HENRY GEORGE. WHAT HE TEACHES. A Resume of "Progress and Poverty."

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 380, 26 June 1889, Page 6

HENRY GEORGE. WHAT HE TEACHES. A Resume of "Progress and Poverty."

So much is said and written about Henry George and his teachings, ,and so few people are really well acquainted \ufch the works of the man whom the Duke of Argyle has dubbed f * the Prophet of San Francisco,' that a synopsis of his teachings will, \v° believe, be welcomed alike by upholders' and opponents of . his theories. In tho following epitome it is, of course, only possible to indicate the landmarks of ' Henry George's remarkable book ; but while this may be sufficient for the general reader, it will probably lead many persons to study Mr George's writings for themselves.

Introductory. —THE PROBLE M . V/hat is the cause of recurring industrial depressions in which capital wastes while labour stands- idle, and there is widespread want with a seeming excess in productive forces? That there must be a common cause is shown from the existence of these ! conditions in all * progressive countries, and that- that cause is either material progress or something connected with material progress is shown by the fact'that the phenomena which we speak of as industrial depressions are but intensifications of phenomena which accompany material progress. What is (he law which associates poverty with progr&ss and increases icanb with advancing xoealth ? It must be within the province of political economy to discover it. Political economy is a science which iv the sequence of certain phenomena seeks to trace mutual relations and to identify cause and effect, just as the physical sciences seek to do in other sets of phenomena. Its processes consist simply in identification and separation, and its premises are axioms of everyday life, which may be reduced to the metaphysical expression of the physical- law that motion seeks the line of least resistance, viz., that men seek to gratify their desires, tcith the least exertion.

Book L— WAGES AND CAPITAL. Chapter I. — The cause which produces poverty in the niidsb of advancing wealth is the cause which exhibits itself in the tendency of wages to a minimum. In compact form, therefore, the inquiry is : Why, in spite of increase in productive poicer, do wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living ? Chapter II. — Let us first fix the meaning of our terms : Wages includes all reborns for exertion, as distinguished from returns for the use of capital and returns for the use of land. — Capital includes things which are neither land nor labour, but which have resulted from the union of land and labonr, and are devoted to the aid of further production. Nothing can be capital that is not wealth. But all wealth is not capital. — Only that part of wealth is capital which is devoted to the aid of production, i.e., wealth in course of transmutation or exchange. Only such things are Wealth the production of which increases and the destruction of which decreases aggregate wealth. These things consist of natural products that have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion so as to fit them for the satisfaction of human desires. — Land includes the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land that man can come in contact with or use nature. It embraces all natural materials, forces and opportunities, and is the field or environment in which man finds himself, the store-house from which his needs must be supplied, the raw material upon which, and •■Kha. forces with which, alone his labour can act. Chapter 111. — Wages are produced by the labour for which they are paid. When the labourer is his own employer this is plain enough. It i 3 equally plain when, though working for another or with another's capital, he receives his wages in kind. Also when the wages, though estimated in kind, are paid in money. And it is no less true when the wages are fixed. The payment of wages always implies the pi'evious rendering of labour, and the rendering of labour implies the production of wealth, which, if it is to be exchanged or used in production, is capital ; therefore, the paying out of capital in wages presupposes a production of capital by the labour. It is never as an employer that anyone needs capital ; when he needs capital it is because he is not only an em prayer of labour but a merchant or speculator in or an accumulator of the products of labour. Chapter IV. — Before a work which will not immediately result in wealth available* for subsistence can be carried on it is not necessary that there exist such a stock of subsistence as will support the labourers during the process ; is only necessary that there be, somewhere within the circle of exchange, a contemporaneous production of sufficient subsistence for the labourers and a willingness to exchange this for the thing on which the labour is being bestowed. Consumption is supported bycontemporaneous production and the demand for consumption determines the direction in which labour will be expended in production. Each labourer in aiding in the production of what other producers want is directing other labour to the production of the things he wants — in effect, producing them himself. If he makes jack knives and eats wheat, the wheat is as much the produce of his labour as if he had grown it for himself and left wheat growers to make their own jack knives. Chapter V. — Capital increases the power of labour, (1) by enabling labour to apply itself in more effective ways; (2),by enab- : ling labour to avail itself of the reproductive forces of nature ; and (3) by permitting the division of labour. Capital does not apply the materials which labour works up into wealth ; they are supplied by nature. It does nob advance wages ; they are produced by labour. It does not maintain labourers; they are maintained' by their labour, exchanging what they oroduce for what they need. Capital, therefore, does nob limit industry ; the only limit to industry being the access to natural material.

