Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/171

 THE "REDUCTION TO INIQUITY." 53

Let me ask the Duke to consider, from the point of view of an observer of Nature, a landless man a being fitted in all his parts and powers for the use of land, compelled by all his needs to the use of land, and yet denied all right to land. Is he not as unnatural as a bird without air, a fish without water? And can anything more clearly violate the intent of Nature than the human laws which produce such anomalies ?

I call upon the Duke to observe that what Nature teaches us is not merely that men were equally intended to live on land, and to use land, and therefore had origi- nally equal rights to land, but that they are now equally intended to live on and use land, and, therefore, that present rights to land are equal. It is said that fish deprived of light will, in the course of generations, lose their eyes, and, within certain narrow limits, it is certain that Nature does conform some of her living creatures to conditions imposed by man. In such cases the intent of Nature may be said to have conformed to that of man, or rather to embrace that of man. But there is no such con- forming in this case. The intent of Nature, that all human beings should use land, is as clearly seen in the children born to-day as it could have been seen in any past genera- tion. How foolish, then, are those who say that although the right to land was originally equal, this equality of right has been lost by the action or sufferance of inter- mediate generations! How illogical those who declare that, while it would be just to assert this equality of right in the laws of a new country where people are now coming to live, it would be unjust to conform to it the laws of a country where people long have lived ! Has Nature any- where or in anything shown any disposition to conform to what we call vested interests? Does the child born in an old country differ from the child born in a country ?

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