Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/170

 62 PROPERTY IN LAND.

company take possession of the provisions and deny to the rest any share ?

Given a world so made and ordered that intelligent "beings placed upon it may draw from its substance an abundant supply for all physical needs. Must there not be want and misery in such a world if some of those beings make its surface and substance their exclusive property and deny the right of the others to its use ? Here, as on any other world we can conceive of, two and two make four, and when all is taken from anything nothing remains. What we see clearly would happen on any other world, does happen on this.

The Duke sees intent in Nature. So do I. That which conforms to this intent is natural, wise, and righteous. That which contravenes it is unnatural, foolish, and iniqui- tous. In this we agree. Let us then bring to this test the institution which I arraign and he defends.

Place, stripped of clothes, a landowner's baby among a dozen workhouse babies, and who that you call in can tell the one from the others* Is the human law which declares the one born to the possession of a hundred thou- sand acres of land, while the others have no right to a single square inch, conformable to the intent of Nature or not ? Is it, judged by this appeal, na' ural or unnatural, wise or foolish, righteous or iniquitous ? Put the bodies of a duke and a peasant on a dissecting-table, and bring, if you can, the surgeon who, by laying bare the brain or examining the viscera, can tell which is duke and which is peasant 1 Are not both land animals of the same kind, with like organs and like needs ? Is it not evidently the intent of Nature that both shall live on land and use land in the same way and to the same degree! Is there not, therefore, a violation of the intent of Nature in human laws which give to one more land than he can possibly use, and deny any land to the other ?

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