Book lI.— POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE, Chapter I. of this book -is devoted to an explanation ,of the Malthusian theory that population naturally tends to increase faster than subsistence. Chapter. ll. to an investigation of the facts on which that theory rests. Chapter 111. to a consideration of the analogies with which it is illustrated and defended ; and Chapter IV. to a presentation of the facts which disprove the theory. These chapters show not only that the tendency of wages to a minimum is not due to growth of population, but that growth of population .actually increases productive power, and therefore'ought to make wages higher.

Book lII. —THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. Chapteb I. — The answer to our inquiry cannot f be found in the laws ot production, and -must be sought in the laws of distribution. The factors of production

are land, labour, and; capital, and the whole produce is primarily 'distributed into three corresponding parts. Three terras are i therefore needed, each of which shall clearly express one of these parts to the exclusion of the others. Mtnt expresses the first, which goes to the owners of land ; Wages the second, which constitutes the return to labour ; and Interest the third, which is the return for the use of capital. The income of any individual may be made up from any one, two or all three of these sources, but in seeking the laws of distribution they must be kept separate. Chapter 11. — The term 4 rent ' differs from the word as ordinarily used. It is narrower, because ib does not include payments for the use of buildings, etc.," i and broader, because it may exist where the same person is both owner and user of land. It is also expressed in a selling price, which is rent commuted or capitalised. Rent is the share in 'products of labour which exclusive right to the use of land gives to the owner. As to the law of rent, the accepted dictum of the current political economy has the self - evident character of a geometric axiom. It is : The rent of land is determined by the excess of its produce over that which the same application can securo from the least productive land in use. This law applies to land used for other purposes than agriculture and to all natural agencies. It may be better understood in this form : The ownership of a natural agent of production xoill give the. power of appropriating so much of the wealth produced by the exertion of labour and capital iipon it as exceeds the return which the same application of labour and capital could secure in the least productive occujjation in which they freely engaged. This is the same thing, for there is no occupation in which labour capital can engage which does not require the use of land. The law of renfc is the law of competition, and rests upon the fundamental principle that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion. Its corollaries are, the law of wages and interest. No matter what production results from the application of labour and capital, these two factors will receive only such part as they could have produced on land free to them without the payment of rent ; .for As Produce = Rent + Wages + Interest ; therefore, Produce - Renb= Wages + Interest. Thus wages and interest depend upon what is left after rent is taken out, and no matter what be the increase in productive power, if the increase in rent keeps pace with it, neither wages nor interest can increase. Chapter 111. — 'Interest' includes all returns for the use of capital, and not merely those that pass from borrower to lender ; and it excludes compensation for risk, which is only an equalisation of return between different employments of capital. Production falls into three modes, viz. : Adapting, or changing natural products, either in form or place, to fit them for the satisfaction of human desire ; groioing, or utilising the vital forces of nature ; exchanging, so as to add to the general sum of wealth the higher powers of those natural forces which vary with locality ov those.human iorces which vary with situation, occupation or character. In the first mode capital is not absolutely necessary ; in the others ib is. In adapting, the benefit of capital is in the use ; in growing and exchanging, the benefit is in the increase. Primarily benefits which arise from use go to labour, and benefits which arise from increase go to capital j bub the division of labour and interchangeability of wealth necessitates an averaging of benefits, whereby capital engaged in growing or exchanging will obtain, txoL fcLo whoie increase, but; Che increase minus what is sufficient to give to the labour so engaged such reward as it could have secured if exerted in adapting ; and labour exerted in adapting will get, not the whole return, but; the return minus such part as is necessary to give to capital the increase ib could have secured in growing or exchanging. Interest is not arbitrary, but natural. Chapter IV.— The belief that interest is t e robbery of indusbry is in larere part due to a failure to discriminate between what is really capital and whab is not, and between profits which are properly interest and profits which aiise from other sources than bhe use of capital. Nothing can be capibal, leb ib always be remembered, that is not wealth — that is bo say, nobhing can be capital that does not consisb of acbual, tangible things (not the spontaneous offerings of nature) which have in themselves, and not by proxy, bhe power of direcbly or indirecbly ministering bo human desire. Chapter V. — Under conditions of freedom the maximum of interesb (which is fixed by the average power of increase belonging bo capital generally), will be the increase of the capital; and the minimum, v the mere replacement of the capital. If wages fall, interest must fall, else ib becomes more profitable to turn labour into capibal than to apply ib directly ; if interest falls, wages must fall, else the increment of capital is checked. Thus the principle that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion operates to establish and maintain an equilibrium beb»veen wages and interest. Under the operation of the same principle, the general rate of interest will be determined by the return to capital upon the poorest land to which capital is freely applied — that is to say, upon the best land open to it wibhoub the payment of renb. Thus the law of interest, independently -sought, meets and harmonises with the law oj rent. Chapter VI. — Wages vary wibh the differing powers ot individuals and as bebween occupabions ; bub bhere is a general relation between all wages, and in their degrees -wages rise and fall in obedience to a common law. The principle that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion brings bo an equaliby the reward for equal exertions under similar circumstances. In conditions of freedom bhe berms on which one man can hire others bo work ior him will be fixed by whab the men could make if labouring for themselves. If wages are temporarily carried either above or below this line a tendency to carry them back afc once arises. But wealth is the product of two factors, land and labour ; and whab a given amount of .labour will yield will vary wibh bhe - powers of the land to which ib is applied. This being the case, th 6 principle bhab men seek to gratify their desire* wibh the least exertion will fix wages at the produce of such labour at the point of highest natural productiveness open bo ib, which, under existing conditions, is the lowest point at which production continues. Thus the wages an employer must pay will be measured *by bhe lowest point of natural producbiveness to which production extends, and wages, as a proportion of the produce, will rise or fall as this point rises or falte. Hence, the proportion of wealth going to wages depends upon the margin of production or upon the produce which labour can obtain ab the highest point of natural productiveness open jbo ib without the payment of renb. Thus the law of toages, independently sought^ meets and harmonises with) the laio of rent*

