Labor, land and law; a search for the missing wealth of the working poor

Front matter

abor. Land, and Law

A Search for the Missing Wealth of ihe Working Poor

W. A. PHILLIPS

Contents

Raising the wind — The relations of law to labor and land — Distributions of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property — Natural and commercial price of labor — Contracts as a basis for society, versus the doctrine of right and wrong — Inventors only enjoy limited rights — Chattel titles to land a monopoly — Titles based on discovery, conquest or first use — Causes of inequality between rich and poor — Organized capital and corporations — Gambling in stocks and breadstuffs — Slavery and land monopoly twin robbers of labor — Prof. Sumner — Walker — Henry George, ....

Chapter I. The Political And Social System Of Ancient Israel

Scope of the Hebrew laws — The patriarchate the primitive government of the Semitic races — Laws framed to regulate land tenure before land was possessed — Available area of Judea — Distinction between property in the country and in walled cities — Land nationalization rejected — Family tenure of land — The year of jubilee — Usurpations of the monarchy — Tithes and taxes — The peculiar and advantageous features of Jewish polity, 30

CHAPTER H.

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIRES.

Similarity of populations on the Nile and Euphrates — Landlords and rent in Egypt — All below the privileged army and priesthood had to work — Only one occupation allowed — Every citizen's home and business registered, in Ancient Egypt — Legislation against borrow-

ix

CONTENTS.

ing money — In Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the sole tyrants — The king as landlord — Persian political economy — Laborers should not be robbed beyond the point when they would cease to produce — Carthage a combination or corporation for merchandising, piracy and slave dealing — Carthage called a republic, but drifted into three classes: slaves, a mercenary army and an aristocracy — Theory and practice of government in Greece — Land laws of Lycurgus — Gold and silver banish&l — Constant struggle between the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece — Solon and Athens — Debt on land and slaves abolished — Legal value of silver coin increased by law — Timocracy, or man's rights measured by bis property — Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats, surrenders to tyrants — Rome a robbers' den — Reduction of the aristocracy and rise of the republic — Division of land among the people — Seven acres enough — Land assigned on two year terms — Gradual absorption of land and money by the equestrian order — Slaves take the place of free laborers — Death of Tiberius Gracchus — Overthrow of the republic — Citizens subsidized — Swallowed up by despotism and immorality, 46

Chapter III. Condition Of Labor And Land In The Middle Ages

Aryan emigration to Europe — Allodial title the distinction for freemen — The village council the ancient foundation of government — Division of conquered lands — Women's property rights invaded — The feudal system erected on breach of public trust — Primogeniture — Freemen reduced to villeinage — Game laws for the pleasure of aristocrats — Social rights invaded — Marriages between commoners and nobles declared unlawful — Laws of escheat — The civil list — The " Younger Son " — Banditti — Parliaments represent landowners — Guilds and trades societies — Free cities and towns — Gunpowder as a democratic element — Titles the insignia of luxurious vagabondage, . 82

Chapter IV

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM AS ITS PRINCIPLES AFFECT SOCIETY AND ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.

Religious belief a pillar of law — The status and power of Christian nations — Religious political economy — Does Christianity teach socialism — Unholy alliance of church and state — A church founded on capital ncci Bsarily corrupt and idolatrous — Dates of the introduction of Christianity to Europe — Monastic orders — Slavery and

CONTENTS. XI

woman's rights — Polygamy — Reformations — Sects — Denominations - — Agnostics and the supernatural — Prof. Sumner's doctrine of a " free state " and the law of " contracts " — Startling effect of " ecclesiastical prejudice " — Dives and Lazarus, 108

Chapter V

THE MAHOMETAN SYSTEM, AND THE GOVERNMENTS AND FORMS OF SOCIETY FOUNDED ON IT.

