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"WHAT MORE PREPOSTEROUS than that one tenant for a day of this rolling sphere should collect rent for it from his co-tenants or sell to them for a price what was here ages before him, and will be here ages after him." -- Henry George

We're landless! Such was the anguished cry of the wild MacGregors. Today, that cry is echoed by the MacDonalds, Campbells, MacLeods, Robertsons, Smiths, Browns, Joneses and millions more throughout the world similarly afflicted. With only their labour to sell, the landless are haunted much of their lives by the fear of unemployment or sickened, frustrated and angered by the experience of it.

Men and women do not live to work but work to live and enjoy the full fruits of their labour. White-collar and blue-collar workers should make common cause in the struggle for a better society as all landless are caught up in the rat-race.

In industrialised countries the people have been driven or drained from rural to urban areas. Down the years, Britain has witnessed both these forces at work bringing disastrous consequences to the nation and leaving great tracts of land derelict. Unless this process is, in part at least, reversed - unless there is a fundamental change in our economic structure, hundreds of thousands will never find employment and so will be condemned to spend their lives in aimless idleness. All those who desire employment should, we believe, have useful and profitable employment open to them: production would then be immeasurably increased.

ACCESS TO LAND NECESSARY

Access to land is vitally necessary for houses, hospitals, schools, shops, factories, mines, farms, transport and every sort of urban and rural activity, including new enterprises. These amenities and activities would provide work not only for those engaged in construction but also for those in the service industries as well as for those involved in producing the consumer goods that go with a decent and satisfactory living for everyone; but this desirable situation is impossible on account of land monopoly. It has, therefore, become abundantly clear that, until land monopoly is abolished and access to land secured, unemployment cannot be remedied and must remain NUMBER ONE social problem.

In tackling unemployment, which for far too long has plagued the nation, the old pragmatic dosage, ie., tariffs and quotas, job creation schemes, employment subsidies, etc., has failed and must always fail because it does not reach the root of the problem. To avoid the disappointment of enforced idleness experienced by school-leavers and college graduates, a more practical approach is necessary. Bleak job prospects for the rising generation give cause for deep concern.

Equity demands that every human being has access to land. "By nature, every living creature, including man, has the right to this source of food. No man has a prior right. If by force, whether physical or legal, man is deprived of his natural rights, he loses his manhood, freedom and individuality, man's most precious possessions. He necessarily becomes a tool in the hands of others.."*

Evidently, eliminating the monopoly landowning setup is long overdue. This can best be done by requiring all land-holders to remit the annual GROUND RENT direct to the State. This would end the holding of land for rental profit and none would occupy more land than he could directly put to use himself. Community living is natural to man, and GROUND RENT/SITE RENT is the naturally arising fund from community living. GROUND RENT can be seen as that spontaneous fund, or Social Dividend, (not due to any action of the private landowners as such) owing to and created by the activities of the whole community and, by right, to be used by the State and Community as revenue. "All .that is necessary to do," said Henry George, "is to collect the annual (economic) GROUND RENT for the common benefit." This GROUND RENT revenue ought to be used and completely exhausted before one penny piece of direct or indirect taxation is imposed. This policy is advocated in the works of Adam Smith, Dr. F. Quesnay, Henry George, Patrick Dove and other eminent political economists.

Appropriating GROUND RENT for public expenses would be "but a return to the ancient method of raising State revenue." Theoretically, down the ages, the community has met the annual GROUND RENT charge, but instead of going into the State Treasury that revenue has swelled the bank balances of private landowners. To make good the deficiency in revenue the government has had recourse directly and indirectly to taxing capital and labour. Again, apart from tax evasion, which is widespread, direct and indirect tax concerns only commercialised production: any production and exchange done clear of commerce escapes taxation. Therefore, in no way can United Kingdom revenue-raising practices be said to operate with fairness. Besides seriously disrupting trade and industry, the present tax devices involve a huge army of tax-gatherers and an improvised administration the whole imposing a vast financial burden, itself, upon the community.

