“But you spoke particularly of the evils of individual land ownership,” persisted Mortimer. “Would you under your scheme do away with that?”
“I undoubtedly would,” answered the High President. “It seems to me a proposition beyond argument that God created the land and all within it for the benefit of mankind in general and not for the benefit of a given few. The land should no more be owned individually than the air, or the seas. It should be the property of all and inure to the benefit of all—in a word, belong to the State. Those using land, either urban or agricultural, should lease from the State and pay the rent tribute to the State and the benefits of the land—created by God for all—would thus inure to the benefit of all.”
“Would not this tend to accumulate,” suggested the Professor, “too vast sums in the hands of the State—sums so vast that there would constantly be a stringency of money and a consequent business paralysis?”
“The answer to that,” replied the High President, “is that the State could by magnificent public improvements and in a hundred other ways find means of rapidly disposing of any such surplus it might acquire. It could, if necessary, pay out dividends to its citizens, as the big corporations do to their share-holders. This objection you have advanced and a thousand others, will ever be urged to any change looking to an improvement of things. The people thus opposing will be found describing their opposition as Conservatism. The true definition of a Conservatism is a man very well-off, who finds things pre-eminently satisfactory for him as they are and is, therefore, opposed to any change. Priestcraft, when it held communities and nations under its subjection, the feudal barons, emperors, kings and modern plutocrats—these, all these, you will find to have been staunch advocates of Conservatism. Did you ever reflect,” continued the High President, “upon the inequality and injustice of existing laws of property ownership? When a man composes an opera, or indites a book of poems, or writes a novel, or devises some new and useful invention, he plays the part of a creator. Out of his own brain alone that production has evolved. It did not exist before he gave it birth and the world is so much the richer. If ever a man can be said to have a proprietary right in anything, it is to that property which actually was evolved from and created by himself alone. Yet, in the case of an author, or composer, the Law protects him in that property right for only twenty-eight years, and in the case of the inventor for only seventeen years. After that, their respective productions pass into the public domain—become public property. But the man who for a mere trifle acquires a tract, or parcel, of land—which he certainly had no part in creating or putting there—and holds it while a city builds about him and the land is made valuable by the presence and the efforts of the community at large—that man owns that land in perpetuity; it is the property of him and his heirs forever. And the Law itself! What a monstrous combination of illogical deduction and of systematic injustice! The Law! Five years required to adjudicate a case which would be sufficiently disposed of in as many hours under any modern system of businesslike administration—the Law which can only be invoked under conditions of expense absurdly disproportionate to the results. Just think of a system which is supposed to adjudicate and do substantial justice between man and man and yet which nine men out of ten in the community will tell you means ruin to resort to! The Law in its methods of procedure is a century, or more, behind the times and the learned and time-honored profession of the Law is, in reality, the profession of the modern highwayman. There is no form of modern evil which more seriously demands the application of the principles of Nihilism than the Law as it to-day exists!”
“And if your New Republic could be established,” asked Mortimer, “you would be in favor of ruthlessly despoiling all the present land owners of their holdings and escheating these holdings to the State?”
“That need not necessarily be done,” answered the High President. “It would be no very difficult matter to assess the land at a fair valuation and for the State to pay to the owners thereof a given annual percentage for say fifty years to come, subject to certain qualifications. This would result in eventually reimbursing to the owners far more than they had originally expended and would give them ample time to accommodate themselves to the new condition of things. Of course, manifold objections, both technical and financial, will be urged to the feasibility of this plan—especially by those with tendencies to Conservatism—but I apprehend there are no obstacles to its successful execution which cannot be overcome and it would certainly be immeasurably superior to the present system. With public franchises and the Nation’s land thus inuring to the benefit of the whole people, the possibility of building up fortunes of two hundred and three hundred millions, or even of eight or ten millions, would be done away with. Surely this would be no misfortune!”
“But,” said the Professor, “I have heard the objection raised to plans of this nature that their adoption would tend to lessen competitive activity and deaden men’s energy and ambition generally.”
“The objection is ill-founded,” replied the High President. “If the maximum which a man might hope to attain were fixed at one million, or less, men would strive just as zealously for the fixed amount as they would when the possibilities are unlimited. As it is now, money makes money. It is not so much the billionaire himself who earns as the sheer weight of money behind him which accomplishes. He is not called upon to exercise any particular creative effort on his part and, worst of all, he handicaps the efforts of others more worthy. In any event, the guiding spirit of our New Republic will be the happiness and welfare of the many, as against the particular interests and privileges of the few.”
“You have compared the old-time Republic adversely with the existing Monarchy,” said the Professor, with whom this seemed to be a sore point, “yet from the little I have learned it seems to me that the wrongs of the masses are as great under the monarchy as ever they were under the Republic.”
“To what phase do you refer in particular?” asked the High President.