Page:The Complete Works of Henry George Volume 3.djvu/61

 THE ONLY WAY, THE EASY WAY. 53

scription determine. Each succeeding generation has but a tenancy for life. Admitting that any set of men may barter away their own natural rights (and this logically involves an admission of the right of suicide), they can no more barter away the rights of their successors than they can barter away the rights of the inhabitants of other worlds.

What should be aimed at in the settlement of the Irish Land Question is thus very clear. The " three F's " are, what they have already been called, three frauds ; and the proposition to create peasant proprietorship is no better. It will not do merely to carve out of the estates of the landlords minor estates for the tenants; it will not do merely to substitute a larger for a smaller class of pro- prietors ; it will not do to confine the settlement to agri- cultural land, leaving to its present possessors the land of the towns and villages. None of these lame and impotent conclusions will satisfy the demands of justice or cure the bitter evils now so apparent. The only true and just solution of the problem, the only end worth aiming at, is to make all the land the common property of all the people.

This principle conceded, the question of method arises. How shall this be done ? Nothing is easier. It is merely necessary to divert the rent which now flows into the pockets of the landlords into the common treasury of the whole people. It is not possible so to divide up the land of Ireland as to give each family, still less each individual, an equal share. And, even if that were possible, it would not be possible to maintain equality, for old people are 'constantly dying and new people constantly being born, while the relative value of land is constantly changing. But it is possible to divide the rent equally, or, what amounts to the same thing, to apply it to purposes of common benefit. This is the way, and this is the only

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