Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/263

 OPEN LETTER TO POPE LEO XTTT. 71

tendency and spirit of its remedial suggestions lean unmistakably to socialism extremely moderate socialism it is true; socialism hampered and emasculated by a supreme respect for private possessions; yet socialism still. But, although you frequently use the ambiguous term " private property " when the context shows that you have in mind private property in land, the one thing clear on the surface and becoming clearer still with examina- tion is that you insist that whatever else may be done, the private ownership of land shall be left untouched.

I have 'already referred generally to the defects that attach to all socialistic remedies for the evil condition of labor, but respect for your Holiness dictates that I should speak specifically, even though briefly, of the remedies proposed or suggested by you.

Of these, the widest and strongest are that the state should restrict the hours of labor, the employment of women and children, the unsanitary conditions of work- shops, etc. Yet how little may in this way be accomplished.

A strong, absolute ruler might hope by such regula- tions to alleviate the conditions of chattel slaves. But the tendency of our times is toward democracy, and democratic states are necessarily weaker in paternalism, while in the industrial slavery, growing out of private ownership of land, that prevails in Christendom to-day, it is not the master who forces the slave to labor, but the slave who urges the master to let him labor. Thus the greatest difficulty in enforcing such regulations comes from those whom they are intended to benefit. It is not, for instance, the masters who make it difficult to enforce restrictions on child labor in factories, but the mothers, who, prompted by poverty, misrepresent the ages of their children even to the masters, and teach the children to misrepresent.

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