The Private Ownership of Land [pp. 125-147]

THE PRINCE TON R VIE W.
land, and all the implements employed in cultivating it, were
the joint property of all men, and he can never own any of the
products of the land which he has rented till he has compen sated the whole race for these. Society therefore continues to
be the joint owner of everything which his land produces.
Thus this whole theory of private property falls to the ground,
and nothing remains to mankind but the perpetual endurance
of that barbarism in which the denial of the right of property
must inevitably end.
It is probably unnecessary to proceed farther at this stage of
the discussion with our examination of Mr. Spencer's theory.
Its impracticability and absurdity will become more and more
apparent as we proceed. He does not, after all, differ much
from the other leading economic writers of the English school
in respect to the nature of property in land. It is time to come
to the consideration of an error in respect to this subject, which
is nearly universal among English writers on economic science,
and traces of which may be found in many American writers.
The theory of rent generally accepted by the English school is
that of Ricardo, according to which rent is a consideration for
the use of land over and above the interest of the capital invested in its improvement. Henry Fawcett accepts this theory
("Manual of Political Economy," p. II9), and constructs his
whole treatise on landed property in accordance with it. Henry
George, an American writer who follows the lead of Herbert
Spencer in respect to the private ownership of land, adopts the
same definition of rent (George's "Progress and Poverty," p.
I48), and employs it as the major premise of his argument to
overthrow the whole system of private ownership of land. It
is therefore greatly to our purpose to inquire whether this theory and definition of rent are true.
The foundation of this theory is, that in the beginning of
the settlement of a country the best lands will bear no rent.
Fawcett's statement is that they will only bear a nominal rent;
but his argument is everywhere on the assumption that they
will bear no rent. The reason assigned is that there is more
land of the best quality than can be cultivated, and that consequently every one can have all the land he needs without rent.
This assumption flatly contradicts the facts as they have been
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