Spencer Heath Archive

Item 609

Quote from Henry George, Our Land and Land Policy, page 88. The last three lines of the third paragraph are marked by Heath.

HENRY GEORGE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND

“Nor is there any difficulty in combining a full recognition of private property in land with a recognition of the right of all to the benefits conferred by the Creator, as I will hereafter attempt to show.

We are not called upon to guarantee to all men equal conditions, and could not if we would, any more than we could guarantee to them equal intelligence, equal industry or equal prudence; but we are called upon to give to all men an equal chance. If we do not, our republicanism is a snare and a delusion, our clatter about the rights of man the veriest buncombe in which a people ever indulged.

For while it is true that the land of a country is the free gift of the Creator to all the people of that country, to the enjoyment of which each has an equal natural right, it is also true that the recognition of private ownership in land is necessary to its proper use — is, in fact, a condi­tion of civilization.

When the millenium comes and the old savage, selfish instincts have died out in men, land may perhaps be held in common; but not till then. In our present state, at least, the ‘magic of property which turns even sand into gold’ must be applied to our lands if we would reap the largest benefits they are capable of yielding — must be retained if we would keep from relapsing into barbarism.”