Arabia the blest and curst — The robber of the desert a founder of empires — Democratic tendencies of Mahometanism — Its foundation — Plunder and polygamy — Furnished an occupation for the large class who seek to subsist by war or their wits — Slavery legalized — Women degraded — War on property rights of women— Mahometan laws of taxation — Land tenure — Divorce — Wills forbidden — -Temperance and abstinence by law — Licentiousness established on earth and deified in heaven — Pure Mahometanism, or Theism — Worship of the Prophet an innovation — Christianity and Mahometanism the only cosmopolite religions — Reformations in the Mahometan church — The Wahabees — Mahdis — Causes of Mahometan decay, 131

Chapter VI. Land And Labor In Russia And Asiatic Countries

Chattel title to land unknown— Struggles of Turanian and Tartar — Central Asia rendered a desert by misgovernment — Rents and grazing taxes — Tartar greenbacks — India the seat of allodial title and village government — Emperors, kings, warriors and corporations, merely organized robbers — Tax collecting the chief feature of imperialism — The British attempt to plant landed aristocracy in India — Lord Cornwallis — From Yorktown to Bengal — Sale of land for debt formerly unknown in India — Land speculation introduced — " Mutiny " — China and " cheap labor " — Dense population — Chinese land tenure — Hung Ki — Rate of rent — No landed aristocracy — Banks in China — Paper money — Pawnbrokers — Secret societies — Rates of interest — Civil service reform — Opium vs. whiskey — Russia a network of colonies — Great and Little Russia — The Mir — The vetche — The village commune — Land systems of Eastern and Western Europe compared — Usurpations of the Tzars — Overthrow of popular rights and government — Recent attempts to liberate Russia from aristocrats and tyrants — Russian politics — Despotism and nihilism, 155

Xll CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE VII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF MODERN EUROPE.

Lavergne — Agrarian legislation of this century — Lawns and deer parks versus cottages — French small holdings — Number of proprietors in France and Britain — Condition of the French peasantry — Exports of England and France — Effect of small farms on wages — Oppressive debts of the aristocracy — Improvements under large and small holdings — Code Napoleon — French law of inheritance — Belgium — Laveleye — Made lands — Gross production of a hectare — Spade husbandry — Short and long leases — Average food of workingmen in Europe — Spain — Aristocracy and decay of husbandry—Average wages — Aforamento — Portuguese tenure — Austria Hungary — Size of estates — Number of cultivating farmers — Tenants and farm laborers — Wages and work of men and women — Italy — Eelative population — Number of landowners — Tenants and leases — Eent — Wages — Production — Land tenure in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden — Number and kind of landowners — Size of estates — Food of working people — ■ Wages — Emigration from Scandinavian nations — Prussia — Per cent, of landowners — Price of land — Abolition of Villeinage — Agrarian legislation — Eent — Food — Wages, 199

CHAPTEE VIII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Cultivated and uncultivated areas — Acreocracy — Extent and value of aristocratic holdings — Number of landowners — Urban and country population — Eent during six hundred years — Prices of wheat and beef — Aristocratic debts saddled on the people — Primogeniture and the younger sons — Loss of cottage and pasture privileges by workingmen — Law of parish settlement — Food and wages — No law to secure a tenant for his improvements — A " retired tenant farmer " — Board and wages three centuries ago — Prices — Watt Tyler — Growth of cities — Manufacture and commerce — Mr. Giffen searching for the laborer's wealth — Mallock — Modern wages — Houses and food — Ireland — Arthur Young — Subjection of Ireland — Landlords in triplicate — Noblemen, perpetual landholders, middlemen and cultivators — Eents in Ireland — Eedpath — Tenants and evictions — Number of land proprietors — Battersby and compensation — Argyle and Henry George — The duke as a philosopher and as a sheep raiser — Defense of British aristocracy — Agricultural decadence — Growth of manufactures and commerce — Food produced and food imported — Eival aristocracy of money, 233

CONTENTS. Xlll

CHAPTEE IX.

THE ABORIGINAL AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND TENURE.

