to the positions

92 MIDDLE AGES.

of villeins, laborers or slaves. Maine says that villeinage is
a tenure rendering uncertain and unlimited services, " where it
cannot be known at eventide what hath to be done on the
morrow." * Under these circumstances, it took but a few
hundred years to reduce more than half of the people to abject
slavery. Not only was their substance taken by the aristo-
crats who thus fattened on them, but every insult and con-
tumely was heaped upon them, and even the sacredness of the
rights of husband and wife were invaded.

It has often been wondered at that, in a single battle and almost
without a struggle, England was placed at the feet of the Nor-
man conquerors. It was indeed a calamity to the Saxon aris-
tocracy, but why should the people of England fight for such
a government as they possessed ? .ZEsop furnishes the fable
of the two asses, the most asinine of which urged the other
to flee on the approach of an invading enemy. To these
adjurations the other ass asked, " Will this invader work us
harder, feed us more poorly or beat us more cruelly than our
present masters do?" "I suppose not," was the reply.
"Very well," said the other, "you may run if you please, but
I am going to stay, it cannot be much worse." With the con-
quest came a supposed change in the title to lands in England.
King William claimed the land as his by right of conquest,
a conquest, moreover, made as against all the parties living
on it. In point of fact, a systematic spoliation of the great
Saxon nobility began with the reign .of William the Norman,
and continued to its close. f Although the Saxon leaders had
absorbed the greater portion of the land, theoretically or prac-
tically, some of it was still technically styled " commons," or
lands over which the power of the lord was not absolute, or
on which a figment of the people's title rested. This nominal
public or people's land, the conqueror annexed as crown lands.

* Early Law and Custom, page 334.
fHallam's Middle Ages. vol. i., page 98.

MONOPOLY OF GAME. 93

We look through that chequered and darkened history in vain
to find any attempt to restore to the people what had been
taken by the Saxon aristocracy. A new nobility was created,
consisting of shoots of royalty, favorites and conquerors.
Most of the oldest and proudest English aristocratic families
date from that period. In addition it is said, that for one hun-
dred years from the conquest no native Englishmen held office
in the Church or State.* Some of the Saxon nobles fled and
took refuge in Constantinople. A good deal of sympathy has
been expended on them in history, but between the Saxon
aristocratic robbers of the people and the Norman conquerors
the difference was not great. The kings, however, had a
stronger hand.

As the Saxon aristocracy had grown into wealth, power and
luxury, they refused to the common people the right to kill the
wild game, though it fed on the crops raised in the fields of
the serf or villein. Even the monopoly of keeping and rais-
ing pigeons was assumed by them. These laws grew more
stringent under the Normans. The knights, earls and dukes
rode about the country with hawk and hound, and no peasant
could take or kill the wild beasts of nature. At one time the
killing of a stag or boar by a peasant was punished with
death. f Nothing could exhibit better the desperate extremity
to which they had reduced the laboring people. This gross
usurpation continues to the present day. Poor men have been
transported beyond the seas for killing a hare. Lands that
might have furnished a living for yeomen have been turned
into deer parks and preserves, merely for the luxurious amuse-
ment of the rich and aristocratic.

The way these kings sometimes procured artisans is worthy
of note. Edward III. announced to his sheriffs that he
" had created William, of Walsingham, his commissioner to
collect as many painters as might be required to finish St.

* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i., page 97. f Ibid., vol. ii., page 503.

94 MIDDLE AGES.

Stephen's Chapel, to be at the king's wages, but he is author-
ized to seize and imprison all who refuse to work." *

Such were the foundations of the system, Saxon and Nor-
man, under which an aristocracy reduced the laboring people
of England to poverty, hardship and servitude. The Norman
kings created fresh nobles as soon as escheats, confiscations or
other causes threw property in their hands. Under the Saxons
an escheat for failure to perform military duty, or for treason
or other oifense, could only extend for a certain period, or
during the lives of the offenders, as the idea still survived, to
some extent, that each generation had certain .rights in the
land. The Normans, however, made escheats and confisca-
tions perpetual. It is true, that this to a great extent was
among the nobles, and the change from one aristocrat to
another might be of little consequence to the real cultivator
of the soil. This was considered a great grievance among the
nobility; hence we find as constitutional governments began
to be formed, there was a struggle to prevent the perpetual
escheatment for offenses. One amusing circumstance connected
with it is the fact that this idea has crept into the Constitution
of the United States, and it is held, that perpetual escheat or
attainder shall not be inflicted. Lands, with us, are a mere
chattel. There is no assertion anywhere of the rights of the
next generation in them, independent of the will of the holder.
We have no law of entail. If we had laws which provided
that the lands held should in each succeeding generation be
fairly divided between all the surviving members of each
family, this provision against escheat and attainder would have
some point.

Growing out of the laws of primogeniture and the feudal
system, there came the law of entail. Its purpose is very
evident. It grew up in the fourteenth and fifteenth centu-
ries. The law of entail, it will be observed, does not make

*Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., page 351.

LAW OF ENTAIL. 95

the land a chattel. A holding under it is not a fee simple title.
It is a life interest, which cannot be alienated from his family
by the holder, or subject even to his debts after his death.
Had the entail been for the family, and for every family,
divisible among all its descendants in each generation, it would
have resembled, to some extent, the system these despotic
aristocrats had overthrown. The law of entail was really a
precautionary measure of the nobles against the growing power
of the cities. A new class of rich bourgeois was rising, and
it was not desirable that they should own land. This law of
entail was also a reactionary struggle against the doctrine of
land sovereignty, or " eminent domain." By the latter doc-
trine, which, in a different shape, has crept into our land
system, the monarch claimed sovereign rights in the laud.
Guizot holds that it is the amalgamation of sovereignty with
property that constitutes feudalism. This feudal power might
be in the nobles or in the king. When primogeniture and
the law of entail were fastened on the feudal system, they
irrevocably fixed an aristocracy in a certain line. The folly,
extravagance or wickedness of one generation, could not for-
feit the perpetual lien that the head of a certain house had
upon the industry and toil of the people of a community. To
make the matter worse, the policy of intermarrying the noble
class only with each other, tended further to consolidate this
power, and to create an interest so potent and well intrenched
as to defy opposition.

The Norman kings having disposed of all the public domain
to relatives, or favorites, and there being thus no rent for
public expenditures, proceeded to tax the producing classes,
of course, for an additional income to support the government.
Not content with moderate and economical government ex-
penditure, hosts of sinecures were from time to time created.
Indeed, this soon became a necessity of the aristocracy. After
the adoption of the law of primogeniture, the younger sons of
nobles became a constantly increasing and dangerous body.

96 MIDDLE AGES.

They were the squires and pet men-at-arms, and much of the
aristocratic brigandage of the Middle Ages was due to the
necessities of this class. Bell, in his history of feudalism,
says, that at one time, in France, upwards of one hundred
thousand of these armed men were roaming about. They
were termed in that country " skinners alive." The younger
sons could either sink into villeinage, or be soldiers or ban-
dits. As brigandage fell under the ban of progressing civili-
zation, official positions had to be created for those nearly
connected with the nobles. Offices were not only created for
them, but for the nobles themselves. Some lord or offshoot
of nobility or royalty would have an annual salary from the
public purse, as "keeper" of some "seal," or other nominal
office. To meet the extravagance of the aristocratic class,
immense civil lists of persons, really pensioners on the public
bounty, were created, and this burden steadily enlarged from
time to time. It is probable that a very few of these gifts
and gratuities of government may have been given for meri-
torious public services, and, in such cases there might have
been some small excuse for them, if the money had not been
drawn from the revenues of a burdened and overworked
people. During the first five hundred years of feudalism in
England, the great nobles resolutely resisted the imposition of
taxes upon themselves by the king. Not content with draw-
ing great revenues from the natural resources of the country,
they refused to bear their share of the public burdens.

In the last few hundred years armies were raised, and im-
mense public debts incurred to obtain and hold colonies. As
was once eloquently said, these were paddocks into which were
turned the lean and decayed members of the a-ristocracy.
The colonial expense was maintained from the public purse,
and the profits so arranged that they went into the pockets of
the privileged few. It was boasted that the country was very
rich. The laboring classes could not be said to be a great deal
better off. Their food, in spite of artificial adjuncts, was really

TRADES AND GUILDS. 97

neither so good nor so wholesome. Their holidays and hours
of leisure were reduced. The mode of life grew so artificial
that it was difficult to manage expenses, and paupers became
more common. There was a constant increase of the weak
and helpless class. It is a common thing to boast of the
wealth and increasing property of a nation, but a nation
should never be considered as prosperous or increasiug in real
wealth unless the improvement is with the laboring and pro-
ducing classes. The wealth that increases the number of
idlers to live on the producers is not beneficent, but is merely
the machinery for greater oppression.

It must not be supposed that the growth of this system was
not resisted. The laboring classes, although more numerous,
are always at a disadvantage when coping with an aristocracy,
which, besides other accumulated wealth and power, holds
the lauds from which men have to get bread for their fam-
ilies. Secret societies flourished. Trades took shelter under
organizations or guilds. Each trade had its representatives,
and they grew into political power. These, at least, were
elective. The lower clergy generally encouraged and aided
them. As the landed proprietors usurped judicial functions,
secret tribunals were created to punish notorious offenders.
In a few vigorous communities, such as Kent, the system of
peonage or villeinage was resisted.

Among the powers of the Crown assumed by the con-
queror and many of his successors was the power to make
laws. The Saxons had relegated all important questions to a
general council of notables.

The nobles and country gentlemen, owners of land, had a
voice in these old -assemblages, and thus, to some extent, this
question of taxation was a quarrel between the nobles and the
kings. In this state of affairs, the opinions of the people
began to be of consequence. Intelligence and general infor-
mation were increasing. The people in the towns had begun
to acquire rights to lands, occupied and common to the town,

98 MIDDLE AGES.

upon certain payments. Originally, the Saxons were not
builders of towns or cities, but were, in spirit, an agricultural,
communal people.* Some of the old towns and cities were
not abandoned, but the building of English towns and cities
as independent communities commenced later. Many of
these first clustered around the religious establishments of
"Christianity. The towns which depended on the crown were
liable to certain annual payments. In the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries the town officers were entrusted with the
collection of its annual payments.f The jurisdiction of the
town authorities was enlarged. Privileges were granted them,
and immunities, under Richard I., and King John. They
obtained the right of electing their own officers, and many
powers of self-government, and the power of forming guilds
and enacting laws for their control. These guilds were, to
some extent, trades unions. Each trade or craft had its or-
ganization and officers. They were armed for defense. The
municipal privileges of London were recognized in a charter
by William the Conqueror. The organization of the trades to
a considerable extent, served to protect them against the abuse
or brigandage of the nobles. Brigandage was still common.
Hallam says that all the nobles of England, France and Ger-
many were robbers.J Highway robbery, from the earliest
times, was a common crime. Towns were for this reason organ-
ized and armed, as were the societies or guilds of the trades,
and slowly grew to be an independent power in the realm.
Under these circumstances commerce began to be of consider-
able consequence. When a serf or villein escaped from the
country and sought the towns, he could not join a guild until
he had resided a year and a day in the town. If a serf or vil-
lein had not been claimed for more than a year, he could not be
forced back into servitude by his master. The population of

* Roger's Work and Wages, page 102. f Ibid.

J Hallnm's Middle Ages, vol. ii., page 506.
g Roger's Work and Wages, page 110.

MAGXA CHARTA. 99

the towns and cities worked usually at trades, or were engaged
in business, but it was the custom for many of them to go to
the country in the harvest season. Even students in colleges,
and persons connected with the government and courts, used
to be sent to aid in the harvest.* When the king dismissed
his parliament, in the Middle Ages, he sent the nobles to
their sports and the commons to their harvest, and the long^
vacations of the courts and universities, from July to October,
was for the purpose of enabling even those engaged in law
and letters to take part in the harvest. The growth of com-
merce and the organization of trades and guilds had much to
do with the increase of civil liberties in England. As the
towns usually existed in connection with, or close to, religious
establishments, the bourgeois were, to some extent, under their
protection, and, also, more under the enlightening influences
of that period than the laborer in the country.

The value of the bill of rights, secured at Runnymede, has
been greatly exaggerated, but very important concessions were
obtained, and it would be unfair to deny that the interests of
the people were to some extent considered. Trial by jury
was not altogether unknown, or something like it, for King
Alfred hanged several judges for causing criminals to be exe-
cuted who had not been convicted by the unanimous vote of
twelve freemen, as we learn from the " Mirror of Justice.''
The Magua Charta guaranteed that no man should be im-
prisoned without a trial, or convicted until found guilty by a
jury of his equals. This was a decided improvement on the
judicial modes then in vogue.

Sir E. Coke informs us that the Magna Charta was re-
affirmed thirty-two -times. He does not enumerate how often
it was violated. One of the remarkable concessions of the
Magua Charta was, that in the courts and tribunals of the realm,
justice should not be sold. In point of fact, the whole ma-

* Roger's Work and Wages, page 122.

100 MIDDLE AGES.

chineiy of jurisprudence was thoroughly and notoriously
corrupt.

While the Middle Ages may have closed with the fifteenth
century, it is a mistake to suppose that the evils entailed on
the people of Europe terminated at that period. The very
worst of them exist to-day, and the aristocracy cling to their
ill-gotten privileges and property with the utmost tenacity.
In the contest for English liberty, the concessions were wrung
inch by inch from a tyrannical king and a powerful and cor-
rupt aristocracy. In the English revolutions the two extremes
of society, the monarch and the poorest people, were at once
interested in the overthrow of feudalism. In the reign of
William the Conqueror, it is supposed that the population of
England and Wales was about two millions of people. At
that time all the land was held by about one hundred and
seventy thousand persons.* The same authority quoted, states
that at present, when that population has increased to twenty
millions, only one hundred and fifty thousand persons own
more than an acre and a half, and that two thousand two
hundred and fifty persons own nearly half of the enclosed
portions of England and Wales. Such are the fruits of the
feudal system to-day. Feudal tenure, in a legal sense, was
abolished in the reign of Charles II., but, unhappily, the
rules and customs of the feudal system escaped revision.
There was no restitution of the lands to the people, and there-
fore we find the indelible stamp of feudalism on the English
land system.

After the conquest of Ireland by the English, besides grants
to the English and Scotch settlers, there were additional steps
taken to make the Irish land system like the English. Under
an Act of the twelfth year of Queen Elizabeth, the Irish lords
were empowered to surrender their titles to the queen, these
titles were at that time nominally held under the laws of gavel-

* Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 9.

GERMAN FEUDALISM. 101

kind, and having done this, they accepted titles from the
queen under the English feudal system and laws of primo-
geniture.* This malevolent law and the procedure under it
shows the vindictive purpose of the English landed aristocracy.
A chief, tanist or noble, whose rights were not those of a land-
holder, thus became one. The common people from being
freeholders were reduced to the state of tenants and villeins,
and this perversion of rights had only the authority of an
English Act of Parliament.

The difference between the German and English systems are
due rather to political accidents than other causes. All the
Teutonic nations that came in contact with Rome adopted the
feudal system. As has been said, all of them were originally
communal. In ancient times the German was both a lord and a
commoner. He was a freeman and a freeholder. The political
geography of the continent of Europe has changed so often, that
systems based purely on political power have been broken up.
The transition from general ownership to individual and un-
equal possessions was resisted by the sturdy German. While
her kingly authorities were, according to the theory of her law,
elective, they soon became, in fact, hereditary. Whether king
or lord of the manor, the manor and the office were identified
with the land, and under this modification of the original free-
man's title by the feudal system, and with the law of primo-
geniture, the changes gradually came. The process differed as
to the manner in which it was received ; the steps were the
same : first, lands belonging to the community, then military
service for defense, then the change from a tenure on military
service to private right of the noble to the land, lastly, its
transmittal by inheritance to one of a certain family. The
difficulties encountered in some parts of Germany were that
instead of building up this system on lands that had been
conquered and divided, it had to be extended to lands held

* Maine's History of Institutions, page 201.

102 MIDDLE AGES.

from remote periods by allodial freeholders. The system
began, however, along the old frontiers of the Roman empire.
When it was introduced, moreover, part of the lauds since
occupied were then waste. In each community there was so
much arable land, occupied and held in tracts by each family,
and lands common to all. The latter, of course, were first
subject to political usurpation. The purely military service
due from land was longer preserved in some parts of Ger-
many. When the feudal system was first established, short
military excursions, especially when the crops were harvested,
were not onerous, Under the many terrible European wars
military duties became more frequent and burdensome. Mili-
tary duty, no matter what the length of service, was demanded
by the lord of the manor ; and, at last, pressed by these burdens,
the tenant was forced to relinquish rights the tax on which
had become too hard to be borne. Thus the holders under
the ancient tenure disappeared and were replaced by mere
tenants at will. The Germans, however, long maintained
their ancient traditions.

At the time of the Reformation the Germans attempted to
regain the rights of which the territorial lords had robbed
them. Many of the people very naturally supposed there
was some relation between liberty of conscience and liberty of
the man. The kings and the nobles might wish to escape the
exactions of the pope, but had no intention, if they could help
it, of diminishing their own demands. It so happened, how-
ever, that after the Reformation feudalism lost much of its
power.*

As in England, the first improvements proceeded from the
towns. Manufactures and commerce had offered new fields
for industry. Many of the free cities possessed great power,
and were eminent factors in the change in behalf of the rights
of the laboring man. The famous league of the Hanseatic

* Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 4.

SCANDINAVIA. 103

towns, at one time comprising sixty-four cities and twenty-
four towns, showed the increase of this new element of progress
and reform. These were often able to put an army in the field.

In Germany, the power of land as a political element did
not centre in the empire as was the case in England under
William the Conqueror. An innumerable host of princes,
margraves, barons, counts and other nobles had concentrated
the political power by becoming lords of the manor. The
German systems were federations with electorates chosen
by these petty princes. The essence of power was with the
local ruler; the emperors were weak and their dominions
variable and transitory. The separation of the Franks and
Germans in the ninth century gave a more distinct character
to Germany, but made little change in the condition of the
people. Switzerland maintained a spirit of freedom longer,
and it was chiefly due to the fact that her people remained
freeholders.

The condition of the Scandinavian nations differed from the
other European countries. But little is known of their history
prior to the eleventh century. The Goths largely displaced
the ancient inhabitants, but the native element gave the
dominant influence to religion and predatory habits. A bloody
paganism prevailed until the twelfth century. Christian mis-
sionaries gained some foothold in the ninth century, but they
encountered more opposition, and found it a harder task to
overthrow the cruel religious rites here than elsewhere. The
old Norseman pictured his Valhalla, or paradise, as a place
where he drank wine and mead from the skulls of his enemies.
They were a hardy, vigorous race, those old sea kings, and
pushed the prows of their piratical craft into every sea of the
Western w r orld. Besides their incursions into Britain and
Iceland they discovered and settled Greenland and the Ameri-
can coast and held it, at least, from the ninth to the thirteenth
centuries.*

* Preface to Binding's History of Scandinavia.

104 MIDDLE AGES.

Nobles grew up in Sweden, Denmark and Norway linger
the same system as in the other countries, but not to the same
extent or with the same powers. The landholder and even
many of the nobles cultivate the soil and engage in business.
The sturdy, independent character of the old Vikings did not
brook many restraints. The inhospitable character of much of
the country did not furnish the means for very wealthy noble
families. The rulers were indebted for their power largely
to selection, and the governments of Sweden, Denmark and
Norway have possessed less of absolute power, and have been
more easily overthrown than other nations in Europe. The
governments were of a mixed hereditary and elective character.
In early times the peasantry was a species of corporation con-
sisting of freeborn persons who were not only husbandmen
and agriculturists but possessed real estate. Above the
peasants ranked the chiefs or leaders representing families of
influence and of greater property. From these the kings took
or created earls (jarles) to rule conquered provinces. The
peasants and the nobles met at an assize, like the British Druids,
round a circle of stones. Here they selected their kings, con-
sulted on war or peace and settled cases judicially. Without
the consent of this diet the king could not decide on any matter
of importance.*

In all its earlier history Scandinavia was cursed with slavery.
Their slavery was of the worst character. The slaves were
divided into two classes, native Scandinavians and foreigners.
In their many wars and piratical expeditions they made
prisoners, who, unless ransomed by their friends became slaves.
They also obtained many slaves by trade. The condition of
the slaves was very miserable. The ancient Norseman scarcely
held them to be men. A slave might be beaten, starved,
tormented or even killed by his master, and the abuser go
unpunished. % A slave could not buy, sell or inherit. They

* Binding's History of Scandinavia, page 38.

SPANISH LANDHOLDING. 105

could not take oath or marry. Slaves were mere chattels sold
like other wares. They were usually not permitted to carry
arms.* The one redeeming trait in Scandinavian slavery was
that a kind master would sometimes liberate his slave for
faithful service, and slaves when hired out were permitted to
retain a portion of their earnings and with this purchase their
freedom. Once free, they might acquire land, upon which
they took the rank of peasants. This wretched system of
slavery continued, as Sinding and other authorities inform
us, until Scandinavia became thoroughly Christianized, when
slavery was abolished. Siuding also tells us, that as Chris-
tianity imbued the minds of the people they gave the women
a share in the inheritance of property.

The Spanish peninsula has been the theatre of many strange
events. In the days of Carthaginian splendor, this was one
of her richest provinces. Rome wrested it from her, and the
Ostrogoths wrested it from Rome, Then the warlike Saracens
conquered and held it for centuries. Again, the mingled
elements of Goth and Latin, after a long and fierce struggle,
regained the peninsula. Here the blood of Carthaginian,
Egyptian, Latin, Goth and Saracen mingled. Here art
flourished, but human freedom was not sufficiently prized.
The fall of the Moorish kings did not mean the liberation of
the people.

On the restoration of Spanish government the country was
parceled among the nobles. A spirit of independence, how-
ever, lingered among the people, and towards the close of the
fourteenth century, the Spanish parliament, or cortez, was the
best in Europe. Her tradesmen were organized into guilds,
and her mercantile interests acquired power. The agricul-
tural interests, however, were always under the feet of the
nobles. The discovery of America turned the attention of the
Spaniards to foreign conquest and adventure. The immense

* Shilling's History of Scandinavia, page 39.

106 MIDDLE AGES.

wealth poured into Spain from the robbery of the American
nations, appeared to be sufficient to enrich all Spain, and
place them above the necessity of labor. The result was the
most instructive lesson ever administered to human nature.
In the face of these great accumulations industry languished.
In spite of the rapid growth of all the nations around her,
Spain, if she has not retrograded, has, at least, not kept pace
with the other nations of Europe.

Unfortunately for the people, parliamentary bodies in
Europe have largely represented land, and as the land chiefly
belonged to the aristocracy, the aristocracy ruled the parlia-
ments. In Germany, parliamentary developments are com-
paratively modern. The electorate of Germany was a convo-
cation of princes. The great free cities had governments of
their own. In England, towns, cities and trades had repre-
sentation. A very important factor in the leveling process,
was the introduction of gunpowder in the art of war. For-
merly an earl or knight rode about the country with his
squire and a few faithful men at arms. They were mounted
on good horses, covered with mail, and armed so that a com-
mon yeoman, with his halberd and spear had no more chance
in an encounter, than a lamb in the hands of a lion. AVhen
the plain foot soldier with his musket had become more than
a match for the mounted knight, the situation had changed.
The eifect of gunpowder on the ancient freebooting baron or
knight-errant was much greater than the sarcasm of Cer-
vantes. Cannon was first used to bombard the strongholds of
the robber barons. As gunpowder was employed in war,
civilization advanced.* " When it was found that no coat of
mail could keep out a small bullet, the knell of feudalry was
rung."

.As an apology for all the inequality and injustice that took
root and grew up during this period, it is asserted that these

* Bell on Feudalism, page 165.

CAUSE OF THE DARK AGES. 107

were the necessary accompaniments of a rude and violent age.
This is a mistake. The ancient founders of the nations of
Northern Europe, when they first entered Europe, equally
divided the land for the use of all the people. With all their
rudeness they were a brave and independent race. The
honor of having been chosen leaders for defense, was, by an
avaricious and unscrupulous aristocracy, prostituted, and the
office used first to rob and then enslave the people they were
commissioned to defend. The insidious and slow steps to
accomplish this, are now matters of history, and stand in
broad relief as a lesson to the human race. But for these con-
spiracies and crimes the European nations might have reached
their present position several hundred years ago. The causes
were the same which exist in any community where a privileged
aristocracy have in their hands the machinery to turn the
products of human labor into their own pockets. There was
nothing done then which is not in a somewhat different man-
ner being done to-day. The creation of an idle class is always
a calamity. Titles are merely the insignia of luxurious
vagabondage.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM AS ITS PRINCIPLES AFFECT
SOCIETY AND ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.

Religious belief a pillar of law The status and power of Christian nations
Religious political economy Does Christianity teach socialism Unholy
alliance of church and state A church founded on capital necessarily
corrupt and idolatrous Dates of the introduction of Christianity to
Europe Monastic orders Slavery and woman's rights Polygamy
Reformations Sects Denominations Agnostics and the supernatural
Prof. Sumner's doctrine of a " free state " and the law of " contracts "
Startling effect of "ecclesiastical prejudice" Dives and Lazarus.

To what extent does religious sentiment govern mankind ?
Another question : How far do organized religious bodies
operate to promote the welfare of the great masses of laboring
men? No one will deny the power of religious beliefs in all
ages of the world. Men, in all times, have inseparably con-
nected every kind of law with divine authority. Governments,
at once the most despotic, dishonest and sanguinary, have never
hesitated to ally themselves, when they could, to church or
priesthood, in order thereby to prevent their overthrow.

It is estimated that in modern civilized society, judicial pro-
ceedings take place in a large proportion of the serious offences
committed, such as theft, robbery and murder. In the more
numerous petty offences against a high order of morals which
show a cruel and dishonest heart, we have evidence that a
greater number of persons cherish the spirit that would com-
mit crime, but are restrained within legal limits. Besides
these classes of offenders there is a better class much larger
than both, estimated in the proportion of five to one, who live
on a higher plane. To whatever extent this latter class may
108

LAW AND CONSCIENCE. 109

be subject to human weaknesses and temptations, they give
evidence that they are restrained from the commission of crime
and wrong by better motives; by a conviction that sin is
morally wrong and degrading, and by the fear they enter-
tain of Divine disapprobation. It will thus be seen that
order is maintained in society, and human life and property
made safe by the operation of two separate laws, the human
and divine, and that one of these in its workings is much
more potent and satisfactory than the other. Human law is
not made for the virtuous but the vicious. The machinery of
human government, although extremely expensive, has been
found necessary in the almost unanimous opinion of mankind.
It is a happy circumstance, however, that there exists a higher
law in the human conscience. Some men call this public
opinion, but public opinion is merely another kind of society
tribunal which punishes by loss of caste or popular opprobrium.
This also prevents the commission of crime by operating on
the fears of men and women, and it may be truly said that
no tribunal is more unsafe in its proceedings or more frequently
unjust in its decisions. But for the class governed by a sense
of right, courts and laws against criminals would be impossible;
for offenders could not be depended upon to frame or execute
rigid laws against themselves. The great anchor of a state,
then, is this enlightened conscience of good men and women.
From what source does society derive this best element?
Some say it comes from the religious sentiment, almost uni-
versal in the human race. Some say it comes from education,
and that it can be secured by a course of instruction fully
informing man* of all the principles that should govern
society, which will make him act with mathematical exactness
in a right direction. Another class, inclined to reject the
religious idea as mere superstition, and who are, nevertheless,
perfectly well aware that knowledge is not virtue, claim that
there is a law of development in the human race, that brought
man up from the original mollusk to a monkey, and from a
10

110 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

monkey to the wonderful civilized man of the nineteenth
century. It may be retorted on the latter that crime is as
common in civilized as in barbarous communities and the most
desperately wicked criminals known to jurisprudence have
been highly educated and enlightened.

It is not too much to assume that the nations of modern
Christendom are the most highly advanced nations in art,
manufactures, intelligence, and what has been styled free
government. The United States, Britain, Switzerland, Ger-
many, France, Italy, Spain, Austria and even Russia, are
Christian countries, and so are Canada, Central and South
America. By Christian, I mean countries w r here the Christian
religion is either recognized by the state or where a majority
of the people profess belief in it. The elder Adams endeav-
ored to commend us to Tripoli by asserting that the United
States was in no sense a Christian government. The state,
properly, has no connection with the church ; it rests its con-
ception of law on the will of the majority. At the same time
the great mass of her people are believers in Christianity.
Every officer, from the highest to the lowest, qualifies himself
for the duties of public place by putting his hand on the Bible
and calling God to witness that he means faithfully to dis-
charge his duties. There are a great many intelligent free-
thinkers, atheists, and agnostics who repudiate God, revela-
tion and religion, and there are many others w r ho reject
ail the systems of religion known and entertain a theoretical,
vague, undefined Theism of their own. Both of these classes
are in the minority. While the republic of the United
States is therefore not a Christian state, technically, it is a
government of the people, and the people are a Christian
people. It is, moreover, an offshoot of the Christian govern-
ments of Europe, and has in its inception and history been
subject to Christian influences. It has not been subject to
or influenced by Mahometanism, Buddhism or the doctrines
of Confucius or Zoroaster. It ought to be understood, that

CHRISTIANITY WEAK IX AFRICA. Ill

religion in any country affects not only its professional
believers but all within its influence, including the government
itself.

Springing from a small despised sect, Christianity has spread
until it is the controlling religion of all the nations of Europe,
the continents and islands of the two Americas, Australia, a
small part of British India, and other colonies of the leading
modern nations. The most skeptical will readily admit that
its influence over these is very great. Christianity is weak
in Africa. Except in the French, British and Dutch colonies,
and a somewhat degraded form in Abyssinia, it has little influ-
ence over the people of that continent. It will not be denied
that Africa presents the most debased population found on
the globe. It has been styled the "Dark Continent." There
we see governments that are little better than organized
murder. The worst forms of slavery and the slave trade exist
and flourish. Human life and human labor are worth less
there than anywhere else. The personal freedom of the citizen
is unknown.

Asia is the next large portion of the world where Chris-
tianity has comparatively little power. Up to a very recent
period, the Nestorian Chaldeans, and one or two other small
communities, were the only native Christians. In Asiatic
Russia, of course, the Greek-Christian church is supposed to
be the religion of the state. There it exists pretty much as
Christianity exists in British India, or in the colonies of any
other European power. It is an intrusive idea that may be
said to have the sympathy or patronage of the government,
and may become a factor of great strength when it thoroughly
uproots the native faith, and has existed long enough to instill
its precepts into the minds of the people. That period is not
yet. In British India, Mahometanism, Buddhism and various
other religious beliefs exist, and form, to a large extent, the
minds of the people, just as Mahometanism, Buddhism, Par-
seeism and modern Lamaism are potent in Russian Asia. The

112 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

European conquerors learned, in attempting to subjugate
Asiatic empires, that it is one thing to get political power,
and another to control the minds of the people. For this
reason European civilization and European ideas of govern-
ment make slow progress. There is not a native representa-
tive government, outside of colonial influence, in Asia, although
it is true, that while elective rulers are hardly to be found,
many of the governments only exist from popular toleration.
To the encroachments of European civilization, Asia has been,
until late years, impregnable. The Asiatic people are in no
sense wild or barbarous. Their forms of society are very
ancient. Several empires have for ages exhibited a very high
degree of art. They have proven themselves capable of
maintaining more dense populations than the nations of
Christendom have so far coped with. Some of the religions
that hold power over them, promulgate a dreamy, but not
altogether degraded order of philosophy. The systems of
morals taught by them cannot, as a general thing, be styled
vicious. Bad systems and societies have become incorporated
with them, however, and they have, to some extent, degener-
ated into idolatry and demonology. In nearly all Oriental
religions, church and state are blended ; in other words,
the rulers have succeeded in uniting the religious beliefs
with their systems of government, and the religion thus
controlled by tyrants and usurpers, has been prostituted and
degraded.

If religion comprised only the spiritual and supernatural,
political economists would have little concern with it. Relig-
ious ideas, however, enter the domain of morals and law,
affecting all the relations of citizens to each other. They
operate on love, fear, social duty and human prejudice. The
most skeptical will admit that the contemplation of a just and
pure Deity has a tendency to elevate the character. Men and
women who cultivate this affectionate love and worship are
by far the best members of society. On the other hand, it

ASIATIC RELIGIONS. 113

operates also through fear. More men and women fear being
damned, than being punished by the civil law. Religion
has, therefore, always been a wonderful element of power.
Even Thomas Paine admits the great power of religion, and,
in his " Rights of Man," says : "All religions are, in their
nature, mild and benign, and united with principles of moral-
ity. They could not have made proselytes by professing
anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting or immoral.
Like everything else, they had their beginning, and they pro-
ceeded by persuasion, exhortation and example." He goes
on to say, that all mischiefs flowing from them have been
caused by the alliance between church and state.

In the Asiatic religions the supernatural predominates. Their
codes of morals have not been of a very high order, at least,
as compared with those of Christianity. It is true that Budd-
hism, which has the greatest number of followers, believing
in the transmigration of souls, will not, under their moral
law, kill animals, as the souls of men and women may be in
them, but sets of fanatical murderers have grown up among
them. Nowhere in their teachings do we find a high regard
for human life inculcated. So far from asserting the univer-
sal brotherhood of man, systems of religious caste prevail.
These Asiatic ecclesiastics do not encourage progress. The
people remain stationary, their religious morals are not openly
or secretly at war with the despotism of tyrants. We can,
therefore, find the history of Asia written in her creeds ; blind
submission to fate, ancestor worship and caste prejudice. In
the first few hundred years of its existence, Christianity made
considerable progress in Asia, in what had been the old Greek
and Persian empire. It spread rapidly up to the time of
Heraclitus, and had very considerably ameliorated the condi-
tion of the people. It had reached far into Central Asia, and
even to China. It is difficult to conjecture what the result
would have been, if it had thoroughly indoctrinated the great
masses of Central Asia. From its very nature, it is usually

114 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

slow in its growth, and gradual in its progress to power over
communities. It inculcates the doctrines of peace, moreover,
and thus checks, instead of encouraging a martial spirit. This
left it weak to resist the encroachments of warlike and barbar-
ous violence, and, on the Asiatic continent, it fell before the
aggressive and military genius of Mahometanism.

It had been held by many that early Christianity taught
socialism. It appeared to be the practice of the early disciples
and apostles. In the 41st verse of the 2d chapter of Acts,
we are informed, that in one day " about three thousand souls
were added to the church;" and in the 44th verse, we are
told that "all who believed were together, and had all things
common." In the 32d verse of the 4th chapter of the same
book, we also find " Neither said any that aught of the things
he possessed was his own, but they had all things common."
In examining the question as to whether Christianity taught
socialism, we find, in the first place, that there is nothing in
the teachings of the founder of the church enjoining it. It
was undoubtedly a convenience for the first organization of
the church, in Jerusalem, to have this unity of interest. Then
a believer became, to a certain extent, ostracised, without
home or friends, and, possibly, for the time, driven from the
employment that supported him. The convert connected
himself with an organization, the founder of which had just
been put to an ignominious death. The chief priests and
rulers were not slow to exhibit the kind of treatment they in-
tended to bestow on the new sect. Each convert was also
expected in turn, to make proselyting, to a large extent, his
business. It was not demanded that the believer, who had
any property, should sell all he had and turn it into the com-
mon stock, but he was enjoined, if occasion offered, to sell all
that he had, and to give to the poor. Ananias was not con-
demned for withholding, but for pretending to give where he
did not. Peter, in reprimanding him, told him that the
property was his own, and before he gave it, he could do

CHRISTIANITY COSMOPOLITE. 115

what he pleased with it. We find, shortly afterward, the
apostles enjoining converts to give, as God had prospered them,
to the necessities of the saints. A disposition to be largely
supported from the contribution of believers was very freely
condemned, and it was said, that "he who doth not provide for
they of his own household, has denied the faith, and is worse
than an infidel." While it was asserted that those giving
their time to the ministry were entitled to support, one of the
most active apostles boasted that he had, in addition, labored
with his hands, and had not been a charge on the church.
Originally, says Hartwig, when the Christian communions
were formed, all the members contributed according to their
ability, to one common fund, for the purpose of good works ;
with the extension of Christianity, this general display of love
abated, contributions became less general and liberal, and as
it acquired power, or became allied with the state, changed
into regular, and, in some cases, involuntary taxes.* With
the single exception of Mahometanism, all other religions,
except Christianity, were "limited in their design and local
in their range." They were the images of separate national-
ities, f The essential doctrine of Christianity is the brother-
hood of mankind in all nations. It taught the worth lessuess
of forms in religion. Its founder denounced hypocrisy, and
enjoined a pure life. It held all the moral law of Judaism
to be intact. Jesus of Nazareth declared that "not one jot or
tittle of the law should pass until all was fulfilled." Adding
to these the generous and benignant doctrines of Christianity
He broke down the wall that made the Jews an isolated and
peculiar people, and sent forth his disciples with this en-
lightened and renovated system, as a law to all races and
nations.

Such were the doctrines carried in a peaceful, missionary

* Brentano's History of Guilds, etc., page 7.

t Hardwick's Christ and other Masters, page 42.

116 CHEISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

way, into countries both civilized and barbarous, after the
death of Christ ; and, in a comparatively short period of time,
they had spread through a portion of Eastern Asia, Northern
Africa and large portions of Europe. What was left of the
Grecian empire became largely Christian. Christianity strug-
gled for the ascendant in the Roman empire, under a fierce
persecution. There it had to encounter not only the fury
of a luxurious, despotic and corrupt court, but the criticism and
hostility of a brilliant galaxy of philosophers. Tacitus merely
refers to Christianity as a sect of Judaism. The stoics and
the epicures alike treated it with contempt. Not only did it
have to contend with the interest and the prejudice of the
existing religion, but with the low moral condition of a people
steeped in vice and corruption. From its earliest history, Roman
law had opposed polygamy, and it is stated that for five hun-
dred and twenty years there was no such thing as a divorce in
Rome.* Under the empire the marriage tie was less sacred.
Juvenal speaks of a woman who had eight husbands in five
years. St. Jerome relates an incident of a woman who mar-
ried her twenty-third husband, and she was his twenty-first
wife. Seneca denounced the free divorce system as a great
evil. Besides this extreme laxity of the marriage tie, domes-
tic morals in other respects were very loose. Mr. Lecky, in
tracing the causes of decay, attributes much to the foregoing,
and also dates the decline to the introduction of general
slavery at the close of the Punic wars.f

The religion that should have given balance to the state
was compounded of a profligate pantheon and the hypercritical
speculations of the stoics and epicurians. The people were
venal and debased, and society was in a decline so hopeless
that nothing seemed to be left for it but the fire and brim-
stone that had closed the career of Sodom and Gomorrah.

* Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. ii., page 300.
f Ibid., page 302.

CHUECH AND STATE. 117

Such was the condition of the Roman empire when the apos-
tles of Christianity struggled for its conversion. There was
scarcely a doctrine taught by Christians that was not a living
caveto against the whole Roman system. It made its way
slowly but steadily. Women have always been quicker than
men to embrace the doctrines of Christianity. Some of the
most distinguished Roman matrons became its converts, and
this only served to stimulate the persecution. Households
were divided and embittered against each other, for if the
Christian doctrine of universal brotherhood should prevail, it
would abolish the privileges of Roman citizenship, and open
the door to the equality of the people of all her provinces.
In spite of these difficulties, the struggling church finally
prevailed. Before -the conversion of the Emperor Constan-
tine, A.D. 312, it has been supposed, by some authorities,
that a majority of the Roman people had become converted.
Lecky, in his History of European Morals, says there was not a
majority, and the probabilities are that its active, energetic
followers, who had to risk their lives for their opinions, con-
stituted much less than a majority.

The Emperor Constantine rebuilt Constantinople, origin-
ally Byzantium, A.D. 338, twenty-six years after he had em-
braced Christianity. It was not until July 9th, A.D. 381,
that Bishop Nestorius was nominated as the first Patriarch
of Constantinople. The term Pope comes from the Greek
pappas and papa, father, or grandfather, and was originally
applied to bishops. In A. D. 606, nearly three hundred years
after the conversion of Constantine, Pope Benedict III.
induced the Emperor of the East to confine the title to the
chief prelates of Rome. While the greatness and power of
Christianity usually dates from the conversion of the Em-
peror Constantine, it is extremely doubtful whether its alli-
ance with the state did any good to Christianity. It has been
said, on the other hand, that the conversion of the state was
the ruin of Rome.

118 CHKISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

Lecky informs us * that all the evidence shows that the
Christian Church went stoutly to work to reform Roman
morals. In order to preserve the purity of marriage^ it
elevated it to a sacrament.f We have only one of two tilings
to believe. Christianity must have failed in all its teachings,
such as the universal brotherhood of man, the doctrine of
peace, to provide things honestly in the sight of all men,
purity, justice, meekness and temperance, or else, having
faithfully taught these truths with any degree of success, the
elements of Roman power were inevitably bound to crumble.

The Emperor Constantine called the council of Nice, which
assembled June 19th, A. D. 325, and sat until August, three
hundred and eighteen bishops attending. They manufac-
tured a creed, and attempted otherwise to give a form to the
religion that came to abolish all forms. This first great so-
called Christian convocation condemned the doctrines of the
Arians. General Ecclesiastical Councils were held in Con-
stantinople, chiefly against heresy, A. D. 381, 553, 680 and
869. The church was torn by dissensions on points of doc-
trine as well as on the exercise of temporal authority by
spiritual rulers. The idea of a supervision of nations by the
church was probably well meant. This was one great pur-
pose of the exercise of the papal power. Unjust wars were
not to be permitted. The papal authority was to be supreme
among nations. Good men entertained great hopes that the
warlike power of cruel nations could thus be ended. Unhap-
pily, the exercise of political power by the church plunges it
into an arena for which it never was designed. In attending
to duties of that sort, it usually forgets its legitimate business,
which is to convert men and leave to them the task of reform-
ing governments.

Other questions divided the church. All forms of religion
have been fertile in schisms. Schisms as to doctrine, and

* History of European Morals, vol. ii., page 316. f Ibid., page 347.

MONASTIC ORDERS. 119

much more frequently, schisms as to form. The question of
figures and images in churches was a fruitful source of trouble.
Several monarchs lost their thrones, and a few of them their
lives, during the struggle to turn images and pictures out of,
and into, the Christian churches. How such adjuncts to
worship should ever have crept in under the teachings of
Christ and the ten commandments it is difficult to imagine.
Another innovation was monastic orders. The paganism
overthrown in Rome and Greece had an element of asceticism
that took this shape under the new religion. The supposed
virtue of remaining unwashed and uncombed, in a half-starved
condition, in a cave, or on the top of a pillar, derived neither
encouragement nor command from the teachings of Christ.
Monastic orders were injected into the kind of Christianity that
had an early existence in Asia, and were borrowed from other
religions. It was the third century of the Christian era before
monastic orders were introduced in Europe.* In two or three
hundred years they multiplied until they could be found in every
city, and until laws were enacted against them. The organized
church soon began to own property. Instead of limiting its
means of support, according to the plan of the founder, to the
voluntary contribution of believers, it aspired to be independent
of such accidents. The gifts of the pious were encouraged
and held up to be a virtue that would atone for sin. Bequests
from dying saints and sinners commenced to be an important
mode of adding to the fixed property of the church. The
real estate of the church grew to be as formidable as the aris-
tocratic resources of the priesthood in Egypt. The power
thus created threatened to become a means of levying a tax
on production, for all time, to be drawn, of course, out of the
labor of each year, and without the slightest regard for what
the coming generation might want in the way of a church
organization. No church should ever be permitted to exist

* Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. ii., page 101.

120 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

on organized capital. Outside of the place it occupies for
worship, all church property should be taxed, and such accu-
mulations discouraged. A priesthood established on the
revenues of land or capital is only less objectionable than an
aristocracy so created : both are bad. When a church cannot
obtain all it needs from the generosity and conscience of its
hearers and believers it may be taken for granted that it is
time for it, as an organization, to close business. In addition
to the general jealousy engendered by the steady accumulation
of property in the hands of ecclesiastics, and the inevitable
tendency of selfish, designing men to get into and to control
such an establishment, the confidence of the people in the
priesthood began to be shaken. With or without reason,
frightful stories were told about the morals of high dignitaries,
and also about the religious orders. Such was the condition
of the Christian Church at the close of the first six hundred
years of its history. Its instincts and gen ius should have taught
it to avoid all these abuses. The simplicity of Christ's teach-
ings had been buried beneath a selfish and corrupt hierarchy.

So long as Christians were liable to be torn by wild beasts,
there was little danger of the church receiving any but genu-
ine converts. An emperor, clothed with patronage, at the
head of the church, was likely to have insincere followers.
This established religion had to submit to another infliction.
The philosophers interjected their theories into it, just as the
Philistines put the mice and the emerods into the Ark of the
Covenant. They had done this with the old pantheon, why
not with the new ? They were theorists and philosophical
speculators, not repentant sinners. It is surprising that Chris-
tianity survived all these calamities. That it did so is no small
argument in favor of its divine origin. Organized Chris-
tianity had become thus debauched, when the entrance of
Mahometanism to the field of thought and morals, A.D. 612,
marked a new epoch.

Christianity was introduced, as Bede informs us, into

EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION. 121

Britain, in the 64th year of the Christian era. It is well known,
however, that England was essentially pagan long after. A
careful comparison of the dates of its general acceptance in
the countries of Europe, and the initial steps in the civilized
progress of these states is instructive. Although introduced
into Ireland in the second century, it was not until A. D. 432,
that it obtained controlling influence under the teachings of St.
Patrick. It was introduced among the Goths in 376, but
did not attain much influence until the Gothic people had
been formed into their European governments. It was estab-
lished in France by Clovis, A.D. 496. The Saxons were
converted by Augustine in 597 ; but Christianity was not
introduced into what is known as Saxony, until 785 under
Charlemagne. Harold introduced it to Denmark in 827, and
it was not established in Sweden until the eleventh century.
It was introduced into Norway and Iceland A.D. 998. It
will be remembered that these Scandinavian nations had a
bloody idolatry, characterized by fierce and unclean rites.
Christianity was introduced into Bohemia, under Borsiva,
A. D. 894. It was introduced into Russia, by Swiatoslaf,
A. D. 940 or 942. The Teutonic knights, on returning from
the holy wars, A.D. 1227, introduced the Christian doctrine
to Prussia, which they had obtained permission to " convert
and conquer." Care must be taken not to confound the in-
troduction of Christianity with the real christiauization of the
masses. A careful study of the nations or countries named
will show that a gradual change in their condition, for the
better, began with these periods. Slavery, in its worst forms,
existed in every one of them prior to that time, and for a
considerable period after. Guilds were associations of towns,
trades or religious societies, for mutual protection and benefit.
They were introduced early in the eighth century, and were
fostered by the priesthood. Guilds, and the organization of
the people, were the means of introducing juries, about A. D.

886. The system by which a man or a cause could only be
11

122 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

tried by the equals of the parties in interest was improved
and systematized from that period.

Christianity was the means of abolishing polygamy in the
German and Scandinavian nations ; indeed, the evil existed np
to, or after, the time of Charlemagne. Until Rome had be-
come Christian it never attempted to elevate the character of
the people of its provinces. It did not, to any extent, give
its colonies political power, or teach them the arts of peace.
Christianity, on the other hand, immediately set to work to
convert and elevate the people.

During these struggles it must be remembered that the church
had a constant war within itself. Prior to the invention or
introduction of the printing press in Europe, the doctrines of
Christianity could only be taught through the organized
priesthood. As nations became converted from barbarous
forms of religion, they tried to incorporate into Christianity
many of their old ideas. The lack of a general literature
rendered it difficult to detect such impostures. Had the
Christian Church been able to retain all its purity and sim-
plicity, and had it always used its authority for a good pur-
pose, Europe to-day would have been in a much better
condition. As the church grew in temporal power, and
began to absorb the wealth of the nations, it excited the
jealousy and hatred, not only of the people, but of the civil
authorities. Its very wealth betrayed those who were in
charge of it into a course of life altogether inconsistent
with their professions. A great hierarchy degenerated, of
necessity, into forms. An apostle traveling in poverty, perse-
cution and hardship, to preach the doctrines of peace and the
brotherhood of man, was one thing, and a great priesthood
charged with disbursing the revenues of the church, quite
another. Where there is a great temptation to simulate, there
will always be an inevitable tendency to substitute idols for a
pure worship, ceremonies in the place of a pure life, and forms
where the substance is lacking.

THE PRINTING PRESS. 123

The introduction of the art of printing was destined to
have a very considerable effect on society and the church.
Books, hitherto confined to cloisters, began to be read by the
people. At such a time the assumptions of personal sanctity
and the power to dogmatise over the minds of men was not
safe, and the Protestant religion followed. It was at first a
protest against the spiritual authority of the Pope. Reforms
in the church were not new before the time of Luther in
1517. The reform of the Albigenses in 1177 was of a
similar character, as was that of Wickliff in England in
1360. Huss in Bohemia, in 1405, introduced reforms for
the many abuses that had crept into the church. For this
action he and Jerome of Prague were burned at the stake.
Savonarola in 1498 attempted the reformation of the Papal
church in Italy. These were some of the leaders of the
great revolutions that swept over Europe, but reformers
within the church had steadily striven against its abuses
through all ages, and the final separation of the Eastern
and Western empires of the Christian Church was due to
their efforts. The Greek Church, one of the great branches
of Christianity, has been separated from the Roman Church
for twelve hundred years ; its present seat and centre being in
Russia.

After the Reformation the property of the church, accu-
mulated during ages, was stripped from it. Monastic orders
were to some extent broken up. The doctrine of indulgences
was scoffed at, not only by sinners, but by men who had been
educated as priests. In the revulsion all the branches of the
church became better. It is true there was bloody persecu-
tion, but of course only in cases where the church was closely
allied with the state. Stripping the great central church
organization of power had a tendency to increase the power
and weaken the responsibility of kings. It might have re-
sulted in the creation of strong despotisms in the leading
nations but for the rise of the people, the enfranchisement of

124 CHEISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

whom was in considerable degree due to Christianity. Con-
stitutional governments were beginning to be understood.
Representative bodies assumed force and character, and from
the time of Henry VIII., when the Reformation occurred in
England, little more than a hundred years elapsed until
Charles I. was beheaded for asserting royal prerogatives
against the wishes of the people.

Following the Protestant reformation of Zuiuglius, Luther,
Calvin and Knox, came a host of other reformers. The hope
that universal Christian peace might prevail on the recogni-
tion of the spiritual power of the Pope had faded away when
new bodies emerged from the Protestant Church to secure if
possible the Christian doctrine of peace and good will toward
men. The Quakers, eminent for many virtues, have made
this one of the prominent reasons for their departure, to-
gether with their general protest against all forms, vanity
and extravagance. That such a people should have been the
subjects of cruel persecution seems hardly credible. Their
influence is not confined to those of their own immediate per-
suasion. The Menonites were originally a species of German
Quakers, but on being driven from Germany took refuge in
Southern Russia. There for generations they founded a
worthy and industrious community, protesting against all
wars, and as they have resolutely refused to violate their con-
science in this particular, most of them have recently been
forced to emigrate to the United States. Then there followed
Methodists, Baptists, and many other sects and denomina-
tions. As the Protestant churches were unhappily estab-
lished by the state, the alliance carrying with it poison and
corruption into the body of the church, there came still
another swarm of " dissenters," who protested against all
alliances between the Church and State. The foundation of
the great deep of thought had been broken up. The Catho-
lic Church said all this was the inevitable wanderings of
heresy, and they pointed to the rapid growth of freethiuking

ATHEISM AND ANARCHY. 125

and atheistic opinions in support of their theory. Books
were written against every kind of religious belief. Priest-
craft and statecraft were confounded, and the church hav-
ing kept bad company, the charge that it was the tool of
despotism was not altogether unfounded. Historians wrote
books, ostensibly against the Catholic Church, but really aimed
at all religion. A profession of skepticism began to be con-
sidered as rather creditable to the intellect. Even the Re-
formed churches seemed to have a tendency to form new
hierarchies. Cant and hypocrisy formulate the externals of
religion. A " wealthy religious body " is really as much of
a deception as a "fashionable church." Neither of them
have anything in common with the Man who " had not
where to lay his head."

The American and French revolutions treated religion
differently. In America the colonists contented themselves
by forever divorcing church and state. Everything con-
nected with the former must be voluntary. The French
people found a corrupt hierarchy closely allied with a corrupt
aristocracy; and, confounding religion with priestcraft, the
Jacobin clubs reveled in denying all authority, human and
divine. Atheism was rampant. Agnosticism can raise ques-
tions, can revile, can speculate ; it cannot create rules for life,
or build society, or restrain men from the commission of evil ;
it has nothing to offer but skeptical doubts about all things.
Napoleon I. was not a Christian, but he said he could not
govern France without religion, and he restored the Catholic
Church. One would have thought that the seeds of Atheism
had been so sown that such a restoration would have been
extremely difficult, if not impossible. Governments had
shaken off not only the king and the aristocracy, but had set
divine authority at defiance, and were rejoicing in their free-
dom from all restraint. France indeed had, and still has
within her, strong skeptical elements. Her capital is a hot-
bed for theorists, and her manners tend rather to vitiate than

126 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

to elevate the tone of Christendom ; but in , spite of the licen-
tiousness of her press, the lax morals of her capital, and in
the face of the teachings of all her philosophers, the masses
of the laboring classes of France draw their inspirations of
devotion and duty from the Christian Church.

In Britain, Christianity is a strong element of power.
Scoifers, skeptics, freethinkers, backed by an army of philoso-
phers and scientists, constantly are at work to explain away
much of the accepted data in the formula of believers. While
the philosophers and the scientists fill the prints and are heard
in the lecture room, the great mass of the British people are
really or professedly religious. Here in the United States, in
the midst of a universal school system, her books, her pam-
phlets solid and flippant, the majority of her people are true
or nominal Christians. If her freethinkers are not very
numerous they are able and adroit. They are propped up by
devices called scientific, and schools of philosophy that pride
themselves on being rigidly practical. Superstitious belief is
pronounced unphilosophic and incredible, the church a con-
vocation of dupes and ignoramuses ; religious zeal is branded
as hypocrisy, but let no man figure upon the results of political
reforms or social changes who refuses to take into account
the power of the Christian religion. The teachings of the
Man of Nazareth are echoed from ten thousand pulpits each
week, the most staid and responsible members of society attend
and listen. Innumerable Sunday-schools are instilling into the
minds of tender children the ideas and doctrines of Christianity.

Christianity, although still encumbered, was never so free
from political demoralization or from being used by tyrants,
selfish interests, or all the riff-raff that have "stolen the
livery of Heaven to serve the devil in/' since the time
when Constantine was converted, as it is to-day. If the
Christian religion has been reduced in the public esteem
or weakened for the accomplishment of good, this misfor-
tune is attributable to the insincerity and unfaithfulness of

UNHOLY ALLIANCE. 127

many of those who have assumed to be its priesthood. Its
potency does not consist in its wealth, respectability, or in
alliances with the state. All these are a travesty on the religion
of Christ. In defending the cause of the downtrodden and
the weak; in rebuking wrong in high places; in simplicity
and purity its " great strength lies." John Adams wrote :
" One of the most calamitous events for human liberty was a
wicked confederacy between the temporal grandees and the
priesthood, mutually to uphold each other." * For these
reasons many defenders of popular liberty permitted them-
selves to drift into a position antagonistic to the church. In
the rigid separation of religion from all civil power the safety
of true religion rests, but irreligious rulers are not, as a general
thing, safe custodians of the interests of men. Even John
Adams, not an admirer of religion, was forced to write some-
what bitterly, but significantly : " I believe it will be found
universally true that no great enterprise for the honor or hap-
piness of mankind was ever achieved without a large mixture
of that noble infirmity." f

AVhat has been known as the Christian religion has had
two sides presented to the world. Its principles and the sin-
cere believers in them, and religious organizations, churches
allied to the state, hierarchies and the abuses that have clus-
tered round them. The skeptic sees one face and does not
believe in the other. It is true we had professors of religion
in the United States who connived at or shut their eyes to the
sin of slavery ; but it is also true that not only the Quakers,
who made the first early persistent protest against this wicked-
ness, but also the devout, earnest Christian people of other
denominations, who wished to see no stain on the name of
Christianity, by their prayers and efforts abolished American
slavery.

In the same way a pure Christianity will always protest

* Works of John Adams, voL iii., page 450. t Ibid., page 452.

128 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

against wrong. When the voice of the Master is heard from
the lips of his followers, it conies with a rebuke to selfishness,
usury, unfair dealing, oppression of the poor, pride, aristocracy,
fashionable religion, hypocrisy, and the folly and wrong of
amassing great and unnecessary fortunes. Unless the voice
of the church is bribed to silence it will espouse the cause
of the struggling poor.

Christendom is the centre of the world's progress and high
civilization to-day. It is, therefore, proper to consider how
much of that power and success can be traced to its teachings.
It is fair to estimate Christianity by its works. Among
these are the elevation of women, the abolition of slavery in
Europe and America, and of polygamy in Northern and Central
Europe. If it has been stained by selfish and hypocritical
professors, it has been adorned by sincere and vigorous
reformers.

Modern agnosticism discredits what is styled the supernatural
in the region of morals. There is a hungering and thirsting
for some rule of life outside of the law of God and an sesthet-
ical religion divorced from the supernatural. Separate the
church and its worship from the idea of an intelligent, power-
ful Deity, and you strip religion of its vitality. If it was
possible to destroy in the minds of men the belief in a here-
after, and in future responsibility, and make them believe that
they were like the beasts that perish, mankind would be hope-
lessly degraded.

Professor Sumner, in his work " What Social Classes Owe
Each Other," says : " The only social improvements which
are now conceivable lie in the direction of a more complete
realization of free men united by contract. 7 ' * * * "It
follows, however, that one man in a free state cannot claim help
from, and cannot be charged to give help to another." * He
also says : " The greatest part of the preaching in America

* What Social Classes Owe Each Other, page 26.

AN ECCLESIASTICAL PREJUDICE. 129

consists in injunctions to those who have taken care of them-
selves, to perform their assumed duty to take care of others."
He adds, very naively : " Whatever may be one's private
sentiments, the fear of appearing cold and hard-hearted
causes those conventional theories of social duty and these
assumptions of social fact to pass unchallenged." The
professor exclaims, "Is it wicked to be rich? Is it mean to
be a capitalist?" and proceeds thus : " There is an old eccle-
siastical prejudice in favor of the poor, and against the rich.
In days when men acted by ecclesiastical rules, these prejudices
produced waste of capital, and helped mightily to replunge
Europe into barbarism. The prejudices are not yet dead, but
they survive in our society as ludicrous contradictious and
inconsistencies." *

This is certainly a very remarkable statement, and we ap-
prehend the professor would find it difficult to fix the date
when appeals from Christian teachers, in behalf of the poor,
" re-plunged Europe into barbarism." He made a mistake in
the term when he used the word " ecclesiastic." Ecclesiasti-
cism has neither prejudices nor principles. It is a mere form,
a shell. Religion may be within it, or it may not. It was
ecclesiasticism that preached, when he says, "Preaching in
England used to be all done to the poor that they ought to
be contented with their lot, and respectful to their betters."
We are grateful that he said " used to be," as regards Eng-
land, and thankful that he bears a different kind of testimony
as to American Christian teachings. It was not ecclesiasti-
cism, but the religion of Christ, that had " a prejudice in
favor of the poor, and against the rich." Jesus Christ, who
was certainly not an ecclesiastic, gives for our instruction the
story of Dives and Lazarus. He tells us also that a certain
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among
thieves. The priest and Levite who were "ecclesiastics,"

* What Social Classes Owe Each Other, page 44.

130 CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

were the professor's " free men of a free democracy/' who
were under no obligations to neglect their business and waste
their capital on a man who ought to have had sense enough
to keep out of the thieves' way. The Samaritan seems to
have been one of those " crochety sentimentalists " who are
afflicted with a false "conventional theory of social duty,"
but his example will be held up for emulation when political
economists of the Sumner school have been forgotten. In an
age where selfishness threatens the very existence of society,
help alone can come from a better understanding and more
general acceptance of the leading idea of Christianity : " What-
soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them."

CHAPTER Y.

THE MAHOMETAN SYSTEM, AND THE GOVERNMENTS AND
FOKMS OF SOCIETY FOUNDED ON IT.

Arabia the blest and curst The robber of the desert a founder of empires
Democratic tendencies of Mahometanism Its foundation Plunder and
polygamy Furnished an occupation for the large class who seek to sub-
sist by war or their wits Slavery legalized Women degraded War on
property rights of women Mahometan laws of taxation Land tenure
Divorce Wills forbidden Temperance and abstinence by law Licen-
tiousness established on earth and deified in heaven Pure Mahometan-
ism, or Theism Worship of the Prophet an innovation Christianity
and Mahometanism the only cosmopolite religions Reformations in the
Mahometan church The Wahabees Mahdis Causes of Mahometan
decay.

THE peninsula, or region of country lying between the
Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, with a thousand miles of front-
age on the Indian Ocean, and extending indefinitely north-
ward across the deserts toward the country watered by the
Euphrates, has, at different periods, passed under many
names, but in literature is best known as Arabia. Ptolemy
classified Arabia into three parts or portions, the stony, or
mountainous : the desert, or sandy ; and Happy Arabia,
" Arabia Felix." It is about seven hundred and fifty miles
from Bassora to Suez, and nearly the same distance from the
Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, the southern part of the penin-
sula being wider. There is no navigable river in the penin-
sula. Streams of any kind are scarce, and in the greater
portion rain rarely falls; sometimes years pass without it.
Along the Persian Gulf there is a strip of land, partially cul-
tivated, into which the drifting sands have constantly strug-

131

132 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

gled to make inroads, but which maintains a varying
population. None of the mountains of the peninsula rise to
any great height. Most of them are sharp, rugged peaks,
" stony land " without trees or verdure. "Arabia Felix " is
in the southwestern part. Immediately on the sea the coast is
a sandy plain, Et Teharna, but a short distance inland, there
are mountains interspersed with fruitful valleys. This is the
land of frankincense and myrrh, of gold and precious stones.
Niebuhr has enumerated fourteen provinces in the fertile por-
tion of Yemen. In ancient times, Strabo says, it was divided
into five kingdoms, and that its chief cities abounded in
palaces and temples. Coffee is one of its valuable exports,
and from one of its ports, Mocha, many other spices have
long been shipped. In all ages a very valuable commerce
has been carried across the deserts on the backs of camels,
the larger of these animals being able to carry a load of one
thousand pounds.

Egypt, Greece, Persia, India, the cities on the Mediter-
ranean and the rich portions of Arabia, all furnish articles
thus sent through these dreary regions. Commerce, the car-
rying trade and the productions of Arabia Felix, yielded
subsistence for the people of Arabia. Outside of Yemen,
several other provinces had considerable cities and trade.
The two most remarkable of these cities, during a long period,
have been Mecca and Medina, two hundred and seventy
miles apart, in the same geographical district. The latter
has some agricultural land around it, but Mecca is a veritable
city of the desert, good water, even, being scarce. Oakley
informs us that in its greatest prosperity it was about the size
of Marseilles. Mecca was known to the Greeks under the
name of Macoraba. Outside of the agricultural or spice dis-
tricts, and a few valleys, the great bulk of Arabia is a rocky
or sandy desert waste. Burckhardt, the traveler, informs us
that it is the most desolate portion of the globe, and that the
natives call it the " empty abode."

THE BOBBER OF THE DESERT. 133

Under a tropical sky, and without lake or river to furnish
moisture, the atmosphere is dry and burning. The bare,
treeless, rocky peaks are little more inviting than the sea of
drifting sand. None of her mountains reach the region of
eternal snow. A few of them in the southwest portion, sev-
eral days' journey from the sea, reach an altitude of five or six
thousand feet, and such is the peculiar atmosphere of that
section, that at times, for one or two months of the winter,
snow lies on them, while across the straits of Babel-Mandeb,
in Africa, the mountains, reaching nine or ten thousand feet
altitude, never have snow. Hot and deadly winds blow over
the desert of Arabia, and the whole region is subject to mala-
rial influences that render it difficult for the natives to live
there, and fatal to foreigners.

The Arabs have always boasted of their independence, and
say their country was never conquered, and that they never
paid tribute. Its poverty and desolation is its defense. The
Bedouin, who courses over it, is an active, restless, independ-
ent man, to whom war is at once a trade and a luxury. He
has everything to gain and nothing to lose by adventure.
Ockley says that the Arabs have been professional robbers
since the days of Job,* and all other authorities corroborate
the statement, running back to Strabo and Herodotus. In
their military movements they can make a journey of four or
five hundred miles in eight or ten days.f The horse is sup-
posed to be a native of Arabia. Their horses are not large,
but of a fine and hardy variety. When threatened by an
invading* army some noted emir would hoist a rallying
standard, then all that could be collected would make com-
mon cause against the enemy. Whole armies have perished
in the desert attempting to pursue them.J In this way the
wandering Arabs have maintained- their independence and

* History of the Saracens, page 9.
t Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 7.
t Chrichton's History of Arabia, vol. i., page 64.
12

134 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

a vigorous, self-denying existence. Often pressed sore by
famine, they have wandered, with belts tied about their waists,
subsisting on a little gum. Besides resisting attacks and
preying on caravans, they have often carried their predatory
incursions into the richest of the enemy's provinces. The
Arabs planted date-palms wherever they could induce them
to grow, and this is one of their sources of subsistence. When
locusts stripped the country of its herbage they ate the locusts.

While it may be difficult to conceive of a very high order
of manly qualities among a nation of professional robbers, all
authorities agree that many things esteemed as virtues have
been sedulously cultivated among them. Grapes grow, and
wine to some extent is produced in their country, and fermented
mare's milk was not unknown, but the virtue of temperance
has always been rigidly inculcated. Diodorus tells us that
the Nabatheans (Arabs) were prohibited by their laws from
sowing, planting, drinking wine or building houses, and that
the penalty for a violation of either law was death. The 35th
chapter of Jeremiah contains similar information. The
Rechabites (Arabs) were held up to the Israelites as an ex-
ample because they had obeyed the laws of their fathers,
refused wine and dwelt in tents.

The cities of southwest Arabia and the richer portions have
been conquered on many occasions. Even these were so sur-
rounded by deserts that they were hard to take and harder to
hold, but they were at different times under the yoke of Abys-
sinia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Persia. The victor's grasp on
these regions was but frail, however. The roving Arabs
always recognized and usually stood by their brethren in the
cities, or those living in the cultivated regions. They were, to
a great extent, the merchants and freighters for them. The
people in the cities strove to keep on good terms with them,
and had usually little difficulty in securing their aid for war-
like operations when there was a reasonable prospect of booty.
It was customary to send for them in all emergencies.

THE PANTHEON AT MECCA. 135

Such were the inhabitants of Arabia who had lived for ages
without being enslaved or without being able to found an
empire of any note. So they continued until the close of the
sixth century of the Christian era. Then a remarkable revo-
lution occurred. It did not arise from the wars or quarrels
of kings, nor was it, so far as the original actors were con-
cerned, a revolution springing from accumulated tyranny.
What, then, made this poor wandering robber of the desert a
builder of cities and a founder of empires?

Mahomet was born at Mecca, A. D. 569. He announced
himself as the Prophet of God in 622. At the time of his
advent every species of religion, superstition and irreligion
flourished in Arabia. Its ancient history is wrapped in some
little obscurity, for it was the policy of Mahomet and his suc-
cessors to prevent any recurrence to its past religion or history.
All before Mahomet's time is spoken of as " the time of ignor-
ance." In the time of ignorance they had some pretty
elaborate forms of religion. The oldest, as far as known, was
the Sabean or worship of the Magi. They worshiped or used
as symbols the sun, the moon and the great planetary bodies.
They drew horoscopes, ascertained the stars under which
people were born, and were devout believers in planetary in-
fluences ; astrology and theology were there allied.

Before the Christian era, as Diodorus informs us, the
Sabeans had a famous temple at Mecca, which was revered by
all the Arabians. In fact, pilgrimages were made to Mecca
long before the time of Mahomet. The Caaba, or temple, had
then, as the temple at Medina has now, a black stone that was
reverently kissed. The old temple, as several of the ancient
authorities inform us, was a sort of pantheon. It was said to
contain three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions and
antelopes, and among these the statue of Hebal, of agate, hold-
ing in his hand seven arrows without heads or feathers, the
old symbol for divination. It appears to have been a church
on such a liberal basis that each tribe or individual could get

136 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

in gods of their own. The tribe of Koreish somehow man-
aged to get the custody of the Caaba and the care of it came
down through several generations to the grandfather of
Mahomet. Besides this heathen worship, the Jews had long
held foothold in the cultivated and wealthy portions of
Arabia. Their settlements date, at least from the time of the
first captivity, and in all probability many of them were there
earlier. The Arabians and Jews claim original kinship, being
of the Semitic stock. In spite of this supposed relationship
by blood, there has long been a jealousy and hatred of the
Jewish population in Arabia. This chiefly arose from the
Jews remaining a distinct people, and the fact that they were
traders and usurers intensified the dislike. After the advent
of Mahomet the differences became very bitter, for the Jews
and Christians were the chief elements of resistance to
Mahomet, and but for his calling in the wandering Arab tribes
to aid him, their resistance could not have been overcome.

Although Christianity had taken root among the fixed
populations of the Arabian peninsula, upon the roving Arabs
it did not seem to have much influence, and, in fact, its teach-
ings of peace and good- will toward men and restitution for
theft, were scarcely likely to be popular among a race of
habitual robbers. The many gods and doctrine of chance in
the Caaba, at Mecca, suited them better. Even that religion,
to all appearance, left them as it found them.

The causes that lay at the bottom of the wonderful uprising
and marvelous growth of Mahometanism will always be a
subject of profound study. A people, who for ages did not
seem inclined to tolerate a stable or powerful government
among themselves, at once became the organizers of powerful
governments over others. Poor, without a revenue to main-
tain or equip armies, in little more than a century they over-
ran and conquered two-thirds of the known world. Rome, in
all her glory, trained to conquest by centuries of trial, did not
accomplish as much. It is a coarse and vulgar thing merely

DEMOCRACY OF MAHOMETANISM. 137

to conquer; these Saracens, as they were styled, did more.
They organized governments and founded empires. To these,
moreover, they gave distinctive ideas. A race whose early
traditional law forbade them to build houses, founded an
architecture the ruins of which still excite the admiration of
the civilized world. Its ideas inspired communities of men
with new forms of law, religion and government, and though
there may be much we must condemn, it would be unfair to
deny that it improved the condition of many of the peoples
whom it affected. It has long been on the wane, and Christen-
dom complacently contemplates its coming overthrow ; but still
in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa it is not without influence,
and it is estimated that in different nations, even to-day, not less
than a hundred millions of people, twice the population of the
United States, accept the Alcoran and look devoutly to the tomb
of Mahomet.

For what did this system commend itself to the children
of men ? What are its inherent merits and vices ? How did
it affect the happiness and prosperity of the toiling masses ?
How did it affect the interests of labor ? What land system
did these conquerors, who had no land in their own country,
foster or plant in the governments they builded? What
effect has it had on the interests of common people in the
past, and what is its influence on the interests of humanity
to-day ? It has been said that the strength of Mahometanism
lay in its democratic principles ; that men had been enslaved
by the patriarchal system ; that the elder put his feet on the
necks of his younger brethren, and was an absolute monarch,
in fact, absorbing what little property there was, and holding
even the power of life and death. The destruction of this
aristocracy was said to be involved in the principles Mahomet
inculcated, although an open war on the patriarchal state was
not made. Of course, this new system opened the door to the
enterprise of every man, as there was no provision for an
aristocracy. The Mahometan laws of inheritance divided

138 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

equally between all the sons, but the females were degraded
to dependent position.

The first five successors of the Prophet were elected;
founding an hereditary monarchy was certainly foreign to
Mahometan ideas. The sixth caliph, by intrigue and force
of arms, overthrew Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet. This
schism played an important part in the subsequent history of
the Moslem. The Koreish chief Moawijah, first an enemy
and then a convert of Mahomet, became an active leader of
the new faith, and before Mahometanism was half a century
old, converted an elective theocracy into an absolute monarchy,
and founded the dynasty of the Ommiades.

In judging the governments founded by the believers in
the Koran, it is well not only to read the book but to exam-
ine the circumstances by which these leaders were surrounded.
The Koran itself has been loaded with so much of the super-
natural and miraculous, that it is difficult to extricate the real
principles it contained from the incredible fictions with which
it is encumbered. It is generally admitted that a great deal
of the more mystical and miraculous portions were added
long after it was first written. Mahomet, in composing the
part of it he wrote, was not ignorant of the Bible or the
Testament ; in fact, he recognized both these books. He em-
bodied no inconsiderable portion of their precepts. The
points on which the Koran differed from Judaism and Chris-
tianity constituted Mahometanism, what were these ?

Christianity had existed six hundred years. At that time,
many even in the Christian Church who accepted its morals
and its doctrine in the main, rejected the divinity of Christ.
Mahomet promulgated the doctrine, " There is but one God,
and Mahomet is his prophet." He did not claim divinity
himself, and he admitted that Christ and the great lawgivers
of the Jewish Church were teachers sent from God. He
soemed to comprehend the necessity of a law that should have
the sanction of Divine authority : hence his account of the

MOSLEM PROHIBITION. 139

miraculous transmission of the Alcoran to him. He rejected
the doctrine of sacrifice. The Prophet, and afterward the
Caliph or vicar of God, officiated in the Mosque and taught
therein. There was no priestly order as such. The Muezzin,
who called to prayer, was merely a convenience, and all other
services were supposed to be best performed by the worshiper
himself. If performed by others, no significance was attached
to the exercise of such duty. Florian informs us that at first
the Mahometans had neither altars, pictures nor place of wor-
ship. They have a sabbath of one day for rest and religious
instruction. This they borrowed from the Jews and Chris-
tians. They selected Friday, and in time it became customary
for the caliph to go to the Mosque and pray like other be-
lievers, and then address the congregation on their religious
duties or duties to the state. Among the more pious Mussul-
men, prayer for temporal blessings was not approved. They
could pray, however, for the prosperity of their country or
success of their cause, and for confusion to all unbelievers.

Rigid temperance was a cardinal feature of the Mahometan
system. It was not original with the founder of the religion,
for, as we have said, it had long been a law with the Arabi-
ans. Mahomet inculcated abstinence from intoxicating liquor
as a religious duty ; the extreme penalty of death was modi-
fied ; a man is publicly whipped for drinking, even if he
does not get drunk, and drunkenness is punished with the
bastinado.* A man who uses intoxicating liquors at all is
not considered a good Mussulman ; if he persists in it, he is
treated as a reprobate. In the early and purer days of the
system, all narcotics and intoxicants were included in this
prohibition. By the Alcoran and the teachings of the purest
believers strict temperance in food is also enjoined, and plain-
ness in clothing. The conqueror of Syria, out of all the
plunder taken by his followers, only reserved for himself a
pittance of forty cents per day. Another potent general
* Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. iv., page 157.

140 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

who had overthrown kingdoms, rode from city to city on a
brown camel, with a skin bottle of water, a bag of barley,
and a wooden vessel from which to eat, Self-denial, hard-
ship, freedom from pride and avarice were insisted upon. Pil-
grimages to Mecca were enjoined in the subsequent teachings
of the church, but were not demanded. Mecca, the sacred
city, and Medina, the burial place of the Prophet, remained
but for a short period the seats of empire. The Koran allows
pilgrims, and the faithful generally, during the journey, to
make an increase of their substance by trading. This system
of pilgrimage was doubtless copied after the visits of the Jews
to Jerusalem ; one important principle was hostility to usury,
and law and custom denounced the usurious profit of capital.

The Alcoran and all the subsequent teachings of the faith-
ful enjoined a constant and liberal charity. Giving of alms
was one of the first duties of the true believers. The theory
of the zakat, or tax, is that it is a voluntary gift. Contribut-
ing for the needs of the state followed in the course of time,
and became obligatory. These taxes, or zakat, amounted by
law to two and a half per cent, of the principal of certain
assessed property. If he desired strictly to accomplish the
law, the true believer was required to give in all a tithe of
his increase.* As the Mahometan law became systematized
the tax varied. The term zakat, in its primitive sense, means
"purification," and was an enjoined contribution for the use
of the poor. When it grew into taxes, zakat was not due
from property until the owner possessed it for one year. The
property of maniacs and children was not taxed. It was not
enforced where a man's debts equalled his property.! The
tax was levied on fixed property. Zakat was not due unless
a man owned five camels ; for that number the annual tax was
a goat. The tax was not due unless a man owned thirty kine,
then the tax was a year old steer or heifer. Zakat was not

* Crichton's History of Arabia, vol. i., page 295.
f Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 4.

LAND TENURE. 141

due unless the person taxed owned forty goats, then the
annual tax was one goat. On horses the tax was "five
deeners per cent, on the total value." On all other property
or money values the tax was two and a half per cent.* Upon
everything produced from the earth, a tithe or tenth was due,
with one exception ; if land required watering, land near a
river paid a tithe, land watered by hand, only half a tithe.

