Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/141

 THE PEOPHET OF SAN FRANCISCO. 23

voice of Mr. Henry George. Elijah was a fool. What right could Naboth have to talk about the " inheritance of his fathers " ? * His fathers could have no more right to acquire the ownership of those acres on the Hill of Jezreel than he could have to continue in the usurpation of it. No matter what might be his pretended title, no man and no body of men could give it : not Joshua nor the Judges ; not Saul nor David ; not Solomon in all his glory could "make sure" to Naboth's fathers that portion of God's earth against the undying claims of the head of the State, and of the representative of the whole people of Israel.

But now another vista of consequence opens up before us. If the doctrine be established that no faith is to be kept with the owners of land, will the same principle not apply to tenancy as well as ownership ? If one generation cannot bind the next to recognize a purchase, can one generation bind another to recognize a lease ? If the one promise can be broken and ought to be broken, why should the other be admitted to be binding ? If the accu- mulated value arising out of many years, or even genera- tions, of labor, can be and ought to be appropriated, is there any just impediment against seizing that value every year as it comes to be? If this new gospel be indeed gospel, why should not this Calif ornian form of "faith unfaithful" keep us perennially and forever "falsely true"?

Nay, more, is there any reason why the doctrine of repudiation should be confined to pledges respecting either the tenancy or the ownership of land ? This ques- tion naturally arose in the minds of all who read with any intelligence "Progress and Poverty" when it first appeared. But the extent to which its immoral doctrines might be applied was then a matter of inference only,


 * 1 Kings xxi. 3.

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