Agricultural and roving populations — Tribal government — Aboriginal money and exchange — Tribal boundaries — Homes and hunting grounds — Male and female occupations — Sparse populations — Decay and degradation of the Aborigines under European pressure — Religious beliefs — Rights in land not bought and sold — Communal land, but individual property — Caribbee and Arowaks — Three classes of Aborigines — Land laws of Cherokees and Choctaws — The soil common, but improvements personal property — John Ross — Corn Plant — Bushyhead — Land in severalty prescribed by the whites — Treaties used to secure foothold and land — Repudiated when the Indians grow weak — Washington — Gen. Knox — Chief Justice Marshall — Cass and Jackson versus the Supreme Court — Indian inertia — Zuni and its rich man — A Caribbee political economist, 278

CHAPTER X.

ERA OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA — RIGHT OF DISCOVERY — RIGHT OF CONQUEST.

European discoverers visit America for gold, silver and trade — A century of robbery, rapine and murder — Comparison between European and American society at date of discovery — Slavery and Las Casas — Dates of actual settlement in the West Indies — Dates of actual settlement in North America — What led to it — Settlements of the Northmen — Discovery a better title than possession — Conquest on pretense of Christianizing — Native rights disregarded — French and Spanish colonies fraternize with the natives — English colonies refuse to mingle — The Indian must " go West " — Attempts to plant white aristocracy — First speculations in sales and gifts of American lands — Popes, kings and parliaments granted land they had never seen — Colonial boundaries — Annexation, wars of conquest — Treaties — Degradation and extermination — The Henderson purchase — Baron Graffenreid — John Locke's constitution — American lords and palatines — Aristocracy — Slavery — Free settlements, 299

CHAPTER XL

HISTORY OF THE LAND POLITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Land tenure shaped in colonial days — Conflicting colonial claims — Continental Congress — Plea to pay expenses of Revolutionary War

XIV CONTENTS.

from public lands — First land bounty for soldiers — Proposed Northwest colony — "Washington's landed estates — The Walpole Land Company — The Ohio Company — The Quebec bill — Ordinance for the Northwest territory — Madison's comments — First modes of land sale — French commons — John Adams — Property in soil the foundation of power — Land sold from 1796 to 1885 — Proceeds in money — Less than a year's customs and revenue — The surplus funds — The years of great land speculation — Borrowing public money to tuy public lands — Distribution of the proceeds — Graduation bill — Grants of lands to states — To schools and colleges — To canals — To corporations — Preemption law — Homestead law — Great and small land speculators — Squatters — Eesidue of public lands — Frauds under a bad system — Texas and her lands — Mexican grants — Letter from the commissioner — Aggregate homesteads filed and taken — Timber culture grants — Area disposed for bounty land warrants — Number of farms in the United States — Number of landholders — Of renters — Of farm laborers — Gradual transfer of land from settler to land speculator, 320

CHAPTER XII.

CORPORATIONS.

Unsatisfactory statistics of corporations — Corporations known to Roman law — Early town corporations — East India Company — Supposed legal powers of corporations — Plea of vested rights — A legislature cannot grant power that strips its successors of authority— Public and private companies — Corporations a subordinate power of the State — Eminent domain — Railroads public highways — A curious charter — Craftsmen employers and corporate employers — Money as an employer — Crafts, guilds and trades unions — William Pitt — Imaginary political necessity for cheap labor— Organization of capital in corporations— The organization of labor— John Stuart Mill on co-operation—Consolidation among the autocrats of transportation- Stocks, assets, liabilities and income of railroads — Miraculous expansion of capital under the lingering of corporations— Revenues of railroad companies— A greater power than the State— Army of employees under direction of a few— National debts— Corporate debts greater than all public debts combined— Banking on the confidence plan— Dealers in money becoming jobbers in labor— The accumulated property in the country and who owns it— Piratical stock jobbing— Bights of individuals and powers of the State threatened by corporations, 3qq

CONTENTS. XV

CHAPTER XIII.

SHADOWS OF THE COMING AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY.