The Arabs of the desert did not practice agriculture. As
a pastoral people they rove over a country common to all.
Contests often occurred about springs or wells, and the only
rule that seems to govern the possession is force. The Arabs
knew little about land. Observing the agriculturists in the
valley of the Euphrates, the Tigris and the Nile, they despised
them as the slaves of the kings and satraps, who drained their
substance from them. With the roving Arabs it was a vice
to cultivate the soil. Among the stationary tribes of Arabia,
subdivisions of the soil were adopted.")" These were the people
in Arabia Felix. The latter were composed, not only of the
tribes of Ishmael, but Jews, Christians, Ethiopians and
Phoanicians. In one case it is mentioned that a bush marked
the boundaries of two districts, and that a hereditary estate
was measured by the distance you could hear the barking of
a dog. It is evident that among the best of these people land
laws were in a crude state. Mahomet had the Bible, and
knew what the Jewish land laws were perfectly. He did
not copy them into the Alcoran. In his time the dominions
of the faithful did not extend beyond Arabia. He induced
the roving Arabs to help him to conquer Arabia Felix. That
was the great effort, in accomplishing which, his life closed,
he being poisoned by a Jewess.

To some extent the Mahometans accommodated themselves
to the customs and laws of he countries they overran. Their

* Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 25.

f Crichton's History of Arabia, vol. i., page 157.

142 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

land policy, what there was of it, scarcely applied to Arabia.
In their conquests they only disturbed rights in laud for
public uses, and from the rest exacted tithes. At first they
did not tolerate unbelievers under any circumstances, or, at
least, adopted that as their public policy. All land occupied
was subject to the zakat of tithes, and, as one-tenth was con-
siderably less than the rulers overthrown by the Mahometan
conquerors usually exacted, the cultivators of the soil were to
that extent better off. In the main, the Saracenic leaders
permitted the people they found in possession of land to
retain it, especially if they embraced the doctrines of Ma-
homet. All unoccupied land in the countries they overran
they held to be conquered territory, and gave inducements to
any one to settle and improve it, giving them for doing so a
continuous tenure in the land, or an occupancy title.* Tithes
from the produce had to be paid.

Among the elements that are supposed to have aided in
building up the Moslem power were the laws allowing polyg-
amy and the rewards derivable from conquest. Those
European historians who are disposed to make the most
charitable exhibit for Mahometanism claim that polygamy
was almost universal in Asia. That it existed long before
the time of Mahomet ; that he merely accommodated himself
to the circumstance, and that the tendency of the Koran was
rather to check the evil. It is difficult to see how such an
opinion can be maintained. It is true that polygamy has
been an Asiatic vice as long as we have any record, but even in
Asiatic countries it never attained prominence or grew into great
proportions until the rise of the Mahometan power. Sir Henry
Sumner Maine, says : " The people of the Aryan race are
monogamous and exogamous, that is, they have one wife, and
have a large list of persons they cannot marry. The Mussul-
man whose ideas originated with the Semitic race, are, on the

* Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 167.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE. 143

other hand, polygamous and endogamous, that is, he has a
plurality of wives, and his law permits near relations to
marry.* Maine says it has been noticed by good observers
that this comparative liberty of intermarriage was one secret
of Mussulman success. In India it offered a bribe to the
convert by offering him relief from the rigid Brahminical
law.f Mahomet did more than tolerate polygamy : he
openly encouraged it. The Koran says: "Ye may marry
whatsoever women are agreeable to you, two, three or four/'
In the compendium of Mahometan law we find : " A man
may marry four women, free or slave, any beyond that num-
ber is unlawful." J A slave was permitted to have two wives.
Among the faithful there was no particular limit to concu-
bines. The worst vice of Mahometanism was that it deified
licentiousness. Even Heaven was represented as a place of
sensual delight. Home, in its highest and purifying sense,
did not exist. Woman \vas impoverished and degraded.
Their ceremonies of marriage had neither dignity nor sacred-
ness. Two witnesses were required in order to make it
strictly according to the Mahometan law, but the rule was
not universally followed. The most lax systems of divorce
were tolerated. Nothing could show their domestic tyranny
more conclusively than that, the husband should be able in
a few words to pronounce his wife divorced.

There are three kinds of divorce known to Mussulmen ;
first, the "most laudable," second, "laudable" and third,
" irregular " ; all are conclusive.! The first of these is when
a husband utters the sentence of divorce once. This separates
them, but if not repeated after the end of a period, he may
re-marry the woman without incurring reproach. By the
second form, he utters the three sentences at regular periods of
time, or " Tohrs." The third form is when the husband utters

* Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 235.

t Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 88. I Ibid.

144 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

the three sentences at once. He says, " You are divorced,"
or " Your business is in your own hands," or he condenses the
three sentences, and says, adding to either, "Count," "count."
If a separation takes place, the wife has the custody and care
of a young child until it is able to eat and care for itself, then
it is under the authority of the father. The Prophet said,
" Every divorce is lawful except that of a boy or a lunatic."
A man may marry a female slave, but the offspring do not
share in the inheritance with the other sons. A woman who
is an adult may marry without the consent of her guardian,
but, as a usual thing, a woman has but little authority. She
is contracted in marriage without her volition, is dependent
all her life, and is not among the recognized heirs of her
father's estate. In some of the conquered countries, where
the rights of women had been respected, she was allowed
half a son's share, but in strictly Moslem countries her prop-
erty rights and her existence were merged, first in 4ier father,
and then in her husband. While the doctrines of polygamy
may be said to have been firmly established in Arabia, Tur-
key, Persia, Egypt and Central Asia, the conquerors failed to
establish it to any considerable extent in India and some other
countries supposed to be at one time Mahometan. This vio-
lation of nature has recoiled on the Mahometan system, and
is one of the chief causes of its overthrow. Such homes as
the Moslem law and custom made can never permanently
build up a great progressive race. The degradation of woman
will, in the end, produce the degradation of man.

The other element of strength to Mahomet and his followers
was the war of conquest. The world was then full of adven-
turers ready to follow any standard to power and plunder.
Teeming multitudes, born under the most adverse circum-
stances, were constantly swarming from the deserts of Arabia.
Like the locusts which came from the "wilderness," where
there seemed to be no green thing, they darkened the air by
their untold hosts. The shepherd kings who conquered

SPOILS TO THE VICTOR. 145

Egypt were the spawn of this seemingly barren region.
Twice, at least, all Northern Africa had been overrun by them
before the time of Mahomet. Many circumstances had con-
spired to produce a great population in Arabia a few genera-
tions before the time of the prophet. Warlike Greek and
Roman armies no longer marched past her, bent on the conquest
of the world. The Chaldean and Babylonian had passed
away, and the Syrian and Persian empires were broken.
Jerusalem was a ruin on a hill. Times had changed. Over
what was left of the Greek and Roman empires, Christianity
had settled, and was endeavoring to lead a long enslaved and
besotted people by its teachings into the doctrines of peace.
Few enemies harassed the Arabs. Commerce was rich and
flourishing ; the Arabic hosts were ready to swarm.

It was no small inducement to offer a race of profes-
sional robbers the conquest and plunder of the world, and to
lead them to the task inspired by a fanatical sense of religious
duty. They had the elements of power; Mahomet gave
the inspiration. They had no organization, and he organized
them. Every active man amongst them hoped to become
a prince. The civilized world was then weak. At the
sieges of Autioch and Damascus the Arabs were reviled for
being a despised and beggarly race, who tied a starvation
belt around their waists and lived on barley. On the death
of Mahomet, his successor, Abubeker, had first the task of
reducing the rebels. They had refused to pay the zakat,
and those of them who could be reached were crushed and
punished. Several new pretenders arose and wrote modified
versions of the Alcoran, but were overthrown. Having
established the authority of the caliphate at Medina, he sent
for the chiefs of the Arabs. An army flocked to Medina
and were not slow to remind this apostle vicar that they
wanted rations.* He would have preferred to wait for a

* Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 167.
13

146 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

larger force, but it was "go" or "mutiny/ 7 and he sent
them out for the conquest of Syria. The commander sent
the greater part of the first spoils from a fallen city to the
caliph at Medina, who distributed them, and this procured
plenty of recruits immediately. The Moslem doctrine, that
a to the victor belong the spoils," allured to their standard
unscrupulous adventurers from all parts of the earth.

It is not desired, in this chapter, to give a detailed history
of the conquests of the Saracens. In an incredibly short
period they overran Syria, the greater part of Asiatic Greece,
Egypt and Northern Africa. The caliph kindly enjoined his
generals to be just and even indulgent to all who professed
the faith. They demanded that the conquered should embrace
Islamism, but they often compounded for a nominal acqui-
escence and the payment of tribute. This soon swelled the
revenues of the caliph and his deputies, and the amounts
received seem almost beyond credence. A large portion of the
world at the feet of these semi-barbarous conquerors furnished
the money to carry on military operations. Spain was invaded
and finally conquered from the Goths. Mahometanism was
carried into India and even China. The dynasty of Ommi-
ades, seated at Damascus, gave law from the Ganges to the
Pillars of Hercules. With the increase of wealth and power
came refinement. The scholars of all nations were encouraged
to come to the court of the caliph. In Spain, as elsewhere,
the Saracen rulers encouraged intermarriages with the con-
quered people. In Northern Africa, before the Moslem
conquest, two races, both of Asiatic origin, occupied the country,
the Berbers and the Moors. The former were the oldest
occupants ; they were or had been allied or mixed with the
Carthaginians. The Moors and the Berbers were enemies.
Christianity mixed with Paganism existed among them. The
Moors, who were of Arabian blood, naturally fused with the
Mahometan conquerors. Not so, the Berbers, who were never
altogether subdued. When the Saracenic armies were present

SLAVERY AND WILL MAKING. 147

they would submit, pay tribute and accept the Koran ; but
when the armies left, went back to their old ways and their
old religion. To punish them, severe examples were made
and a fortified city built some thirty-five leagues from the site
of Carthage, called Kairwan.*

Slavery was one of the curses of the Moslem govern-
ments. Like polygamy, it had existed before Mahomet's
time ; but in founding his religion, instead of uttering teach-
ings and laws against it, he systematized and made it worse.
Nor was it confined to the slavery of an alien or despised
race. Slaves of every hue and from every clime filled the
Saracenic and Turkish bazaars. Even in these modern times,
when slave trading has been outlawed in Christian countries,
one of the few slave markets left is under the shadow of the
crescent. In the earlier days of Mahometanism, the faithful
were enjoined not to enslave a believer, but this distinction
was not maintained. The prophet recommended the manu-
mission of slaves as a charitable act. The closest relations
existed between the slaves and their masters. The child of a
free woman was free even if her husband was a slave, and the
child of a slave mother was a slave even if its father was free.f
The marriage of a male or female slave is not lawful with-
out the owner's consent. A slave was sometimes permitted to
carry on business, on giving his master a share of his
profits.

Mussulmen are not agreed on the question of the power to
make a will. Acting under more modern inspiration, one set
of Mahometan lawyers hold that limited wills are lawful; the
more rigid hold that they are not lawful, and that the attempt
to dispose of property by will is an attempt to dispose of a
thing after the title has become void in the proprietor. J Even
under the constructions that permit of will making, a bequest

* Ockley's History of the Saracens, page 349.

t Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. i., page 436. J Ibid., vol. iv., page 467.

148 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

of more than one-third of the property is not valid, while a
will made in favor of part of the legal heirs is not valid with-
out the consent of other heirs.* In many Mahometan coun-
tries, especially in Hindostan, it has been customary to dedicate
houses, lauds and other fixed as well as movable property, for
the use of the poor and the support of religion. While the
Moslem law cut off women, in India and other ' countries
overrun by Mahometans, the separate rights of property of
women had to be recognized ; but the Mahometan lawyers
have steadily opposed and tried to reduce the "Stridhan," or
female separate property, even there. f By the Koran, Ma-
hometan traders are exempted from paying impost duties in ex-
cess of 2 J per cent. The want of a good land system, affording
proper tenure and thus building up an independent agricultural
population, was one of the sources of Mahometan weak-
ness. Their governments were only held by taxation, and
where plunder ceased to offer sufficient inducements to military
adventurers, their power soon crumbled. From the time of
the overthrow of Ali, Mahomet's son-in-law, factions divided
the state. Finally, the descendants of the family of the
prophet planted the dynasty of the Abbassides on the Tigris,
and the caliph of Bagdad became the rival of the caliph of
Damascus. The Ommiades had been popular in Syria, but
never very acceptable to the Arabians. It is needless to follow
the feud or recount the frightful massacre of the Ommiades.
The dynasty of the Abbassides encouraged learning more than
the court at Damascus. One caliph of Bagdad was reproached
for putting a Christian at the head of his educational system.
Men of learning of all nations were encouraged at Bagdad.
If slavery had been forbidden a happier day might have
dawned on the toiling people of the Tigris and Euphrates.
The rulers were perhaps as good as any that region ever had,

* Hamilton's Hedaya, vol. iv!, page 470.

t Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 333.

LUXURY AND DECAY. 149

but they were aliens. Between luxury, effeminacy and slavery
the fabric finally crumbled to decay.

It is a mistake to suppose that learning or intellect will
supply the place of virtue, temperance, and the vigor that
comes of an active and useful life. With ample resources of
wealth the caliphs required slaves, not freemen, to do their
bidding. They drafted their slaves into a standing army.
These were largely Turcomans, a Tartar race that had
conquered and occupied Armenia A. D. 760. They were
active, restless, brave, and gave the Saracens a great deal of
trouble. The caliph had now an army of paid troops his
slaves ; alas, they soon became his masters ! They made and
unmade caliphs. More than one commander of the faithful,
when he became obstinate, or attempted to control these hire-
ling soldiers, was bowstrung, and a more complaisant sover-
eign placed upon the throne, and the Saracen empire, that
still gave law to a large portion of the world, became the
creature of slaves. It is not at all surprising that the Turco-
mans finally invaded an empire at once so rich and so effem-
inate. Of an accommodating spirit, the new conquerors
adopted the religion of Mahomet or what passed for it.

From A. D. 630 to 1 453, Constantinople remained in the
hands of those who were at least nominally Christians. It
resisted the Saracens in A. D. 675, and again in A. D. 718,
when the first fresh wave of Saracen conquest was vainly
expended upon it. The Arabians, with all their activity and
vigor, were not to conquer it ; but the new dominant race of
Turks had reinforced the now languid and effeminate Sara-
cens, and after a desperate attempt in 1453, Constantinople
fell after a fifty-three days' siege by the sultan Mahomet II.
The Turks had now both spiritual and temporal power, the
sultan being commander of the Faithful. Genghis Khan
finished the last vestige of Saracen power at Bagdad. At the
very time the Turks were pressing their armies around Con-
stantinople, the brilliant fabric of Saracen power and genius

150 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

was being overthrown in Spain, and thirty-nine years after
the downfall of the empire founded by Constantine, in the
same year that Christopher Columbus discovered the Amer-
icas, 1492, Grenada fell, and the last of the Moorish kings
was driven from the Spanish peninsula.

It is difficult to estimate the precise effect of Mahometan-
ism on the world's history. Its warlike operations and its
exactions of tribute we can estimate ; it is harder to weigh
justly the mark it has left on our own civilization. The wars
of the Crusades and fierce centuries of war under other names,
between the Crescent and the Cross, convulsed European
nations. There were wars of ideas and social systems, rather
than a war of nations. When Charles Martel defeated their
approach to France and Germany, he merely expressed the
purpose of the European people of that time, as did John
Sobieski when he drove them back from the walls of Vienna.
Mahometanism had become purely autocratic. It rested on no
large body of aristocrats, and for this reason her monarchs were
splendid, for they absorbed everything. They established
slavery of all kinds, and were enslaved by it. They robbed
mankind more systematically than mankind had ever been
robbed before, and perished from a surfeit of the spoils. *

The Moslem religion changed its character. Reformers
arose and tried to turn the people back to a frugal, temper-
ate life. Predestinarianism was one of the old sheet anchors
of the original fatalist Saracen faith, but sects arose contend-
ing for free will. The more startling reformation was that
of the Wahabees, who sprung up about the beginning of
the eighteenth century. This, like the ancient religion,
emanated from Arabia, and endeavored to reform the empire
founded by the Turks. They declared against all the orna-
ments in churches, figures, or anything pertaining to idolatry
which the Wahabees claimed were innovations foreign to the
faith. They insisted on the ancient rigid temperance ; even
tobacco and opium were proscribed. Many of the old simple

DISSEXTERS AND REFORMERS. 151

practices had, as they believed, gone into disrepute, and forms
had taken the place of the zealous fanaticism that founded
the empire. They said the religion taught by Mahomet had
become utterly corrupt, and unauthorized portions inserted in
the Koran. They even deprecated the worship at the shrine*
of the Prophet, or the attempt to represent him as possessing
miraculous powers. Mahomet, they held, was but a mortal,
and though charged with a divine mission, he was only a
prophet, and that all men were equal before God. Take it
all in all, there was nothing particularly vicious in the doc-
trines of the Wahabees, but two causes brought them to
trouble. The sultan of Turkey, after the authority of the
Turcomans had been properly settled, assumed beside his
temporal powers the function of commander of the Faithful.
He was the head of the church, as well as the state. In a
despotism like the Turkish government, it is hardly to be
supposed that its head would acquiesce in the claims of a new
pretender to subvert its institutions. The innovations which
had been made on Mahometanism were generally profitable
ones. They concerned great interests in the church and state.
All the men of good position and means objected to the
professed reforms, as such people usually flo to any reforma-
tion or change. Whatever Abdul Wahab, or anybody else
might think, changes were dangerous. The men proposing
them were fanatics. Mihidis, or " Mahdis," " Directors of
the Faithful,' 7 were always arising. They were liable to rise as
often as any one supposed he had a divine mission, or could get
any number of persons to believe it. There had been one in
the ninth century who had given a good deal of trouble, and
a good many more, small and great, came after him. The
wealthy, powerful and comfortably-established persons in the
empire, whatever they might be inclined to believe in a theo-
retical way, set their faces like flint, against all these innova-
tions, as there was no telling where they might lead. If the
personal Worship of Mahomet, as a god, had crept in and been

152 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

established for a few hundred years, these classes, whatever
their private opinions, would have resisted to the uttermost
all attempts to interfere with it. The other cause for opposi-
tion from the Sultan was, that this movement of the Waha-
bees, in Arabia, looked like a race jealousy, to seize the
control of the Mahometan religion from the Turks. After
a century of trouble, and no small amount of bloodshed, the
Porte was able, some years ago, to announce the final and
total overthrow of the Wahabees. It is useless to deny that
a deep-seated sentiment, impregnated with the ideas set forth
by the Wahabees, has been scattered broadcast over the Turk-
ish empire. The Turkish government would have perished
long ago if several so-called "Christian governments" had
not been interested in propping it up.

The Bedouin Arabs have for some time been a merely
nominal portion of the Turkish Church. So long as they
were well paid for their pains, they were zealous enough, but
now the Turks, who have the responsibility of government
on their shoulders, are compelled to make some effort to check
these marauding bands, and the latter are not particularly
interested in either the church or the state. " The religion
of Mahomet was hot intended for us," they say. Referring
to its requirements for frequent washings or cleansing by
water, they add : " We have no water in the desert, how
can we make ablutions ? We have no money, how can we
give alms ? The fast of Ramadan is a useless command to
persons who fast all the year round. If God is everywhere,
as the books say, why should we go to Mecca to adore him ? "
The fatal weaknesses of the church of Mahomet were funda-
mental. While Christianity proclaimed doctrines of peace,
Mahometanism proclaimed war. Military plunder and high-
way robbery, as avocations, are in a decline, and, with them,
Mahometanism. Mahomet, although his success in life was
due to his wife, degraded women, and this undermined all the
governments founded on his ideas. They had no laud polity,

CONDITION OF THE WORKING PEOPLE. 153

and did not build up healthy communities. They cling to
slavery, when all the rest of the world are setting their faces
against it.

In estimating the effects of Mahometanism on the happi-
ness of mankind, the proper way is to see in what condition
it found the nations it touched, and the situation in which it
left them. Arabia, independent of the spoils it obtained, was
not improved by it at any time. Egypt, for a while, rallied
under its influence, for it had long suffered under even worse
governments. In the first century of Moslem power a canal
was cut from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, and agricul-
ture and commerce seemed to revive. Egypt, to-day, is in a
frightful condition. To say that the common people and la-
borers are poor does not half state the case ; they are deplorably
wretched. The revenues extorted from them for rent cripples
industry, and has more than half destroyed the powers of
production of the richest country in the world. Decaying
Mahometanism sits on Northern Africa like a nightmare.
The navies of Christendom prevent the Barbary ports from
being dens of pirates, but the desert is still the abode of wan-
dering robbers. !No system of independent, honest citizenship
has been founded. There is no encouragement to settle down
to steady husbandry, for a fixed habitation only subjects those
attempting to have it to the exactions of rulers and the bri-
gandage of the lawless. In all the Mahometan countries in
Asia, government and society is in the closing stages of a long
decline. The condition of the laboring people to-day is one
of poverty, dependence and hardship. It is even true that
the people on the Tigris and Euphrates are worse off than the
denizens of that region were in the days of the Chaldeans and
Babylonians. Security to the laborer does not exist. The
Mahometans found them an oppressed people, and they are
now more oppressed. In the ancient Greece of Asia and
Europe, which is largely the modern Turkey of to-day, the
condition is but little less deplorable. An independent,

154 MAHOMETAN INSTITUTIONS.

manly body of citizens is not to be found. In spite of the
splendors of the first three centuries of the Saracenic rule,
the countries conquered have never since been prosperous.
Part of Greece has escaped the political dominion of the
Turk, but has not yet been able to rise above the Moslem in-
fluence of centuries. The European countries, formerly under
Mahometan rule, which are now nominally Christian states,
are the lowest in the scale of civilization in Christendom.
Spain is the last of these states to listen to the demand for the
abolition of slavery.

The spirit that made Mahometanism the enemy of aristoc-
racy has long since been lost in a government of petty satraps,
deputies and janizaries. In no part of the world is official
life more corrupt. Public offices have long been shamelessly
sold for presents or cash. The amounts paid for some of the
most lucrative of these places is almost incredible. A vacancy
is a godsend to a sultan or a pacha. The new incumbent not
only pays to get in, but he well knows that he must pay to
keep in. A Turkish ruler soon forgets the officer who does
not remind him of his existence by valuable presents. Power
thus shamelessly bought is exercised with heartless rapacity.
The people are pitilessly robbed, and there is no means
among them to build up popular organization and power.
The aristocrats of Northern and Western Europe, as they
listen with alarm to every advancing footstep in the march of
human progress, can compare with pride their condition to that
of Mahometan countries, where in one-third of the world
human rights hardly exist, and, boastful of their position,
call all reforms the effervescent froth of an agrarian rabble.

We may be amazed at the rapid decline of a religion once
so powerful, but our surprise must be greater that human
reverence for the Mahometan idea of the divine should so
enslave the judgment, that a hundred millions of people yet
accept its teachings, and that at the call of the Muezzin vast
hosts still fall prostrate in prayer, with their faces to Mecca.

CHAPTER VI.
LAND AND LABOR IN RUSSIA AND ASIATIC COUNTRIES.

Chattel title to land unknown Struggles of Turanian and Tartar Central
Asia rendered a desert by misgov eminent Rents and grazing taxes
Tartar greenbacks India the seat of allodial title and village govern-
ment Emperors, kings, warriors and corporations, merely organized
robbers Tax collecting the chief feature of imperialism The British
attempt to plant landed aristocracy in India Lord Cornwallis From
Yorktown to Bengal Sale of land for debt formerly unknown in India
Land speculation introduced "Mutiny" China and "cheap labor"
Dense population Chinese land tenure Hung Ki Rate of rent Xo
landed aristocracy Banks in China Paper money Pawnbrokers Se-
cret societies Rates of interest Civil service reform Opium vs. whis-
keyRussia a network of colonies Great and Little Russia The Mir
The vetche The village commune Land systems of Eastern and Wes-
tern Europe compared Usurpations of the Tzars Overthrow of popular
rights and government Recent attempts to liberate Russia from aristo-
crats and tyrants Russian politics Despotism and nihilism.

THE regions referred to in this chapter may be said to em-
brace half of the tillable lands on the globe. These are worthy
of especial attention, for two reasons. First, because within
this immense area there exist modes of land tenure different
from the systems that have grown up in AVestern Europe,
and, second, because in these regions we have almost every
variety of usufruct land tenure. Fee simple or chattel title
is almost unknown. Communal title ; holdings by house or
village communities; land held directly from government
upon the payment of a land tax ; land from which tribute is
exacted for the head of a military empire ; all these modes of
holding land have existed, and still exist in an infinite variety,
over the immense region which stretches from the Dnieper to
the Yellow Sea.

155

156 ASIATIC TENURES.

We have already sketched the ancient forms of society in
that part of Asia lying south and west of the Amu-Daria, or
Oxus, and our present purpose is to examine the modern con-
ditions of land tenure as they have been shaped during the
past few centuries, and as they exist to-day. It has been
scoffingly said by the Duke of Argyle, in his criticism of
Henry George,* that in India, where the land is owned by
the government, "the poverty of the masses is so abject that
millions live only from hand to mouth, and when there is
any, even a partial, failure of the crops, thousands and hun-
dreds of thousands are in danger of actual starvation."

To this region we invite the reader. This immense conti-
nent of plains, mountains, valleys, rivers and deserts, has been,
to a large extent, a sealed book to the people of Europe.
One great mountain range, the Ala-tagh, has only been known
to science for fifty years, f The great steppes and plains of
Central Asia, even where not suitable for agriculture, have
nourished numerous flocks of horses, cattle, sheep and, toward
the centre and south, camels.

Two great races of mankind, differing vastly in their natu-
ral propensities, energy and ability, divide between them now,
as they did four thousand years ago, the countries in Central
Asia.J These were the Iranian and Turkish Tartars. The
intellectual Iranians, or Persians and Hindoos of the Aryan
race, occupied the countries from the frontiers of China to the
Tigris. The Afghans are a people of Aryan descent. The
features of the people of this race are handsome, the nose
small and the beard full. The fundamental quality they
exhibit is a disposition to peaceful occupations, especially
agriculture. In this they differed from the Semitic nomads
west of the Tigris, and in Arabia, and toward the Mediterra-
nean. They also differed from the Tartar, Klapchack, Cos-

* The Prophet of San Francisco, in Nineteenth Century, for April, 1884.
| Button's Central Asia, page 319.

* Hellwald's Russians in Central Asia, page 94.

CONFLICT OF RACES AND FAITHS. 157

sack and other tribes north of them. Usually, the Amu-
Daria, or Oxus, was the line between the Turanian and
Iranian races.* The latter, indeed, planted their civilization
in the valley of Sir-Daria, or Juxartes, as well as on the
Oxus. Ancient Bactria was on the Oxus.f The Tartar and
Turks, however, often established their authority on the
Oxus, and on several occasions they crossed that river, and
did not stop their career of conquest until they reached
the Persian Gulf. The war between Buddhism and Parsee-
ism was a struggle, not only of faith, but of races, the Iranian
against the Turanian.J Persia, or Bactria, was the original
and persistent seat of the religion of Zoroaster. The region
of Central Asia may be said to have been ruined by mis-
government. It has, in former times, maintained great popu-
lations.^ The ruins of ancient cities are scattered everywhere.
One authority puts the number of cities of Transoxiana at
three hundred thousand, but Vambery pronounces this a
"gross exaggeration." The productiveness of the country
was due to the rivers and irrigating canals, which were so
numerous and extensive as to interfere materially with travel
and commerce. 1 1

The great northern regions of Asia and Northeastern Europe
were the home of nomads, shepherds, hunters and soldiers.
They consisted of many tribes, from the Mongolian nomads
on the extreme east to the Cossacks and Kirghiz Kazaks.
They had no fixed habitations but traveled from place to place
with their flocks, herds and families. This hardy, active life
inured them to war and conquest. The most noted conqueror
of this race was Genghis Khan, who overran Asia, conquering
China. His chiefs held Bokhara for a century and a half,

* Vambery's History of Bokhara, page 10.
f Hellwald's Russians in Central Asia, page 75.
J Vambery's History of Bokhara, page 14.
\ Introduction to Vambery's History of Bokhara, page 34.
|| Hellwald's Russians in Central Asia, page 78.
14

158 ASIATIC TENURES.

expelling the Arab rulers from Central Asia. Genghis Khan
tolerated all the prominent religions, Buddhism, Christianity,
Mahometauism and Parseeism. A few generations later came
Timour the Tartar, of the same stock although not of the royal
family. He began his career by being a robber. At one time
he had but a handful of followers, and, finally, by intrigue
and violence, stretched his authority over Central Asia. He
professed to be a Mahometan, but from the description of the
Spanish traveler, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who visited Samar-
cand in 1403, it is evident that the variety of Mahometan ism
practiced at his court was not of a very rigid kind. Public
drinking of wine, in which the monarch, his guests, and even
the ladies of his court participated, was carried to such an
extent that public exhibitions of gross drunkenness were
frequent.* The same authority informs us that most of the
Mahometan sovereigns of Central Asia died of delirium trem-
ens. In his day, Samarcaud was the great entrepot of trade
for Central Asia. Silks were brought from China, furs from
Siberia, spices from India, and various articles from Europe.
In China, what was lefl of the dynasty of Genghis Khan was
overthrown by a Chinese adventurer in 1368, who founded
the dynasty of Ming. Ckoo-yuen-chang, its founder, had in
youth been a common laborer, then a scullion in the temple,
then a soldier, and Markham informs us, was "promoted" to
be a robber captain. From this elevation it appears that he
was able to reach the throne.

We gather, from the narrative of the dignified Spanish
ambassador, some few glimpses of the condition of the people.
He tells us, that in the deserts of Khorassan the people
had no dwelling place but tents; they wander winter and
summer. In the latter season they frequent the banks of the
rivers and sow their corn, cotton and melons. They also
raise millet, which they mix with milk, and this constitutes

* Hakluyt. Markham's Trans. Narrative of Clavijo, page 139.

TARTAR RENT AND TAXES. 159

much of their food. In the winter they seek warmer regions.*
These people were Zagatays or Toorkmaus. The "Zaga-
tays" were a cruel and rapacious race, and made raids
through Khorrassan and other regions. To be in training for
these predatory incursions they recruited their horses for a
month, and having sent spies out to find suitable victims would,
on their report, proceed to the place indicated with the utmost
rapidity. It has been alleged that they sometimes rode six
hundred miles in six days. They usually attacked the unsus-
pecting town or village at daybreak, and the struggle was soon
over. The people and everything of value were carried off,
and the prisoners who were not ransomed, after being treated
with shocking cruelty, were sold in the Turkish slave market
at Khiva. f These nomads, the Spanish ambassador says,
spoke a different language from the Persian, and seemed to
be everywhere. Of another of these bands, the Albares, the
Spaniard says : " These people possess nothing but their black
cloth tents and flocks of sheep and cattle and twenty thousand
camels. They pay the lord (Timour) a yearly tribute of three
thousand camels and fifteen thousand sheep for the right of
grazing in his territories." J

Markham, in his Life of Timour, informs us that the rent
was one-third of the produce of all irrigated lahd. There
was, beside this, however, an assessment in addition for the
water from the canals for irrigation. Any cultivator who
built a tank or otherwise placed fresh land in cultivation, or
planted an orchard or trees, had such tracts exempted from
taxes or rent for the first and second year. The Sassanian
kings of Persia exacted a tax or rent of one-third of the
produce. When calamity overtook the crops the cultivator
was sometimes able to borrow relief from the government.

*Hakluyt. Markham's Trans. Narrative of Clavijo, page 112.

t Ibid., page 116. + Ibid., page 107.

\ Hakluyt, Markham's Life of Timour, page 30.

160 ASIATIC TENURES.

In Asia the land tax is the chief source of revenue of all
governments, good and bad.

The Hindu kings exacted one-sixth of the produce, and in
addition a poll tax. Central Asia, we are told by one of the
most enlightened writers on the subject, "has been the foul
ditch into which has been emptied all the worst vices of
Mahometanism added to the vices of the Tartars."

The land tax in Central Asia was supplemented at all times
by numberless other exactions, levied to meet the expenses of
wars or the marriage of a son or daughter of the ruler or tax
collector. Messengers, troops, escorts and ambassadors, as
they traveled over the country, were supported by the people.
Don Gonzalez found that these parties were always pro-
vided with three times the amount required. The approach
of such a party to a town was a great calamity. The traders
shut their shops and fled. The first man met was beaten
until he conducted them to the chief of the town, who was
also beaten if he did not promptly furnish all that was de-
manded. The people had to watch the stock of the visitors
night and day, and make good a horse or camel if one should
be lost, and, finally, the orders were to put to death any one
who should obstruct these proceedings. Our Spanish ambas-
sador passed through one region freshly abandoned. A
" lord " had passed with his army, and because provender was
not furnished, they took all the growing grain. On this
calamity the inhabitants left the country.

In addition to the rent and grazing tax these Tartar rulers
had other sources of revenue. Timour carried away all the
artisans and good laborers he could find during his raid
through Eastern Asia, and took not less than one hundred
thousand of these as slaves to Samarcand. The king had a
ferry at the Oxus which was closely guarded to prevent the
escape of these slaves. Any one could enter Transoxiana, but
no one without a passport could cross it to the south and east.
Those who were ferried over paid a heavy toll. The khan

ASIATIC GREENBACKS. 161

also set up gates, or held the passes to India, Afghanistan
and China, and all merchants, travelers or others on passing
paid a heavy tribute.

Marco Polo and Rubruquis, in their narratives, confirm
what Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo narrates. The two former told
so much that was marvelous, that at least one of them, Marco
Polo, has passed down to our time as a romancer and liar.
Later investigations have tended to restore his reputation as a
correct observer. The Venetian traveler visited China during
the reign of the Great Khan. His description of the paper
money introduced into China by the Tartar conquerors is
worthy of note. He describes how the paper on which the
national notes were printed was made from the inner bark of
certain trees, and cut into pieces "nearly square, but some-
what longer than they are wide." These notes are of many
denominations, some of them very small. He adds : " The
coinage of this paper money is authenticated with as much
form and ceremony as if it actually were of pure gold and
silver, for to each note a number of officers, especially ap-
pointed, affix their names and signets. When this has been
regularly done by all of them, the principal officer, deputed
by his majesty, having dipped into vermilion the royal seal,
stamps with it the piece of paper, so that the form of the seal,
tinged with vermilion, remains upon it, by which it receives
full authenticity as current money." *

Vambery tells us that Asia, left to herself, produces hardly
anythmg.f Her irrigating canals have largely disappeared.
Some of them in the early times reached one hundred miles
from the river. Ten years of warlike disturbance is sufficient
to turn the most fertile region into a desert. The ruins of
the ancient cities are known by the mounds and heaps of dust
and sand.

Hellwald states that the aspiring chief who would found

* Wright's Marco Polo, page 216. f History of Bokhara, page 32.

162 ASIATIC TENURES.

an empire in Afghanistan, must, as little as possible, limit
or interfere with the independence of the tribes. They
are largely an agricultural people, holding their lands and
governing themselves by the village community system.
Shere Ali nearly had his throne overturned a few years
ago, upon his attempting to organize his army on the Euro-
pean plan.

An increase of population made a redistribution of land,
or emigration, necessary, which latter was often instituted by
the town authorities. The system of allowing individual
owners or landlords to create a mode of exacting tribute or
rent from the land, independent of the state, is very obnoxious
to Asiatic ideas.

When it is said that land has been nationalized in Asiatic
countries, a mistake is made. No great government has ever
risen to develop or elaborate such a policy. The systems of
land tenure were older than the governments, and were local.
The town or community regulated its own aifairs, and, so far
as it was concerned, recognized the rights of every one in the
community to a share in the lands controlled or occupied by
them. This was a law or custom among these people. The
questions that might arise as to the amount of land each should
occupy, or changes in the occupancy of a family were dis-
cussed in the town meeting, and had to be satisfactory to all
concerned.

It will thus be seen that the governments of Asia were one
thing, and the land system quite another. If the govern-
ments had legitimately earned the tax or rent, by affording
protection, and providing, as they sometimes professed to do,
a fund to relieve the destitute from calamitous seasons, little
complaint would have been made of them.

India has always been considered one of the richest and
most productive empires of the world. Surprise has been
expressed at the extreme poverty of the people at the time it
became an appanage of the British government. The Mogul

EAST INDIA COMPANY. 163

empire, founded by Baber, in 1519, was tottering to its fall
before the middle of the seventeenth century. Petty chiefs
had arisen in every direction, too strong to be controlled by
his successors. They plundered the people mercilessly. All
security was at an end. It was in 1658 that Arungzebe de-
posed his father and murdered his brethren. Four years
later Bengal was ceded to England by the Portuguese, as part
of the dower of Caroline, queen of Charles II. The Portu-
guese had at that time, and long after, a commercial standing
in the Indian Ocean, and claimed a good deal by right of
discovery, but could not, in any sense, be said to possess
Bengal. A company of English merchants had been char-
tered, in 1600, to trade in India. The French created an
East India Company in 1664, and both of these corporations,
not content with mere merchandising, undertook the business
of colonizing, ruling and conquering. A " war " between the
English and French companies broke out in 1 746. In this
war native rulers took part on each side. Native soldiers
were enlisted by both companies. The French were sub-
stantially beaten in 1760, and after the battle of Buxar the
Nabob surrendered the revenues of Bengal, Bahar and Orissa
to the British East India Company. So far, the people of
India had been compelled to pay rent to military chiefs, called
emperors, kings, moguls and nabobs, and now an English
company, under a British charter, set up a claim to be uni-
versal landlord in three states, and compelled the natives to
pay rent. Corporations have done many things in their time,
but this was, undoubtedly, the crowning act of corporate
impudence. The company extended its power and increased
its exactions until parliament became ashamed of its rapacity,
or covetous of its authority. The British peers and com-
mons first inquired into its conduct, and then, by Act after
Act, stripped it of its privileges, " vested rights/ 7 to the con-
trary, notwithstanding. The impeachment of Hastings was
political in its character as much as judicial. The trial of the

164 ASIATIC TENURES.

governor-general, and investigations by parliament, were
merely the steps by which that body wrested the empire of
India from a corporation and made it a colony of the British
crown.

Under a tropical sun the inhabitants of the lower peninsula
seem to be enervated and helpless before every species of
governmental vagabondism. Violence and war injected
Buddhism into the ancient Hindu faith. Alexander at-
tempted to introduce Greek ideas and Greek rulers. By the
time Mahometanism had reached India, its dogmas and
morals had gone through so many metamorphoses that its
founder would hardly have recognized it. Amidst all these
vicissitudes and changes, the old Aryan system of landholding
remained.

Sir George Campbell, for some time commissioner of the
central provinces of India, complains of the extreme difficulty
of getting title to land there on account of the complexity of
both Hindu and Mahometan laws of inheritance. So many
people have a divided interest in the land, that after a man
has bought land he is liable to find other owners than those
from whom he purchased. This merely arose from the fact
that neither Hindu or Mahometan laws were framed for the
purpose of selling land. The Mahometan laws of inheritance
were very different from the Hindu, as the latter give women
equal rights, and recognize, so far as laud is concerned, an
equal division among all. The variety of Mahometanism in-
troduced by Baber secured a better collection of the taxes, and
reduced woman's property one-half, in portions of India. It
is therefore not singular that Sir George inveighs against
the difficulty of making a chattel title. The only wonder is
that he found it possible to make one at all.

In India the government claims and collects rent or tribute
from the land. The proportion of grain taken varies from
one-half to one-fourth, the former being deemed an excessive,
and the latter a light rent. The most common is about two-

HIXDU VILLAGE. 165

fifths.* Where irrigation is supplied the share of the culti-
vator is proportionally less. In each separate community
there is, by long practice, a fixed rate of charges, and also of
the fees of collectors, which could not be changed except by
a very strong government or by revolution. In various in-
sidious ways the deputy, or local ruler, contrives to squeeze
the people a little more by encouraging or exacting gratuities,
or extra fees, on the marriage of his daughter, or any other
similar event that might seem to furnish an apology for it.f
Previous to British rule the rent had been commuted to money
rates.J Hindu, Mahometan and British rulers, alike, claimed
rent from the soil of India. Sir George estimates that before
British rule in India the most iniquitous exactions were made
from the cultivators, especially upon the old residents who had
made some improvements, such as digging wells and planting
trees, which they could not move away, and would have to
abandon in case they ceased to pay rent. These old holders
of farms had usually the first choice, but this availed them
little when additional exactions were fastened upon them,
which they were unable to pay. Outside of rent to the
government, the affairs of the people were largely managed
by themselves. The bond which holds a community together
is municipal. The arable land is divided, each farm being
held by the family from its ancestors, provided they pay the
rent to the government. The waste and grazing lands are
held in common. When sums of money are received from
the latter, they go into the common fund. A jat village
consists of a community of freemen of one caste, held tradi-
tionally together. A village may be subdivided into two or
three parts, each held by different castes. Every man has
his share, which is generally ploughed land.|| The commu-
nity is managed by a council of elders, who rule only so long

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 220. t I^d., page 221.

% Ibid., page 222. I Ibid., page 223. || Ibid.

166 ASIATIC TENURES.

as they retain the confidence of the people. These town or
village elders conduct all negotiations with the government,
in point of fact, their relations with the state are chiefly of a
diplomatic character. The elders may or may not get a small
perquisite for their trouble. It must be voluntary as they
have no means of collecting it. Many republics have been
served at one time or other by slaves, usually of a race con-
sidered inferior. These East Indian communities have
nothing exactly like chattel slavery, but they have usually a
small body of servile laborers who do not exercise the same
rights as a village proprietor.* These laborers in many cases
cultivate a small piece of land, which they hold on the same
terms as others, or more usually rent from one of the villagers.
They live by odd jobs, and by assisting at the more laborious
tasks. They usually consist of those who prefer thus to
attach themselves to a village where they have no hereditary
rights. In Cashmere and lower Bengal, the villages have
less cohesion, and are subject to more changes in their popula-
tion. Although Mahometanism has dominated in India for
several hundred years, the Hindu or Brahminical religion is
still numerically the strongest. The former was more demo-
cratic and active, the latter more conservative and exclusive.
Distinctions in India come from caste and blood rather than
wealth.

In the long period of anarchy that occurred between the
decline of Mahometanism in India and the rise of the British
power, a very considerable amount of land had been aban-
doned by the cultivators, and these ryots, as cultivators are
termed, were in great demand. An Indian ruler, who is only
a landlord with limited privileges, depends for his income
entirely on the number of active producing ryots in his do-
minions. The breaking up of the Mogul empire turned loose
a petty set of usurpers, whose wasteful rapacity almost ruined

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 224.

IMPROVEMENTS NOT A LIEN. 167

agricultural interests in India. War, famine and pestilence
had weakened or abolished many of the old villages, and
many farms had been taken by new cultivators, who claimed
no hereditary right to the soil. The commons, or unoccupied
lands, were recognized as part of the heritage of the village
for pasture and timber. There was no clearly defined law
giving any right of occupancy to non-proprietary holders, or
those who do not belong to the village, but there was a dis-
tinction perfectly understood that where a stranger coming
among them was permitted to improve a farm, as long as he
paid his full share of all the burdens borne by the others, he
should not be disturbed. The distinction was between such
parties and those who moved about from place to place, culti-
vating patches of laud merely on paying the rent. Questions
sometimes arose between the old hereditary town proprietors
and those who had been permitted to settle among them, and
in cases where it was understood by the town that the occu-
pation was not to be permanent, great jealousy was created
where such modern squatters or settlers by digging wells,
planting trees or making other valuable permanent improve-
ments, attempted to render it difficult for the town to get rid
of them if the interests of the community should require it.
As a usual thing, improvements on the soil, while they are
held to be the personal property of the man who puts them
there, gives him no lien on the land, or even continuous right
to hold it. When, from any cause, the person holding land,
closed his connection with it, he usually removed all the
material he had placed upon it which was of sufficient value
to warrant his doing so, such as the wood-work, matting,
roofing or other movable parts of the building. This custom
may have had the eifect of preventing the erection of valuable
permanent houses ; but as evictions are rarely heard of, it is
more likely to be the result of the predatory and warlike
habits of the various military governments, which have
preyed upon, rather than ruled, the Indian peninsula.

168 ASIATIC TENURES.

The term ryot, while it is used generally in reference to the
cultivators of the soil, is not an Indian word, but an intru-
sive one, from the Arabic, literally, " protected one/ 7 and is
used and applied indiscriminately to cultivators, weavers,
carpenters and laborers. It is said to resemble the English
word "subject"; it also means that they do not belong to the
government, or official class. The zemeendar, or zemindar,
was strictly an officer. He was the representative of the
government which levied the taxes or tribute. It is a Per-
sian word, and the zemindars had their chief importance
under the Mahometan rule.

The few cases of individual proprietorship of land that are
to be found in India are looked upon with a very unfavor-
able eye. Public opinion reprobates it as the most fatal
social or political heresy, and even in their language, the
term landlord and robber are the same word.* The tendency
of everything Hindu is to become hereditary ; not a discrimi-
nating or invidious hereditary claim, to be raised or urged
against the different members of the family, for their rights
are all equal ; but the son of a Hindu, by mere birth, becomes
the partner of his father. The zemindar, as a tax collector,
came in with the Mahometan rulers, the Hindu mode of col-
lecting the tax being through the elders of the village. The
zemindar was not originally a hereditary officer, for there is
nothing hereditary in the Mahometan system. When the
Hindu became a zemindar, which was sometimes the case, he
usually wanted one of his sons to succeed him. In some
cases such succession was had, but not as a right, for he was
liable to removal at any moment, and had the extremely diffi-
cult task of being compelled to satisfy the monarch who
received the taxes and the ryot who paid them. Farming
out imposts to speculators was not only unpopular, but
rarely resorted to ; never, save in the case of a weak ruler.

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 230.

BRITISH LAND POLICY. 169

The grade of rent, or tax, had long been fixed, and the
speculator, in such cases, had to make his profit out of the
government. All the collectors, or middlemen, whether con-
tractors, zemindars or governors, were merely agents of the
government. There was nothing in the positions of the par-
ties resembling landlord or tenant. Under native rule, the
rights of the people in the land, whatever they may be, are
not bought and sold in the market.* When a cultivator
could not meet his engagements, he might, with the approval
of the community, make a contract with another party to
cultivate the land and pay his debts. On repaying all that
was due under this contract he might be permitted to resume
his holding, which was, however, at all times, subject to the
rights of any of his family connection. Seizure and sale of
laud for private debt was wholly unknown.! This idea had
not entered into the native imagination.

Such was the system the British found in India. The
people had always contributed largely of their substance to
sustain the government, and had usually been poorly governed.
Indeed, a thoroughly organized, intermeddling, penetrating
government, with new local forms, it would have been diffi-
cult to establish and impossible to maintain. Paying rent
they were familiar with. They had paid it to native rulers
who had stretched authority over their country; had
paid it to Greek, Persian, Turk or Tartar ; why should they
not continue to pay it to the East India Company, or the
British government? They, of course, expected that the
government collecting rents or taxes would be willing to let
their local affairs alone. The East Indian political expert
disliked everything that was not British. His whole instincts
drove him to intermeddle. A few of them, to their credit be
it said, endeavored to comprehend the Oriental idea of land-
holding, and even admitted some of its excellencies, but with

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 231. t Ikid., page .232,

170 ASIATIC TENURES.

the most of them the system had several great drawbacks, the
chief of which was that the British had no stable and in-
terested power in the country that they could lean on.
Europeans, who wished to become great planters, had no
adequate way of getting land, and the power to increase the
revenues whenever the ruler desired was lacking. The idea
that had been growing up in Western Europe, of land as a
source of wealth, independent of its tillage, and of power and
social standing outside of wealth, could not be contented with
the East Indian system. All the adventurers and speculators
thirsted for the introduction of modern European chattel
landholding. One of the most early and noted of British
East India politicians was Lord Cornwallis. To console him
for his defeats in the war against the rights of the American
people, and the humiliation of Yorktown, he was made gov-
ernor-general of India, in 1786. A short time prior to this,
after his return from America, he had been, or tried to be,
viceroy of Ireland. His experience on that island was little
to his own credit, and still less to the advantage of Ireland,
so he was translated to the realm from which Warren Hast-
ings had been deposed. The field before him, while a much
easier and safer one than the subjugation of the turbulent
American colonies, turned out to be beset with difficulties
almost as insurmountable. The British in India at that time
had hardly encountered the more warlike hill tribes, and the
Bengalee seemed incapable of protracted resistance, but still
he clung with the utmost tenacity to his old forms of society.
That Lord Cornwallis should neither comprehend nor appre-
ciate the Indian system of land tenure, inheritance and social
regulations was natural enough. His conception of progress
and refinement were received from the beautiful homes and
parks of the British landed aristocracy, and it certainly had
little in common with the East Indian system. Men of more
ability than he had turned their attention to Indian politics,
Hastings was not destitute of ability, and the reputed author

MONOPOLIES. 171

of Junius, Sir Philip Francis, was one of the early British
rulers in India. Lieutenant-Colonel Dow, of the Company's
service, not only translated from the Persian a history of
Hindostau, but embraced in it a statement of the errors of the
" Company and the proposed remedies" for them. The Com-
pany, not content with its revenues from land, had created
monopolies in some articles of necessary or universal use. The
price of salt was raised two hundred per cent, in this way.*
Tobacco and the betel-nut, generally used, also fell into the
hands of a monoply. The author of the "Inquiry" states
that in 1767 the expense of the Bundabust, or yearly settle-
ment, amounted to twenty-seven and a half per cent, of the
revenue, which was shared between Mahomet Riza and the
bankers of Murshedabad.f He further states that the place
of the Company's resident at the nabob's court was honestly
worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year. What
this functionary really made it yield him it would be impos-
sible to conjecture. A mode of practically levying a tax on
the silver coinage was invented by some bankers, at Murshed-
abad, and the nabob and the British residents did not scruple
to adopt and continue it.J

Our scholarly lieutenant-colonel, in his "Inquiry," which
was intended for the use of the British government, recom-
mends as to religion "a perfect toleration," and says: "We
may use the Indians as we can in this world, but let them
serve themselves as they can in the next." He recommends
the abolition of monopolies and the establishment of a paper
currency and submits a proposal to establish landed property
in India. He asks : " Let, therefore, the Company be em-
powered by an Act of Parliament to dispose of all the lands in
Bengal and Behar, in perpetuity, for the payment of an annual
sum not much less than the present rents." He adds : "Very

* Dow's Hindostan, vol. L, dissertation, page 131.

t Ibid., page 136. % Ibid., page 147. % Ibid., page 103.

172 ASIATIC TENURES.

extensive possessions in the hands of an individual are pro-
ductive of pernicious consequences in all countries." He
therefore suggests a limit as to the amount that could be
purchased, as not to exceed on any account a rental of " fifty
thousand rupees a year." Such were the views that led to
what is called the " permanent settlement " in Bengal in 1793.
The tax-collecting zemindars were manufactured into land-
lords. The "preamble" to the form of settlement proves
that the British administrators were not ignorant of the fact,
that the zemindars did not own the land. This creation of
landlords in India was adopted as a fixed policy, and its
purpose was to establish a landed aristocracy, similar to that
of England. By these regulations and the code of laws that
accompanied them, land in Bengal, in 1793, was made trans-
ferable by sale, and in almost every respect put on the footing
of chattel property.* A creditor in Bengal was given the
most summary rights to sell for debt all the interest any one
had in land, and immediately thereafter great numbers of
ryots were sold out. It has been sarcastically said of Corn-
wallis, that he designed to make English landlords and only
succeeded in making Irish landlords. Indeed, the zemindars
did not quite comprehend the position into which they were
thus thrust. At first it was not attempted to very materially
increase the tribute or rent demanded, and the ryots for
some time scarcely understood that a fatal blow had been
struck at their rights and interests. Instead of the nominal
ten per cent, for collecting tribute, the zemindars were by this
arrangement to get twenty, and were created lords of the soil.
It was difficult to introduce the system. It is true, that a
large portion of these tax collectors did not belong to the
races over whom it was intended that they should " lord."
Dow informs us that when he wrote, towards the close of the
eighteenth century, that the zemindars were mostly Persians,

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 237.

ARISTOCRACY A FAILURE. 173

Turks, or men from the upper countries. They had been
long enough among the people, however, to understand their
former relations to them, and, in spite of the settlement, per-
mitted matters to drift on pretty much as they had done
before, and there seemed to be almost insuperable difficulties
in the way of this " inchoate " aristocracy. The next step
was to assume that all of the " unoccupied lands " were the
property of the British crown. It will be remembered that,
besides waste lands, there were public and common lands used
for grazing or timber, but all fell under the same head. It
was the ostensible purpose of the regulations for these alleged
" crown lands " to secure their improvement, and some sem-
blance of occupation and cultivation, but the grossest abuses
and corruptions at once crept into the sale, and foreign hold-
ers, mercantile and middle men began to have great estates to
be cultivated by a dependent class of hired laborers. At first
the zemindars were prohibited by the terms of the Act of
Settlement from giving a lease for more than ten years, but
these restrictions were very soon modified. Bengal is still
largely Mahometan, and owing to the jealousies between these
people and the Hindustanee, the British schemes have had
some success, although the system even there cannot be said
to be altogether established. In Oude, the British attempted
to establish the titles in officers or local nobles called talook-
dars, but the scheme has not been successful. In the Punjaub
the aristocratic scheme has failed in a measure, but very
numerous peasant proprietors have been created. In the great
central provinces the attempt to make land property has so
far almost totally failed. In the northwest provinces the con-
spiracy to plant aristocracy has been but partially successful.
The old ryots have been forced to accept fixed tenures at
fair rents. In Assam it has been impossible to introduce
the zemindars.

It must not be forgotten, that the British governors of
India had been all this time receiving great revenues from

174 ASIATIC TENURES.

the country. In the northwest provinces, even fifty years
ago, when the conquered country was not near so great as
now, they received twenty millions of dollars annually.* In
Northern India, which is largely Hindustauee, the British have
been compelled to abandon the perpetuity of land tenure, but
they have steadily pressed a system of lease with the privilege
of removals. Proceeding from these changes came attempts
to induce or force the ryots to raise indigo and opium
instead of the old products. Indigo and opium, of course,
were more profitable for exportation, and it was the British
interest to force their cultivation. This was resisted by
the natives, because it was found to have a bad effect on the
production of bread for their own people. Leases \vere made
to compel it by inserting provisions to furnish certain amounts
of indigo-material and opium with the rent. On the refusal
to do this, the rents were raised. Courts, however, had been
introduced, and the cultivator, falling back on the rights of
his people for ages, carried the case into court, claiming that
as long as the fixed rent or tribute was paid the rent could not
be changed. Much has been said of the fairness of British
rulers in India, but in this scheme to oppress the Indian
people, Chief Justice Sir Barnes Peacock decided, " That the
ryots were bound to pay a fair rent in the sense of the highest
rent attainable, that on Ithe increase in the value of produce
being shown, there was no limit to the increase demandable,
but the real profit of the cultivator," or rack rent. He decreed
the full amount claimed. The case was carried to the full
high court of fifteen, who maintained the opinion fourteen
to one.

Springing from these insidious encroachments, great land
leagues have been formed among the people. In some cases
whole communities refused to pay rent. A constant struggle
has also been carried on against the attempt to form a landed

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 247.

MUTINY. 175

aristocracy. It has been strenuously denied by Sir George
Campbell and other British rulers, that the insurrection called
" The Mutiny," in that country, was caused by these English
land expedients. It is sufficient answer to this, to recall the
fact, that wherever the British were expelled, and they were
expelled from great provinces, the landed proprietors they had
created were expelled with them. In the long career of
civilized robbery by Avhich alien rulers have exacted enormous
sums from the native people^ the British have probably given
them many wrongs to remember. There was more than one
" mutiny." In 1806, there was a Sepoy mutiny at Yellore,
when eight hundred " insurgents " were executed. Again, in
1809, at Seringapatam, and so continuing until the terrible
" Mutiny " of 1857, beginning in Bengal and spreading to the
remotest provinces. It was not a " revolution," for it was not
successful. It was not even permitted to be called an insur-
rection, but stigmatized as a " mutiny " for which the ring-
leaders were shot from the mouths of cannon.

Practically, the attempt to found a landed aristocracy in
India is still but an experiment in Bengal and can scarcely be
said to exist elsewhere. Although twice under Mahometan
rule, slavery has never flourished in India to the same extent as
in other Oriental countries. There has never been a great ser-
vile class, embracing a majority of the laboring people, which
would have been the case if the instincts of the people had not
been against it. The slavery that did exist was abolished by
the British government in 1834, and the East Indian Company,
long merely an attendant leech, ceased its connection with
Indian politics in 1858.

In spite of the sarcasm of the Duke of Argyle, it would
not be fair to attribute either the faults or the calamities of
the East Indian people to their system of land tenure. It
was, indeed, the one redeeming feature in their unhappy
lot. To call the tribute or rent exacted by alien tyrants a
" Nationalization of Land " is the most bitter irony. In all

176 ASIATIC TENURES.

the chequered vicissitudes of East Indian history, they had
at least escaped the additional exactions of a landed aristocracy,
until the British government has attempted to expose them to
its burdens and rapacity.

Until recently the vast empire of China has been almost
unknown to Europeans, and of its people, institutions and
history we are still comparatively ignorant. Not including
the vast territories which have been, and some of which still
are, connected with the empire, the eighteen provinces of
China proper contain a population of from three hundred
and fifty to four hundred millions of people.* For this em-
pire a great antiquity is claimed, and without giving credence
to a fabulous chronology enough is known to make it certain
that it has survived any other government of which we have
knowledge. The evidence also lends some color to the state-
ment that China has remained in a comparatively stationary
condition for a long time. Her forms of society, or what we
call civilization, while they differ in many respects from
ours, are, nevertheless, of a high order, and are as far re-
moved as they well can be from those of nomadic wan-
derers or barbarians. The worst features presented by
China are a dense population, much of it existing on limited
resources. They are a rice- or grain-eating people ; beef is
little used. Animal food is only eaten at intervals by the
poorer Chinese. Of the animal food consumed, pork consti-
tutes more than half.f Chickens, ducks and other fowls are
eaten ; puppies, kittens, rats, mice and various animated things
are killed and occasionally eaten. Fish of all kinds con-
stitute a staple element of food, and fish are produced in
artificial ponds. The Chinese rarely drink cold water, as
they consider it unwholesome. Tea and several other prepa-
rations are used, but coffee, chocolate and cocoa are almost
unknown, and the same may be said of beer, cider, wine,

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 270. f Ibid., page 777.

FOOD IN CHINA. 177

porter, brandy, etc.* It is proper to say that in towns visited
by Europeans, intoxicating liquors are found. Beef, though
to some extent eaten by the richer classes, is never exposed
for sale in public market, chiefly from Buddhistic prejudice, f
For the same reason, milk, butter and cheese are rarely eaten,
and a European usually disgusts a Chinese by drinking milk.
In all their cooking, oils and fats are a universal article, and
this renders most of their food unpalatable to an American.
The proportion of animal food of any kind eaten by the
Chinese is smaller than with any other nation living in the
same latitude. Cooke and other authorities agree that drink-
ing is not one of the sins of the Chinese, but opium debauches
constitute their worst vice.J They also smoke tobacco, prepa-
rations of hemp and other things. Physically, the Chinese
are not so strong as Europeans, but stronger than most of
the Oriental races. Nevius says that nearly all the men, and
many of the women use tobacco, and that where they have
been thrown in contact with Europeans they are learning to
use ardent spirits. || They are not, and so far as any authentic
records carry us, never have been, warlike. As Williams
intimates, the Chinese are the beau ideal of a nation devoted
to the "peace policy." This has led to their being overrun
and conquered on several occasions by the rude and warlike
Tartars and Mongols, active, beef-eating nomads, from the
great plains and mountain regions of Central and Northern
Asia. These conquering intruders rarely attempted any im-
portant change in the laws, customs or polity of the Chinese.
They may be said to have conquered the government rather
than the people. After a few generations the invaders grew
so effeminate that they were easily overthrown in their turn.

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 776.
f Nevius' China, page 246.
I Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 172.
\ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 91.
|| Nevius' China, page 250.

178 ASIATIC TENURES.

Landed property is held in clans and families as much as
possible.* Land is held directly from the crown, and not
entailed. If mesne lords or landed aristocracy ever existed
they are now uuknown.f The condition of land tenure is the
payment of an annual tax. When this is paid, the land and
its improvements remain in the family. While the paternal
estate may be nominally ruled by the eldest, his authority is
subject to the rights and wishes of all the others, as all share
alike. The only difference consists in a small amount allowed
to the elder for the performance of purely administrative
functions.! All of the family have a right to live on the
estate, and usually do so, the younger sons devise their interest
in perpetuity to their offspring. No change can be made in
this disposition save by some agreement and the payment of
an amount acceptable to all parties. In case of any aliena-
tion or transfer, there is a government tax, or charge, in addi-
tion to the expense of registering. Daughters in China never
inherit.|| The proprietors of land record their names in the
district where they live, and have from the government a
hung-ki, " red deed," which secures them possession as long
as the tax is paid. For convenience in mortgages and aliena-
tions, there is a "white deed," which is from the individual.
There are sometimes twenty of these, but they are only valu-
able when accompanied by the " red deed." As the expense
of any transfer through the government is equal to one-third
of the rent, these white transfers or mortgages are resorted
to. To some extent these white and red deeds resemble war-
rantee deed and patent, the difference being this, that when our
government executes a patent, it thus, in fee simple, disposes
of the proprietary interest. The Chinese official " red deed,"
on the contrary, is a family lease rather than a deed. The
law and custom permits the transfer of these, and the Chinese

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 1. f Ibid.

J Nevius' China, page 237.

\ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 2. || Ibid.

RENT, LAND, TAXES AND WAGES. 179

government would issue a fresh hung-Td in every regular case
of transfer if applied for, provided all the necessary steps to
secure every interest have been taken. A mortgagee must
enter upon, pay the taxes and use the property, in order to
give any validity to his title.* The laws and customs effectu-
ally prevent several tracts from drifting into the hands of an
owner not an occupant. A mortgage or alienation can only
cover the individual rights of those making it, and are always
subject to the rights of others. In addition, these mortgages,
or alienations, can be at any time cancelled within thirty
years, on the payment of the original sum, without interest,
the party having had the use of the land in the meantime.
This thirty years is supposed to cover the extent and value of
the improvements and pre-emptive right which constitute all
the individual interest in the soil. A full record is kept of
alienations and the amount of tax due. The amount of rent
or tax on the laud varies on account of location, fertility and
other circumstances from $1.20 to $1.30 and $1.50 per acre,
per annum, f If the tax is to be considered as rent, it is cer-
tainly not high. In Perry's expedition to Japan, he gives
the rent or land tax in the island of Loo-Choo as six-tenths
to the lord, or ruler, two-tenths to the cultivator, and two-
tenths for the expense of supervision and collection.;); The
commodore places the rate of field wages in Loo Choo at
from three to eight cents per day. Under the Chinese laws
there are provisions for reclaiming lands not under cultiva-
tion, and for securing location on new alluvial lands created
along the rivers. This can only be done on an arrangement
made with the government, or under the cognizance of its
authorities, and a certain period of time is fixed during which
no tribute is paid, as a just compensation for labor in re-
claiming land.

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 2. t Ibid.

+ Perry's Expedition to Japan, page 252.

% Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 3.

180 ASIATIC TENURES.

The Chinese may be styled gardeners rather than farmers.
The tracts held are small and usually thoroughly cultivated,
often with the spade and hoe. The buffalo, or Chinese ox, is
used for dry ploughing, and they also employ for that purpose
horses, mules, cows, and even goats. Nieuhoff represents a
Chinaman ploughing with his ass and his wife yoked together,
but Williams, while admitting that this is sometimes done,
considers it unusual. No inconsiderable portion of the agri-
cultural labor is by hand, not only because better crops are
produced, but on account of the expense of feeding large
animals. While the pig and the goat can be fed on refuse
and from waste spots of land, a horse or an ox would require
as much land to maintain it as several human beings. Every-
thing in the shape of manure is saved and the plant rather
than the ground is manured. Terracing, although carried on
in some portions of China, is not so common as is generally
supposed. Agriculture holds the first rank in China among
all the branches of labor. At the opening of the agricultural
season there are great festivals, when the emperor and all the
princes and grandees hold the plough. Irrigation, not only
from the streams, but by hand and pump, is universal. Two
or three immense rivers wind through China, their main
course being from west to east. These are rivals of the great
rivers of America. Their sources are fed from the perpetual
snows in the highest mountains of the world, the Himalaya.
The "Celestial mountains" stand on the western frontiers,
and the Tengri Tagh and Ala-tagh are regions of snows, rivers,
forests, wild animals, and almost as wild men. The Chinese
have penal settlements across the mountain ranges in the
valleys of the Hi.* Floods from the great rivers of China
are the chief sources of disaster to the agriculturists. The
greatest river in China changed the location of its mouth
nearly one hundred miles. The result of all this in a densely

* Hellwald's Russians in Central Asia, page 59.

PAUPERISM AND CRIME. 181

populated country can be appreciated. It is considered as one
of the duties of the government to build public granaries, in
which shall be deposited a part of the revenue from the land,
to support or furnish seed and food for those who have suffered
from flood, drouth or other natural calamity. This govern-
ment duty, like a good many other government duties, there
and elsewhere, is, in many cases, more frequently omitted
than performed. The necessities of the government, or the
covetousness of the officials, tend to keep these grain depots
much below the standard, so that when a great calamity comes
there is not an adequate supply. In some instances great dis-
tress and even mortality have resulted, and officials been
decapitated and disgraced, and government shaken to its centre
in consequence. Except this provision for natural calamity,
China does not possess a pauper system.* The government
also makes provision for canals and irrigation. Cooke informs
us that there are large numbers of tramps in China. There
is a very large class of coast and river pirates, and also orders
or organized bands of thieves and robbers.f Besides punish-
ment by whipping, which is common, not less than ten thou-
sand criminals are annually executed in China.

Several authorities agree that infanticide is practiced, espe-
cially on female infants, but there is reason to believe that this
has been exaggerated. In some towns and cities there is a
" baby tower," into which dead infants, wrapped in matting,
or other substance, are thrown, and these are from time to
time burned out.J As the Chinese are usually very reverent
and respectful to their dead, it appears this disrespect and
indifference to dead infants arises from a superstition that
infants dying young have been seized by a devil. The
presence of the baby tower may lead to infanticide, but as
our Chinese friends make profit, in case of necessity, out of

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 190.

f Ibid., page 191. J Ibid., page 91.

182 ASIATIC TENURES.

their children, they are hardly likely to be destroyed in ordi-
nary circumstances. Indeed, we learn that in many Chinese
cities, among other charitable institutions there are foundling
hospitals with a basket outside in which to deposit infants,
and on striking a bamboo the basket is drawn in and no ques-
tions asked.* Gray says these foundling hospitals are poorly
kept.

Slavery, to a very limited extent, exists in China. Williams
says : " It is worthy of note how few slaves there are in China,
and how easy their condition compared with those of Greece
or Rome/ 7 f Chinese slavery is, in point of fact, a mild
domestic slavery. There is no great distinct enslaved class.
It is by law and custom limited in its character. The power
of a man over his child and wife is almost absolute. At an
early age a child is worth so many dollars, and a father
may transfer whatever rights he has in it. J While polygamy,
slavery and prostitution exist to some extent, they have been
circumscribed in their eifects. The absolute right of parents
to their children and husbands to their wives is so recognized
that they can sell them.||

We have already quoted Marco Polo's description of the
paper money issued by Kublai Khan. Pauthier reckoned
that during that reign of thirty-four years, $624,135,500 of
this currency was issued. It does not appear to have been
discredited then, and was taken for dues, public and private.
His weak successors, however, among their many other acts
of misgovernmeut, issued it to an extent altogether beyond the
point at which it could be kept afloat, and Mr. Williams
intimates that the overthrow of that dynasty was due to this
circumstance. Paper money is not now regularly issued by

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 99.
t Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i , page 413.
J Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 99.
\ Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 285.
|| Nevius' China, page 253.

BANKS AND PAPER MONEY. 183

the Chinese government, although it was during the Toe Ping
rebellion. At present it is largely limited to the Peking
district and government transactions, although the revenues
are claimed in sycee silver. There are, however, any number
of private banks, and these among other things are permitted
to issue paper money.* This practice, we believe, is compara-
tively modern. There are no banks with special charters,
but a bank can be opened by any person or company. These
are subject to certain laws and regulations, and are compelled
to report their orgamzation.f The circulation of the notes
is limited. Some of them are confined in their operations
to the city or to particular streets, or even one street. The
notes, in a somewhat similar way to those of the bank of
England, are endorsed by each holder. Very few counterfeit
notes are met with, which is probably due to the limited range
of the bills and the mode of endorsement. The worth of the
bills depends on the exchange between silver and Chinese
coin, and as these fluctuate daily the notes are thus forced
home. The system must make a paradise in a small way
for stock jobbers. No gold or silver are at present coined in
China.| The Chinese coin are of equal parts of copper and
zinc, or with a small admixture of lead and tin. These coins
are styled relatively, tael, mace, candoreen and cash. The
silver or gold coin in circulation, which is chiefly the former,
are of foreign coins or bars of silver, " sycee." In the south-
ern provinces bank notes are little known or used. Banks
also issue letters of credit, and remittance by draft, the system
of exchange, is as complete as in Europe. The number of
these " offices," or banks, is large in proportion to the business
of a town, but the capital only averages two or three thousand
taels, which ig petty enough. The number of banks in Tien-
tsin is three hundred, and in Pekin four hundred, many cf
these being branch banks.

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 85.

| Ibid. J Ibid., page 83.

184 ASIATIC TENURES.

Interest in some cases runs as high as three per cent, a
month, varying from that to ten and twelve per cent, per
annum.* This permission of usury has, no doubt, disastrous
effects on poor business men. The horde of petty bankers,
however, is constantly under the supervision of the govern-
ment : they are burdened .with taxes, and do not, under such
circumstances, succeed in creating a large class of non-pro-
ducing capitalists.

Next to the banks are the pawnbrokers. There are three
kinds of pawnshops. They are strictly regulated by law.
The habit of pawning is very general, and the results very
disastrous to the poor and laboring classes, f Some of these
establishments are extensive; the English forces at Tinghai
used one for a hospital, which accommodated three hundred
patients. One of the evils connected with pawnshops is the
facility they give to thieves.J Pawn tickets are offered for
sale in the street, and are a constant article of merchandise.
As in the case of the bankers, the pawnbrokers have a rigid
responsibility. The government compels them to meet their
engagements. Pawned articles cannot be sold for three years,
and no pawnbroker can go out of business without giving
three years' notice. In case of fire originating in the pawn-
broker's premises, the pawner claims the full amount. If
the fire originates in a neighbor's house, or is conveyed from
other premises, the pawnbroker makes up one half.

One tendency of Chinese society is to crystallize into asso-
ciations. Everybody has to co-operate with somebody else,
women as well as men. It is a leading aspiration to belong
to one of the Jiwai, or societies, to be identified with its for-
tunes and enlisted in its interests. Societies are formed for
all purposes, even for robbery, and to secure protection from

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 87.

f Gray's China, vol. ii., page 79.

i Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 86. g Ibid., page 87.

SOCIETIES AND CORPORATIONS. 185

robbery.* Williams thinks this results from the strong dem-
ocratic element in Chinese polity. In trade or manufacture
men associate. Petty capitalists associate to found banks.
Trades associate to protect the interests of their respective
crafts. Little farmers associate to buy an ox. Porters to
monopolize the loads in certain wards, or chair bearers, to
furnish all the sedans for a town. There are also money-
lending clubs, or co-operative loan associations, f Even beg-
gars are allotted to one or two streets by these societies, and
are driven off another beat if they encroach. Villages form
themselves into societies to regulate their matters and defend
themselves against powerful clans.J Universal organization
of towns and trades is the defense of this pacific people. In
a country where there is no representative lawmaking body,
these societies are all-powerful. Government, indeed, exists
by their suffrance. This is probably one of the chief causes
of the conservative character and extreme age of Chinese in-
stitutions, for while rulers and even dynasties may change,
there is rarely any modification in the essentials of Chinese
polity.

The Chinese government is absolute. The emperor and
his council have power of life and death. They have no
landed aristocracy, and no aristocracy founded on money or
capital. The emperor's relatives and descendants to the
eighth degree are princes and titular dignitaries, but when
they get to the eighth degree, they again merge with the com-
mon people. None of the royal family are permitted to hold
office in the government. They receive stipends. The near-
est relatives of the sovereign have an income of between thir-
teen and fourteen thousand dollars, but have, in addition, a
number of attendants to maintain their dignity, which, with

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 191.

f Gray's China, vol. ii., page 86.

J Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., page 88.

186 ASIATIC TENURES.

allowances, make the charge to the state, for a few of the
highest, from seventy to eighty thousand dollars a year. As
the relationship gets more remote the salary dwindles rapidly,
the lowest have four dollars per month and rations. Besides
these there are some other titular dignities conferred by the
emperor as gracious marks of his appreciation, and they are
authorized to wear a certain shaped hat, with a certain kind
of button on it. None of these titles are derived from lauded
estates. The recipients are without power, land, wealth,
office or influence. The whole scheme of Chinese titular
nobility has been adroitly devised to tickle human vanity
without giving a figment of real influence or power.

The officers who administer the government under the
emperor, and all the officers of the provinces are, at least,
theoretically, appointed for literary merit.* China is the
chosen home of " civil service reform," which, like her tea
and silks, we have imported. The regulations by law for
competitive examinations are more elaborate than any other
legal canons in China. These examinations are open to all
reputable persons ; that is, they must be of a family which,
for three generations, have not been criminals, slaves, execu-
tioners, actors, or been engaged in vicious or disreputable
callings. Education is mainly sought for official position.
Women in China do not receive as good educations as men.f
The aspirants, for office are of all ages, from the callow youth
to the man of sixty, are shut up during examinations. It is
true, the government, when its treasury is deficient, occasionally
puts up its offices for sale, but only to be sold to those who
have at least respectable literary qualifications. Corruption
has sometimes been charged in the modes of determining the
result of competitive examinations. Its advantages in a
country like China are, that the door of preferment is opened

* Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. i., page 442.
f Nevius' China, page 238.

CHINESE OFFICIALS. 187

to every man ; and an inducement is thus given to lead an
honorable life. The cohesive power of this element in main-
taining the government cannot be overestimated.

It is very true that many Chinese officials are notoriously
corrupt. Rapacity, bribery and peculations of every kind are
common. The people bear these patiently, because every
man believes that he will, some day, be a mandarin himself.
With all its faults, as Morrison, Gray, and, indeed, all respect-
able authorities agree, there is great regularity and system in
the Chinese government. Every district has its appropriate
officers, every street its constable, and every ten houses their
tithing man. While the higher functionaries affect great
moderation and dignity, the petty officials, such as clerks, con-
stables, lictors and underlings, are called by the Chinese
" claws," because they are supposed to extort. All the lead-
ing officers are required to report, by card, to the emperor,-
twice a month. Commissioners or inspectors are sent by the
emperor to see what is going on in all departments of the
government. These are his eyes and ears, and action on
their reports are not usually arbitrary, but the result of de-
liberation in council.

While there is no representative body there are two great
councils. One of these has to do with the general adminis-
tration of the civil government, and the other with the army
and supervision of the administration of justice. Appeals
may be had from the lower courts, but, to a poor man, that is
not much advantage. Every man is supposed, of right, to
have free access to magistrates and dignitaries, and their com-
plaint to be considered. The councilors supervise the pro-
mulgation of canons or laws, which are believed to emanate
from the emperor. The members of both councils are selected
by the emperor, from the official class, during good behavior.
Cooke says that while the government makes appropriation
for bridges, canals, irrigation, etc., the mandarins and con-
tractors use a large part of it between them, or for bribes to

188 ASIATIC TENURES.

those who might be able to call their operations in question.*
There is great danger, however, of getting a notification to
perform hari kari, or, at least, be dismissed or banished.
When a Chinese official refuses to commit suicide, if notified
to do so, all his relatives and their property suffer. The
savings of officials have not enabled them to build up a per-
manent wealthy class.

The Chinese government is weak against foreign invasion
or rebellion. In some cases where the government cannot
suppress a rebellion, it buys up or rewards the leaders, and
thus breaks and destroys their organization. All their neigh-
bors, Mauchus, Tartars and Mongols, scoff at the cowardice or
inefficiency of their troops. They are great philosophers,
however, and the science of military affairs, crude as it is, is
far in advance of the practice.

The religion of the Chinese is a singular compound. Con-
fucius was merely a philosopher with fine maxims. Bud-
dhism is the chief nominal religion, and was introduced to
China in the first century of the Christian era.f Confucius
recognized ancestor worship. Williams intimates that skepti-
cism is much more common than religion of any kind. The
Chinese worshipers have been placed in three classes : First,
the priests or adepts who abstain from animal food and per-
form the ritual so as to fit themselves for absorption into some-
thing ; second, those who cannot comprehend any abstruse
speculations, but through religious fervor endeavor to do what
they believe to be their duty ; and third, the lower orders, who
cannot rise above the forms and ceremonies ; and this class is
largely composed of old women.J It has been said that the
latter, in their prayers to be transformed at death, ask to be
transformed into men. Judging from the way women are
treated in China this is not surprising. In the Buddhistic

* Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 98.

f Gray's China, vol. i., page 105.

} Cooke's China and Lower Bengal, page 121.

