Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/399

Rh expenses of army and navy, for the payment of interest on the national debt and its gradual liquidation, for the elementary education of the children, and for the maintenance of the aged. Though I have not read Mr. George's book, I understand that this is something: like his proposal. If the yearly return of the national estate were ever found to far exceed the above requirements, it could be readily and safely disposed of by a yearly dividend, which would reverse the old tormenting order, and make the people the receivers instead of payers of taxes. It is hard to see how this moderate diffusion of property could be injurious to them. If the smaller equal inheritance would degrade them, the present holders of large estates must be in a very bad way.

That which a man has accumulated by his own exertions he has a sort of right to disperse and to squander if he choose; but that which the dead have left behind them should, as far as possible, have permanence stamped upon it, and be guarded by the state, so that it may be enjoyed by all the heirs in their turn. The savings of the present generation should enable the whole community in the next age to start from a higher level of power and comfort. The law of labor can never be abrogated, though its incidence might be very wisely extended. The inequality between the possessions of men can never be totally destroyed, but with immense advantage to the nation it might be decidedly lessened. The progress that has thus far taken place in the condition of the people has been the laying of successive strata of comforts and resources between them and the utter poverty in which their forefathers dwelt. The increase of wages, the lessening of the hours of labor, the manifold fruits of modern inventions, the accumulated treasures of knowledge which all may take without diminishing the store—such instances as these show a gradual enrichment of the people to the general advantage. Who shall say that the process has gone as far as it ought to go? What man could ensue if the present burdens of taxation were done away, and if even every man were the recipient of a yearly income of a few pounds which no act of his could ever alienate?

The landless people of the present generation are undoubtedly proportionate heirs to all the landowners of the country living not many ages ago, if heirship be founded in nature. That all should have gone into so few hands, and the vast majority of the heirs have deenbeen [sic] deprived, is a great and grievous wrong. Those who wish to continue the present arrangements, and would bitterly oppose their modification in the way here proposed as an injustice to the few who in future would otherwise come into possession, are willing to inflict injustice upon the many of the future who ought to come into possession.

The great possessions now enjoyed by particular individuals, and that have come down from distant times, are due to accumulated wrongs. One heir in the succession has been advantaged to the