Where land is free and labour is unassisted by capital, the whole produce will go to labour as wages. v Where land is free and labour is assisted : by capital, wages will consist of the' whole produce less that part necessary to induce the storing up of labour or capital. Where land is subject to ownership and rent arises, wages will be fixed by what labour could secure from the highest natural opportunities open to it without the payment of rent. Whore natural opportunities are all monopolised, wages may be forced by competition among labourees to the minimum at which labourers will consent to reproduce. Chapter Vll.— Thus the laws of distribution are corollaries of each other. The fundamental law that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion becomes, when viewed in its relation to land, the law of rent ; in relation to capital, the law of interest j in relation to labour, the law of wages. And the harmony and correlation of these laws are perfect. Rent depends on the margin ot production, rising as it falls and falling an it rises. Wages depend on the margin of production, falling as it falls and rising as it rites. Interest (its ratio with wages being fixed by the net power of increase which attaches to capital) depends on the margin of -production, falling as it falls and rising as it rises. Chapter VIII. — The failure of wages as a proportion of the product of labour, to increase with increasing productive power, is dxie to the increase of rent. Three things unite to production — land, labour and capital. Three parties divide the produce — the landowner, the labourer and the capitalist. If with the increase of production wages are no more and interest no moro, it is a necessary inference that rent swallows the whole gain. And the facts agree with this inference.