POPULATION. 189

temples they have chanting in the morning and the evening,
and it is a noteworthy coincidence, that this is partly in the
native or Chinese language and partly in the Sanscrit tongue,
clearly showing the origin of this faith. The incomes of the
monasteries are chiefly derived from the voluntary offerings
of the worshipers, partly from allowances or fees for priestly
services at funerals and other domestic ceremonies ; some of
them have been endowed with a small quantity of land, but
the latter is of limited amount.* The real worship is ancestor
worship. A man's father and grandfathers are in his pan-
theon. The Chinese believe these absent ones in their migra-
tions are cognizant of all they do, and expecting their sympathy
they pray to them and present food at their shrines. This
belief has much to do with their whole social and political
system. The degradation of their women is the chief cause
of the worst elements of the Chinese character. A husband
in China can divorce his wife for seven reasons, but is obliged
to maintain her if she has no home.f

Practically, China presents to us an organized government
ruling the most dense population on earth. Take China as'a
whole, from the Tien Shan mountains to the sea : By the census
of 1812, there was a population of 268 to the square mile, and
it is, of course, greater now. By the census of 1881, Bengal
had a population of 440 to the square mile, and England, in
the same year, 289, to the square mile. In China, the southern
and western provinces stood only 154 to the square mile, but
in the great plain or lower country, an immense -empire in
itself, the population Avas, in 1812, 458 to the square mile,
and is now probably nearer 500. If nominal wages are low
the price of staple eatables is also low. There is, in fact, less
disparity of condition among the masses of China than with
Europeans. There is no system of inheritance which tends

* Nevius' China, page 99.

f Doolittle's Social Life among the Chinese, page 75.

190 ASIATIC TENURES.

to throw property in a few hands, and the fixed polity of the
government is to prevent this. The tea, silk and porcelain
manufactures are mainly in the hands of the masses, and the
tendency of all their customs and political systems is to dis-
tribute and scatter, rather than concentrate. The distinction
between a farmer and a laborer is not great. Servants are
hired by the month at from three to five dollars ; cooks by the
year. Domestics and slaves are on intimate and social rela-
tions with their masters.* The only nonproducing classes in
the country are the civil officers, most of whom are kept busy,
the army, and a few pensioned nobles. The farms are small,
and the buildings and improvements not of much value, and
the dwellings in cities are not greatly in advance of those in
the country. The material of the houses, which is largely
bamboo, can be removed. Except public buildings and bridges,
the architecture of China is not imposing. Even the public
buildings, if we consider the age of the empire and its popula-
tion of several hundred millions, are not equal to the archi-
tecture of other nations. This at least shows that the efforts
of the people are not expended on public works. Labor is
cheap, when a girl can be purchased for from fifteen to one
hundred dollars, but then she must be clothed and fed. The
statements regarding the entire revenue of this empire of four
hundred millions of people, are very conflicting, varying all
the way between eighty millions and three hundred millions
of dollars per annum. Probably the truth lies- between
these figures. From these taxes all the expenses of the gov-
ernment are maintained, including the pensions or salaries of
the members of the royal family, which is the only salaried
aristocratic class. If the total Chinese tax amounted to the
highest figures given, three hundred million dollars, it would
be less than the revenue raised by the United States govern-
ment, which was some three hundred and twenty-six millions

* Gray's China, vol. i., page 240.

GREAT AND LITTLE RUSSIA. 191

in 1884. Three-fourths of the Chinese revenues are derived
from the land tax or rent, a portion from salt and other
monopolies,* and the remainder from customs. It must be
remembered that the population of China is seven or eight
times as large as that of the United States, and, in addition,
the Chinese have no state or county tax. Except the tax
referred to, the people cultivate the lands without paying other
rent. It is plain that they do not suffer from heavy public
burdens.

In the past few centuries a new nation has been growing
up, stretching far across Europe to the Vistula, and maintain-
ing its dominion across the Asiatic continent to Behring's
Strait, It would not be correct to style it a people, for it
embraces many peoples. Much of the country included within
its recognized boundaries is a wilderness, and vast stretches of
icy waste reach northward to the frozen sea. Russia proper
has been classified as Great and Little Russia, the former
with Moscow, the latter with Kiev for its centre. The Rus-
sian country or empire has been created by a system of con-
stantly spreading or continuous emigrations of local communi-
ties. Little Russia was the mother country, and was purely
Sclavonic. Great Russia was made by conquering and driving
out the Finnic tribes and partly by absorbing them. The
village is the unit of the Russian system. The village con-
tains nearly everything within itself agriculture, stock raising,
manufactures, and is a well-knit community in all its interests.
There is a closely packed village of block houses on each side
of a broad street, shut up at the two ends by stockades. It is
organized for defense and business. The enclosed space in
the street is the common workshop. Cattle stands, threshing
floors, barns, granaries, are attached to each block house and
mark where general interests end and individual interests
begin. The clearing is made in the forests by the joint labor

* Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese, page 281.

192 ASIATIC TENURES.

of all, and in the common field each male person has his por-
tion. This is called the mir, and defines the early rights
known to their landed system. It is a right of each child
born in the village. The mir of Central Russia and the gro-
made of Southern Russia is the peasant's conception of supreme
authority.* The village is the nucleus or centre of Russia.
In other countries a man with a large family is burdened, but
in the Russian village the household gets an addition of the
productive domain for every child that is born.f The large
land cultivators are men of large families, and few children or
none, give a small farm. The village, not the family, was the
social unit. Every question is settled before the village mir.
These village communes meet under the vault of heaven, chair-
man there is none. The right of speaking belongs to him who
can command attention. If a speaker is acceptable they listen to
him and if not he is soon stopped. Sometimes all speak at once.
Voting is unknown. The majority does not force the minority.
The discussion goes on until all can agree on the action to be
taken or some plan finds acceptance. There must be conces-
sions. It is compromise, not coercion. J The term mir means
more than the council ; it means the right of the individual as
a part of the village. Parties in Russia differ widely from
parties in Western Europe or with us. With the Russian
peasant communism in land is designated as the Sclavonian
substratum of civilization. They are not ignorant of the land
systems of Western Europe, and hold that these have crept in
among a people who knew of, or once had institutions like the
Russian mir, and made a fatal blunder early in their career,
exposing themselves to sure decay, by allowing individual and
alienable rights to land. Land, the Russian villager argues,
has never been produced but found. Rent paid to individuals
has therefore no foundation in justice. Only such rent or tax

* Stepniak's Kussia under the Tzars, page 2.

f Systems of Land Tenure, page 331.

J Stepniak's Kussia under the Tzars, page 3.

HOUSE COMMUNITIES. 193

may be taken from it as is necessary for the expenditure of the
lesser or larger community, the village or the state.

There is, therefore, a fundamental difference in the ideas
and polity of Eastern and Western Europe. While Little
Russia was the mother of colonies and of Great Russia, there
grew up around Novgorod great clusters of democratic vil-
lages. Russia in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was ultra
democratic.* In three or four hundred years it has been
converted into a despotism. Russia spread out like a tree.
As a village became crowded it sent out a colony far into
unoccupied regions. A system of spreading settlements, such
as has existed in America for the past three hundred years,
has been going on in Russia for a much longer period, but
widely differing from it in many respects. In America, the
tendency was to the individual ; in Russia, to the community. In
this manner, like swarms of bees, the great Russian Empire was
formed. The mother villages exercised a care and parental
authority over the colonies. Even after the lapse of fifty
years they assisted them. When young men went to other
villages or cities they were commissioned to secure orders for
the whole community, and were not expected to confine their
efforts to their individual interests. Everything connected
with trade was a village matter.

In the south Sclavonic countries there are house communi-
ties which have largely been made under Turkish rule.f Sir
Henry Sumner Maine says that in the Russian village com-
munities the bond of kinship, though still recognized in lan-
guage, is feeble and indistinct. Toward the south the related
families no longer hold their lands as a common fund, but
distribute them periodically.^ Professor Bogisic says the
house communities rarely consist of more than sixty persons.
They are as far as possible from being patriarchal despotisms.

* Stepniak's Kussia Under the Tzars, page 24.
f Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 242.

J Ibid., page 240. \ Ibid., page 244.

194 ASTATIC TENURES.

They are democratically governed. Every member of the
' body has a right to be fed, housed and clothed out of the
common fund. Every daughter has a right to a marriage
portion, every sou to a portion for his wife, every male a
voice in its government.* When placed under the Mahom-
etan law, a daughter took half a son's share. Among the
south Sclavonic races women have certain property, like the
East Indian stridhan, that descends to women heiresses. The
Sclavonian communities have long and steadily resisted indi-
vidual property that could be alienated. f With house com-
munities as a general rule, land, oxen or cattle necessary for
carrying on the business of the community is incapable of
alienation.^ Although to some extent they might be, and
often were, these house communities were not natural families
as they not only adopted others but were often largely made
up from outside persons. They were more democratic than
the natural family. Under the Sclavonian usages the house
communities developed into the village communities, although
in the south, the former have struggled for their identity.
"All recent observers of house communities," says Maine,
" regret their decline." In the mingling of peoples, and the
assertion of individual interests, the house community suffers.
A member goes abroad, makes a fortune, and when he re-
turns, the others attempt to induce him to divide. On the
other hand, some dissatisfied or ambitious persons desiring to
leave are induced by the laws and customs of society around
them to demand a distributive share of the assets, so that they
can go off and begin elsewhere* Both these causes when
supplemented by general law and authority inimical to
house communities tend to disintegrate them. The Austrian
code has been fatal to the house communities. On the Aus-
trian military frontiers where house communities have been

* Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 252.

t Ibid., page 249. J Ibid.

SCANDINAVIAN AND TARTAR. 195

placed on land subject to military service, under the Austrian
system, the chief of the house community grew into a noble-
man and lord of the manor.*

In the dawn of Russian recorded history we meet with the
existence of slaves, but they were merely prisoners of war.
The same Scandinavian or Norman warriors who invaded
France, and, ultimately, England, invaded Russia in the
ninth century,f and founded a species of monarchy over
European Russia, and gave the name of Russ, or Russian.
Stepuiak says these dukes and the different princes were
at first the servants of the people, and not their masters.
The vetche, great or small, selected them, and dispensed with
their services. They were leaders in war, and their whole
function related to defense. There was not, in fact, before
the time of Peter the Great, any organized government or
system of laws or edicts in Russia. The call of a prince or
duke by the vetche was only the first step in his election : the
next was the conclusion of a convention, the riada.J The
riada was a constitutional pact or bargain. It defined the
mutual obligations of the contracting parties. Besides the
defense of the country, he was to act as judge in great cases,
not interfering, however, with the power of the mir or
vetche.

The inroad of the Tartars and Kaptschaks under a lieuten-
ant of Genghis Khan, put a stop to the authority of the
dynasty of Ruric. They did not expel the Scandinavians,
but made them a species of deputies. Their business was not
with the Russian people but with the rulers. They com-
pelled the latter to surrender a large portion of the tribute
they had taken from the peasantry. These fresh invaders
interfered but little with the mir of the villages or the vetche,
and left their land system as they found it. This Tartar and

* Maine's Early Law and Custom, page 266.

t Kelley's Kussia, vol. i., page 8.

J Stepniak's Kussia under the Tzars, page 9.

196 ASIATIC TENURES.

Kaptschak rule lasted for more than two hundred years, when
Duke Ivan contrived to overthrow the yoke of the Tartars.
In fact, about that time all the governments founded under
Genghis Khan were disappearing.

The resumption of authority by the old dukes or princes did
no good to Russia. Ivan, in 1482, took the title of Tzar of
Muscovy. In 1598, Boris Goodonof, a usurper, issued a
ukase forbidding the peasant from leaving his native village
without a passport from the government authorities.* Indeed,
with the withdrawal of the Tartars the disfranchisement of
the peasantry began, but it progressed very slowly. A
nobility, the friends, relatives and retainers of the Tzar was
soon created. When this was first done the tribute from the
land was not increased, but part of the tax was given to the
nobles and the remainder to the Tzar. The next step was to
set apart certain villages for the nobles over which they had
charge, and in this way originated the distinction of Tzar's
villages and the villages of nobles. While this new autonomy
was created, it did not at first interfere with the mir of the
villages or their mode of transacting business, and it was some
time before the people became conscious that a great blow had
been struck at their liberties. The Tzar finally cultivated part
of the villages he claimed by slaves who had been captives
taken in war. Ivan IV., by a ukase, defined certain villages as
state villages, or villages owing tribute to the government, and
certain villages as the personal property of the Tzar, thus claim-
ing what was not his own. A great many villages formerly
paying a public revenue to the state now paid it as the property
of the Tzar or of the nobility. When Boris Goodonof issued
his ukase to prevent the peasants from leaving their villages
without the consent of government, it was to check an increased
spirit of colonization to * new fields, that threatened to leave
the nobles and the Tzar without tenants. These encroachments

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 324.

SERFDOM. 197

continued until the reign of the wicked Peter the First, who
assumed the title of emperor in 1721 and reduced a large
portion of the peasants of Russia to serfdom. He degraded
the old nobility and created a new, which he supposed would
be devoted to himself. These had to reach distinction through
grades of military and civil service. Then began the official
tchin and tchinovnik so detested by the peasantry of Russia :
official classes of the general government, all of whose actions
constantly infringed on the rights of the peasants, burdened
them with new and heavier exactions, restricted their liberty
and degraded them.* In 1715 Peter established the law of
primogeniture.

The attempts to improve the condition of the Russian peas-
antry began with the emperor Nicholas. It is true the
emperor Paul, in 1797, by a ukase, restored to the peasantry
the right to elect their village heads. The first important act
of Nicholas was by a ukase issued in 1848, to permit the pro-
prietors of estates, by treaty, to transform their serfs into
farmers. In 1848 he abolished the despotic regulation which
forbade private peasants from buying immovable property.
He further forbid the sale of peasants without land. When
the emperor Alexander II. announced his determination to do
justice to the peasants, he found nearly one-half of them, con-
stituting more than a third of the population of the empire,
practically slaves, tilling a soil that did not belong to them,
without being paid for their labor, during three days in the
week, while they had to maintain themselves and families by
toiling the other three. The measure of Nicholas to induce
the nobility to free their serfs having practically failed, it was
now determined that it should be done by imperial decree.
The serf had, however, not been a slave in the same sense that
an American negro was a slave. He was a kind of slave
attached to the land. To give him his freedom and leave the

* Kelley's Russia, vol. i., page 357.

198 ASIATIC TENURES.

land with the nobles or the Tzar would not answer. It was
thus in substance agreed that the land should be divided
between the nobles and the peasants. This compromise, like
many human devices, proved unsatisfactory. How was the
enfranchised serf to hold his land? Was he to hold it as he
desired to hold it in a community or village under the mir? It
was on this question that parties in Russia divided. The
Sclavonian socialists insisted and still insist on the ancient sys-
tem, and utterly repudiate the western idea of title. In the
settlement it had to be conceded that it should be optional with
the peasantry whether they would hold their land individually
or under the mir. Thus was left side by side, noble proprietors
who had to employ labor, and a peasantry to cultivate a com-
mon estate. The ultimate result of this experiment constitutes
one of the difficult problems of the present generation. The
disturbances in Russia indicate that enough was not attempted
and what has been done has not been done well.

Russia is a comparatively new government. With much
new and active blood Russia is still full of irreconcilable ele-
ments. So long as a mighty army can be kept in the hands
of the Tzar, while a corrupt judicial system and the horrors
of Siberia remain to punish liberty-loving men and women,
this tyrannical government may continue. Through all their
vicissitudes this great Sclavonic people are slowly acquiring
knowledge, resources and power, and while to-day Russia is
the most despotic government in the world, there is a prophetic
promise that it will yet become the most democratic.

CHAPTER VII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF MODERN EUROPE.

Lavergne Agrarian legislation of this century Lawns and deer parks
versus cottages French small holdings Number of proprietors in France
and Britain Condition of the French peasantry Exports of England
and France Effect of small farms on wages Oppressive debts of the
aristocracy Improvements under large and small holdings Code Napo-
leon French law of inheritance Belgium Laveleye Made lands
Gross production of a hectare Spade husbandry Short and long leases
Average food of workingmen in Europe Spain Aristocracy and
decay of husbandry Average wages Aforamento Portuguese tenure
Austria Hungary Size of estates Number of cultivating farmers
Tenants and farm laborers Wages and work of men and women Italy
Relative population Number of land owners Tenants and leases
Rent Wages Production Land tenure in Switzerland, Denmark and
Sweden Number and kind of land owners Size of estates Food of
working people Wages Emigration from Scandinavian nations Prus-
sia Per cent, of land owners Price of land Abolition of Villeinage
Agrarian legislation Rent Food Wages.

M. DE LAVERGNE, in his work, " Rural Economy in Eng-
land," credits the great progress in agriculture in Britain in the
past two hundred years, to " political institutions, political liberty
and political tranquillity." In the sixteenth century a great
revolution had occurred in the economical history of England
by substituting money rents for personal services. This change
in land tenures, while it had a tendency to free the peasant
or villein from degrading service and a very offensive kind
of personal slavery, also divorced the peasant from the laud
and to that extent was one of the steps toward closing his
interest in it, and creating a distinct title in the land owner,
which he has since asserted. In every country of modern

199

200 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

Europe these changes had been going on. In Germany the
technical change from feudal tenure is marked by the legisla-
tion beginning with this century ; but in all these nations
radical changes had been effected both in governments and the
privileges of the people. Absolute slavery had been first
abolished and then villeinage, vassalage, serfdom and the
various kinds of limited personal service growing out of rent
or duty incident to the cultivation of the soil. The relief the
vassal or villein thus obtained from servitude that had become
degrading, was unhappily supplemented by the assumptions
on the part of the aristocratic class of a fixed title, personal to
themselves in the manor, common domains and landed estates,
in which the theory had been that all had an interest. The
freedom of the individual peasant ought to have been accom-
panied by freedom to the land. All the conditions on which
the lords had any pretense of a claim to it had passed away.
The first assumption that the nobles became possessed of the
allotted lands was followed up by their attempt to fence up
the public commons. These lands had been largely used for
grazing, and afforded a privilege for all the citizens for that
purpose and cutting necessary timber from the forests. Great
complaints were made about these encroachments.* The grass
or pasturage, husbandry, and the proceeds of the forests thus
became a private monopoly, while communities and villages
were also driven out. Nasse, in his work on these inclosures,
says that sometimes three shepherds were employed where two
hundred men had supported themselves by honest labor.
Deer forests were made. Several enactments were issued
against these agrarian proceedings of the nobles, but do not
seem to have been able to put a stop to them. An Act of
Henry VII., cap. 19, is quaintly entitled: "An Act against
pulling downe of touns." The lands from the vicinity of
which these towns were demolished were, as the Act recites :

* Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 124.

SMALL FARMS IN FRANCE. 201

" laying to pasture lands which customably have been manured,
and occupied wyth tyllage and husbandry." In Henry VII Us
time this evil had assumed great proportions. Some men
possessed twenty-four thousand sheep, and against the latter
Henry had several Acts leveled, by one of which it was pro-
vided : " No one, therefore, shall possess more than two thou-
sand sheep, with the exception of laymen, who, upon their
own inheritance, may possess as many as they please, but they
must not carry on sheep farming on other properties."

In these revolutions, encroachments and changes, which
were carried down to a very recent period, the present titles
in modern Europe crystallized. In some countries the small
holders were still numerous. France, to-day, presents the
most wonderful and successful experiment in small holdings,
" petite culture/' The contrast between France and England
is an extraordinary spectacle. It is the opinion generally
entertained, which is, undoubtedly, to some extent, true, that
the system of small holdings in France has resulted from the
French revolution, and been perpetuated, and increased by
the code Napoleon. The people of France have always
favored small holdings. About the close of the sixteenth
century, and while the changes of which we have spoken were
going on, the French peasants purchased small tracts, often
not more than half an acre.* They were, however, deprived
of much benefit therefrom by feudal oppressions, in the shape
of numberless fees exacted, and merciless taxation. Not until
after the revolution did the present system begin to flourish.
The official statistics of France, following the enumeration of
1850, reckon no less than 7,845,724 "proprietors of lands,"
including houses and lots in towns. Of these, about five mil-
lions are rural proprietors, of whom nearly four millions are
actual cultivators, f The official tables return no less than
3,799,775 land owners as cultivators of the soil, and, of these,

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 294. f Ibid., page 292.

202 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

57,639 are represented as cultivating through head laborers,
and 3,740,793 who cultivated their lands in person. Since
1851, the number of cultivating proprietors has largely in-
creased. M. de Lavergne estimates that there are five million
proprietors of whom at least three million cultivate only
an average of a hectare apiece, little over two acres. Mulhall,
in his work of 1884, gives 154,000 land proprietors in France
whose lands average 320 acres, 636,000 whose lauds average
50 acres each, and 3,226,000 who are the proprietors on an
average of 10 acres each.* He estimates, or gives the num-
ber of separate properties, in 1881, at 6,942,974, his statistics
showing a considerable increase in separate properties since
1858. M. de Lavergne estimates that there are at present
250,000 who own lands in Great Britain, but some of these
are urban and not rural holders. Mulhall, in 1884, gives for
Great Britain 180,524 land owners, who own, in the aggre-
gate, 70,279,000, the average number of acres to a holder
being 390. f The same authority gives for France three
million, two hundred and twenty-six thousand owners who
possess five acres and upward, but his figures in both England
and France do not include cottars or holders of a few acres.
These latter, as has been shown are a very large class in
France, but a comparatively small class of independent hold-
ers in England. The Statesman's Year Book (Scott Keltic)
for 1885 gives the number of persons who own upward of
an acre in Great Britain as 321,386, but gives 852,408 per-
sons who own less than an acre (presumably lot owners in
cities). By Great Britain is included England, Wales, Scot-
land, Ireland and the channel Islands. This latter authority
estimates that in England and Wales one person in twenty
owns land in some amount.^ In Scotland, one in twenty-
five, and in Ireland, one in seventy-nine. The discrepancy

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics 1884, page 269.

t Ibid., page 266.

J Statesman's Year Book, for 1885, page 252.

FRENCH AND BRITISH FARMING. 203

in these different figures quoted, arises partly from confound-
ing lot owners with owners of small farms who live on
and cultivate them. Another source of confusion has been
in giving the separate tracts owned, when in many cases,
especially in England, one person owns several of them.
In 1884 the population of Great Britain was 35,961,540.*
The same authority gives the population of France, December,
1881, at 37,672,048. These two, the most wealthy and en-
lightened nations in modern Europe, thus offer us a study of
much value as to great and small holdings. It will be seen
that the great body of British agriculturists are renters, the
land-owning agriculturist being the exception, while in
France the great body of the agricultural population are land
owners, living on their own farms and cultivating and im-
proving their own soil. Again, the number of land owners
in England has been steadily decreasing. In France, under
the system established by the revolution, and systematized by
the code Napoleon, the number of small farms steadily in-
creases. Laborers without lands are continually becoming
land owners, and the farms more subdivided. It is, there-
fore important to examine the results of this small culture in
France. This system has continued until, in some of the greatest
departments in France, farms of one hundred hectares, upward
of two hundred acres, are so scarce that they can be counted on
the fingers. The great estates are day by day being purchased
by small proprietors. A certain class of political economists
have denounced this tendency to small farms as likely to reduce
the productive powers of the country. Mr. Leslie says " Four
millions of land owners cultivating the soil of a territory only
one-third larger than Great Britain, may probably appear to
the minds, familiar only with great estates and large farms,
almost a reductio ad absnrdum of the land system of the
French ; " but he adds : " Those who have studied the condi-

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 253.

204 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

tion of the French, not merely from books, but in their own
country, and who have witnessed the improvements which
have taken place in French cultivation, year after year,
will probably regard the number with a feeling of satis-
faction." * The same writer adds : " The system of small
property is daily gaining ground in France," and " The fact
that the small cultivating landholder is a continual buyer of
land proves that it is profitable." This culture is a species of
garden tillage ; no inconsiderable portion of the work is done
by hand, and this tillage in France has demonstrated, as it has
done everywhere else, that the soil produces more, that there
is less waste, and that the country is thus better able to sustain
a great population. France is a manufacturing country, and
yet we find that in 1880 her exports of woolen, silk and cotton
goods amounted to (reducing it to dollars) $135,000,000, while
her exports of wine, spirits, sugar, grain, fruit, cheese and
eggs, amounted to $1 20,000,000, f the latter being productions
of her soil. These exports, moreover, have been steadily and
to a large extent increasing in the past thirty or forty years.
While France exports grain, Great Britain, in 1880, imported
upward of four hundred millions of dollars worth of grain and
meat.| Bread and meat are cheaper in France than in England,
bread standing as four to six, the meats nine and a half to ten.
So far as emigration may show greater distress among the
people, while the population of Britain is less by upward
of two millions than France, we find that from 1820 to 1882
there emigrated from Great Britain eight million, five hundred
and seventy thousand of her people. From France, during
the same period the emigration was only three hundred and
eighty-four thousand. || These statistics show very conclusively
the advantages of the petite culture of France. It is also true,
that in the past two-thirds of a century the improvements on

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 293.

t Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, 1884, page 180.

j Ibid., page 104. \ Ibid., page 375. || Ibid., page 168.

ARISTOCRATIC DEBT BURDENS. 205

the small farms are much greater than they would be if the
land was held by renters. The cultivators are not only able
to buy more land whenever an opportunity offers, but to
improve the condition of what they have. Mr. Leslie says:
" There is nothing so delightful as the cottages in France, so
clean and so orderly. 77 * Arthur Young predicted that such
small divisions would make France a " rabbit warren." It
was also predicted that as there would be no wealthy employers
the common laborers would suffer and wages decline. The
contrary is the fact. The small farm culture in France has
increased wages, f partly owing to better production from the
soil, and partly from the fact that the laborers have continually
been changing to small holders. Mr. Leslie on this subject
says that seventy-five per cent, of those who were mere laborers
when this system began have become owners of land. It was
also said by the political economists that these small farmers
would be burdened with debt so as to cripple them. M. de
Lavergne estimates the debt on the small properties in France
to be only five per cent, of their value. Many of the larger
estates in Britain and Germany of the kind on which debt can
be placed, are burdened with it to the extent of more than
half their value, and but for the law of entail the large British
estates would long ago have gone out of the families owning
them. In point of fact, owing to the extravagance of the aris-
tocracy, many of them are heavily burdened so far as the life
interest is concerned, and it is to this condition of embarrass-
ment and debt of the aristocracy that much of the rack rent-
ing by the noble owners is due. Sir Wren Hoskyn, in his
"Land in England, Land in Ireland and Land in other
Lands/' says : " The modern doctrine of the most produce by
the least labor, is, as applied to the soil, the doctrine of starva-
tion to the laborers. 77

AVhile the great bulk of France has thus been reclaimed for

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 299. 1 Ibid.

206 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

Frenchmen, there is still a portion cultivated by tenants. Afc
a recent date France still contained in all the departments
some fifty thousand landed properties of upward of two
hundred hectares, more than four hundred acres.* There are
at present upward of one million of tenant farmers in France.
There are two kinds of lease tenure. First, leases of three,
six or nine years ; an occasional rare lease may be for eight-
een. Second, the metayage system, by which the landlord and
his tenant are sharers in the crops. The landlord furnishes
the land and part of the capital required to work it, the
tenant the labor and the remainder of the capital. The pro-
duce is divided and the amount of capital furnished by each
varies on account of the locality, quality of soil, etc. In
France, whether this cultivation of the soil of landlords is
carried on by lease or metayage, the terms of years of holding
are usually short, and as the tenant has comparatively little
interest in the estate he invests but little in improvements.
Where irrigation is needed, as it often is in some seasons, the
laud held by lease or on shares is seldom properly irrigated,
while the small farms of the independent holders are so almost
invariably. For improvements in the nature of drainage or
irrigation no right of compensation of any kind exists. f
Under the code some compensation may be obtained by the
tenant for unexhausted manures or unexhausted improve-
ments of a certain character. It is fortunate for France that
the tendency of her land system is to make the cultivating
tenant, if possible, a proprietor. It has been said by careful
observers that the present land system of France is one of the
principal securities for the tranquillity of Europe. If the
French peasantry had been once more oppressed, disturbances
would have followed. It is customary to judge the French
Revolution by its excesses, and in them to forget the wrongs
out of which its fierce spirit grew, and the good results which

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 304. t Ibid., page 309.

FRENCH LAW OF INHERITANCE. 207

have come from that convulsion. On the 4th of August,
1879, the constituent assembly of France abolished feudal
rights and privileges.* About the same time they made their
declaration of rights, and in November of that year decreed
the transfer of the ecclesiastical property to the state. They
abolished tithes, game laws, immunities, seignorial dues,
gabdle and aristocracy, f In 1792, the national convention
took the place of the legislative assembly, and declared France
a republic. In 1804, the code of France was published, J
afterward called the " Code de Napoleon." The code, in so
far as it affected the present condition of affairs in France, was
but part of the will of the French nation, then and now.
The old feudal nobles had been stripped of the estates they
had improperly assumed to own, and their exactions from the
people ended. Whether by convention, assembly or legislative
assembly, all struck a fresh blow at the nobles. So far did the
hatred of aristocracy go that those who had not fled into exile
or been guillotined were declared aliens. Practically, the
work of the convention still stands, and none of the many
political changes have been able to modify it. The subdivision
of land is facilitated by the structure of the French law,
first, the law of transfer, and second, the law of succession.
The French law of succession does not altogether deny the
power of a parent or head of a family to devise property,
but his power over the property he has is limited to an
amount equal to the share of one child; that is, with four
children he can, by will, dispose of one-fifth of his property,
all the rest goes share and share alike to the children, after the
widow has received her interest. Nor has he the power to
prevent divisions of the land. If one takes an equivalent it
is simply a matter of agreement or sale by the party inter-
ested. Operating against these forced subdivisions, and as a

* Helprin's Historical Reference Book, page 110.
t Carlyle's French Revolution, vol. L, page 212.
% Helprin's Historical Reference Book, page 120.

208 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

check and counterpoise, is the disposition to accumulate. The
peasant owners are the great land buyers in France.* They
are continually buying and adding to their farms. While
the policy pursued toward great holdings and the encourage-
ment to small holdings has produced and is producing this
result, obstacles have also been placed in the way of mutations
in title. Every transaction affecting title to real estate has to
be recorded, and in addition there is a tax on sales of six per
cent. In selling, moreover, a successor pays tax on the entire
value of the property, f without deducting for the mortgage.
In spite of this tax these laud sales of small quantities are con-
tinuous and the price, of course, increasing. We do not find
in France, however, a class of speculating non-occupying
dealers. The buyers are almost exclusively occupants. Capital
is more equally distributed in France than in England. J A
large amount of the national debt of France is held by these
peasant landholders. This was one thing that enabled France
to meet her great war indemnity to Germany. In the last
half century the French have shown great recuperative
power.

In addition to the peasant holdings and the larger holdings
of land in France there are upward of four million and a
half hectares of land that belong in common to various kinds
of bodies, corporations, communes and villages. Of this a
considerable portion is forest, managed by the state, and which
the interest of all in the country require should be kept as
forest, and not divided or placed subject to individual control.
Considerable discussion has arisen about throwing the village
commons, not including the forest, on the market in small
parcels. These commons have given the French peasant
villager many advantages with which they are loath to part,
especially as there is no sufficient guarantee that each peasant

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 295.

f Ibid., page 304. J Ibid., page 297. % Ibid., page 310.

BELGIUM AND HOLLAND. 209

would get an addition to his little farm proportioned to his
share. An entire commune, made up of several villages, own
these commons, and the authority of the whole is necessary for
a division. These public holdings, therefore, remain as reserved
tracts that may be called into individual ownership. In study-
ing modern French society it must be remembered that it is
less than a century since France escaped from the thraldom
of the feudal system and enjoyed anything like liberty, and
she has had much less than a half a century of tranquillity
and industrial life. France suffered from the jealousy of the
intensely aristocratic and despotic governments around her,
and, perhaps, to some extent, from the spirit of violence called
into birth by the effort to overthrow her oppressors.

Belgium has a population of five million four hundred and
eighty thousand,* and an area of eleven thousand three hun-
dred and seventy-three square miles, f There are in Belgium
sixty-three thousand small tenants whose farms average ten
acres; two hundred and seventy thousand small freeholds,
averaging eight acres ; sixty-one thousand freeholds of larger
size averaging forty acres and four thousand of what are con-
sidered large estates, averaging one hundred and sixty acres.!
Belgium and Holland are naturally very poor countries.
Lavergne says " not a blade of grass grows in Flanders without
manure." Flemish small farmers pick up grass and manure
from the roadside. As far back as the times of the Romans
the inhabitants on the borders of the Scheldt used to visit
Eugland to obtain marl to improve their infertile soil.
Whether reclaimed from the sea or converted into productive
lands from barren sandy wastes, the low countries have cer-
tainly been largely made by the people. In addition to the
freeholders we have enumerated there are many other petty
land holders and cottars. We are told that in 1846 the

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 356.

t Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 40.

J Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 271.

210 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

enumerator's report showed seven hundred and fifty-eight
thousand five hundred and twelve land proprietors and five
million five hundred thousand parcels of land. In 1878, the
enumeration showed one million one hundred and forty-three
thousand seven hundred and thirty-three owners of land and
six million four hundred and seventy-eight thousand three
hundred and forty parcels or tracts owned by them.* It will
thus be seen that small land owners have rapidly increased in
Belgium. This progressive division of lands has been marked
by an increase of rental and a steady advance in price of all
lands in the country. The working capital of a farm in
England is supposed to be from sixty to seventy-five dollars ;
in Belgium it is estimated at one hundred dollars. The gross
produce of a hectare is estimated at about one hundred and
eighteen dollars. \ In 1846, there were found fifty-five head
of horned cattle, twelve horses and eight sheep on every one
hundred hectares, superficial area. In England, not including
Wales and Scotland, M. de Lavergne says there are thirty-three
head of horned cattle, six horses and two hundred sheep per
one hundred hectares, for the same year. The average rent
of land in Flanders is, in dollars, about twenty dollars per
hectare, nearly ten dollars per acre ; the selling price varies
from (in dollars) six hundred and seventy-eight to seven hun-
dred and sixty dollars per hectare. Rents and selling prices
have doubled since 1830, and such results have not been
equaled in any other part of Europe. J In the small farm
provinces of Belgium, such as Flanders, the land is better
cultivated, yields more, has more agricultural capital and sus-
tains a heavier population to the hundred hectares than in
other portions of Belgium, there being of agricultural popula-
tion in East Flanders, two hundred and sixty-three to one
hundred and thirty-eight in Namur. Throughout Flanders

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 450.

f Ibid., page 458. J Ibid.

LEASES AND METAYAGE. 211

the spade is often used to prepare the soil. In Lombardy
it has been computed that in two fields manured in the same
way, one being worked with the spade and one being worked
with the plough, the returns of the former would be to the
latter as sixty-eight to twenty-eight.* The large farmers of
Hainault and Namur do not buy manure, as they fancy they
would ruin themselves by so doing. The Flemish small farm-
ers invest from fifteen to twenty millions of francs in guano
every year, and as much more in other manure, f Belgium
contains many manufacturing cities, but in an aggregate popu-
lation of nearly five millions and a half, eight hundred thou-
sand people are directly engaged in agricultural pursuits. J In
the portions of Belgium where the farming is carried on
between landlord and tenant the usual form is a short lease,
rarely over nine years. In the Middle Ages, when much of
the land was held under the feudal system, the form for a long
time was metayage, or a division of the crops between the land-
lord and tenant, the former furnishing a part of the necessary
capital. This has been abolished except in some of the polders
along the coast of the German ocean. Owing to the shortness
of the leases the cultivator is not tempted to make improve-
ments of which he would scarcely reap the benefits, and the
landlords will not grant longer leases because they expect to
raise the rent when the lease expires. The landlords reap all
the benefits resulting from the progress made by the entire
community in various directions. From the sixteenth century
the payments to the landlords have chiefly been in money. The
incoming tenant farmer takes possession of the land about the
middle of March, the houses April 1st. The laws for the
regulation of vacating and entering new leases differ in the
different provinces and are generally complicated. In some
localities experts are called on to appraise the standing crops

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 465. t Ibid., page 455.

t Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 41.
\ Systems of Land Tenure, page 466.

212 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

at the date of the change, and manure already on the ground.*
The estimated average of food for a man, per day, in the Low
Countries is, of bread thirty ounces, meat four ounces. By the
same table we quote it stands in Italy, twenty-eight ounces of
bread and two ounces of meat; Spain, twenty-six ounces
of bread and three ounces of meat ; Sweden and Norway,
twenty-two ounces of bread and three ounces of meat. Those
we have quoted last are the lowest in Europe. In Britain it
stands twenty-one ounces bread, seven ounces meat, and in the
United States, twenty-six ounces bread and nine ounces meat.f
Of course, such an approximation of food does not include the
other articles of diet that may be used. The buildings in Bel-
gium are superior in average value, taking the country through,
to what they are in Austria and Spain,! where more aristo-
cratic systems prevail. It will thus be seen that the Low
Countries, much of which is naturally very poor land, have
been rendered as productive as any in Europe, maintaining a
very considerable population. The government is a constitu-
tional monarchy; it is not a despotism, and has to consider to
some extent the wishes of the people. The parliamentary
bodies, a house and senate, are elective by voters who pay a
certain amount of taxes. Any citizen of twenty-one who pays
about eight dollars per annum taxes can vote for members
of the lower house. This makes one in thirteen of the adult
males a voter. No man is eligible to the senate who does not
pay direct taxes amounting to about four hundred dollars.
The senators receive no pay. In Belgium the power of the
aristocracy is on the wane. Belgium is following the footsteps
of France in the direction of small free holdings for the actual
agriculturist. Her cities were long the pillars of popular
rights against despotism, but the country is small, surrounded
by despotic and encroaching monarchies, and has been inter-

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 491.

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 144.

J Ibid., page 237.

SPANISH AGRICULTURE. 213

fered with too much, from the outside, to give a fair indication
of what it might have been if the people had been left to their
own instinctive love of freedom. It has been the theatre of
war for many a military despot.

Spain is one of the countries suffering from landed aristoc-
racy. There are in Spain six hundred and eighty thousand
laud owners, their estates average one hundred and fifty
acres.* Four per cent, of the population own land not
including lot owners. In Spain twenty-two millions of
acres are cultivated and ninety millions uncultivated. The
Spanish law gives facility to entails, which, with the pride
and indolence of the aristocracy, led to the decay of hus-
bandry.f The area of France in 1881 was 204,177 square
miles; of Spain at the last enumeration, 1877, 197,767
square miles.! It will thus be seen that there is not much
difference in the area; while the former maintains a popu-
lation of thirty-seven millions and a half, the latter has a
population of only sixteen millions and a half. The num-
ber of head of cattle, including horses, cattle and sheep, stands
in the ratio of seventeen in France to six in Spain, by Mul-
hall's tables. Although Spain was enriched by the plunder
of Mexico and Peru, and may be said to have been for a long
period the European dumping ground for the precious metals
from the Americas, we find by the latest statistics there is of
actual amount of coin in Spain and Portugal, forty millions
of gold and seventeen millions of silver coin, and in France
at the same date, one hundred and ninety-one millions in
gold, and one hundred and ten millions in silver coin.|| These
figures are in both cases of the English pounds sterling, as I
have not, in quoting, changed, in this case, Mulhall's tables.
The exports from Spain, by the latest tables, aggregate twenty-

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, 1884, page 267.

t Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii., page 449.

J Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 443.

3 Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 76. || Ibid., page 96.

214 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

one million nine hundred thousand pounds sterling, from
France, at the same date, one hundred and thirty-eight million
seven hundred thousand pounds sterling. I quote from Mul-
halPs tables of 1884. One more illustration : the estimated
value of lands per inhabitant in France is seventy pounds
sterling, and in Spain forty pounds. It is proper to state
that estimated values of real estate, except when based on
their actual productiveness, are not a safe criterion of prosper-
ity. In France, by Mulhall's tables, the average wages stand
per week, thirty shillings ; food, twelve shillings ; surplus,
twelve shillings. In Spain, average wages, sixteen shillings ;
food, ten shillings; and surplus, six shillings. Laveleye says:
" The estates of the grandees have destroyed the small land
owners, whose place has been taken by bandits, smugglers,
beggars and monks.*

In Portugal the aforamento is a species of hereditary lease
by which the right of occupation is granted in consideration
of an annual rent fixed, once for all, and which the landlord
cannot increase, f The aforamento, formerly, was not divisible,
and, on the death of the holder, one of the heirs must take it
and reimburse the others ; or if they did not agree, the lease-
hold or aforamento was sold, and the purchaser held it on the
same conditions. If the hereditary tenant allows the laud to
deteriorate so as to reduce its value to over one-fifth of the
capitalized rent, the landlord can eject him. Besides his rent,
the landlord was entitled to a fee or duty whenever the lease
changed hands, but, by the code of July, 1867, that, and all
feudal dues and charges were done away with, except rent.
The same code forbade bequeathing the sole right to one child
or person designated, and the division of the lease in equal
shares is made compulsory. The aforamento is of early date
in Portuguese history, and was introduced by the monastic
orders designed to be a check on feudalism. Besides the

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 479. t Ibid., page 487.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 215

noble and aristocratic landlords, private persons occasionally
let land at fixed rent, and in consideration of fixity of tenure
and rent, accept a certain cash sum by agreement, for these
perpetuity privileges when so granted. It has been assumed
that Portugal is more productive and prosperous than Spain,
and the aforamento has been considered the cause. The
government of Spain, although a constitutional monarchy, is
largely aristocratic. The upper house or senate is of two
classes : princes of the blood, grandees whose rent roll from
laud is equal to twelve thousand dollars, and a hundred sena-
tors for life named by the king. One-half of the senate is
elective ; but the electors must pay a land tax of five dol-
lars or an industrial tax of ten dollars. At the election of
1879, there was one elector to every seventeen of the popula-
tion.* Spain, politically, may be considered in a transitionary
state, and if her people are able to assert and maintain repub-
lican institutions, great reforms may be expected. Spain is
the only nation in Europe, at present, that has not abolished
slavery in her colonies. She has some accomplished statesmen,
many of whom are, like Castellar, sympathetically republican.
In Austria, including Hungary, there are eleven thousand
noble land owners whose estates, estimated together, average
five thousand two hundred acres, the aggregate owned
by them being sixty-two millions of acres. There are also
three million, four hundred and twenty thousand smaller
peasant or farmer land owners, the average acreage of whose
estates is twenty-three acres, f Although none of the latter
class are among the nobility, many of them may be styled
landed gentry. There is, therefore, quite a large body of
aristocrats, who derive an income from the land claimed by
them, and are in this way a burden on the agricultural labor-
ers of the country. The Austrian empire, exclusive of her

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 435.
f MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics, page 271.

216 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

Turkish provinces, has an area of two hundred and forty
thousand nine hundred and forty-two English square miles,
and a population, at the last census of December, 1880, of
thirty-seven million eight hundred and eighty-three thousand
two hundred and twenty-six. In Austria proper, the density
of the population is about one hundred and ninety-one to the
square mile, and in the rest of the empire about one hundred
and thirty-five to the square mile.* In Austria, two million
two hundred and seventy-five thousand one hundred and
seventeen are returned as farming their own lands, much of it by
hired labor ; ninety thousand and thirty-six as tenant farmers,
and three million seven hundred and thirty-nine thousand
four hundred and twenty-one as farm laborers. In all, some
six millions of people engaged one way and another in
agriculture, with their families, making nearly sixty per
cent, of the entire population.f Of the total area of Austria-
Hungary, the acreage in crops is forty-six million one hun-
dred and eight thousand and seventy ; woods and forests,
twenty-three million two hundred and eighty thousand four
hundred and twelve acres ; meadows and perennial pastures,
eleven million three hundred and ten thousand five hundred
and thirty-three acres.

The amount of gold and silver coin in Great Britain for
each inhabitant is about twenty dollars ; in France, forty dol-
lars, and in Austria, a little over two dollars and fifty cents.
Coin is not a correct indication of wealth, however. In 1867,
Edward Young informs us that agricultural laborers in Aus-
tria received per year, as wages, from fourteen dollars and
forty cents to nineteen dollars and twenty cents, with board.
Women, from four dollars and eighty cents to fourteen dollars
and forty cents, with board, but adds that wages have risen
since then.J In 1870, the daily wages of laborers in factories

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 21. f Ibid., page 24.

J Young's Labor in Europe, page 600.

WAGES AND FEMALE LABOR. 217

was from twenty-two to forty-eight cents per day, without
board, the working hours being from twelve to thirteen per
day. Wages have since risen twenty per cent.* Two-thirds
of the commerce of the country is carried on with Germany.
A good journeyman shoemaker earns about ninety-six cents
a day, and a good joiner, from one dollar twenty to one dollar
and forty-four cents. Inferior bakers earn about seventy-two
cents a week, and board, and head workmen, one dollar and
sixty-eight cents per week, with board.f Many of the arti-
sans and laborers are boarded by their employers. The con-
dition of agricultural laborers generally is not as good as in
many European countries. When it is considered that in an
agricultural population of six million nearly four million
are mere laborers, the helpless condition of the lower orders
may be inferred. The large body of nobles and still larger
body of petty landed aristocrats may be said to consume sub-
stantially from one-half to one-third of all the agricultural
production. There are two elements in the population, the
Eastern or Sclavic, having originally different views of land
tenure, but all subjected to the dominant idea produced by
feudalism. To make matters worse, the condition of women
in Austria is deplorable. All the most menial work in
Vienna is done by women, such as cleaning and sweeping
the streets, gathering garbage, carrying water, pumping from
the cisterns to the upper stories of houses, and even carrying
mortar and handling bricks.J These are of all ages, young,
middle-aged and old, their wages being about forty-eight
cents per day, without board. A comparative review of the
occupations of the sexes shows that in the industries, manu-
factures, agriculture, trade, commerce, science, art, etc., there
are three million twenty-seven thousand and four females
engaged, and three million six hundred and twelve thousand

* Young's Labor in Europe, page 601. f Ibid., page 604.

t Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 605.

218 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

two hundred and twenty^seven males. Although women
almost equally share the grades of labor, we find of inde-
pendent persons, property owners, factors, churchmen, pro-
prietors, only nine hundred and forty-nine thousand two
hundred and sixty-five females, to two million nine hundred
and nineteen thousand three hundred and fifty-four males.*
The hours of female labor in Austria are also greater than
those of male laborers, while the wages are from fifty to twenty-
five per cent. less. The greater portion of field labor and labor
in factories, mills and mines falls on women. The manner
of paying her explains her subordinate position. What is
left of the empire, Austria proper and Hungary, have each
a parliamentary body, the two united in the person of the
sovereign. There are seventeen provincial diets. The poor
and laboring people have little or no part in these govern-
ments. The government in all its parts is essentially aristo-
cratic,f its powers arising from lauded aristocracy and prop-
erty qualifications. Austria offers a fine field for the political
reformer and the advocate of woman's rights.

Italy at the present time possesses a constitutional govern-
ment which is largely aristocratical, with the elective part
based on property qualifications. The executive power belongs
to the king, who also practically creates the highest parlia-
mentary body, the senate. That body consists of princes of
the royal family, and of distinguished persons who have held
office, been noted for scientific or literary ability, or who pay
an annual tax equal to six hundred dollars. These are nomi-
nated by the king for life. The loweff house of deputies is
elected by male citizens of twenty-one who can read and write,
and who pay taxes to the amount of four dollars; sixty-one
per cent, of adult males voted at the election of 1882.J
Neither senators nor deputies receive any pay but are allowed

* United States Consular Keports, 1885, page 156.

f Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 7. J Ibid., page 316.

ITALY. 219

to travel free on railroads and steamboat lines. By the census
of December, 1881, the total population of Italy was found to
be twenty-eight million four hundred and fifty-nine thousand
six hundred and twenty-eight, living on an area of one hundred
and fourteen thousand four hundred and ten English square
miles, being two hundred and thirty-four persons to the square
mile. In Italy there are twenty-seven million acres cultivated
laud and forty-one million acres uncultivated.* Of her popu-
lation, one million eight hundred and sixty-five thousand
persons own laud, the average acreage of whose estates is
thirty-five acres and the average value being nearly two
thousand one hundred dollars. This list of land owners is
from Mulhall's tables, and does not include cottars or persons
owning less than five acres. The average value of the culti-
vated land is about one hundred and five dollars per acre.
In Lombardy and Piedmont there are one million one hun-
dred and eighty thousand separate estates averaging sixteen
acres, embracing an aggregate of nineteen million acres. In
Sicily there are four hundred and ten thousand estates aver-
aging forty acres, and aggregating sixteen million acres.
Lorabardy, especially, is the small farm region, and is the best
cultivated in Italy, and the people are more comfortably
situated. Tuscany and Romagna, with an aggregate acreage
of sixteen million, have only one hundred and forty-five
thousand estates, which average one hundred and ten acres,
and Naples one hundred and twenty thousand estates, averaging
one hundred and eighty acres and aggregating twenty-one
million acres.f One million one hundred and forty thousand
proprietors farm thirty-three million acres ; one million two
hundred and forty-eight thousand metayers cultivate eighteen
million acres on a division of crops with the owners, and
three hundred and ten thousand tenants cultivate twenty mil-
lion acres. Where the metayer system exists the state of

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266. f H>id., page 270.

220 EUKOPEAN LAND TENURES.

agriculture and the condition of the actual laborers and culti-
vators stand lowest. Tenants with leases stand next. The
regions tilled by the proprietors are not only the most pros-
perous and productive, but the people are in more comfortable
circumstances. The average rent, where it is not on the
metayer system of a division of crops, is from two to three
dollars per acre.

The rate of laborers' wages in Italy is the lowest in
Europe.* They eat less animal food than the laborers of any
country in Europe, Mulhall giving per diem twenty-eight
ounces of bread and two ounces of animal food as the average. f
Many of the poor Italian laborers do not eat animal food
except on rare occasions. The climate has, of course, some-
thing to do with this, and they subsist largely on vegetables
and fruit. The diet of the laborers of Piedmont is given by
the vice consul as " Morning meal, vegetable soup ; the families
of the higher classes of workmen have coffee and milk. Dinner,
soup, bread and cheese, or potatoes and codfish. Supper, which
is the principal meal, bread, wine, macaroni or vegetable stew.
Meat is a rarity and a luxury." J The same authority gives
the rate of wages in Turin for a week's work of sixty
hours : Bricklayers, $4.20 ; masons, $3.60 ; plasterers, $5.04 ;
roofers, $4.20 ; plumbers, $3.60 ; carpenters, $4.00 ; bakers,
$4.00 ; blacksmiths, $3.60 ; brickmakers, $5.00, and brewers,
$8.00 ; cabinet makers, $3.40 ; cigar makers, $3.00 ; hod car-
riers and tenders, $1.70 per week; draymen and teamsters,
$1.50; teachers in public schools, $5.00. Married women
very seldom work in factories or at any out-door employment.
The wages of female employees is generally about one-half
those of the male employees. The American system of board-
ing is never practiced, everybody keeps house. The principal

* United States Consular Eeports, 1885, page 149.
f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 144.
J United States Consular Keports, page 151.
\ Young's Labor in Europe, page 631.

SWITZERLAND AND DENMARK. 221

exports are silk, wine, olive oil, fruit, hemp and cotton.* The
condition of Italy is not so favorable to the laboring man as
France or several other countries in Europe. Without having
much more than half the area of Spain it has nearly twice the
population. The conditions of land tenure are not favorable
to the laboring classes. Large portions of what is produced
are consumed by privileged idlers. Politically, Italy is in a
transition state. Fettered by the burdens of bygone ages, her
people have evinced fresh aspirations for freedom.

Switzerland, although a small mountain region, is one of
the most prosperous in Europe so far as the laborers are con-
cerned. Laveleye asks why the Swiss peasant is so much
more substantially fed than some of his neighbors, and answers
because the Swiss is nearly always the owner of the soil he
cultivates. f Swiss working people enjoy full political rights
and are taxed like others. Wage workers in Switzerland,
however, are required to be at once laborious and denying, and
are able to save but little.

Denmark has a population of one million nine hundred and
sixty-nine thousand and thirty-nine, living on an area of thir-
teen thousand seven hundred and eighty-four square miles.
The average density is one hundred and forty-three to the
square mile. Of land owners there are in this small territory
five hundred and fifty, whose estates average two thousand
five hundred acres, holding among them one million three
hundred and eighty thousand acres. Persons of the rank of
farmers number one thousand one hundred and eighty, these
also being to some extent a privileged class. Their estates
average three thousand acres, making an aggregate of three
hundred and sixty thousand acres. Then there are sixty-nine
thousand one hundred of what are styled "bondsmen," or
farmers, with an average of sixty acres, aggregating four million

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 340.
f Systems of Land Tenure, page 450.

222 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

two hundred thousand. " Huusmen," a species of laboring
tenant holder, a relic of feudalism, whose holdings average
four acres.

In Sweden the population in 1883 was four million six
hundred and three thousand five hundred and ninety-six, the
area, one hundred and seventy thousand nine hundred and
seventy-nine,* being more than four-fifths the size of France,
with about one-sixth of the population. Sweden has two
thousand six hundred and fifty nobles, who have estates aver-
aging fourteen thousand acres, aggregating thirty-eight million
acres. There are one hundred and ninety-one thousand free-
holders whose estates average two hundred acres and forty
thousand tenants, who each occupy lands averaging four hun-
dred acres.f The average price of land is placed by Mulhall
at sixty dollars per acre, and the rent at five English shillings,
about a dollar and five cents per acre.

Norway contains three millions of acres of cultivated and
seventy million acres uncultivated land. In fact there is a
great deal of poor and waste land in all the Scandinavian
countries.

Mr. Ryder, consul to Denmark, estimates the daily expense
of a family of four persons, a laborer, his wife and two children :
Breakfast and supper, four pounds bread, one-fifth pound lard,
one-sixth pound cheese, one-quarter pound sugar, one-four-
teenth pound coffee and milk, the whole costing nineteen cents.
Dinner, which consists of milk porridge, fish and potatoes, or
pea soup with pork, about fifteen cents, or thirty-four cents
per diem, one hundred and twenty-four dollars per year.J
He says the condition of the best paid laborers is " fairly com-
fortable," that of the agricultural laborers one of economy and
self denial. This may be judged from his table, in which he
gives the expense and income of a laborer and his family for

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 461.

f Mnlhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 271.

J United States Consular Keports, 1885, page 165.

SCANDINAVIA. 223

a year: rent, $30; food, $123.36; clothing, $10; fuel and
light, $12.10; tobacco and spirits, $6.70; total expenses,
$183.60; total income, $188.00. Balance for incidentals,
$4.40. He gives four families, of which the above is the
lowest ; for the highest he gives an expenditure of $254.60
and an income of $268.40. The married women attend to
their domestic aifairs usually, but at times work in the field or
shops as the single women do.

The common farmers of Norway till the soil themselves
with the assistance of their tenants, a class called " huusmen." *
These hire from the farmer a patch of land that will keep one
or two cows and a few sheep, for which, and their humble
cot, they pay a certain number of day's work in each season
of the year. They are so much in the power of the owners
of the land that they cannot make reasonable bargains for the
payment of rent in money. At home they and their families
live chiefly on hominy and barley bread. They scarcely
have meat, except, perhaps, at Christmas. Besides the
" huusmen," there are agricultural laborers, whose condition,
however, is perhaps even better than the " huusmen." f Young
places the wages of agricultural laborers, in 1872, at from
one dollar and twenty-six to one dollar and ninety-two cents
per week ; carpenters and blacksmiths, three dollars and
eighty-seven cents; weavers in the cotton mills, from five
dollars and thirty-two, to six "dollars and forty cents. J Wages
have since risen.

It will be observed that the Scandinavian countries are, to
a considerable extent, inhospitable and unproductive, and do
not maintain a dense population, only seven and three-tenths
per cent, of the land being under cultivation. Manufacturing
interests are neither extensive nor considerable. About one-
half of the country is covered by forests, timber being one of

* Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 696.

f Ibid. J Ibid., page 693.

224 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

the principal exports. The farmer land holders, who are a
kind of country gentlemen, work on their farms, and even
the petty nobles occasionally work on their estates, but the
bulk of the labor is performed by men who have little interest in
the soil, and are only connected with it by rent. In 1882, two
hundred and twenty-four thousand three hundred and ninety-
two persons were returned as paupers, or four and nine-tenths
per cent, of the population.* With the exception of sixteen
thousand four hundred and twelve Finns, six thousand six
hundred Laps, and about twelve thousand persons of foreign
birth, the Swedish population is entirely of the Scandinavian
branch of the Teutonic family. In 1860 the emigrants from
Sweden to countries beyond Europe were only three hundred
and forty-eight. In 1865 the number rose to six thousand
six hundred and ninety-one; in 1868, to twenty-seven thou-
sand and tw 7 enty-four in 1869, to thirty-nine thousand and
sixty-four. The emigration fell, in 1870, to twenty thousand
and three, and to seven thousand seven hundred and ninety-
one in 1877. In 1879 it was forty-two thousand one hun-
dred and nine ; in 1880, forty-five thousand nine hundred
and ninety-two; in 1882, fifty thousand one hundred and
seventy-six, and in 1883, twenty-nine thousand four hundred
and ninety. Over four-fifths of these emigrants went to the
United States. It is fair to charge the monopolization of the
land by privileged classes with being the leading cause of the
condition of the people. The great body of workers are not
interested in improving the country; but the people that overran
Russia, dictated terms to France, twice overran England, and
held great stretches of the American coast in early times, are
not destitute of their ancient nerve.

The Prussia of to-day is largely a political creation, and
the modern German empire is one of the first great powers in
the world. Germany comprises four kingdoms, six grand

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 462.

GERMANY. 225

duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free cities,
Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen, and Alsace-Lorraine. The
Imperial throne has always been filled by election, but it or
its rulers have a tendency to the hereditary principle. Origi-
nally, the election was by all the princes and peers of the
Reich, but the mode was changed in the fourteenth century,
when a limited number, seven, afterward changed to nine,
assumed the privilege. The old empire was overthrown by
Napoleon, in 1806. The present emperor was elected by the
vote of the Reichstag of the North German Confederation.

The area of the twenty-five states is two hundred and
twelve thousand and twenty-eight English square miles, as
against two hundred and four thousand one hundred and
seventy-seven of France, and two hundred and forty thousand
nine hundred and forty-two of Austria-Hungary. Before
Germany obtained Alsace-Lorraine, France was the largest.
The population of the German Empire, December 1st, 1880,
was forty-five million two hundred and thirty-four thousand
and sixty-one.* Not including cottars or persons owning less
than five acres, there are, in Germany, two million four hun-
dred and thirty-six thousand persons owning land ; the land
owners being five per cent, of the population. The average
tracts of the landlords given is only thirty-seven acres, but
included in that there are some very considerable estates.
The average value, if they had all the same amount, would be
about four thousand dollars, f In the German Empire sixty-
eight millions of acres are cultivated, and fifty-seven million
acres uncultivated, which is a large average of cultivated land,
although not so large as in France. The price of cultivated
land per acre is about one hundred and twenty-five dollars in
our money.!

The original Teutonic community was a body of men who

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 114.

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 267. % Ibid., page 266.

226 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

had property in common, among whom any private right or
interest in land was connected with public duty or military
service. The geographical area was marked out or divided
into three marks ; first, the common or folclaud ; second, the
arable mark cut out of the common mark and apportioned
in equal lots, and then the town or village mark, cut up into
separate lots.* The individual or marksman stood in a three-
fold relation to the land, a joint proprietor of the common
land, an allottee in the arable mark and a householder in the
township. There was, therefore, under restriction, an inherit-
ance he could call his own in the arable or tillable land,
although he was compelled to occupy and cultivate it, and the
community determined the mode of cultivation ; his cattle
grazed on the common pasture, and he cut timber from the
public forest. In his dwelling-house and its appurtenances
he was absolute lord and master. In another chapter we
have shown how, in nearly all the Teutonic nations, the an-
cient system of equal freeholds was changed, and the lands
largely passed into the hands of the lords. In Germany,
feudal tenure villeinage, with their accompaniments, came down,
to the beginning of this century. Prussia made three great
efforts to escape from them, and it endeavored to return to
free ownership, but with unequal possession.^ The first step
was taken in 1807, by the abolition of villeinage in so far as
it affected the personal status of the villein. At that time it
must be remembered that all the land in Prussia consisted of
the few provinces left it by the peace of Tilsit, which was
distributed among three classes, nobles, peasants and burghers.
The community was composed of different parties. Some had
been formerly slaves, gradually ascending to the peasant class ;
some had been freeholders and had sunk to villeinage ; others
held what had been claimed as crown lands by paying an
annual service or fee ; some had been dispossessed by the

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 351. t Ibid., page 361.

PRUSSIAN LAND REFORM. 227

nobles. Ill the worst form of the villein tenure in Germany,
the peasant could be held to unlimited service. At his death
the whole or the large part of the personal estate fell to the
lord ; his children could not marry without the lord's consent,
and could be kept an unlimited number of years as personal
servants. The peasant could be whipped, but his life was
protected.* As is usually the case, the calamities of kings
and nations is the crucible from which emerges slowly the
rights of the people. Frederick the Great, in his terrible
struggles to maintain and build up Prussia, found it necessary
to recognize to some extent the rights or claims of the culti-
vator. With all his despotic qualities he undoubtedly im-
proved their condition. This only seemed to hasten inevitable
changes. At the time of the reformation the people had
endeavored to regain their rights to the land. Feudalism in
its worst form was dead, and circumstances made its final
overthrow indispensable. The battle of Jena was not, for
Prussia, an unmixed calamity. An agrarian spirit was in the
air, and not only battles but revolution. The edict of Freder-
ick William, on October 9th, 1807, was ushered in by a liberal
allowance of philosophical " whereases," but the substance was,
first, providing for the free exchange of property; second,
freedom in regard to occupation ; third, divisibility of prop-
erty ; fourth, power of granting leases ; fifth, extinction
and consolidation of peasant holdings; sixth, facilities for
mortgaging ; seventh, limited entails ; eighth, abolition of
villeinage. Although M. Morier is inclined to give these
events more importance than they are entitled to, they initi-
ated rather than accomplished important changes. Prussia
had been scourged by war and stripped of resources : whole
villages were lying in ashes, f France had some time before
got rid of her aristocratic land holders by a much less
elaborate and a much more conclusive plan. Those who

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 365. f Ibid., page 374.

228 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

assisted the weak Frederick William in 1807, were certainly
neither communists nor democrats. They were admirers of
the English system rather than the French. The first great
purpose was to make land a chattel, and their idea of a model
farm was a large one with its landlord, supervising farmer,
and laborers. They relieved the German laborer or villein
of the burden of feudal dues, but as these had largely gone
into disrepute some time before, this was not so great a boon.
The edict assumed that the noble landlords had certain rights
in the soil, the tenant or villein had merely a sort of pre-
emptive right of use. Instead of yielding service under the
system of feudal tenure, to the lord, the peasant was author-
ized to buy and pay indemnity to the lord for what the latter
was thus to relinquish. In this way the personal right of the
lord in the property or estate was recognized, although he really
had no right to it. It was essentially a recognition of the lord
of the manor's right to the property. If the liberated villein
had no money, which was probable, he could buy, get deeds
and give a mortgage on the premises he used, and thus pay
interest instead of rent or service. As one -half the improve-
ments in the country had been destroyed or laid waste by
war, the noble landlords, if their claim to title to the laud
was good, should have been placed under obligation to put
the farms on which the villein furnished them rent into
serviceable shape. In making everything salable, moreover,
there was dauger that the peasant small holdings would be
swallowed up by capitalists. On the several questions involved
the commissioners and the country at large were divided. To
prevent the extinction of peasant holdings, instructions were
sent to the provincial governments to give permission for such
extinctions under restrictions and only in cases where it was
" new peasant land," or land so created within fifty years, and
even in such instances half the land so purchased or exchanged
must be made into large peasant holdings, and either given in
fee to peasant holders or let in perpetual leases. The political

COMPOUNDING FEUDAL PRIVILEGES. 229

economists in these proceedings, as has been said, were men
of English ideas. It is generally believed, and justly, that
where there is a free exchange of land, the capitalists and large
holders will gradually swallow up the small holdings, unless
there is a law of compulsory division as in France. In point
of fact, the edict of 1807 did not succeed in very vitally
changing the form of land tenure in Prussia. It disturbed
rather than settled questions. The lord was still owner of the
peasant's laud, but had not the right to enforce possession or
eject the peasant, and the peasant was free but not master of
his own labor.* To cure these evils the edicts or legislation
of 1811 were promulgated. They consisted of two great
edicts, one to regulate the relations between the lords and the
peasants and the other purported to be an " edict for the better
cultivation of the land." The first edict had two general
parts. The one considered the rights of the landlord, the
lord's right of ownership, his claim to service, dues in money
and kind, dead stock on the farms, easements or servitudes on
the land held. The rights of the tenant were claims to assist-
ance in case of misfortune, right to gather wood and other
forest rights, claims for repairs on buildings, pasturage on
demesne lands or forests.f The commission as a basis laid
down, that in case of hereditary holdings neither the service
nor the dues could be increased and that they must be lowered
if the holder could not subsist at their actual rate. That the
holding must be kept in condition so that the proceeds could
pay its dues to the state. Here a distinction is drawn between
the claims of the state and the manor. As has been shown,
the rights of the manor were originally the rights of the state,
or the " eminent domain " for defense. Here we have what
had in fact been established long before, the claim of the state
to tax or impose burdens, " eminent domain," and the claim
of the lord or the ownership of the manor. This merely gave

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 378. f Ibid., page 377.

230 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

the claim of the state precedence. By the terms of the edict,
two years were given to the lords and the cultivators, the
vassals and tenants, whatever their relative rights might be,
to adjust their differences. These were to be adjusted on the
basis that the lords should have absolute possession of one-
third of the old arable mark and one-third of the common
land. For the remainder the peasant was to indemnify the
lord, which might take the shape of indemnity of capital,
corn or money rent. This has been styled " the agrarian legis-
lation of Prussia," and in so far as it interfered with the
peasant's right to the land he lived on, it was agrarian enough.
It gave the lord the absolute disposal of one-third of what
was really public property, and the right to rent the remainder
unless somebody could buy it from him. For the use of his
cot the peasant was to pay ten clays' labor with a team, or if he
had no team, ten days' labor of a man and also of a woman.
Where corn rents were not paid punctually the lord of the
manor could exact services instead. One of the rights insisted
on by the political economists was the unlimited right of dis-
posal. Parents were permitted to divide their estate among
their children as they saw fit. Facilities were also given for
sales and foreclosures on the principle that if a man had not
the means or was unable properly to develop the land, it was
better that he should sell to some one who was.

The Prussian legislation of 1850 has been considered more
radical, but acted essentially on the same plan. The revolu-
tions or insurrections of 1848 had swept over Europe, and
although the despotic rulers and aristocrats had crushed them,
there was still a wholesome admonition conveyed by them.
By the legislation of 1850 all hereditary holders became pro-
prietors, and the overlordship of the lord of the manor was
abrogated. These proprietors, however, or the land they
occupied, were held liable for an equivalent of dues and service,
which in fact became rent. The land was capitalized at
eighteen years' rent, and a species of banks called "rent banks,"

GERMAN RENT AND WAGES. 231

were created. The government merely lent its credit to put
this rent or burden in a tax shape, the lord getting indemnity
besides his third on ownership. In France, England and
Germany, a great conflict had been going on between the lord,
or the manor, and the peasant. In England the manor won,
the peasant lost. In France the peasant won, the manor lost.
In Germany it was a drawn game, the stakes were divided ;*
but it is easy to see that the lord had the advantage, and the
fruits of the most of his exactions and encroachments for ages
were conceded to him. In the German empire the instincts
of the people are for small and allodial holdings, the interest
of the capitalists for large holdings. It is claimed that the
number of cultivating holders has not diminished under the
chattelization of land. It is too soon to judge it yet, and in
any event the cultivating holders do not increase. The rent
of land in Germany averages four dollars and a half per
acre,f more than twice as much as in Austria and three times as
much as in Spain and Portugal or Sweden, and although Italy
is much more densely populated than Germany, the rent stands*
eighteen in Germany to eleven in Italy. In some parts of Ger-
many agricultural laborers 7 wages are for a man, 67.30, and a
woman, $30 per year, with board ; day laborer, with board,
forty cents, harvest labor, without board, eighty cents per day.J
The general trades, by the same authority, stand per week of
sixty hours : Bricklayers, $4.15 ; masons, the same, that is
without board ; carpenters are $4.75 ; cabinet makers, $4.91 ;
hod carriers, $3.21 ; tenders, $2.54. In Britain the wages are
a little higher. Women perform many menial tasks. Consul
Mason, at Dresden, mentions teams of a woman and a dog
pulling light carts with very considerable loads. As a rule
the women are not so well paid as the men.

In presenting the condition of land tenure in modern Europe,

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 389.

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266.

J United States Consular Keports, 1885, page 9. I Ibid., page 16.

232 EUROPEAN LAND TENURES.

it will be seen that in nearly all the states of Europe there is
a large and aristocratic class that exacts, in the shape of rent,
a very considerable portion of what is produced by the labor-
ing classes. The more extravagant the landlords, the greater
their exactions from the producers, even to the extent in many
cases of crippling and impeding production. Public burdens
and the defense of the country are not now defrayed from this
rent, but all property, production and consumption are taxed.
Enormous armies are maintained by the governments of these
countries, ostensibly as a menace to each other, but chiefly to
their disaffected subjects. The power of government is largely
in the hands of landowners, and they exercise it to protect
their own interests.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE BKITISH EMPIRE.

Cultivated and uncultivated areas Acreocracy Extent and value of aris-
tocratic holdings Number of land owners Urban and country popula-
tion Rent during six hundred years Prices of wheat and beef
Aristocratic debts saddled on the people Primogeniture and the younger
sons Loss of cottage and pasture privileges by workingmen Law of
parish settlement Food and wages No law to secure a tenant for his
improvements A "retired tenant farmer" Board and wages three
centuries ago Prices Watt Tyler Growth of cities Manufacture and
commerce Mr. Giffen searching for the laborer's wealth Mallock
Modern wages Houses and food Ireland Arthur Young Subjection
of Ireland Landlords in triplicate Noblemen, perpetual land holders,
middlemen and cultivators Rents in Ireland Redpath Tenants and
evictions Number of land proprietors Battersby and compensation
Argyle and Henry George The duke as a philosopher and as a sheep
raiser Defense of British aristocracy Agricultural decadence Growth
of manufactures and commerce Food produced and food imported
Rival aristocracy of money.

IN the third chapter we attempted to show how the aristo-
cratic owners of land in Europe had succeeded in fastening
themselves, like Sinbad the Sailor's Old Man of the Moun-
tain, on the shoulders of the laborers of these nations. Who
are these land owners ? Mulhall says that one hundred and
eighty thousand persons own land in the United Kingdom of
Great Britain.* The same authority gives the average size
of estates at three hundred and ninety acres, and the average
value of the estates at nine thousand six hundred pounds.
The number of landholders to the whole population being
half of one per cent. His table does not include cottars or

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 267.

233

234 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

those owning less than five acres. The cultivated area of
Great Britain is stated to be forty-seven millions of acres, and
twenty-three million acres are uncultivated.* The average
value of the cultivated land is thirty-three pounds per acre,
about one hundred and sixty dollars. The value of the land
in Britain, if equally divided, would be forty-eight pounds, or
two hundred and thirty-two dollars to each man, woman and
child. Not being divided equally, we find that Jwenty -three
noblemen, dukes, earls, marquises and lords have estates
exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand acres, f As, for
example, the Duke of Argyle has one hundred and seventy-
five thousand acres ; Lord Middleton, one million six thou-
sand acres (one seventieth part of the entire kingdom); the
Duke of Sutherland, one million three hundred and fifty-
eight thousand acres, or nearly one-fiftieth part of the king-
dom. Eighteen noblemen have annual rentals exceeding one
hundred thousand pounds, or five hundred thousand dollars,
derived from the proceeds of lands. The annual rent roll,
for instance, of the Duke of Norfolk, is two hundred and
seventy thousand pounds, upwards of one million three hun-
dred and thirty thousand dollars. The Marquis of Bute has
a rent roll of two hundred and thirty-two thousand pounds,
the Duke of Buccleuch, two hundred and thirty-one thousand
pounds, and the Duke of Northumberland, of one hundred
and seventy-six thousand pounds. Besides these almost royal
revenues, derived from political assignments of the soil, we
find, by reference to John Bateman's abridgment of the
Domesday book, that in England and Wales, alone, there are
fifteen hundred and thirty-six persons who own not less than
three thousand acres,J and that only in a few cases does the rent
roll of these estates fall short of three thousand pounds (fifteen
thousand dollars), and from that amount, running up to the

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 266. | Ibid-, page 272.

J Acreocracy of England.

ARISTOCRATIC LIEN ON LABOR. 235

rent roll of the Duke of Norfolk. Mr. Bateman only gives
the rent roll of the rural estates. By examining his work it
will be seen that several estates are often in the hands of one
person, and in this way it appears that several enumerators
count the separate estates and thus make the number of land
owners much greater than it really is. Among the noble
land owners, although not the largest, we recognize some
names connected with the government. Thus, the Marquis
of Salisbury has twenty thousand two hundred and seventy-
two acres, and a rent roll from them of thirty-three thousand
four hundred and thirteen pounds,* nearly four times the
salary paid to the president of the United States, and this tax
on the land is supposed to be the property of the Marquis,
and all who may come after him, without the slightest refer-
ence to the performance of any public duty. The Duke of
Bedford has eighty-seven thousand five hundred and seven
acres, with a rent roll of one hundred and forty-one thousand
five hundred and forty-nine pounds, f about seven hundred
thousand dollars per annum. Earl Lonsdale has sixty-seven
thousand nine hundred and fifty acres, producing a rent
roll of seventy-one thousand two hundred and ten pounds.
The Duke of Portland's acres and rent roll are about the
same amount.

In addition to the fifteen hundred and thirty-six aristocratic
land owners of England and Wales, given by Mr. Bateman
as possessing not less than three thousand acres, there is a
very considerable number more, who, while they fall below
that standard, still have very extensive estates, sufficient
to place them independent of exertion, with incomes derived
from the natural resources of the country, varying from four
or five thousand, to fifty thousand dollars per annum. It
w r ill not make the matter much clearer to swell the list of
aristocratic names, or enumerate the estates and demesnes of

* Acreocracy of England, page 170. f. Ibid., page 14.

236 BRITISH LANDHOLDIXG.

princes, knights or lords. From the figures given, the reader
can form some kind of an estimate of the fearful mortgage
laid on the shoulders of the laborers of England. In no
country in Europe are there so few land holders as in the
British Empire. Mr. Broderick says : " The number of agri-
cultural land owners was never so small and the population
so large." * Besides the noble land owners, there is an army
of middlemen, factors, leasing farmers and their adjuncts.
The agricultural system of Britain is composed, first, of aris-
tocratic landlords, who, under the law, deduct so much an
acre from the producers ; second, the leasing or contracting
farmers, who employ a capital in the work of agriculture, and
make their profit between the rent, the interest they pay the
money lenders, and the price they pay for labor ; third, the
laborers, who get what the leasers and middlemen choose to
pay them, and of whom it is only necessary to say that they
are very poor and dependent.

During the reign of William the Conqueror, when there
were about two million people in England and Wales, there
were about one hundred and seventy thousand laud owners.
Now, when there are twenty millions of people in England
and Wales, there are, according to Mr. Broderick, less than
one hundred and fifty thousand who own more than an acre
and a half, and two thousand two hundred and fifty persons
own nearly one-half of the enclosed portion of England and
"Wales. f There is a real or apparent discrepancy between
Mr. Mulhall and Hon. George C. Broderick. A series of
official reports, published in 1875 and 1876,, gives a larger
number of land proprietors than is given elsewhere. The
owners of less than an acre (lot owners outside the city of
London, mostly) were eight hundred and fifty-two thousand
four hundred and sixty-eight. Of these seven hundred and
three thousand two hundred and eighty-nine were in England

* Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 9. f Ibid.

LAND AND LOT OWNERS. 237

and Wales ; one hundred and thirteen thousand and five in
Scotland, and thirty-six thousand one hundred and fourteen
in Ireland. These gave of owners above an acre in England
and Wales, two hundred and sixty-nine thousand five hun-
dred and forty-seven ; in Scotland, nineteen thousand two
hundred and twenty-five ; and in Ireland, thirty-two thousand
six hundred and fourteen.* The discrepancy between this
and the other tables arises from two causes. In the first
place the line between urban and rural is in these tables
drawn at an acre, while in the others it is an acre and a half.
It is also admitted that it was partly caused by enumerating
the tracts rather than the owners, several of which belonged
to one owner. In France the urban or city population is a
small fraction over twenty-four per cent.f and the rural up-
ward of seventy-five per cent. In England, on the other
hand, nearly two-thirds of the entire population are urban,
or town and city dwellers. In England and Wales the pro-
portion of owners of houses to inhabited houses is one in four ;
in Scotland, one in three ; and in Ireland, one in fourteen. J
England and Wales, taken by themselves, are more densely
populated than any country in Europe except Belgium. By
the census of 1881 it contained four hundred and forty-six
individuals to the square mile. More than one-fourth of the
population of England and Wales is concentrated in London,
and when we remember the number of her great commercial
and manufacturing cities, such as Liverpool, Birmingham,
Manchester, Leeds, Sheifield, Bristol, it is not difficult to
understand that to-day there is a greater power in England
than her agricultural interest.

It is with the agricultural interest we have chiefly to do.
We have seen the burdens laid upon it. Those burdens have
been steadily increasing for six centuries. Mulhall furnishes

* Statesman's Year Book, 1885, page 252.
t Ibid., page 86. J Ibid., page 252.

