Page:Tolstoy - A Great Iniquity.djvu/23

Rh to the full extent of their great merit, it very soon appeared that in England, and even in Ireland, where the crying injustice of private landed property is particularly manifest, the majority of the most influential educated people, notwithstanding the conclusiveness of Henry George’s arguments and the practicability of the remedy he proposes, opposed his teaching. Radical agitators like Parnell, who at first sympathised with George’s scheme, very soon shrank from it, regarding political reforms as more important. In England almost all the aristocrats were against it, also, amongst others, the famous Toynbee, Gladstone, and Herbert Spencer—that Spencer who in his "Statics" at first most categorically asserted the injustice of landed property, and then, renouncing this view of his, bought up the old editions of his writings in order to eliminate from them all that he had said concerning the injustice of landed property.

In Oxford during George’s lectures the students organised hostile manifestations, while the Roman Catholic party regarded George’s teaching as positively sinful and immoral, dangerous, and contrary to Christ’s teaching. Also the orthodox science of political economy revolted against George’s teaching. Learned professors from the height of their superiority refuted his teaching without understanding it, chiefly because it did not recognise the fundamental principles of their imaginary science. The Socialists were also inimical, recognising as the most important problem of the day not the land problem, but the complete abolition of private property.

The chief weapon against the teaching of Henry George was that which is always used against irrefutable and self-evident truths. This method, which is still being applied in relation to George, was that of hushing up. This hushing up was