Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/41

 PROPOSED REMEDIES. 33

What they propose to do, they propose to do for merely one class of the Irish people the agricultural tenants. Now, the agricultural tenants are not so large nor so poor a class (among them are in fact many large capitalist farmers of the English type) as the agricultural laborers, while besides these there are the laborers of other kinds the artisans, operatives, and poorer classes of the cities. "What extension of tenant-right or conversion of tenant- farmers into partial or absolute proprietors is to benefit them ? Even if the number of owners of Irish soil could thus be increased, the soil of Ireland would still be in the hands of a class, though of a somewhat larger class. And the spring of Irish misery would be untouched. Those who had merely their labor would be as badly off as now, if not in some respects worse off. Rent would soon devour wages, and the injustice involved in the present system would be intrenched by the increase in the number who seemingly profit by it.

It is that peasant proprietors would strengthen the existing system that makes schemes for creating them so popular among certain sections. of the propertied classes of Great Britain. This is the ground on which these schemes are largely urged. These small landowners are desired that they may be used as a buffer and bulwark against any questioning of the claims of the larger owners. They would be put forward to resist the shock of " agrari- anism," just as the women are put forward in resistance to the process-servers. "What! do you propose to rob these poor peasants of their little homesteads ? " would be the answer to any one who proposed to attack the system under which the larger landholders draw millions annually from the produce of labor.

And here is the danger in the adoption of measures not based upon correct principles. They fail not only to do any real and permanent good, but they make proper

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