THE " DEAD HAND " T HE Americans have recently taken
alarm at the manner in which what is called their " Public Domain " is being exploited. The alarm began with the feeling that the natural resources of the country were being wastefully used, and there can be little doubt that this has been, and probably still is, the case. It appears, however, as if the agitation in favour of closer State control in order to prevent waste had now developed into a movement for State ownership. It is not, indeed, proposed that the. American Government should undo what has been done, and reconvert private into public property, but that it should retain in its own hands the vast areas of public lands which still remain unsold. So far has the movement in this direction gone that President Taft has submitted to Congress four Bills dealing with different classes of public lands,—namely : (1) timber lands ; (2) phosphates, oil and natural gas deposits ; (3) coal lands ; (4) water- power sites. The principle underlying all these four Bills is that the Government is to retain its property rights in land, while disposing of the principal natural products which the land carries or conceals. For example, in the case of timber lands, the standing timber will be sold, and after that has been cut and removed the Government will resume possession of the land and keep it until required for agriculture. In the case of coal and oil lands, the Government will grant concessions for prospecting or working, but the lease will only permit the use of so much of the surface as is necessary to the proper working of the enter- prise. In the case of water-power sites, the Government will retain the freehold and charge a rental based upon the horse-power produced. In all of these Bills there is a distinctly marked intention to limit private ownership in land, and to create a permanent " Public Domain As an example of a similar spirit in this country, we have Mr. Lloyd George's Development Grant Act of last Session, the idea underlying that Act being that a Government Department is better able to develop the re- sources of the United Kingdom than private landowners. This is exactly the reverse of the policy pursued by our ancestors when the natural resources of the country in relation to the numbers of our people were possibly about in the same proportion as those which now prevail in the United States. In the Lancastrian and early Tudor period the greater part of England was still undeveloped and the population was scanty, but Parliament realised that if the natural resources of the country were to be effectively developed the work must be done by individual owners. For this reason statute after statute was passed to prevent land being handed over to the " dead hand " of the Church. Later in our history, and especially in the eighteenth century and earlier years of the nineteenth century, public opinion was very wisely directed against another form of communal ownership,—namely, the open field. This form of agriculture, which has now so completely disappeared from among us that its former existence is by most people forgotten, for centuries prevented the development of agriculture, even though the original communal control had long disappeared. It was the enclosing of the common open fields, in the earlier years by sheer violence, and later by Act of Parliament, which led to the extraordinary development of English agriculture, and made England for the greater part of the last century an example of good agriculture to the rest of Europe.
The very success of private ownership has produced a movement in favour of retrogression to collective owner- ship ; and as the principal organ of the community is now the central Government, or State, we get in all highly developed countries a demand for the substitution of State for private ownership. We may fairly ask ourselves whether there is any reason to believe that the " dead hand" of the State would lie less heavily upon our children than the " dead hand" of the Church lay upon our forefathers.
That the United States has equally with the United Kingdom profited by the institution of private owner- ship only extreme land nationalisers would venture to deny. They cannot deny that the resources of the country have been developed with marvellous rapidity. The only complaint possible is that they have . been developed perhaps too rapidly, or at any rate too waste- fully. Mere rapidity of development is not, indeed, in itself an evil. The economic folly of hoarding applies to natural wealth as well as to coined money. We should, for example, probably make a huge mistake in this country if we were deliberately to hoard our coal-supplies, and refuse to sell coal when we can obtain a good price for it, on the chance that some future generation may want the coal even more than we do. For there is also always the chance that future generations may discover some other means of providing themselves with heat and light. Wastefulness, on the other hand, is always to be con- demned, and where it becomes evident that natural resources are being wastefully used in such a manner as actually to injure the country, then the State is bound to step in and control the action of private individuals. Take, for example, the very important question of forestry. About half-a-century ago the Swiss people found that, owing to the reckless way in which their forests were being cut down, the danger of avalanches rushing into the valleys was very greatly increased. They therefore made very rigid forest laws to protect the existing forests, and to pro- vide for replanting. Forest laws, made for a different purpose, have also long been in force in India ; and it is conceivable that even in this country cases might arise where the Government might be obliged to step in to restrict the felling of trees, or even to require replanting. In the case of the United States there seems to be little doubt that the climate over considerable areas has been injuriously affected by the clearing of forests, and this is a case where the Government ought certainly to intervene to protect the country. As far as can be gathered, however, none of the Bills introduced into Congress have this object in view. They are simply aimed at the sub- stitution of State ownership for private action. That we believe to be a profound mistake. The business of a, Government, as Mr. Gladstone was fond of saying, is to govern, not to trade. Whether in agriculture, or mining, or manufacturing, individuals will do the work better in the hope of securing private profit than it would be done by any Government actuated by the motives which influence most Governments.
At the back of all these proposals for a State monopoly of natural resources there is in reality a misdirected feeling of envy. A certain type of individual cannot endure the spectacle of other individuals growing rich, and lest this calamity should occur, he wishes the State to seize upon all sources of wealth. The answer is that if the State follows this policy, the sources of wealth will remain, but the wealth itself will never be produced, or will be produced much less efficiently than by private enterprise. In other words, the community will not be able to enjoy the wealth which otherwise would have been at its command. It is perfectly true that the appropriation of natural resources by private individuals is one of the many causes of inequality of fortune ; but these very inequalities of fortune themselves furnish a stimulus to personal exertion which is one of the most potent causes of wealth pro- duction. Indeed, it is hardly too much to say that the wealth of any nation depends far more on the personal energy of its citizens than on the extent of its natural resources.
The idea that a community is injured by the presence of rich men in its midst is a vulgar delusion which again comes from the spirit of pure envy. The wealth which accrues to a rich man by the intelligent development of his property injures nobody. It is an addition to the wealth of the whole community, and no man is the poorer because one man possesses this increment of wealth. Of course the rest of the community might have been richer if this wealth, instead of going to one man, had been distributed among all ; but that is exactly what cannot be secured, for the attempt to distribute wealth equally results in pre- venting the production of wealth. When, therefore. Socialists talk of the advantage of the community owning a corporate estate and sharing the proceeds among all its members, the Individualist answers that the best corporate estate which a community can possess is the power of taxing its individual members. Let individuals grow rich in the best way they can so long as they do not injure one another, and then let the State step in and tax them in just proportion to their means for the common needs of the whole community.
Previous page