238 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

a table of the increase of the rent per acre in England.* In
1230 the land was estimated at a value of about five dollars
per acre, the rent two shillings per acre. In 1440 the rent
had risen to three shillings ; in 1570 to four shillings ; in 1660
to six shillings; in 1774 to fifteen shillings; and in 1875 to
thirty shillings. In the Statesman's Year Book for 1885, page
253, the estimated average rental in England and Wales is
three pounds and two pence. In 'Scotland the rental is nine-
teen shillings and nine pence per acre, and in Ireland thirteen
shillings and four pence. It will thus be seen that in England
and Wales in about six hundred and fifty years the rents had
risen from two to sixty shillings an acre. Let us see if pro-
duce had risen at the same rates. Mulhall gives a table of the
price of wheat for five hundred and eighty years, the average
from 1301 to 1350 being eighteen shillings per quarter of eight
bushels, running up to 1851 ; between that year and 1881 wheat
averaged fifty-one shillings.f These prices were according to
weight of silver, which everybody knows was of much greater
value before the discovery of the Americas. Accepting it as a
standard, however, it will be observed that while wheat had
risen three times in price, rent had risen thirty, or twenty times
in price, taking it at the lowest figure in 1440 of three shillings.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wheat, or bread made
from it, was the chief food of the people, together with beef and
mutton. Six pounds of bread could be got for a penny, a sheep
carcass for about a shilling, and a beef carcass ten shillings.!
Mulhall gives the present standard for beeves of five hundred
and sixty pounds, at eight and a half cents, in bulk meat, which
would be about forty-seven dollars, for what cost two and a
half in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, an increase not
so great as the increase in rent, but more nearly approximating
to it than the grain produced from the land.

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 268. f Ibid., page 476.

J Young's Labor in Europe and America, page 85.

BURDEN OF ARISTOCRATIC DEBTS. 239

During the past five hundred years, Britain in common with
the other nations of Western Europe, has been steadily grow-
ing in population, wealth, and civilized appliances. I have
shown that rent has much more tl^n kept pace with this in-
crease, and the laborer's food thus heavily taxed has risen
with the rent, while the soil of Great Britain belongs to
a small and progressively decreasing number of persons. This
wealth made by the people, stimulated by their genius, and
pushed forward by their energy and industry, has thus by a
cunningly devised system been absorbed by a small number of
persons. The world has seen princely establishments and pam-
pered aristocracies, but never before such an aristocracy as that
of modern Britain. Grant that it is an aristocracy of refine-
ment, culture and wealth. The princely residences, stately
parks, lawns and country-seats of the British aristocracy con-
stitute a beautiful picture, but it has a reverse dark side.

It is well known to political economists that great revenues
are more apt to lead to extravagance and debt than revenues
limited by more adverse circumstances. We have called
attention to the great incomes derivable from the British land
law and land system and it would appear to be an easy mat-
ter to live not only in elegance, but to spare a liberal portion
of the revenues, so derived, for the benefit of the laboring
classes, who have, by cruel methods, been deprived of their
share of the common heritage. Upon the contrary, the aris-
tocracy of England seem to be quite as much hampered by
their own extravagance as the poorer classes are by their
poverty. By a table showing the mortgages on real estate
in various countries, these liens amount in Britain to one
billion six hundred million pounds, while France, although
larger, with a greater agricultural population, carries only
seven hundred and seventy million pounds debt.* Germany,
another despotic aristocracy, stands even higher than Britain,

* MulhalFs Dictionary of Statistics, page 322.

240 BKITISH LANDHOLDING.

being one billion seven hundred million. The percentage of
mortgages to the value of all real estate in these countries is
forty-one per cent, in England, seventeen in France, and forty-
nine per cent, in Germany ; % Holland eighteen and Scandinavia
thirteen per cent. It has been claimed by British economists
that the English system of agriculture an aristocratic land-
lord, a capitalist speculating tenant farmer, and laborers is the
best for high tilth and productive farming ; but the export and
import tables of France and Britain do not seem to favor this
theory. Mr. Hoskyn says that the limited ownership of entail
in Britain is unfavorable to improvements.* In other words,
the law of entail has created separate interests in the families
of the British landed interest. But for the laws of entail and
primogeniture their extravagance would have broken up the
British aristocratic land owners long ago. The aristocratic
idea is to cement the whole property in the Kingdom in a small
decreasing class ; a conflict arises about the younger sons, not
to mention daughters. A reasonably considerate British aris-
tocrat, while willing to perpetuate the pride and power of his
family, still wishes and strives to make some kind of a settle-
ment for his wife and younger sons. If he can, he quarters
one on the church and one on the army. As the landlords
monopolize political power, he gets some official position under
the government, or in India, or one of the colonies, for a third.
Portions must be had for the daughters. To begin with, most
of the landlords attempt a style of living nearly or quite up to
their rent roll. Poor man ! with an income from an estate,
called his, he may have a revenue of twenty or fifty thousand
pounds a year, and be at his wits end to meet his obligations.
How can he invest much capital to improve his farms merely
for the benefit of his oldest son who is to inherit them ? If
he is not destitute of economy, he saves to make his widow and
younger children some provision at his death ; and if he should

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 193.

ENTAIL AND PRIMOGENITURE. 241

not be able, he tries to induce the eldest son, before he has
escaped the influence of home, and is still in the callow state, to
tie up the estate with settlements, which forces the new holder
to resort to economical practices his father would not adopt.
How is the son to save any money to invest in permanent im-
provements or cottages for laborers. If he expends at all, it
is probably in beautifying his country-seat, for that flatters his
pride. Hoskyn says : " No well-drawn settlement omits to
make provision for the widow and younger children.* The
law of primogeniture makes a will for a man which he ought
to deem it an insult to be accused of making for himself."
Mr. Caird, in writing after a careful survey of the agricultural
regions of England in 1851, says : "A far greater portion of
it than is generally supposed (by the evidence exceeding two-
thirds of the Kingdom) is in the possession of tenants for life
so heavily burdened with settlements and encumbrances that
they have not the means of improving the land they are obliged
to hold." The " younger son " question has been the curse
of the British aristocracy. Hon. James E. Thorold Rogers,
M. P., writes: "The development of the younger son as a social
pauper and a social leech is at the bottom of most of the pro-
vincial extravagances and all the financial meanness of the
English administrations to our own day."f The law of pri-
mogeniture, he says further, " perpetuated the poverty of the
younger son and the system of quartering him on the public
purse." What else could an affectionate aristocratic father do?
The system of British land tenure permitted him to derive
revenues during life from the heritage of the English people,
and as he must keep the aristocratic system intact as a constant
hereditary leech on the public, why should he not use the
public offices for his younger sons, as Rogers intimates, "the
post offices or the civil list"? If he robbed Peter for the
benefit of his family, why not rob Paul ?

* Systems of Land Tenure, pa^e 192.
f Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 295,
21

242 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

In ascertaining the precise position occupied by the working
people of England, it is not only necessary to ascertain the
prices of labor and food, but the system of farming by land-
owners, and finally, by capitalist leasing farmers. In ancient
times the farm laborer, whatever he was or might be styled,
had his cottage privileges, pasturage for his cows and other
animals on the commons, which, although claimed by the lords,
had not been recognized as his property by the people. The
sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked
by the fencing in of these commons by the aristocracy, who
thus became the stock raisers. The agricultural laborer who
originally held his cottage and home patch without let or
hindrance, first had to give so much service for the use of
them, and finally was deprived of them altogether. In esti-
mating his wages, therefore, an account must be taken for the
loss of his garden patch, his cow, pig or poultry. He at last
became merely a house tenant paying rent, has to walk several
miles each day to his labor, and his wages must meet all his
extra expenses. The landlords originally farmed part of their
land. They did so to some extent on shares with the labor-
ers. They furnished stock, and, if necessary, seed. If a mis-
fortune brought a poor crop he was of necessity part loser.
A riew system was introduced as the land became more valu-
able, and the aristocratic landlord, less inclined to bear any
burdens or responsibilities connected with agriculture; he
rented his land to capitalist tenants, who paid him a rent.
The rent, or this tribute exacted by the noble claimant from
the soil, now constitutes his only connection with it. His
only interest is to get the largest income derivable from the
acres, claimed to be his, that is possible. With the laborer
whose work makes the land productive he has nothing to do.
The renter, or middleman, stands between him and the tiller
of the soil. This intermediate person is not a laborer. He
is a species of contractor or speculator. In raising wheat or
other commodities his first expense is rent, that must be paid.

THE INTERMEDIATE TENANT. 243

Then comes the expense of implements, stock, seed, and
interest on capital invested, and last, labor. Prices confront
him on one hand and these items of expenditure on the other.
No matter what happens the rent he must pay ; his profits
must be derived from what he can save out of his other
expenditures. He is, therefore, a very cunningly devised
" squeezing machine." Rogers says : " The rate of wages is
lower when the principal employers are small tenant farmers,
if the number of laborers is considerable enough to compete
against each other for employment." * The landlord was
never so able to screw down his laborers as the leasing tenant.
When the change came, from cultivating landlords to culti-
vating leasers, then came another thing, rack-rent. This first
began in the sixteenth century and seems to have continued
and increased. If any one is inclined to call in question the
great power of laws of inheritance and laws to regulate
tenure, the distribution or diminution of land ownership,
let him carefully study the British land system. Here we
have an aristocracy perpetuated by adroit combination of law.
The leasing farmers, or at least many of them, are men of
some means. They are business men. They and their families
become attached to the homes they lease. This sentiment,
among many other things, has been an effective spur to rack-
rent. Under fair conditions they would naturally become
owners of the soil, but they cannot. As has been shown, the
number of aristocratic landholders is steadily diminishing.
The system of leases in England has not been as favorable
for improvements by the tenant as it might have beep. In
Scotland the landlord often makes the improvements, but they
charge their tenants a percentage on the outlay. f Owing to
the rapid rise in rents the landlords were averse to granting
long leases. Hoskyn says: "The want of a law to secure

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 215.

f Short Talks about Land Tenure by a Tenant Farmer, page 9.

244 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

tenants, to some extent, the value of the improvements made
by them, and which they must leave, costs the agricultural
interests of England millions." * He thinks that leases for
a lifetime would offer the highest inducement to such improve-
ments, as every man construes the uncertainties of life in his
own favor. So strong is the spirit of enterprise among the
farming class in England, that even on short leases they are
tempted to make improvements by which they will only par-
tially benefit. The tenancies are generally made up of a
number of plots, the time for which they run being different.
A farmer will sometimes have five or six separate holdings
from the same landlord that expire at different times. This
probably arose from the fact that farmers were usually try-
ing to add to the size of their farms, and in this way small
holdings were absorbed by greater, f Mr. Rogers states, in
this connection, that before Henry VIII. confiscated the lauds
of the church, estimated to be about one-third of the king-
dom, the priests, fearing such a result, began to make long
leases for forty years.J It has been said that the leasing
tenant and the landlord have the same interest, which is to
exact everything for nothing from the laborer. This is not
exactly correct. It is true, the tenant has to keep on fair
terms with the landlord so as to renew his leases, but their
interest can hardly be said to be identical. "We pull in the
same boat," said an English landlord to his tenant. "Yes,"
was the reply, " but in opposite directions." The leasers,
although a respectable class of some influence and standing,
are not the old English yeomen. Most of the old yeoman
manor houses were absorbed by the landed aristocracy, and
the occupants driven into cities and towns. || Broderick
thinks it would be a public advantage if the old extravagant

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 194.

t Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 296. J Ibid., page 297.

\ Systems of Land Tenure, page 198.

|| Broderick's Reform of the English Land System, page 8.

THE HOMELESS FARM LABORER. 245

landholders could be forced to sell, or separated from their
possessions. If the new owner was not encumbered with
debts and mortgages he would not be so tempted to oppress
and grind his tenants. In fact it is the extravagant pride
of the aristocratic landholders that has for ages built up a
system of expenditure and a style of living, the mainte-
nance of which they consider indispensable to British civili-
zation.

The condition of the working agricultural laborers, long
neglected, should be the first thing to consider. Hoskyn
says : " We often hear of the English land system as com-
prising the landlord, the tenant and the laborer; so, in a
certain sense, it does, but no one who considers the position
of the laborer in English agriculture will assert that he has
any fixed personal tie within the structure." * In point of
fact, he is nothing more than a mere auxiliary, more or less in
demand at different seasons, subject to the precarious vicissi-
tudes of that demand. Until recent times, the laborer was
the recognized inmate of the farmer's home. Still further
back than that, the bond that tied him to the soil was the bond
of servitude, but it nevertheless connected him with it; his
employer was usually the owner of the laud he tilled. " Time
has changed all this, but the law that freed him from serf-
dom, stripped him of all interest in the soil. The same
English reign that awarded him his freedom marks the origin
of the poor law system. Ominous association ! He is at
present disconnected with all that is known of the progress
of society." f The introduction of machinery, while it takes
away some of his importance, cannot be said to relieve him
from toil. The increase in population is only a menace to his
occupation. The increase of wealth, which he does not share,
widens the breach between him and the more favored classes.
The rise in land and rent only renders it still more impossible

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 201. f Ibid., page 204.

246 BRITISH LANDHOLDLNG.

for him to acquire it. Farming by machinery and with
capital, on scientific methods, drives the small tenant farmers
into the class of laborers, or to the towns. " The law of parish
settlement swept away cottages, so the laborer rents a shelter
elsewhere and is exhausted traveling to and from his work." *
" The laborer is no longer belonging to the glebe. He is free
to come and go as he pleases, but without part or parcel in
the land he helps to cultivate or any certain abode on it, or in
Connection with it, for himself or for his family." f Speaking
of the present position of the British agricultural laborer, Mr.
Fawcett says: "Theirs is a life of incessant toil for wages
too scanty to give them a sufficient supply even of the first
necessaries of life. No hope cheers their monotonous career.
A life of constant labor brings them no other prospect than
that when their strength is exhausted they must crave, as
suppliant mendicants, for a pittance from parish relief." J

The statisticians and political economists estimate that the
manual labor of an arable farm covers one-third of the entire
cost of production. One would think that to pay the laborer
one-third, which it is extremely doubtful if he receives, as the
item of profit is not included, is not an extravagant estimate,
but the farmers are continually complaining about the "cost-
liness" of this item of their year's accounts. Mr. Rogers
says : " It has been urged that cheap labor is a necessity for
profitable agriculture, which means that the tenant farmers
are too cowardly to resist rents which they cannot pay except
by the degradation of those they employ." Mr. Hoskyn
writes : " The condition of the agricultural laborer is something
to be preached against as a standing subject of charity, phil-
anthropy, state grants and emigration." || He adds : " The
farm laborer of England is like a slag thrown out of the fur-

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 206. f U>id., page 204.

J Economic Position of the British Laborer, page 6.
$ Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 513.
|| Systems of Land Tenure, page 207.

THE LABORER'S SHARE. 247

nace." The most astute of political economists can see no
way through his labor to better his condition. Mr. Bailey
Denton, in a speech, remarks, " The only way to justify the
increase of the laborer's wages will be by rendering the value
of the labor greater than it now is." * To show that abund-
ance has been produced, Mr. Fawcett says : " The most con-
clusive evidence exists that the production of wealth in this
country is so vast and so rapidly augmenting that it is idle to
say that poverty exists because enough wealth is not pro-
duced." | To quote Mr. Hoskyn : " It would be a libel on
any class of this generation to charge upon it the isolated phe-
nomenon which the agricultural laborer presents in the midst
of growing wealth ; standing against it, this growing poverty
that is separating the growing life of England." The follow-
ing is from a speech of the president of the Poor Law Board :
" Constantly increasing rates, constantly increasing pauperism,
millions of money spent, yet without satisfaction, and, infin-
itely worse, millions of human beings whose very name im-
plies a degradation, even in their own eyes, as recipients of
parochial relief." The " retired tenant farmer," in his " Short
Talks about Land Tenure," says : " 1. One country is said to
be wealthier than another when the aggregate of money or
other articles that will produce money, possessed by its inhab-
itants, is greater in proportion to their number than that
possessed by the inhabitants of another country. 2. One
country is more prosperous than another when it supports, in
proportion to its size, a larger number of persons in greater
comfort than the other country, or, to put it more distinctly,
thai country is the most prosperous which supports the greatest
number in the greatest comfort." J C. Wren Hoskyn holds :
"The soil was not meant for idle enjoyment even by its
unoccupying owners."

* The Agricultural Laborer.

t Economic Position of the British Laborer, page 6.

t Short Talks about Land Tenure, page 48.

248 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

Under these circumstances we may pause to inquire just
the extent of the freedom and independence gained for the
British laborer by the struggles of the past six centuries.
Charles I., with his bigoted, despotic spirit, tried to restore
serfdom and the worst features of the feudal system, but did
not succeed. The nominal and final abolition of feudalism
occurred in the first year of the reign of the second Charles.
The mistake was, that during the troubled times of the com-
monwealth and the restoration, the lands wrongfully seized
from the people were not restored to them. "Those who
own the land rule the country," and Britain has been ruled
by the landlords ever since, and they have ruled it in their
own interests. A careful examination of the condition of the
English laborer as serf, villein and hired laborer, does not
really show such a progress as English civilization ought to
be able to boast of. Mr. Hoskyn truly says, "Dependence
has its advantages and independence its charms, but the la-
borer's lot is so cast as to derive the minimum benefit from
either.*" Certainly, the hardest part of his fate has been to
leave him a homeless waif. His land, originally, stolen by
the noble, the commons fenced up so he could keep no
cows or get fuel from the forest, his cottage and garden
taken, partly because so long as it stood it was like a ghost of
his right to the land, and partly because it disfigured the land-
scape. In this dilemma about laborers' cottages the govern-
ment is invoked to lend the public money, drained by taxa-
tion, to land improvement companies, empowered by Act of
parliament to build laborers cottages on gentlemen's estates. f
Dr. Hunter, the medical officer of the privy council, in his
Seventh Report, inquires "whether all land that requires
labor ought not to be held liable to the obligation of contain-
ing a certain portion of laborers' dwellings." It is strange
that he was not denounced as a " communist," and his report

* Systems of Land Tenure, page 206. f Ibid., page 207.

COTTAGES FOR WORKINGMEX. 249

as an " incendiary document." Hoskyn asks, " Whose duty is
it to provide, under our system of universal tenancy, the laborer
with a home that may connect him with his work? The
leasing farmer cannot build laborers 7 cottages." In the first
place the land is not his, and if he attempted to build cottages,
with gardens attached, it is probable that the landlord would
make him pay extra rent for them. Besides, if, in order to
be able to pay the heavy rent he is responsible for, he has to
reduce the laborer's wages almost to starvation rates, how can
he build cottages for the laborers. On the other hand, the
laborer is not the landlord's workman. It is nothing to the
landlord whence the laborer comes or whither he goes. If
any man could invent an automaton to do the laborer's work,
and the landlord felt interested at all in labor, he would prob-
ably recommend the laborer to try emigration as a relief for
all his ills. The tenant's business is to make the most he can
during his short lease, and if he can afford it, try to get a
renewal. It is the landlord's business to get all the rent he
can, so as to meet his settlements and mortgages, and enable
his family to live in the position they have been accustomed to.
Political society, as it were, is committed to his privileges ;
has, as the Duke of Argyle says, " recognized such ownership
for ages and encouraged it." * After all, the laborer is not
the employer's tenant. The man who employs cannot house
him, and the man who could does not employ him. The
case has thus been cleverly put by a gentleman who under-
stood it : " The question of a cottage for the farm laborer be-
comes, under our system, one of those detached problems that
fall into the w r aste basket of pure philanthropy." f

In the early part of the fifteenth century the average cost
of a laborer's board was nine pence a week. In the famine
year 1348-9 it rose to an average of one shilling six pence.

* Argyle's Prophet of San Francisco, in Nineteenth Century, for April,
1884.

f Systems of Land Tenure, page 207.

250 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

There was not much variation in the price of board until the
issue of base money. In 1542 board and lodging are put at one
shilling a week, but in ten years it had risen to an average of
three shillings a week. In 1562, 1563 and 1570, Queen
Elizabeth makes quarterly contracts for victualling her work-
men in the dockyards. In the first year the contract is an
average of four shillings half pence; in the second year, four
shillings six pence ; in the third year, at three shillings eleven
pence.* The variation being on account of dear and cheap
years. The queen also rented lodgings for the workmen, at
two pence a week, the contract being that the men should
have feather beds, and that two should lie in a bed, and that
the queen should find sheets and pay for washing them, at the
rate of one pence a pair. In 1562 the average price of labor
was four shillings nine and a half pence a week. In 1565,
four shillings half pence. In 1570, four shillings seven
pence. In 1573, four shillings eleven and a half pence. In
1577, four shillings ten and a half pence, and in 1578, four
shillings eight pence, f The queen having found that which
was making her laborers poor was making her poor also, as
rents, dues and subsidies were fixed, and the purchasing power
of money had fallen to about one-third of its ancient capacity,
she had a proclamation drafted declaring that the shilling
should circulate at eight pence. Her advisers, however, in-
duced her to suppress the document, fearing that it would
be obnoxious to the charge that the crown was trying arbi-
trarily to enhance its demands against its debtors. In point
of fact, it would have enhanced the dues of every creditor and
saddled an additional burden on every debtor. In addition
to the debasement of the coin, a more potent cause of the fail-
ure in the purchasing power of money was the introduction
of vast amounts of gold and silver from the Americas, discov-
ered by the Europeans, in 1492, the richest of the American

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 354. f Ibi d.

LEGISLATION FOR LABOR. 251

nations having been robbed during the intervening period. A
similar great influx of the precious metals occurred about the
middle of this century, on the discovery of gold in Australia
and California, and the development of silver mines by im-
proved machinery. The great capitalists of the world finding
this reduced the value of their accumulations, have labored to
strike down one of the standards, silver being selected, thus
to increase the value of what they received from those who
owed them. Much of the increase of prices and wages in the
past four hundred and fifty years is governed by the decreas-
ing purchasing power of money.

In the days of Queen Elizabeth several laws were enacted
affecting laborers, a few of them professedly in their interest.
One of these was the law authorizing the judges of the quar-
ter sessions to fix the price of labor in each county. This act
continued in force until 1812. Another statute of Elizabeth,
5 cap. 4, enacts " that no person shall work at any trade,
mystery or occupation who has not served a seven years'
apprenticeship." A list prepared by the judges was issued in
a proclamation by Elizabeth, in 1564, as a guide to other
authorities. These lists were begun by Burleigh and contin-
ued by Cecil. The ordinary citizen is to have nine pence a
day in summer, and eight pence in winter. The laborers are
to have seven pence in summer, except harvest, at which time
they have eight pence and ten pence ; in winter the laborers
to get six pence. "With the increased price of wheat and other
articles it was required of the laborers, under this list, to give
forty weeks' work for that which he obtained in 1495, for
fifteen weeks' labor.* In 1593 another table of laborers'
wages was fixed, under which the laborer was required to
work a whole year to buy what he could have purchased in
1495 by fifteen weeks' labor. In 1610 the Rutland magis-
trates made their assessment of the price of labor. Under

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 390.

252 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

this scale, compared with the prices of the staple articles he
had to buy, such as bread, an artisan had to work forty-three
weeks to buy what he could have purchased for ten weeks'
work in 1495.* It will thus be seen that the quarter sessions
magistrates did not let their power lie idle, and it could
scarcely be said to be used in the interest of the laborers.
Indeed, there was a continual complaint on the part of em-
ployers that laborers refused to work, or were unwilling to
work, for such wages as they could afford to pay. Another
of the enactments of " the good Queen Bess," was to arrest all
persons without an occupation, and punish or sell them. It
has been stated that it was this statute of Elizabeth that sug-
gested to the Russian despot the idea of reducing his agricultu-
ral laborers to serfdom. In 1495 an artisan computing the price
of wheat and labor earned a bushel of wheat in a day, and an
ordinary laborer, three-quarters of a bushel.f Taking this
standard and comparing it at different dates, a pretty fair
estimate can be made. One very important matter, however,
has to be taken into consideration. In 1495, and long after,
the laborers of England had certain advantages, of which they
have since been deprived, that added to their productive
means of support. The ancient laborer of England, down to
the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had his
cottage and garden, and the right to graze his cow or cows,
sheep and pigs on the common pasture. By the increase in
population and the subsequent rise in the price of laud and
rent, the nobles fenced up the common lands, thus distinctly
asserting a private claim to them. This was the subject of
great complaint at the time, and ought to have been resisted.
The landowners, however, made the laws, and the only way
of meeting such usurpation would have been by insurrection
or armed resistance.

The insurrection of Watt Tyler and Jack Cade were peasant

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 392. f Ibid., page 389.

WATT TYLER. 253

and artisan insurrections, and although formidable, were sup-
pressed by means of murder, bad faith and treachery, and
crushed with the most ruthless cruelty. These earlier insur-
rections had reference not only to the seizure of the land, but
serfdom. The demand made by Watt Tyler and his leading
companions, of the king, was one that ennobled those who de-
manded it. The insurrection was widespread, and an army
under Tyler had marched to London, and there was no ade-
quate force to resist it. The young king and the royal family
took refuge in the tower, which Tyler notified them he would
take unless an interview was granted. Richard demanded
what they wanted. They answered : " You will make us free
forever, our heirs and our lands, and that we be called no
more bond or villeins, or so reputed." * The immediate and
prompt assent might have aroused the suspicion of these simple,
well-meaning men. Richard urged them to return to their
homes and leave three men from each town to receive the
charters which he promised to give. Many of the insurgents,
misled by his promises, obeyed, trusting to the word of a king.
It is supposed that Tyler, who was undoubtedly a man of
moderation as well as capacity, reduced the great force he had
because it was subsisted with difficulty. He remained, however,
with thirty thousand men to see the pledge carried out. The
king put thirty clerks at work to make the charters, and one
of them dated June loth, 1381, is preserved in Walsingham,
addressed to the authorities of Hertfordshire. King Richard
spoke the insurgents fair, but, it is said, he assured his coun-
Uelors he would yet take vengeance on them. Whether the
king ever meant good faith is uncertain ; but as he did not
keep it, he deserves no credit. He and the nobles were secretly
plotting to get sufficient force together to crush the rebels.
The young king was even attempting to escape from London.
As the whole country was full of the insurrectionary spirit, it

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 258.
22

254 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

is difficult to see where he could have gone. As the king
and his party came near Tyler, the latter told his men to fall
back and proceeded alone to the interview, no doubt feeling
that in the honor of those who sought this interview he was
safe. He \vas instantly set upon and murdered by the Lord
Mayor of London. That the insurgents did not utterly destroy
the whole royal party is surprising. The king aifected indig-
nation and renewed his promises, and on these promises the
armed people were induced to go home. As soon as the king
and the nobles became sufficiently fortified, the work of venge-
ance began. Not less than fifteen hundred of the leaders
of the insurrection were executed. The spirit of resistance
among the people was not altogether subdued. To make a
pretence of escaping the question of dishonor, it was argued
that it was beyond the province of the king to free the serfs
and free the land. It \vas the same story, " vested rights."
The Parliament of landed aristocrats alone could do that. The
king referred the question to them, and they having recovered
breath from their fright, resolved "That all grants of liberties
and manumissions to the said villeins and bond tenants ob-
tained by force are in disherison of them, the lords and
Commons, and to the destruction of the realm, and therefore
null and void ;" and they added "that this consent they never
would give to save themselves from perishing all together in
one day." * If all such tyrants had "perished all together in
one day," it would have been no great calamity to the realm.
In spite of their vainglorious resolve, serfdom was abolished,
but only through fear. The " free land " the people claimed
was not given to them. The agricultural Englishman, by the
very terms of his manumission, was divorced from the mother
soil that bore him ; when degrading servitude ended, land-
lordism began. The result through these centuries has proved
that they who monopolize the land have ample means for rob-

* Six Centuries of Work and Wages, page 263.

RISE OF COMMERCE. 255

bing human labor without nominal slavery, and in the face of
a high civilization these exactions from the people have been
perpetuated. The English historians usually distort or speak
lightly of the insurrections of Watt Tyler and Jack Cade.
They are held up to ridicule now as "communists." What
they asked speaks for itself, and must commend its merits to
every fair-minded, honorable man. Watt Tyler was one of
the most eminent of Englishmen ; of undoubted ability and
great moderation, restraining his followers from excesses, and
only asking for the just rights of the people. It is doubtful
if it would add to his fame to place his monument in West-
minster, but it is not likely to be done so long as a greedy,
landed aristocracy rules England. It was an insurrection of
artisans and laborers, and was unsuccessful because it was mer-
ciful and moderate, and because the king and selfish aristocrats
did not hesitate at falsehood, treachery and murder.

A great change came gradually over England. Driven by
tyranny too hard to bear, the most independent fled to the
towns. Commerce and manufactures were built up. A power
stronger than agriculture arose. The very existence of Bri-
tain to-day would be impossible without its commerce and
manufactures. As a nation, it imports a great portion of the
bread and meat it eats, and pays for them by manufactures,
and by performing much of the carrying trade of the world.
The manufactures and commerce of England have been built
up, not by the aristocracy, but by workmen from the people.
Watt, Arkwright, Wedgewood and many others like them,
created the modern power in England. Half the people of
England find their occupation in the industries such men
bogan. The poor agricultural laborer of Britain has been so
impoverished and crippled that he has ceased to be a power
in the realm he should have helped to rule. The manufac-
turing and commercial classes have been too strong to be
altogether ignored, and a little power has, from time to time,
been reluctantly conceded to them, but all efforts in the direc-

256 BRITISH LA.NDHOLDIXG.

tion of doing justic3 to the people have been defeated by a set
of parasitic landholders. It was not the wars of the Cru-
sades, or the French and other wars carried on by the landed
aristocratic order for the benefit of the younger sons that built
up the power of England. The British empire of to-day is
the creation of the working-people of England. The aristoc-
racy, however, has managed to get much benefit from the devel-
opment of the country. The great commercial activity, and
the demand it created, enabled them to double and treble
their rents. They thus incidentally were able to place the
sturdy burgher of Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester under
tribute as they previously had the agricultural laborer. No
one can tell the depths to which the agricultural laborer of
Britain would have sunk had it not been for the great man-
ufacturing and commercial activity which kept up the
price of wages. An examination of the wages of workers
in the factories and shops of Britain shows that they are
better paid than in most countries on the continent, although
the English artisans are not so well paid as the same class in
the United States. Eobert Giifen, Esq., has endeavored to
trace "the progress of the working classes in the last half
century" in Britain, and demonstrates that their condition
has improved in that time. It would have been wonderful
if it had not. Fifty per cent., at least, of the inventions that
have added wealth and power to modern civilization have
been created in that period. Our railroad system is little
more than fifty years old, and steam navigation, practically,
not older than the century. The wealth created in that time
is perfectly enormous, and it would have been strange if the
people, to whom the country owed its production, had not
reaped some small advantage. What he does not prove, or,
indeed, attempt to prove, is, that an equal share, in proportion
to their numbers, of this increased wealth, has gone into the
pockets of the laboring classes. As everybody knows, including
Mr. Giffen, nothing of that kind has happened. Mr. Mul-

GIFFEN. 257

hall, under the head of accumulations in Great Britain, gives
the increase of wealth during the decade from 1870 to 1880,
as four hundred thousand pounds, or two million dollars per
day. This is just as he says, three pence per day to each
inhabitant, man, woman and child in the British empire, or
forty-five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence each, for the
ten years. This amount we will suppose, for the sake of
argument to Mr. Giifen and the rest of the political econo-
mists, was created by the labor and capital of England. At
the rate of five persons to a family, that would be two hun-
dred and twenty-eight pounds two shillings and six pence to
each head of a family. Now, does Mr. Giffen, or Mr. Mai-
lock, or anybody else pretend for a moment that the working
people found themselves, at the end of the ten years, with that
much accumulated capital in their pockets, or anything like
it? The most his tables show is that perhaps the laborers
are a little better fed and a little better clad than they were
at a particular period fifty years ago. "Will either of these
gentlemen tell us in whose pockets this immense accumulation
of wealth has lodged ? It may be said that the laborer is
improvident and intemperate. Are the laborers more intem-
perate and extravagant than the aristocratic landholders of
Britain ? It is just to concede that there are many persons in
both these classes given to improvidence and excess. He
gives a table * comparing the wages at the present time with
those of fifty years ago in Great Britain. Carpenters fifty
years ago had but twenty-four shillings a week, now, thirty-
four shillings ; masons, twenty-four shillings then, and now,
twenty-nine shillings ten pence ; pattern weavers, sixteen
shillings then, twenty-five shillings now ; Bradford weavers,
eight shillings three pence then, twenty shillings six pence
now ; spinners, twenty-five shillings six pence then, thirty
shillings now. That will give a fair idea of his table. Wheat,

* Progress of the Working Classes in the Last Half Century, page 5.

258 BEITISH LAKDHOLDING.

he claims, if not lower, at least, is not higher, and sugar and
cotton cloth lower. Animal food has risen more in propor-
tion than wages. House rent, according to his table,* was
twenty shillings fifty years ago, forty shillings at the present
time. His conclusion is that, comparing prices with wages,
there is a " real gain." If he had carefully considered all the
items of expenditure he would have found that the condition
of the laborer was but little improved, another fact in
reference to his table which refers to the work of mechanics
and artisans he has not noted ; and it affects its accuracy :
fifty years ago there was a great depression of the mercan-
tile interests of Britain, especially among weavers. The
introduction of many new kinds of machinery, to the condi-
tions of which the workmen had not time to adjust themselves,
had unsettled great manufacturing industries. Thousands and
tens of thousands were idle. Public relief and " soup kitch-
ens " were organized in a wholesale way, and this depression
continued for a considerable Dumber of years before and after
the period Mr. Giffen fixes for the first date in his tables. It
is probably true that the British artisan and laborer is slightly
better off than he was fifty years ago. Four centuries ago
the average English workman was certainly wealthier than
he is to-day, f Another thing Mr. Giffen seems to forget,
and that is, how far the laboring classes are better off as com-
pared with the wealth of other classes. Another cause and
one produced by the depression, a great emigration set in, or
rather set out from Great Britain about that time. From 1820
to 1882, eight million five hundred and seventy thousand
emigrated from Britain ; J of these, five million three hundred
and seventy-seven thousand came to the United States, and three
million one hundred and sixteen thousand went to the British
colonies. These emigrants numbered more than one-fifth of the

* Progress of the Working Classes in the Last Half Century, page 14.

f Workingmen Co-operators, page 30.

J MulhalPs Dictionary of Statistics, page 168.

INCOME TAX STATISTICS. 259

present population of Great Britain^and it is safe to say that
they were chiefly from the laboring classes. Statistics, by the
by, are a very mysterious contrivance. Thus, we find it
stated, that the yearly consumption of grain per inhabitant in
Britain, is three hundred and thirty pounds ; of meat, one
hundred and five pounds.* Now, while this amount of ani-
mal food is less than one-third of a pound a day, it would be
a gross mistake to suppose that the poor artisans and laborers
eat even that small amount. The figure is what is termed an
aggregate, and is the amount he would have eaten if he had
eaten his proportionate share of what was consumed. All
Mr. Giffen has been able to demonstrate is that artisans and
operatives get wages to-day thajb can purchase, even according
to his showing, just a very little more than they could fifty
years ago. With the great majority of the laboring poor,
their circumstances, everything considered, are not much better,
and that, too, in face of the fact that the wealth and productive
power of the nation, as an aggregate, has doubled or trebled.
In the same way, Mr. Mallock, in attempting to bring statis-
tics to bear on Mr. Henry George and Mr. Hyndman pro-
ceeds to show that in 1843 the gross income of the nation was
five hundred and fifteen million pounds;' in 1851 it was six
hundred and sixteen million pounds; in 1864, eight hundred
and fourteen million pounds, and, since 1880, it has reached or
exceeded one billion two hundred million pounds, f He then
proceeds to ascertain the amount in each of these years that was
assessed for income tax, the tax being on incomes of one hun-
dred and fifty pounds or more. He ascertains that in 1843
only two hundred and eighty million pounds of the five hun-
dred and fifteen millions was assessed, and seems to take it
for granted that all over the first figures was the income of
people having less than one hundred and fifty pounds a year.

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 205.
t Mallock's Property and Progress, page 202.

260 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

Absurd as such data r^ust appear, real or approximate, it
would not, if true, be a very flattering statement, as the in-
come tax-payers are numbered by hundreds of thousands,
and those who do not pay income tax, by tens of millions.
In 1851 Mr. Mallock thinks that although the gross income of
the nation had increased one hundred and one millions of
pounds, " strangely enough," the income tax was no larger.
We are familiar with such data in this country. He assumes,
however, that the extra income had gone to those in moderate
or poor circumstances. When he gets to 1880, with a gross
national income of one billion two hundred million, the in-
come tax has only been obtained from five hundred and
seventy-seven million, and thus he makes it appear that more
than half of the gross income of the nation has gone to those
who had less than one hundred and fifty pounds a year.
Happy people ! This style of statistics is quite facetious. In
this country great fortunes of twenty, fifty or even one hun-
dred millions, when viewed through the spectacles of an
property tax collector, dwindle from millions to paltry thou-
sands. It may be urged that the British wealthy classes are
a high-toned, honest, truthful class, and never resort to sub-
terfuges to reduce 'their taxable income. One instance was
brought to the writer's notice very early in life, and juvenile
though he was, he did not forget it. When the window tax
prevailed in Britain, a tax of about five dollars a window, for
each window over a small number exempted, the then Duke
of Argyle kept a few mechanics "adding to" and "finishing"
Inverary Castle ; as the tax could only be collected when the
building was " finished," it was cheaper to continue to build
than to pay taxes. I have no doubt that many noble lords
and distinguished gentlemen have been in many ways equally
ingenious in evading the tax collector, and that income tax
returns are rather an unsafe basis for statistical tables show-
ing the relative wealth of parties. Having obtained his
statistical basis, however, Mr. Mallock proceeds to erect his

MR. MALLOCK'S STATISTICS. 261

superstructure thereon. He places the population of Great
Britain in 1843 at twenty-seven millions in round numbers;
in 1864, at thirty millions, and, at the present time, thirty-six
millions. Taking the basis of wealth to which we have re-
ferred, he proceeds, " We know that of this increase of num-
bers, the larger part, proportionally, is to be attributed to the
richer classes. They have increased by more than two hun-
dred per cent., or from one million five hundred thousand, to
four million seven hundred thousand ; while the poorer
classes, on the contrary, have increased but twenty per cent.,
or from twenty-six million in 1843, to thirty million now.
Hence, the same number of them that in 1843 had two hun-
dred and thirty-five million pounds, had, in 1851, three
hundred and thirty-six million pounds, and a number that
is barely greater by one-fifth, has, annually, by this time,
six hundred and twenty million pounds." * By this arith-
metic of Mr. Mallock's he has a population of four million
seven hundred thousand people enjoying an income of one
hundred and fifty pounds. I suppose, allowing nearly five
persons to a family, this would give us about one million
families. Let us see. Mr. Mulhall's work for 1884 gives
the latest classification for 1887, as follows : f It is classified
thus : ninety incomes of over fifty thousand pounds (some of
these over one million pounds) ; one thousand and sixty-
seven incomes of from ten to fifty thousand pounds ; twenty-
one thousand six hundred and ninety-one incomes of from
one to ten thousand pounds. Mr. Mulhall makes the
annual earnings of the British nation one billion two
hundred and forty-seven million pounds, and the amount
per inhabitant, thirty-six pounds, or about one hundred
and seventy-three dollars.^ He also gives the average income
(if equally divided) at thirty-five pounds. Going back to

* Mallock's Property and Progress, page 202.

f MulhalFs Dictionary of Statistics, page 247. J Ibid. 246.

k Mulhall's (table) Dictionary of Statistics, page 473.

262 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

Mr. Mallock, he says : " Now if we state this increase in terms
of the average income per family, we find that each family
among the poorer classes in England had in 1 843 about forty
pounds a year; in 1851 had fifty -eight pounds, and that at
the present it has between ninety-five and one hundred
pounds." * He adds : " Of course, this is a general average
only and does not correspond exactly to the real facts in the
case." We should think not. If we subtract the enormous
incomes, running into millions, and the larger number of what
might still be called princely incomes, and so on down to the
tens of thousands and thousands, all these the incomes of the
non-productive classes, largely obtained without consideration
from the bulk of the national income, the remainder would be
the amount received by the middle and lower classes. A large
amount of this would be paid to the middle classes, leaving
the lowest amount individually to the actual laborers. In the
United States consular reports for 1885, just issued, the fol-
lowing prices of agricultural labor are given : In -Gloucester-
shire, England, the average wage, without food or lodging, is
in summer, per week, $3.65; in winter, $2.91. Females
for ordinary field work, per week, without food or lodging,
receive $1.14; females at harvest, $2.13. In Wiltshire and
Dorsetshire, males in summer are paid $2.91, males in winter,
$2.67, women field workers, $1.46. f These latter are weeks
wages without food or lodging. In the Hull district, farm
laborers by the year, with board and lodging, get twenty-
nine to seventy-two dollars. In county of York, farm labor-
ers, first class, get by the week, four dollars and six cents, with
cottage but no board. Second class farm laborers obtain three
dollars and seventy cents, without board or lodging. Plough-
men get sixty-eight to seventy-eight dollars per year, with
board and lodging ; plough boy, forty-eight to sixty-eight dol-

t Mallock's Property and Progress, page 204.
* Consular Reports, 1885, page 81.

FOOD AND WAGES. 263

lars. Blacksmiths are paid per day, ninety- six cents; joiners,
ninety-six cents, that is without board or lodging, but both
receive two glasses of beer a day.* Agricultural laborers in
Newcastle hire by the half year for the season's work. For
the men by this half year season, forty-eight to seventy-eight
dollars are paid; boys, seventeen to twenty-four dollars;
females, thirty-one dollars and sixty-four cents to girls, and
forty-three dollars and eighty cents for women. f Although
not stated this is presumably with board. In Dundee, Scot-
land, United States Consul Wells writes, that the food of the
working classes is "simple and homely, breakfast, porridge
and milk, or tea or coffee with bread and butter and perhaps
eggs, small bit of bacon or herring. Dinner, is frequently
Scotch broth cooked with cabbage or other vegetables and beef
in small quantities. Supper, tea with bread and butter.
Mill and factory girls who do not reside at home are compelled
to live more plainly, their wages being insufficient to procure
them the fare here specified." J The consul says : " The work-
ing classes in Dundee are poorly provided for in the way of
house accommodations. There are in the city, eight thousand
six hundred and twenty houses, of only one room each, occu-
pied by twenty-three thousand six hundred and seventy per-
sons." He speaks of the condition of these single-room
" hovels " as places where " five or six human beings are
sheltered with nothing to lie on but the floor and covering
themselves, when they have an opportunity, with jute burlaps,
which they take in to make into hand-sewed bags." The con-
dition of the British laborer and workman two or three
hundred years ago was certainly not so utterly wretched.
Agricultural laborers, such as the foreman of a farm, get one
hundred and fifty-five dollars and fifty cents a year with house,
garden, one-half gallon of milk, two and one-half pounds oat-
meal and six or seven pounds of potatoes per day. Second

* Consular Reports, 1885, page 82. f Ibid. J Ibid.

264 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

and third hands, near Dundee, get one hundred and six dol-
lars and ninety-two cents to one hundred and thirty-six dol-
lars, with milk and meal and sleeping accommodations, with
fire in " boothy." Ordinary hands get an average of sixty-
seven cents a day. " Outworkers," females, per day on an
average, thirty-three cents; during harvest, eighty-seven
cents; during potato lifting, forty-nine cents.* In Ireland we
find the average wages per year of the agricultural laborers,
ploughmen, with board and lodging, ninety-seven dollars and
thirty-three cents; without boarding and lodging, one hundred
and forty-six dollars. Laborer, with board and lodging,
sixty-eight dollars and thirteen cents, without board and lodg-
ing, one hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty cents. When,
therefore, Mr. Mallock, in order to refute the statements of
Mr. George and Mr. Hyndman, says : " We find that each
family among the poorer classes of England had, in 1843,
about forty pounds a year (two hundred dollars); in 1851,
fifty-eight pounds (about two hundred and eighty-seven dol-
lars), and at the present time has between ninety-five and one
hundred pounds (nearly four hundred and seventy-five to five
hundred dollars), we can understand how fair a statement it is
as showing the real conditions of the working classes. But
had his figures been even fair and true what would they
reveal ? The gross income of the nation was, he says, in
1843, in round numbers, five hundred and fifteen million
pounds, and had risen in 1880 to one billion two hundred
million pounds. Mr. Mulhall puts the income for 1882 at one
billion two hundred and forty -seven million pounds ; for 1840,
five hundred and forty million pounds; for 1822, two hundred
and eighty million pounds ; for 1860, seven hundred and
sixty million pounds.f Thus the gross income of the nation
has considerably more than doubled since 1 840, and more than

* Consular Reports, 1885.

f Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 245.

IRELAND. 265

quadrupled since 1822, and it takes Mr. Giffen very close
figuring to show an addition to the laborer's income, when,
if there had been any fair kind of distribution, it ought, at
least, to have been doubled. No more conclusive evidence
could be found than even their own statements, to prove that
in the great increase of wealth nearly the whole of it had gone
into the hands of the wealthy and non-producing classes.

Ireland, so far as land and the land question are concerned,
has to be treated as being not a part of Britain, indeed a con-
quered province that still feels the avaricious hand of the
conqueror. We have already stated in another chapter how,
in Queen Elizabeth's reign, they made Irish landlords into
English landlords. When Oliver Cromwell conquered or
overran Ireland, he gave his colonels and captains a very large
part of the island. Arthur Young says, when in Ireland, he
was informed that descendants of Cromwell's colonels possessed
estates drawing rent rolls of ten thousand pounds a year, and
descendants of his captains who drew from rent incomes of
two and three thousand pounds a year.* The last of these
forfeitures of the land of Ireland occurred after the battle
of the Boyne, when William Prince of Orange banished King
James. Young says that at that time, " nineteen-twentieths
of Ireland changed hands from Catholic to Protestant." f For
this reason, says Mr. Young, Avho wrote in 1778, "the question
of religion has been intimately interwoven with the land
question in Ireland." Even though dispossessed, the old
owners went through the form of transmitting their deeds to
their heirs. It can easily be understood that in this way
bitter feelings were likely to be long cherished and although
the work of Catholic emancipation in Ireland has taken away
many political grievances, other grievances still remain. King
William was conqueror at Boyne Water, and did not hesitate
to dispossess the old Irish landlords and put in a set of his

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., page 44. f Ibid.

266 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

own, but he still was too much iu favor of religious toleration
to force cruel and prescriptive laws on the people. Six or
seven years after his death these were enacted and may thus be
summed up : First, the whole body of the Roman Catholics
was disarmed. Second, they were incapacitated from pur-
chasing real estate. Third, the entails of their estates were
broken and the " gavel " of their children. Fourth, if one
child abjured that religion he might inherit the estate. Fifth,
if a son abjure that religion the father hath no power over
that estate. Sixth, no Catholic can take a lease for more than
thirty-one years. Seventh, if the rent of any Catholic is less
than two-thirds of its full value, any informer can take the
benefit of the lease. Eighth, priests who celebrate mass are
to be transported, and if they return, hanged. Ninth, a
Catholic having in his possession a horse worth more than five
pounds is to forfeit the same to the discoverer. Tenth, by a
construction of Lord Hardwick they were incapacitated from
loaning money on mortgages.* Instead of being surprised at
the number of disturbances and rebellions in Ireland, it is
only astonishing that there were not more of them. Ireland
is a striking lesson of the folly of trying to suppress a religion
by persecution. While England and Scotland under a differ-
ent system have become substantially Protestant, Ireland is
not only largely but intensely Catholic. The millions of
Irishmen who have during this century emigrated to the
United States constitute an important element of the Catholic
Church in the United States.

In this way it will be observed that a lauded aristocracy,
largely alien to the soil, and very largely hostile to the feel-
ings and wishes of the Irish people, was inflicted on the agri-
cultural interests of Ireland. Partly owing to the persecution
and ostracism of a majority of the Irish people, it was found
difficult to get the lands properly cultivated. Arthur Young

* Arthur Young's Tour in England, vol. ii., page 45.

LANDLORDS IN TRIPLICATE. 267

informs us that in consequence of the small value of land in
Ireland previous to the last century, and through a large
portion of it " landlords became so careless of the interests of
posterity as readily to grant leases to their tenants forever." *
The excuse given for executing such leases was that it was
very dangerous for Protestants to enter into and execute
leases, and as they had to be strong enough for defense, a
considerable expense was entailed in addition to the risk, and
they would not undertake the adventure on short leases. Under
such circumstances perpetual leases were given, but the sys-
tem continued long after the occasion for it had passed away.
Young found that many of these leases had been sublet, so he
considers and treats the first lessee as a sort of landlord,
which, in fact, he was. As the land and its rent increased in
value, or as circumstances enabled those who had all these
various liens or claims on it to exact more for its use, the land
system of Ireland became, to a great extent, one of occupy-
ing tenancy, middlemen landlords, and lords proprietors.f The
middlemen claimed that they were useful to the lords, as the
occupying tenants were usually so very very poor that no
" gentleman of fortune would consent to superintend the col-
lection of rents from them." The lords proprietors were
usually absentees, living in London, Paris, or at watering
places, squandering the money drained from the agricultural
laborers of Ireland, often in very questionable ways. Of the
middlemen landlords, Arthur Young says : " There is in Ire-
land a class of small country gentlemen consisting of these
profit renters. They generally kept a pack of wretched
hounds with which they wasted their time and their money,
and were the hardest drinkers in Ireland." He adds : " They
are the most oppressive tyrants that ever lent their assistance
to the destruction of a country," and " they will not make
improvements themselves, and only grant short leases or let

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., part 2d, page 17. | Ibid.

268 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

by the year to the real cultivating, occupying tenant, who,
under these conditions, cannot afford to make improvements/ 7 *
He adds that " they screw up the rent and are rapacious in
exacting it all. Their excuse for their conduct is that the great
lord cannot haggle with such tenants, or take their stuff from
them when they cannot pay money." In this way it often
happens that these lauds are sublet several times, the occupy-
ing tenant who works the soil having to pay a profit to each
of these middlemen before he and his family can eat w r hat
little is left in peace. Arthur Young gave the average rent
in Ireland at ten shillings and three pence an acre (in 1778),
that is, an English acre. Some of the land rented then as
high as one, or even two, pounds an English acre.f Many
years before Arthur Young's time, a few of the great land-
lords gave life leases to German " Palatines," but the scheme
did not work well. Young said that the native Irish, if they
had an opportunity, would improve the country faster than
these Germans had been able to do. It is not difficult to see
how foreign emigrants, brought in under such circumstances,
would find their position extremely uncomfortable. The
same authority stated that at the time he wrote the rent of a
cabin, and garden for potatoes, in most of the countries in
Ireland, was from one to three pounds a year, the average
being one pound eleven shillings and ten pence. A cow's
grass rent was from one to two pounds, the average being one
pound eleven shillings and ten pence.J A garden patch
varies from one to half an acre. Sometimes as much as one
acre and a half. Small occupying tenants sometimes got
leases of several acres of a mountain side, and improved and
brought it into cultivation, but had no guarantee for their
improvements^ Some of the middlemen landlords would
boast that they spent the part of the rent they got in the

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., part 2d, page 18.

t Ibid., page 43. J Ibid., page 26. \ Ibid., page 22.

ARTHUR YOUNG. 269

country, while the lords proprietors spent theirs abroad. As
fast as these deputy noblemen fancied they were rich enough,
they, too, went abroad and set up for fine gentlemen, and be-
tween their debts and extravagance, and the debts and ex-
travagance of the noble lords, the poor cultivator of the soil
had a hard time of it. One of the worst features of the busi-
ness has been that the working-tenant was in most cases in
arrears for his rent. He usually undertook to pay all that
was possible under favorable circumstances, and the circum-
stances were not always favorable. In this way he got in
arrears with the landlord so far that it was almost impossible
for him to get out of debt. If he had good fortune, the land-
lord got the advantage of it, and if lie had fresh misfortune,
he went deeper into debt. The under tenants who were in
arrears for their rent had to furnish teams to the landlords or
middlemen at half price, to haul hay, corn, gravel or turf,
and as they must go whenever called on, they sometimes lost
their own crops when working in this way to pay arrears of
rent.* Added to all this there was a class of poor men who
could not even rent a small farm, and for whom there was
not sufficient remunerative work ; Young says : " States are
ill-governed which possess people willing to work but who
cannot find employment." f He adds : " The oppression of
the landlords in Ireland is the chief cause of the misery of the
people." The poorest class would build cabins by the roadside
or in the ditch, if they were permitted, having no land rented,
and lived by doing jobs and hiring. The cabins built by the
cottars were usually built by themselves, and were hovels.
When a man rented a patch, if there was a cabin on it, he
repaired it, and, if not, he built one. That was not a charge
on the landlord. I am particular in giving this data from
Young, not only because he was a careful and responsible

* Arthur Young's Tour in Ireland, vol. ii., part 2d, page 19.
f Ibid., page 43.

270 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

observer, but because it best illustrates the condition of the
people, and shows the steps by which the present land system
in Ireland was created.

James Redpath, in his " Talks about Ireland/' from more
recent observations, says "there are 682,237 tenants in Ireland.
Now out of these, 626,628, or about seventy-three per cent,
are tenants at will and can be evicted." * Mr. Redpath
traveled in Ireland a few years ago. He says, in that country
there are only eight thousand landowners, including owners
of one acre,f and also, I believe, including the holders of long
leases, and two thousand of these eight thousand hold more
land than all the rest put together, and three thousand of the
eight thousand are abse'ntees." These absentees draw every
year sixty millions from Ireland. J Mr. Redpath gives as the
exact figures of Irish landlordism : six thousand small proprie-
tors ; one thousand one hundred and ninety-eight proprietors
who own from two to three thousand acres ; one hundred and
eighty own from ten to twenty thousand acres ; ninety own
from twenty to fifty thousand acres, and twenty-four own from
fifty to one hundred thousand acres. Three proprietors own
upward of one hundred thousand acres. Mulhall gives
seventeen thousand five hundred and ten holdings or owners, ||
but it is not stated whether it includes lot owners in towns
and villages. Tenants, moreover, have been purchasing under
the recent land acts, and I quote from the Mulhall edition of
1884. In it he says that twenty-five thousand eight hundred
and forty-nine land cases were adjudicated in the twelve
months ending in August, 1882. Mr. Redpath thinks that
the landlords ought to be compelled to sell at a fifteen years'
purchase on Griffith's valuation, the government advancing the
money.!" The Irish landlords pay taxes on Griffith's valuation

* James Redpath's Talks about Ireland, page 91.

t Ibid., page 90. t Ibid. \ Ibid.

|| MulhalFs Dictionary of Statistics, page 266.

\ James Red path's Talks about Ireland, page 98.

REDPATH. 271

Mr. Redpath at one time visited and became familiar with the
condition of the West India Islands. He says, that when the
British abolished slavery in Jamaica, they refused to abolish
absentee proprietorship, which is the present burden and curse
of Jamaica. Mr. Redpath observes, that fewer crimes in pro-
portion are committed in Ireland than in England, and also
says that many rents are paid in Ireland from money sent by
Irish Americans to relieve parents and friends.*

" Mr. Frank Battersby, political economist, etc.," has written
a pamphlet to show the justice of compensating Irish land-
lords for the damage done them by the recent land acts. He
says : " England has gone far for the sake of peace with Ire-
land. She has thrown political economy to the winds,
restrained freedom of contract in land and denied the land-
lord's right to do as he pleased with his own." f He adds :
" When the new rental in Ireland is fixed, two million five
hundred thousand, or, according to Mr. Chamberlain, four
million pounds will have been handed over to the tenants out
of the pockets of the landlords." For this Mr. Battersby
wants the government to go down into the public pocket
and reimburse the landlords. In other words, to feed these
cormorants out of the left pocket instead of the right. He
says that under the Land Act, " the rental of Ireland has been
reduced consistently twenty-five per cent. Whatever the
results of the recent Land Acts may be, they can only strike
an impartial observer as temporary expedients. So potent is
the landed interest that any reform that may be demanded by
the most urgent political necessities, precipitated by a long line
of dishonest abuses, must, according to many, be supplemented
by a full recognition of the right of a usurping landlord to
hold fast his ill-gotten goods for all time. It occurs to us,
that a movement to compel these aristocrats to disgorge their

* James Kedpath's Talks about Ireland, page 94.
f Compensation to Landlords by Battersby, page 5.

272 BRITISH LAXDHOLDLN'G.

dishonestly attained gains would be a better thing to do. Un-
happily, most of these gains have been wasted and are past
recovery. The Duke of Argyle, in his criticism of Mr. George,
which is not an argument and little more than a tirade of
abuse, among other things says : " Everything in America is
on a gigantic scale, even its forms of villainy, and the villainy
advocated by Mr. George is an illustration of this even as
striking as the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky." * On the same
page he says : " The world has never seen such a preacher of
unrighteousness as Mr. Henry George." It would not be
difficult to point out to the duke a " villainy " and an " un-
righteousness " more colossal than either the Mammoth Cave,
Niagara, or Mr. George. The British landed aristocrats who,
by fraud, violence and murder, seized a large portion of the
earth's surface, and exacted for their private emolument rent,
or tribute, from their fellow-citizens who cultivated it, may
appear to Americans as an " unrighteousness " much more
" gigantic." If that was not, then the usurpation of the law-
making power as a birthright due them from this stolen
property, used for centuries to perpetuate their ill-gotten gains,
would certainly be. Not content with this, the descendants
of these freebootiug sires, have by their pride and extravagance
so ground the wretched workmen that they at last are forced
to inquire by what right these exactions are made; and in
reply the titled landlords pronounce all such inquiries as
" villainy " and " unrighteousness," and hold up their hands
in horror, as if the bond that bound them to society had not
been stained for centuries with crime. We quote from the
duke the only thing approximating to an argument : " It is one
thing for any given political society to refuse to divide its
vacant territory among individual owners. It is quite another
thing for a political society, which for ages has recognized

* Duke of Argyle's " Prophet of San Francisco " in Nineteenth Century,
for April, 1884.

BASIS OF ARISTOCRATIC TITLE. 273

such ownership and encouraged it, to break faith with those
who have acquired such ownership, and have lived and
labored and bought and sold and willed upon the faith of it." *
That is a very weak attempt at an assertion of right. He
claims that his ownership and that of the rest of the British
aristocracy has been " recognized " and u encouraged." Who
encouraged it? Certainly not the poor people plundered by
them. The " political society " that recognized the rights of
the British landed aristocracy was a combination of the holders
of the lands thus taken. The recognition of a thief by a
society of thieves is not usually considered a very good endorse-
ment. Are the worst crimes of government forever to be per-
petuated ? Is it not the higher duty of a " political society "
to see that the people dwelling in a country are allowed to
possess their legitimate and natural rights, rather than that a
handful of usurping aristocrats should be permitted to extort
a luxurious living from them forever. There are two words
in the paragraph I have quoted subject matter for inquiry,
the words " labored " and " bought." The duke surely does
not mean that he " labored " for the part of Argyleshire he
claims, nor can he mean that he " bought " and honestly paid
for it. That he has sold or leased and willed " on the faith
of it " is probable. He has collected and appropriated to his
personal use an immense amount of the production of a vast
range of country. He has built a magnificent palace at
Inverary, and residences elsewhere, from the proceeds. He
and his family have lived like kings from money wrung from
an honest and hard-worked people. Perhaps conscious that
the aristocratic claim may not be invulnerable he sets up an-
other : " My own experience now extends over a period of the
best part of forty years. During that time I have built more
than fifty homesteads complete for man and beast. I have

*Du 1 .:e of Argyle's "Prophet of San Francisco" in Nineteenth Century,
for April, 1885.

274 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

drained and reclaimed many hundred and enclosed some thou-
sand acres." Will the duke tell us how many homestead
fires he has forever extinguished ? He has, indeed " enclosed "
a good many thousand acres. He discovered that it was more
profitable (for him) that Argyleshire should produce sheep
than men and women, and " enclosed " accordingly ; the poor
inhabitants escaping to Canada, there to find a region far away
from the land of their birth, where they could cultivate the soil
without giving the best part of the proceeds to landlords.
Many highland villages were thus blotted out by the philo-
sophical and moral duke, who is shocked because people pro-
pose to take what he says does not belong to them. But let
us examine the duke's claim to his dukedom on the ground
of " improvement." He further says : " I find that I have
spent on one property alone the sum of forty thousand pounds
entirely on the improvement of the soil/ 7 * and then he pro-
ceeds to say that it has not paid as a speculation. Now let us
understand the duke. He must not mix the " color of his
title." When he claims the right to exact rent from a good
sized portion of Great Britain, taken by force and " recog-
nized," as he pleads, by a " political society," that is one thing,
and one that the British people can settle in their own way
for the best interests of all. When, on the other hand, he
brings in " fifty homesteads complete for man and beast," and
forty thousand pounds, the proper way for him would be to
make an account current. Set down all that his family have
exacted in rent, deducting what would be his individual share
as a private citizen of Argyleshire. Then set down all the
charges for improvement which added value to the soil, made
by him and his predecessors, and deduct this amount from the
first figure, or from what he and his had ever taken from
Argyleshire. We apprehend, if this kind of a settlement was

* Duke of Argy le's " Prophet of San Francisco " in Nineteenth Century,
for April, 1884.

PLEA OF THE ARISTOCRATIC LANDHOLDER. 275

made with the firm of "Campbell & Co.," that their only
mode of escape from the result would be to " file a petition in
bankruptcy." This literary duke utters another warning,
wailing cry. He says : " If all owners of laud, great and
small, might be robbed, and ought to be robbed of that which
society had from time immemorial allowed them and encouraged
them to acquire and to call their own ; if the thousands of
men and Avomen and children who directly and indirectly live
on rent * * * are all equally to be ruined by the confiscation
of the fund on which they depend, are there not other funds
that would be swept away ? " * The " Prophet of San Fran-
cisco " seems to have made as great an impression on the duke
as Nathan did on David. This nobleman has written a work,
" The Reign of Law." The book considers the " reign of law
in the world around us and within us." Should he ever revise
it perhaps it would be well to incorporate an utterance of Black-
stone's : " No human law is of any validity if contrary to the
laws of nature." Hcbbes wrote : " The laws of nature are im-
mutable and eternal, for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride,
iniquity, acception of persons can never be made lawful." f
One more quotation : " The soil was not created for idle enjoy-
ment of unoccupying owners."

The physical and intellectual development of the British
Empire, with all its faults, and its ghastly pictures of the
calamities of the poor, is still marvelous. Her rural popula-
tion and her agricultural laborers, although they have unhap-
pily ceased to be a political power, occasionally evince a genius
second to that of no people, and an enterprise capable of rising
above even their adverse circumstances. Commerce, manu-
factures and their associate crafts constitute the backbone of
the British Empire. The British people of to-day are to
some extent cosmopolitan. Her business relations with the

* Duke of Argyle's " Prophet of San Francisco " in Nineteenth Century,
for April, 1884.

f Hcbbe's Leviathan, vol. iii., page 145.

276 BRITISH LANDHOLDING.

outside world are necessary for her existence. Of the food
her people eat, sixty-one per cent, of the wheat, thirty-seven
per cent, of the meat, fifty-eight per cent, of the cheese and
butter, not to mention other articles, are imported into the
British Kingdom.* London, once a place where population
had to be brought to keep up the standard, is now rendered
so healthy by improved sanitary regulations as to exhibit a
natural increase. There is a German population in London
large as that of a first-class town in the German Empire.
The Irish population of London is greater than that of any
city in Ireland, except Dublin and Belfast. London has
absorbed much of the rural population, like the other cities.
Agriculture, instead of being on the increase, is on the decline,
as more than two million acres of arable land have been con-
verted to pasture in the past few years. Mallock contends
that the distress is limited : " Let us make the advance of the
poorer classes as partial as possible, and want and misery as
widespread as possible, yet, on my calculation, and on my
supposition, at least three-fourths of them, during the past
forty years, or twenty-two million five hundred thousand out
of thirty million have grown, all of them, demonstrably
richer." f What this gentleman forgets is that it is with
human society as with a steam engine, when an unnatural
strain is put upon it the weakest parts give way. Mr. Giffen
and Mr. Mallock both seem to think that because a few men
of great energy are able to rise above all the depressing cir-
cumstances that stand in the path of the poor workingmen
of Britain, all of them who do not exhibit similar qualities
are imbeciles, and should justly bear the lot of poverty
inflicted on them. Such a conclusion is not just. Society
and law has not to do with the few exceptional cases, but the
condition of the great masses, and especially the condition of
the poorest and most helpless.

* Mulh all's Dictionary of Statistics, page 207.

* Mallock's Property and Progress, page 207.

DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE. 277

The commercial and manufacturing power of England has
steadily risen for centuries. It is a great power, but it is not yet
the dominant power. There is another unhappy circumstance
connected with it. It has developed, and is developing an
aristocracy of wealth, differing from the other aristocracy, but
still with objectionable features. While that element is con-
servative, the great working, throbbing business nerve of
England is not insensible to the struggle going on with the
landed aristocracy. The latter stubbornly temporize and resist.
Political economists of the Manchester school do not expect
much from the agricultural interest, and seem to think that
they can make cotton goods and iron enough to feed the whole
British Empire, if the lords and dukes should make every
foot of land in Britain a sheep-walk. Let them remember
that no country can permanently exist apart from its agricul-
tural resources. If the incubus of the landed aristocracy was
removed, and the land divided into small holdings owned by
the actual tillers of the soil, it would add infinitely to the
comfort, power and wealth of the British people. One of their
political economists, Mr. Malthus, wrote : " If a tract of land
as large as Britain were added to the island, and sold in small
lots, the amelioration of the condition of the common people
would be striking, although the rich would always be com-
plaining of the high price of labor, the difficulty of getting
work done and the pride of the lower classes." *

* Malthus's Principles of Population, page 291.
24

CHAPTER IX.

THE ABORIGINAL AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND TENURE.

Agricultural and roving populations Tribal government Aboriginal
money and exchange Tribal boundaries Homes and hunting grounds
Male and female occupations Sparse populations Decay and degra-
dation of the Aborigines under European pressure Religious beliefs
Rights in land not bought and sold Communal land, but individual
property Caribbee and Arowaks Three classes of Aborigines Land
laws of Cherokees and Choctaws The soil common, but improvements
personal property John Ross Corn Plant Bushyhead Land in sev-
eralty prescribed by the whites Treaties used to secure foothold and land
Repudiated when the Indians grow weak Washington Gen. Knox
Chief Justice Marshall Cass and Jackson versus the Supreme Court
Indian inertia Zuni and its rich man A Caribbee political economist.

LITTLE more than two hundred and fifty years have elapsed
since European settlements begun in that part of North
America now known as the United States. At that time a
chattel title to land was unknown upon the continent. The
aboriginal inhabitants of all kinds claimed the sovereignty of
the regions they occupied, but individual proprietorships in
the soil did not exist, and through all their intercourse with
the European settlers have been, and still are, obnoxious to
their political, social and religious ideas. Considerable con-
fusion and many Indian wars resulted from the early attempts
to fix individual and exclusive title to portions of American
soil. When the Indians, in the early history of the settle-
ments, relinquished tracts of land to the European colonists,
they merely understood by it a joint occupancy by the whites,
such as they had themselves. It was difficult to*make them
comprehend that individuals they had never seen, and who
278

THREE CLASSES OF ABORIGINES. 279

had never even visited the shores of their country, should lay
claim to their land.

The native peoples of America differ in many things, radi-
cally, from each other, and yet all of them have much in
common with the human race elsewhere. Long separated
from the people of the Eastern hemisphere, peculiar ideas had
developed features of society that seemed remarkable to the
first European discoverers. Clashing interests led to hostile
feeling, and in subsequent intercourse our observations have
not often been of an impartial or friendly character. We
should, therefore, qualify ourselves with a charitable spirit on
approaching the subject, and, if possible, cast our prejudices
behind us. At the date of the European discovery three dis-
tinct or separate classes of society may be said to have existed,
and each of these embraced many separate tribes. The first
consisted of the organized governments, of which the most
distinguished types were those found in Mexico and Peru.
The second class would include peoples who lived in commu-
nities and villages, chiefly by agriculture, and possessing some
manufactures. The third class includes the nomads, or wan-
derers. In Mexico, these latter were, in the time of Cortez,
styled chicamecas. This, Herara informs us, was not the
name of any Indian or tribe, but a general term used by the
civilized Indians themselves, which meant nomads, or roving
men, without fixed habitations. At the time of the dis-
covery, and since, large tribes and nations roved about the
central, western and northern portions of North America. It
is true that many tribes existed in the regions where these
w r anderers roved who were not nomads, but lived largely by
agriculture, and remained stationary as far as they could.
One roving tribe, in early times located as agriculturists, be-
came noted even among wanderers, the Shawnees, or, more
correctly, Shawannos, " Men of the bow and arrow." Another
people, of comparatively modern aggregation, were stray men
from many nations, chiefly, however, from the Creeks.

280 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

They located in Florida, and were called Seminoles, or
" Wandering men."

The most striking class presented to the European was the
nomadic or wild Indians. These rovers of the plains or
forest possessed a simple dignity of manner and deportment
rarely exhibited by the people of more boasted civilizations.
They are, and have been, the most independent people in the
world. Forms of society and artificial modes of life do not
enslave them. They enjoy the freest government on the
earth, for the little authority there is exists merely by the
consent of the governed. This is carried so far that, to a
white man, it often appears as if there was no government at
all. These national or tribal governments never get so large
that the popular assembly or council cannot consider and
determine all questions that arise. Living largely from the
natural resources of the country, consequently driven to scat-
ter for food, and not possessing any centralizing force in their
government, it is not wonderful that the country was overrun
by wandering bands. Murder, adultery and theft have usually
been punished among them. The grades and character of
punishment differed. The council considered the matter, and
the nearest relative, or aggrieved party, became the avenger
and executor of the popular decree. This gave their modes
of administering justice an appearance of vengeance rather
than law when judged by Europeans. Among these nomadic
tribes the same ambition exists for public honor and distinc-
tion as found elsewhere. "With them, however, the honor
conferred by public position was its only emolument. The
desire to be a chief, a counselor or even an orator, is great.
While they are never boisterous in their mirth, and rarely
show even its milder expressions among strangers, they have
a fine sense of humor which is often sarcastic. The least
civilized and nomadic orators speak with great deliberation
and precision. They never hurry and never think of inter-
rupting each other. When the French first settled in Louis-

ABORIGINAL CURRENCY. 281

iana, one of the chiefs at a council held with them was ob-
served to he trying to conceal his merriment ; on being asked
what amused him, he at first evaded the question, but on
being pressed, said : " These French are like a flock of geese :
they all speak at once."

Among the nomads taxes were unknown. Public works
were, of course, impossible. Their records were chiefly oral
traditions, confided to their best men to prevent interpolations
or changes, and their written record, besides inscriptions on
the rocks, was the wampum belt, its figures and symbols con-
veying certain ideas, the years being enumerated *by knots
tied in the belt. At certain periods and important councils
these were brought out, and, by their wise men, read or
explained.

While commerce or exchange was largely confined to bar-
ter, a circulating medium was not unknown. They never
hesitated to use the money of the whites, and very soon under-
stood its value perfectly. Before the European settlements,
and, to some extent, since, they used for money, wampum,
beads, rare shells, and pieces of copper and salt. The wam-
pum circulated generally among many nations, and had a
fixed value, as it required great labor to drill the fine hole
through the wampum bead.* The wildest tribes on the con-
tinent had the most stringent regulations against the waste of
food. When game was killed the parties were compelled to
save the whole of it, even portions of the intestines were used
for food. In their migrations when rich spots were found
containing wild potatoes, rye, nuts or fruits, the discovery
was publicly announced by a crier, so that all could partici-
pate. When their camp became no longer fresh they removed
to another spot, the new location having been agreed upon.
They were very jealous of intrusion on lands belonging to
the tribe or nation, the wildest nomads had a country they

* Lawson's History of North Carolina, page 195.

282 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

claimed. They sometimes claimed hunting grounds as espe-
cially their own, and, in case the tribe was strong enough, pre-
vented others from using them. There were also hunting regions
not specially claimed, upon which different tribes hunted as on
a public or common domain, and also hunting or roaming
grounds that were a debatable region. A large portion of
Kentucky was in this condition, and thus became the scene
of many a struggle, the name meaning "bloody ground."
Each of the petty nations, small or great, held the frontiers
of their country as sacredly and jealously as the most his-
toric nation. Their traditions carefully referred to their
boundaries. Like other nations, many of their wars have
grown out of questions of boundary. At the close of these
wars the frontiers would be recognized or fixed, and it was
considered an affront to pass them without their permission.
Such were the modes by which these nations held those
portions of the earth *s surface that they occupied. The uses
they made of it they considered their own concern, and it
cannot be said that their tenure lacked anything in form
or dignity from the right of country universally held by all
nations.

These roving peoples of America thus lived a life of inde-
pendent freedom, subsisting to a great extent upon the natural
productions of a rich country. Barbarous to some extent
they were, but not brutish or unmanly. If they had few of
the refinements of civilization, they were at least not embar-
rassed by its cares, or exhausted by its fearfully laborious toil.
They lived in the fresh air, and were not condemned to the
cellars and dilapidated buildings in which the very poor
laboring people of civilized society are crowded. Their
shoulders were not bent by working in the coal vein, or
stooping over the bench in badly ventilated workshops. The
impression that they were lazy is not altogether well-founded,
because there is no exercise more exhausting than the chase,
and the necessary military occupation of the male inhabitants

RIGHTS IN LAND COMMON. 283

required much effort, privation and watchfulness. It was for
this reason that their women performed many laborious tasks,
such as pitching and moving the house or tent, dressing the
skins or gathering fruits, roots or berries. This work is per-
formed in the open air, and I question if they work much
harder than the wives and daughters of poor laboring men in
civilized communities.

While individual ownership of land is abhorrent to all their
social and religious ideas, and even the natural productions of
the earth are considered common to all, and no pre-emptive
right of discovery in them can exist until these have been
gathered, it is a mistake to suppose that they are communists.
No people guard the rights of mine and thine more jealously,
concerning all things they regard as property. Their arms,
tents, horses, clothing, indeed, everything they own, is claimed
with great tenacity. Tfiis distinction of rights extends into the
family, where the wife and the children have each their prop-
erty. While this is true, their hospitality is unbounded, and
extends even to their enemies, should they consent to receive
them. They never refuse to give to those who are in want, of
their own tribe. In distress they never hesitate to go and ask
each other, and it is considered mean to refuse, but, at the same
time, if one of them permits himself to become a chronic beg-
gar, and refuses to take proper steps to support himself, he is
regarded as a common enemy. Some tribes have disposed of
such persons summarily. It is needless to deny that their
over-lavish giving is a serious check to the disposition to
accumulate property. Why should a man struggle to acquire
a surplus if the probabilities are that it will be claimed to
supply the wants of those in distress. Their acceptance of
ransom, or price of blood, in case of a murder or manslaugh-
ter, is considered venal, but the question whether it shall be
received is determined in council, and it is usually accepted,
only in cases where there are mitigating circumstances, or
where it is a case between tribes, and is a species of diplomacy,

284 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

or a humane policy to prevent interminable war. Questions
as to the redundancy of population do not afflict them. As-
tonishment has been expressed at the small population occu-
pying large areas among the wandering tribes. The answer
is simple. In the first place, large families of children are
rare among them. Owiag to the necessary hardships of their
mode of life the sickly and delicate do not survive childhood.
These causes added to occasional scarcity of food and the fre-
quency of wars, render the vaticinations of a Mai thus unneces-
sary. In general terms, under such a form of society, a dense
population and accumulations of great wealth are impossible.
It is worthy of note that these wandering tribes, independent
of missionary efforts, are all believers in the Great Spirit, or
Unknown God. Pure theists ; for all their superstitious terms
and symbols are mere mythical figures, used to convey an
idea not to be construed literally. Afheists in any sense they
certainly are not. A man going among them and openly
denying the existence of a Great Spirit, would doubtless be
looked upon with horror, but it is difficult to get them to
believe in a systematized religion. The highest forms of society
or civilizations in America, such as that in Mexico, were
connected with priestcraft, and even human sacrifice, while
the lowest and most barbarous were animated by a vague
theism.

Next to the nomads or wanderers, comes the class that had
more fixed habitations, and depended chiefly on agriculture
for subsistence. These, of course, varied a great deal as to
their condition, but the larger masses of the population
of North America, at the time of the European discovery,
were a quiet, industrious set of people, chiefly living in vil-
lages and towns, subsisting by agriculture. Narvaez, De
Soto and the Huguenots found a people with big fields, " Tal-
lahassee," occupying the Atlantic seaboard. Some of these
fields we are told were ten miles long. They domesticated
many fowls and a few animals, and even fish, trained to catch

AGRICULTURAL VILLAGES. 285

other fish * and raised a large variety of vegetables and roots.
In the pictures made by Jacob Le Moyne, who was with the
Huguenots, the men and women are represented as working
in the fields together, f They manufactured and wore cloth-
ing. We read in the narrative of De Soto's expedition that
these adventurers traveled for hundreds of miles among such
people. Often procuring corn from their storehouses, and,
finally, that in the mountains they came to a people, the Chal-
aque (Cherokees), who were almost naked, having a strip of
cloth around them, and wearing on their shoulders the dressed
skins of the " cattle." Even these people lived in villages,
and had small farms in the valleys, subsisting partially by
hunting. Some of the purely agricultural aborigines were in
a tolerably advanced condition. They built high mounds
and kept the sacred fire on them, and had a species of heredi-
tary government in the female line. No individual title to
land existed among any of these peoples. They had for each
town or village a large field, or more than one, in wiiicii every
family had a portion that they cultivated. Rights therein
were not bought or sold. Each had an interest, and it was the
usufruct share interest in a common property. All the pro-
ducts of labor were individual property. They had fixed
dwellings, comfortably constructed and furnished. They had
knowledge of the precious metals including copper, but not
of iron. They had earthenware and wicker-ware of good
manufacture. In carefully kept medicine baskets the women
had many preparations for medicine and articles for the toilet.
They used mediums of exchange as well as barter. Their
forms of government, though mainly of popular acceptance,
were more elaborate than those of the nomads. Their only
taxation was labor for the big fields, public buildings or other
necessary public work. Rents were not exacted even by the
state. From all indications these partially civilized and in-

* Peter Martyr. f Hakluyt's Voyages.