Taxes, also, are improvised and altogether harmful from the sense of expedience, economics, ethically and from any sense from which one cares to judge the issue. Taxation is not a factor and has absolutely no function in the Science of Wealth (production and distribution). Taxation is a wholly unnecessary evil. Taxation is corrupt and corrupting. Taxation destroys. Taxation causes unemployment, poverty, crime, distress and all manner of social problems and brings War in its train. Taxation is unworkable - unless Havoc is deemed acceptable. On June 1st, 1976, Sir William Pile, Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, said, "I told the Government the system (of revenue raising) is breaking down." What's the sense in continuing the awful struggle with the unworkable? - particularly, when the perfectly efficient economy is crying out to be operated?

INVOLUNTARY UNEMPLOYMENT IS HOME MADE

Should the government give the merest hint that it intended next year to revert to the ancient British method of collecting the annual GROUND RENT as State Revenue, that hint would at once neatly kill land speculation. In turn, it would open up all land for development with suitable jobs for the jobless. This would debunk statements that involuntary unemployment is the result of world trade slumps and prove that involuntary unemployment is largely home-made. Bringing the maximum man-power into play would signal the millennium - the opposite to conditions which prevail today. Keeping things as they are, with one and a half millions workless and its deplorably evil effects on the poor landless, is quite apparently an instrument of modern government policy. All the politicians' wartime promises of "making the United Kingdom a land fit for heroes" have been discarded. Why, then, should we not revert to the ancient method of the State collecting GROUND RENT for Revenue - so allowing the economy to function naturally? as Edmund Burke would have said, "Is this too sane and too simple"?

Either in town or country, those failing to put the land to the most profitable use would be obliged by economic pressure to release it for some more rewarding purposes.

Security of tenure ensuring the benefit of improvements is all that is necessary to make the best use of land. Private monopoly is a bad set-up. Landowners keep land out of production for speculative gain: this entails rack-renting and is contrary to the community's interest. Like air and sunshine, land - as of its original state - is not wealth and so should not be subject to private ownership. The highest interest an individual may have in land is a tenancy in fee simple: the tenant holds the land "in usufruct".** In 1789, the French Assembly declared, "Ignorance, neglect or contempt of Human Rights are the sole causes of public misfortune and corruption of government."

Some States control land and industry, but this gives the State an overweening power over the individual. The aim must, therefore, be to end land monopoly; to free commercial and industrial enterprise from State interference, ownership or control; and to end shortages, privileges, quotas and subsidies. In brief, the target is the bases for real Democracy - Free land; Free trade and Free men!

END LEGALISED THEFT

Once the landless know that GROUND RENT is the State's share of production, the day of emancipation with all its benefits and blessings shall draw near. Having rid of penal taxation would, of itself, give abundant cause for national rejoicing.

The land, which is "our Mother" from which we get all things necessary for life and living, must be restored to the nation. This shall be accomplished not by "nationalisation", nor by sharing out land in small lots, but by collecting the rent of land (GROUND RENT) for State and Community Revenue; for this would prevent the holding of land by any beyond that amount which a man could directly utilise by his own labour (or men, in free co-operation together, by theirs).

The people must demand this reform. And the day of its accomplishment be declared a public holiday; this holiday, call it Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day or, Land Restoration Day, to be kept clear of other high days, holidays or Saint's Days, and celebrated annually as a reminder to future generations of the importance which "Mother Earth" is to all men, and which holding the land in common is for each nation's well-being and happiness.

The Mosiac Jubilee meant a "clean slate" and a fresh start.*** With opportunity for work laid open, and higher wages for each according to ability, this nation would witness the speedy end of poverty and its attendant evils. Then, and only then, would the Millenium be ushered in, and that bright picture Sir Winston Churchill was wont to paint of this nation entering those broad meadows of peace and plenty become accomplished fact.

Write your M.P. demanding that GROUND RENT be collected for State and Community Revenue and No Taxation!

LIBERALS AND LABOUR PROMISED THIS REFORM 60 YEARS AGO!


* The Land Question and Christian Justice by Rev. W. H. Howard.
** See Blackstone Commentaries on English and Scottish Law.
*** See Leviticus, Chap. 25. v. 10.