Book IV.— EFFECT OF MATERIAL PKOGRESS UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. Chapter I. — Bub what causes rent to advance as material progress goes on ? The changes which constitute or contribute to material progress are three : (1) increase of population ; (2) improvements in the arts of production and exchange ; (3) improvements in knowledge, education, government, police, manners and morals, so far 'as they increase the prices of producing wealth. To ascertain the effect of these changes on the distribution of wealth, consider the first apart from the second and third, and the second and third (which are in effect the same) apart from the first. Chapter II. — Increase of population increases rent and consequently diminishes the proportion of the produce which goes to capital and labour, in two ways : (1) By lowering the margin of cultivation ; and (2) by bringing out in land special capabilities otherwise latent, and by attracting special capabilities to particular lands. Chapter 111. — The primary offect of improvements in the arts is to increase the ' power of labour in the production of wealth; which, the demand for wealth being" | unsatisfied, will be utilised in procuring t more wealth. But, as land is necessary for the production of wealth, the secondary effect is to extend the margin of production to lands of less natural productiveness, cr, on the same lands, to a point of lower natural productiveness. Chapter IV. — The confident expectation of future enhancement of land values which arises from the steady increase of rent in all progressive communities, leads to the holding of land out of use or out of its best use for a higher price, and produces the effects of a combination among land holders whereby the margin is forced farther than required by the necessities of production- This is the force evolved by material progress which ttiuh> uuustanUy to increase rent in greater ratio than progress increases production, and thus constantly tends, as material progress goes on and productive power increases, to reduce tvages not merely as a proportion hut absolutely.

Book V.-THE PROBLEM SOLVED Chapter I. — The main cause of periodical industrial depressions is the manner in which the speculative advance in land values cuts down the earnings of labour and capital and checks production. In a progressive community land constantly increases in value ; this induces speculation in which future increase is anticipated ; and when land value 3 are carried beyond the point ab which they leave to labour and capital', their accustomed returns, production begins to stop, or, what in a progressive community is the same thing, fails to increaseproportionately, owing to the failure of new increments of labour and capital bo find employment ab the accustomed rates. The stoppage at some points shows itself at other points in a ces&ation of demand, which checks .produc; tion there, and thus the paralysis communicates itself through all the interlacings of industry and commerce, resulting in phenomena that seem to show overproduction or over consumption, according to the standpoint from which they are viewed. The depression continues until (l)the speculative advance in land values is lost ; or (2) the efficiency of labour increases sufficiently to make the normal rent line overtake the speculative rent line : (3) labour and capital become reconciled to smaller returns ; or (4) all three of these causes co-operate to produce a new equilibrium, at which a new system of activity ensues, followed by an advance of rent, further speculation in land, another check upon production, and the same round over again. Chapter II. — The reason why, in spite of the increase of productive power, wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living, is that with increase in productive 'power, rent tends to even greater increase, thus a constant tendency to the forcing down of wages. The direct tendencyof advancing civilisation is to increase the power of human labour to satisfy human desires, to extirpate poverty, and to banish want and the fear of want ; but labour cannot reap the benefits because they are intercepted. Land being necessary to labour and being reduced to private ownership, every increase in the productive power of labour but increases rent— the price labour must pay for the opportunity to utilise its powers. And, begotten of the continuous advance of rents, arises a speculative tendency which discounts the effect of future improvements by a still further advance of rents and tends to drive wages to the point at which the labourer can just live.

Book VI.— THE REMEDY. Chapter I.— The remedies more or less relied on may be divided into six classes : (1) Greater economy in government. — This would reduce taxation and be equivalent to an increase in the power of net production, the advantage of which would go ultimately to the owners of the land. (2) Diffusion of education and improved habits of industry and thrift. These also, if general, would simply increase the power of net production. — The fallacy of this remedy is similar to that which would be involved in the assertion that every one of a number of competitors migKt win a race. i That one might is true, but that all mightisimpossiblb. Industry, skill,, ■ frugality and intelligence can avail the in-