286 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

dustrial peoples were fragments of more powerful nations
undergoing a steady decay. The inroad of the Europeans
hastened their destruction. Many of them attempted a resist-
ance, and the superior arms and discipline of the Europeans
made the effort very disastrous.

On the West India Islands a condition of affairs existed in
some respects different from that on the mainland. The best
Spanish authorities inform us that these islands were popu-
lated by two different classes. One nation was styled Aro-
waks, and the other, Caribs, or Caribbees. An examination
of their languages will show that these were nicknames they
gave each other. The so-called Arowaks, or " meal-eaters,"
were a peaceful agricultural people, living in villages. They
planted corn, and lived upon that and the manioc ; the roots
from half an acre of the latter will support a family. They
also cultivated and smoked tobacco ; Peter Martyr informing
us that they would pluck it as they walked along, roll it up
into a coarse cigar and smoke it. They raised many vegeta-
bles and manufactured cloth from plants they cultivated.
Their houses were stationary and tolerably comfortable. They
had tribal and local governments. Each man cultivated his
patch, sometimes in a common field, but often an individual
patch. Buying and selling land was not practiced, but they
traded in everything else. They were a peaceful, agricultural
people, living partly on fish.

At the time of the European discovery no animal larger
than a dog was found on any of these islands. They had not
only small boats, but vessels of considerable size, in which
they sometimes made a fire.

The other class or tribe, -for there appears to have been
few distinct tribes among them, the "Caribbees" (robbers),
for this was the name the suffering, peaceful people gave
them in their own soft, musical language, infested rather
than resided on the islands. They were a species of roving
pirates, making voyages all over the Caribbean Sea, and visit-

ABORIGINES AS SLAVES. 287

ing both North and South America. They were a cruel,
warlike race, addicted to cannibalism. They not only robbed
the peaceful Arowaks of all they had, but actually roasted
and ate them. One Spanish writer tells us that they took a
great many Arowak women and kept them in a separate island
to raise grain and fruit for them. This story has often been
repeated by the adventurers of the old Spanish main. That
the Caribbees plundered as well as roasted and ate the hapless
agriculturists there can be no doubt. It was on this account
that Columbus proposed to Queen Isabella that these Caribs
should be captured and sold into slavery, to aid in defraying
the " heavy charges to be borne by her majesty." This, to
her honor, she declined, but her successors, colleagues and
subordinates were not so conscientious. It was, however,
found easier to enslave the peaceful Arowaks, the greater por-
tion of whom miserably perished, many of them dying in the
mines. The same kind of slavery was carried on, as far as
possible, on the continent, and, it is needless to say, that the
industrial, agricultural populations chiefly suffered. In the
narrative of Cabezo de Vaca,* who, with two companions,
traveled across the continent, from Texas to the Gulf of Cali-
fornia, he mentions meeting a company of Spanish soldiers
driving three hundred and thirty of the inhabitants, chained
together, to work in the mines of Mexico. This was prior to
1520. Whole communities and towns were thus depopu-
lated. Still later, this attempt to enslave the aboriginal
inhabitants was continued. At the close of the Tuscarora
war, seven hundred prisoners of these people were, in one day,
sold into slavery in the city of Charleston. The destruction
among the ancient inhabitants was largely from the partially
civilized tribes. They suffered in several ways, not only
being killed and enslaved, but driven by persecution to be-
come nomads and wanderers. For this reason the nomadic

* Buckingham Smith's Translation Cabezi de Vaca.

288 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

portion of the native inhabitants became larger after the
European discovery.

The third or higher class inhabiting North and South
America at the date of the discovery by Columbus is best
represented by the two nations found in Peru and Mexico.
These were monarchical governments and theocracies. They had
a written or pictoriographic language not inferior to that of many
great ancient nations. The power of life and death lay in the
hands of the sovereign. Their public buildings were vast and
showed in many things high stages of art. They had fine
gardens, great aviaries, aqueducts, and a system of messengers
or expressmen. Within three days of their arrival, Monte-
zuma showed Cortez a pictoriograph exhibiting the Spanish
fleet under Narvaez, then anchored in the Gulf of Mexico. It
gave the number and character of the vessels so that Cortez
was able to act on the information. They possessed a knowl-
edge of the precious metals, and it was their riches in these
that led to their ruin. Many of their articles of clothing were
of fine quality. Their feather work has probably never been
excelled. They had codes of law, and among other regulations
the drinking of intoxicating liquors was forbidden under pain
of death. Persons over forty -five years were exempted from
the operation of the law, but even in them excesses were pun-
ished. Their forms of government were different from those
of the Europeans, but, trying them by an impartial standard,
they cannot be justly said to have been inferior to the great
mass of organized or civilized governments of that age. Agri-
culture was to a large extent carried on by irrigation. Sys-
tems of irrigation were under the management of the govern-
ment, and the expense of maintaining them was by tax or
labor. Land, however, was not sold as a chattel, nor is there
evidence that the rulers claimed or gave it away. The services
of any or all citizens might be claimed by the monarch. The
only privileged class except military leaders were the priests,
who were compelled to be simple and abstemious in their lives.

CHEROKEES, CREEKS AND CHOCTAWS. 289

It will thus be seen that in aboriginal America there was no
such thing as chattelization of land. It did not even constitute
the basis of political power. Each nation or tribe claimed its
own territory, but claimed it for the equal benefit of all its in-
habitants. At that time individual dealing in land did not exist
to any great extent anywhere.

It is to the pitiable claims growing out of right of discovery
and right of conquest that the complete chattelization of Ameri-
can land is due. Everything from the gold and silver of the
country to the people and the land they lived on was some-
thing to steal and sell. In this way the foundation was laid
for a system by which certain persons and classes will be able,
if it is continued, to levy a tax on agriculture and agriculturists
for all time.

Chattel title the aboriginal populations have resisted as far
as they were able. The same struggle is going on to-day.
Some of the tribes, largely those who were agricultural, were
induced to form governments modeled after the state govern-
ments of the North American republic. The strongest and
most notable are the organized governments of the Choctaws,
Chickasaws, Semiuoles, Creeks and Cherokees. The latter has
a chief and assistant chief, elected every four years, who are
simply governor and lieutenant-governor. They have a
senate and lower house elected each two years, a supreme
court of three judges, and district courts, and an organized
school system. Their government is indeed riot inferior to
that of several of the territories. It is worthy of note, how-
ever, that in the written constitution of all these governments
the land is declared to be national or common property, equal
to all. Its use has never yet been made taxable. Improve-
ments thereon are declared to be the "indefeasible" property
of the occupant. Under law these improvements descend to
heirs, or may be sold ; but if the land is not cultivated for two
years, it reverts to the public domain. In addition, the amount
that may be cultivated by one person can be reduced by law,
25

290 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

so that all may, if they desire, have an equal portion. Monopoly
in land is forbidden by the terms of their written constitutions.
It is a striking fact that these people, even in forming govern-
ments modeled after that of the United States, include their
own land system in plain, unmistakable terms. As has been
said, monopolization of the earth's surface and taxing the cul-
tivator of land for rent is extremely obnoxious to the ideas of
the American Indian.

In taking this course they not only lacked support from the
United States government, but have encountered great oppo-
sition. They are at present engaged in an active struggle to
preserve this system. Every year bills are introduced into
Congress, and occasionally one is passed, to compel a tribe to
take their land in severalty. Many of their sincere friends
even consider this the test of civilization, and seem to think
that the true way to civilize an Indian is to enable him to sell
land. The aborigine has learned a good deal from the pale
face, but has not yet been educated up to the point of thinking
that land can be sold as a chattel. The best indication of their
feeling on the subject may be gathered from the fact that while
there has been a law on the United States statute book since
1862 authorizing and encouraging the Indians to take lands in
severalty or to hold them by individual chattel ownership, very
few of them have availed themselves of the privilege. It is
now proposed to compel them by law to take chattel titles.
Some well-meaning people favor this proposition under an
impression that if the Indians were forced to adopt this feature
of American "civilization" and become private landholders
and speculators, they might possibly adopt ideas which, with
more reason, have been styled "civilized." The movement,
however, receives its chief inspiration from land speculators
who wish to get possession of large portions of valuable
Indian reservations.

The Indian resists private landholdiug with great vigor.
It is against all their traditions, religion or morals. One of

CONSTITUTIONAL TITLE IN COMMON. 291

their most accomplished men, John Ross, said : " As far as I
am concerned, it would be for my interest to have the land in
severalty, for I could make gain of it, but the poor people of
my nation would soon be. without homes." On August 1st,
1838, at Aquohee Camp, I. T., when the united Cherokee
constitution was framed, their proceedings began : " Whereas
the title of the Cherokee people to their lands is the most an-
cient, pure and absolute known to man, its date is beyond the
reach of human record ; its validity confirmed and illustrated
by possession, and enjoyment, antecedent to all pretence of claim
by any other portion of the human race."

The first article of the constitution of the Cherokee nation
provides : " The lands of the Cherokee nation shall remain
the common property, but the improvements made thereon and
in the possession of the citizens of the nation are the exclusive
and indefeasible property of the citizens respectively who made
or may rightfully be in possession of them." * Mr. Bushy-
head, the present chief of the Cherokees, in an elaborate
article in the New York Independent a year or two ago, dis-
cussed the question from the Indian standpoint. He called
attention to the fact that the lands of the whites were rapidly
drifting into the hands of a privileged class, and he predicted
the impoverishment of the laboring people, both whites and
Indians, by this policy, and stated that his people were steadily
improving in condition under their system of holding land in
common. The Creek nation, or, more correctly, confederacy,
is composed of the fragments of many of the agricultural tribes
formerly living in the Mobilian basin. All of these in their
old home and in their new one repudiate individual holding
of land, and consider it the first step to homeless poverty.
They live by agriculture and cattle raising, and although they
have been moved about from place to place, sometimes in
chains, to meet the demands of white aggression, they are an

* Laws of the Cherokee Nation, page 9.

292 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

industrious and rural people. The Choctaws, by their treaty
of 1866, were compelled to admit some provisions in it looking
to allotment of lands in severalty, but so uncompromising has
been their opposition that this has never been accomplished.

The condition of Indian tribes and Indian peoples differ
widely, but in one thing they are all alike : entertaining fixed
aversion to individual title to land. If they have not been
able to hold their own with the European emigrants and their
descendants, the reason may be found in the weakness of the
tribes and their isolation. While the French and Spanish
intermarried with them to a great degree, the British settlers
in America did so only to a partial and very limited extent.
We thus find in the old French and Spanish colonies large
communal or Common fields, and a system of local tenure
not so widely dissimilar from the native modes. The English
and American settlers, on the other hand, as they approached
the Indian communities, contemplated their removal and
overthrow. The first object in founding a new settlement
was the prospective rise in value of the land, and the oppor-
tunity of making money in that way. An assimilation, or
even partial copying of the aboriginal idea of land tenure,
was, therefore, impossible. It is to be regretted that the
modes of obtaining these Indian lands were not always char-
acterized by honesty and humanity. Laws w T ere even enacted
by the United States to prevent the Indians from selling land,
when they were forced to sell, to any party but the United
States, it having thus reduced the buyers to one customer,
proceeded to use the whole powers of the government to com-
pel them to sell, and then offered them an insignificant trifle
for large tracts, bearing no relation to the speculative prices
the white purchasers expected to obtain for them. The whole
system of acquiring the Indian lands for a century has been
one of violence, and the arbitrary exercise of superior power
too often supplemented by dishonesty and chicanery.

Indian lands, from the beginning of the government have

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HENRY KNOX. 293

usually been obtained by treaty. Such had been the practice
under the British, French and Spanish governments. These
were merely contracts or bargains, both parties having a voice
in them. Since the victims have become weak in numbers
and reduced in influence, treaties with them have been de-
nounced and even suspended by law. When the republic
was first established it was a question much discussed as to
whether Indian treaties should be ratified by the senate.
George Washington, in a communication to the senate, Sep-
tember 17, 1789, said:

" It is said to be the general understanding and practice of
nations, as a check on the mistakes and indiscretions of min-
isters and commissioners, not to consider any treaty negotiated
and signed by such officers as final and conclusive until rati-
fied by the sovereign or government from whom they derive
powers. This practice has been adopted by the United
States respecting their treaties with European nations, and I
am inclined to think it would be advisable to observe it in
the conduct of our treaties with the Indians, for though such
treaties, being, on their part, made by their chiefs and rulers,
need not be ratified by them, yet, being formed, on our part,
by the agency of subordinate officers, it seems to be both
prudent and reasonable that their acts should not be binding
on the nation until approved and ratified by the government.*

In a letter of General Knox, then Secretary of War, to
President Washington, of date July 7th, 1789, he urges fair
and conciliatory dealings and says : " It would reflect honor on
the new government, and be attended with happy effects, were
a declarative law to be passed that the Indian tribes possess
the right of soil of all lands within their limits, respectively,
and that they are not to be divested thereof, but in consequence
of fair and bona fide purchases made under the authority of and
with the express approbation of the United States." He says

* American State Papers, vol. i., Indian Affairs, page 58.

294 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

further in the same letter: "How different would be the
sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of
exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of
population, we had preserved through all difficulties and at last
imparted our knowledge of cultivation and the arts to the
aborigines of the country, by which the source of future life and
happiness has been preserved and extended. But it has been
conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North
America. This opinion is probably more convenient than just." *
In a previous letter of June 15th, 1789, he said : "The In-
dians, being the prior occupants, possess the right of soil. It
cannot be taken from them except by their free consent or by
the right of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess
them on any other principle would be a gross violation of the
fundamental laws of nature, and of that distributive justice
which is the glory of a nation."

Washington and the founders of the republic uttered, as
occasion offered, similar sentiments. When we consider the
many reckless modes by which Indian lands were obtained
and the subordination of the sentiments quoted from Knox to
the interests of those who wished to get possession of these
lands, we are forced to regret that all were not animated by
equally honorable and humane sentiments. On account of the
constant aggressive policy of the white settlers, the Iroquois
chief, Corn Plant, in his old age said : " Where is the land
upon which our children and their children after them are to
lie down ? You told us that the line drawn from Pennsyl-
vania to Lake Ontario would mark it forever on the east, and
the line from Beaver Creek to Pennsylvania would mark it on
the west, and we see it is not so ; for first one comes and then
another, and takes it away by order of that people which you
tell us promised to secure it to us." f

* American State Papers, vol. i., Indian Affairs, page 53.
f Hall and Kenney's Indian Tribes, vol. i., page 98.

CASS AND CIVILIZATION. 295

The policy steadily pursued by the government was one of
acquisition, removal, reduction of reservations, bad faith,
threats and aggressive measures, often leading to Indian wars.
If the Indians yielded without resistance, hard terms were im-
posed on them ; and if they took up arms, they lost every-
thing. The government never hesitated by presents or honors
to induce Indian chiefs and representatives to concede terms
such as their people had never authorized them to accept.
There has been all through American history two classes of
public men. One of these has constantly urged fair dealing
with the aborigines ; the other has resorted to questionable ex-
pedients to secure unfair terms from them. In the funeral
oration over one eminent politician of the republic, it was said
euloguticaUy that "he had obtained more land for less money
than any man who had ever dealt with Indians." The su-
preme court, when presided over by Chief Justice Marshall,
having given a decision recognizing a fair measure of Indian
rights, other prominent public men were much exercised. In
the cabinet of General Jackson the questions involved in the
decision were discussed, and although it was a remarkable
proceeding, a review of the decision was prepared by General
Cass, then Secretary of War, and was read in manuscript to
the cabinet and published in the Globe of March 31st, 1832.*
In this remarkable paper we find the state's rights doctrine
very strongly enunciated, and a proposition on another general
question which we consider it worth while to copy :

" 1. That civilized communities have a right to take pos-
session of a country inhabited by barbarous tribes, to assume
jurisdiction over them, and to ' combine within narrow limits/
or, in other words, to appropriate to their own use such por-
tions of the territory as they think proper.

" 2. That in the exercise of this right such communities are
the judges of the extent of jurisdiction to be assumed and of
territory to be acquired." f

* Smith's Life of Lewis Cass, page 249. f Ibid., page 250.

296 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

The only other formula, as a basis of land title, at all
equal to it is the celebrated one, "Resolved 1st. That the
earth belongs to the saints." " Resolved 2. That we are the
saints."

When the Americas were first discovered by Europeans,
they were " taken possession of" on the plea of extending
Christianity. As the ." Christianity " plea had no doubt lost
some of its aroma before it reached the administration of Presi-
dent Jackson, " civilization " is made to take its place.

A nation having passed the early and more turbulent stages
of its career, is apt to seek for general principles to fortify not
only the ideas, but the acts on which it was founded. Higher
conceptions of justice usually in the end triumph over lower
and cruder. It is and must always be a source of regret
to statesmen, that precedents not founded on honor or equity
should have been created, and that the title possessed by the
American people should be stained by blood and unfair deal-
ing. The ancient inhabitants of the country were in a decline
both as to population and power. That decline was greatly
accelerated by the European settlements. The agricultural
tribes were not only reduced in numbers, but in wealth,
industry and standing. Many nations at one time agricul-
tural became wanderers. Tribes were driven from place
to place and stripped of their lands so often that it is
not wonderful that the spirit to improve their homes died
within them. They were deprived of their natural means
of support and subject to the degrading influences of pauper-
ization.

There have not been lacking advocates of the theory that
their system of tenure was the cause of their misfortunes.
There is not the slightest foundation for this. Their mode of
land tenure is one that has been common to the great masses
of mankind, and was one of the redeeming traits in their
social system. It has been urged, with more apparent reason,
that they are inert, and lack progressive enterprise. How

A RICH ABORIGINE. 297

much of this is natural to them, and how much of it has been
created by their unhappy intercourse with the whites, is a
grave question. If their people are not characterized by
enterprise, and their villages adorned with great monuments
of human power and skill, there is a freedom and independ-
ence in their arcadian life that has proved seductive to many
Europeans. They are simple in their tastes and wants, dig-
nified in their intercourse with each other, and impatient of
restraint. While the writer was in the Indian city of Zuni,
a few years ago, he was taken to the house of a rich man, the
notably " rich " man of Zuni. These Zunis are not nomads,
but the decaying remnant of what was once a powerful em-
pire. The writer found them a quiet, peaceful, agricultural,
pastoral race, almost untouched by European contact. They
had one rich man. His condition was a subject of curiosity.
In Zuni there were no abjectly poor people. All seemed to
live in comfort. On inquiry it was found that the "rich
man " had a few thousand sheep, a few hundred head of cattle,
and a herd of horses and donkeys. He had no better laud
privileges than his neighbors, except that his flocks consumed
more grass in the neighboring mountains than those of his fellow
citizens. It was ascertained that he made no money by usury,
interest being unknown in Zuni. In common with his neigh-
bors he had enough ground to cultivate. Others had consid-
erable herds. All seemed to have as much as they needed ;
he had more. It appeared to have come to him through
inheritance and fortunate circumstances. He was not a trader.
According to our estimates his riches constituted no very great
amount of wealth. He was not a public officer. His adobe
house was a little larger, and a little better furnished. His
fortune had not lifted him above friendly association with
his neighbors. He was hospitable, and, the writer learned,
had done many acts of kindness to the less fortunate. His
wealth seemed to be neither a reproach nor a menace. I had
scarcely expected to find one man better off than another, and

298 ABORIGINAL TITLE.

I would scarcely have inquired into or noted his circumstances
if my guide had not informed me, in bad Spanish, that this
was " the richest man in all that country."

In a history of the Caribbees we have a characteristic speech
delivered by a native to a dejected European :

" Friend, how miserable art thou, thus to expose thy per-
son to such tedious and dangerous voyages, and suffer thyself
to be oppressed with cares and fears. The inordinate desire
of acquiring wealth puts thee to all this trouble and all these
inconveniences, and yet thou art in no less disquiet for the
goods thou hast already gotten, than for those thou desirest
to get. Thou art in continual fear lest somebody should rob
thee, either in thine own country or upon the seas ; or that
thy commodities should be devoured by shipwreck, or lost in
the waters. Thus, thy hair turns grey, and thy forehead is
wrinkled. A thousand inconveniences attend thy body, a
thousand afflictions surround thy heart, and thou makest all
haste to the grave. Why dost thou not contemn riches as
we do." *

* E. K. Davis's History of the Caribbees, Book 2, chap, xi., page 267.

CHAPTER X.

ERA OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT IN
AMERICA RIGHT OF DISCOVERY RIGHT OF CONQUEST.

European discoverers visit America for gold, silver and trade A century
of robbery, rapine and murder Comparison between European and
American society at date of discovery Slavery and Las Casas Dates of
actual settlement in the West Indies Dates of actual settlement in
North America What led to it Settlements of the Northmen Dis-
covery a better title than possession Conquest on pretense of Christian-
izing Native rights disregarded French and Spanish colonies frater-
nize with the natives English colonies refuse to mingle The Indian
must " go West " Attempts to plant white aristocracy First specula-
tions in sales and gifts of American lands Popes, kings and parliaments
granted land they had never seen Colonial boundaries Annexation,
wars of conquest Treaties Degradation and extermination The Hen-
derson purchase Baron Graffenreid John Locke's constitution Amer-
ican lords and palatines Aristocracy Slavery Free settlements.

THERE is a common, but mistaken impression, that the
industrial settlements in America followed immediately upon
the European discovery by Columbus, in 1492. A more
careful study of history will show that about one hundred and
twenty-five years elapsed before such industrial European
settlements actually began. Up to that time both continents
and the West India Islands might be said to be infested with
European adventurers. Their chief purposes were the search
for precious metals, trade in furs or other articles with the
natives, and the location of valuable fishing banks, from
which food might be obtained for Europe. Indeed, for the
latter purpose, the Basques, from the French coasts, and
other Celtic nations, had visited the banks of Newfoundland,
regularly, several hundred years before the time of Columbus.

299

300 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

The Scandinavians had also colonies in Greenland about the
tenth century. Had the agricultural occupations of the
country been the purpose of the first discoverers, they would
naturally have selected spots in both continents but sparsely
settled, and not occupied by strong or organized governments.
On the contrary, we find Spanish attention chiefly directed to
Mexico and Peru, where governments existed that could not
be considered much inferior to the Spanish government of
that time, except in the art of war. Just before this Spanish
inroad on the Americas, her people had been engaged in a
long war for the expulsion of the Saracens from the Spanish
peninsula. It might be styled the closing part of the wars of
the Crusades, for many soldiers, from all countries in Europe,
had joined the Spanish army for the expulsion of the Mos-
lems. A martial spirit and martial men had been created,
and were ripe for American conquest when the field was
opened. The condition of Europe at that time, moreover,
was not what it is to-day. Spain, it is true, had then the
finest representative government in Europe, crude though it
was. The English Parliament was a very different body
from the present one. The kings were in the habit of making
exactions without parliamentary authority, and, in that age,
serfdom was not altogether abolished, and men and women
were still included with the transfer of estates, and estimated
at so many shillings a piece. There was scarcely such a thing
as a pane of glass in the houses of the working classes of
England, and only a few churches had them. Chimneys
were rare. Many years thereafter, Queen Elizabeth was
charged with extravagance, for strewing the royal floors
with fresh rushes each week. Only about a dozen vegetables
were then cultivated in Europe, while the Europeans found
upwards of thirty varieties cultivated in America. In some
of our best histories, maize is still set down as one of the
American contributions to the European table, a singular
mistake, as in Peter Martyr and the works of several of the

DATE OF INDUSTRIAL SETTLEMENT. 301

Spanish writers of that time, it is distinctly stated that the
people in America cultivated and ate " Turkey corn," that
cereal having been cultivated in Turkey, and thus known to
Europeans long before the discovery. In fact, Huraboldt
ascertained that maize is nowhere found indigenous in America,
or anywhere else, save in the valleys around the Himalaya
mountains.

The houses and clothing of the most highly developed na-
tions in America, could not be considered much inferior to
those used at that period in Europe. The objective point of
the Spanish adventurers was the wealthy empires ; the pur-
pose, conquest and robbery. The wild, nomadic tribes of the
Americas could not be very successfully enslaved, but of the
agricultural people, whole communities and towns were made
bondsmen, and miserably perished working in the mines,
after the rich empires, such as Mexico and Peru, had been
robbed of their accumulations. The inspiring idea of the
European adventurers was to get rich and return to Europe.
The accomplished and benevolent bishop of Chiapas (Las
Casas), whose works were suppressed by the Spanish govern-
ment for their denunciation of the cruelties practiced on the
inhabitants of America, so deeply sympathized with the
wretched natives that he suggested the introduction, in the
West India Islands, of African slavery, which was then com-
mon on the other continents. To its introduction at that
time the Americas are indebted for this element of their popu-
lation, and the history connected therewith.

Although Columbus discovered the West India Islands
before he did the coast of the mainland, only one or two of
them could be said to be occupied by the Spaniards for one
hundred and fifty years. Jamaica had little more than a gar-
rison of Spaniards in 1655, when Admiral Penn conquered
it, whereupon it was settled by the English. In 1861 it had
thirteen thousand eight hundred and sixty-one whites ; eighty-
one thousand and seventy-four colored people (mixed) and
26

302 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

three hundred and forty-six thousand three hundred and
seventy-four blacks. In 1871, five hundred and six thousand
one hundred and fifty-four whites; thirteen thousand one
hundred and one mixed, and three hundred and ninety-two
thousand seven hundred and seven blacks. It is proper to
state that in 1850 about fifty thousand of the population per-
ished of cholera.* The dates of actual settlements in the
West Indies were as follows : the Dutch settled Tobago in
1632, and the Virgin Islands in 1648. The English settled
Barbadoes in 1624; St. Christopher, in 1625; the Bahamas,
in 1629; Antigua, Montserrat, Barbuda and Redonda, in
1632, and Auguilla, in 1640. f The French settled Domi-
nica in 1610; Martinique, Guadeloupe, Desirada, Marie Gal-
ante, St. Bartholomew, Tortugas and Hermano, in 1635;
Grenada in 1650; and St. Vincent, in 1719. The Danes
settled St. Thomas in 1671, and St. John in 1717, while it
was 1643 before the Spaniards settled St. Martin, St. Eusta-
tius, Sabar and Curacoa. They had, shortly after the dis-
covery, obtained a foothold in Cuba and San Domingo.

Let us examine the European settlements in North America.
In 1564, the French Huguenots, on account of their persecu-
tion in France, planted a colony in Florida, near the spot on
which St. Augustine now stands. The year after, a Spanish
governor, Menendez, landed, took the Huguenot fort, and
hanged the prisoners as heretics. A few months later, the
Spaniards left at the place were hung by a French officer
who came to avenge his countrymen. As Spain claimed the
North American continent, she established a fort at St. Augus-
tine, in 1565, and there has been a continuous European
settlement ever since, which, for a long period, however, did
not extend to the adjacent country. J In 1584 Queen Eliza-
beth granted two patents to Adrian Gilbert and Sir Walter

* Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, page 441.

f Lippincott's Gazetteer, page 2386. J Ibid., page 775.

LETTERS PATENT TO AMERICAN SOIL. 303

Raleigh, to make settlement iii North America. No perma-
nent settlements were effected at that time. In 1607, James-
town, in Virginia, was settled by the English, but burned by
the natives the ensuing year.* It was permanently settled, in
1610, by Governor De La War. At that time all that por-
tion of North America north of Florida was styled Virginia,
in honor of Queen Elizabeth, who had granted the original
charter. In 1609, Hendrick Hudson, acting under the
Dutch, sailed up the Hudson to the place where Albany now
stands, and, consequently, the Dutch claimed all the country
from Cape Cod to Cape Henlopen.f Conception Bay, New-
foundland was settled in 1610 by forty planters under a patent
from King James. J In 1608, Champlain, a Frenchman,
settled at Quebec, and remained undisturbed until 1613, when
the English Virginia colony sent a force to dislodge him. In
1606 James & divided Virginia by letters patent. The south-
ern part included all lands between the 34th and 41st degrees
of north latitude. The northern, called the second colony,
also included part of the first, as it ran from the 38th to the
45th. Each of these colonies was to be governed by thirteen
men, and, as the territories lapped over each other, to prevent
disputes, these separate colonists were forbidden to settle
within a hundred miles of each other.

The Northmen or Scandinavians, as already stated, made
settlements in Greenland, in 982. || In 1534 the French had
sailed up the St. Lawrence river, and went through the for-
mula of taking possession of the country as " New France."
Sebastian Cabot, who had sailed along the North American
continent from Davis Straits to a not definite point south, in
1497, like the rest of the exploring navigators, went through
the form of taking possession of the country for the English

* Holmes' American Annals, page 154. f Ibid., page 167.

J Ibid., page 172.

% Morse's Universal Gazetteer, vol. i., page 115. || Ibid., page 73.

304 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

crown.* Iii 1576, Sir Francis Drake, while cruising for
Spanish galleons, discovered and took possession of California
for the British, but no settlements were made. The Dutch,
claiming, under the discovery of Hendrick Hudson, settled
Manhattan, or New Amsterdam, (now New York) in 1614.
In 1614 Captain Smith sailed along the coast of " Nortli Vir-
ginia/' and made a map of it, after which it was called " New
England/' f In 1620 a portion of the Puritan congregation
of Mr. Robinson, with elder Brewster and John Carver, set-
tled at Plymouth. J The settlement of New Hampshire dates
from 1623. In 1627, a colony of Swedes and Finns landed
at Cape Henlopen, and " purchased from the Indians " the
land from that point to the Delaware Falls. They, how-
ever, called the Delaware river "New Swedeland Stream."
Upon it they built several forts and made settlements. In
1628 Sir Henry Boswell bought from the New England
Council the land around Massachusetts Bay, and founded the
colony.|| Maryland was settled by Lord Baltimore, in 1633.
In 1630 Connecticut was granted to Lords Say and Brooke,
but no English settlement was made there until 1 635. In
the same year Roger Williams and his brethren were driven
from Massachusetts and settled in Rhode Island. The Dutch
made settlements in New Jersey, in 1614, and, as has been
already stated, the Swedes and Finns made settlements in
what is now part of New Jersey, in 1627. The English
monarch granted New Jersey to the Duke of York who sold
it to Lord Berkeley in 1664. In the same year the English
captured Manhattan, or New York, from the Dutch. South
Carolina was settled by the English in 1669. William Penn
made his celebrated settlement of Pennsylvania in 1682, and
made a treaty with the Indians for the relinquishment of a

* Holmes' American Annals, page 17.

f Ibid., page 183. J Ibid., page 199.

\ Morse's Universal Gazetteer, vol. i., page 119.

|j Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, page 32.

EMIGRATION FOLLOWS PERSECUTION. 305

small portion of the territory sold to him by the British
crown. Louisiana was settled by the French in the same
year. Georgia was settled by General Oglethorpe and colony
in 1717. The tract of land now known as Vermont was
claimed by both the colonies of New York and New Hamp-
shire. When hostilities broke out between Great Britain and
the colonies, the inhabitants assembled and formed a " Con-
stitution of Government." It has ever since continued to
exercise its powers. The first settlement at Bennington was
in 1776. The state was not admitted to the Union under
this constitution until 1791.

I am thus particular about the dates because they show that
actual European, industrial settlements were not seriously
thought of for a long time after the discovery by Columbus.
They also show that during the seventeenth century there
were active influences at work in Europe driving out a differ-
ent class of people from those who first came to America for
gold or conquest. These causes had much to do with the
character of the settlements. A political and religious revo-
lution was going on, and many of the independent thinkers
in European countries were glad to seek a new home where
they could escape persecution. At that time the English
feudal system of land tenure was being modified, and in the
reign of Charles was nominally abolished, but the lands of
Britain had been left in the hands of their aristocratic owners.
The colonists were surrounded by many peculiar circumstances
which did not leave them at liberty to devise a perfect system
of land tenure, even if they had been prepared for it. Land,
moreover, was abundant and cheap ; it was not anticipated
that there ever would be a scarcity of it.

Following the discovery of Columbus, many of the people
of Europe may be said to have become drunk with adventure.
Discovery was considered a better title than possession. Spir-
itual and temporal potentates were alike infected with the
idea of giving away or selling the lands of the Americas they

306 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

had never seen. Whole principalities were generously granted
by people who never owned them, and impecunious monarchs
paid their debts by laying mortgages on lauds to which they
never, by purchase or even conquest, had the color of title.

Such was the age of " The right of discovery." The mode
of establishing title, under the right of discovery, was for an
adventurous navigator to go on shore, in a region hitherto
unknown to Europeans, and hoist a flag and take possession
in the name of his sovereign, whoever he might happen to be.
In the celebrated map of Juan de la Cosa, the companion and
chart-maker of Columbus, made in Spain, in 1500, we find
the Brazils marked by the Portuguese flag ; the larger portion
of the islands and continents by the Spanish flag, and the
region above and below the mouth of the St. Lawrence is
adorned with the British flag. It is a circumstance worthy
of note, moreover, that the Cosa map of 1500 gives nearly the
whole North American coast line, including a not very correct
peninsula of Florida, and the mouths of the Mississippi river.
This was twenty years before our historical version of the
discovery of Florida by Ponce de Leon, and is a curious
instance of the manner in which romance is injected into his-
tory. To reconcile it, Mr. Stevens, the Ethnological writer,
attempts, in an introduction to a report on the Tehuautepec
railway, to show that Juan de la Cosa meant the mouths of
the river he represented on his map for the Ganges. How
such a writer could have made such a mistake is inexplicable,
as it was notorious that Columbus and Cosa, his map-maker,
on his second voyage, took an observation at an eclipse at St.
Domingo, and fixed the exact number of degrees between that
point and Seville. The old Ptolemy maps plainly showed
the location of China (Cathay) and, of course, both the men
knew perfectly well to a degree the immense stretch of the
earth's surface that lay between these points. In fact, Columbus,
during that second voyage, wrote a letter to Queen Isabella,
in which he said : " This country, your majesty, is not, as

TITLE BY DISCOVERY. 307

many people suppose, an island, but a continent, or rather, two
continents connected by a narrow neck of land, and beyond
that a great sea much larger than that we have traversed in
coming from your majesty's dominions." Of course, Colum-
bus had not sailed over that sea. From personal knowledge
he knew little of either continent, but the natives of the West
Indies, before he reached them, made continual voyages from
continent to continent, across the Caribbean Sea, and the navi-
gators doubtless received much of their knowledge of the
subject from them.

Some time afterward Balboa " discovered " the South Sea
across the isthmus and frantically rushed into and " took pos-
session " of it in the name of the sovereigns of Spain. In
fact, for a long period discoverers were sailing to and fro,
hoisting flags and taking possession of countries. Many of
them took possession of the same regions, and when a man,
founding his right on somebody's discovery, took possession of
a locality, there was. no specific limit to the extent of his
possessions. I am thus particular about the " right of dis-
covery " as this rather absurd fiction has entered as an element
into American titles. Courts have gravely discussed it, and
persons in authority pondered over the rights thus given to
large portions of the surface of the earth. A right which
seemed to carry the power to expel the native inhabitants, to
give kings the authority to make a chattel of an almost un-
known region, speculators the claim to traffic in it, and to
deny others the privilege of cultivating it without the consent
of the discoverer, his heirs and assigns.

The " right of discovery," by its uncertainties, the natural
doubt about its record, the mystery as to how much was dis-
covered, or how far the hoisted flag threw its shadow, gave
rise to another and kindred right, the " right of conquest."
The right of discovery may be styled the pickpocket's right,
and the right of conquest the highwayman's right. The pick-
pocket discovers that a man has a pocketbook in his coat, and

308 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

by adroit manipulation gets possession of it without alarming
or notifying the owner. His possession comes from his right
of discovery. On the other hand, the highwayman meets
his victim, and by force of arms or greater strength, knocks
him down and takes what he has. His title to what he thus
gets is the " right of conquest." The right of conquest was
not a new invention of European adventurers in America. It
had flourished in Western Europe for many hundred years.
Lords and barons built castles on almost inaccessible crags,
and sallied forth with their retainers, and plundered their
neighbors.* The great man of that period was he who could
cut a throat if occasion offered, drive in a herd of cattle, or
sack a house without compunction. Of course, when persons
of this character found a new opening in America, it was to
be expected that they would take advantage of their opportu-
nities. The American field, moreover, had several advan-
tages. The natives had not yet discovered gunpowder, and
excursions among them were a good deal safer. The chance
of reprisals was not so great. In addition to this, Peru and
Mexico had better organized governments at that time than
some portions of Europe were blessed with, and, as well organ-
ized banditti had not flourished on the weakness or connivance
of the state, the field was a good deal richer. Human
cupidity has written some terrible pages of history, but none
which appear more mercilessly cruel, or utterly unwarranted,
than the plunder and overthrow of Peru and Mexico. Nor
had the conquerors the pretended apology that they carried
superior government and civilization. It is stated that there
have been upwards of two hundred and sixty revolutions in
Mexico since 1821, f not to mention the interminable political
confusion before that time. Indeed, it may be safely stated
that since the murder of Montezuma, for it was not an execu-

* Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii., page 506.
f Haydn's Dictionary of Dates, page 520.

BUCCANEERS. 309

tion, unhappy Mexico has never been so well policed or
governed. The amount of gold and silver shipped to Europe
was so great that the statistics about it seem incredible. It
was enough to upset and unsettle values in the Old World,
and laid the foundation for the comparative decay of Spain,
by diverting her people from those staid, industrious habits
that alone can give prosperity to a nation. Spain was, never-
theless, the envy of Europe. Piratical expeditions were fitted
out to cruise on the Spanish main and capture the galleons
loaded with bullion. These were the grand old buccaneer-
ing days, the term boucanier being given because these free-
booters chiefly lived on the dry meat of the buffalo, at that
time plentifully found on the North American coast. There
was no particular discredit attached to the business, one
prominent English operator having been knighted for his
prowess.

I have endeavored to point out the distinction between the
first hundred and twenty-five years of adventure and plunder,
and the era of industrial settlements of a better class, begin-
ning with the early portion of the seventeenth century. The
era of discovery and robbery had to a considerable extent
expended its energies. That period, moreover, had be-
queathed some bad elements and precedents as to the rights
of property in the New World, especially in land. The
theory that the state had the right to determine on what
terms the land within its geographical limits should be occu-
pied was upset. Much of the land was disposed of, or pre-
tended to be disposed of, before any American government
was established. Much of it was handed and bandied about
after a fashion that would not, even then, have been tolerated
in Europe, semi-barbarous though it was. It is true,
Indian governments of all kinds and grades occupied the
country, and their people had lived here from remote periods,
but the whole idea of the European settlements was hostile to
their rights. The claims of Spain, or France, or England

310 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

by discovery, were paramount, and the Indian title was some-
thing that was to be got rid of as soon as this could be safely
or conveniently done. Had it been attempted in any high-
handed way, by general conquest, at any time during the first
fifty years of settlement, the result, in all probability,
would have been the expulsion of the settlers. At the date
of the European discovery, the region lying north and east of
the Mexican provinces, was thinly populated. The evidences
of a more dense population, and a higher stage of civilization,
still confront us, but at that period had mainly passed away.
A few great nomadic peoples broken into tribes and bands,
traversed the west, the north and the east. The country was
rich in game, nuts and fruit. Many of the inhabitants culti-
vated a little maize, and were in one place this year and in
another the next. Neither their religion nor their political
ideas gave their governments a centralizing force. They were
attached to their free, independent modes of life. Their
councils were advisory rather than dictatorial. A chief had
no power save by the consent of those he ruled. There was
no means of enforcing his authority, and it was liable to ter-
minate at any moment. Wandering as they did, conflicts
between the different tribes and bands were frequent. Bloody
tribal feuds existed. Confederacies in a few cases had been
created, but these were chiefly between the people of the same
blood, and exercised no general authority capable of organ-
izing resistance. Clustered around the Mbbilian basin were
the broken fragments of a hundred different races and tribes,
many of whom were in stages of decline. A few of these
peoples cultivated orchards and fruit, and domesticated many
animals and fowls. They had no great cities, but agricultu-
ral towns and villages. Long after the date of the European
discovery the sacred fire still burned on their great mounds or
high places.

The languages of the nomadic tribes of the north and west
were crude, and indicated little progress in society or thought ;

AGRICULTURISTS FORCED TO BE NOMADS. 311

they rarely generalized, had no such words as " tree" or "cat-
tle," but every beast and every tree had its name. Not so
with many tribes or fragments of nations found clustered
near the lower part of the great river. Nearly every form of
grammatical construction can be found among them. The
same law of emigration which obtained in the old continents
seemed to have governed here. Nation after nation, and
tribe after tribe must have floated down with the current, silt
and drift, on the great river, and left their heterogeneous and
broken fragments in the delta, or in the low wet lands of
Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Tribes and nations not
so far advanced, and not so mixed or fragmentary, but still
subsisting chiefly from agriculture and fishing, stretched up,
far northward on the American coasts. Besides the great
nomadic nations heretofore referred to, many tribes and
nations once located in certain portions of the country, on
being driven from their homes, became, to great extent,
nomads and wanderers, nor could they very well help it. On
their arrival, the whites were continually pressing and driving
them back, and they were thrown in contact with the interior
tribes, who, in turn, regarded them as intruders. Having, in
many cases, been enemies formerly, fresh feuds were easily
engendered by this conflict of interests. While there are a
few instances where the contact with the whites benefited or
improved their condition, upon the whole, the effect on the
native American tribes, has been in every way degrading and
disastrous. The date of the European settlements was to
them the commencement of ruin. These people, to a large
extent, ceased to be agriculturists because they had no security
for the crops they might plant, nor could they hope to remain
in any location. Permanent improvements, and any advance
in their condition was always looked on by the whites with
jealousy, as increasing the difficulties of getting rid of them.

After the era of plunder and gold mining had partially
subsided, the Spaniards commenced permanent industrial set-

312 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

tlements. They were not driven out by religious persecution,
for Spain was always Catholic, but, in common with other
nations in Europe, her people suffered from the social and
political changes that were going on, and to many emigration
was a relief. In some respects their colonial settlements dif-
fered from the French, but they, too, intermarried with the
natives, and there was an absorption and blending of some of
the peculiarities of each. In some portions of Spanish Amer-
ica, certain parties still boast of pure Castillian blood. This,
however, is rare. A few of the native Indian nations and
villages, on the other hand, do not intermix with the Span-
iards, but there is no wide gulf fixed as to their modes of life.
In driving down the Rio Grande, for instance, the coachman
will tell you that this "is an Indian town," and that
"a Spanish town," but there seems to be but little difference
between them in dwellings, dress or habits. The Spaniards
have chiefly occupied countries where agriculture could only
be carried on by irrigation, and they adopted the modes and
regulations of the aboriginal inhabitants. The ancient build-
ing material of the country was largely adobe or adobe and
stone, and the Spaniards build almost similar houses. The
more wealthy Spaniards merely erected larger houses, and
they are a little better finished and furnished, but of the same
generic character. What is true of both the French and
Spanish settlements, is that , in occupying the country, the
expulsion of the Indian does not appear to have been neces-
sary, or to have been contemplated. In both cases the French
and Spanish governments endeavored to foster an aristocracy.
Great grants of land were given to prominent Spaniards for
military service or money. The Spanish settlements in
America began in a conception of aristocracy and although
without titular distinction (beyond mere military titles) have
remained essentially aristocratic. In this condition these
Spanish colonies are found to-day.

The British colonial system was different. Their settlers

NATIONAL BARGAINS BY TREATY. 313

did not intermarry with, or mix in a friendly or homogeneous
population with the natives. In the Byrd manuscript, that
philosophical and facetious old Virginia colonist deprecated
the circumstance, which is specially noted by him. He thinks
it unfair that the English in taking their land should not have
taken their daughters with it.* There are a few exceptional
cases. In Virginia, the case of Pocahontas. The Scotch and
Irish settlers of Georgia who went there with Oglethorpe, also,
to a considerable extent, became mixed with the Southern
tribes. The McGilvarys and Mclntoshs of the Creek nation,
and the Rosses, McDonalds, McNairs and Adairs of the
Cherokees, are notable instances, and have had marked effect
on the progress of these tribes. In these cases it is to be ob-
served that such Europeans were absorbed by those two
nations, and became part of their people, and active partici-
pants in their policy. There was, with the American and
Indian tribes in general, no mingling of the two races, or any
system encouraged or tolerated for a conjunction of interests
or mutual absorption on fair terms. " The Indian must go "
was the prevalent policy, and it has written a record stained
by bloodshed and bad faith.

One of the most important consequences of the " right of
discovery/' was the system of treaties with the Indian nations
and tribes. The " crown " of each nation having colonies
claimed the right of title by discovery, and, from the crown, the
colonies claimed powers and privileges under the same head.
All parties were perfectly well aware, however, that there was
an occupancy right that covered the country. At first many
of the colonists endeavored to purchase from the natives the
right of occupying certain locations, or propitiated the tribes
with presents, so that they would permit the settlements. As
has been shown, none of the Indian tribes understood, or for
a moment approved of, or adopted the theory that the land

* Byrd's Manuscript, History of the Dividing Line, page 5;
27

314 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

was an individual chattel, or that the purchasers could have
perpetual, exclusive use. They were, however, very jealous
and careful about the boundaries of the lands belonging to
their own people. In defense of their boundaries they did
not hesitate to go to war, and they tenaciously clung to their
possessions in all the contests about frontage, in council and
negotiation. The title, however, was the title of the nation,
and could only be disposed of by the nation. William Perm
had purchased a tract of laud from the British Crown, and,
conscientiously believing that this really gave him no title to
the Indian property without their consent, he, by treaty, pur-
chased land where Philadelphia now stands, from the Indians.
They, of course, merely understood that for these presents
they gave the right of settlement at that place to Mr. Penii
and his people. They certainly did not contemplate a fresh
irruption of settlers, and continued arrivals of innumerable
colonists that should over-run not only the country they
occupied, but regions now constituting Pennsylvania which
were claimed by other tribes. In the samo way as stated, the
settlement of Swedes and Finns on the Delaware, bought
from the Indians all the land from Cape Henlopen to the Falls
of the Delaware. Unless it was under the Dutch right of
discovery of New York, they had no fiction of a right of
discovery to fall back on, and, indeed, they had to make their
peace with the British proprietors as best they could.

It very soon became apparent to the rulers in Europe, who
were interested in real estate in America, that it would never
do to let everybody make bargains or treaties with the Indians,
or the right of discovery and even the colonial patents would
soon amount to nothing or get mixed up with these purchases
by individuals and lead to inextricable confusion. Treaties
were then made by the European governments with the gov-
ernments of the Indian nations for cessions of land from time
to time as the colonies progressed. Under the most stringent
regulations individuals were prohibited from making purchases

COLONIAL PATENTS TO LAND. 315

or bargains with the Indians, and even the colonists were for-
bidden from encroaching on the Indian lands, or making pur-
chases or treaties with them except under royal authority.
The colonial governors, acting under specific authority, issued
patents to tracts purchased or granted in some cases. Besides
the companies holding the colonial charters, many other com-
panies obtained and purchased considerable tracts, chiefly for
speculation. Many prominent colonists thus obtained tracts,
some through the colonial governors, and some directly from
the British privy council. A royal proclamation was issued
in 1763 forbidding the territorial governors from granting
patents to lauds beyond the head waters of rivers flowing into
the Atlantic. Title predicated on the royal right of discovery
and the right of conquest has been treated with the utmost
gravity when questions growing out of it have been under
consideration by the supreme court of the United States. It
is to be regretted, and a few hundred years hence it will
probably be regretted more, that fictions about such rights
should have figured so prominently, and that in treating these
questions the court had not chiefly considered the principles
and spirit upon which the government and constitution had
been founded. Chief Justice Marshall, the most eminent of
our jurists, indeed held that the right of discovery only gave
an exclusive right to purchase from the Indians, as against all
other nations, and in this he was doubtless sustained by the
laws and practice of all the governments. The power to ex-
tinguish the right of discovery by the right of conquest, as in
the case of the British over the French, and the Dutch does
not seem to be called in question by anybody. The colonies
by the war of independence succeeded to all the rights the
British had, and, by the purchase of Louisiana, to all the
rights of the French.

In her treaties with the Indians the United States has, be-
sides paying a trifle for the land she obtained, been in the
habit of sacredly guaranteeing the Indians the unmolested

316 SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA.

possession of the remainder. This the French and English
had done before them, and in all these cases the rights thus
guaranteed were observed until these governments wanted
some more land. Adequate payment to the tribes for the laud
relinquished was never made. The treaties were often made
by the Indians under a species of duress, probably at the close
of an Indian war, or a war in which the Indians participated,
or under circumstances when some kind of a settlement had to
be accepted. Many men claiming to be statesmen have often
participated in these purchases of Indian lands for a trifle of
what they were worth. A pernicious idea that the lands of
the country were something that kings and republics, states
and individuals, could speculate in and make gain of, infected
the general mind. Long after the adoption of the federal
constitution political parties were rent in twain on the subject
of selling the public lands and distributing the proceeds among
the states. The curse of the first discoverers and conquerors
seemed to rest on the soil. The adventurers came, and after
they had stolen all the gold and silver they could lay their
hands on, attempted to steal the continent and make it a foot-
ball for speculators. It was a chattel to pay debts with, and
barter and give away by those who would not deign even to
set foot upon it. Had their influence perished with them it
would not have been so much to be regretted, but it made a
chattel of laud after a fashion the world had not yet seen, and
it poisoned and blinded men's minds on this question of great
public policy.

Some singular precedents were created by the colonists.
North Carolina, by an act of her colonial legislature, extended
her boundaries to the Mississippi river. Why she did not
extend them to the Pacific ocean is incomprehensible. Not
the least wonderful thing is that she succeeded in getting her
claim to this property considered, and obtained payment for
lands in a large portion of Tennessee. A Virginian named
Henderson visited what is now Kentucky and purchased a

THE HENDERSON PURCHASE. 317

tract from the Cherokee Indians. The transaction appears
from the first to have been open to objections. Many years
after, when the treaty of Hopewell was made, the Cherokees
claimed a considerable portion of the lands of Kentucky, when
the commissioners produced the deed or paper conveying all
of that region to Mr. Henderson. Tassel 1, one of the dele-
gates, borrowed some paper from the commissioner and made
a map showing the rivers and their boundaries, a fac-simile
of which is in the American State Papers, and said that the
signature of Oconestoto to the deed was a forgery. Hender-
son, he said, had only asked for a little land on Kentucky
river to feed his horses on. Tassell described it by a small
round circle on the map. The commissioner informed him
that all the parties to the deed were dead, and as the titles of a
great many settlers were involved, it must stand. Tassell
then replied, they "would let Kentucky go," but he "was
sorry Henderson was dead ; he would like to have told him
he was a liar." *

When Henderson first made his purchase, the matter was
brought to the attention of the Virginia colonial legislature,
and as Henderson was a Virginian that body patriotically
claimed the country for Virginia. They considerately allowed
him about a third of it for himself, taking the ground that
such a portion was worth a great deal more than he gave for
the whole, and after determining that the sale was not perfectly
good so far as Mr. Henderson was concerned, resolved that it
was conclusively good so far as any or all Indians were con-
cerned, and then proceeded to dispose of the remainder. This
was the foundation for no inconsiderable number of laud
titles.

Virginia also claimed property interests in the northwest
territory in Ohio and Illinois. Connecticut likewise had a
claim to land in Ohio, partly growing out of their right to

* American State Papers, vol. i., Indian Affairs, page 42.

318 SETTIiEMENTS IN AMERICA.

extend their boundaries to the " South Sea/ 7 and partly owing
to settlement under Manasseh Cutler, and both states in 1802
ceded their jurisdiction over their reserves to the United States.
Connecticut disposed of the lands styled the Western Reserve
in Ohio, by sales.

In establishing the British colonies in North America they
were marked by the circumstances of the settlers and the spirit
that animated the settlement. The founders of the colonies
north of Maryland were people driven from Europe by perse-
cution. They were protestants against long established ideas,
and their protestant spirit crops out in the colonies they
founded. Aristocracy among them soon perished. The
people were and are sturdy, laborious and economical. In
many of the Southern states aristocracy was carefully planted
and encouraged. The colony of Carolina was planned in
Great Britain. There were to be counts for the counties and
palatines and barons. John Locke lent the scheme the aid
of his genius, and wrote the constitution of government that
was designed to be adopted. In North Carolina, when the
Carolinas were divided, a similar idea was fostered. One of
the founders was a Baron Graffenreid, who actually attempted
to establish his barony, and came very near being burned at
the stake by the exasperated natives.* Virginia was blessed
by her shoots of aristocracy and her "first families" still
cling to the relics of a decayed greatness. Lord Baltimore
remains the patron saint of the tournaments of Maryland.
Large landed possessions were acquired, and are still retained in
these sections. As the average emigrating European, even
then, was averse to peonage, and able to set up for himself,
the aristocracy would have pined for a class to lord over, had
it not been for African slavery. At first common, to some
extent, in all the colonies, it soon languished in the great

* Baron Graffenreid's Letter in Williamson's Tuscarora War, vol. i.,
page 285.

COLONIAL LAND SPECULATION. 319

central and eastern portions and passed away. In the South
the system grew to a great aristocratic oligarchy. The poor
whites who could not own slaves gradually sank in the scale,
for no labor can be respectable where slave labor exists.
Georgia, in the beginning, was not blessed or cursed with
slavery. The conscientious Oglethorpe resolutely opposed it.
His followers coveted the privileges of the adjoining colonies,
and kept up the agitation until they carried their point, and
the founder of the colony shook the dust from his feet
against them.

The colonial era really laid the foundations of what
there is of an American land system. It began with royal
claims based on discovery, and ended in conquest and specula-
tion. Through all the checkered years from 1610 to 1776,
the foundations of European settlements in America were
planted, and grew into power. The essential feature of the
land polity seemed to be that in this New World each man
should get as much land as he could, and if he did not sell it to
some successor, his family should have the exclusive right to
use it forever. Escaping from the aristocracy and despotism
of Europe, each man hoped he could found an aristocratic
family of his own. Tenure was not based on a recognition of
human rights, but on privilege. The richer and more aristo-
cratic colonists desired great estates and the spread of an
aristocratic landed system. Such institutions met the favor
and received the patronage of the home governments. Poor
settlers and colonists had little power and were anxious to
secure all the land they could.

It must, indeed, be conceded that nothing save a strong
liberty-loving spirit among the people prevented a worse
system than we inherited. The assertion of human rights was
broad enough in the Declaration of Independence to consti-
tute the principles of a free government. It is to be regretted
that a permanent, equitable land tenure was not established.

CHAPTER XL

HISTORY OF THE LAND POLITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Land tenure shaped in colonial days Conflicting colonial claims
Continental Congress Plea to pay expenses of Revolutionary War from
public lands First land bounty for soldiers Proposed northwest colony
Washington's landed estates The Walpole Land Company The Ohio
Company The Quebec bill Ordinance for the northwest territory
Madison's comments First modes of land sale French commons John
Adams Property in soil the foundation of power Land sold from 1796
to 1885 Proceeds in money Less than a year's customs and revenue
The surplus funds The years of great land speculation Borrowing
public money to buy public lands Distribution of the proceeds Gradu-
ation bill Grants of lands to states To schools and colleges To canals
To corporations Pre-emption law Homestead law Great and small
land speculators Squatters Residue of public lands Frauds under a
bad system Texas and her lands Mexican grants Letter from the
commissioner Aggregate homesteads filed and taken Timber culture
grants Area disposed for bounty land warrants Number of farms in
the United States Number of landholders Of renters Of farm labor-
ers Gradual transfer of land from settler to land speculator.

IN founding a republic on the admitted equality of the
human race, and on the inalienable right of all its citizens to
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness/' there is nothing
in the nxode of disposing of the public domain or the adjust-
ment of tenures in these United States that is worthy of being
called a land policy. As we have seen, the greatest of ancient
nations hav^-been overthrown by the evils following laud
monopoly. Where equal tenure of the soil passed into privi-
lege, a tax on production was thus levied to sustain an aristo-
cratic non-productive class. In Western Europe feudal land-
holders had entered into a struggle with chattel holders, both
being assertions of individual right to the soil. These differ-
320

STATES AS LAND CLAIMANTS. 321

ent opinions about tenure were transplanted to the soil of a
new continent where the right of discovery and the right of
conquest had already called in question equal human right.
Out of these conflicting materials American tenure was shaped.

During colonial times the land was not treated as something
to which all the men who might live on it should have an
equal right. Land was sometimes acquired for use, but more
frequently for speculation. Ignorant even of the geography of
the country they disposed of, the original colonial charters were
formed in language, much of which now appears ridiculous,
and led to conflicts in regard to title. Many of the grants cov-
ered the same ground and nearly all of them terminated at the
" South Sea," or Pacific Ocean. When the colonies succeeded in
achieving their independence the territorial question was a very
disturbing one. Virginia claimed not only Kentucky, but a
large tract north and west of the Ohio. New York claimed a
great deal of the same country by virtue of cessions from the Iro-
quois, or six nations. These people rambled over a considerable
portion of the United States, and a cession of their territory and
jurisdiction was rather indefinite. Massachusetts and Con-
necticut were pertinacious in asserting their rights to some of
the territory that lay between them and the " South Sea." A
conflict also existed between New York and Pennsylvania in
regard to their Western territories.

The creation of a northwestern colony had long been a dis-
turbing element between influential parties in the colonies and
the mother country. A company called the "Ohio Company "
had been formed in 1748 by Thomas Lee, Lawrence Washing-
ton, Augustine Washington and others, for the colonization
of the western country. They obtained from the crown a
grant of five hundred thousand acres in the region of the
Ohio, and the French and Indian War was precipitated by
their attempting to open a road to these western valleys. A
royal proclamation was issued in 1763, prohibiting colonial
governors from granting patents for land beyond the sources

322 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

of any of the rivers that flow into the Atlantic Cocao. This
proclamation was ostensibly to pacify the Indians by reserving
for their use the lands west of the Alleghenies, but behind it
lurked another policy,- that of organizing colonies only on the
seaboard that could be retained in the interests, commercially
and otherwise, of the mother country. The governor of Vir-
ginia had no jurisdiction outside of his own province, but he
was authorized to grant from " the king's domain " two hun-
dred thousand acres to officers and soldiers who had served in
the French and Indian War, provided the claimants applied
to him personally for land warrants. These grants were, for
every field officer, five thousand acres; for every captain, three
thousand ; to every subaltern or staff officer, two hundred, and
for every private, fifty acres. This was one of the earliest
military land grants in this country. These grants could be
made in " Florida/ 7 Canada or elsewhere in ungranted crown
lands. George Washington, who was entitled to five thousand
acres in his own right, and who in conjunction with others
bought up the claims of various parties, ultimately received at
least thirty-two thousand acres of this tract. Governor Dun-
more had, in the first place, issued patent to Washington for
upward of twenty thousand acres on the Kanawha and Ohio
rivers. In the schedule of property appended to Washington's
will, the value of the parcels owned by him was noted in 1799,
in his own hand. According to this memoranda he had in Vir-
ginia, 27,486 acres, thus valued at $124,880; on the Ohio,
9,744 acres, valued by him at $97,440 ; on the Great Ka-
nawha, 23,341 acres, estimated at $200,000. In addition
there are smaller tracts in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New
York, in the Northwest Territory and in Kentucky. In all,
70,975 acres, which he deemed at that time to be worth
$464,807. He had, also, lots in Washington, Alexandria and
Winchester. I refer to this statement as indicating the rela-
tions to real estate of a Virginia gentleman of that period.
It had been the policy of Britain in several of the colonies,

SETTLEMENT OF THE BACK LANDS. 323

notably Virginia and the Carolinas, to encourage the formation
of large landed proprietorships and thus create territorial
nobility, or country gentlemen. This mode of disposing of
land had a good deal to do with what followed. It is all
the more to Washington's credit that, although he owned
slaves and was by his surroundings necessarily connected with
large landholding interests, he cordially joined in forming a
republic predicated on the doctrine of the equal rights of men.
The lands of the colonies were being absorbed, and even the
" back lands," called " crown lands," were in various ways
getting into market. A very instructive advertisement over
the signature of George Washington is in part copied from
the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser of August
20th, 1773:

" MOUNT VERNON, in VIRGINIA, July 15, 1773.

" The subscriber having obtained patents for upwards of twenty thousand
acres of land on the Ohio and Great Kanawha (ten thousand of which are
situated on the banks of the first-mentioned river, between the mouths of
the two Kanawhas, and the remainder on the Great Kanawha, or New
River, from the mouth, or near it, upward in one continued survey) pro-
poses to divide the same into any sized tenements that may be desired, and
lease them upon moderate terms, allowing a reasonable number of years
rent free, provided within the space of two years from next October,
three acres for every fifty contained in each lot, and proportionately as
above, shall be enclosed and laid down in good grass for meadows, and,
moreover, that at least fifty fruit trees for every like quantity of land shall
be planted on the premises. * * * * To which may be added, that as
patents have now actually passed the seals for the several tracts here
offered to be leased, settlers on them may cultivate and enjoy the lands in
peace and safety notwithstanding the unsettled counsels respecting a new
colony on the Ohio ; and, as no right-money is to be paid for the lands, and
quit rent of two shillings sterling a hundred, demandaUe some years hence,
only, it is highly presumable that they will always be held on a more de-
sirable footing than when both these are laid on with a heavy hand."

The advertisement enumerates that the "portage" from the
" Powtowmack " by Cheat river and the other branches of
the Monongahela, will be reduced to the compass of a few

324 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

miles. The quality of the lands are extolled, and it is signed
" George Washington."

In 1766 Benjamin Franklin and others organized a com-
pany called the " Vandalia," afterward the " Walpole Com-
pany." The* company was composed of thirty-two Americans
and two gentlemen of London ; one of these was Thomas
Walpole, a prominent London banker. The petition of the
company to the British privy council, in 1769, asked for a
grant of two million and a half acres of land between the 38th
and 42d parallels of latitude, and east of the Sciota river.
Franklin urged the matter in London. It was stated that
the company offered more for this grant than the whole region
back of the mountains had cost the British government at the
treaty of Fort Stanwix. There was another company which
was once more styled the " Ohio Company," that was ulti-
mately merged in the "Vandalia." A rival company under
the name of the " Mississippi Company" was organized by
gentlemen of Virginia, among whom Francis Light-foot,
Richard Henry Lee, Arthur Lee and George Washington
were conspicuous. The Walpole petition was first rejected
and afterward granted by the crown, August 14th, 1772.

The British government had been strongly urged for some
time before the Revolution to create a colonial government on
the Ohio, west of the mountains, but appeared to be reluctant
to do so. The royal order of 1763, prohibiting the colonial
governors from granting patents beyond the head waters of
streams running into the Atlantic, as has been said, ostensibly
to keep peace with the Indians, had behind it a purpose to
limit the territorial claims of the older colonies, and also to
prevent any great population from growing up in the inte-
rior. A prominent member of the British government wrote
a report for the privy council against the policy of creating
such colonies. It was held that the colonies on the sea-coast
were all connected in their business closely with the mother
country, but if a colony or colonies were built up in the

THE QUEBEC BILL. 325

interior their interests would soon become inimical. The
report indicated that it was the policy of the mother country
to secure the production of raw material, which could be
easily transported in the colonies, and the retention of these
colonies as consumers of British manufactured articles. A

rich interior colony could not afford to ship its raw products
such a distance from the sea, and would soon be driven to
manufacture. Whatever the reason was, the prohibitory
order of 1763 was never rescinded. Something very diiferent,
however, was done. By an act of parliament, in 1774, the
crown lands northwest of the Ohio were transferred and an-
nexed to the royal province of Quebec. This measure was
extremely unpopular with the colonies as several of them
claimed portions of the country, and various enterprises, as
we have partially shown, were on foot for its development, in
which individual colonists were interested. This Act was no
doubt intended, first, to put an end to the claims of the colo-
nies on the Atlantic seaboard to that country, and also as a
check to all schemes of private settlement. This " Quebec

, Bill/ 7 as it was called, was referred to in the Declaration of
Independence as " their acts of pretended legislation." The
Declaration of Independence made an end of the Quebec bill,
as of various other things. ^At the outbreak of the Revolution,
Virginia "annexed" a region of "the back country," which
it then called the " County of Kentucky," and when Colonel
George Rogers Clarke, in 1778, captured the military posts
at Vincennes and Kaskaskia, during his expedition, Virginia
once more proceeded to " annex " the lauds beyond the Ohio,
which it styled the " County of Illinois.

At the close of the Revolutionary War the territorial ques-
tion was a very distracting one. Besides the claims of Vir-
ginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut claimed a portion of
these lands under their original charter, which extended to
the " South Sea." Many argued, as a question of justice, that

all of this undisposed crown land should belong to, or be sub-

326 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

ject to, the action of Congress, and the proceeds used to
defray the expenses of the Revolutionary War. It is a cir-
cumstance worthy of note that Thomas Paine and other Revo-
lutionary leaders strenuously urged this view of the case. In
point of fact, the old scrip, or war debt, was received in pay-
ment for land, until 1806.* The claimant colonies were,
at first, not at all inclined to relinquish these territorial
interests.

The Continental Congress was simply a representative body
of the colonies, assembled for general defense. Feeling the
necessity of some organization, the articles of confederation
were adopted by Congress, November 15th, 1777, but were not
finally agreed to by the colonies until March l*>t, 1781. In
the condition of the country at that time, engaged in a war
with England, the delay of several of the colonies was critical.
One of the main causes of dissension was the disposition of
the " Crown Lands." Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware
and Maryland objected to the disposition of the lands, as it
stood in the articles of federation. Rhode Island proposed
an amendment to the articles of confederation, " declaring that
all lands within these states, the property of which was vested
in the Crown of Great Britain, should be disposed of for the
benefit of all the states in the confederacy ;" but, adding, that
the "jurisdiction" over these lands should remain with the
states where they might be, or which might be adjudged to
possess them. New Jersey took similar ground, only that the
proceeds of the lauds should be used to defray the expenses
of the war. Delaware took a like position. Maryland
instructed her delegates, forbidding them to ratify the articles
of confederation until the land claims of the states were put
upon a different basis. In fact, Maryland insisted that the
undisposed-of crown lands should be subject to the decision
of Congress. New York still claimed a portion of the West-

* Donaldson's History of the Public Domain, page 205.

* ORDINANCE FOR NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 327

ern lands through treaty with the Iroquois. The other
claimants were Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
But for the critical condition of affairs it is more than proba-
ble that the matter would not have been adjusted as it was.
The small colonies were naturally jealous of the larger.
Among the causes of apprehension it was anticipated, that
if the states of Virginia, New York, Massachusetts and Con-
necticut had their claim to these lands confirmed, the sale of
land would greatly enrich and strengthen them, and thus they
would not be burdened with taxes, and emigration would tend
to these states, and they might even absorb a part of the pop-
ulation of the weaker states. New York and Massachusetts
were the first to yield, and, finally, Virginia and Connecticut
agreed to the supervision of Congress, and to submit their
claims for territory or indemnification to that body. Connec-
ticut succeeded in retaining the Western Reserve in Ohio,
which was as large as Connecticut. Part of this she disposed
of to indemnify citizens who had been burned out during the
war, and the remainder was sold, in 1795, for one million
two hundred thousand dollars, and the proceeds chiefly used
for educational purposes. Connecticut did not cede the juris-
diction over these lands until 1802. Under the early ordi-
nance a place was agreed on to draw the land by lot for the
thirteen states, but this was repealed in 1788.

The Congress under the confederation having thus acquired
the territory outside of the colonies and early states, proceeded
to take steps in reference to these common territories. The
constitution was not framed or the government organized.
The articles of confederation, whatever they conferred, con-
tained nothing in them giving eminent domain to Congress.
The provisions of the Ordinance of 1787 for the government
of the Northwest Territory were new and bold expedients,
both adopted before Congress was governed by constitutional
limitations, or had a recognized field of authority. It was
the first and only period in the history of the country when

328 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES. *

a policy to preserve the land for all the people might have
been inaugurated. It is true that the public mind was in-
fected with the idea that the land was something to sell.
Nearly all of the difficulty grew out of the questions who
should dispose of it, and who should have the proceeds.
Doubtless there might have been a feeling among the framers
of the ordinance that the public expected it to be sold to pay
the debt caused by the war of the Revolution. Many of the
leaders were aware of the importance of the land question in
a government of the people, but between the powerful inter-
ests of the great estates that had been created, and the general
desire to realize money from the land to pay the war debt, the
opportunity was not taken to secure the lands of the country
for cultivating holders. All financiers of that early period
looked upon the public lands as a resource to be cashed to
pay the war debt and obligations.*

The ordinance for the Northwest Territory is spoken of
as a compact. A new policy was inaugurated by this
Congress without a constitution, covering some of the most
important interests of the future government. It will be
observed that so far as jurisdiction and government for the
Northwest Territory were concerned, the governments to be
established were essentially temporary. Everything connected
with it refers to new states to be created by the people.
There has been no small disputation as to the authorship of
the ordinance. That ordinance dedicated the Northwest to
freedom. It was the first "free soil" legislation. It pro-
vided for establishing land titles, townships, schools, religious
liberty, and was the essential outline of free states. "With so
much in the work to commend, it is unfortunate that a broad
foundation should not have been laid to secure the soil for
the tillers thereof, and to prevent an aristocracy from being
founded on land monopoly. Hayne, Benton, Coles and other

* Donaldson's Public Domain, page 196.

EARLY LAND SALES. 329

Southern gentlemen claimed the authorship of the ordinance
for Thomas Jefferson. Webster claimed it for Nathan Davis,
of Massachusetts. It has been stated that it was suggested in
a letter from George Washington to Mr. Duane, of New
York, chairman of the Indian committee, written March,
1784. Madison, while admitting the necessity of some action,
said, in an article in the Federalist : " They have proceeded
to form new states, to erect temporary governments, to appoint
officers for them, and to prescribe the condition on which such
states shall be admitted into the confederacy. All this has
been done, and done ivithout the least color of constitutional
authority." Mr. Madison does not censure but urges the
necessity for establishing constitutional government. It has
even been held that this bond of common authority over these
territories, as the property of the whole, and as a means of
satisfying army claims, and meeting the debts caused by the
war, was one of the strengthening powers that kept the early
states together. By a resolution of 1785, squatters were
warned against making unauthorized settlements, and settle-
ments were not permitted on unsurveyed lands.* As it stood
it initiated what there is of a public land policy. The mode
adopted then for the sale and conveyance of land was much
more primitive, and, it would appear, less guarded than now.
By the Act of March 3d, 1791, it was provided that the
governor of the Northwest Territory should be authorized to
allot lands to settlers, or provide for disposing of " granted
lands " in amounts " accwding to his discretion." The lands
were to be paid for. An Act of April 1st, 1806, authorized
the governor and judges of Michigan Territory to lay out a
town, including the then burned town of Detroit, and ten
thousand acres adjacent, and to adjust all claims for lots
therein, and to execute deeds for the same. The Act of
March 3d, 1791, confirmed to Yincennes and other of the

* Donaldson's Public Domain, page 197.

330 TENTJRE IN THE UNITED STATES.

old French towns their lands held in common. These com-
mons, however, were not permitted to remain " common prop-
erty," but were under pressure of the chattel system and an
Act of April 20th, 1818, sold to individuals, and the proceeds
given to schools. In spite of its abolition by law, the writer
remembers the old common or "big field," at Kaskaskia, as
late as 1840, where each head of a family had his portion of
enclosed land to cultivate. The tendency among Americans
was to individual chattel holding. Few seemed to think of
any changed condition, or of any interest but the present. It
is true, some profound thinkers undoubtedly considered it,
but the tendency was the other way. On July 20th, 1790,
Alexander Hamilton framed a plan for the sale of the public
lands. He stated the purpose to be twofold :"the first, finan-
cial, for the sale of the laud ; the second, to accommodate the
inhabitants of the Western countries. He classifies the proba-
ble purchasers as moneyed individuals who may buy to sell
again, companies for settlement and individual emigrants. No
lands should be sold except where Indian title had been extin-
guished. Purchasers could buy five hundred acres, but indi-
vidual settlers only one hundred acres. Larger tracts were to
be set apart for sale in townships not less than ten miles square.
Any sized tract might be purchased under " special contract "
or agreement. Enough of the available land was to be held
back from sale to meet applications of holders of scrip, or of
holders of the securities of the loan then proposed. The price
of lands was to be thirty cents per acre in gold, silver, or public
securities. Credit should not be given unless the tract was at
least ten miles square, in which cases one- fourth of the purchase
money must be paid down. Surveys were to be made at the
expense of purchasers or grantees, who were also required to
pay fees for patents, which were to be issued by the President.*
The elder Adams, in his defense of the American govern-

* American State Papers, vol. i., Public Lands, page 8.

LAND AS THE BASIS OF POWER. 331

ments, says : " Property in the soil is the natural foundation
of power and authority. Three cases of soil ownership are
supposable. First, if the prince own the land he will be ab-
solute. All who cultivate the soil, holding at his pleasure,
must be subject to his will. Second, where the landed prop-
erty is held by a few men the real power of the government
will be in the hands of an aristocracy or nobility, whatever they
are named. Third, if the lands are held and owned by the
people, and prevented from drifting into one or a few hands,
the true power will rest with the people, and that government
will, essentially, be a Democracy, whatever it may be called.
Under such a constitution the people will constitute the
State."

He also wrote : " An attempt was made to introduce the
feudal system and the canon law into America." * Mr.
Adams publishes a letter from Turgot to Dr. Richard Price,
dated Paris, March 22d, 1778, in which Turgot says that in
America due attention has not been paid to the great distinc-
tion, and the only one founded in nature of the two classes of
men, those who are landlords and those who are uot.f The
American method of treating the land question did not escape
the observation of reflective minds in Europe. In the same
letter, evidently in reference to the idea of territorial posses-
sions as discussed in the confederated Congress, Turgot says,
" The pretended interest of possessing more or less territory
vanishes when territory is justly considered as belonging to
individuals, not nations."

A few years later the French Revolution swept special
privileges away. Mirabeau was expostulated with as to the
policy of establishing small farms in the hands of the cultiva-|
tors, but while he admitted that great farms, mechanically W
managed, might produce food at a cheaper rate, and perhaps
more products, he contended that the general interests of the

* John Adams' Works, vol. Hi., page 464. f Ibid., page 280.

332 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

mass of the people, especially the actual agriculturists, were
advanced as well as secured by the system of small farms.
The practice of the Uuited States government has been to sell
land to individual purchasers, giving fee simple title. The
first sale of public lands reported, was in 1796, when the
proceeds amounted to $4,836.13. Next year the sales had
risen to $83,540.60. They increased, and in 1811 they had
reached the amount for that year, of $1,040,237.53. In 1818
they reached $2,606,564.77. The two years when the sales
of public lands produced most, were 1 835, when the receipts
were $14,757,600.75, and 1836, when the proceeds reached
$24,877,179.80. In 1881 the proceeds of public laud were
$9,810,705,01. From 1836 to 1884 the sales had dropped
to one, two and three million dollars a year, except that in
1855, the year after Kansas and Nebraska were open to settle-
ment, when they ran up to $11,497,049.07. During the six
war years they were very low. In 1861, $870,658.54. In
1862, $152,203.77. In 1863, $167,617.17, and in 1864,
$588,333.29. In 1865, $996,553.31, and in 1866, $665,031.-
03. The total amount received for sales of public lands from
the beginning of the government, including the sales of 1884,
amounted to $230,285,892.38.* It will thus be seen that
the total proceeds of the sale of half a continent amounted to
less than one year's revenue of the government in the years
1882, 1883 or 1884. Under the plan of Hamilton as after-
ward modified, and until 1810, lands were sold partially on
credit. Up to that date 3,386,000 acres were so sold, pro-
ducing the sum of $7,062,000, f

Small, although .the proceeds of these sales have been, they
were sufficient to create considerable disturbance. In the
early history of the government there was a constant struggle
about the proceeds. As the older colonies, that became states,

* Spofford's American Almanac, 1885, page 66.
f Donaldson's Public Domain, page 204.

DISTRIBUTING THE SURPLUS. 333

had the control of the land within their limits, the new states
desired to have it also. - Of this, the older states were jealous,
as they considered it part of the public patrimony. Between
the proceeds of public lands and the steady increase of cus-
toms tax, a considerable surplus revenue was accumulated in
the treasury, and this locking up of money was supposed to
reduce the circulating medium of the country, to the detri-
ment of business. Thomas Jeiferson, in his second inaugural
address, in 1805, proposed a distribution or "repartition"
among the states, and also recommended a corresponding
amendment to the Constitution, so that this fund could be
applied, in time of peace, " to rivers, canals, roads, arts, man-
ufactures, education and other great objects within each state."
Jeiferson objected to a gradual reduction of the revenue, and
said, " Shall we suppress the impost and give that advantage
to foreign over domestic manufacture?" The surplus and
expected surplus, however, dwindled away, under various
causes, during the last term of his administration. In 1809
Gallatin announced a deficit. Mr. Madison, during his ad-
ministration, vetoed a bill called the " Bonus Bill," on consti-
tutional grounds, which proposed to distribute a surplus for
roads, canals, etc. Many statesmen of that day preferred
schemes of distributing money among the states, to be applied
by the states to improvements, rather than allow Congress to
disburse it. *Some even proposed that the surplus funds
should be distributed to maintain the state governments in-
stead of raising taxes, a proposition of a remarkable character.
To prevent locking up needed currency, the surplus funds, or
receipts were placed, first, in the United States Bank, and
then, by Jackson, in state banks. These banks paid two per
cent, to the United States on all amounts above what related
to the demands of the government or their retained capital,
and loaned funds at ten and twelve per cent, interest to pri-
vate individuals. The great sales of land in 1835 and 1836
were chiefly due to land speculation. A considerable quantity

334 TENURE IX THE UNITED STATES.

of the laud was purchased with borrowed money. That it
was not due to au unusual increase of immigration is evident.
The emigration in 1835 was 45,374, and in 1836, 76,242.
In 1837 the emigration increased to 79,340, but the sales fell
from nearly twenty-five millions to $6,776,236.52. In 1851
the emigration had swelled to 379,466, and the sales of land
produced $2,352,305.30. It is estimated that $34,100,610.75
of the sales of these two years were to speculators not agricul-
tural purchasers.* The purchasers borrowed from the banks.
The money paid for land would then be deposited by the
land officers in the bank, and again loaned out to another mini
to buy laud with, and so on.

