Chapter  VII

PRIVATE  PROPERTY  IN  LAND
“The  primary  error  of  the  advocates  of  land  nationalisation
is  in  their  confusion  of  equal  rights  with  joint  rights.  .  .  In
truth  the  right  to  the  use  opland  is  not  a  joint  or  common  right,
but  an  equal  right;  the  joint  or  common  right  is  to  rent.”
—Henry  George.
M OSES  and  Isaiah  and  Herbert  Spencer  made  their
ages  resound  with  the  thunders  of  the  moral
law  on  the  land  question,  and  yet  a  groping  world  had
to  wait  for  Henry  George  to  devise  a  modus  operandi,
and  so
Make  channels  for  the  streams  of  love
Where  they  may  broadly  run.
Asserting  “the  equal  right  of  all  men  to  the  use  of
the  earth,”  Herbert  Spencer  declared  that  “equity
does  not  permit  property  in  land.”  But,  failing  to
see  any  alternative  other  than  “nationalisation  of
the  land,”  which  was  abhorrent  to  his  philosophy,
he  later,  while  disavowing  none  of  his  former  principles,
proclaimed  his  intellectual  despair  and  unconditional
surrender  in  these  words:
I  cannot  see  my  way  toward  reconciliation  of  the  ethical
requirements  with  the  politico-economical  requirements.  .  .  .
The  belief  that  land  would  be  better  managed  by  public  officials
than  it  is  by  private  owners  is  a  very  wild  belief.*
*  Letter  to  the  London  Times,  November  6,  1889.  See  Henry  George’s
“Perplexed  Philosopher”  (Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1906),  p.  77.
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