dividual only in so far as they are superior to the general level.',' ', ' ' (3) ' Combinatiom of workmen. ~These can ' advance wages; but not to extent or with any ' permanence unless the combination includes all labourers. Such a combination is practically impossible ; and the rai&ing of wages in particular occupations is a task 'the' difficulty of which progressively increases, for the higher they are raised above their normal line with other wages the stronger are the tendencies to bring them back. (4) Co-operation. — 00-operation is of two kinds, co-operation in supply' and co-opera-tion in production. 'Co-operation in supply only reduces the cost of exchanges, while co-operation in production is but the substitution of proportionate fqr fixed wages. At the best the effect of either would be but ( to increase the power of not production, , and add to rent. (5) Governmental direction and interference. —Whatever savours of regulation and restriction is in itsolf bad, and should not be resorted to if there is any other mode of accomplishing the same "end. (6) Amorti general distribution oj land. — The general tendency to production on a lai-go scale shows that measures which merely permit or facilitate greater subdivision of land would be inoperative, and that those which would compel it would have a tendency to check production. But there is the .further and fatal objection that it would not reduce rent, and therefore could not increase wages. It might make the comfortable classes largei, but would not improve the condition of those in the lowest. Chapter ll.— There is but one way to remove an evil, and that is to remove its cause. Poverty deopens as wealth incieases, and wages arc forced down while productive power grows, because land, which is the source of all wealth and the field of all laboiu-, is monopolised. The remedy, then, for the unjust distribution of. wealth, and for all the evils which flow from it, 'is to make land common yropcrty.

Book VII.— JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. Chapter I.— The rightful basis of proporty is, primarily, the right of a man to himself, to the use of his own powers and the fruits of his own exertions. What he produces is his own against all the world, to use, to exchange or to give. Hence, there is in the owner of things pi'oduced by human exertion a clear title from the original producer. Nob only is there no other natural right from which any other title can be derived, but the, recognition of any other title is inconsistent with and destructive of this. When non-producers can claim as rent a portion of the wealth created by producers, the right of the producers to the fruits of their labour is to thai extent denied. Chapter II. — If chattel slavery be unjust, then is private property in land unjust. The ownership of land will always give the ownership of men to a degree measured by the necessity (real or artificial) for the use of land. This is but a statement in different form of the law of rent. Chapter lII.— It is not right that there should be any concern about compensating the proprietors of land. Private ownership i of land is nob merely a rsbbery in the past ; ! it is a robbery in the present, for rent is not drawn from the produce ot the past, but is a toll levied on labour constantly andcontinuously. Chapter IV.— The common right to land has everywhere been primarily recognised, and private ownership has nowhere grown up save as the result of usurpation.Chapter V. — The American people have failed to see the essential, injustice of private property in land because they have not folfc its full effects. Our superiority.: of condition over that of the Old World has sprung from unfenood land — ouc v domain. But the republic has entered upon a new era, an era in which the monopoly of. the land will tell with accelerating effect. The public domain is receding. Property in land is concentrating. The proportion of our people who have no legal tight to the land on which they live is becoming steadily larger. We did not establish -the republic when we declared the unalienablo rights of man, nor abolish slavery when' we ratified the Fourteenth amendment-p and unless we come back to first principles and acknowledge the equal right of all to land, our free institutions will be in vain, our common schools will be in vain* our discoveries and inventions will but add to the iorce that presses the masses down^ -"

Book VIII.— APPLICATION" OF '¥nB REMEDY: ' '•*'' CuAnKB I. — What is necessary for the use of land is nob its private ownership, bub the security of improvements. - ii we give improvers that securibv, we" may safely abolish private ownership of land. Treating land as private property stands in the way of ibs proper use. Were it treated as public property ib would be used and improved as soon as there was ; need for its use or improvement ; buo being treated as private property the individual owner is permitted to prevent others from using or improving , what he cannot or will nob use or improve himself. If the best use of land be the test, bhen private property in land is condemned as ib is condemned by every other consideration. Chapter II. — A question of method remains. Justice would be satisfied and all economic requirements met by abolishing private titles, declaring all land public property, and letting it out to the highest bidder under such conditions as would sacredly guard the private right to improvements. But this would involve a needless shock, and a needless extension of governmental machinery. We , may best assert the common right to land by taking rent for public uses. We already take^ some rent in taxation ; we have only to make a few simple changes in our modes of taxation to take it all. What I therefore propose is to appropriate rent by .taxation, and as the taxation of rent or land values must necessarily be increased just as we abolish other taxes, we may put the proposition into practical form by proposing to abolish all taxation save that upon land values. Chapter 111. — The best tax must — (1) bear as lightly as possible upon production, so as least to check the increase of the general fund from which taxes must be paid and the community maintained ; (2) 'be easily and cheaply collected, and fall as directly as may be upon the ultimate payers, so as to take from the people as little as possible in addition to what it yields the government ; (3) be cerbain, so as to give the least opportunity for tyranny or corruption on the part of officials and the least temptation to law-breaking and evasion on the part of the taxpayers ; and (4) bear equally, so as to give no citizen an, advanbag6 or pub any at a disadvantage as compared with others. To these conditions the tax upon land values conforms, and ib is bhe only important mode of taxation that', does. Chapter IV.— The grounds for concluding that the tax on land values is the best tax have been admitted expressly or tacitly, by all economists of standing since the determination of the nature and law of renb, including Ricardo, McCullough, John Stuart Mill and Fawcett ; and the French economists of the last century, headed by Quesnay and Turgot, proposed ib.