The laws for the sale of public lands and the regulations
under them were modified after the time of Hamilton. The
price was raised. Contests arose out of the old colonial, state,
and other grants, which had to be adjusted. The great lati-
tude allowed territorial officers was curtailed. The system of
private entry was introduced, and thus in different ways the
public lands were disposed of during the first half century
of our history. In 1849 and 1850 swamp land acts were
passed, by which Congress agreed to give the swamp lands
to states for their reclamation. From that date up to 1884,
71,938,140.37 acres were selected by the states under the Act,
and there have been approved and confirmed to them 57,794,-
258.14 acres. It is generally admitted that tlie fraudulent
practices connected with swamp land locations have been quite
as great as by any mode of disposing of the public lands. The
number of swamps drained and reclaimed by this process have
not been noteworthy exhibits in the improved productive in-
dustries of the country.

On the 1st of January, 1 837, there was an actual surplus
in the treasury of $41,468,859.97. On the 23d of June of
that year an act was passed to distribute or loan this money,

* History of the Surplus Kevenue, page 139.

GOVERNMENT AS A LOAN AGENCY. 335

all except five millions, to the states, according to their pro-
portion of Congressional representation. By the terms of the
Act the money was to be paid to the parties the states desig-
nated to receive it, on delivery of certificates of deposit bear-
ing five psr cent, interest. When it was urged against the
measure that it was unconstitutional to raise revenue for dis-
tribution, it was answered that this was not derived from
revenue but from the sale of property (land) which belonged
to the people. On the 1st of January, 1837, fourteen banks
of New York city held 12,294,067.80 of government depos-
its. In less than four months 6,168,854.60 were withdrawn
from them for distribution. The amendment of the Senate
to make the distribution by Congressional representation
rather than upon the census was to give the Southern states
more than they otherwise would get. In addition, the states
that had an excess of representation got more than their share.
If it had been paid, per capita, to freemen, it would have
been three dollars and eigty-two cents to each freeman in
Delaware, and one dollar and forty-nine cents in Illinois.
South Carolina would have had three dollars and ninety-four
cents, and New York one dollar and seventy-six cents. The
money was not distributed per capita. Some states added it
largely to their educational funds. Some expended it in im-
provements. In Illinois it was mostly sunk in unproduc-
tive railroads together with no inconsiderable portion of the
proceeds of the state credit. One amusing circumstance con-
nected with it in Illinois, was, that the legislature considerately
voted a portion of it in money to those counties where the
improvements were not to be made. 'The bewildered officers
of these counties did not know what to do with it. Some of
them attempted to place it in local improvements, but the
popular plan was to loan it out to such citizens as wanted to
borrow it. On these occasions the county seats were besieged
by a crowd of borrowers who came there to get the money
and endorse for one another. Altogether the history of the

336 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

distribution of the surplus revenue is worth more as a lesson
in political economy than it was as a financial venture.

Various experiments were tried to divert the proceeds of
the sales of public lauds. At first, one section in a township
was granted to the states where there were public lands, for
school purposes, being one thirty-sixth part of the whole.
Later it was increased to two sections of each township, or
the eighteenth part. These were sold by the states or local
school boards. They were very generally sold on credit,
usually at ten per cent, and, finally, eight per cent, interest,
the proceeds as paid going into the school fund. While
much school land was bought by speculators there were usually
parties living in the neighborhood who purchased it to add to
their farms or secure it for their children. It was sold
for three or four times the price of government lands, the
local policy being not to dispose of it until all or the bulk
of the public lands were sold. Another expedient was the
Graduation Act, or Acts. Lands which had for a certain
period been in the market at the "upset" price of one dollar
and twenty-five cents per acre, were gradually reduced until,
finally, they were sold at twelve and a half cents per acre.
Large tracts in several of the Western states were so sold
some thirty years ago, and, although the purchaser was re-
quired to swear that the laud was for his own use and benefit,
this was really no obstruction to subsequent private sale.
States succeeded in securing grants for colleges, universities,
normal schools and internal improvements. These were dis-
posed of under state law. Of the grants to states for educa-
tional purposes, in addition to the school sections, 1,814,769,-
656 acres were given to twenty-one states and nine territories,
and to the same for other schools 68,083,914 acres; for
universities, 1,265,520 acres ; for agricultural colleges 300,-
000 acres were set apart, for each member of Congress and
senator in the states, and scrip was issued therefor, which has
been in the market and gone into the hands of speculators.

GRANTS TO CORPORATIONS. 337

To deaf and dumb asylums, 44,970 acres.* The states to
whom these grants were given contained the public lands.
There were also granted to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illi-
nois, Wisconsin and Michigan, 4,405,980 acres for canal
purposes. Congress also granted for internal improvements to
the states of Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisi-
ana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minne-
sota and Kansas, from September, 1850, up to March 3d,
1873, very large tracts of land. It is impossible to state
correctly just how much as there is a considerable difference
existing, and unadjusted between the amounts claimed and the
amounts certified, but, in round numbers, they have received,
or will receive, some fifty million acres. These lands, it will
be observed, were, and are, to be disposed of by the railroad
companies, on such time, terms, amounts of acres and condi-
tions as they shall see fit, thus throwing immense bodies of
land for purely speculative purposes on the market.

Besides these grants to states, Congress began to give grants^
directly to corporations. Corporations had so far been state
institutions, acting under and with state authority. The cor-
porations receiving grants from Congress of the alternate
sections, to the distance of twenty or twenty-five miles from
their line of road, were the Union Pacific, Central Branch
Pacific, Kansas Pacific, successor to Denver Pacific, Central
Pacific, Western Pacific, Burlington and Missouri River Co.,
Sioux City and Pacific, Northern Pacific, Oregon Branch of
Central Pacific, Oregon and California, Atlantic and Pacific,
Southern Pacific, and Southern Pacific Branch line.f It is
impossible to tell exactly what these great corporations are
entitled to, first, because some of their claims are unadjusted,
and secondly, because many of them have delayed tke certifi-
cation of these lands, as they did not wish to have them tax-
able until they had disposed of them. Some idea may be

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 324. f Ibid., page 353.
29

338 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

formed when it is stated that the grant of the Union Pacific
is estimated at twelve million acres, the Kansas Pacific and
Denver Pacific, at seven million one hundred acres, the Cen-
tral Pacific, eight million acres, the Northern Pacific, forty-
seven million acres, the Atlantic and Pacific, forty-two million
acres. These enormous tracts, equal to the area of several
states, are, in their disposition, subject to the will of the rail-
road companies. They can dispose of them in enormous
tracts if they please, and there is not a single safeguard to
secure this portion of the national domain to cultivating yeo-
manry. The modes of selling by the United States have not
been much better. The preemption law was passed in 1841,
the avowed purpose being to restrict the land to actual set-
tlers. If such was really the purpose of the law, it was ill-
adapted to secure the desired end. The settlers are required,
indeed, to make some improvements on the tract, but the
improvements made are trifling, and, after title has been
secured, there is nothing to prevent the sale of the tract, or
the sale of fifty tracts, so secured, to any one. Besides, the
law admits of frauds in the mode of securing land. On the
20th of May, 1862, the Homestead law was enacted. About
the only difference between the preemption law and the home-
stead law is, that the man preempting has to pay one dollar
and twenty-five cents per acre, while the homesteader only
pays some few dollars in fees, and is required to live, or keep
up an appearance of living, on the tract for five years. Neither
of these laws possessed or pretended to possess any safeguard.
to prevent the land drifting in large quantities into the hands
of speculators and capitalists. In addition, large tracts of
land were from time to time thrown on the market. There
was usually a pressure on the part of settlers to prevent this,
and also a pressure on the part of purchasers and land specu-
lators to secure it. Immense quantities of bounty land
warrants have been issued and sold. These can be used by
preemptors in paying for their land, as they were transfer-

LANDHOLDING BY SPECULATORS. 339

able, but in addition, when the land, by proclamation, was
offered for sale, any one could buy it at the auction, or if not
bid off at the auction it was open to purchase, for cash, at one
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, unless within raiload
limits, when the price was doubled. Bounty land warrants
could also be located on it. Speculators and capitalists bought up
millions of acres of public land in that way. Areas equal to
whole states are thus held, the only check on the practice
"being state taxation. To avoid this the railroad land grant
companies had an amendment enacted into a law to the effect
that they should not obtain their patents until they had paid
a small fee to defray the expense of surveying. This they
took care not to pay, or only to pay as fast as they could sell
tracts to some purchasers, on which occasions they paid the
surveying fee and obtained deeds for the portions they sold.
In this way they have held millions of acres for speculative
purposes, waiting for a rise in prices, without taxation, while
the farmers on adjacent lands paid taxes.

It will be seen that in all the stages of the American land
history there has never been any adequate effort to secure the
public land for the continuous use of the cultivators of the
soil, in proportions just to the interests of all. No steps have
been taken to prevent the land from going into or remaining
in the hands of unoccupying holders or preventing the creation
of a landlord and a tenant class. No steps have been taken
to secure a subdivision as population increased. In the
United States land has simply been a chattel. A legal certi-
ficate of title may pass through the hands of a dozen persons,
none of whom have ever seen the land. A man in New
York, who has never seen an acre ploughed, may own half
of one of our greatest states and draw revenues from it with-
out once setting foot on it. Land was cheap and easy of
access to all. The farmer and land speculator entered into
competition for it, and behind them both, profiting by their
accidents and necessities, the capitalist is, and has been, gather-

340 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

ing it up. It has been a game of great speculators and little
speculators, and the land has steadily drifted out of the hands
of cultivating occupants.

Besides the capitalist who invests in land, on the theory
that a country rapidly increasing in population, will insure
greatly enhanced value to land, we have another class of
speculators. They are not capitalists, for their chief stock in
trade is precedents. They are not "actual settlers," but they
are middlemen, who go between the government and the
actual settler who really, in good earnest, improves and cul-
tivates the soil. They have been called " squatters." They
are really dealers in that vague commodity " inchoate titles."
They do not squat for the purpose of making a home, but for
selling claims. With them an affidavit is a mere form. They
calculate to sell without preempting, partly because they
rarely have money, and partly because it might interfere with
their business in future transactions. If they do preempt at
all, it is to close a sale, the terms of which are already made,
and they move off to a new field to renew their operations.
In the early settlement of Kansas, one armed company of
thirty-two men took every timbered claim on a valuable
stream that ran through three counties. They laid founda-
tions of four logs, marked the trees on the claims, and had
squatter organizations in each township. They hovered over
them to and fro, occasionally building a rough cabin or plow-
ing a few furrows, but their chief business was to find custom-
ers. The revolver and bowie-knife were the certificates of
title. There was an unwritten legal fiction behind them,
however, that has entered largely into the pioneer land system
of the United States : it is the doctrine that when a man dis-
covers a tract of land that no other man has appropriated, he
acquires a certain kind of right to it, acquired to the exclusion
of all other persons in the United States. He acquires a right
in it altogether independent of the question whether he in-
tends to make a home of it ; acquires it without the slightest

SQUATTER TITLE. 341

reference to its ultimate and permanent improvement. This
right of discovery is a doctrine famous in American coloniza-
tion. The squatter does not climb a hill, hoist a flag and
take possession in the name of any king or potentate, but he
notches and lays four logs together, makes a " blaze " on one
of them and puts his name, or if that be inconvenient, some
other man's name, with a date showing when "this claim was
taken ;" then he straps his revolver a little tighter, and sends
his defiance to the civilized world. There are many other
squatters not so violent, who do things in a more respectable
way, but who are still essentially " dealers in inchoate titles."
I cannot call the earnest pioneer, seeking a home, a squatter.
He may be styled one, but he goes into a wilderness, finds a
home, improves it, cultivates it and raises a family. He de-
serves well of his country, even if he obtained the right to use
the land for nothing. Still he ought not to be permitted to
make himself the medium for transferring the land to capital-
ists, and should have no right to exclude all other men for all
generations.

A great deal is now said by the people; among con-
gressmen, committees of Congress, commissioners and land
office officials about the " abuses " of the " preemption law,"
of the " homestead law," and of the " timber culture laws."
, There have been abuses enough, but the system under each
of these laws, in its best estate, was sadly defective and bad.
The preemption and homestead laws professed to do what
they did not. The theory was that the land should be re-
served for the cultivators of the soil. Neither law secured
that end. I have been very much at a loss, in different stages
of my land experience, to determine exactly the sentiment in
the public mind that has prevented a wise and far-reaching
adjustment of the public land question. It could hardly be
an accident. The first idea would be that the speculative and
real estate interest was too strong to permit of wholesome,
permanent legislation. Such a view of the case is not without

342 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

foundation, but there may have been something else. Perhaps
it was thought by men, not destitute of capacity, that it was
desirable, as early as possible, to have all the public domain
in private hands, and by making it a chattel,, providing for
its easy transfer without let or hindrance, they believed all
could be thus accommodated. If the hat-maker became dis-
gusted with silk, felt and beaver skins, he could sell his
blocks and smoothing irons, and buy eighty acres. If the
pioneer, who imagined an -Arcadia, with the genial farmer
sitting under his vine and fig tree, got tired of mauling rails,
breaking prairie with oxen, and the ague with quinine, he
could sell his " place," together with what a young squatter
once proposed to sell, "his embediments," and try to get a
position as a clerk in a store. American character is not only
enterprising but versatile. Young America might cry " scat-
ter and divide all this national real estate; tangle it with no
bars ; make it easy to get and easy to sell, and thus it can best
serve all interests." I have endeavored to define and exhibit
what I have reason to suppose is a strong underlying senti-
ment. In regard to it I would only say that such a system
might do in the squatting 'era, but we must survive the
squatting era. There is a future coming to the American land
system with changed conditions.

Let us look at the commissioner's last report. He says : " la
the early settlement of the country, when the broad expanse
of the public domain was unsettled, a liberal system of laws
was adopted providing for an easy acquisition of individual
titles, and even down to later periods the object apparently
sought was. to hasten the disposal of the public lands." *
Referring to the evasions and frauds under the preemption
and homestead laws, the commissioner writes : " The prevail-
ing tendency of legislation has been to remove restrictions
rather than to impose them, and Acts have been passed pri-

* Report of the General Land Office for 1884, page 18.

APPKOACHING END OF PUBLIC DOMAIN. 343

marily for the relief or benefit of settlers which have been
availed of to the defeat of settlements, by the facility afforded
for the aggregation of land titles in speculative and monopo-
listic possession ; " and adds, " It is my opinion that the time
has fully arrived when wastefulness in the disposal of the
public lands should cease, and that the portion remaining should
be economized for the use of actual settlers only." To show
how opportune the time is, he continues : " The time is near at
hand when there will be no public land to invite settlement or
afford citizens of the country an opportunity to secure cheap
homes." * In the same strain : "Deducting areas wholly un-
productive and unavailable for ordinary purposes, and the
remaining land shrinks to comparatively small proportions."

I have before me the report made October 22d, 1885, by
the present commissioner, Mr. Sparks, in which the following
language is used : " I found that the magnificent estate of the
nation, in its public lands, has been, to a wide extent, wasted
under defective and improvident laws, and through a laxity
of public administration." f " The policy of disposing of
public lands as a means of raising revenue has long since been
rejected by enlightened views of public economy." J Had such
" enlightened views " been long potent, we might have had a
better land system. In the same spirit, he remarks : " The pre-
emption system was established when land was abundant, and
no motive existed for the assertion of false claims. It was
then a measure of protection to actual settlers against the ab-
sorption of lands by private cash entry." Further, I find :
" The near approach of the period when the United States
will have no land to dispose of has stimulated the exertions
of capitalists and corporations to acquire outlying regions of
public land in mass, by whatever means, legal or illegal." ||

* Keport of the General Land Office for 1884, page 17.
f Keport of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for October,
1885, page 1.
t Ibid., page 75. \ Ibid., page 67. || Ibid., page 79.

344 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

To quote him once more: "At the outset of my administra-
tion I was confronted with overwhelming evidence that the
public domain was made the prey of unscrupulous speculation
and the worst forms of land monopoly." * There is nothing
too strongly stated in the report. In fact, the American
public scarcely realize the near approach of the time when the
public domain will afford us no facility for the expansion
that has, so far, saved us from the evils the system we have
created must entail. We look at the figures showing acres and
acres as still remaining, and forget that the productive land
is gone. Long miles of mountains, and sandy plains and
cactus desert remain, without soil, rain or water ; even the
squatter would shrink from such regions. That a part of it
may be utilized hereafter, when greater density makes it a
necessity, is probable, but these must be comparatively small
portions here and there. The deserts of Arizona, Southern
California, Utah and Nevada are arid wastes of the most des-
olate description. Rivers lose themselves in them and are
drunk up by the quenchless thirst of these burning plains.
The sand is carried in whirlwinds hither and thither, and
even the cactus is often parched and sere. Sharp, rugged,
treeless and apparently waterless peaks shoot themselves up
like islands on the wilderness. The mirage, peculiar to the
dry atmosphere, makes the rocky peaks look as if they were
smoking and burning. Then there are miles on miles of bare,
rocky, treeless mountains, not high enough to be snow-capped,
and upon which rain rarely falls. Such is no inconsiderable
portion of the heritage that on the maps and on the books of
the general land office figure as the public lands of the United
States.

In his report for 1 884, the commissioner says : " The forest
areas of the country are rapidly diminishing, and the timber

* Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, for October,
1885, page 48.

COAL AND TIMBER LAND. 345

lands of the United States will, under existing laws, soon be
exhausted." * He adds : " To a great extent these (timber)
lands are now appropriated by illegal preemption, and com-
muted homestead entries made without settlement, except that
of lumber camps, and without improvement except the cutting
and removing of the timber for commercial purposes." The
present commissioner suggests that " Wise and speedy meas-
ures should be adopted for the preservation of forests. * * *
To this end I recommend the immediate withdrawal from
appropriation, sale or disposal of all public forests, and of
lands valuable chiefly for timber, subject to future legisla-
tion." f Commissioner McFarland, in reference to mineral
land, said : " Coal lands, the government price of which is
ten and twenty dollars per acre, are illegally obtained at the
minimum price of non-mineral land. The government loses
the difference in price, while the public lose in the increased
price of coal, the land being thus acquired and held." Speak-
ing of the modes by which capitalists obtain large tracts by
using the names and affidavits of fraudulent preempters, he
says : " Meanwhile, vast stretches of uncultivated land are
everywhere observable, claims to which are held, or titles to
which have been acquired, in evasions of restrictions of quan-
tity that may lawfully be appropriated by single individuals,
and without complying with the conditions of settlement,
improvement and cultivation required by law." J And, on
the same page : " The numerous methods of disposal now
existing, and the laxity of precautionary measures against
misappropriation, are resulting in a waste of the public do-
main, without the compensations attendant upon small owner-
ships for actual settlement and occupation."

The commissioner refers to the Act of May 14th, 1880,
which doubtless was enacted in the interest of our squatter

* Keport of the General Land Office, 1884, page 18.

f Report of the General Land Commissioner, October, 1885, page 84.

} Report of the General Land Office, 1884, page 18.

346 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

friends : " The effect of this statute/' he says, " is to invite
speculative entries for the purpose of selling relinquishments.
The practical result is, that when a new township is surveyed,
large portions of the laud are at once covered by filings and
entries, relinquishments of which are offered for sale like
stocks on the market." These are the vices of a bad system.
They exhibit the steps taken to throw the domain of the
country into a few hands. The frauds under the homestead
and preemption law are only a little worse than the laws
themselves. In this way, and for a mere song, mischief is
being made for coming generations, and conditions of society,
fostered contrary to the genius of the American republic.
These frauds merely show that the speculative purchaser
cannot wait for ordinary methods.

While the public lands, after survey, were in such a condi-
tion that they could only be taken under preemption or home-
stead law, large tracts have time and again, as demands for
investment in land pressed, been thrown on the market by
presidential proclamation, and whole townships taken, every
unclaimed acre being appropriated by non-resident holders
or speculators. The railroad grants furnish a partial sup-
ply to meet the land hunger of investing capitalists : even
these do not satisfy the land speculators. Frauds, always
perpetrated to some extent, have assumed the wholesale pro-
portions stated by the commissioner. Large tracts have been
going into the possession of alien holders. They cannot, it is
true, purchase or get title under the preemption and home-
stead laws, without declaring their intention to become citi-
zens, but there is nothing to hinder an alien from buying at
second hand all a straw preemptor or commuting homesteader
works through the crevices of a loose law. No alien should
be permitted to own a foot of land in these United States.
In addition to this, there are sales from private parties, railroad
companies and Mexican laud grants, not to mention the do-
main of the state of Texas.

MEXICAN LAND GRANTS. 347

Texas was the only new state admitted to the Union that
was permitted to hold possession of or control the disposition
of her public lands. After asserting her independence of
Mexico she remained a separate republic for a very brief
period, and when admitted to the Union succeeded in retain-
ing control of all her domain. The use Texas has made of
this power is scarcely such as to tempt Congress to repeat the
experiment. Bad although the Congressional modes were,
the Texas modes were infinitely worse. Instead of securing
the laud for actual settlers, reckless grants of it were made
to every corporation or proposed enterprise. Land scrip for
all kinds of service was issued, until it sold at a few cents per
acre, and this scrip fell into the hands of speculating pur-
chasers. So much scrip was issued that, enormous though
her area is, there was not land enough to take it up, and for
several years parties have been engaged in trying to secure a
piece of the adjacent territory to locate the scrip on. In point
of fact, there has, in all the West, been a strong element, both
in politics and business, deeply interested in land speculation.
This has largely shaped land legislation, or had it shaped
in its interests. From the suggestions of land speculators
have come the loose modes permitted by Congress in legis-
lating on land.

Other fruitful sources of mischief in a few of the South-
western states and territories, including California, have been
the Mexican land grants. At the close of the Mexican war
a large amount of territory was annexed by the United States.
In the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo it was provided that all
rights and interests existing under Mexican Jaw should be
respected and maintained by the United States. This referred
chiefly to the interests and property rights of those Mexicans
who were thus absorbed into the United States. One diffi-
culty not then foreseen, lay in the fact that the American and
Mexican land systems were in many respects widely different.
There had been grants of laud by the Spanish Crown. Grants

348 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

by the viceroys in the different territories. Grants by the
Mexican republic and its officers. These grants, moreover,
were of a widely different character. The tillable land was
usually in a town grant, where each citizen had his share of
cultivated land, usually on some river, and paid his water-tax
(for irrigation) to the local officer, or " Acequia Keeper."
Even when the grants were made in the names of the few first
settlers, they were intended for the benefit of all -who might
follow. Then there were grazing grants, for that purpose
alone, sometimes to individuals, but usually for the common use
of communities. All mines were royal or government prop-
erty. The farming grants and the grazing grants conveyed no
right to mineral, as the latter could, on discovery, be worked
by any one on payment of the royalty to government. It can
readily be seen" that to apply the American land system to
these grants would work confusion. The American land
laws contemplated purely individual rights. The land sold
or conveyed was a chattel. Ownership was restricted to no
special purpose, and it was not complicated with the rights of
others. In addition to these differences, the boundaries of the
grants were rarely made from surveys at the time, but often
were the summits of mountain ranges, not well defined ; the
best of them admitted of a great deal of latitude in survey-
ing. There was a certain class of general grants, of a few
leagues square, and another class much larger. Private grants
were sometimes made of a vast tract to some military leader
or favorite, but while it included the lands and commons of
the people, their rights by the Spanish law were independent
of his, and could not be absorbed by him. To confirm the
entire grant to him would place whole towns or villages at
his mercy, or convey their property absolutely to him, ignor-
ing their rights. The original Spanish and Mexican system
as designed, was intended to secure the rights of all, but
drifted into a condition of affairs similar to that created by
the feudal system. In each community or town there was a

MEXICAN LAND GRANTS. 349

prominent man who had great herds and these ate up the
general pasturage. This functionary usually kept a store,
and traded so that every one was in debt to him. If there
was a mill, he or his family owned it. Under the old Mexi-
can law many of the poorer people were his peons. In New
Mexico the Americans ironically called these personages
" Dukes." The annexation of that portion of Mexico caused
a good deal of confusion on account of these conflicting Mexi-
can and American ideas. The "dukes" not being able to re-
tain laborers as peons, after annexation, took the former
peons' share of the tillable laud in collection of debts, and even
their orchards and gardens in the villages. Individual grants
that had never been heard of before made their appearance.
Originally the Spanish records were well kept, but revolutions
and political changes destroyed many. At one time in Santa
Fe an immense quantity of old records were sold and scat-
tered as waste paper. An Act of Congress was passed July
22d, 1854, providing for the settlement of these claims through
their presentation to the surveyor-general, and through him
to Congress. Little progress was made toward a settlement.
Among the claims presented it was darkly hinted that some
were manufactured. Settlers in either of the states or territo-
ries affected by this class of claims were at a loss to know
where to locate. In his first work, Mr. Henry George said
that California had been cursed with Mexican grants. Grant
holders would watch settlers and miners and have a location
made to include their improvements.* In that work, he
states, that not one-fourth of the land sold by the United States
went into the hands of cultivators.f In his report, the land
commissioner says, that in thirty years seventy Mexican
claims have been confirmed by Congress. Ninety-four are
pending before that body, while an unknown number remain
on the files of the surveyor-general. Some of the maps of

* Our Land Policy, National and State, page 14. f Ibid., page 4.

350 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

New Mexico show claims that absorb nearly all of the valuable
land together with a good deal of worthless country. Travel-
ers in that region, if they are supposed to be inquiring with a
view to purchase grants, are often shown carefully preserved
papers with the seals and signatures, to all appearance, of vice-
roys or governors long since dead, conveying great tracts of
unknown and unsurveyed districts.

In hastily sketching the modes by which large portions of
country in these United States have been segregated from the
body of the public domain, and vested in certain individuals
or corporations, " their heirs or assigns," I have endeavored
to give the various processes. There is still a popular delusion
that American agricultural lands are largely in the hands of
cultivating farmers. Proud of a supposed boundless domain
our citizens have been unconscious that an absentee landlordism
has been growing up, that threatens to become almost as bad
as the feudal system.

In a letter to the writer from Hon. W. A. J. Sparks, com-
missioner of the general laud office, of date January 7th,
1886, in reference to the total number of entries of the fol-
lowing character made from the first operations under the
law, the commissioner says that there were " computed from
the commencement of business to June 30th, 1885, of original
homestead entries 714,599, embracing 90,462,499.58 acres,
and of final homestead entries 257,395, embracing 31,895,-
464.27 acres." It will thus be seen that of the acres in-
cluded in the original entries, but little over one-third was
taken by the perfected entries, and while some of the former
of course, were abandoned, it is a legitimate inference that a
large number of the cases not perfected were held or used for
some kind of speculative purpose. The total number of
timber culture entries he gives at " 132,275, embracing
21,716,747.89 acres." Up to the date given the amount of
land " located by military bounty land warrants was 61,080,-
670 acres ; " a very considerable portion of this sixty- one

NUMBER OF SEPARATE FARMS. 351

million acres was located by purchasers of military bounty
scrip for land speculation.

The number of separate farms in the United States does
not indicate the number of owners, for one may own a good
many. Thus the statement that in 1880 there were 4,008,-
907 farms in the United States, containing 536,081,835 acres,
with 284,771,042 acres of improved land,* must be accepted
with some limitations. The value of the four million farms
is placed at 10,197,096,776.00, while the estimated annual
product for 1879 of "all farm productions, sold, consumed,
or on hand/' is $2,213,402,564, being considerably overone-
fiflh or twenty per cent, of the estimated value of these
farms, f The same authority gives the number of persons
actively engaged in agriculture in 1880 as 7,6 70,493. J The
number of farmers or planters, 4,225,945," which is only a
small percentage more than there are farms, must not lead to
the impression that these farmers or planters are owners of
the soil they cultivate, or that each of them has a separate
farm. Of farm laborers, not farmers, there are 3,323,876,
the remainder of the seven million six hundred and seventy
thousand being dairymen, overseers, stock drovers, and mis-
cellaneous employees.

These figures are more significant than at the first glance
appears. Of the 4,008,907 farms in the United States, we
find, in the same table, that 2,984,306 are returned as being
held by cultivating owners ; || and this is stated somewhat
triumphantly as an evidence that the actual cultivators are
largely the owners of the soil. In the first place there is
confessedly 1,024,601 farms held by renters, or upwards of
one-fourth of the whole.^f For a nation not yet out of the
squatting era, with some public lands still left to take, the

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture.

fSpofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 373.

J Ibid., p. 274. \ Ibid.

|| Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture, page 28. \ Ibid., page 29.

352 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

fact that more than one-fourth of the farms in the whole
country have already drifted into the condition of landlord
and tenant, would in itself be sufficiently alarming ; nor are
these all small tracts, the record showing that 291,703 of
these rented farms contain from one hundred to several thou-
sand acres of tillable laud, the small rented farms under ten
acres only numbering 51,184. These figures, however, do
not by any means tell us the whole story. Besides the far-
mers who by themselves and families cultivate the soil, there
is a large number of farms cultivated by capitalist owners,
who do a supervising or wholesale business by the labor of
wage workers, styled " agricultural laborers." By the figures
we have given, while there are 2,984,306 cultivating land
owners, there are 3,323,876 farm laborers, men who do not
even rent land. The census gives the average acreage of
improved land to each farm at seventy-one acres, but of the
farms of and under one hundred and sixty acres of land, the
average improved land falls under forty acres. That may
be accepted as the average size of farms actually cultivated
by the occupants and their families with but occasional out-
side help. There are 92,212 farms not rented, of from five
hundred to several thousand acres, owned, we may say, by
capitalist owners. Of farms having in cultivation from one
hundred to five hundred acres, there are 1,416,618, nearly a
million and a half of farms that we can certainly consider
are largely ow T ned by capitalists, and are chiefly cultivated by
laborers.* We can thus see where the three million three
hundred and twenty-three thousand " agricultural laborers "
are employed. The single item of capitalist farmers in-
cludes one-half of the " cultivating owners." Above the
standard of farms that are actually cultivated by the owners,
say farms of from fifty to a hundred acres of tilled land,
there are 804,522. Of the labor performed on these, it is

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture, page 28.

BASIS FOR LANDED ARISTOCRACY. 353

probable that fifty per cent, of it is done by hired laborers
or wage workers. Of farms containing of cultivated land
fifty acres and less, there are, all told, 670,954. These latter
farms, it may be assumed, are chiefly cultivated by the occu-
pant farmers. If the independence and prosperity of our agri-
cultural population is of any moment, these figures demand
immediate consideration.

It will thus be seen that of the 7,670,493 persons in our
country engaged in agriculture, there are 1,024,601 who pay
rent to persons not cultivating the soil ; 1,508,828 capitalist
or speculating owners, who own the soil and employ laborers ;
804,522 of well-to-do farmers who hire part of their work
or employ laborers, and 670,944 who may be said to actually
cultivate the soil they own ; the rest are hired workers.

Another fact must be borne in mind that a large number
of the two million nine hundred and eighty-four thousand
three hundred and six farmers who own land are in debt for
it to money lenders. From the writer's observation it is prob-
able that forty per cent, of them are so deeply in debt as to pay a
rent in interest. This squeezing process is going on at the rate
of eight and ten per cent., and in most cases can terminate but
in one way. The ninety-two thousand two hundred and ten
farms, which contain cultivated land of not less than five hun-
dred acres, and running into the thousands, gives us an incipi-
ent landed aristocracy of close on a hundred thousand persons.
These large farms are rapidly increasing in number and in
size. The bonanza farms of the West have been chiefly created
from the railroad land grants, the speculating owners gradually
buying out the small farmers on the alternate sections. On
these farms everything possible is done by machinery. Hired
laborers do the work for fifteen or twenty dollars per month
for a few months, and seek odd jobs during the remainder of
the year; they are fed in a barrack of a boarding house.
Mr. Moody notices the absence of women and children and
says : " In no case was the permanent residence of a family to

354 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

be foiiDd upon them.* These large farms held by speculating
owners are not confined to the West. Col. Church, of New
York, collects the rent from one hundred and eighty farms,
most of them large. Col. Murphy left an estate of two mil-
lion acres. The Standard Oil Company owns a million acres.
An Irishman owns in Illinois more than fifty thousand acres,
and derives an income from it of about $100,000, and there
are a number of others who already possess large landed estates.
The one million four hundred and sixteen thousand six hun-
dred and eighteen holders of farms which contain cultivated land
of over a hundred, and less than five hundred acres, while they
include farms that may be cultivated by active farmers who
employ some help, are, to a large extent, held by owners who,
so far as the great majority of them are concerned, cannot be
considered laboring owners, but they are now, or soon will be,
in circumstances to live on income from the land without labor.
These form a large basis for a future aristocratic class.

Profiting by the loose modes of permitting the soil of the
country to go into the hands of speculators, the aristocrats of
Europe have become landholders of great estates in this re-
public. The Duke of Sutherland, as we have seen, is the
largest landholder in Britain. He owns four hundred and
twenty-five thousand acres in the United States. The Marquis
of Tweedale has one million seven hundred and fifty thousand
acres. Sir Edward Reid & Co. own about two million of acres
in Florida. A Scotch company, made up largely of titled
gentlemen, have half a million acres in that state. A similar
English company owns three million of acres in Texas. At
the present time some twenty millions of acres of the lands of
these United States are held by alien holders, capitalists and
noblemen, in farms or holdings of not less than fifty thousand
acres each, not to mention a very large amount in holdings of
a less acreage. The Mexican law was more provident than

* Moody's Land and Labor, page 54.

RENTING MIDDLEMEN. 855

ours, for it prohibited alien landholding. Such has been the
pressure of late years, that large tracts even there have been
and are going into the hands of capitalist holders, or they, at
least, are getting some kind of an interest in them.

In estimating the ownership of the productive land in the
United States, it must not be forgotten that the large farms
constitute no inconsiderable part of the whole, as it would take
many small farms to equal one of the large ones. The small
holders are changing from freeholders to renters and agricultural
laborers. Another fact : there is a rapidly growing class of large
labor employing renters or middlemen. By the census no less
than twelve thousand three hundred and thirty-eight are re-
ported as renting farms of cultivated land containing from five
hundred to several thousand acres, and two hundred and
seventy-nine thousand three hundred and sixty-five of these
who rent from one hundred to five hundred acres of arable
land.* These employ numbers of "agricultural laborers."
Such figures are far from encouraging, if we are still to enter-
tain the hope that American freemen are to be independent
holders of the soil on which they place their feet. We have,
at this time, almost as many tenant renters as there are in the
British Islands. The very worst forms of renting and metayer
tenancy prevail. We have no legislation to secure the rights
of the renting cultivator, and none to induce or protect neces-
sary agricultural improvements. Our whole land system has
been nothing more than a piece of carelessly put together
machinery, adapted to further the ends of land speculation.
Besides, the amount sold for cash, or granted to states and
corporations, the operations of the preemption and homestead
laws have largely aided the transfer of public lands to other
holders. The essential condition of republican independence
through freeholding by the cultivators we have not secured,
and have no means of securing.

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Agriculture, page 29.

356 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

So long as any public land remains, the power of the land-
lord will not be supreme. In his remarks in the " Statistics
of Agriculture," General Walker says, that " the amount of
arable land still remaining subject to occupation under the
homestead and preemption acts, is barely sufficient to meet
the demand of settlers for a year or two to come." * What
then ? Of those who must live by farming > not much less than
half of the agricultural population will have neither land, nor
money to buy it, and must make the best terms they can with
landlords. Nothing but prompt and vigorous steps can save
the republic from the endless mischief and inequality that will
follow by the creation of an immense body of agricultural rent-
ers and laborers subject and tributary to the landholding class.

In France, with an area about as large as one of our states,
and a population on December 18th, 1881, of 37,672,048,
Laveleye estimates not less than five million landed proprietors
who own less than twenty acres. Of the population of France
by the Statesman's Year Book for 1885 nearly one-half live
by agriculture. Formerly the population of the United States
was more rural or agricultural than it is to-day. By the census
of 1880 we find that of males over ten years 14,744,942 are em-
ployed in all occupations, and of these 7,075,983 in agriculture, f
Mr. Mulhall, in his table showing the relative population of
town and country in the United States, only counts those as
urban who live in towns exceeding twenty thousand in popu-
lation. Thus in 1800 the urban population was only six and
four-tenths per cent, of the population. In 1820 it had fallen
still lower, and was four and eight-tenths per cent, of the popu-
lation ; in 1840 it was nine and one-tenth percent, in 1860 it
was thirteen and five-tenths per cent., and in 1880 eighteen and
two-tenths per cent, of the population. J With the rapid in-

* Introductory Eemarks to Statistics of Agriculture, Tenth Census, page
xxviii. -

f Tenth Census, Statistics of Population, page 712.
J Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, 1885, page 362.

TENDENCY OF POPULATION TO CITIES. 357

crease of city population that has been going on for the past
thirty years as a guide, it is safe to say that in 1886 one-fifth
of our entire population will live in cities of more than twenty
thousand inhabitants, as compared with less than a twentieth
some sixty years ago. There is also a very large population
in towns of from three thousand to twenty thousand inhabitants,
who are entirely detached from agricultural pursuits.

In 1790 there was only six cities in the United States of
from eight thousand to twelve thousand inhabitants. Now
there are one hundred and ten of such cities, and in all two
hundred and eighty-six cities running from eight thousand to
upward of one million. The * city population in 1880 by
this standard was twenty-two and a half per cent, of the entire
population, and it certainly is twenty-five per cent. now. The
fact thus appears that practically much more than half of our
people live in the country. Country population is supposed to
be the independent "bone and sinew" of the nation, and it is
among this hitherto independent agricultural people that the
changes which seriously affect their standing resources and
power have been so rapidly going on.

There are many causes which have led to the sale of farms
by the original settlers to capitalist owners. The transition
from a primitive and simple rural life to an artificial society
has had much to do with it. Many will remember when the
families on farms produced and manufactured the greater part
of what they needed. The men worked in the field with com-
paratively few implements of improved or expensive machinery.
The women wove, spun, and made the clothing. I do not
mean to say that there is not a great superiority in the modern
appliances and clothing purchased in the city. The difficulty
has been that many were unable fully to cope with the com-
mercial responsibilities thus entailed on them. Above all, the
temptation to run in debt has increased with the facility for

* Tenth Census, Statistics of Population, Introduction, page xxix.

358 TENURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

getting into it. Eight, ten, and twelve per cent, interest on
debts created for articles of luxury and machinery, much of
which might be dispensed with, have ruined many a man.
The capitalist stood ready to buy up the farm. Our people,
too, have been blind to the danger. All thought there was
" plenty of public land/' If a man lost his farm, he could
easily get another. The writer visited a large prairie with his
father more than forty years ago. Only a few farms were then
located round its edge. The bulk of it was at a later period
sold under the graduation bill for some twelve and a half cents
per acre. A few years ago, in traversing a lane running through
this prairie for a number of miles, it was found to be all in
enclosed farms of tillage, meadow or pasturage. On inquiry,
the greater part of it had changed hands, some of it more than
once. The prices had risen to forty, fifty, and in some cases
eighty and one hundred dollars per acre. The improvements
constituted only a small part of that valuation. About one-
third of the farms were held by cultivating owners, the remain-
der by renters. Some of the owners of the rented farms were
in the county seats, some in St. Louis, and some lived "East."
It is unfortunately the case that a great many of our people
are not bound by strong local attachments. Many of them
sell and move on the first good offer for their farms.

It may be true that the reverses now reducing so many of
our farmers to the condition of tenants and laborers are cal-
amities for which the more fortunate are not to blame. It
will be said that this impoverishment has been caused by indo-
lence, extravagance and intemperance, and that this reduction
of our agricultural workers from freeholders to dependents,
while a calamity, is one for which the victims alone are re-
sponsible. Although there are undoubtedly cases of miscon-
duct and mismanagement, the writer is convinced that the
evils are wide-spread, expanding and continuous, and spring
from general causes which ought not to exist, Extravagant
and intemperate people are not very common among agri-

EXACTIONS FROM THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 350

culturists. More of those two vices will be found in five per
cent, of the people who live by their wits than in a hundred
per cent, of the farming population. No classes are more in-
tensely laborious than our working farmers. From daylight
until dark their toil is heavy and unintermittent. When
night comes most of them are too tired to read or enjoy them-
selves. Their food, although wholesome and solid, is very
plain, and their clothing far from luxurious. If their circum-
stances are compared with those of the money-lender who
shaves their notes, or even his agent, the contrast becomes
painful. The peculiar economy under which our American
agriculturist labors, seems to be an experiment of competition
between him and the ryots of India and the peasant farmers
to the north of the Black Sea, as to which of them can lay
down wheat at the lowest price in Liverpool. If fifty per
cent, of the money the American wheat brings was not con-
sumed by railroad managers and middlemen it would not be
so hard for the farmer. His necessities frequently compel him
to divide the little he receives with the usurer. He cannot
compete at all when he pays high rent. He is often embar-
rassed by obligations for "improved machinery," much of
which is poorly made and comes to pieces before it is paid
for ; to these must be added the heavy burden of taxes unjustly
and improvidently heaped on him. His present fate leads us
to imagine what will be his condition when all the public land
is gone, and when there will be added, rent and rack-rent,
constantly increased, to meet the luxury and extravagance of
aristocratic landlords.

The above causes are all leading to a system of land tenure
that, with a great population, will be terrible for the working
poor. One thing is certain, such a form of landholding and
a free government cannot exist together. The question is
whether we have nerve enough to correct such abuses in time,
or shall " Land Monopoly " and " Land Speculation " be the
epitaphs on the tomb of American liberty?

CHAPTER XII.

COKPOKATIONS.

Unsatisfactory statistics of corporations Corporations known to Roman
law Early town corporations East India Company Supposed legal
powers of corporations Plea of vestel rights A legislature cannot
grant power that strips its successors of authority Public and private
companies Corporations a subordinate power of the State Eminent
domain Railroads public highways A curious charter Craftsmen
employers and corporate employers Money as an employer Crafts,
guilds and trades unions William Pitt Imaginary political necessity
for cheap labor Organization of capital in corporations The organiza-
tion of labor John Stuart Mill on co-operation Consolidation among
the autocrats of transportation Stocks, assets, liabilities and income of
railroads Miraculous expansion of capital under the fingering of corpo-
rations Revenues of railroad companies A greater power than the
State Army of employees under direction of a few National debts
Corporate debts greater than all public debts combined Banking on the
confidence plan Dealers in money becoming jobbers in labor The
accumulated property in the country and who owns it Piratical stock
jobbing Rights of individuals and powers of the State threatened by
corporations.

THERE is no subject of similar importance that has been so
utterly neglected by statisticians and census-takers, as corpo-
rations, beneficiary societies and companies. It is true that
the Census Reports of the United States comprise enough on
other subjects to appal the most heroic reader. We have the
exact amount of humidity, in inches, that might, could,
would or should fall on every square yard of the United
States. The number of hens that cackle in American barn-
yards, and the number of eggs that they ought to have laid,
we know ; but as to the number of corporations, companies, soci-
eties, associations, the extent of their capital, of their authority,
360

MYSTERIES OF INCORPORATED FINANCE. 361

of their property, we do not know, and there does not at the
present writing appear to be any way of finding out. A power
has grown up in our country, and become a great estate of the
realm, claiming to be deputized to exercise some of the most
questionable powers of government ; charged with owning and
controlling to a large extent the legislative bodies of the
country ; making laws and by-laws deeply affecting property
rights and even the lives and safety of the people ; and yet
their history, their real statistics, their ways and their works
appear to be wrapped in impenetrable mystery. While we
have tables giving the number of some kinds of corporations
there is not a list, official or otherwise, of all the corporations,
companies or organizations of men in the United States, or
one that gives an accurate and comprehensive idea of their
nominal and real capital, much less of their inner secret history.
In Poor's Manual we have the statistics the railroad companies
choose to furnish to the public. From these we learn that at
the close of 1884 there were 125,379 miles of railroads in the
United States, of which 3977 were- constructed during that
year. The " share capital" was $3,762,616,686 and the
funded debt $3,669,115,772. The other forms of debt equalled
$244,666,596. The total capital and indebtedness of all kinds
aggregating $7,676,399,054.* No person would think for
an instant of accepting this as a complete and honest statement
of the real capital and debt of these roads. It only serves to
deceive the public, in so far as they believe it, as does the state-
ment on the same page that the cost of these .roads per mile
" measured by their stock and indebtedness equalled very nearly
$61,400 per mile." Mr. Poor informs us of "securities being
issued at the rate of two or three dollars for every dollar of cash
paid." f He very properly adds in another place : " The country
is now about its lowest depths as far as railroads are concerned."
Besides the railroads we have insurance companies, manu-

* Poor's Manual for 1885, page 1. f Ibid., page 5.

362 CORPORATIONS.

factoring companies, banking companies, telegraph companies,
telephone companies, friendly societies with property and re-
sponsibilities, lodges, charitable institutions incorporated and
otherwise, trades unions, guilds, independent military organi-
zations. These organized bodies we find everywhere. They
absorb immense amounts of the national wealth, and they
affect the individual prosperity to an extent we can hardly
realize.

Of a few of the less dangerous of these combinations, of a
social and friendly character, which do not attempt to use
their combined capital as a lever on the public, we have some
little knowledge. However mysterious the ways of insurance,
the statistics of insurance are to some extent before us, but
even their modes of transacting business are far too incompre-
hensible, especially their expenditures and investments, to be
tolerated in such a class of institutions. The more powerful
and wealthy corporations carry on their business largely on
the "confidence" plan, their honest and exact statistics are not
recorded. The very exhibits they make are only calculated
to deceive. Without wishing to appear unduly suspicious
there is something worse than mere mystery about them.
Corporations are unduly sensitive, suifer from business mod-
esty, and shrink from the public gaze. They do not permit
their right hand to know what their left hand doeth. It is
really astonishing that the state governments and Congress
should not have insisted on a public record of their operations,
in all matters even the most minute, that in any shape
involves the public interests ; in fact, there is no reason why
their pecuniary and official history should not be exactly
recorded and its data be public property. Statistical almanacs
we have, but you may wade through them in vain to gather
the exact facts in regard to corporations in the United States.
The ponderous census does not pretend to give the statistics
and history of these companies, and even, so far as concerns
railroad companies, only gives a little of the outside data.

ROMAN CORPORATIONS. 363

We have a statistical bureau that is at once voluminous and
mathematical, but lean and barren on the statistics of corpora-
tions. The Statesman's Year Book does not give the facts,
and you can only glean some superficial information such as
the companies are willing that the public should possess. It
gives the number of miles of railways built in all parts of the
British Empire, and the amount of capital supposed to be
absorbed by it, but the names or number of the companies,
their liabilities, responsibilities and power we have not, and
the record neither states nor pretends to state the business
proceedings of these public corporations. Neither there nor in
Mulhall can you find anything about the corporations of the
United States, for the United States has furnished nothing
official on that subject. It is true we have the Pacific rail-
road reports, but they give us very little data, and the little
they give seems to be, unhappily, too much for public cre-
dence.

Although incorporations are generally supposed to be a
modern contrivance, dating their birth and growth during this
century, such is not exactly the case. Incorporated companies
were known to the Roman law, and, although differing as to
their power and the modes of exercising it, from those of the
present time, they still assumed sufficient authority to expose
them to the hostility of the government. The early history
of contracts is almost exclusively to be sought in the history
of the Roman law, in the Roman " societes omnium honor-
urn" * The equestrian or aristocratic class, when driven
from official positions, organized business companies to control
capital, and were the great contractors when corn and other
largesses were bestowed upon the people. Whatever their
vices were, and they were not destitute of them, they did not
attempt, as modern incorporations do, after being created, to
claim independence on the plea of vested rights. In England

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 233.

364 CORPORATIONS.

in the Middle Ages, towns and cities received charters from
the king, and thus became corporations with certain powers.
The government of the city of London began under a charter
from the king. Most of the cities and towns obtained govern-
ments in a similar way. Although, at first, not very
clearly defined, the powers of these city or town incorpora-
tions were over matters purely local, and did not interfere
with the authority of the general government. The purpose,
however, of all such city and town corporations was of a pub-
lic character and not private emolument. The most won-
derful company, organized for private emolument was the
British East India Company. When this corporation was
originally chartered the design was to authorize it to carry
on trade in the Indian seas. The company purchased a small
quantity of land for a trading station on the East India coast,
and from this beginning gradually conquered a large part of
India. It exercised powers of all kinds, created companies
and monopolies under it ; usurped powers of government ;
taxed, levied armies, and did other objectionable things, as
corporations are liable to do, until the British parliament
made an end of it, "vested rights " to the contrary, notwith-
standing, and assumed the government of India for itself.

In our own day corporations have become so universal and
domineering, have acquired, and are acquiring such author-
ity and wealth that it is well to examine carefully into them,
to see how far the powers they are exercising are con-
sistent with the public good. According to the best legal
authorities the following powers are assumed to belong to an
incorporation. 1st: The power of perpetual succession. 2d:
The power to sue and be sued, and to transact all business
within the intent of the grant of power ; to have and use a
common seal, and to make by-laws, not inconsistent with law,
and in the strict line of their business. 3d : A corporation
or company must strictly confine itself to its legitimate, pow-
ers ; thus, it is ultra vires for a bank company to build a rail-

VESTED RIGHTS. 365

road; nor has a railroad company any authority to usurp
any of the functions of a bank, and neither of them have the
slightest authority to assume any municipal function, or to
determine any question which is within the province of the
courts. 4th : A corporation in this country is a subordinate
part of a state government, a creature of a state government.
It has been claimed that the general government has nothing
to do with them, but in so far as Congress received, by the
Constitution, the power to regulate commerce between the
states, all corporations are to that extent subject to its juris-
diction, and can be perfectly governed in all matters of inter-
state commerce by such authority. 5th : Every company or
corporation, whether by general law or special charter made
amenable or not, is subject to the powers of the state. It is
the creature of the state, created only on the supposition that
it was for the benefit of the public interests, and liable to be
changed, altered, amended or abolished by the state.

One of the dangerous pleas or claims of powerful modern
corporations is that they acquire certain vested property rights
by the expenditure of their money under their charters, and
that the state or general government can pass no law at vari-
ance with their interests. If there was the slightest foundation
for such an impudent claim, charters should never have been
granted, and, in fact, never could have been given ; for the
constitution of a state confers on no general assembly that may
happen to meet under it the power to part with the authority
granted to the legislature as a successive body. Such things
have been attempted more than once. For instance, the par-
liament of Ireland had power to meet and enact laws for Ire-
land. Each successive parliament, as elected, had power to
pass laws or to modify or repeal any law of a previous parlia-
ment, but one of these assemblages had no power to abolish
parliament. Thus the act of the Irish parliament, brought
about by English influence or English corruption, abolishing
the Irish parliament, was in excess of its powers. They took

366 CORPORATIONS.

away from the people the power to elect a succeeding parlia-
ment, which was a power superior to their own. No one
would pretend that a state legislature could abolish the state
government by an act, or strip the legislative assemblies that
were to succeed it of a single one of the powers delegated to it
by the constitution. In the same way, while corporations are
creatures of and subordinate parts of a state government, there
never can be constitutionally given to them a power or privi-
lege which the same power cannot take from them. A town
government is an incorporation, and it has been customary for
legislative bodies, they being competent, to grant to such cer-
tain powers and privileges. Thus the authorities incorporated
may be authorized to issue licenses to sell liquors, or to burden
the people with certain debt, or to make a specific disposition
of all or portions of the public property, but no lawyer will
pretend that the legislative body which granted such powers
may not modify or withdraw them. What most of our great
and unscrupulous corporations want to do is to have all the
independence of a private person, and, also, all the power of a
public corporation ; nevertheless, they are mere creatures of
the law.

There are private companies with none of the powers of a
corporation. A, B and C enter into company to make hats,
and transact their business just as John Smith would do.
Like an individual, they are subject in every particular to the
law, whatever it may be. The law may even change some of
the conditions under which they make hats. Congress, by a
modification of the tariff, may render it impossible for them
to continue in business; or the state legislature, by taxation, or
some enactment in the general interest, may seriously embar-
rass them. Yet, if A, B and C should insist that they put
their money in the hat trade with the understanding that the
former conditions would continue, that their business is being
sacrificed by this change, that these laws should not affect
them, that they are in violation of their "vested rights,"

EMINENT DOMAIN. 367

and that if such legislation must be persisted in, Congress or
the legislature should pay damages to them, everybody would
laugh at them. A, B and C are not authorized to " make
by-laws " any more than John Smith, who might, it is true,
write a string of moral maxims and paste them in his hat
for reference, but they would have no more authority than
he choose to give to them. A, B and C cannot condemn and
appraise, and take possession of the shoe shop adjoining, to
make an extension necessary for the business of their own
hat shop ; neither can they run the wagons that deliver their
hats over the garden or field of P or Q. A railroad corpora-
tion gets that power on the theory that the railroad is a publie
highway. The state grants this power to the corporation, a
subordinate public authority under it, a creature and weapon
of the legislature. If any one wants to know how the state
got that power, the reply is that it gets it on the theory of
" eminent domain." That was the theory on which William
the Conqueror seized and disposed of the lands of England.
After the battle of Hastings he claimed to be " the state."
Now, whatever the merits of the doctrine of "eminent do-
main " may be, and they will be discussed hereafter, there is,
of course, no just comparison between a state that properly
represents the people, and William the Conqueror. I refer
to it merely because the legal system that partially governs
us originated then. Eminent domain was eminently obnox-
ious to the Anglo-saxon ideas. It was quite as obnoxious to
the Anglo-saxon nobles, as it was to the Anglo-saxon people,
for each of the former wanted the eminent domain himself.
Under the system as it has grown up among us, the state is
the supreme owner of the land. A state may tax the land to
any extent it may require, or it may condemn any portion of
it for public use. In this latter case equity requires the state
to indemnify the individual, and this should always be de-
termined judicially; but while this has been conceded, it does
not affect, under the doctrine of eminent domain, the right or

368 CORPORATIONS.

power of the state to tax it two or one hundred cents on the
dollar, or, in other words, to take it all.

The doctrine of eminent domain, when you come to exam-
ine it as a legal proposition, is an assertion that the state is
the primal and highest owner of the land, and that the indi-
vidual has only limited and defined rights in it, which may
be regulated by law. This has always been the theory of
our land system, and is substantially Mr. Henry George's
platform. So thoroughly has this been systematized and recog-
nized in the history of our government, that when a new state
is admitted into the Union, carved out of the public domain
of the United States, it is customary to have what is styled
an ordinance or contract between the new state and the United
States, by which the new state agrees not to tax the lands
lying within its boundaries belonging to the United States,
until the United States has disposed of them. For this re-
linquishment a consideration is given, being usually two sec-
tions of land for school purposes, in each township, and, as
the general law stands, five hundred thousand acres for inter-
nal improvements, and additional amounts for universities,
agricultural colleges and normal schools. In these agree-
ments the power of the state to tax is affirmed, and also the
doctrine that the " eminent domain " is in the state, and not
in the general government. Over the territories Congress
exercises a proprietary right, under that clause of the Consti-
tution authorizing it to " make all needful rules and regula-
tions for the territory and other property of the United
States." This clause, by the bye, has been stretched a good
deal, and it is a very grave question, considered judicially,
whether the assertion of "eminent domain" over the territo-
ries can bo constitutionally maintained. Every one will under-
stand that such a power as " eminent domain 7 ' cannot exist in
two authorities at once. It has been the practice of our
government to recognize that a state in the Union, once cre-
ated, by virtue of its existence, possessed the eminent domain,

RAILROADS PUBLIC HIGHWAYS. 369

and the United States does not relinquish and convey to it
that authority which is alone supposed to be derived from the
people, but, on the contrary, the federal government comes to
it on the threshold of its existence and seeks to make a bar-
gain with it, that it shall not, for a certain period, tax federal
property in land within the state, and pays a part of this
property in land to the state for such exemption. The reader
must carefully bear in mind the distinction between the pro-
prietary right and the "eminent domain." The "eminent
domain " is the highest title. Subordinated to it is the proprie-
tary title, and thus, under the theory of our system, the high-
est and first title to all the land of the state is in the people
of the state, and the proprietorship under it a limited one, sub-
ject to legal regulation.

In this way an incorporated railway company secures from
the state the authority to build a railroad across the lands of
any man, without allowing him to say what shall be the width
of the tract, the direction it shall take, or fix the price of his
own property. The machinery furnished by law for securing
remuneration for damages, or property so taken, is rarely of
a kind to insure any exorbitant price ; usually, the amount
allowed is far less than the individual owner would like to sell
such land for, if the matter was regulated by " supply and
demand," and in many cases the amount paid is entirely
inadequate. The theory largely is that the building of such a
road is a matter of public interest, and that heavy damages
should not stand in the way of the enterprise. A railroad is
a public highway. It is on this theory alone that it has been
or could have been built. In the charter there is merely dele-
gated to the corporation a certain public function. Many
people think this should never have been done. In several
European states the government practically controls the rail-
roads. It will at once be seen that when a corporation puts
its money in a public highway called a railroad, it does not
thereby secure an independent power or right to continue to

370 CORPORATIONS.

exercise a public function. So far as it exercises any authority,
it is a delegated power, limited as to time and everything else
connected with it, and subordinate to the interests and will of
the people. It is not to be supposed that the law or the people
will deal inequitably by any interest, but it will never do to
permit corporations to call in question the right of the public
to regulate, modify or abolish the corporations it has created.
Vested interests and rights are always subordinate to public
interests and rights. The claim, often impudently made, that
by investing money in a public highway, called a railroad, the
managers acquire a vested right to regulate and manage it,
independent of the law-making power of the people, is not
to be tolerated for a moment. The people, and by the people
we mean the law-making power, may permit a company, for
the time being, to manage the road with as little interference
as possible, but that is always merely a toleration, on the pre-
sumption that they are performing the duty well for the
public interests; but the power always remains with the
people to resume the functions they have delegated.

Corporations, when created, have never hesitated to extend
and magnify their powers, or to usurp functions not belonging
to them. One company, that afterward filled a large place
in railroad enterprises, was originally chartered by the legis-
lature of the state of Pennsylvania, to " Irrigate and plant
vineyards in California, or in any other state or territory of
the United States, except Pennsylvania." Finding California
an unsatisfactory field they purchased or negotiated for a rail-
road charter in Kansas, from a company that did not possess
the authority to make such a sale, and proceeded forthwith to
build what is now one of the important roads of the country.
A town company succeeded in getting a bill through a terri-
torial legislature, authorizing it to purchase, lay out in lots,
and sell two thousand acres of public land, when an Act of
Congress forbid the sale of more than three hundred and
twenty acres for such a purpose. Companies have been organ-

TRADESMEN AS EMPLOYERS. 371

ized to manufacture salt, and after starting manufacture in one
locality, have acquired salt lands elsewhere with no intention
of making salt there, but simply to prevent any one else from
making it, they thus create a monopoly.

Officers of railroad companies are continually intriguing to
get possession of the coal lands of the country, and to so
arrange the freights on coal as to create a monopoly for their
friends, to the public detriment. Salt and petroleum interests
are sought to be monopolized in the same way, and unless
prompt steps are taken to check it, the country will be, before
many years, at the mercy of a few monopolists, who will be
able to control the price of fuel, salt and petroleum. Organ-
ized capital, under a company or corporation, managed by
officers, if it exist at all, ought always to be a subordinate
public authority. This organization and aggregation of capital
has brought about one of the greatest revolutions, affecting
human labor, in modern times. In England, until recently,
a master workman or employer was required to be a thorough
craftsman himself. Usually a thriving handicraftsman who
had acquired credit or means to carry on business was the
employer. He thoroughly understood the details of his own
work, was in full sympathy with his workmen, was a member
of a guild or trades union, and subject to its regulations,
which were made for the good of the trade. In England, in
the last century, the woolen manufactures were carried on by
small masters, often in their own houses, at times cultivating
a garden or patch of land, which, besides air and exercise,
furnished many cheap comforts. A careful inquirer states
that in 1806 there were about three thousand five hundred of
such small manufacturers in the vicinity of Leeds.* As a
rule there was one apprentice with the master for every two or
three workmen. The way was then opened for any good
workman to become a master or employer. A young work-

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 105.

372 CORPORATIONS.

man of good repute could always get credit for enough wool
to start him as a small master.* The introduction of ma-
chinery in 1790 was the first thing that worked a change in
the condition of the small employers, and a more radical and
worse change was made, .when, instead of the master or
employer being a handicraftsman, the employer was simply a
capitalist, or worse yet, a company of capitalists. With all
their abuses craft guilds maintained a number of regulations
which protected workingmen. The overthrow of the guilds
was due to the rise of large capital and its investment in
manufacture.^ Trades unions are the successors of the guilds.
Under the old guild regulations no person was to " exercise a
trade/' or could be a master employer unless he had served a
seven years' apprenticeship at the trade. No journeyman was
permitted to work with a man who had not so served, or who
was not a member of the guild.J The usurpation by organized
capital of the functions of a master tradesman, manufacturer
and head craftsman, was one of the important levers to press
the mechanic and laboring man into the dust. Many who had
formerly been masters became wage workmen forever. Most
of the avenues by which a mechanic and craftsman could ele-
vate himself to an independent position were closed. The
mere capitalist employer is a modern invention, separating em-
ployer and workman. It will be argued that the introduction
of machinery in manufacture and the arts, requires greater
capital than the old master workmen had or could get. It
has also been argued by one school of political economists that
the true theory was to manufacture the largest amount at the
smallest cost, so that buyers could get things cheap. In this
way the capitalist employer very soon got in the habit of
employing children and apprentices. The journeymen were
alvA^ays the first men discharged. Competition grew up among
these capitalist employers as to who could sell cheapest. This

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 106.

f Ibid., page 97. J Ibid.

WILLIAM PITT ON ARBITRATION. 373

competition reduced mechanics and workmen to poverty. The
mere capitalist employer knew little of, and cared less, for the
workman. His purpose was to sell cheap, whatever became
of the mechanics. He was independent of the trade. It
was not his business to employ the finest skilled artisans.
Shoddy, poorly made-up articles, cheap workmen, low wages,
these are often the stock in trade of the capitalist employer.
If a competing corporation or firm sell articles at a low rate,
he must grind down his laborers and sell his goods at the same
price. Beside the disastrous effects of this system on the regular
crafts and trades, poor needlewomen make shirts for a few half-
pence, and other articles of clothing for a pittance that cannot
keep soul and body together, in order that Mr. A may under-
sell Mr. B, and one factory has to curtail the wages of its
workmen and workwomen in order that it may compete with
some other company that has put the price down. It may be
said that there is no safe way to prevent this, and that
unbridled and unregulated competition must be permitted to
go on, reducing the workingmen and workingwomen to poverty.
One of the most eminent British statesmen, William Pitt, as
will be seen by examining the debates of the British House
of Commons, when the Arbitration Act was pending, said :
" The time will come when manufacturers will have been so
long established, and the operatives not having any other
business to flee to, that it will be in the power of any one
man in a town to reduce wages, and all the other manufacturers
must follow. If it ever does arrive at that pitch, parliament,
if not sitting, should be called together, and if it cannot
redress these grievances, your power is at an end."

While corporations in the present day are created and de-
veloped largely in the interest of aggregated capital, it is
worthy of note that corporations and guilds a few centuries
ago, were aggregations and associations for the defense and
protection of labor. These labor-protecting corporations are,

indeed, the oldest known associations of men among European
32

374 CORPORATIONS.

nations. Guild is supposed to be of ancient Celtic etymol-
ogy.* Keligious guilds, which were partly political, and
partly to organize and strengthen poor people, were almost
contemporaneous with Christianity. The beginning of craft
or trade guilds was from the commencement of the eleventh
to the middle of the thirteenth centuries, f Town corporations
or governments were still older, and were largely created to
resist the freebooting nobles. The guilds succeeded generally
in securing authority to regulate trade instead of the officers
of the towns. These two kinds of organization and authority
were sometimes in conflict, but as they both derived their
power substantially from the people, they operated as a check
upon each other. The purpose of the guild organization
of any particular craft, was to promote the interest and in-
dependence of that craft. The soul of the craft guilds was
their meeting every week, month or quarter. The control of
the sale of the most necessary provisions, such as bread, meat,
drink and fuel, was the special care of the town corporations.
The guild of each trade or manufacture regulated the produc-
tion of articles, the prices, mode of sale, and had laws to pre-
vent imperfectly educated workmen from being employed to
the detriment of those who had served regular apprentice-
ships. The guild sometimes forbid its members from carrying
on their trade with borrowed capital,! so jealous were they of
the interference of capital with their occupation. At Tournay,
in 1365, it became necessary to forbid usurers from carrying
on the weaving trade. The incomes of the craft guilds were
derived from small entrance fees of wax for the churches and
taxes which were levied for special purposes as they occurred,
such as to provide for the death, misfortunes, or pilgrimage
of a member.

If a master workman withheld wages from a workman the

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 232.

t Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 55.

J Ibid., page 74. \ Ibid., page 64.

GUILDS AND TRADES UNIONS. 375

guild compelled him to pay. They only permitted a certain
number of apprentices for so many journeymen. In England
they had more power in regulating wages than the judges
of the court of sessions, although the latter were backed by
Act of parliament. In all the manufacturing countries of
Europe, the most ancient guilds were the weavers. In Ger-
many, the wool weavers guild rose to consideration early in
the eleventh century. One of the oldest German charters,
referring to craft guilds, was granted 1149. A fraternity
was formed with the consent of the judges, sheriffs and alder-
men, and henceforth all within the town who wished to carry
on the trade were obliged to join the society.*

In Germany and France the working classes were com-
pletely organized for defense, and the welfare of their trades.
In many parts of Germany guilds existed until this century.
In the fourteenth century we have evidence of organized
strikes among the workmen, and enactments against them,
referring causes of dispute between employers and workmen
to the guilds for adjudication. Various causes are assigned
as the reason for the decline and overthrow of the guilds.
Complaints were made that abuses crept in, and that in many
cases they were used to advance selfish interests. In 1484,
the Emperor Sigismund complains that membership had to
be '- grossly bought," f and that in the town council " the
crafts followed only their own advantage." He recommended
their abolition. The imperial decrees in Germany against the
guilds were rarely carried out, as the guilds supported each
other.J Henry VIII., of England, who had previously stripped
the churches of their property, in his expiring days, under
pretense of holy zeal, robbed and stripped the guilds of their
property.

Such were some of the causes that led to 'the decline of the

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 52.

t Ibid., page 75. t Ibid., page 81.

376 CORPORATIONS.

guilds ; but the chief cause of their overthrow was the accu-
mulation of large capital, and its investment in manufactures.*
For a time the guilds struggled against that potent enemy,
" capital," taking refuge in and using the religious guilds or
societies to secure immunity. Upon the final overthrow of
guilds, trades unions took their place. The guild had pos-
sessed ancient forms. Its meetings were a species of feasts.
They possessed, or claimed a religious element, and they were
long recognized as corporate authorities of some standing.
The trades unions referred merely to the trades and the crafts-
men. As the transition in business established capital as the
master, that master, whether an individual or company, was
not required to be, and, in fact, rarely was, a member of the
trades union. Capitalist employers usually denounced them.
The committees of the House of Commons were not favorable
to the " trades institutions." The followers of such move-
ments were usually spoken of as " poor deluded wretches,"
and in a parliamentary report of 1806, one great fault of
such a society was said to be : " That its inevitable result
would be progressive rise in wages of all kinds of workmen." f
Adam Smith, who did not much favor parliamentary regula-
tion, said : " Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the
differences between master and workmen, its counselors are
always the masters." In point of fact, the first legislation of
a definite character in England was enacted for the purpose of
reducing wages. The great plague of 1348, and the consequent
depopulation, brought the interests and conflicts of the labor-
ers and employers to a crisis. Even the clergy took advantage
of it to raise their fees for masses and prayers. Merchants
and traders proceeded to raise the price of their wares, and the
workingmen endeavored to secure a general rise of wages. This
led to the notorious statute of laborers (23d and 25th King Ed-

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 99.
f Parliamentary Eeport of 1806, page 113.

CHEAP LABOR AS A POLICY. 377

ward III.), in which it was ordained that no workman should
take more, or employer pay more than they did before the
plague.

While the purpose of the enactments which fixed or
provided for fixing the price of wages, was to prevent the
rise of wages, when the change from employers who were
handicraftsmen to capitalist employers took place, the work-
men sought the protection of the law to prevent the reduction
of wages. Added to the natural cupidity of capitalist employ-
ers who had little intercourse with or sympathy for the work-
men, the sharp competition of manufacturers and their desire
to undersell, became a continual menace to wages. The desire
to be able to sell a garment for four shillings that had been pro-
duced and sold for five was constantly tending to lower prices,
and the manufacturer who reduced the rate of wages might say
with some plausibility that he could not afford to pay his
workmen more. Added to this, in Great Britain, there grew
up from all these changes a condition of affairs that might
almost be styled a public policy. A large manufacturing and
city population, constantly increasing, at this time nearly two-
thirds of the empire, has to be supported from bread and meat
not produced in the country. To meet this foreign expendi-
ture, it was indispensable that they should find a foreign
market for their manufactures. To do this the articles must
be sold cheaper, and in this way the necessities of a public
policy were added to private cupidity as a reason for the
reduction of wages. It is still an unsolved problem how long
a nation can continue to grow, on a very limited area, with a
large population, constantly growing, the fundamental basis
of its existence being that other nations shall furnish them raw
products in exchange for manufactured articles. Political econo-
mists will hardly deny that a nation which attempts to exist by
shipping raw products and buying with the proceeds the manu-
factures of other countries, " tends to poverty and the degrada-
tion of its people." How long new countries will be found thus

378 CORPORATIONS.

to support a purely manufacturing nation, is for Great Britain
a grave question. Her advantages are great accumulations
of capital, which have been able to some extent to control the
purchasing power of money, and this power holds the manu-
facturing interest of Britain in its grasp. British capital plays
the usurer to all the world, deriving great revenues from
interest. England has also the advantage of performing a
large proportion of the carrying trade of the world, and thus
is able to turn exchange in her favor. To these may be added
cheap labor as a necessity, viewed from the economic stand-
point of capital. Valuable improvements in machinery can
give little advantage to any one nation in contradistinction
to others, for more than one nation has contributed improve-
ments that give power to labor and facilities to trade ; in any
event these useful inventions soon become general property.
Cheap labor and the concentrated influence of capital, directed
by a few, cannot in the end maintain a prosperous people.
We find that as capital became the employer of workmen,
repressive laws began to be enacted against combinations
of workmen, mechanics institutes and trades unions. Bren-
tano says, " The workmen having fallen into great distress
owing to capitalized masters instead of workingmen masters,
they petitioned parliament in 1778 for a legal regulation of
wages." * The Act 13th, George III., c. 68, provided that
on demand being made the price of wages was to be established.
Other acts about the same time contained similar provisions.
It will be observed, however, that as the guilds had been
driven out of existence, the new law gave the mechanics insti-
tutes and trades unions no voice in determining the price of
labor. Besides the reduction of wages there were many other
abuses from which the mechanics and workingmen suffered.
The calico printing trade capitalist employers used apprentices
almost exclusively, and the few skilled journeymen they

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 118.

WAGES REGULATED BY LAW. 379

employed were discharged on the slightest stagnation or pres-
sure.* The frame- work knitting trade had formed a society
in 1663, but from 1740 to 1750, the trade being controlled
largely by capitalist employers, was so overstocked by " bread-
less apprentices " from the parish, who had served their time,
that it brought the workmen very near starvation. It is
stated that there was often but one coat in a shop which was
worn by the workmen in turn as each of them went out. A
Northamptonshire master named Moss refused to employ a.
workman possessed of a good coat, declaring that the best
workmen were only to be found in ragged ones.f About the
close of the last century and the beginning of the present, as
capitalist owners began to have control of trade and manu-
factures, laws were enacted against " combinations of work-
men." In 1800, by Acts 39th and 40th, King George III.,
c. 106, all such combinations were prohibited, and penalties
were provided punishing violations of the law. The working-
men felt their helpless condition, and by meetings and monster
petitions endeavored to influence parliament. The employers
and business corporations and companies entered into the con-
flict with them. Brentano says that in 1803 they spent twelve
thousand pounds petitioning and presenting their case to parlia-
ment. J It must be remembered that the laboring men in Britain
did not vote, and, in fact, some of them do not vote even at
this date. Beside positive hostile legislation, the trades unions
and mechanics institutes were treated with ridicule. A set
of flippant and reckless writers and would-be political econo-
mists denounced every scheme for the elevation of the work-
ingman as "agrarian," or "Utopian." Capital, organized,
and under a system of partnerships, companies and corpora-
tions, became all powerful. A few men give direction and
power to vast sums of money, and are able to wield even

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 123.

t Ibid., page 116. t Ibid., page 111.

380 CORPORATIONS.

greater power by an artificial and . colossal system of credit.
Modern corporations give organization to capital. These
multiply its power, and the laborers are denied the privilege
of organization for defense. If corporations, organizations and
companies are needed for anything, surely they are needed to
protect and maintain the value of labor. It is fashionable to
denounce labor organizations, however. A cold-blooded school
of political economists have grown up who hold that such
organizations interfere with the laws of trade, and that every-
thing, the price of labor included, must be subject to the cruci-
ble of business competition. According to these the cheapest
mode of production is the only excellence, and all organized
efforts to raise or maintain the wages of craftsmen, mechanics,
and laborers, are dangerous interferences with the natural laws
of trade.

When political economists preach the doctrine of " compe-
tition " to a skilled mechanic who finds himself unable to
support his family from the wages paid him, they forget the
circumstances of the skilled mechanic. His craft is his stock
in trade. In England, and to a great extent in America, he
cannot, in a period of distress, take refuge in the ancient and
natural occupation of agriculture. The land has all been
monopolized by landlords. Even tenants' leases have be-
come a sort of monopoly. " He cannot dig, to beg he is
ashamed." What is free competition between masters and
workmen to him ? He is, indeed, entirely at the mercy of
the capitalist employer. Capital is organized, the laborer
is not.

Under these circumstances an impartial reader will easily see
the necessity of organization to protect the interests of labor.
In union there is strength. If we are to have corporations,
companies, associations, institutes, partnerships, at all, let them
by all means be organizations for the benefit of workingmen.
Such were many of the early corporations. Town and city
corporations in the Middle Ages were for the protection of

MILL ON ASSOCIATION OF LABOR. 381

the burgesses, artisans, mechanics and laborers in the towns,
against the armed aristocracy. They it was who abolished
villeinage, and wrung Magna Charta from King John. The
privileged orders were always opposed to such organizations.
They ridiculed and satirized Watt Tyler and Jack Cade, who
merely strove to make freemen of the enslaved yeomen of
England. They scoff at their memory to-day as socialists and
levelers.

The highest and perhaps the only legitimate use for cor-
porations is to concentrate and systematize the influence of
workingmen. To make them so strong that their dictum
shall be felt, and, if necessary, to derive lawful authority for
certain legitimate actions and procedures. John Stuart Mill
says : " Hitherto there has been no alternative for those who
lived by their labor, but that of laboring either each for
himself alone or for a master. But the civilizing and im-
proving influences of association, and the efficiency and econ-
omy of production on a large scale, may be obtained without
dividing the producers into two parties, with hostile interests
and feelings, the many who do the work being mere servants
under the command of the one who supplies the funds, and
having no interest of their own in the enterprise, except to
earn their wages with as little labor as possible."

" The speculations and discussions of the past fifty years,
and the events of the last ten, are abundantly conclusive on
this point." * * * " That the relations of masters and work-
people will be gradually superseded by partnerships in one of
two forms ; temporarily, and, in some cases, association of
the laborers with the capitalist ; in other cases, and, perhaps,
finally in all, association of laborers among themselves." *
Speaking of several successful associations, he remarks : " The
vitality of these associations must indeed be great to have
enabled about twenty of them to survive not only the anti-

* Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii., page 352.

382 CORPORATIONS.

socialist reaction, which for the time discredited all attempts
to enable work-people to be their own employers, but the trying
condition of financial and commercial affairs from 1854 to
1858. * * * Of the prosperity attained by some of them, even
while passing through this difficult period, I have given ex-
amples which must be conclusive to all minds as to the bril-
liant future reserved for the principle of co-operation." * As
an additional argument in favor of the management of manu-
facturing establishments by the workmen, Mr. Mill says :
"Capitals of the requisite magnitude, belonging to single
owners, do not, in most countries, exist in the needful abund-
ance, and would be still less numerous if the laws favored the
diffusion instead of the concentration of property ;" and fur-
ther : " It is most undesirable that all these improved pro-
cesses, and those means of efficiency and economy in production
which depend on the possession of large funds, should be
monopolized in the hands of a few rich individuals." f

It will be observed that Mr. Mill admits law ought to favor
the " diffusion " rather than the concentration of capital, and
that it is not in the public interest that manufacturing and
commercial business should be in the hands of a few rich men.
It will be conceded that association is powerful, and while
there may be a grave question as to the expediency of permit-
ting capital to organize and acquire corporate powers, and to
concentrate its strength, there can be little question about
permitting industrial laborers and craftsmen to organize for
the better protection of the interests of labor. Nearly every-
thing that has been accomplished in elevating the people of
modern Europe was brought about by organization and co-
operation. A tyrant, whether he be a landed aristocrat, or a
money-controlling capitalist, can always manage and use poor
laborers if he can take them individually. It is when they

* Mill's Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii., page 371.
t Ibid., page 5J 0.

