A Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the United States, Vol. 2

Excerpt from A Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the United States, Vol. 2: Considered From Both a Civil and Criminal Standpoint Our conclusion therefore is that there is no private property in land in the sense in which Mr. Spencer and Mr. George employ the term, and the provisions of the law in respect to the tenancy of lands are in strict conform ity with the principles they advocate. It may be, as Mr. George asserts, that certain cunning men in days gone by cheated society out of its dues, and obtained from it fee simple tenancies without rendering an adequate equivalent and it may be true (we shall not question the proposition in this place), that the present returns to the State for the private enjoyment of these tenancies are grossly inadequate to the benefits thus received: Mr. George may possibly be just in his claim that taxation of lands ought to be increased far beyond its present rate; but the economic problem would be very much simplified, if it is clearly understood that the scheme proposed for the nationalization of land in volves no legal, as it does an economic, revolution. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.