Book IX. — EFFECTS OF 'THEREMEDY. * •. ; L— lfc would lift the whole enormous weight of, taxation from productive industry. It would open new opportunitiesj for no one would care to hold land unless to use it, and land now withheld from use would everywhere, not merely on the frontiers, bub in what are now called well-settled .districts, be thrown open tb improvement. -This would apply not alone to agricultural land, but all land. The bonus that wherever labour is most productive must now be paid before labour can be exerted would disappear. In the labour market competition would no longer be onesided, for into the labour market would have entered the greatest of all competitors for tho employment of labour, a competitor whose demand cannot be satisfied until wan'i is satisfied — the demand of labour itself. Chapter lI.— To reliove labour and capital from all taxation and to throw the burden upon rent would be, as far as it went, to counteract the tendency to in equality ; and if it went so far as to bake in taxation the whole of rent, the cause ofinequality would be wholly destroyed. The wealth produced in every community would then be divided into two. portions, One part, representing the result cf individual effort in production, would be distributed in wages and inboresb bebwoen individual producers, according to the part each had taken in the work of production. The other part, representing tho increased power with which the community as a whole aids the individual, would go to the community as a whole, to be distributed in public benefits to all its members. Thus increase of rent, the very cause which nov tends to produce inequality as material pro gross goes on, would then tend to produce greater and greater equality, Chapter, 111. — All clasnet lolwse interests as land mtmers do vot largely exceed their in 'terestt as labourers or capitalists or both, xoould directly gain. Take the homestead owner or the farmer. The selling^ value of his land would diminish — theoretically, it would entiroly disappear ; but his land serves his purpose as well as ever. And a? the value of other land would disappear in the same ratio, he would retain the same security of having land that he has now, while if he wanted more land he would be a gainer even in the matter of land. In other things ho would be much the gainer. Though he would .have more taxes to pay on .bis land, his house and improvements, all his personal property, all that he eats, drinks, and wears would be exempt, while his earnings would be largely increased. Chapter . IV. — Greater simplicity would be possible in government. In the administration of justice there would be a saving of strain. Public debts would disappear and standing armies would not be needed. And the simplicity of government would make possible, without) danger, the assumption of functions now pressing for recognition, such as the operation of telegraphs and railroads. Government would gradually change its character from repression to co-operation, and by natural stages all that is best in tho dream of socialism be realised.