The fetters of want — American and French republics — Free and slave labor in the young American republic — Aristocracy as first planted almost submerged — Failure of political amendments to secure equal power to landless freedmen — The exodus — Capitalist and wage worker — Duke of Argyle — Necessity of maintaining republican simplicity — Great increasing wealth — Where it goes — Eich, middle and poorer classes — Wages and incomes of tradesmen — Aggregate accumulated wealth — What workingmen have no interest in — W r hatthey have a small interest in — Gradually ceasing to own lands and lots — Statistics of labor and of employees, professional men and capitalists — Family and individual property — Laws of inheritance — Life — Property — Reputation — Interest and compound interest — The cumulative power of capital — Atkinson on national debts — Paper credits carry on business — Profits of directing energy — Capital which is used, and capital which is of little use — Non-producing classes always an aristocracy — We must cultivate respect for honest poverty, 396

CHAPTER XIV.

REMEDIES.

Is the body politic disordered — Great wealth cannot insure national stability — Inequality in condition steadily developing — Workers not getting their share — What has caused the unequal distribution of wealth — In the early republic no great millionaires and few beggars — Number of monopolies embraced in land monopoly — Allodial title — Two pleas for rent— j^an improvements constitute an alienating lien — Bastiat — The natural and indestructible powers of the soil — What rights in land are in accord with public policy — Length of tenure necessary to secure high improvements — Land should only be held by occupying cultivators — Reduction of farms with increase of population — Money should be refused speculating investment in land, or investment to secure rent — Henry George's plan — Tax and rent must not be permitted to increase the price of bread and meat — Tax must come out of accumulated capital — Large farms and landholders — Land speculation and wholesale farming should be taxed out of existence — The destruction of artificial land values no calamity — What is just and what is practicable — Cyrus Field and Henry George — Timber lands — Grazing lands — Mineral lands — Railroad land grants — Various communal experiments — Mormonism — Icaria —

XVI CONTEXTS.

Robert Owen — Fourierism — Shakers — Oneida perfectionists — Individualism and socialism — How are wages to be raised — Combination and organization — Law, the servant of labor — Assassination and dynamite the suicide of labor interests — What is the legitimate business of government — How to control railroad and other corporations — Justice but not pauperism — Public improvements — Homes for workingmen — Will-making and inheritance, 424

LABOR, LAND AND LAW.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Raising the wind — The relations of law to labor and land — Distribution of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property — Natural and commercial price of labor — Contracts as a basis for society, versus the doctrine of right and wrong — Inventors only enjoy limited rights — Chattel titles to land a monopoly — Titles based on discovery, conquest or first use — Causes of inequality between rich and poor — Organized capital and corporations — Gambling in stocks and breadstuff's — Slavery and land monopoly twin robbers of labor — Prof. Sumner — Walker — Henry George.

It is related that a certain Eastern potentate fell into the impecunious condition, common to many of his predecessors, and all of his successors, and set his wits to work to devise a remedy. A farmer of imposts who had often aided him, in this dilemma came to his rescue. He offered him sixty thousand tomans for all the winds that should ever blow over Cashmere. The monarch at first affected to be staggered at the proposition. He was unable to find anything in precedents to warrant it, but, although a believer in the doctrine that whatever is, is right, he was forced to admit that a monarch may introduce useful innovations. Of course, it was assumed that he was the supreme owner and disposer of all things in his dominions, not only for his own brief, erratic span of life, but for all time, and so he came to the conclusion that as everything in the world had been sold which could be sold, there was no good reason why the winds, unstable though they might be, should be exempted if a purchaser could be found. After a proper amount of preliminary haggling a sale was made and the transaction legalized by all that signatures, seals and parchment could do for it.

Before the public had fairly got over laughing at the absurdity of this novel bargain, the owner of the wind issued a proclamation forbidding all persons iu Cashmere from using his wind to turn their windmills, winnow their corn, propel their vessels or employ it in any other manner, until they had first entered into agreements with him and obtained leases for the various localities, covenanting to pay certain amounts for the privilege. Then the laughing turned to lamentation. The monarch met the torrent of petitions and complaints by affecting to deplore the circumstance. He could not, of course, foresee all that had occurred, but his sacred word was involved. Rulers of that type are usually very particular about their sacred word. Driven to desperation, the inhabitants contributed the amount that had been paid for the wind and tendered it to their sovereign so that this unheard of transaction could be cancelled.

