leniency should as a rule be extended, and in the former the strictést severity shown? It would seem fiscal authorities imagine that nothing is worth taxing for revenue purposes but income. And has the Government no other fiscal duty to regard seriously but that of collecting some revenue? Is that all? Has not the Government a far more important fiscal duty to perform: that of collecting revenue from a source which does not reduce purchasing power, but which stimulates production, and makes for a more equitable distribution of wealth? Taxes on the full monopoly value of land will not reduce purchasing power, and they may be imposed in lieu of taxes on wealth which do have that effect. Taxes on the full monopoly value of land must stimulate production, for land not used, and land under-used, will be forced by the tax into use. This will alter the whole system of production by bringing landlords into competition with one another to find land-users. A tax on the monopoly value of land cannot be shifted, for the tax will force rent down. Competition, therefore, beginning at the source of production must beneficially affect the labourer, raise his wage, lower the cost of commodities, and remove the irregularities in the distribution of wealth. And this system of taxation will very soon reveal what is rent, what is wages, and what is interest. It will simplify the classifications, and relieve the Government of the enormous cost of an army of officials at the ports and in the cities and the towns. This would be a very practical way of getting rid of any number of parasites." Certainly droves of political parasites" would be forced into the producing class. The scheme ought to have the attention of Mr. Scott Nearing, for he must be quite impartial in his

dislike of "parasites." Moreover, the fiscal system which will rid us of the one political set will rid us of the other. Will something be done? Or must we wait until the Governors and Mayors assisted by the Department of Labour have dealt with the mighty problem of "Bolshevism"? Must we who are deeply concerned in the future of the Commonwealth see the policy of the Norths, the Pitts, the Castlereaghs, and the Jeffreys undermine the last stone in the foundation of America? Is not that what it all amounts to this business of governing by conclave? But where are the defenders of natural rights? What action at this time are Mr. Root, Mr. Butler, and Mr. Hill taking to defend the principles they admire in Spencer? Who besides Mr. Schwab demands true democracy and a return to economic principles? It is really an amazing state of affairs when America of all countries in the world seems bent on pursuing a negative policy at a time like this. We ought to know what that policy has done for Europe.

Now natural rights must be restored if we are not to share Europe's fate. It is the only positive reply to be made to all who favour compulsion Socialists and Tories alike. By restoring natural

rights we shall reset the old foundations and rebuild the best of our institutions, so that America may again open her gates to all who love liberty.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WILLIAM STUBBS, Constitutional History of England. EDWARD A. FREEMAN, The Growth of the English Constitution.

JOHN RICHARD GREEN, A Short History of the English People.

HIPPOLYTE-ADOLPHE TAINE, History of English Liter

ature.

SIR THOMAS MORE, Utopia.

THOROLD ROGERS, Six Centuries of Work and Wages.

George Grote, History of Greece.

HERBERT SPENCER, The Man versus The State.

SIR HENRY MAINE, Popular Government.

HENRY GEORGE, Progress and Poverty.

W. E. H. LECKY, Democracy and Liberty.

J. L. HAMMOND AND Barabara Hammond, The Village Labourer and the Town Labourer.

MAX HIRSCH, Democracy versus Socialism.

KARL MARX, Capital.

GUGLIELMO FERRERO, The Greatness and Decline of Rome. PROFESSOR VON BOEHM-BAWERK, The Positive Theory of Capital.

GEORGE BRANDES, Ferdinand Lassalle.

GEORGES SOREL, Reflections on Violence.
SIDNEY WEBB, Socialism in England.
WOODROW WILSON, The New Freedom.
JOHN SPARGO, Socialism.

FRANZ OPPENHEIMER, The State.
HENRI BERGSON, Creative Evolution.

G. F. NICOLAI, The Biology of War.

W. ROMAINE PATTERSON, The Nemesis of Nations.

G. SLATER, English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common

Fields.

APPENDIX

"Our own people, whose mineral resources will by that time have greatly diminished, must find themselves thrown back upon the soil for a living. If continued abuse of the land should mark the next fifty years as it has the last, what must be our outlook? . . . Not only the economic but the political future is involved. No people ever felt the want of work or the pinch of poverty for a long time without reaching out violent hands against their political institutions, believing that they might find in a change some relief from their distress. Although there have been moments of such restlessness in our country, the trial has never been so severe or so prolonged as to put us to the test. It is interesting that one of the ablest men in England during the last century, a historian of high merit, a statesman who saw active service, and a profound student of men and things, put on record his prophecy of such a future ordeal. Writing to Writing to an American correspondent fifty years ago, Lord Macaulay used these words:

"As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land your labouring population will be found more at ease than the labouring population of the Old World; but the time will come when wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as they do with us. Then your institutions will be brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the labourer mutinous and discontented and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him that