Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/168

 50 PEOPEETY IN LAND.

thousand of those who have lived on this world, has never been dreamed of. It is only within the last two centuries that it has, by the abolition of feudal tenures, and the suppression of tribal customs, fully obtained among our own people. In fact, even among us it has hardly yet reached full development. For not only are we still spreading over land yet unreduced to individual owner- ship, but in the fragments of common rights which yet remain in Great Britain, as well as in laws and customs, are there survivals of the older system. The first and universal perception of mankind is that declared by the American Indian Chief, Black Hawk : " The Great Spirit has told me that land is not to be made property like other property. The earth is our mother!" And this primitive perception of the right of all men to the use of the soil from which all must live, has never been obscured save by a long course of usurpation and oppression.

But it is needless for me to discuss such questions with the Duke. There is higher ground on which we may meet. He believes in an intelligent Creator ; he sees in Nature contrivance and intent ; he realizes that it is only by con- forming his actions to universal law that man can master his conditions and fulfil his destiny.

Let me, then, ask the Duke to look around him in the richest country of the world, where art, science, and the power that comes from the utilization of physical laws have been carried to the highest point yet attained, and note how few of this population can avail themselves fully of the advantages of civilization. Among the masses the struggle for existence is so intense that the Duke himself declares it necessary by law to restrain parents from working their children to disease and death !

Let him consider the conditions of life involved in such facts as this conditions, alas, obvious on every side, and

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