The matter was not to be so easily arranged. The owner of the winds of Cashmere would not think of such a thing. He had acquired a vested right in them. Since it had become purchasable the wind had greatly risen, in price at least. Wind stocks were on an upward market. The owner insisted that his title was good. He did not claim it merely by his right of discovery of the commercial value of the wind, or that he had been the first to preempt this privilege, but he had fairly bought it from the representative of government, and declared that his title was begirt, and founded on all that was sacred in law or the theory of eminent domain and supreme authority. It would be altogether unfair to ask him to surrender this valuable privilege for anything less than what it might bring him in case he should be allowed to keep it. The proposition of the people was merely a bald scheme

RAISING THE WIND. 6

of robbery. It was subversive of all property rights ; was socialistic, agrarian and revolutionary ; and to force him to accept of a price so inadequate would strike a fatal blow at the best interests of society and undermine the whole fabric on which the rights of property rested.

This reasoning was, of course, entirely conclusive to the monarch, who was undoubtedly the confederate of the farmer of imposts, but, as human endurance can only be stretched to certain limits, it was agreed between them that a fair price for the wind, at that date, would be ten times what was originally paid for it. This amount was finally raised by a long-suffering people, who merely exacted a promise from the commercial monarch that he would never sell the wind again, but permit it in God's providence to blow over them free and unrestricted as of yore.

I have introduced this incident with the hope of throwing some light on the preliminary question — What is property? The public mind has become a good deal confused about the meaning of the term, and questions of meum and tuum embarrassed by doubtful words and more doubtful doctrines of political economy. Originally the word "property" referred to the quality of a thing, but as it is Avith its modern meaning we have to do, we find Webster's definition of it to be "The exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing, ownership;" and adds from Shakespeare, "To take as one's own — to appropriate." A ssuming that property is the exclusive right (or power) to possess, enjoy or dispose of a thing, the question occurs as to what things are justly subject to individual interest and will. Are the winds of the air, the waters of the deep or the surface of the earth, things from which one man can justly exclude all others, or which he has any right to speculate in or buy and sell ? Can anything properly be treated as property but that which is produced by individual labor, effort or genius? It is now getting to be pretty generally conceded, according to the morals, religion and law of the highest types of modern civilization, that a man has a right to the proceeds of his own labor. It must not be forgotten that this is by no means universal among mankind, and that little more than twenty years have elapsed since, in our own country, a portion of the population, nearly ten per cent, of it in fact, and they of the producing classes, had no right to the proceeds of their own labor, did not even own their own persons, and that local law placed the ownership of the proceeds of their labor in the hands of a privileged and aristocratic class. When, therefore, we come to consider the question of property, we are forced to consider another element besides natural resources and human labor, and that is law. Property does not so much consist in what a man may have in his hands at the time, as in that which is respected as property by the community in which he lives : that which law will protect him in ; that which the law declares to be his, and to the extent, and in the manner, and for the purposes for which the law declares it to be his, and subject to its changes and limitations. In estimating the foundation of property or wealth, according to the present accepted maxims of society, we of necessity include the three great elements of labor, land and law.

There are but two titles to property of any kind : law or force. The old free-booting maxim of " They may take who have the power, and they may keep who can," or the bulwarks established by organized and enlightened law : power, or the highest human sense of justice. A strong brute tears from the grasp of a weak one the food it is eating, and the latter relinquishes it with a whine. The eagle seizes from the fish hawk the trout the latter has piratically taken from the deep, and thus the robber from the robber rends the prey. In the dusky pool the big fish eat the little ones. In barbarous society the strong oppress the weak, but there never was a condition of human society so barbarous that a sense of justice did not remain to protest against wrong. Human nature, as light and opportunity is given, seeks protection in organized society.

man's right to his labor. 5

We can rejoice, therefore, that at the present stage in the progress of our country, the legitimate fruit of a man's labor is recognized as his exclusive property. It is his, not only as an abstract proposition of right, but as a proposition entitled to the protection of law. It does not militate against this doctrine that he may, occasionally, be cheated out of a part of it. He is no longer the victim of despotic violence, and intelligent, progressive law is rapidly entering every field where chicanery is endeavoring to do the work once done by violence.