Book X.— THE 'LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS. If the conclusion that land should be common property is correct, it will fall under a higher genoralisacon. Let it be tested by recommencing tho inquiry from a higher standpoint. What is the law of human progress"*. The prevailing belief is that the progress of civilisation is the result of forces which slowly change the character and improve and elevate the powers of man ; that the difference between civilised man and the savage is of a long race education which has become fixed in mental organisation ; and that this improvement tends to go on increasingly to a higher, and higher civilisation. This theory may explain the difference between the savage and the civilised man j but it does not account for the civilisations that havo progressed so far and then stopped, nor for the civilisations that have gone back. Every civilisation ha 3 had its period ot vigorous growth, of arrest and stagnation, its decline and fall. The earth is the tomb of dead empires no less than of dead men. Shall we, therefore, say there is a national or race life, as there is an individual life ? Such analogies are superficial." While its members are constantly reproduced, in all the fresh vigour of childhood, a community oahnp't grow- old as does a man by the decay of his powers. Yet in this analogy lurks the recognition of an obvious truth — the truth that the 'obstacles which finally bring progress to a halt are raised by the course of progress; that what has destroyed all previous civilisations has been the conditions produced by the growth of civilisation itself. Any* valid theory of human progress must account for this. Chapter II. — The differences between the people of communities in different places and at different times, which we call differences of civilisation, are nbt differences which inhere in the individuals, but differences which inhere in the society. Social environment i 3 the matrix in which mind unfolds, and from which it takes its stamp. In this way skill is transmitted and knowledge stored up ; and human pro gress goes on as the advances made by one generation are secured as the common stock of the next, and made the starting point for new advances. Chapter 111. — The incentives to progress , are the desires inherent in human nature which, short of infinity, can never be satisfied. ,Mind is the instrument by wJiich man •advance?, and by which each advance is secured and made the vantage ground for new advances. Men tend to advance in 1 proportion to the mental power expended in progression. But the mental power xohich ; can be devoted to f>rogress is only lohat is left after lohat is required for non-progressive purposes. These non-progressive purposes are maintenance and conflict. Maintenance means not only the support of existence, but the keeping up of the social condition and tfie holding of advances already gained. Conflict means not merely warfare and preparation for warfare, but all expenditure of mental power in seeking the gratification of desire at the expense of others, and in resistance to such aggression. As mental power is only set free for higher uses than maintenance, by association in communities, which permits division of labour, association is the first essential of progress. And, as the wasteful expenditure of mental power in conflict becomes greater or less as the moral law which accords to each, an equality of rights' is ignored or recognised, equality is the second essential of progress. Thiis in equality is the law of human* progress. Minds tend to progress as they come' closer together, but just as inequality of condition or power is developed this tendency to progression is lessened, cheeked and finally reversed. Chapter IV; — A. civilisation like ours must either advance or go back f ; it cannot' stand still. What 'has destroyed every previous civilisation has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth*and power. This same tendency, operating with increasing force, is observable in- bur civilisation, to-day, showing itself in every progressive community, and with greater intensity the more - progressive the com-, Concluded on Page W

. Continued' from Page' 6.' "'^ w I munity. Wages and ", interest tend; con- ' stantly to fall, vent to rise; the' rich .-to ! become very much ' richer,,, the, poor to, become .more helpless and, hopeless ';• -the middle class tp be swept, away. f ' Chapter* V. — The , evils arising . from the unjust and unequal , distribution of wealth are not incidents of .progress, but tendencies which must bring 'progress to a > halt. They will not cure themselves, .but must, unless, the cause is removed, sweepus back inbo'barbarism. Bub they are nob imposed by natural laws ; they spring solely from social maladjustments which ignore natural laws. And in removing their cause by making land common property in the way proposed, we shall be giving an enormousimpetus to progress. We cannot go on •prating of the inalienable rights of man and then denying the inalienable right to the bounty of the Creator. Even now in oM .bottles the new wine begins to ferment and elemental forces gather for the sbrite ! But if, while there is yet time, we turn to Justice and obey her, if we trust Liberty and follow her, the dangers that threaten will disappear and the forces • that menace will turn to agencies of elevation. .

Conclusion. — THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL , LIFE. Behind the problems of social life lies the problem of individual life. The yearning for a further life is natural and deep ; but to the great majority of men on whom mere creeds have lost their hold, it seems a vain and childish hope. The ideas that thus destroy the hope of future life have their source in those doctrines of political and social science which teach that there, is a tendency to the production of more human beings than can be provided for ; that vice and misery are the result of natural laws, and the means by which advance goes on ; and that human progress is by a slow race development. We have met these doctrines, and in seeing their fallacy we destroy the nightmare which is banishing from the modern world the belief in a future life. All difficulties are not removed, for turn which way we may, we come to what we cannot comprehend ; but difficulties are removed which seem conclusive and insuperable. And thus hope springs up— the hope that is the heart of all religions. The poets have sung it, the seers have told it, and in its deepest pul3eis the heart of man throbs responsive to its truth.