CAPITAL ORGANIZED UNDER CHARTERS. 383

are aggregated in guilds, trades unions, associations or insti-
tutes that they become powerful. Of course, these are liable
to abuses like all societies, companies or corporations, but
that is no argument against the legitimate exercise of their
powers.

In modern times corporate franchises, as they are granted and
carried on, are chiefly for the benefit of capitalists, or those
who direct capital. Banking, insurance, railroad and large
commercial and manufacturing corporations are all intended
to give greater power and greater profit to accumulated capital.
At the present time the tendency is to concentration, and
the absorption of small enterprises by great concerns. A few
rich and powerful railroad men practically control the trans-
portation of the country. Nearly all of these made their
enormous wealth by combinations to put up and down prices,
watering stocks and other operations that ought to have been
under the ban of penal law long ago. If it could be possible
to obtain statistics to show us just how much fairly earned
cash was actually put in railroad enterprises, and how much
of what is styled their "stocks, assets, liabilities, mortgages
and indebtedness " is an artificial creation, the lesson would be
very instructive. Meagre although the reports of the tenth
census are, they inform us that there are one thousand one
hundred and sixty-five railroad companies which report an
aggregate capital stock (paid in) amounting to two billion six
hundred and thirteen million six hundred and six thousand
two hundred and sixty-four dollars.* Poor's Manual for
1885, states that the share capital for 1884, equalled three
billion seven hundred and sixty-two million six hundred and
sixteen thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars.f This
sum, much larger than the national debt, we can hardly realize
as being invested in railroads, by Americans, in little more

* Compendium of Tenth Census, part 2d, page 1264.
f Poor's Railroad Manual for 1885, page 1.

384 CORPORATIONS.

than half a century. Upon this, by the census report of
1880, there is a funded debt of two billion three hundred and
ninety million nine hundred and fifteen thousand four hundred
and two dollars, and a debt not funded of four hundred and
twenty-one million two hundred thousand eight hundred and
ninety-four dollars, in all obligations incurred outside of stock
amounting to two billion six hundred and sixty-one million
one hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred and ninety-
six dollars.* The figures given by Mr. Poor, for 1884, are a
funded debt of three billion six hundred and sixty-nine mil-
lion one hundred and fifteen thousand seven hundred and
seventy-two dollars, and of other forms of debt, two hundred
and forty-four million six hundred and sixty-six thousand
five hundred and ninety-six dollars. The aggregate of liabil-
ities against these enterprises is, according to Mr. Poor, seven
billion six hundred and seventy-six million three hundred
and ninety-nine thousand and fifty-four dollars, f or, if we are
to believe the managers of these concerns, they have expended
on them seven billion six hundred and seventy-six million
three hundred and ninety-nine thousand and fifty-four dollars.
Nobody believes anything of the kind, however. The amount
of stock that was actually paid in honestly, dollar, for dollar,
would constitute a very small item, and, if to it was added
the amount of money honestly borrowed on mortgage and
honestly expended for the road, we would have a true aggre-
gate of what these roads cost. From the figures the compa-
nies furnish us should be deducted all stocks not actually
paid ; all money borrowed that was not honestly expended on
the road, so as to add to its productive value, and all watered
stock, bonuses, amounts paid for pretended services or other
modes of pensioning their own officials. In point of fact,
railroads have borrowed the corporate dignity and authority

* Compendium of Tenth Census, part 2d, page 1260.
f Poor's Manual for Railroads for 1885, page 1.

WATERING MORTGAGES. 385

of the state, only to be better able to plunder the public, and
rob the honest stockholders, where there are any. The figures
they furnish give no idea of the amount actually raised for
and expended on these roads. One branch of the Union
Pacific Railway, for instance, let a contract to build a consid-
erable portion of its road for thirty-three thousand three hun-
dred and thirty-three dollars per mile, when it is notorious
that the road could have been, if it was not, built for about
eleven thousand dollars per mile. The government had eil-
dorsed and become responsible for bonds to the extent of
sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six dollars per mile,
and the company was authorized to issue a preferred mortgage
to the same extent, which should come in as a lien ahead of
the government, these two together making the amount
for which the road was nominally constructed. What was
done with the stock, if any of it was ever really paid in, does
not appear, further than as it exists among the " liabilities "
of the company, and among other "obligations," which to-
gether amount to upward of sixty thousand dollars a mile, a
pretty big stone to be tied around the neck of any enterprise.
We have omitted to mention a land grant of some twenty or
twenty-five sections per mile, the value of which would not
be overstated at one thousand dollars each ; the sale of these
does not seem to have had the effect of reducing the volume of
its obligations. In truth, what is called "stock" is, to a large
extent, fictitious. The leading telegraph company in the
United States has a stock capital of eighty million dollars, of
which a Senate Committee in 1884 reports : " Nearly the whole
of it has arisen from stock dividends."

Money lenders, or investors, soon learned to be shy of
"stock," and subsequently they learned to be a little shy of
mortgages, for mortgages in many cases did not represent
capital invested any more than stock. That the roads should
have survived these operations and not sunk into universal
bankruptcy is the only miraculous thing connected with the
33*

386 CORPORATIONS.

business. It exhibits a marvelous recuperative power in the
transportation industry of the country. By reference to the
reports that come to us through the tenth census, of the one
thousand one hundred and sixty-five railroad corporations, six
hundred and twenty-three have earned a net income or profit
on their stock ; one hundred and sixty-nine companies had not
yet commenced operations, and three hundred and seventy-three
either created a deficit, or made the income balance the expendi-
ttires.* The same page, to some extent, gives us the resources of
these railroad companies, or rather of the men who manage them.
The total income being $661,295,391, the total expenditure
$415,508,485, and the net income or profit at $245,786,906.f
The net income or profit is stated at 4.91 per cent, of " stock"
and funded debt. Mr. Poor, for 1884, gives the gross earnings
as $770,684,908, and the net earnings for that year as $268,-
106,258. J Crude as these figures are they show us conclusively
what would be the history of American transportation with roads
honestly and economically built, and justly managed and
administered. The whole agricultural population are groaning
under the burdens of extravagant charges for transportation
caused by the nefarious system that has controlled our railroad
corporations. We can easily see where the colossal fortunes
of modern times, which have no parallel in ancient history,
come from. This system of railroad corporations is but in its
infancy. Of the eleven hundred and sixty-five companies
which pretend to represent upward of seven billions of prop-
erty, two-thirds of their capital never existed anywhere but
on paper, in all probability, far more than the half of these
roads are controlled or under the influence of less than twenty
men. These railroad corporations have, by the report of the
census, an income twice as large as the government of the
United States, and by the reports of Mr. Poor for 1885 a still

* Compendium of the Tenth Census, part 2, page 1264.

f Ibid. Poor's Manual of Railroads for 1885, page 3.

RESOURCES OF RAILROAD OFFICERS. 387

greater amount. They disburse for expenditures and salaries
fifty per cent, more than the government, and they dispose of
a net income or profit of two hundred and sixty-eight millions.
Not including those who construct the roads, but only those
operating them, an army of 418,957 persons are employed by
them,* and allowing five of the population to be represented
by each man, not a great deal less than a twentieth part of the
population of the United States is dependent on this interest.
The record shows of accidents, 2541 persons killed and 5674
injured by their mode of operating the roads. After paying
expenditures, the net earnings for 1883, or profits were $291,-
587,588 ; of this amount $171,414,258 was paid as interest
on bonds and $101,579,038 was paid as dividends on "stocks."
What became of the other eighteen millions and a half is not
set down by Mr. Poor. To show the great power of the
managers of these corporations, Mr. Poor states that "an
increase of net earnings equal to one mill per ton moved by
the New York Central, would add $1,970,087." f

In contemplating this immense system, governed by men
possessing large corporate powers and defiantly assuming that
the law-making authority should not attempt to control them,
we must be at once convinced that mistakes have been made
in giving them the authority they exercise. It is indispensable
for the public interests and safety that at the earliest possible
moment every part of their business be placed under the strict-
est regulations of law. Had these companies faithfully admin-
istered the trusts confided to them, had they never watered
stocks or placed mortgages on these properties without adding
to their value, or done the thousand and one things that have
scandalized railroad management, still a dangerous power of
capital is here created, inconsistent with the public interests.

Had it not been for the enormous credit systems built up in

* Compendium of the Tenth Census, part 2, page 1266.
t Poor's Manual of Railroads for 1885, page 8.

388 CORPORATIONS.

this century, the creation as it is would have been impossible.
The national debts of all the leading modern nations have
increased rapidly during this century, and very rapidly since
1848. The modern debts of the nations of Europe were
largely contracted, and were the results of the outbursts of
democracy which occurred in Europe and America within a
century. The struggle for popular liberty in Europe was at
first submerged by military despotism, then the restoration of
monarchies ; next came the fresh outbreak near the middle of
the century, which was quelled by the great standing armies.*
The average annual increase of national debts of leading
nations has been $489. 335,079. f If they continue growing
at that rate, the same authority adds, " until the close of the
present century, they will have reached the enormous sum of
$32,583,781 ,254." Of this it is only necessary to remark that
such a debt can never be paid. It is a mortgage placed, or
attempted to be placed on the shoulders of coming gener-
ations, largely to maintain by despotic means, governments
obnoxious to the people, and inimical to their interests.

The national debts, however, are but an item in the drafts
this generation is drawing on posterity. In our own country
we have the state debts, to begin with. From 1820 to 1838,
$174,306,994 of state debts were contracted and stock issued. {
From 1833 to 1840 it was found almost impossible to float
state debts in Europe at any price. The interest was often
not paid. In 1842 an attempt was made to get Congress to
assume the state debts. This had been done once before, but
under different circumstances. An Act of Congres was passed
August 4th, 1790, by which the United States assumed the state
debts which had largely been created in meeting the expenses
of the Revolutionary War. By the report of a committee of
Congress in 1843, the state debts were estimated at $207,894,-

* Tenth Census, vol. vii., page 267.

f Ibid. } Ibid., page 525.

DEBT, GENERAL, LOCAL AND CORPORATE. 389

613.35, many of them having failed to pay interest. In 1883
the state debts aggregated $241,010,334 of funded debt, and
$22,878,019 of unfunded; total state debt, $263,888,353.*

It is worthy of note, that of the amount of funded debt,
thirteen southern, or formerly slave states owe $143,120,370,
and the state debts of nineteen northern or former free states
are $96,844,820. Delaware has a debt of $864,750, and
Kentucky is practically out of debt, as is West Virginia.
Colorado, Illinois and Vermont are free from debt. Forty
years ago Illinois was so hopelessly in debt as to be considered
bankrupt. It will thus be seen that in one portion of the
country state debts Lave not increased in the past fifty years,
but as an offset to this there has been created in that period
an immense volume of local debt, such as county, township
and city debt. The state debt is indeed small compared with the
local debt ; it has been 4 largely incurred in aid of corporations.
This is not all, the most valuable franchises of our towns and
cities, such as wharves, highways, privileges for gas and other
manufactures are falling into the hands of these corporations,
which at once seek to make them monopolies. Beside the
great volume of local debt the corporations created within
the last fifty years have run into debt enormously. By the
report of Mr. Poor for 1885, already quoted, the funded debt
of the railroads of the United States is $3,669,1 15,772,f
or, in other words, these corporations in ^ that period have,
outside of the stock they subscribed, the ostensible purpose of
which was to build the roads, incurred a debt and saddled it
on these enterprises, fifty per cent, larger than the national
and state debts all put together. Of that three billion and a
half of evidences of funded debt, it is probable that one billion,
or ten hundred millions, have found their way into the pockets
of the railroad manipulators, armed with corporate charters.

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 105.
f Poor's Manual of Railroads for 1885, page 1.

390 CORPORATIONS.

What the debts of the other corporations in the United States
are, it would be impossible to conjecture, as there is little or no
means of ascertaining. In issuing the local, city, township
and county debts great opportunity was offered for building
up the fortunes of manipulators, and creating capital for the
corporations. The securities sold for little and the interest
was large. The whole system of modern stock jobbing was to
a great extent founded on it, and it is difficult to tell which is
real and which is fictitious capital.

Our banking system is largely in the hands of companies
and corporations. They aspire to control the circulating
medium of the country, and to " regulate the value of money "
instead of Congress. In September, 1884, there was in opera-
tion 2664 national banks. Their resources are placed at two
billion two hundred and seventy-nine million, their capital
stock being five hundred and twenty-four million dollars,*
which shows that they do business to four times the extent of
their capital stock. Their books, of course, balance : Up to
November 30th, 1882, there was some opportunity to get a
little data as to the state and private banks, but the repeal of
the Act taxing bank capital and deposits swept away the last
chance of throwing light upon the operations of these
concerns.

In 1882, by the reports at that time attainable, there were
4473 state banks, and they had a capital of two hundred and
twenty-eight million four thousand dollars, and had received
deposits of seven hundred and seventy-nine millions of dollars, f
and were thus enabled to do business on more than three times
the amount of their capital. Beside these there were forty-
two savings banks with a capital of four million, which had
received forty-three million five thousand dollars in deposits,
and six hundred and twenty-five savings banks without capital,
which had received nine hundred and fifty million two thou-

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 1. t Ibid.

INSURANCE AND MINING SCHEMES. 391

sand dollars as deposits.* Hence it will be seen that a great
many of the operations of the corporations are conducted on
paper. The stock of the railroad, telegraph lines, etc., could
not be said to have built the roads. In many cases it was a
myth, and in the few cases when it entered into construction
it cannot be accepted as a cash investment dollar -for dollar.
Those who have managed the corporate powers have been
enabled to create great debts, and to manipulate, speculate in,
and use these paper securities. The result is shown in the
fact that all the large railroad and telegraph operators are the
principal stock jobbers. They have commenced absorbing the
weak and small companies. The chartered recipients of public
corporate authority turn that authority against the public.
An incidental result of this abuse of trust is that they use the
assets of these corporations, or, their inflated paper to get pos-
session of outside properties.

A clever writer once advised a man who was in a hurry to
be rich to " invent a pill." In modern times the favorite plan
is to invent a mining or insurance company or corporation.
There are, of course, many solvent and worthy insurance
companies, but the chief assets of no inconsiderable number
are an office, agents and a prospectus. So long as money comes
in very freely the institution flourishes, but when the time for
paying policies arrives, they either go into bankruptcy, or try
to compound with the policy holders, and get them to accept
twenty-five or fifty per cent, of the amount due. " Mining
companies " are the " wild cats " of these days. Their busi-
ness is not so much mining in the bowels of the earth, as in
the pockets of those to whom they sell "stocks." If every
person who has been duped by them would cry aloud, there
would be a fearful sound heard from Maine to California.

Mr. Mulhall, in 1882, states the aggregate wealth of the
United States to be eight billion three hundred and thirty-

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 91.

392 CORPORATIONS.

nine million pounds.* He divides it thus : Land, is set down
at two billion one hundred and fifty million pounds. Houses,
two billion seven hundred and eighty million. Railways are
put at one billion one hundred and ninety million pounds.
Cattle, at three hundred and seventy-eight million, and " sun-
dries," at *one billion eight hundred and forty-one million
pounds. So far as land and farm improvements are concerned,
Mr. Spofford, quoting from the tenth census, puts the value
of farms in the United States, including land, fences and
buildings, at ten billion one hundred and ninety-seven million
ninety-six thousand seven hundred and seventy-six dollars.f
The two tables of Mr. Spofford and Mr. Mulhall do not cover
the same data, as the former includes only the farms with
their houses and improvements, while the latter estimates
" laud," which may be improved or unimproved, and puts
houses in a separate column. Accepting Mr. Spofford's state-
ment of the value of all the land and agricultural improve-
ments in the country as ten billions one hundred and seventy-
nine million dollars, we find that the railroad corporations
have incurred a funded debt of three billion six hundred and
sixty-nine million, which is more than one-third of the entire
amount. Mr. Spofford, in the same table just quoted, puts
the estimated value of all farm products for 1879, "sold, con-
sumed or on hand," at two billion two hundred and thirteen
million four hundred and two thousand five hundred and
sixty-four dollars. As the railroads largely draw their re-
sources from the agricultural interests of the country, this
railroad debt may, not without reason, be considered as a
burden placed upon this annual production. To permit these
railroad corporations to create a debt, vying with the debts
of the greatest nations, and then claim the right to tax trans-
portation on railways, that were constructed as public high-

* Mul hall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 471.
t Spofford's American Almanac, for 1885.

LAW FOR CORP011ATIOXS. 393

ways, to pay for them, is a very serious matter. All the
fictitious charges they can so place upon them, they will assert
to be " vested privileges." While the United States has been
rapidly paying off the national debt, created by the war to pre-
serve the Union, these railroad companies continue to increase
their debts. As the people have to pay these debts just as
surely as they pay the national taxes, it is certainly time that
this immense irresponsible system was put completely under
the iron hand of law.

The statistics of all public corporations, or companies, or
firms, doing general public business, such as banking and
insurance, should be public property. No matter what his
integrity, no man ought to be permitted to do business with
other peoples money on the confidence plan. Companies
doing insurance and similar business should never be permit-
ted to expend more than a fixed percentage of the sums they
receive for insurance policies, in salaries and expenses, as only
a certain amount is safe and consistent with honest business.
In railroad operations, watering stock, borrowing money to pay
dividends, or make bonuses, expending the funds of the com-
pany for anything but its economical and real expenses,
making false contracts for construction, loading the enterprise
with debt to prevent the stockholders from paying their sub-
scriptions ; bargains between the men managing the road and
express companies, to let the latter get all the profits of trans-
portation, and schemes of the latter to share these profits with
the officers of the road, to the detriment of the shareholders
and the public, concealing or misrepresenting the true business
condition of the company ; all these and many other common
artifices of railroad companies ought to be declared penal of-
fenses, and punished accordingly.

Railroad corporations when in charge of a public highway,
should, in every respect, be closely and rigidly subject to law
in all their transactions. There ought to be complete axles,
state and national, of railway law. The rates of freight and

394 CORPORATIONS.

fare should be regulated by law just as bridge, road or ferry
tolls have been. No bond, mortgage or debt should be a lien
on the road unless the money derivable therefrom was fully
expended in building it, and no stock should be considered a
lien or encumbrance on the road unless paid up and fifily
expended in its construction. Roads, moreover, should be
compelled to connect conveniently with each other; to run
their trains to make time connections, and to carry for every
other railroad on equal terms. These incorporations and com-
panies should pay exactly the same taxes on their property that
all other citizens do, assessed at the same time and in the same
way. No law should ever be passed exempting property from
taxation, except incomes and property below a fixed standard.
If any one is inclined to think that such enactments would
prevent the building of railroads or would cripple or retard
them, he is mistaken. If railroads can be properly and
economically built in our country for eight, ten or fifteen
thousand dollars per mile, and were so built, they would be a
good investment, and would, at greatly reduced rates for
freight and passage, furnish a fair compensation for necessary
laborers and employees, and a legitimate profit on the capital
expended. If such legislation would put an end to Wall street
jobbing in the stocks and securities of railroads it would be a
public blessing. It is absolutely indispensable for a healthy
and moral state of business that it shall be impossible to
make great fortunes dabbling in stocks. All these fictitious
and fraudulent modes of getting money must cease if we are
to have a just standard founded on honest labor. Besides its
evil effects on business, the pernicious example of fortunes
made without effort, by stock-jobbing and gambling, is disas-
trous to our people; disguise these inflations as you will,
they inflict burdens the people must ultimately pay. If
all the inflated price of such stocks could be stripped from
them, if nothing but the dollar actually expended could be rep-
resented, the " shrinkage " would be no public calamity.

GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE. 395

This may be styled paternal government. One of the oft-
debated propositions among practical statesmen is as to the
legitimate functions of government. It has been held, and not
without reason, that governments should confine themselves to
certain duties necessary for peace, order and protection to life,
property and reputation, leaving the individual as free as pos-
sible to carve his own fortune with the minimum of govern-
ment interference. This, however, must be considered in con-
nection with the conditions and necessities of highly civilized
society and dense population. It is denied, and justly, that a
man has a right to bring up his children in ignorance ; it is
denied, and justly, that a man has no duty to perform to the
poor, ignorant, weak and helpless ; it is denied, and justly,
that a man can be allowed to do anything that is against
the interests of the majority ; it is denied, and justly,
that a man should be permitted to make gain by false pre-
tences, dishonest bargains, unfair combinations, or in any
manner save by the measure of honest labor and honest equiv-
alents. If, however, the most extreme views as to govern-
ment non-interference were taken, it cannot be pretended that
a corporation, a creature permitted to exercise certain public
functions, should not be rigidly governed by law. There are
a great many things the individual must be controlled in by
the will of the majority, and when the individual combines
with other individuals for purposes of gain, everything con-
nected with such operations should doubly be the subject of
public control and scrutiny. JS T o partnership, company or cor-
poration should be allowed to exist with unlimited gains and
limited responsibility. No public organization should exist
without publicity. Corporate privileges are a public trust
which ought to be resumed by the people whenever they have
become subversive of public interests. The time to all ap-
pearance is rapidly approaching, when peace, order and
security may demand the abolition of such delegated powers.

CHAPTER XIII.

SHADOWS OF THE COMING AMERICAN ARISTOCEACY.

The fetters of want American and French republics Free and slave labor
in the young American republic Aristocracy as first planted almost sub-
merged Failure of political amendments to secure equal power to land-
less freedmen The exodus Capitalist and wage worker Duke of Argyle
Necessity of maintaining republican simplicity Great increasing
wealth Where it goes Rich, middle and poorer classes Wages and in-
comes of tradesmen Aggregate accumulated wealth What workingmen
have no interest in What they have a small interest in Gradually
ceasing to own lands and lots Statistics of labor and of employees, pro-
fessional men and capitalists Family and individual property Laws of
inheritance Life Property Reputation Interest and compound inter-
est The cumulative power of capital Atkinson on national debts
Paper credits carry on business Profits of directing energy Capital
which is used, and capital which is of little use Non-producing classes
always an aristocracy We must cultivate respect for honest poverty.

IT has been truly said that man, like the horse and the ass,
can be subdued and led by the mouth. When the opportuni-
ties for procuring a livelihood are equal, men have little to
fear, but when governments, instead of protecting the rights
of all citizens, invade them and place the bounties of nature
in the hands of monopolists, then men step across the
threshold of active life in a great degree helpless. The inex-
orable necessity for food, and the constant pressure of other
wants are the bridle and halter which, under our artificial
forms of society, are too apt to be the forerunners of aristoc-
racy and despotism. We pride ourselves on the possession
of political freedom, and boast that we live in a country that
knows no distinctions among men. The American republic

DEMOCRATIC BASIS OF GOVERNMENT. 397

was founded on the theory of the equal rights of all its citi-
zens. It was the first result of the great democratic wave that
swept over Christendom toward the close of the last century.
The spirit of revolt and independence had been brewing for
generations. The American colonists were largely refugees
fleeing from despotism and aristocracy ; the first had taken
political power, independence and dignity from the people,
and the latter had monopolized the soil of their native land,
rendering it impossible for them to live there, save as serfs or
renters. It is not surprising, therefore, that the new govern-
ment they formed was the incarnation of protests and hopes
long smothered. To form a nation independent of the British
sovereign was one thing, to establish a government on the
basis of equal human rights, quite another. Then, as now,
they had conservatives and radicals ; there was also a little
leaven of weak, undeveloped aristocracy, but all gave way
before the democratic ideas of government which, among En-
glish-speaking people had been struggling against king and
aristocracy for three hundred years. The Declaration of
American Independence was therefore considered the triumph
of liberty and equality among men.

Inspired by its success, the French revolution followed.
The European field was very different. France was in the
last stage of political dry rot. Kingcraft and aristocracy had
almost eaten up an unhappy people, but the rulers themselves
were verging on imbecility. Kings and aristocrats were
destroyed. Finding the church allied with the state, in-
stead of assailing priests religion was assailed, and humanity
held up its hands in horror, as the bloody guillotine cruelly
revenged the terrible wrongs of centuries, and proletarians
shouted that there " is no God," because they could not find
Him among the French hierarchy. In the rest of Europe,
tyrants, moneyed interests, conservatives and even moderate,
timid liberals were alarmed. A reaction set in, but France
was tenacious of her purpose. This hotbed of sedition and
34

398 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

anarchy became dangerous ; war was declared against it. The
young republic became a great camp. Every crowned head
and every aristocrat in Europe was against France. Such
odds have scarcely ever been seen in war ; but behind despotic
organizations a smoldering democratic element in Europe
looked on France as the forerunner of liberty, and for a time
Europe was under her feet. Even Jena wrung from the
Prussian government the land reforms of Stein and Harden-
berg. France, not satisfied with a war of defense, entered
upon a war of conquest : the republic was merged in the
empire. The code of law, which really was the code of the
revolution, became the " Code Napoleon." Titles may have
been created, but feudalism was not restored. Hatred of
landed aristocracy was firmly anchored in the public mind,
the policy to divide the country in small farms owned by cul-
tivating farmers was fixed, and democratic laws of inheritance
secured the result. The " Holy Alliance " crushed the em-
pire, but through all the vicissitudes of France the seeds sown
by Mirabeau, Seyes and their colleagues, have fructified. In
1848 another democratic uprising convulsed Europe, but this
time kings and aristocrats were prepared, and enormous
armies crushed it. Reforms have been slowly doled out to
appease the angry spirit. Gigantic armaments are maintained
at an expense which threatens Europe with universal bank-
ruptcy. In spite of all these, the doctrines of equal human
rights and reforms in land tenure were never so much dis-
cussed as they are to-day. The war against despotism and
aristocracy was checked, but it is not over.

While this was going on in Europe, what was happening
in America. Very considerable estates had been permitted to
go into the hands of certain families, especially in the South
Atlantic states. The preservation of African slavery after the
formation of a free republic aided the creation of a Southern
aristocracy. The great estates were cultivated by slaves. It
had been an old idea with many men pretending to be repub-

LANDLESS NEGROES. 399

licans, that the menial labor might safely be performed by an
alien and servile class in a republic. Had the "accidents of
war" and the "mills of the gods" not made an end of slavery
it would not have taken many generations to place all the non-
slaveholding population under the feet of a terrible oligarchy.
Another thing would have happened. The little slave plan-
tations would have been absorbed by the great ones. The
sympathies of the poorer class of white men who did not own
slaves were secured in the interests of slavery in the Southern
states by appealing to their prejudices against the negroes.
At the close of the war, everything that constitutional amend-
ments and law could do to place the negroes on a political
equality was done. No steps were taken to enable them to
become owners of the soil. Neither were measures adopted to
secure the disruption and division of the great estates. The
result ought to be a most instructive lesson to us, and fully
illustrates the idea announced by John Adams, that " those who
own the land will rule the country." In spite of constitutional
amendments and civil rights bills, the great landowners of
the Southern states rule that portion of our republic. If each
of the colored men had been encouraged and aided to possess a
homestead of even forty or twenty acres, and measures been
taken to diseutegrate and divide the great estates, the result
would have been different. The attempts of the colored people
to emigrate from the Southern states, where they were born, to
more inhospitable Northwestern states, were merely efforts to
get land. It was a struggle to escape from the fate of settling
down as tenant-holders under their former masters. Most of
them are too poor to buy land. The dependent condition in
which they are placed does not afford them much opportunity
to improve their fortunes. The present unsettled condition of
affairs in the South reduces land values, even to speculators,
and offers the nation an opportunity to make landholders of
the colored people. It is to be regretted that so few of them
are able to avail themselves of the present low prices to be-

400 SHADOWS OF AEISTOCRACY.

come landowners. Unless there is some change in the existing
system the time is not far distant when the lands in the South
will be held at a high price, and heavy rents will place per-
manent burdens on the shoulders of the cultivators of the soil,
and furnish the means to sustain a privileged, luxurious, non-
productive and aristocratic class.

In the Northern and Western states, as we have shown,
the steady tendency is to permit the lands to drift into the
hands of capitalist holders. When the public land is taken
up, which will be very soon, the absorption of the land by
the owners of accumulated capital will be greatly accelerated.
So far, capitalists have made larger profits from other invest-
ments. The rapid multiplication of fortunes in business enter-
prises has distracted attention from land. Those who wish
to found wealthy families will soon seek the enduring mon-
opoly of land as the safest and most permanent basis for an
income, and will find few obstacles where the land is a chattel,
and small holders are continually liable to be embarrassed.
For a comparatively trifling amount the government permits
this individual monoply of the soil, and guarantees the power
to collect a revenue from occupying cultivators "forever/'
The power to exact this tax from producers is the thing we
call a fee simple title. So long as there is no law prohibiting
the owning of land except for cultivation, limiting the amount
which shall be held, providing for its redistribution, and
forbidding its aggregation, land will inevitably go into the
hands of capitalist holders. Whetted by the desire to obtain
greater revenues and more dignity, the owners of the large
farms will soon own the small ones. The producing yeoman
farmer will sink to the condition of a renter or laborer,
and the longer this state of affairs lasts the more difficult it
will be for the farmer to become once more an owner. 'Land
when so held will be held at high prices. The landlords will
have great influence and be the dominant power in the coun-
try, no matter what the government may be called. We are

ALIEN LANDHOLDING. 401

now laying the foundations of landed aristocracy, and unless
something is done to check and prevent it, our country, in
spite of its boasted freedom, will become a country of land-
lords and aristocrats, ruling over and subsisting on tenants and
laborers.

Another thing is happening. Capital is absorbing the
manufacturing power of the country. We have no longer
trades controlled by tradesmen and mechanics, but capitalist
employers and wage workers. We are slowly placing the
power of all our means of transportation in the hands of capi-
talists, and the tendency of the system is to permit them to
become monopolists. It is the same thing with canals, tele-
graphs and many other necessary adjuncts of civilization.
Bankers, insurance companies and stock-brokers claim the
privilege of controlling money and regulating the supply and
demand of the medium of exchange. It will not be denied
that the result of these things will be to produce great classes
existing by their daily labor, wage workers and a smaller class
of capitalist landlords and proprietors of franchises living on
capital, and having the power to fix the wages of labor,
and determine what shall be the condition of the working
classes.

Of this state of affairs our aristocratic European neighbors
are not oblivious. Seeing the tendency in that direction in
America they take more kindly to our institutions. For
several years shoots of aristocracy from the Old World have
traversed our country and become afflicted with land hunger.
No alien should be permitted to own a foot of American soil.
If a man intends to become a citizen our government permits
him to take a homestead. A foreigner who never intends to
become a citizen, can, unfortunately, buy all he wants
at second hand. Bad as it would be to have our farmers
paying rent to native landed aristocrats, it would be still worse
that they should pay annual rents to a foreign landlord. We
have already enumerated some of the alien landholders. About

402 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

fifteen years ago a tract of laud was bought in Kansas from
the Pacific Railway Company by an association or combination
of English gentlemen, for aristocratic settlement ; they never
intended to become citizens of the United States, and called
their town Victoria. Much larger tracts than that have since
been purchased, many of them quite lately. In his reply to
Henry George, the Duke of Argyle, with these facts doubtless
before him, sarcastically sneers at people in the " many new
worlds where kings are left behind and aristocracies have not
had time to be established." * The British aristocracy no doubt
view the aristocratic tendencies of society in America with more
than complacency. In his reply to Mr. George, the Duke
refers to an act of courtesy tendered him by that author in
terms an American gentleman would consider rude. Super-
ciliousness of that kind may be the privilege of noblemen, but
leads us to regret that in devoting their estates to sheep the
cultivation of gentlemen may sometimes be neglected.

Proud of our free republic and confident of security so long
as men hold the ballot, we have been much too skeptical as to
the insidious advances of an aristocracy. We cannot fail to
observe that the daughters of some of our most wealthy citi-
zens seek and form marriage alliances with the titled nobility
of Europe. Steps are also taken by most of our very rich
men to avoid having their property divided at death by con-
centrating the greater portion on one son, thus seeking to
introduce the infamous law of primogeniture. It is true that
no inconsiderable portion of our would-be aristocracy is what is
styled a "shoddy aristocracy," vain, selfish, undignified and
comparatively illiterate. These parties are only worthy of
contempt for their ridiculous airs. After all, their conduct is
not so reprehensible as that of an educated, wealthy citizen,
who, merely because he possesses a great fortune, is recreant to

* The Duke of Argyle's Keply to Henry George, in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury for April, 1884.

THE ARISTOCRACY OF WEALTH. 403

the principles of republican liberty, failing to preserve that
dignified and sturdy simplicity which ought to be the pride
of every American. Law cannot give tone to society; we
need a purified public opinion which will sternly maintain
republican dignity. These matters may appear to be trifles,
and yet they are not without significance. We must not lose
sight of the danger of confounding aristocracy with titles.
Landed aristocracies in Europe were mainly established by
usurpation, violence and fraud. The title of duke, marquis,
or lord, is merely to overawe and mislead. It gilds and con-
ceals the steps by which a man has seized and holds the
monopoly of a county or a province. So long as human
beings are weak enough to worship and tolerate a nobility,
the crimes of an aristocracy will be possible.

Our American aristocracy did not start that way. It has
to creep into existence in a republic in which all are ostensibly
equals. The wealth of the country increases at present faster
than it ever did before. In MulhalPs tables he puts the wealth
of the United States in pounds sterling, which is not much less
than five times the amount in dollars as follows: In 1850,
1,686,000,000; in 1860, 3,866,000,000; in 1870, 7,074,-
000,000; and in 1880, at 9,495,000,000.* Mr. Spofford's
figures vary somewhat from these. For 1850 he gives $7,135,-
780,228; for 1860, $16,159,616,068; for 1870, $30,068,518,-
507, and for 1880, $43,642,000,000. f We will use Mr.
Spofford's figures. One curious circumstance will be found
by referring to Mr. Spofford's table. In 1850 the wealth
estimated at $7,135,780,228 is assessed for taxes at $6,024,-
666,909, while in 1880 the wealth put down at $43,642,000,-
000 is only assessed at $16,902,000,000. It will thus be seen
that the great increase of wealth seems to be accompanied by
greater facilities for keeping it off the tax roll. Mr. Spofford,

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 470.
f Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 21.

404 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

on page 105 of his almanac, gives the taxable property in the
United States at $19,180,484,203. These figures he obtained
from the state officers of the thirty -eight states, many of the
reports coming up to 1884 and two of them to 1885, when it
is presumable there was a considerable increase of property
over the return for 1880. By the census tables as reported for
1850 and 1860 the value of slaves was given in fifteen states
and dropped in 1870 and 1880. In 1850, with this value of
slaves included, the wealth of the United States if equally
divided per capita was $308 and in 1880 the price of slaves
being excluded the wealth was $870.* In other words there
was an increase of wealth in the United States, equal to $562
to every man, woman and child in the country, or, count-
ing each family as consisting of five persons, a wealth per
family of $2810. In the present state of our statistics we
are not in possession of accurate data as to where this great
increase of wealth has gone, but if we consider the condition of
wage workers in 1850, and the condition of wage workers in
1880, in the United States, it is extremely doubtful if the
laborers are any better off, or even as well off to-day as they
were then. In 1850 wage workers had occasionally a little
property. In our own observation we are firmly persuaded
that more of them, in proportion to their number, had homes
of their own at that time than have them now. It is to be
granted that the number of persons included in what is styled
the " middle classes " has probably increased, although nothing
could be more vague than the term "middle classes" in the
United States. We will borrow a mode sometimes used by
British statisticians, and fix a salary or an income of $1000
for the head of a family as indicating the "middle classes."
In a table of Mr. Spofford's condensed from the state reports f
and which includes the wages paid to bakers, blacksmiths,
bookbinders, bricklayers, cabinet makers, carpenters and join-

* Spofford's American Almanac, page 21. f Ibid., page 103.

RICH AND MIDDLE CLASSES. 405

ers, laborers, porters, painters, plasterers, plumbers, printers,
shoemakers, tailors and tinsmiths, we find that only one of
them, the plumbers, with their wages computed at the highest
rate in the highest market, Chicago, reaches $1040. The
table in this case is a weekly wage to working plumbers in
Chicago varying from $12 to $20 a week. At the latter rate
I have computed it. The laborers run about $350 per year.
The " middle classes " in the country would probably include
employers, business and professional men, merchants and
middlemen generally, whose income was from $1000 to $10,-
000 per year, and whose property did not exceed $100,000.

While this " middle class " in Europe may have increased in
numbers and wealth, as claimed and boasted by Mr. Mai lock
and Mr. Giffen, it is not the opinion of the writer that this
class in the United States have accumulated much more than
their proportion of the increased wealth. Adding these to
the still wealthier class, including millionaires, all of them
with their families fall considerably below the tenth part of
the population. A number of very great fortunes have been
created out of the accumulated wealth, and while the middle
classes have increased in numbers, and have had some additions
in wealth, nine-tenths of the population have not increased in
wealth in proportion, and a very large number are absolutely
poorer. Such a result shows the growth of an aristocracy of
wealth. Mr. Mulhall, in a table, gives what he styles "the
component parts of American wealth," that is, the wealth of
1 880. Land and forest are valued at 2,150,000,000 (pounds
sterling). Cattle, 378,000,000. Railways, 1 ,1 90,000,000.
Public works, 527,000,000. Houses, 2,780,000,000. Fur-
niture, 1,385,000,000. Merchandise, 155,000,000. Bul-
lion, 157,000,000. Shipping, 60,000,000. Sundries are
put down at 713,000,000.* This latter must include bank-
ing capital, telegraphs, telephones, insurance companies

* Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics, page 469.

40G SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

and the capital of a great many other uudescribed interests.
Vague as the table is, it gives us some slight clue. Of the
aggregate Mr. Mulhall gives of nine billion four hundred
and ninety-five million pounds sterling, as the wealth of the
United States, there are several heads in which the workers
for wages have little or no interest. These are in the capital
of railways, cattle, public works, merchandise, bullion, ship-
ping and sundries. Under the latter head a small amount may
be credited them. Twenty-five years ago laborers and wage
workers had a few cattle, but now these classes own little
under this head. Of the two billion seven hundred and
eighty million pounds in houses, it is correct to assume that
the wage workers in proportion to their number, do not own
as much value in houses as they did in 1850. The concen-
tration of the value of houses and lots in the hands of capital-
ists has been rapidly going on during the past twenty years.
Of the sum of 2,150,000,000 in land and forest it is fair to
estimate that of this there is no large amount in the hands
of wage workers ; there is a considerable amount in the hands
of poor agricultural laborers still, although the process of
transferring land through mortgages and otherwise, to capi-
talists, is rapidly going on. In the writer's observation, in
the West, during the past ten years, of homesteads, to secure
titles to which requires five years' occupancy, almost forty
per cent, of these farms are alienated or mortgaged within two
years of the time of securing title.

Our system of economics in the United States therefore
presents several dissimilar and apparently contradictory fea-
tures. First, the opportunity offered to a poor man to get a
farm or piece of land to improve on easy terms, and, second,
a commercial and economic system, under which capital is
steadily acquiring the land, controlling manufactures, rail-
roads, telegraphs, and accumulating fortunes in the hands of a
comparatively limited class.

The population of the United States in 1880 was 50,155,-

LABORERS AND MANAGERS. 407

783. Of these, 17,392,099 were persons, employed in agricul-
ture, professional and personal services, trade, transportation,
manufacturing and mining.* Of those thus employed, 2,647,-
157 were females, and 14,744,942 males. No inconsiderable
number of the latter were lads and boys over ten years.
Persons thus employed probably represent an actual popu-
lation of at least forty-seven millions. The number engaged
in agriculture is set down at 7,670,493.f Those who are
-classed as performing personal and professional services num-
ber 4,074,238. To prevent these latter figures from giving
an incorrect impression it is necessary to state that they in-
clude 1,859,223 laborers, 1,075,653 domestic servants, 44,851
barbers, 77,413 employees of hotels, 121,942 laundresses and
launderers, besides a great many other laboring employees or
wage workers. The actual professional classes, clergymen,
lawyers, doctors, architects, artists, journalists, claim agents,
teachers and scientific persons only aggregate 470,475. Those
engaged in mining and manufactures are stated to be 3,337,112,
of whom all but a small number are wage workers. In trade
and transportation 1 ,810,256 are engaged.;}; The census shows
3375 railroad officials and 415,582 employees. Officials of
insurance companies 1774, and bankers and brokers, 15,180.
Of those engaged in trade and transportation upwards of a
million are merely wage workers. Officials and managers of
railroads, banks, insurance companies, and brokerage all
together do not number more than 20,000, and only a small
number of persons really control them. Of the 800,000
persons engaged as traders or middlemen, considerably more
than half are clerks, laborers or other employees, and the
tendency in all the branches of trade is to merge tl>3 small
trading houses into large establishments usually owned by
a company. Except in a few Western states the land has

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 277.

f Ibid., page 274. } Ibid., page 277.

408 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

been monopolized, and a mechanic or artisan, if discharged,
cannot support his family from the natural products of the
earth. Even the fisheries on seas and rivers are becoming pri-
vate property. Places for shelter as homes are monopolized.
If unable to pay rent the laborer cannot rear an humble hut
on the common ; everything is closed to him, but the chance
of finding employment from a master. Trades unions, have
not the power of law to sustain them. Lawmakers play fast
and loose between employers and employed : they profess
sympathy for laboring men and legislate in the interests of
accumulated property. All these are the steps by which an
aristocratic class in the United States is being formed.

Through the transmission of property from one generation to
another, aristocracies may be made or aristocracies prevented.
In many ancient countries property was family property. In
certain conditions of society the relations between man and
man were summed up in kinship. The fundamental assump-
tion being that all men not related to you were your enemies
or slaves.* The kinship tie was in some countries cemented
by religious rites and strengthened among those who worship
dead ancestors. In the Brehon law the word Fine (or family)
is used for the children and descendants of a living parent.
The Sept, the " unit" of ancient Ireland, and the "joint and
undivided family" of the East Indian law, constitutes the
combined descendants of an ancestor long since dead. All
these absorbed strangers by marriage or adoption. With
these the property was the property of the whole. No one
could be deprived of his interest. No one's share could be
disposed of without his consent. No person could by will
deprive any other person of his equal rights. In fact,
making wills was almost unheard of. As women often mar-
ried and left the tribe, their interests and rights were long a
subject of dispute and conflict. In large portions of India,

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 227.

WEALTH BY INHERITANCE. 409

to-day, a woman's interest in the land, \\hich is merely a
usufruct witli the improvement, cannot be alienated without
her consent. There a married woman's separate property is
called the "Stridhan," which the modern English Indian
courts decide to consist of the property given to her by her
family, at marriage, or by her husband. This she holds in-
dependent of him. The ancient Hindoo law went much far-
ther, and the modern compiler of the Hindoo law includes
what they may have acquired by inheritance, purchase, parti-
tion, seizure or finding.* The Mahometan rulers of India,
although they did not altogether overthrow the ancient law
and custom, endeavored to introduce their own ideas. Ma-
hometan laws of inheritance have often obtruded themselves
to the disadvantage of women. The old Mahometan law
of inheritance divides the property in minute fractions among
the males. As Mahometanism encountered conflicting ideas
it adjusted itself to various conditions, however. In many
Mahometan countries the daughter takes half a son's share,
but if these cases are carefully examined they will be found
in countries where the old law and customs were much more
liberal to woman. Any inequality in the rights of women
and men found in India, may be traced to Mahometan inter-
ference. Among these ancient countries of the Aryan stock,
the Allod was the share a man took in the appropriated public
domain. It came to him as a right. The idea of willing it
to him or from him was not thought of. The Roman law
was intrusive and aggressive. It left its marks wherever the
Roman foot was planted. The Romans distinguished between
real and personal property, or rather between property that
could pass on a bargain between individuals and that which
required record and a conformity to law. The distinction
was Res Mancipi and Res nee Mancipi when it did not require
the conveyance of "mancipation" or release. Res Mancipi

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 323.
35

410 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

included land, slaves, houses, oxen; everything else went
under the other head. By the Roman law a woman be-
came the ward of her husband, like a daughter. All the
wife's property passed absolutely to him. Under this oppres-
sive system a custom grew of contracting a sort of civil mar-
riage. The wife absented herself from her husband's horiie
three days and three nights to avoid the Usucapion, which
would have absorbed her property. There was a provision
covering this kind of contract in the Roman code of twelve
tables. A strong influence was brought to bear to make these
marriages less respectable, and as they could be terminated
at the will of either party, some color was lent to this idea.
It ultimately became the common Roman marriage, however.
The Roman law and the theoretical principles of the Roman
government originated from philosophical Greek theories. We
can easily trace the portions of Roman law that have been
thrust into our social and political system. A singular cus-
tom grew up in Europe several hundred years ago of giving
the widow a life interest of one-third in her husband's real
estate, and a certain share of his personal property. It grew
out of the conflict of different regulations on this question.
With some nations the woman took share with her husband's
family; in other cases she held her own property in her own
right. In India, under Hindoo law a childless widow had a
life estate in her husband's property. This was an ancient
custom with many nations, affording the surviving member
of the household a life rent in the property that had belonged
to both. Out of this provision came the practice of Suttee-
ism, by which the widow offered herself up as a sacrifice to
the manes of her husband. The custom was a comparatively
modern innovation. It had its origin in sheer selfishness, and
as a general thing only affected childless widows. The male
relatives of the deceased husband could not come into the
property until her death, consequently they insisted that her
sacrifice was due to the love she bore her deceased lord, and

411

her refusal was often treated with such criticism and abuse
that it drove the poor woman to the funeral pile. The
"widow's third" of modern Europe and the United States is
something essentially different from the widow's life estate in the
property of her husband. It undoubtedly grew out of a dispo-
sition to make property a chattel, and to substitute individual
rights as the representatives of property for the rights of com-
pact groups of individuals or families. It was to some extent
a compromise between the rigid Roman law and the ancient
Aryan custom. Under the Roman law as finally matured,
parents were under statutory obligations to make settlements
on their marriageable daughters.* In the Sclavonic household
and town communities, the daughters were entitled to a settle-
ment and maintenance. In whatever way it originated the
" widow's third " has come down to us and prevails in most
of the states. Kansas is an exception, the widow taking one-
half of all her husband's property, real and personal. In
1787 Congress in passing a law for the government of the
Northwest territory provided for the equal division of
property among the children and a life rent of "the third" of
the real estate to the wife. The distribution among descend-
ants was to be per stirpes, not per capita, but this law merely
governed intestate cases, as the father could make by will a
different disposal. The one thing it indicated was hostility to
the law of primogeniture, but as a principle for the transmis-
sion of property it was crude and the ideas not original. In
the past three or four generations there has been a constant
tendency to the individual control of property. The old cus-
tom of equal family holding, or of equal rights in property
inherited, has been as completely invaded by this assertion of
individual will over accumulated property, as the same sys-
tem had been by the monopolization of the land by the oldest
sons, under the law of primogeniture. The inheritance of

* Maine's History of Early Institutions, page 336.

412 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

property lies at the foundation of the state. We have seen
that in Europe it created an aristocracy constantly increasing
in wealth and diminishing in numbers. Wise laws of inherit-
ance may prevent an aristocracy, and in our republic statutes
should be framed for that purpose. Our laws concede too much
to individual will in determining the transmission of property
from one generation to another. It has been urged that a
father's power to disinherit is a wholesome check on the errors
of children. This is undoubtedly a mistake. Young men
or women who have been taught to form, or neglected so that
they formed, bad habits, are only more entitled to help, and so
far as the state is concerned a father has no right to create
privileged classes. Long leases have been effected, the in-
creased values of which were to inure to the benefit of a man's
grandchildren even though his own children remain poor.
All such dispositions of property are against public policy
and should be prevented by law. Keal estate should, in its
future disposition, never be subject to individual will, but in
everything governed by a policy of its highest uses for the
people, and the distinct assertion of the' equal rights of every
person, in every generation, in it. So far as any disposition
of property to descendants is concerned it ought to be governed
by rules of perfect equality. One single element of our law
of inheritance will show how these inequalities have crept
into it. We divide per stirpes and not per capita. A man
has accumulated a large fortune and lived to an old age. He
has, we will say, two sons. One of these has eight children
and one has two. The fathers of these children die before the
grandfather, and are never able to control or inherit any of
his property. If it was distributed per capita, each of these
ten grandchildren would get equal portions, but we distribute
it under our law per stirpes, one-half goes to two grandchil-
dren and the other half is divided between eight, and all
these persons bear the same relation to the owner of the prop-
erty. The tendency of our laws and customs is to the asser-

POSTHUMOUS DESPOTISM. 413

tion of the broadest power by the owner of property not only
while living but after he is dead. To carry out this idea
more fully, everything, even land, has been reduced to the
condition of a chattel. That a man should enjoy a large
liberty, during his lifetime, over property made by him, and
within the bounds of possible honest acquisition, may be par-
tially admitted. The assertion of individual will in control-
ling the disposition of property has been carried too far for the
public interests. Why should this despotism of one person
be clung to tenaciously as an American doctrine? When a
man dies he has, strictly speaking, but one right, and that is
to be buried. It is natural that he should wish his wife, his
partner p , to be comfortably maintained if there is property left.
This, if he does not do, the law should do for him. Consistent
with that he should wish that all of his descendants at his
death should share equally in at least part of what may be
left to distribute, and if he does not do this the law should do
it for him. If he has made a large accumulation of personal
property instead of seeking to perpetuate it in his family, an
honorable and proper public spirit should lead him in the
general public interest to give a portion of such remainder for
necessary public institutions, charities, educational establish-
ments or relief for the poor, and if he does not do so the law
should do it for him. This could easily be done by taxation
on bequests or taxation of estates for these purposes, increasing
taxation in such ratio at each fresh bequest of the same prop-
erty until it had melted away, and compelled the third or fourth
generation at farthest to be entirely self-supporting. The
writer thinks the public interest would be served by not per-
mitting it to go beyond the second generation. The other
side of the question is how far such regulations would effect
production. A man struggles, toils, submits to privations to
acquire the means to render himself comfortable and inde-
pendent in his old age, and to give something to the children
he loves. If he has not this inducement he would not so

414 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

struggle to acquire. When a man deliberately contemplates
making and leaving a fortune for his children so that they
will never need to work, but be maintained from accumulated
capital as part of a non-producing class he conspires against
the public interests. It is more than probable that he adso
conspires against the best interests of his children. To aid
them in starting in life with a fair prospect ought to be the
highest stretch of filial or patriotic duty. Hereditary fortunes
are not only inconsistent with our political institutions, but
with the public interests and safety. So far as possible our
laws of inheritance, our tax laws, and our laws to prevent
fraud and overreaching in business should be framed under a
fixed and persistent policy, the end of which should be to
prevent the accumulation of great fortunes and also to prevent
their perpetuation. Land should never in any sense be sub-
jected to disposition by will. The sooner we dispossess our
minds of the idea that land in itself is property the better.
The right to cultivate it may in some cases be subject to
transmission. Certain rights in improvements thereon may
exist, but should never be permitted to become alienating liens.
Whatever tenure or right of occupancy the state determines
shall be held in land ought not to be governed by the usual
laws of inheritance, for a family has no more right to monop-
olize the land than the individual. Families may desire a
continuous occupancy, and when their claim covers no more
than an equitable share, it may be in the public interest to
give it to them. Sufficiently long tenure must be allowed to
insure the most productive cultivation and the highest neces-
sary line of improvements, but in any case subject to the rights
that all the people possess in the land. It is a favorite theory
of a modern school of political economists that it makes no
difference to the public who owns the land, that the only con-
sideration is under what system will it produce the most. If
there is abundance of bread, meat and other articles raised
the public will obtain them. The cheaper they can be pro-

RENT A TAX ON BREAD AND LABOR. 415

duced the easier will the public get them. That artisans,
manufacturers, laborers and tradesmen derive the best advan-
tages from laud in this way, and since all cannot be farmers
the subject of land ownership is an unimportant one, the only
question being as to whether those who own or control it will
have it so conducted as to produce, for the necessities of the
public, the greatest amount at the lowest price.

At the first glance this is a seductive theory, but it will not
bear a moment's scrutiny. To permit a non-producing class
of citizens to fasten themselves on the land and drain from it
one-third or one-half of all the produce to maintain an. idle
class in luxury is not a good economic arrangement for the
producer and consumer. The landlords live on and tax both
the other classes. Even if all this exacted rent was taken
from the wages of the laboring agriculturist, it is not for the
interest of the artisan, mechanic, craftsman or manufacturer,
that the agriculturist should be so impoverished as to be
unable to buy manufactured articles. It is not for the interest
of either class that a wealthy aristocracy should be built up to
undermine their rights, steal their liberties and sentence them,
their women and their children to be an inferior class in the
community. It is believed that small farms well cultivated
by resident holders produce more than great farms cultivated
at wholesale by machinery. In a dense population nothing
but small farms cultivated, in every nook and corner, with the
close care of even spade husbandry, can support the people.
Above all, the happiness, prosperity and independence of the
laboring agriculturist is a matter of vital importance to all
other tradesmen. If the face of the earth must be sold, the
public interests require a policy that will prevent the land
from becoming high priced or difficult of access to those who
wish to cultivate the soil. Small farms, slight barriers in the
way of an interchange of occupations, the destruction of spec-
ulative values in land, these are in the line of the highest and
best public economy.

416 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

The question has been asked, Has government any right to
interfere with the accumulations of the individual ? It has
also been said that the legitimate business of government is to
keep the peace, prevent robbery and murder, and otherwise
let men alone. The highest function of government is to
preserve life, property and reputation. Life cannot be pre-
served when the conditions necessary to maintain life are
unscrupulously and grossly violated. Would we consider the
man a more cruel murderer who runs a knife in the heart
of his victim in a moment of anger, or the man who by
selfish, unfair and dishonest practices starves his fellow man
or drives him to despair and destruction ? The law-making
public is indeed concerned in preserving the lives of all
men. That public is also concerned in seeing that the bodies
of men are not exposed to slow starvation, physical dis-
eases or moral corruption. Man owes his fellow man more
than "mere civility" and society cannot fully protect life
without protecting all the conditions of the highest life at-
tainable.

Property rights cannot be protected until we ascertain to
whom the property honestly belongs. No one would argue
the propriety of defending a thief's right. Shall the high-
wayman and pirate come into court to demand protection for
their acquisitions? Shall the gains of fraud and deception be
maintained to the detriment of those who honestly earned the
proceeds of labor. In making the protection of property one
of the first duties of law, we should regulate by it every ques-
tion touching the interests and rights of property. Civilization
is infested with a class of unscrupulous and avaricious persons
who make enormous fortunes that could not be acquired by
honest labor or perfectly honorable mercantile transactions;
make them, in fact, by tricks, unfair concealments, misrepre-
sentations, conspiracies, selling things for what they are not,
or for more than their worth, and having thus acquired great
wealth are loud in their declarations that organized society and

DIGNITY OF A FREEMAN. 417

laws exist but to protect them in their possession of such gains.
Society is organized for the equal protection of all its members,
and its duty in regard to property is to see that those who
really made it are protected in its use.

Reputation calls for protection quite as much as life. This
public trust has not always been faithfully executed. The
assassin of reputation should be promptly and severely pun-
ished. Society also owes it to the honest laboring masses that
their position be maintained as honorable among men. Those
who are compelled to perform long hours of arduous toil, who
have barely a sufficiency of coarse food, and are sheltered with
their families in one or two small, ill-ventilated rooms, are
scarcely in a position to maintain themselves with that respect-
ability that ought to be enjoyed by the laboring American
citizen.

When we reflect that the average duration of a generation
is about thirty-three years, and that once in that period or, at
most in a few years longer, all the accumulated wealth of the
country changes hands, we see one of the portentous influences
which, under wise law may preserve property in equal por-
tions, or found an aristocracy. It will readily be admitted
that property inherited and property accumulated from toil
and saving, stand on a slightly different basis. That which a
man fairly produces by his labor he is usually tenaciously
inclined to claim the right to dispose of. Where he saves it
and adds it to the accumulated wealth of the community he
desires and during his life he may be allowed to control it,
subject, however, always to the interests and safety of the state.
When he seeks to make some disposition of it which shall,
after he is dead, affect the interests and well being of the state,
other questions and other interests come in. It is not just that
one man should toil and live penuriously in order that another
may live in luxurious idleness. When a misused life, human
cunning and ingenuity are devoted to such a task, laws should
be framed to render such self-immolation unprofitable and

418 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

unsuccessful. The new generation has earned nothing. It
is the duty of every man as a faithful and patriotic citizen
to perform his share of labor and produce something which
shall be a fair equivalent for the food he eats and the clothes
he wears. Assuming the right to build up independent for-
tunes for those who never earn them is assuming the right to
create an aristocracy. So long as we permit and encourage
the greatly cumulative power of money through usury, we
multiply the opportunities that aid in building up such a sys-
tem. A dollar if permitted to run at compound interest would,
in a certain number of years, absorb all the accumulated wealth
of the world. To get a closer illustration, Mr. Spofford, as
we have quoted, places the value of property in 1880 in the
United States at $43,642,000,000 (forty-three billion six
hundred and forty-two million). There is that amount of
wealth outside of labor, a fixed capital, to use or inherit. Now
while money loaned on short time on commercial paper may
be obtained for three, four, five or six per cent, per annum in
these United States, the laboring man does not borrow much
at less than eight or ten per cent. If all accumulated capital
produced equally at eight per cent, there would have to be
taken out of the product of labor in each year the sum of three
billion, four hundred and ninety-one million, three hundred
and sixty thousand dollars, before labor could pay the debt
due accumulated capital. At four per cent., interest on this
property would amount in each year, to one billion seven
hundred and forty-five million, six hundred and eighty
thousand dollars, or five and one-third times the revenue of
the government of the United States for 1884. In 1884 the
total domestic exports of the United States was $775,190,-
487.00. In other words, it would have taken all the exports
of the United States for two and one-third years to pay four
per cent, interest for one year on the accumulated capital of the
United States. Mr. Spoiford gives the total amount paid in
wages in 1884 in all the manufacturing establishments of the

DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF INTEREST. 419

United States, at 947,919,647.00.* It would require nearly
twice as much to pay four per cent, interest on the accumulated
capital in the United States. We find by consulting a table
of the same gentleman, compiled from official returns, that the
" estimated value of all farm productions, sold, consumed, or
on hand for 1879 was $2,213,402,564, f a large part of
which would have been required if we were to pay four per
cent, per annum on all the accumulated capital in the United
States. These figures demonstrate that oil of the accumulated
capital does not add to itself four per cent, on its value each
year. If it did it would soon cripple labor and production,
and in a very few years at most destroy them. The same
thing would happen which Mr. Edward Atkinson thinks will
necessarily happen to a large portion of the national debts of
Europe before the end of fifteen years. He certainly cannot
be accused of conspiring against the rights of property. In
his preface to a recent book, he says,J " Since the beginning
of the present century the public debts of Europe have in-
creased from two billion six hundred million dollars to twenty
billion dollars. This debt has been accompanied by the issue
in many states of paper substitutes for money, and either by
that method, or some other summary way, the repudiation of
a large part of it may become a necessity before the end of the
century." In other words, a paper debt, no inconsiderable
portion of which never represented anything, has been at work
in the multiplying process until it threatens itself with destruc-
tion. Well might Mr. Atkinson say on the same page, " So
long as such a debt exists it works a false distribution of
wealth," and he quotes, "One of the greatest living statesmen
of England said her national debt was the chief cause of her
pauperism." Let us reflect that we, too, have an immense
inflated paper capital professing to represent railway, tele-

* Spofford's American Almanac for 1885, page 30.
J Atkinson's Distribution of Products, page 4, Pr

t Ibid., page 373.
Preface.

420 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

graph, municipal, insurance and mercantile stock, and an end-
less variety of paper wealth, all of it calling for interest and
dividends. "As long as this exists " it " works a false dis-
tribution of wealth." The foregoing* criticism applies to our
banking system. Nine-tenths of the business of the country
is carried on by checks, drafts, certificates of deposit, bills,
acceptances and other paper. While a part of this represents
a tangible something no inconsiderable part of it does not.
It is a paper credit system kept afloat by dealers in money.
Every now and then there is a panic which tumbles many
palaces of card board and paralyzes business, throwing wage
workers out of employment. Even when the banks do not
break, many men are drawing interest on their debts. The
rates of interest for bank accommodations are lower in the
Eastern states than in the West. In the latter eight, ten,
twelve, and even twenty per cent, have been paid. It might be
a better plan to pay the brokers a small percentage for taking
care of money. The alleged advantage of permitting bankers
to loan other people's money is that the circulating medium
is thus not locked up, but relieves the necessities of many
business men. A safer mode would be to organize companies
or co-operative societies of workingmeu, for manufactures
as well as trade, and all the surplus money possessed by them,
as well as their credit, could be used to carry on the business
without a drain of interest to middlemen. By the present sys-
tem a percentage is taken out of each manufactured article,
aud in this way reduces the wages of workingmen, as it is
classed with the cost of production. It is no part of the policy
of a capitalist employer to combine with other capitalists to
keep up the price of labor. The cheaper he can buy labor
the better he can undersell. We hear many complaints from
employers and speculators of this class that their business does
not pay, or that the profits are insufficient. If we compare
the condition of the merchant and manufacturing princes, their
magnificent houses and equipages, with the condition of their

DIRECTING ENERGY. 421

wage workers, we can easily see the untruth of such complaints.
Their profits may not quite come up to their avaricious desires
or unbridled ambition, but are sufficient to prove that it is
only through organizations of workingmen to control business
that the laborers can obtain a fair share. Mr. Mallock says
that great wealth is produced by two things, machinery and
the power of directing labor and capital. He intimates that if
these get the lion's share they are entitled to it. Let us
see. Machinery has been a contribution of genius for the
benefit of the race, and after giving cerain profits for a few
years to the inventors, these inventions become public property.
There is certainly no reason why they should be monopolized
by capitalists to the detriment of the laborer, and that is just
what has happened. Machinery should give corresponding
benefit to all portions of society. Let us consider the " direct-
ing power " as an element of wealth. The "directing power/'
we take notice, is usually " intelligent " enough to direct to itself
the lion's share. There is, perhaps, no instance on record
where the " directing power " took an income for personal
expenses equal to the amount paid an intelligent mechanic.
This " directing power " of Mr. Mallock's is the very thing
that requires regulating. Its profits should not be permitted
to exceed a fair compensation, and " management " is not a
sufficient apology for impoverishing the workman to amass
a great fortune for the manager. The elements of pro-
duction to-day are labor, capital and machinery. The existence
of machinery ought to inure to the benefit of the laboring
class except the mere amount to purchase and keep it in
working order. The Share of capital in production must be
subordinate to the interests of labor. Usury ought to be under
the ban of law. Capital is of two kinds. The capital which
is produced for use and used by the man who owns it, such as
houses, cattle, horses, vehicles, furniture, machinery, &c.
Then there is the capital a man has accumulated that he
does not personally need or use. Out of this he expects to

422 SHADOWS OF ARISTOCRACY.

make an income from those he permits to use it. This is the
kind of capital that requires the supervision of the public, or
it will impoverish all labor and create an aristocracy among
men. This is the kind of capital which in the complicated
civilization of modern times has grown to be, not the third
but the first estate. It has created in our day what is the
essence of all aristocracy a class thriving on the labor of
others. Ancient nations of power and character have legis-
lated against this evil. There never has been a period when
surplus capital possessed the power, consideration or profitable
resources enjoyed by it to-day. Let it not be said that we
overthrew King George to crown the "Almighty dollar."

It may be said if we place discouragements and obstacles
in the avenues through which men make great fortunes, that
these fortunes will not be accumulated. We reply that it is
not for the public interest that they should be accumulated.
It has been said that if capital is restricted it will not be able
to infuse great activity into manufacture, and we respond that
capital should never control manufacture. The rarest artistic
skill is the gift of the mechanic ; the division of profits has been
the task of the capitalist director. The public are not so much
concerned in the proposition how one million can be made into
twenty millions as in the prosperity, comfort and independence
of the working masses. Law should first sift out pretended
capital from real, and useful articles of capital from mere blood-
sucking capital. In measuring the profits of surplus wealth
the only safe standard can be its benefits to the laborer, and
as a preliminary we should see that men do not draw interest
from their debts. It matters not what they may be called, nou-
producing classes are an aristocracy. That aristocracy not
only taxes but degrades labor. A competency honestly earned
to be expended in old age is the just fruit of an honorable life.
All else must be subject to restrictions. The lines of distinc-
tion between rich and poor have become almost as exclusive
as caste in India. The dominion of morals should be as potent

DIGNITY OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 423

in preserving human happiness as the dominion of business or
law. Let us, therefore, foster an American spirit of equality
and simplicity, so that a useful and honorable man, no mat-
ter how poor, will be respected as one of our worthiest and
best citizens.

CHAPTER XIV.
REMEDIES.

Is the body politic disordered Great wealth cannot insure national sta-
bility Inequality in condition steadily developing Workers not getting
their share What has caused the unequal distribution of wealth In
the early republic no great millionaires and few beggars Number of
monopolies embraced in land monopoly Allodial title Two pleas for
rent Can improvements constitute an alienating lien Bastiat The
natural and indestructible powers of the soil What rights in land are
in accord with public policy Length of tenure necessary to secure high
improvements Land should only be held by occupying cultivators
Eeduction of farms with increase of population Money should be refused
speculating investment in land, or investment to secure rent Henry
George's plan Tax and rent must not be permitted to increase the price
of bread and meat Tax must come out of accumulated capital Large
farms and landholders Land speculation and wholesale farming should
be taxed out of existence- The destruction of artificial land values no
calamity What is just and what is practicable Cyrus Field and Henry
George Timber lands Grazing lands Mineral lands Railroad land
grants Various communal experiments Mormonism Icaria Robert
Owen Fourierism Shakers Oneida perfectionists Individualism and
socialism How are wages to be raised Combination and organization
Law, the servant of labor Assassination and dynamite the suicide of
labor interests What is the legitimate business of government How to
control railroad and other corporations Justice but not pauperism
Public improvements Homes for workingmen Will-making and in-
heritance.

WHEN a physician has been called to minister to a sick
person, his first purpose is to discover the disease with which
the patient is afflicted and then the steps to be taken to insure
a return to health. We have at the present moment in these
United States a good many physicians who are trying to
make a diagnosis of the diseased body politic and various
424

IS THE BODY POLITIC DISORDERED ? 425

remedies have been proposed. Quite a number declare that
the disorder is merely hypochondria and that it exists only in
the imagination. To the charge that there are inherent evils,
imbedded in our land system they reply that land is free to
all in the United States, easy of access and easy of disposi-
tion, none are deprived of it and none are bound to it ; and
when it is urged that ^laborers are poor and becoming poorer,
they reply that wages are higher in the United States than in
most countries, and that if laborers are poor it is their own
fault. It is, therefore, a debatable question whether or not
affairs are in a healthy and prosperous state, and the republic,
organized to secure the permanent interests, on a perfectly
equitable basis, socially, economically and politically of all its
citizens, now and hereafter. Many have grave doubts as to
the future condition of the people under the social and busi-
ness relations of society we are establishing. A hundred
years ago, when our government was formed, the United
States contained but little more than three millions of people
and ha^ now between fifty and sixty millions. Should it
continue to increase in the same ratio for another hundred
years our population would exceed that of China. We have
endeavored to point out the fate of the working classes in
many great nations. We have seen that evidences of splendor
and power do not secure a permanent state or popular happi-
ness. The history of most of these nations show us that as
communities aggregate great wealth the people become divided
into rich and poor, this disparity is rendered more striking and
acute in highly artificial and luxurious forms of society. The
causes of this difference of condition spring from the avari-
cious and aggressive spirit of a few members of society. The
oppression of the poor has usually been brought about by
violence, or long years of cunning, chicanery and fraud.
We find in many states of society that wicked laws and
customs have sanctioned slavery and combinations of men
have made servants of a great number of their fellow crea-

426 REMEDIES.

tures. We also find that by conspiracy, treachery and
murder, men called kings with their confederates organize
what they call a government in order that they may be better
able to plunder mankind and carry on war, thus placing whole
countries under their dishonest and despotic feet. Certain
individuals succeed in securing peculiar privileges and monop-
olies from unwise and tyrannical governments, by which
they are able to extort from their brothers a large proportion
of their earnings, creating a modified kind of slavery. We
observe in other conditions of society, possessors of accumu-
lated wealth preying upon the poor and needy, taking advantage
of their wants and necessities to impoverish them as wage
workers, paying them only what will purchase poor food and
shabby clothing for that labor, the produce of which enables
the capitalist to continue and extend this phase of slavery.
Thus in all forms of human society and at every period of
which we have a record, there have been numbers of selfish,
violent and unscrupulous men continually striving to enrich
themselves at the expense of others. This they hav% always
done, and this, we may take it for granted, they always will
do if they are permitted. For all these abuses the only reme-
dies must come from enlightened law or revolution. The
majority can never safely assent to injustice against the weakest
member of society, or carelessly permit privilege to a few.

When we contemplate the growing inequality of condition
of the people of these United States, we discover that the
"inalienable right" to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness," has been and is being subverted. In the
earlier history of the republic, so far as the white population
was concerned, this inequality was not so great. In primi-
tive times in the United States, and, indeed, for nearly half
of its existence, great fortunes were almost unknown, and
beggars were so rare that people considered it a privilege
to give to them. Now there is a great change, and that
change is steadily and rapidly progressing. As the accumu-

UNEMPLOYED AND TRAMPS. 427

lated wealth of the nation increases, the distinction between
rich and poor widens. The remuneration paid to wage
workers is so small that it affords little opportunity to save,
or provide means of support during enforced idleness or for
the necessities of old age. Every now and then large num-
bers of able and worthy citizens and laborers are thrown out
of work. Tramps increase until our lawmakers go back to
the days of Queen Elizabeth to find models for statutes
against them. Numberless useful inventions simplify manu-
facture and render the production of every needful thing easier,
but they do not lighten the burdens of the laboring poor or
add to their wages ; on the contrary the profits of machinery
only increase the number and enhance the riches of the non-
producing class. It is useless to deny that all these facts
exist. In spite of our wealth and advantages, the circum-
stances of our wage workers are not improving. Possessors
of a competence may complacently deny it, and say that the
dissatisfaction among laboring men, strikes and all the mur-
murs at the burdens of rent and the inequalities of society,
are merely the turbulence of demagogues promulgating social-
istic and agrarian theories. Political economists of the Ri-
cardo school tell us that capital produces wealth, and con-
sequently takes the greatest share of it, and that this is
the natural and just condition of society. Contracts rule
and "a bargain's a bargain every part." Competition for
shares of the proceeds of labor they argue is the mainspring of
society. The weak and the strong, the wise and the simple,
the selfish and unselfish, the cunning and the straightforward,
the honest and dishonest, all must join in this avaricious
scramble, and each take what he is able to get, and what he
gets is the just measure of his deserts. According to them,
it is in violation of all sound doctrine for law to step in be-
tween a laborer and his employer. Government only inter-
feres with and hinders the " eternal law of trade " when it
endeavors to fix the hours or price of labor. They contend

428 REMEDIES.

that law attempts to do ail unphilosophic thing when it tries
to regulate interest, or presumes to denounce the cumulative
additions of capital as " usury." They pronounce the doctrine
that man is entitled to " Life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness/' a mere " glittering generality," and declare with
Malthus that " man has not a right to subsistence when his
labor will not fairly purchase it."* Lastly, we have the
doctrine of Professor Sumner, that man owes his fellow man
nothing " but civility " ; that man is not a social being de-
pendent largely on his fellows, but that individual rights,
individual interests, and the measure of individual power,
have, in this modern dispensation, swept brotherhood away.

In spite of such assumptions the body politic is diseased
to this extent, that the men who do the hard work are not
getting their share of the increasing property in the country.
It is equally true that privileged classes are being created in
this " laud of equality " by the unequal distribution of wealth
and the unnatural accumulation of large fortunes. The
writer differs from some authors on the subject, in that he
does not consider these evils solely attributable to the monop-
olization of land, although that has much to do with them.
The laud system we have permitted in this country is, indeed,
very bad, but its worst evils have not yet had time to develop
themselves. As far west as the Mississippi river, the land
is, indeed, monopolized, and a great deal of it beyond that
river ; but as there is still public land to buy or locate, the
worst troubles from land monopoly are yet to come. What
has already happened may be summed up under two heads :
First, the amount of land already monopolized in the heavily
populated states has, on account of its being restricted to cer-
tain individuals and the increasing demands of a great popu-
lation, risen enormously in value. This " unearned incre-
ment " our law and custom have conceded to be the property

* Malthus' Principles of Population, page 421.

AMERICAN WORKERS BECOMING HOMELESS. 429

of the men to whom these special privileges were given ; and
this, as Mr. Atkinson would say, " works a false distribution
of wealth." The second evil is : that the high price thus
created in favor of the monopolists has made land so dear
that poor people cannot buy it. This condition of affairs has
converted the poor men who wish to use land or houses into
renters, and those who own land into non-producers. An
incidental evil is that where the working man, who raises
grain, has only to support his own family, he can afford to
sell produce cheaper, but where he has to support a landlord
and his family for the privilege of cultivating the soil, bread
and meat become dearer. In this way, when men who do
not cultivate the soil are permitted to buy or* to own it, there
is merely sold to them the privilege of exacting from it and
through it a perpetual tax on meat and bread. Before the
producer can use his crop there must be taken from it a large
portion to support a non-productive class. This tax en-
hances the price of what is produced, and it is a tax the
poorest man cannot escape. In the earlier days of the repub-
lic nearly every man owned his own home, whether it was a
house and lot or a farm ; now a large part of wages go
toward rent. If an artisan or mechanic is dissatisfied with
his wages and condition he may still, provided he has the
money to carry himself West, go to a few Western states and
territories and become a farmer. This, however, is frequently
accomplished with great difficulty. The " free competition "
between a wage worker and an employer in our Eastern cities
is anything but fair. With the capitalist employer it is a
proposition between a greater and a less amount of profit, with
the laborer between taking what his employer will give him
and starving to death.

The monopoly of land is the worst, and most far reaching
special privilege ever granted to individuals. It includes the
monopoly of coal for fuel, timber for building, petroleum
and light, salt, and every building material. There is noth-

430 REMEDIES.

ing a man eats or uses that is not taxed by this monopoly.
Strictly speaking, land is not, and never has been property,
it is simply privilege. Brentano asks : " What is land but
an opportunity to get an income ? " *

" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken ; for
dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. 77 f The human
race is indeed a portion of the earth. The flesh and bones
of myriads of human beings who have passed away are in-
corporated with it. The bodies of myriads yet to come will
spring therefrom. All men cultivated laud originally or
obtained their living from it. Did the fact that a man cul-
tivated any portion of the globe give him any individual
right to it. Let us see. It was necessary that man should
obtain a temporary use of the soil, to produce corn from it
for his family. This, then, being an absolute necessity, car-
ried some kind of right with it. Did it carry an exclusive
right, and if so, on what ground, and for how long ? In the
introductory chapter we have shown that claims to own or
control a portion of the earth have only been recognized as
rights emanating from governments. Aggregations of men
claim a country. We have seen that by the law and custom
of the Aryan race, from which sprang the nations of modern
Europe and the people of these United States, that they
originally regarded the land as common property. Allodial
title measured the uses of the earth. The tillable land was
fenced, broken and put in shape to produce crops, by the joint
labor of all. Each family had an equal interest in it. Every
member of each family an equal share. It was the same
with the pasture land and unimproved forest. As population
increased other acres were added to it, fresh colonies made, or
the old land equally subdivided. In each generation no one

* Brentano's History of Guilds and Trades Unions, page 128.
f Gen. iii. 19.

DOCTRINE OF RENT. 431

was permitted to have more than his share. There was no
room for monopoly, and none for land speculation. The man
of the preceding could not say to the man of a new genera-
tion, who had been born and grown up : " This is mine ; I
improved the share I hold ; it was accorded to me. You
have no part or lot in it. You must find a new place for
yourself." Such action would have been a monopoly growing
out of a limited, recognized right. It would have been the
monopoly of one generation against another. The holder
might have claimed the right to give it to one of his sous to
the exclusion of all his other children. The law and custom
originally said this he should not do. This equal occupancy,
in which there was no special privilege, no monopoly, was,
undoubtedly, the ancient mode of holding and cultivating
laud. Then rent was unknown, and the " Doctrine of rent"
unheard of. It would have been impossible to apply even
Mr. Francis Walker's rendition of Ricardo's doctrine : " Rent
arises from the fact of the varying degrees of productiveness
in the lands actually contributing to the supply of the same
market, the least productive land paying no rent, or a rent so
small that it may be treated as none. The rent of all the
higher grades of land is measured upward from this line,
the rent from each piece absorbing all the excess of produce
above that of the no rent land." * Among our Aryan ances-
tors there was no one authorized to collect rent on any pre-
text. There was no class living on rent. There was no
generation attempting to put the use of the land out of the
reach of succeeding generations.

There are two claims for the right to exact rent. First,
that there was a man in some one generation who found a
tract no one else was occupying, and took possession of it and
held it by right of first discovery. Such is the theory on
which all preemptors', squatters' and " first holders ' " rights are

* Land and its Rent, page 21.