What are the products of human labor? The value of a day's labor is what it can under ordinary circumstances produce. Some men can produce more in a day than others. Skilled labor is worth more than unskilled labor, because you have to add to the value of each day of such labor the time and expense of educating and preparing the workman for his work. All of these circumstances enter into the commercial value of a man's labor, but do not destroy the principle that a man has a right to what his labor fairly produces. In order to work effectively, especially in dense and civilized society, laborers need to have certain privileges, and to use certain appliances which may or may not be the laborer's own. The laborer is thus forced to earn not only as much as will furnish him with food and clothing, but enough to pay for the use of the appliances, machinery or improvements he uses. Accumulated capital thus becomes a sharer in what is produced by labor, and if the distribution is perfectly fair, society can exist and flourish. It is just here the wrongs of modern society begin. If the streets were hemmed in with palaces and filled with gold, men and women would suffer and starve for the food and clothing of each year, unless some one worked to produce it. Labor alone produces. Capital at best is inert and can only facilitate. Why should it distribute the proceeds? The capital accumulated yesterday is not so much entitled to the consideration of society as the living, toiling, suffering producing labor of to-day.

Capital is entitled to a share of the profits, but before they can be properly distributed, a sufficient amount to provide for the laborer and his family, according to the conditions of the society in which he lives, must be deducted. The theory of one school of political economists is that labor must use capital and appliances before it can produce. Instead of labor hiring capital or appliances, as a matter of fact capital and appliances hire labor. They do more : they fix the price. Capital, moreover, is restive under any interference with its bargains. It insists that the law of supply and demand is the only thing that should regulate the price of labor. This is the fundamental basis of modern theories of political economy. It is the law of selfishness organized. There may be a certain degree of conscience or consideration on the part of an employer mixed with it, but these are purely accidental or unnecessary elements. If a man with capital or able to be in active business only wants five laborers and is offered ten, it is his privilege to haggle with them, and reduce the price from one dollar to fifty cents ; and, on the other hand, if two capitalists, or men in business, each need ten laborers and only ten are offered, they are to bid against each other and raise the price, say from fifty cents to one dollar. When not interfered with by an outside power, or law of organized society, this is the law of supply and demand pure and simple. It will be observed, however, that capital, acting intelligently under this law of self interest, never bids the price of labor much above what it can profitably employ it at. On the other hand, it is always the selfish interest of capital to get labor as cheap as it can, and thus enhance its profits. The operation of this rule must and does work to the disadvantage of the laborer. It is the operation of this unrestricted law of selfishness that constantly tends in highly civilized societies to make the rich grow richer and the poor poorer. In a rude or barbarous condition of society the personal rights of property are easily defined. The hunter finds and kills a wild auimal. Assuming that all things in nature are

OEGANIZED SELFISHNESS. 7

the property of man, he claims it by right of first discovery, and he and his family eat it, and clothe themselves with its skin. He discovers fruits, roots and nuts, which others have not found. He catches and spears fish. Even he must have capital. He makes and accumulates bows, arrows, knives, spears, fishing tackle, a boat, and finally the hut or skin tent that shelters him. This home, rude although it may be, he considers his own. If he is able, he defends it against all comers. Even barbarous society recognizes his right to it. He probably does not make it an article of merchandise. He certainly does not attempt to sell every foot of earth on which it may have stood : that he claims merely by an occupancyright. His right over it ceases when he migrates. In this primitive condition of society, we do not find that the possessor of the rude capital we have described obtains the services of some young man, or wanderer without such capital, to use his tools, and hunt and fish for both while he slumbers indolently in his abode. According to the law of supply and demand he could do this ; and if it was done in barbarous society, we would soon have a lower depth of degradation than even barbarism presents to us, and a privileged class, contributing but little to the public interests. Barbarous society does not admit of this, and is, therefore, not burdened by a large non-productive class.