Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2259

Letter from A. C. Campbell, 24 Lisgar Street, Ottawa, Canada to Heath at Roadsend Gardens

March 8, 1941

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath:

 

I received yours of February 22, but could not answer at once because my friend had not returned to me your pamphlets. He returned them about a week ago. I read them as soon as I could, and now, Saturday, I answer letters — yours first.

 

     Thank you for your kind remembrance of me and for your very welcome message of Miss Leighton, of whom I have such grateful and pleasant recollections. Best respects and thanks to her, please.

 

     I am sorry that there is no immediate prospect of your coming to Ottawa, but I take your letter as permission to count on you to let me know when you are coming. I feel that we have much to discuss.

 

     The argument in your pamphlets seems to me complete, as an argument.

 

     My next words may cause you to doubt that I understand your argument. I chance that. I take it that the net, or profit, of the landowner under your plan is the same thing that Henry George mentions — I confess I can’t find where — as necessarily left with the land title holder to make it worth his while to keep books, etc., and pay his rent, or tax, to the right public official. I think that George does not see in this what you see, and have made so plain that I see it, too. I take it that George would not agree with us that this net, or profit, could become the basis of a private and competitive business that, like any other business, would serve its customers directly and society indirectly.

 

     Several years ago I received a series of letters from Mr. Dupont — A.B. Dupont, if I remember well — in which the argument was used that you use: — “Administration of Property as Community Services”, p. 13 — that land that yields no rent has no value. If I understand you both, I consider it strong evidence in favor of your view that two such men as you and Mr. Dupont argue alike. It is strong presumptive evidence that there is more in what you say in your pamphlets than the ordinary reader of George would see.

 

     But all this, it seems to me, only goes to prove by laboratory test that “Thar’s gold in them thar hills.”

 

     I am not convinced that this is the practical way to solve the land problem. I hope it is not habit of thought alone that makes me think that our land problem, and all other economic problems that trouble us today, are solved, except that the present generation, following the fashion of uncounted generations of the past, insist upon keeping their eyes shut. There is plenty of everything for everybody, as George told them in the very opening words of his greatest book. But, here and there, some persons who, listening to no prophet, following no outside revelation, see for themselves that there must be endless supplies when the nations most advanced in economic production can leave the plow, the loom, the printing press, to engage devotedly in making and wielding instruments of magic power in the destruction of life and of wealth. I am encouraged to believe those who see this must see also that, with labor instead of war, commerce instead of destruction, we shall begin the new civilization that Henry George foretold, the civilization of Peace and Plenty.

 

     I ought to have said in the first place, but let me say it here with strong and honest emphasis, that I thank you for the lesson you have taught me. I did not understand it at all in our New York talk, and got only part of it in my first reading — a hasty one — of your pamphlets. But I think I now have the idea. I am sure I shall not forget it, for it is new to me and very interesting.

 

     With best wishes,

                        Yours cordially,

                           /s/ A.C. Campbell