432 REMEDIES.

founded. Strange, although it may appear, the doctrine is
not without its supporters. This title, if asserted by an indi-
vidual man, not connected with any government or organized
society, would be good until two other men came along, or
even one, bigger and stronger than he was, who should dis-
possess him. To be good for anything, therefore, this " right
of discovery" must be recognized by a government strong
enough to protect the claimant in it. The government or
organization is society, the union of all, the whole. It exists
to protect the rights of all. There is no other apology for its
existence. How shall " the whole " grant a monoply to one
or two on the pretext that it is for the interests of the whole?
We have seen that when the primitive forms of society
acted on the laud question they never allowed individual
claims to spring up. The ownership of the few asserted
against the many is a comparatively modern contrivance.
The right of a man to cultivate a piece of unclaimed land
amounts just to this : his temporary use of it cannot destroy the
rights other men have in it. It can give him no moral claim
to it for an indefinite period. Other men have as much right
to live upon the earth as he has. If one man can drive
another from the part of the earth's surface he claims, the
poor landless man can, in the same way, be driven from
every foot of the earth. He has in fact no right to live, and
the very privilege of living must be obtained from another.
No government or form of society has a right to create such
a monopoly. The highest interests of society demand that
such an attempt be set aside. Neither has any government
or form of society the right to create a privileged class, who,
on the pretext of owning the land, shall exact an income, to
be paid by all succeeding generations to their heirs and assigns
before the people of any generation can be allowed to live on
it. This, whatever it may be called, is landed aristocracy
and is obnoxious to the principles of the American govern-
ment.

REMUNERATION FOR IMPROVEMENTS. 433

The other claim for the right to exact rent is that improve-
ments have been placed on the land, and that it took so much
capital to make the land productive, that the person expend-
ing it acquires a right to the land. This claim to have the
perpetual ownership of the ground on account of improvements
placed thereon is also a modern idea. In China, parts of
India and other countries where the equal right of all to the
land is recognized, improvements are never permitted to be-
come an alienating lien upon it. In China, for instance,
when the changing floods on the rivers have produced a piece
of laud not previously in cultivation, a man applies to the
local authorities for the right to improve it. He is allowed
to take it and is awarded the use of it for a few years, usually
two, tax free, for breaking it in. At the end of that period
it is subject to the same conditions as the other land in the
country. The East Indian mode is much the same. With
many it is claimed that improvements constitute ownership.
One defender of the individual right to hold land went so far
as to say that an acre of cultivated ground was as much a
manufactured article as a yard of cloth. If a man seized
wool, jointly owned by him and ten others, he could scarcely
pretend that weaving it gave him an individual title to the
cloth. Mr. Walker draws a distinction. He says : " We
note, then, that what shall be paid for the use of land may
consist of two parts, rent proper, the remuneration for what
Ricardo called the original and indestructible powers of the
soil ; and fictitious rent, which is in truth nothing but interest
upon capital invested." * We lay it down as a fundamental
maxim that no man has a right to sell or rent the "original
and indestructible powers of the soil." The government that
undertakes to give to him the power to do this commits an
outrage on the people. The interest a man may have in im-
provements placed on the soil is something different, as Gen-

* Land and its Ecnt, page 35.
37

434 REMEDIES.

eral Walker correctly states; that this latter should ever be
permitted to assume the proportions of a permanent lien is a
monstrous proposition. M. Bastiat says, " If rent is paid for
the indestructible powers of the soil, then, indeed, landed
property is robbery." Bastiat founded his theory of rent, or
property in land, on the ground of "service" rendered. The
man who used the property, or paid the rent, did so because
the property was more valuable to him for the service ren-
dered on it. In examining the question as to the ownership
of improvements on land, it is necessary to keep certain facts
distinctly before the mind. A man's property is in the im-
provements, not the land. Improvements are made with the
expectation that they will render it more productive. The
proper remuneration, therefore, comes from the increased pro-
duction. How much of a title can a man derive from im-
provements? To this we emphatically answer, not any. As
the land equally belonged to all in the first place, he must
have derived, by common consent, the right to improve and
use. Without permitting improvements to escheat land, it
is proper between the man who puts improvements on land
and the community, that he should be allowed a sufficient
length of time to use it to pay him for his improvements out of
the proceeds, or a sufficient length of time in which he could
be reimbursed if he managed the business well. This, how-
ever, would not give him, in equity, the right to improve or
use one foot more of the land than would be his share if the
whole was divided among the community. If he takes more
he is deriving benefits from what belongs to somebody else.
A retired " Tenant Farmer " in England, who writes " Short
Talks about Land Tenures," says, that on a twenty years'
lease, at a fixed rent, the tenant besides paying his rent can
pay for all the improvements he puts on land so as to make
it in the highest degree productive. One of the Kansas wheat
farmers, Mr. Henry, of Abilene, informed the writer that he
could buy land for ten dollars per acre, pay for the breaking,

VALUE OF IMPROVEMENTS. 435

harrowing and all the expenses of raising the first two crops
of wheat, and out of the produce pay for the land and have a
margin of profit.

Let us take a piece of government land at $1 .25 per acre.
Breaking prairie, costing we will say two and a half dollars
per acre, and then the expense of seed, harrowing, drilling and
harvesting the first crop of wheat. It certainly would require
at that rate only a few years to pay for the land, improve-
ments, and even for such buildings as are usually erected.
In the old style of forest or woodland clearing, where the
land was fenced, the improvements were estimated, when
the writer was a lad, at not exceeding ten dollars per acre.
The rental of such improved lands in earlier times was
about two dollars per acre. It would not thus take many
years to remunerate the man who made them for these im-
provements. Indeed, it may very safely be asserted that at
the end of ten years, the owners would have paid for the
improvements and if the farm was well managed would have
a large margin of profit. It is also probable that unless these
farms were much better managed than they have generally
been, a person about to occupy and cultivate them would pre-
fer to have the land in its rich, wild, natural state than to take
it worn out, with decaying fences and houses that would cost
more to repair than they are worth. Again, men in our
towns and cities lease lots to build houses on. I have in my
mind a long row of brick houses built on twenty years'
leases. One of these a double three-story building is erected
and a ground rent paid of $600 per year. At the end of
twenty years the property and improvements revert to the
owner of the lot. Before the lease the land had produced
nothing. It was improved in this manner because the city
was rapidly increasing in population. The person leasing
showed the writer his figures, by which after deducting for
insurance and repairs he had the part of the building he occu-
pied rent free, and would receive sufficient on the remainder

436 REMEDIES.

to pay his 600 ground rent and also for the erection of the
building in eight years. Allowing a certain percentage for
times when rent might not be paid, he made his calculation
of having a free use of one portion and paying the improve-
ments in ten years at least, leaving him the proceeds of the
second tea years for profit. These figures give some idea of
the value of improvements. On what plea then can the mere
improver of land appropriate the "unearned increment."
Improvements, therefore, justly give no title to laud. The
maker places them on it at his own risk and must be paid
for them only out of the increased product caused by them.
This drives us back fora right to tax land, an annual continu-
ous rent, lo the right one man has to sell the " natural and
indestructible powers of the soil."

It has been urged as the strongest argument for a chattel
title to land, and for perpetual ownership by one family, that
under a less certain tenure valuable improvements will not be
made. The evidence submitted proves this to be a fallacy.
Some of the farms longest occupied in the United States are
far from indicating continuous improvement of the highest
order, while, on the other hand, a mere chattel holding by
unoccupying owners has done more to retard improvement
throughout the country than anything else. It is equally true
that occupying tenures, leases, or rights covering one or a few
years, offer no inducements to make the best improvements,
and will not secure pay for them, while yearly tenancy, me-
tayage, or short leases, only tend to waste the natural powers
of the soil. A law securing family holding, for occupancy
and use, if framed carefully so as not to interfere with the
rights of others, might be the best. The small farm holdings
in France indicate a high order of improvement, as concerns
productive tillage and home comforts. Some little is due, and
as much as justice would warrant should be given to the affec-
tion a family may have for home. It is the inevitable, and
not unfortunate condition of the race that a large family on

A FAMILY HOMESTEAD. 437

reaching manhood and womanhood branches out from the
domestic roof. The pride of maintaining the old family home-
stead in one of the sons is apt to lead to injustice to his breth-
ren and sisters, or pecuniary embarrassment to him. This
family attachment to places is not very strong in our country,
and however much we may respect the sentiment should never
be permitted to become a monopoly usurping more than the
natural share of a family, thus preventing others from having
a home. To secure the best improvements there must be
adequate security that they will be repaid at what they are
fairly worth. Cultivating owners of small farms may possess
the best improvements and processes, but under such a system
we need not expect, and should not deplore, the absence of
aristocratic palaces, patrician lawns and deer parks, or mag-
nificence sustained by lordly revenues.

It will be asserted that in the United States the land was
bought and paid for, and that government fairly conveyed it
to the individual owners "forever." Admit the lack of
wisdom in the transaction. Admit that it was a usurpation
of power for the men of one generation to forestall or rob the
men of the next generation. Admit the plea that the price
was altogether inadequate, and that the public have a right to
go into court and claim exemption from the oppressive bur-
dens of this agreement on the ground of " want of consider-
ation." The question remains, how far have these transactions
embarrassed a just settlement between man and man? In
Europe the case is somewhat different. There the aristocratic
owners got possession by violence and fraud. They did not
get what they call their land by consent of the legitimate
owners, the people, at any time. They endeavor to fortify
their position by the plea that some of the land has gone into
the hands of innocent purchasers, and that, therefore, the
whole system should be still longer tolerated ; they forget
that the purchaser could buy nothing but what a robber had
to sell.

438 REMEDIES.

In the United States it will be said that the matter stands
on a different footing. Let us examine this. The bulk of
the land was sold for about $1.25 per acre. A great deal of
it has bee a granted in homesteads on the payment of trifling
fees. For forty years, or since the passage of the preemption
law it has been sold chiefly for occupation and actual settle-
ment. This was part of the contract and anything else was
an evasion of the nominal terms. When sold for one dollar
and a quarter per acre the government did not pretend to
part with it for what it was intrinsically worth. That was
really a mere fee to pay for the extinguishment of the Indian
occupancy right, for surveying it, for protecting it from
savages by the United States troops, and for making and
keeping records.

Land in its original state, as conveyed by the United
States in new states and territories was comparatively value-
less. Its only value at first was to use and cultivate. Its
speculative value grew out of the increased population of the
country. It might be worth only ten cents an acre when
there were a few thousand people in a state or territory, and
worth one hundred dollars an acre when there were one or
two millions. The difference is what John Stuart Mill calls
"unearned increment' 7 and he said the national legislature
would be justified in appropriating it for the benefit of the
whole people who created it. Again, it may be not unfairly
argued that the government turned it into the hands of indi-
viduals to cultivate on payment of $1.25 per acre at a time,
and under circumstances so far as the body politic was con-
cerned, when there was still an abundance of land for every
other man to take. It was not a monopoly under these
circumstances. In many states such conditions have passed
away, and in all of them they will soon pass away, and this
privilege granted for a trifle may, and is certain to be an
oppressive monopoly. It is an engine daily becoming more
destructive to the public interests. We are then justified

LANDHOLDING BY CAPITALISTS. 439

in assuming that the " eminent domain " in all these lands is
in the people of these United States, that it was bought
subject to that power ? That it was bought subject to the
right of the people to tax it as they pleased? That it was
bought subject to the right of the people to make such dispo-
sition of all or any portion of it, as the public interests or
safety demanded? That it was bought subject to the provi-
sion that the people had the right to enact laws of inheritance
that would work a "fair distribution" of it, and that, in law
and equity, the interests of the great body politic transcend
now and always, the private rights of the individual ?

There is another, a more intricate, and a graver question.
We recognize two kinds of accumulated property, " real "
and " personal," the former land, the earth's surface, the latter
articles of manufactured or produced property and money.
Should accumulated money ever be permitted an investment
in land ? or an investment in land a man does not buy to
cultivate, but from which he and his heirs expect to derive a
perpetual revenue? Granting this power in our form of
civilization has been a fatal mistake. In the first place,
giving such a privileged monopoly adds to the profits of
accumulated capital, raises the rate of interest, weakens the
resources of the poor laborer, and extends the power and in-^
fluence of money. When, in addition, capital is permitted
to appropriate the " unearned increment/' or increased value
caused by population and the exclusive privileges of this sys-
tem, we allow it to double, quadruple or multiply itself ten-
fold out of the wealth produced by labor, thus " working a
false distribution of products." The remedy for this is to
prohibit forever any man from buying or exchanging land,
except for purposes of actual cultivation, the tenure insepara-
ble from actual cultivation by the owner or holder. By thus
preventing accumulated money from placing perpetual liens
on industry, and its owners not only from taxing their own
generation, but posterity, to support a non-producing class,

440 REMEDIES.

living on rent, we reduce the inordinate gains of accumulated
money, and drive it into more useful fields of actual produc-
tion.

Mr. Henry George says : "I do not propose to purchase or
to confiscate private property in land. The first would be
unjust, the second needless. Let the individuals who now
hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they
are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it
their land. Let them buy and sell and bequeath and devise it.
We may safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel.
It is not necessary to confiscate land, it is only necessary to con-
fiscate rent." * He adds : " By leaving to landowners a per-
centage of rent, which would probably be much less than the
cost and loss involved in attempting to rent lands through
state agency, and by making use of their existing machinery,
we may, without jar or shock, assert the common right to
land by taking rent for public uses." f In India, the British
government has been trying for three quarters of a century
to make the rent or tribute-taking Zemindars into landlords.
Mr. George proposes to make the landlords of this country
into Zemindars. We will quote him a little farther : " We
already take some rent on taxation. We have only to make
some changes in our modes of taxation to take it all."
" What I, therefore, propose as the simple yet sovereign rem-
edy, which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital,
extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remunerating em-
ployment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human
powers, lessen crime, elevate morals, and taste, and intelli-
gence, purify government, and carry civilization to yet nobler
heights, is to appropriate rent by taxation" J

We do not think it would be candid or just to Mr. George
to charge him with any insincerity or evasion. To write

* Progress and Poverty, Lovell edition, page 292.
J Ibid.

APPROPRIATING RENT BY TAXATION. 441

about taking the " kernel/ 7 and leaving the landowners " the
shell/' and in the same breath leaving the landowners in
possession, trenches on the facetious. In order to " appro-
priate the rent by taxation/' it would be necessary to enact a
law which would prevent the landowner from taking another
rent in addition to the one paid to the state. Or to secure the
arrangement he proposes of leaving the landowners a per-
centage of the rent for leasing and looking after the lands, it
would be necessary to prevent him by law from taking more
than a fixed per cent. Otherwise the owner would simply add
the taxes to the rent, and thus either increase the price of pro-
ducts or diminish the wages of laborers.

Taxation of land is very common ; indeed, universal in this
country. In some states what we call " real property " pays
the great bulk of the taxes. The writer does not think that
any one ever heard of heavy taxation reducing rents. On the
contrary we have numerous examples of tenants who pay rents
in cities complaining of excessive municipal taxation because
it raised their rents. Mr. George, however, is perfectly right,
in this/that the power of the state to tax lands and the policy
of taxing them heavily may be the means of preventing non-
resident landowning and putting an end to land monopoly.
In the power of taxation we find the necessary lever for
bringing about a change in land tenure in this country. That
is doubtless what Mr. George means ; but to carry out his sys-
tem he must see that the tax falls on rent not land. If the
nominal landowner is to be a leasing and collecting agent let
him receive what landlords pay their agents now, five per cent,
of the rent, and let the rent tax be ninety-five per cent, of it.
The law, moreover, would have to be framed with very great
care or the world would soon witness an astounding decline
of rents and increase of "bonuses" to the agent landowner.
A more perfect remedy would be a heavy tax on landowners
who do not cultivate the soil and an equal burden placed
upon landlords. To prevent great landowners from extending

442 REMEDIES.

the system of large farms tilled by wage workers or laborers
such farms should also be taxed heavily, and the sizes of
farms that could be held by one person diminished from time
to time, thus securing small holdings. Laws to prevent the
creation or extension of great farms ought to be enacted
at once. It should be the fixed policy of the people of
the United States to have no landlord over the occu-
pying cultivator of the soil unless that landlord is the state.
The liberty, independence and happiness of our agricultural
yeomanry cannot be preserved unless this is done. Limited
tenure to actual cultivators is best, but if title to land be insisted
on, at the death of every land owner the law should compel
the land to be divided. The ambition and covetousness
of the human heart will always tend to the accumulation
of land in the hands of an active individual, and there must
be some counterpoise or check to the aggregating process.
This can be most successfully done by compulsory laws of
inheritance. A heavy tax on all shares of inherited land in
excess of say one hundred and sixty acres, to be gradually
reduced, when necessary, to eighty acres, forty acres, twenty
acres, or even five. Make laud holding unprofitable whenever
lands are held in larger amounts than can be cultivated by
actual occupying laboring farmers, or when they are held in
greater amounts than would furnish a sufficient number of
farms for all persons who wish to cultivate the soil. Let it be
a settled purpose that in these United States landlordism
shall be rendered so unprofitable that it will cease. If it is
to be our desire to put the land in the hands of small holders,
a heavy tax on such holders would be extremely impolitic.
It would be a mere tax on bread and meat.

Such a course might reduce the nominal price of land, but
that would be no misfortune. The destruction of speculative
land values would not make the country any poorer. The
land would produce just as much afterward as before.
As has been previously stated, millions of dollars in sup-

ALLODIAL TENURE. 443

posed slave property were on the tax roll, but were taken
from it before the close of the late war. In spite of these
hundreds of millions of property thus apparently lost by
the action of government, nothing was really destroyed.
It merely swept away a vicious institution, which, as Mr. At-
kinson would say, " worked a false distribution of wealth and
of product." If all the speculative value was swept away
from land, the country would be just as rich, and its wealth
w r ould be more justly distributed. If all the fraudulent and
fictitious stocks, bonds and mortgages of companies and cor-
porations could be destroyed by one legislative act, and
nothing left save the actual cash paid in and honestly ex-
pended, there would be no destruction of property. So far
from being poorer, the country would be a great deal better off.
We have, at this time, to consider, not only what would be
the wisest and best system of land tenure for these United
States, but what is the most feasible way of reaching such a
result. If we had a new government to construct and a
virgin soil to dispose of, untrammeled by the manufactured
privileges of landowners, the wisest foundation would be the
doctrine that the surface of the earth belonged to all the peo-
ple, and that one generation could place no liens upon it
to the prejudice of the next. Allodial or family tenure is
safer than individual chattel tenure. All the details in regard
to length of leases and mode of making or compensating
for improvements should be managed by the people of each
organized township. Free facility ought to be given for ex-
change of occupation, as a necessary condition of independence,
and any man should be able to cultivate his share of the soil
when he desired to do so. Whatever advantages accrued
from land tenure ought to be so distributed that each citizen,
whatever might be his occupation, would get the benefit of
them. There should always be a spot of earth on which
every man born in this world could build his home, however
humble. If in the crush of increasing population all else

444 REMEDIES.

was used for raising bread, public parks and even the pleasure
grounds of the rich should be taken to furnish a foundation
for these homes. No man ought to be able to obtain a living
by selling the " natural and indestructible powers of the soil,"
or foist himself as a non-producing member on society, under
the special plea that somebody had sold him the privilege of
collecting rent.

While we recognize the justness of these general principles
the practical question is how best to reach such an end, when
a large portion of the country has been disposed of as a chattel,
under law enacted by the representatives of the people. The
power to suddenly destroy all the individual privileges in
land the people in their sovereign capacity undoubtedly
possess, and if it was a necessity for the preservation of the
state, or the preservation of the people, they would be justified
in exercising it. It was once tenaciously held, even by
enemies of the system, that the government, having recognized
property in slaves, could not abolish it without fully indem-
nifying the owners. Slavery was abolished and he would be
a bold man who would propose to create another debt to
compensate the owners. We do not say that a man forfeits
his right to hold another man as a slave because he did not
properly buy him, or honestly pay for him, but we object to
the transaction because a man is something he should not buy.
The United States was freed from the burden of slavery as a
war measure. The private ownership of lands will be claimed
as a vested right and it is a question how far the government
has been complicated by its transactions. In Great Britain,
for example, the aristocratic landowners obtained what they
call their title merely by conspiracy and violence, and have
for many years been enriched by it. To create a great debt as
a burden on the people, to buy their title, would merely be to
transfer the burden from one shoulder to the other. In our
country chattel title to land has the color of law and may
claim the sacreducss of a bargain, but its owner cannot be said

TITLE THROUGH CULTIVATION AND OCCUPANCY. 445

to have an equitable title to the " unearned increment " caused
by population, or the privilege to hold land without cultivat-
ing it,

It may be taken for granted that the people of these United
States are not going to make another great debt in order to
get money to buy back all the land, and then proceed to
rectify the mistake by which individual claims and individual
monopolies were created. A proposition to take possession
of the land, and confiscate individual titles, in the present
condition of affairs, is not likely to be popular. Practical
remedies lie in another direction. It would, however, be
entirely proper and consistent to provide by law that lands
in this republic should only be sold to occupying culti-
vators, and this to include, not only the public lands of the
United States, but all lands. Cultivation and occupancy
by the holder should be one of the conditions of tenure. In
order to reduce large farms to small ones, and in this way make
every cultivator a landholder, one of two modes could be
adopted : The law might limit the acreage to be held by any one
person, the other plan would probably be more easily accom-
plished and lead to less confusion. Fix a small minimum
acreage which would be but lightly taxed, or, better still, not
taxed at all, and then let taxation increase as the scale went
up, until the large landowners would find it unprofitable to
hold land and be forced to sell. Whether the land was thus
held in small farms by assignments for a period of years, or
on a tenure or title that was exchangeable, the result would be
that those who wished to cultivate the soil could do so on easy
terms, without being burdened with an overwhelming debt,
and placing themselves in the power of capital. Either sys-
tem would multiply the opportunities, increase the earnings
and cheapen the food of the working classes.

In the July number of the North American Review, 1885,
there is a printed discussion between Cyrus Field and Henry
George, from which we quote :
38

446 REMEDIES.

Mr. Field : " You propose for the present no change what-
ever in anything, except that the amount now raised by all
methods of taxation should be imposed on real estate con-
sidered as vacant ? "

Mr. George : " For a beginning, yes."

Mr. Field : " Well, what would you propose for the ending
of such a scheme ? "

Mr. George : "The taking of the full annual value of land
for the benefit of the whole people. I hold that the land
belongs equally to all, and that land values arise from the
presence of all."

In the same discussion Mr. George states that he would
not tax improvements, as that would be a tax on industry.
The tax should be on the intrinsic value of land, that value
being created by the population which makes this demand
upon it. He holds that " in the complex civilization we have
now attained, it would be impossible to secure equality by
giving to each a separate piece of land, or to maintain that
equality, even if once secured ; but by treating all land as the
property of the whole people we would make the whole people
the landlords." Mr. Field then asks if it is his purpose that
" the rate of taxation should equal the rate of annual rental,
and that the proceeds of the tax should be applied, not only
to the purposes of government, but to any other purposes that
the legislature from time to time may think desirable, even to
dividing them among the people at so much a head." In
reply to this question Mr. George answers, " That is substan-
tially correct." In a note to the writer, Mr. George says :
"The conversation was correctly reported, and, as far as it
goes, represents my views."

It is very evident that the interview quoted can only be
taken as indicating the jTinciples involved. It would be
unfair to criticize a general plan by assailing some of the
details. While, therefore, we cannot help considering details,
we must accord to Mr. George the fullest credit for his sugges-

RENT OR REVENUE A BREAD TAX. 447

tions as to taxation being one of the means, or, if he will, the
chief means of remedying the defects arising from the mistake
of giving a permanent monopoly of the land to a few indi-
viduals. The land, after all, as we have attempted to show,
belongs to the whole people under the theory of eminent
domain. All tenure under it is subordinate to that. This
may be asserted in the broadest sense, and is always asserted
in taxing it, and there is no limit to the authority of the state
to tax. Whether the natural resources of land should bear
all the tax is another question. Evidently Mr. George means
that since all have a right to land, and yet as all do not desire
to occupy land, therefore, taking the rent in tax and applying
it to general purposes would be a simple and fair way of dis-
tributing it. This plan of Mr. George's necessarily involves
taking the value of the land, which is what it will produce,
from the present holders, and applying it in such a way as to
equally distribute its benefits. Rent is to pay all public bur-
dens. If that were done the rent tax would be merely an
impost on production. Of course it will be said that where
rent is paid now it creates such a tax on bread for private
emolument ; and so it does, and this is one of the most serious
objections to it.

To give the city laborer a bonus from the rent of laud and
have that amount added to the price of his bread would hardly
do. Any tax on land is necessarily a tax on bread. The
policy we have suggested is to throw the land in small farms
into the hands of cultivating holders, so that every agricul-
tural laborer can become a holder. If this was accomplished
it would be a grave question whether a heavy land tax would
be wise. Land taxation, as a remedial measure against capi-
talist landlords, non-occupying holders, or holders of large
farms, would be a wise measure. Where there exists a great
class of cultivating owners, with small farms, who have none
of these heavy burdens to pay, or but light burdens, the
speculating holders could not enter into competition with

448 REMEDIES.

them, and would not be able to charge the tax or rent levied
by the government to the cost of production. In such a case
this holding of land by capitalists and non-occupying land-
lords would cease to be profitable and the price of food be
thus lessened. The reader will at once see the necessity of
preventing an additional tax or rent from increasing the
price of food. The people are deeply interested in being able
to buy cheap food ; that is, as cheap as is consistent with pay-
ing good wages to agricultural laborers. It is well enough
to tax the interest that individual monopolists have in land,
but it would be a doubtful policy to collect a rent which might
add to the cost of producing bread and meat, even if the
proceeds were applied to the support of government or dis-
tributed per capita to all the men and women of the country.
Another objection is that by placing all public burdens on
rent the rich men and millionaires in other business, would be
tax free, and taxation would finally be a mere bread tax which
the poor would have to pay equally with the rich.

Connected with the laud question is the question of timber.
The country of the United States has been largely denuded
of its forests. Owners of land wasted it unnecessarily.
Cutting timber on " Congress land " was at one time uni-
versal. Neither the statute nor the moral law seemed to lie
against stealing timber. An effort has been made of late
years to check the practice, but does not appear to have been
very successful. Not only on the public lands, but on all
lands a fair amount of the domain should be in forest. This
is indispensable, as the wholesale and indiscriminate cutting of
our forests is disastrous as affecting rainfalls, the volume of
rivers, the crops and public health. Measures for the preser-
vation of public timber are demanded, and should be enacted
at once to compel planting of certain areas in new timber as
the old timber is removed : to have the timbered areas of
public land controlled by law, and held by public ownership.

The right to graze on the public domain free of charge is

NO MONOPOLY OF MINERALS. 449

one of the individual rights very freely asserted. If one or
two sections had been reserved as commons in each township,
where every man could graze his cow, and so held until
denser population demanded other uses for it, it would in
many respects have been a fortunate circumstance. The graz-
ing lands, or, rather, lands only fit for grazing, are large tracts
remote from settlement. Pasturage, especially in such regions,
requires that the land be so divided as to have water fronts.
Pasturage without water is worthless and the water must be
so convenient that the cattle will not be kept poor by hours
of driving to it each day. Any temporary lease of such lands
would have to be made with these necessities in view. No title
to these lauds should be permitted to pass. Neither should they
be leased in large tracts so that a few great monopolists could
control our beef interests. Grazing tracts should not be large,
but large enough to graze a herd from the care of which a
family could derive a maintenance. The chief advantage of
making these temporary grazing leases would be to utilize the
lauds in the public interest and reserve them for the period
when wiser views on the land question will prevail. They
ought to be withdrawn from sale at once.

No title or tenure to land should be held to convey mineral.
Not only what are called the precious minerals, but coal, iron,
petroleum or salt. No monopoly in either of these should
ever be permitted. So far as mines or beds have been already
opened and worked the remedies should be instituted in a
careful way, recognizing only certain rights in the holders
by way of indemnification, but slowly working to the logical
end, the assertion of the rights of all the people. A law
should at once be enacted to cover all cases of mines of any
kind, or oil wells not opened and worked. These should be
the property of the state. A royalty sufficient to assert and
cover the public right should be exacted, and thus open the
door to every man, rich and poor, who wished to develop
them ; this law should apply not only to public mineral lands

450 REMEDIES.

but to all mineral lands, and the rights granted to prospectors
ought to be carefully guarded to prevent monopoly. It would
really be neither breach of faith nor breach of public obliga-
tion to assert the public ownership of minerals. All laws for
the sale of mineral lands should be repealed. In point of fact
the larger portion of public lands containing mineral, that
have been sold, have been obtained by an evasion of the letter
or spirit of the law.

The United States ought certainly to regulate the tenure of
the railroad grants that have not yet passed from under the
hands of the government. So far as the roads that received
subsidies of bonds are concerned, it might be proper to resume
the lands in lieu of the debt. At the time these roads thought
they would be compelled to pay taxes on such lands, some of
them proposed a similar measure, and as the public money
really built many of these roads there would be neither injus-
tice nor inconsistency in doing this, especially as the railroads
for many years have failed to claim title. No lands should be
deeded hereafter to any company. Where they may have
been faithfully earned according to the terms of the agreement
some adjustment should be made, but this open door to unre-
stricted speculation in lands should be closed immediately.

These suggestions touching the yet undisposed of public
lands are made with a design of calling popular attention
to the necessity of preventing another acre of them from going
into the hands of capitalist speculators. The interest of land
speculation is a very potent one, and will resist all attempts to
curtail its emoluments. If arrested at this point the various
necessary land reforms will be rendered much easier. In most
of the Eastern and Central states, where the land has largely
been monopolized, the landed interest already threatens to gov-
ern the country. Attempts to increase land tax have often been
met by the defeat of the county or state officers who made
them. One of the chief reasons why a landed aristocracy and
great landed interests should not be permitted to grow stronger

COMMUNAL SOCIETIES. 451

is that such a power will inevitably weaken and destroy a
government of the people.

The evils of land monopoly have been discerned by think-
ing men at different periods of our history. Various remedies
have been proposed for the individual monopolization of land.
Among the experiments attempted were the formation of com-
munistic societies. In many of them there has been a com-
mingling of socialistic teachings with communal landholding.
Not only the land but the interests of all industries were to
be held in common. Some of the communistic societies have
been to a large degree religious organizations. Attention was
not only paid to industrial methods, but to the propagation
of new moral and religious dogmas. Societies have been
formed to propagate peculiar views as to marriage and all
social relations, and these combinations of men and women
have been of all kinds Shakers, Amauist, Rappist, Oneida
communists, Icarians, New Harmony settlers, and numberless
others, down to Brook Farm.

The most wonderful of these organizations is the Mormon.
They cannot correctly be called Socialists. They are in some
degree land communists, as they endeavor to establish town
communities. Their peculiar religious views, and, above all,
their attempt to introduce polygamy into the United States,
has largely given them the notoriety they enjoy, and has
caused their other peculiarities to be overlooked. Driven
from Nauvoo and from Missouri by violence, they finally
took root in the great basin lying between the Rocky Moun-
tains and the Sierra Nevadas. When they settled at Salt
Lake, organization and concentration was a necessity. Agri-
culture without irrigation was impossible, and irrigation
without combination equally impossible. They did not con-
fine themselves to Salt Lake. Colonies were planted in all
the Western territories. In Southern Utah, Arizona, and
Western New Mexico, there is scarcely a valley with water
that they have not traversed, and their colonies may be found

452 REMEDIES.

everywhere. Along the Little Colorado they constitute the
greater part of the population. The streams are dammed by
the joint exertion of the colony. A large field of irrigated
land is enclosed, in which each family has its portion of cul-
tivated land. Great corrals are built for the stock, which is
cared for in a common herd. The people live in villages.
Their houses do not materially differ from those of other
American settlers. The results of industry constitute indi-
vidual property, and they are neither socialistic nor commu-
nistic, so far as that goes. They have a great deal of diffi-
culty in reconciling their system with the land laws of the
United States, but land speculation does not thrive among
them in their new colonies. The writer has visited many of
their villages, and found the people industrious, thrifty, and in
comparatively comfortable circumstances for a new, wild
country. Their polygamous practices have j ustly exposed them
to the indignation of Christian people. Their hierarchy is
inclined to be aristocratic, and assumes too many of the
powers of government to be tolerated by Americans. If the
settlements they have made were stripped of the last vestige
of polygamy and the power of their church reduced to the
proportions of other religious bodies, their improvements and
industries in that arid region would be an interesting study.

Robert Owen's colonies were not societies of mere land re-
formers, but organizations of socialistic and communistic life.
Individualism was sunk in the community. It was an at-
tempt, not so much to give the individual fair play, as to
merge the man in the group. These experiments failed.
Many others grew up and perished like them. After the
French revolution of 1848, Etienne Cabot, who had taken an
active part in it, contemplated the founding of a colony on
the idea of an equality of property. Taxation was to be
removed from all articles of necessity, and a graduated in-
come tax to supply all public wants. A colony was started
in Texas under a grant to give the half of every alternate sec-

ICAEIA. 453

tion of a certain locality for each settler, leaving the remainder
to be sold by the state.* In a new country, wild and unde-
veloped, the colony weak and the population round it
unsympathetic, its failure was a foregone conclusion. The
colonists then rented the deserted Mormon town at Nauvoo.
There they reorganized, but in a few years discord arose as to
its management, a fate that seems to follow any communistic
society. Another " Icaria " was founded in Iowa. For a
time it was successful, and accumulated some property, but it
possessed too many active thinkers to proceed permanently in
harmony. The sacredness of the marriage tie was affirmed,
but the children were under the care of the association. The
social capital was common and indivisible. Article 18 of the
constitution or contract may be quoted in full : " The princi-
pal object of this association in conducting the affairs described
and considered in these articles being that of creating a fund
which shall provide for the needs and comforts of the young,
the old, the sick and the infirm, no dividend shall be paid to
any member ; but every accumulation of wealth shall be
added to the common fund." f A member on withdrawing
received $100 from this common fund, and the same amount
was paid in some cases of expulsion. After the society had
been organized an equal sum was required on admission. In
many respects these social organizations resembled the House
Communities of the Sclavonic races ; only that the latter were
often of one family stock.

The social and communistic organizations in the United
States are interesting not only as experiments, but as evi-
dences that those who felt the defects of the present forms
of society were seeking a remedy. They were revolts
against the extreme doctrine of selfishness and individu-
alism, and although they did not prove to be practical ones,
they still indicated the existing causes of dissatisfaction. The

* Icaria, page 31 f Ibid., page 193.

454 REMEDIES.

North American Phalanx, of which Horace Greeley was vice
president, was founded on the ideas of Fourier, and many
local phalanxes were formed, none of them attaining practical
or permanent success. The American public, outside of the
persons connected with these organizations, but little under-
stood them. Mormon ism and the Oneida Perfectionists had
made people suspicious of all new social combinations. In
some cases these experimental communities were openly per-
secuted, but as a usual thing they had liberty to test their
"experiment" under a general shade of suspicion. This
prejudice is still used dexterously as a weapon against all
new political ideas. Mr. Henry George, who is certainly
neither socialistic nor communistic, has been pronounced to be
both, by those who found it difficult to answer his arguments.
Mr. Hyndrnan and Mr. Wallace have also, been called
" communists " and " socialists," and even Mr. Chamberlain,
a member of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet, in making a speech in
favor of a reform of the land system, and an increase of
power for the people, was charged with communistic doctrine
by the opposition papers. The epithets, "demagogue/' "agra-
rian," "communist," are hurled at any man who advances
new ideas, and, like the charge of witchcraft a century or two
ago, only require vehemence, persistence and malice to give
them force. Those who use them appeal to a somewhat strong
element in society, intrenched ignorance. It is well to re-
member people who oppose large landed interests, and the
profits of land speculation, encounter an opposition at once
unscrupulous and formidable. It is also unhappily true that
a strong gambling spirit has taken deep root with many of
our people. By this is meant not ordinary gambling, but the
spirit which deals in chances, and uncertain speculations. It
arises from the disposition which makes haste to be rich.
The avenues of industry and thrift are despised, and the sins
of overreaching and commercial duplicity not sufficiently held
up to reprobation.

INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL DUTY. 455

I have referred to experiments, such as Icaria, chiefly to
exhibit the conflicting ideas about social organization. On the
one hand individualism with its extreme assumptions, on the
other society as entirely submerging the individual. The
faults in our form of social life do not arise from giving the
individual full play in a field of exertion, but in allowing the
individual too unlimited control over what affects others as
well as himself. The civilization we are founding is based on
the most absolute assertion of the independence of the indi-
vidual. Our men brook no restraint. The family tie sits
loosely, and the social tie if not overlooked altogether is con-
sidered merely as a means of amusement or gratification. To
preserve the individual independence in a legitimate field of
activity, repress its unjust and avaricious desires, and make it
conform to the interests of all is the golden mean to be sought.
In a community like Icaria men are supposed to be equally
benevolent, working unselfishly for the common good. It is
a noble conception, but, unhappily, all are not benevolent, all
are not unselfish, all are not even honest. The individual,
untrammeled by the views or whims of others, can best carve
out his own fortune. It is this intense individualism that
is the keystone in the arch of American society. It has
its eminent advantages and marks the field of progress with
monuments of human endurance and skill. It errs fatally
when this individualism assumes to be supreme. There is
a field for the individual and a field for the action of society.
There is property for the individual, and wealth in the bound-
less stores of nature that is, and can only be, the property of
all men. It is with the duties as well as the privileges of the
individual we have to do. Let the individual work for his
advancement, but there must be a perfect equity in all his
transactions. The individual cannot be allowed a monopoly
of any of the rights of nature. One family is no better than
another family, one generation no better than another genera-
tion. When family ties are weak, where there is no moral or

456 REMEDIES.

religious home instruction, where each member has not a
tender solicitude for the welfare of others, then we may expect
selfish adventurers to be let loose upon society. A father
who has a child he loves, has a tender bond to bind him to
the interests of society. Man owes his fellow man more than
" civility." The men who framed this government, and who
fought for years in its defense, uttered the doctrine, "We
hold this truth to be self-evident that God created all men
equal." It was the tears and prayers, agitation and perse-
verance of good men and women, that abolished American
slavery, and made its crimes odious. It was such men as
Howard who introduced prison reform. Able and self-sacri-
ficing men have often arisen who have espoused the cause
of the down trodden and the weak. The interests of man-
kind are indissolubly woven together.

Assuming an equitable system of laud tenure to be
possible, what are the remedies that will secure better pay for
wage workers ? How shall those who have been in the habit
of selling their labor for money get a higher price for it ? We
have seen that the colossal fortunes, now threatening society
with their overshadowing influence, have been chiefly made
from the toil of artisans and laborers who have been kept in
humble circumstances and comparative poverty. When we
say there must be a fairer distribution of the proceeds of labor,
the question occurs, Can it be brought about ? It is evident
that what modern political economists call a frce competition"
will not secure it. Capital has had the advantage, and has
profited by it to obtain more than its share. Accumulated
and organized capital has used its resources to speculate on the
necessities of poor wage workers. To counterbalance this,
labor must be thoroughly and intelligently organized. Each
craft should be a unit. It has been said that manufacture and
trade can only be carried on to the extent that capital is fur-
nished to employ the workmen. Threats have been made that
capital will withdraw from the alliance with labor if organized

CORPORATE AND NATIONAL DEBTS. 457

efforts are made largely to interfere with its profits. That is
simply absurd. When capital is reduced to the necessity of
taking two, or even one per cent., or being hid away uselessly
in a stocking ; it will take two, or even one per cent. With
thorough intelligent organization labor is more potent than
capital. One necessary step is to strip capital of all illegitimate
sources of profitable investment, and chief among these is
investment in land. The next would be to extinguish or
change the character of public debts. No public debt ought
to be permitted to extend beyond the generation that con-
tracted it. Rulers have been in the habit of making too
heavy drafts on posterity. Instead of the theory that public
debts are a blessing, the doctrine must be maintained that
perpetual debts are a curse. State, county or municipal debt
should never be permitted to exceed a certain percentage on
property and be payable in a limited period. All the enormous
machinery of public debt is only an instrument for draining
incomes from the work of laborers, with the additional draw-
back that raises the rate of interest and swells the inor-
dinate profits of capital. Unfortunately, the debts of great
corporations and companies have almost the same effect, since
the interest and principal are taken from the productive
industry of the country, and the managers have really the
power to add to the burdens of the people. When the corpo-
rations use the borrowed money with fidelity and economy in
transportation lines, the objection to them is not so great, but
when large portions of it go to swell private fortunes, it
inflicts degradation as well as injury upon the workingman.
There are no exactions so burdensome, and, no tyranny so
remorseless as an inflated and dishonest credit system.

Public debts should be kept at the minimum, and never'
permitted to be indefinitely extended to burden one generation
with the extravagance, wickedness or maintenance of another.
It may sneeringly be said that this is impossible. Our war
of the rebellion was one of the most expensive on record*
39

458 REMEDIES.

That debt is largely paid, and need not be extended beyond
the generation that created it.

So far as debt may be necessary, it should be our sedulous
desire to popularize our loans. It is better to borrow one
dollar each from a million of people than a million dollars
from one man. It is the better public policy, in placing a
loan, to raise it from the dollar, the quarter, or even ten cent
subscriptions of the people, than to appeal to a syndicate of
bankers and millionaires. With a proper land system, and
better security for the rights of labor, the government could
borrow all it would ever properly need from the working
people of these United States, as the French government does
from the masses of her people. In that event it would be
wise to encourage their moderate savings, and by such a safe
institution as a postal savings bank, take up in small sums all
the government needed to borrow. Each account should be
limited, and if the certificates were made exchangeable, com-
paratively poor people would thus be enabled to invest small
sums, knowing that when they were compelled to use the
money it would be convertible. Giving it this quality could
certainly be no worse than the system on which the national
banks are based, which have their interest bearing bonds securely
stored, and national bank notes issued to them for circulation.
By the course here suggested the national bank notes would
soon be superseded by these postal certificates. Above all we
neither need nor want a large standing army to create a debt.
Citizen soldiery are the safe and legitimate defenders of a
republic.

One mode of helping wage workers would be by opening to
them more freely other channels of enterprise and industry.
Under a proper land system, with the country cut up into
small farms of five, ten or twenty acres, such farms being pur-
chasable or held only by actual cultivators a comparatively easy
transition from one business to another could be had in case
of necessity. When all mineral, coal, salt or petroleum belong

ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. 459

to the whole people, and can only be worked on terms equal
and fair to each individual, other fields of enterprise will
thus open. If the la\vs were modified and perfected so that
every unfair bargain, contract or transaction could be examined
and set aside there would be a further security for poor
laborers. All gambling, stock-jobbing or business conducted on
the doctrines of chance or misrepresentation should be abolished.
Law has made rapid progress in the past ten years ; it must
reach up to this standard. Precedents are on the statute book
and human genius can compass the necessary results.

After all, the best help workmen can get must come from
themselves. Capital is organized, labor must be completely
organized. The laborers are the great majority and they by
wisdom and determination can, under our form of govern-
ment, have laws framed to secure and defend their rights.
They can compel laws to be enacted in their interests, and
make the instruments of justice the servants of the people,
instead of the servants of rich corporations. It is true that
it is always easier to discard a bad and unfaithful public
servant than to get a good one, still, with perseverance it can
be done. Every branch of labor should have complete organi-
zations ; these should be perfectly lawful in all their acts.
Violence, terrorism, assassination, all these things are suicide
to the interests of the laboring man. They are not needed.
They are merely the wrathful outbursts of impotence. It has
been said that strikes are a bad remedy ; that they are waste-
ful and tend to lawlessness. People forget that employers have
their strikes. Every time an employer reduces wages or in-
creases the hours of service, or demands more work he strikes
for higher profits. He uses the power of capital to coerce
labor. In doing this he violates the most sacred laws of
society. Capitalists have no right to say that labor shall not
be organized. Bad though strikes may be, perhaps they are
the only remedy. They will end when law enables arbitra-
tion to settle difficulties between capital and organized labor.

460 REMEDIES.

The workman is not strong enough to stand alone. Arbitra-
tion to have sufficient force to prevent revolution, must have
law behind it, giving it power to enforce a fair share of pro-
ducts to working men.

Organized labor must control labor, instead of labor being
controlled by accumulated wealth. How can this be done.
Are the laborers poor ? very well. Look at the millionaires
of to-day. They were poor not long ago. They did nearly
all their work on credit. Can organized labor, wisely man-
aged, not do the same thing ? If workingmen understand
themselves thoroughly, and by organization make their trade
a power, they can either get fair wages or carry on business
themselves. The public requires that the laborer's work shall
go on. Because there may be a certain need for accumulated
wealth, the owners thereof have been able by organization
into business companies, and by shrewd management, to control
labor. Labor is a far more important factor than capital and
ought to be able to wrest the management of business from its
hands. Accumulated wealth, whether invested in machinery
or other useful shape, should be satisfied with a small interest
profit. Credit can keep any business running and organizations
of workingmen must realize that in order to secure it their
"yea, yea" and "nay, nay" must be as good as their bond. In
associations of workingmen and co-operating societies their
dependence to some extent rests. In these they are liable to
have bad agents. So are railroad companies and stock-jobbing
associations. Workingmen and artisans ought to comprehend
their business sufficiently to know when it is properly conducted.
It should be all carried on under their own eyes, while a capi-
talist often leaves his agent to manage without knowing what
is being done. To confess that organized workingmen have
not the brains and business capacity to manage their own
work is an admission they cannot aiford to make, and one
which is not true as a question of fact.

There have been a good many theories about taxation.

TAXATION AND PUBLIC DUTY. 461

One thing is certain : taxes have never been very popular
with those who have to pay them. We witness to-day the
greatest evasions of tax paying among the richest men of the
country ; men worth ten, twenty, fifty or one hundred millions,
and who by a just public policy should carry taxation at a
quadruple rate, sometimes do not pay taxes on a tenth part of
their property, and none of them pay taxes on all their
wealth. The science of keeping property off the tax roll
does not seem to come into successful operation until the accu-
mulation exceeds one hundred thousand dollars ; this teaches
us that in order to affect and reduce great accumulations of
wealth, a more searching system of taxation must be adopted.
There is with many of our people a deep-seated conviction
against any taxation except for the payment of the simplest
forms of government, honestly administered. The phrase
often used " legitimate expenses of the government " is, how-
ever, rather vague. I hold that it is the legitimate business
of government, local and general, to do or direct everything
that concerns the common good, that cannot be safely left to
individual enterprise, in order to insure perfectly equal dealing
for all. Thus, for instance, it has been a very questionable
policy that permits gas companies to usurp a public func-
tion, in tearing up the streets to furnish gas, and then allow-
ing this monopoly, so created, to unmercifully fleece the people.
Is there any reason why capital invested in a gas, railroad or
insurance company should not have the percentage of its
profits fixed by law? To prevent and correct abuses of man-
agement the percentage of official fees and salaries should also
be fixed. Nor is it in the public interest or policy to permit
the public highways, railroads or others, to be managed or
controlled by monopolies. There are two ways this can be pre-
vented. First the state could build, buy, own and operate
them, or place these establishments completely under law
and the superintendence of public officers. When stocks are
subscribed, let it be done by public open subscription, let all

462 REMEDIES.

contracts be on open competitive bids, and the most rigid
inspections enforced on receiving work. The stockholders
ought not to be allowed to control or abuse the patronage of
the roads in any shape. Let the rates charged be fixed by
law on the most economical basis, and let the dividends on
stock be paid so as to certainly insure a small rate of interest.
Whatever interest on investments was thus payed would at least
be guaranteed and free from the robberies of stock jobbing com-
panies, and would put an end to speculation in stocks. Even
if part of the expenditure this system required had to be sup-
ported from taxes, it would be in the line of the public interests.
Another just function for the public to perform is to take care
of the helpless and to care for them well. The creation of a
regular pauper system, the burden of which rests on the pro-
ductive industry of the country is not desirable. The laborer
in thus contributing largely from the proceeds of his labor, is
incapacitated from saving, and discouraged from securing an
independence of his own, and in old age naturally turns to
the poorhouse he has supported. This pauperizing system
multiplies a class that it is not the public interest to aid in
increasing. On the contrary every encouragement and facility
ought to be given to induce wage workers to save part of their
earnings and so render them to some extent independent of
every vicissitude. When want unavoidably comes, there must
be suitable provision to relieve it, since there ought to be no
actual suffering from such cause in a country possessing
so much wealth. Hospitals, schools and asylums should
be maintained. Temporary lodgings and a few meals to
the destitute ought to be furnished in every town or city;
this benevolence rigidly guarded to prevent idle depend-
ence. All these should be established by the public, and
the tax to support them charged not to active producing
industry, but in all cases to accumulated wealth. Indeed, this
ought to be the fundamental basis of all taxation, and would be
a much needed and wise check to unnecessary accumulations.

NEEDED EXPENDITURES. 463

Taxation should be graded, moreover, that it might not fall
heavily on the needed competence that merely secures inde-
pendence in old age. The mischievous accumulations of
wealth are those devoted to maintaining a second or succeeding
generation as a non-productive class. This the state has a
right to prevent. A wise public policy should take means to
prevent it, and one of the most efficient steps is to place the
public burdens heavily on all such accumulations. There are
other necessary public duties that would require the additional
taxes thus raised. Our systems of sewerage in towns and
cities are all more or less crude and defective. Neither the
poor nor the rich should be exposed to the noxious gases or filth
of our towns and cities. To place our streets, alleys and lots
on a cleanly, healthy basis under the best scientific modes that
have been or can be devised, would be a wise, and is really an
indispensable measure. Closely connected with these should
be a mode of furnishing pure, wholesome water for every
community. From the water our people are now in the habit
of drinking a large amount of the disease and death prevalent
comes, and this can only be remedied by public effort. In
case of a depression in our industries, labor would find employ-
ment on these public works. It is not the opinion of the
writer that depressions in trade would exist if the ideas sug-
gested were carried out. Instead of seeking a market for our
manufactured articles in foreign countries where we have to
compete with pauper labor, we would find buyers at home,
the laboring classes would be enabled to purchase comforts,
and even luxuries, and thus create all the market we want.

It will be seen that there are legitimate fields of expen-
diture that will consume all the taxes likely to be collected,
without having recourse to the very questionable expedient
of per capita distributions. It undoubtedly will be a wiser
plan to aid and encourage the working poor to be independent
and self-supporting than to subsidize them. Let the law
rigidly see that they get their own. There are many other

464 REMEDIES.

ways of aiding workingmeu and building them up, besides
paying an occasional small pittance from a fund outside of
their earnings. From a careful observation of the subject it
is the opinion of the writer that if the people of one of the
most enterprising townships in New England had issued to
them, say fifty dollars a year to every head of a family, for
twenty or thirty years, it would ruin them. It may be as
well to remember that Rome in the expiring days of the
republic had distributions of money and corn.

As a means of producing and maintaining a greater equality
of interests, one of the most potent levers is to be found in a
just system of inheritance. In adopting the ordinance for
the Northwest territory, the Continental Congress, in this its
first opportunity, struck a blow at the law of primogeniture.
As the colonies, and after them the states, claimed the power to
regulate that matter, it was about the only opportunity afforded,
in an aggregate way, to the active founders of the American
republic. It is to be regretted that they did not go farther.
What they did was merely to provide that in cases where
there was no will, the family property should descend equally
to all the heirs, and that the widow should have one-third of
the personal property and life rent in one-third of the real
estate. This was unfair to the wife, the equal member of the
firm, and in cases where there was but little property, left her
weak when she most needed assistance, and virtually broke up
her household. It also contained another vice, which, like
the foregoing, had crept in a limited way into the polity of
Western Europe, that assertion of extreme individualism
which finds its exercise in will making. The attempt to
dispose of property by will is an attempt to dispose of a thing,
after the title is void in the proprietor. This is a subject that
has engaged the attention of the wisest men of ancient and
modern times. There are a few cases where the disposition
of property by will may be wise and permissible, but they
are rare. The power of any man to make a disposition of

WILL MAKING AND INHERITANCE. 465

any portion of the earth's surface after he has ceased to reside
on the earth is a proposition which ought not to be tolerated.
That a man should have power to make distinctions and
classes in society, to create an aristocracy, to make some of his
relatives rich and some poor, is a power, the justice of which
may well be doubted.

It will be observed that under our system of inheritance the
authority over the property of a decedent is divided. The
law makes one disposition, and the man before he dies crys-
tallizes his will on paper and makes another. Some things the
law says he shall not devise. It is, then, competent for law to
say he shall not bequeath anything. There is a growing dispo-
sition in our courts to set aside whimsical and unjust provisions
of will. If a man with very considerable property decided at
death that a great fortune should be left to one child, and a
small amount to others, the general conviction would be that
he had done wrong not only to his children but to society.
In France, at the present day, a father can only will of his
property what is equal to one child's share. Under the origi-
nal Mahometan law no man was allowed to make a will. A
just and intelligent law, fully considering the rights of the
family and also the rights of society, is by far the best mode
of determining the ownership of a dead man's property.

There is nothing about which people are more jealous than
the rights of property. From this comes the extreme modern
assertion of individual authority, to do what a man pleases
with his own while living, and make any ridiculous or unjust
disposition of it after he is dead. Of purely personal articles
we can conceive how disposition by will may be properly
made. Where property is limited in amount and not more
than would constitute a modest competence, the law should
determine the question of inheritance in the family. Where
a large fortune is left the rights of society should be considered.
These could be asserted in a tax on inheritance for beneficial
objects and charities, and this tax ought to be graded according

466 REMEDIES.

to the amount of property left. It should be one purpose of
such a tax to prevent the creation of non-producing classes in
the community, as no able-bodied man has a right to live with-
out contributing by work to the interests of society. In wise
laws of inheritance and taxation on inherited property, society
has ample power to correct the wrongs and inequalities caused
by avaricious men. If a man knew that his power over property
would cease with his life, he would be apt to make a wise
disposition of it while he lived ; nor should he be permitted
to evade the law of inheritance by giving great fortunes to his
children just before his death, for such gifts ought to be sub-
ject to the same rate of tax as inheritance.

Whatever tenure or interest it is deemed best to give fam-
ilies in improvements, or use of lauds, small holdings can be
best maintained for the public interest by just and discrimi-
nating laws of inheritance. The evil of permitting long
ground leases, the improvements erected thereon, and the in-
creased value, to revert to descendants of the owners of the
lands or lots, ought to be forbidden by law. The great fortune
of the Duke of Westminster was created by leasing land
in lots, near the suburbs of London, for one hundred
years, the lessee to pay an annual rent, and the property,
with the house that was on it, to revert at the expiration of
the lease to the heir of the original owner. A grandson in
this way inherited that which he never earned, and a great
estate is thus built up by a contrivance which should never be
tolerated.

One of the necessary remedies to advance the condition of
wage workers in towns and cities, is to provide means to build
houses for them. As matters stand, a considerable part of their
earnings are expended upon rent, and they are not comfortably
housed. During the first half century of the republic a large
majority of even the working classes had houses of their own.
At present the laborer, with nothing but his wages to depend
on, can neither buy a lot nor build a house. Speculative

HOMES FOR WORKINGMEN. 467

prices and the inexorable demands of an artificial civilization
have placed a home of his own beyond his reach. Some
way must be found to furnish better houses to laboring men,
and on terms they are able to pay. It is an unhappy. circum-
stance when the laboring and producing masses cannot have
some spot of earth, and some building, however humble, that
they can call home, without sitting under the shadow of a
landlord. What a volume of terror there is in the word
" rent," when that word means that for failure to pay it a
man's family may be turned into the street. No plan of
human polity is perfect, and no system of distribution just,
or can endure, that does not contemplate and carry the means
with it to provide homesteads for workirigmen. Unhappy
he, who, without fault of his own, finds all the earth built
up and fenced up against him, and even the rivers dammed
back to grind the grist of the few millers who have pre-
empted their banks. Cottage homes with a spot of garden,
however small, are the best, where a man can spend a little
of his time in healthy exercise. Long rows of dirty tenement
houses, with few and small rooms, low ceilings, bad ventilation
and dilapidation, make the heart ache. If small cottages are
impossible in great towns and cities, a system must be devised
to place within the reach of all, homes, with at least good
ventilation, decency and comfort.

The question of homes for laboring men has for some
time engaged the attention of British statesmen. It has
become an important question in this country. The worst
usurers and Shylock's of modern times may be found among
the landlords of the tenement houses of the poor, who exact
enormous rents for the most wretched accommodations. In
this realm the doctrine of contracts rules supreme. Every-
thing connected with tenements or lodgings for the work-
ing classes should be regulated by statutes that cannot be
invaded. Steps must be taken to aid and encourage the
poorer laborers and artisans to acquire independent and com-

468 REMEDIES.

fortable homes, as far as possible under their own control and
management.

It has been the purpose of the writer to point out the two
great causes of the impoverishment of the working classes, the
monopoly of land, and the usurious profits of accumulated
capital. In those two exhausting drains the workingman's
share of the wealth of the world has been lost. Not until
Christianity fully pervades our business and social system,
and the doctrines of charity and brotherly love it preaches
are accepted, can it overthrow the dominion of selfishness,
avarice, and dishonest bargains. Until it does, law " by the
people and for the people" can accomplish much. It is thus
in the power of the people to correct the errors of the past,
and shape the avenues to the great natural resources of our
country, that they may be within the reach of all : giving an
equality of privilege, and an equality of opportunity. It is
the duty of " Law " to prevent a monopoly of " Land " as of
all other monopolies, and thus afford just remuneration and
a fair field to " Labor." Let it be our policy that the workers
in the state shall be the first objects of its care, and should
a dense population ever drive our rulers to encourage plans
of emigration, let us see that the first emigrants are the non-
producing classes.

INDEX OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED AND USED IN
LABOR, LAND AND LAW.

Acland, Arthur H., Dyke Working-
men Co-operators.

Adams, John, Works of.

Advertiser of Baltimore for Aug. 20,
1773.

American State Papers.

Appleton, Encyclopedia Americana.

Argyle, Duke of, Reign of Law.

Argyle, Duke of, " Prophet of San
Francisco" in Nineteenth Century
for April, 1884.

Atkinson, Edward, Distribution of
Products.

Auber's Kise British Power in India.

Barnard, Charles, Co-operation as a
Business.

Bastiat, Frederick, Political Econ-
omy Wells' Trans.

Bateman's Acreocracy of England.

Battersby, T. S. Frank, Compensa-
tion to Landlords.

Bell's History of Feudalism.

Bible.

Bourne, E. J., History of the Sur-
plus Revenue.

Bowker, R. R., Work and Wealth.

Broderick, Hon. George C., Reform
of the English Land System.

Buckle's History of Civilization.

Byrd's Westover Manuscripts. His-
tory of the Dividing Line.

Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of
Oliver Cromwell.

Carlyle's French Revolution.

Census, Tenth.

Clarke, Edward H. G., Man's Birth-
right.

Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de, Embassy
to the Court of Timour (Hak-
luyt).

Cobden Club, essays of. Systems
of Land Tenure.

Cook's China and Lower Bengal.

Compendium Tenth Census.

Consular Reports of United States.

Crich ton's History of Arabia.

Crocker, Excessive Saving a Cause
of Commercial Distress.

Davis' History of the Caribbees.
Donaldson's Public Domain.
Doolittle's Social Life of the Chi-
nese.

Dow's History of Hindostan.
Draper, Civil Policy of America.

Fawcett's Economic Position of the
British Laborer.

469

470

INDEX OF AUTHORITIES.

Federalist, The.

Ferguson's History of the Koman
Republic.

Gallatin, Albert, Finances of the
United States.

George, Henry, Progress and Pov-
erty.

George, Henry, Our Land and Land
Policy, State and National.

Giffen's Progress of the Working
Classes.

Gray, John Henry, Laws, Manners
and Customs of China.

Grote's History of Greece.

Guizot's History of Civilization.

Hall & Kinney, Indian Tribes.

Hal lam, Middle Ages.

Hamilton's Hedaya, Compendium
of Mahometan Law.

Hansard, British Parliamentary De-
bates.

Hanson, William, Fallacies in Pro-
gress and Poverty.

Hardwick, Christ and other Masters.

Haydn's Dictionary of Dates.

Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa.

Helprin's Reference Book.

Hellwald's Russia in Central Asia.

Herodotus, Carey's Translation.

Hobbes' Leviathan.

Holmes' American Annals.

Hoskyns, Sir Wren, Land in Eng-
land, Land in Ireland, Land in
Other Lands.

Hunter, Dr., Report to the British
Privy Council.

Hutton's Central Asia.

Jefferson's Works.
Jennings' Antiquities of the Jews.
Jevon's Political Economy.
Jevon's State in Relation to Labor.
Johns Hopkins' University Series.

Kames, Lord, Antiquities.
Kelley's History of Russia.
Keltic, J. Scott, Statesman's Year
Book 1885.

Laveleye, Political Economy.

Laveleye, Essays on the Land Sys-
tems of Belgium and Holland.

Lavergne, Rural Economy of Great
Britain.

Lawson's History North Carolina.

Lecky's History of European Morals.

Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World.

Lowman's Civil Government of the
Hebrews.

Macleod, H. D., Elements of Eco-
nomics.

Madison's Works.
Maine, Sir Henry Sumner, History

of Early Institutions.
Maine, Sir Henry Simmer, History

Early Law and Custom.
Mallock's Property and Progress.
Malthus' Principles of Population.
Maryland Journal and Baltimore

Advertiser, 1773.
Marco Polo. Wright's Edition

Travels.

May, Sir H., Democracy in Europe.
Mclntyre, Aristocracy.
Mill, John Stuart, Principles of

Political Economy.
Moody, William Goodwin's Land

and Labor.

Morse's Universal Gazetteer.
Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics

for 1884.
Miiller, Max, Languages of the Seat

of War.
Miiller, Max, Chips from a German

Workshop.

Nevius' China.

INDEX OF AUTHORITIES.

471

Ockley's History of the Saracens.

Paine, Thomas, Eights of Man.
Parsons' Remains of Japhet.
Plutarch's Lives.
Poor's Railroad Manual.
Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella.

Raphael, History of the Jews.

Rawlinson, George, History of
Ancient Egypt.

Rawlinson, George, Ancient Mon-
archies.

Rawlinson, George, Seventh Mon-
archy.

Rawlinson, George, Ancient Civili-
zation.

Redpath's, James, Notes on Ireland.

Reports of Commissioner of General
Land Office.

Ricardo, Political Economy.

Rogers, J. E. Thorold, Six Centuries
of Work and Wages.

Rogers, J. E. Thorold, Social Econ-
omy.

Rollin's Ancient History.

Rubruquis' Travels. '

Shaw, Albert Icaria, A study in

Communistic History.
Sinding's History of Scandinavia.
Smith's Life of Lewis Cass.
Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations.

Spofford's American Almanac, 1885.
Stepniak's Russia under the Tzars.
Stepniak's Underground Russia,
Stone's Life of Brant.
Strabo, Geographical and Historical

Works.
St. Giles' Lectures. Faiths of the

World.
Sumner, Prof. Wm. Graham, What

Social Classes Owe Each Other.

Taine's French Revolution.
Tenant Farmer, Short Talks about
Land Tenure.

Thiers' French Revolution,
Timayeins' History of Greece.

Vambery's History of Bokhara.
Von Ranke, Universal History.

Wallace, Alfred, Land Nationaliza-
tion.

Washington's Works and Letters.

Williamson's History Tuscarora
War.

Williams' S. W., Middle Kingdom.

W T ine's Commentaries on the An-
cient Laws of the Hebrews.

Young, Arthur, Travels in Ireland.
Young, Arthur, Travels in France.
Young, Edward, Labor in Europe
and America.

A NEW AND REVISED EDITION, WITH FIGURES
BROUGHT DOWN TO DATE OF

UNITED STATES NOTES-

A HISTORY OF THEY \RTOUS ISSUES OF PAPER MONEY
BV 1HE GOVERNMENT OF TilE UNlTbD STATES.

With an Appendix containing the recent Decision of the Supreme Court

of the United States, and the Dissenting Opinion upon the

Legal Tender Question.

BY JOHN JAY KNOX,

LATK COMPTKOLLEB OF THK CURHKNCY.

One vol. 8vo, cloth - $2.50

With Photo-lithographic Specimens and Forms of the various Notes.

" A clear, thorough, able, accurate and impartial work on ' United
States Notes.' " George Bancroft.

"A full and well-arranged history of the paper currency of the
United States." Hug h McCulloch.

" A work of much value, and I know of nothing comparable to it,
or that can supply its place. It is a timely and useful publication."
Justin S. Morrill, Chairman Finance Committee, Senate of the United
States.

" It is a very good document for reference, and sufficiently large to
give a full acco-nt of the origin and circumstances which led to the
issue of United States Notes. I very heartily commend it for general
use." -John Sherman.

"A valuable addition to financial literature." Frank May, Chief
Cashier Bank of England.

" Probably no man in the country is better qualified than John Jay
Knox to write a history of the various issues of paper money which have
been authorize J by the United States Government " New York Journal
of Commerce.

"The recently publi bed book of Mr. Knox, entitled 'United
States Notes,' is an admirably clear and dispa-sionate collection of his-
torical facts bearing upon the subject. We have to thank the author,
although a little outside the main purpose of the work, for the fullest
and best account of the distribution of the surplus in 1837 that has ever
been written." Financial Chronicle, New York.

"A second and revised edition of the valuable work on 'United
States Notes,' by ex-Comptroller Knox, with the figures brought down
to 1885, has just been published by Charles Scribner's Sons. An edition
has also been brought out in London." The Nation.

# * # For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

PUBLISHERS,
& 745 Broadway, New York.

TRIUMPHANT DEMOCRACY;

OR,

FIFTY YEARS' MARCH OF THE
REPUBLIC.

BY ANDREW CARNEGIE.

1 volume, 8vo 9 - - $2.0?.

Mr. Carnegie, though born in Scotland, and a firm lover of t^e
" old home," is a thorough republican in sympathy and in practice,
and a radical of the radicals in his advocacy of a government of the,
people, by the people, and for the people. For royalty and its sur-
roundings he has nothing but contempt, and his comparisons of
monarchical forms and observances with republican simplicity and
his scathing comments will be read with interest not only here but
in England. Indeed, the work may be said t > be intended primarily
for British readers to open the eyes of t^e masses in the United
Kingdom to the wonderful advancement physical, moral, political
and intellectual of the United States during the last half century,
an advancement either little understood or wilfully misrepresented in
Europe. Though various causes have contributed to this unexampled
rate of progress, the principal one, in Mr. Carnegie's opinion, is the
fundamental fact of the equality of the citizen in the Republic. To this
grand principle all nations must eventually subscribe, he argues, and the
sooner it is adopted by Great Britain the better for the country and the
better for the people. Its author claims that it is pure missionary work
on his part, and that his sole desite in its preparation has been to show
his countrymen and to prove by solid facts and figures the superiority
of republican over monarchical institutions. This is the true inwardness
of his book and of its title - ' Triumphant Democracy."

*** For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

PUBLISHERS,

& 745 Broadway, New York.

CONTEMPORARY SOCIALISM.

BY JOHN RAE, M. A.

One volume, crown 8vo, ----- $2.00.

Such a book as this vhich Mr. Raehas written a thorough history
and analysis by a man of singularly candid and liberal mind, equally
without prejudice and fanaticism has long been needed and earnestly
wished for by every student of socialism, and in all countries. The
author writes with foree and eloquence, but he looks at his subject in a
clear, calm spirit, and penetrates it with greater subtil ity than any stu-
dent or writer has done before. Among his chapters are admirably
historical studies of the general subject and some vivid sketches of the
leaders of the great movements. In short, Mr. Rae has given us a
masterly book, and it will long be read after the present Socialistic
movements have become matters of history.

"A useful and ably written book." London Saturday Review.

" No subject more needs thor ugh and impartial discussion at pre-
sent than this, and the work before us by John Rae is eminently able
and helpful. It is distinguished in a remarkable degree by breadth of
view and the grasp of underlying and widely reaching principles, and also
by his minuteness of detail and the careful relation of facts and figures
in support of its position." The Congregationalist.

ft He is very clear in his classification, distinguishing Socialism, on
the one hand, from democracy, which is essentially political, while
Socialism (as the existence of one section of Socialists prove), may be
unpolitical or even anti-political, and, on the other hand, fiom Nihilism
in its various form . His general view by w :y of introduction is all that
could be desired, and certainly his sketches of the leaders, especially of
Lasselle and Karl Marx, are marked by knowledge, insight and consider-
able biographical tact." British Quarterly Review.

%* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

PUBLISHERS,

<5r 745 Broadway, New York.

THE COUNTRY BANKER.

HIS CLIENTS, CARES, AND WORK. FROM THE EXPERL
ENCE OF FORTV YEARS.

BY GEORGE RAE,

Author of "Bullion's Letters to a Bank Manager"

WITH AN AMERICAN PREFACE BY BRAYTON IVES.

1 volume, 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

" Mr. Rae may be congratulated on having produced a book which
can be recommended to the student who wishes to gain an insight into
the subject." London 7'tmes.

"We have seldom taken up a book on the business of banking
which is at once so interesting and so full of shrewd common sense as
this of Mr. Rae's." Economist

"The dry bones of banking theories and abstractions are here
clothed with flesh and blood, and made to live and move full of life and
animation. " Liverpool Mercury.

" One of the most valuable additions to banking literature of late
years." Journal of the Institute of Bankers.

44 Mr. George Rae has, in the above book, contributed to banking
literature probably the best work that has ever been written on the sub-
ject, not even excepting those of Mr. Gilbart " Bullionist.

" It is entirely free from pedantry and abounds in definitions sin-
gularly terse and comprehensive." Glasgow News.

44 The subject may seem at the first glance to be a very dry one, but
our author contrives to treat it in such a fashion as to make it exceedingly
interesting. " Scotsman.

44 A book of shrewdness, wit, and rare practical knowledge." New
York Tribune.

44 Wherever we have dipped into the contents of the book we have
felt the invigorating influence of a master mind in banking craft." The
Banking World.

" . . . . It crystallizes into sparkling forms the experiences of a long
banking life, and is equally interesting to bankers and to their customers,
and has that first of literary virtues, sincerity." Liverpool Daily Post.

*** For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, on receipt of price by

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

PUBLISHERS,
<& 745 Broadway, New York.

ota's

FROM DESCARTES TO SCHOPENHAUER AND HARTMANN.

By FRANCIS BO WEN, A.M.,

'Author of tl Anteri 'an Political Economy,'* and Alford Professor of Natural
Region and Moral Philosophy in. Harvard College.

One volume 8vo. Cloth, $3.00.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

" Excellent in every respect, clear, scholarly, vigorous, often vivacious, fu 1 of sound
learning, acute criticij'jj, genial appreciation, and the best spirit of philosophy." New
York Evening Post.

"We regard this volume of Prof. Bowen's as second to none yet produced in this
country in the department of philosophy. It must be placed in the ' forefront.' " Neio
Evangelist.

" Let no one be deterred from reading this volume because it is a work on meta-
physics Mr. Bowen's chapters are singularly clear, and are pervaded by

the strongest common sense." Christian at Work.

"Prof. Bowen's style is delightfully clear, and those who enjoy metaphysical studies
will find a positive delight in reading him." Harper's Monthly Magazine.

BOWEN'S AMERICAN POLITICAL ECONOMY

This treatise presents views compatible with the idea that "every
country has a political economy of its own, suitable to its own physical
circumstances of position on the globe, and to the character, habits, and
institutions of the people." 495 pages, price $2.50.

"If our members of Congress would vote themselves a copy of this book, and read
it, fewer wild shemes would be concocted by them, and a great saving of time and the
people's money would be secured." The Philadelphia Age.

" His arguments are worth considering, and his whole book is of high value to any
American to study economical questions." Springfield Republican.

GLEANINGS FROM A LITERARY LIFE.

One volume 8vo.. $3.00.

Prof. Bowen has gathered together in this volume a number os.
exceedingly instructive essays, upon subjects with which he is pre-
eminently fitted to deal. Several of these essays discuss matters of public
interest in connection with our national finances, a question to which
Prof. Bowen has given special study, and which he has already treated in
his American Political Economy. Other essays are upon philosophical
themes, notably the one on the Idea of Cause ; still others cover ground
of more general interest, e. g, ''Classical and Utilitarian Studies,"
" The Latest Form of the Development Theory," " Blaise Pascal," and
" The Restoration of the Text of Shakspere."

*jf* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of
frice, bv

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,

743 AND 745 BRC ADWAY, NEW YORK.

A New Edition, Library Style.

of |B.otnp,

FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE.

By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEN.

Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. DICKSON, Regius
Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner of
the University of St. Andrews. With an introduction by Dr. LEONHAKU SCHMITZ, and
a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition.

REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION.
Four Volumes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per Set, $8.00.

DR. MOMMSEN has long been known and appreciated through his re-
searches into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and
Italy, as the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these depart-
ments of historical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive
knowledge of these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a
'vigorous, spirited, and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical pow-
ers, which give this history a degree of interest and a permanent value
possessed by no other record of the decline and fall of the Roman Com-
monwealth. " Dr. Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the
introduction, " though the production of a man of most profound and ex-
tensive learning and knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for
the professional scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take
an interest in the history of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek
information that may guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of
modern history."

CRITICAL NOTICES.

" A work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full
of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on
racord our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and Fall
of the Roman Commonwealth." London Times.

" This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole the
y.ithor's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his
graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest
which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere.''-
~-Edittburgh Review.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,

743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

A New Edition, Library Style.

By Prof, Dr, ERNST CUKTIUS.

Translated by ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, M. A., Fellow of St. Peter's College, Can*
bridge, Prof, of History in Owen's College, Manchester.

UNIFORM WITH MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME.
rive volmes, crown 8vo, gilt top. Price per set, $10.00.

Curtius's History of Greece is similar in plan and purpose to Mommsen's
History of Rome, with which it deserves to rank in every respect as one of
the great masterpieces of historical literature. Avoiding the minute de-
tails which overburden other similar worfcs, it groups together in a very
picturesque manner all the impoitant events in the history of, this king-
dom, which has exercised such a wonderful influence upon the world's
civilization. The narrative of Prof. Curtius's work is flowing and ani-
mated, and the generalizations, although bold, are philosophical and
sound.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

" Professor Curtius's eminent scholarship is a sufficient guarantee for the trustworthiness
of his history, while the skill with which he groups his facts, and his effective mode of narrat-
ing them, combine to render it no less readable than sound. Prof. Curtius everywhere
maintains the true dignity and impartiality of history, and it is evident his sympathies are
on the side of justice, humanity, and progress." London Atheneeum.

" We cannot express our opinion of Dr. Curtius's book better than by saying that it may
be fitly ranked with Theodor Mommsen ? s great work." London Spectator.

" As an introduction to the study of Grecian history, no previous work is comparable to
the present for vivacity and picturesque beauty, while in sound learning and accuracy of
statement it is not inferior to the elaborate productions which enrich the literature of the
age." N. Y. Daily Tribune.

" The History of Greece is treated by Dr. Curtius so broadly and freely in the spirit of
the nineteenth century, that it becomes in his hands one of the worthiest and most instruct-
ive branches of study for all who desire something more than a knowledge of isolated facts
for their education. This-translation ought to become a regular part of the accepted course
of reading for young men at college, and for all who are in training for the free political
life of our country." A^. Y. Evening Post.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS,

743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK

iftral {Jronomg.

A POLITICAL ECONOMY FOR BEGINNKRS.

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY,

BY PROF. ARTHUR LATHAM PERRY,

Of Williams 1 College; author of " Elements of Political Economy."

One vol. i2mo. cloth, $i 50.

Prof. Perry's Elementt of Political Economy has long held the leading
place in our colleges and high schools as a text-book upon the science of
tthich it treats. There has been a general demand, however, for a more
concise work one which should present the principles of Political Economy
in a form which can be easily grasped and mastered by those who wish to
get directly at the foundation of the science. This work supplies the
want. It is not strictly a school-book, but it is both intelligible and
scientific, brief and complete. At the same time it is not in any sense
an abridgment or condensation of the Elements, nor is it at all designed
to supersede it. It is an entirely independent aud original work. The
simplicity and clearness with which it presents principles and facts, which
have to a great extent been regarded as too abstruse for popular compre-
hension, must carry this study into schools where it has heretofore been
neglected.

" We commend it unhesitatingly as the work of a sound thinker and a clear writer, who
is master of his theme." The Congregationalist.

" We need scarcely add, with respect to a writer as well known as he, that his thinking
is sound as well as acute, or that his doctrines are those which the greatest masters of
political science have approved." New York Eve. Post.

" There is no subject which, at the present time, in view of the animated and far-
reaching discussions as to questions of money, taxation and trade, it is desirable should
be more generally read and discussed, and this compact presentation of facts and
principles will be found no less interesting than valuable.' 1 New York World.

PERRY'S ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

NEW EDITION, REVISED BY THE AUTHOR.

This treatise presents views favorable to the utmost freedom of com-
merce compatible with legitimate revenue from tariff taxes It is a
standard text-book in all our colleges throughout the country. One
vol. I2mo, cloth. $>1 pages, price $2.50.

" Your book interests students more than any other I have ever instructed from."
/V*.-. T. D. Woolsey, Yale College.

"As a manual .or general reading and popular instruction, Prof. Perry's book is fat
Euptfrior to any work on the subject before issued in the United States." A^. Y. Times

"We cordially recommend this book to all, of whatever school of political economy,
who enjoy candid statement and full and logical discussion." A r . Y. Nation.

*^* The aboz>e books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or express
tharges paid, upon, receipt of the price by the publishers,

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS,

743 & 745 BROADWAY, NEW YOBK.

DA1E.

3 5132 00340 7855

University of the Pacific Library

KD
113

Phillips, Wlllaim A

Labor, Land and
Law

7679