“The Law Times” is in favor of abolishing “middle-men in legal procedure,” and declares that “no one who has had any experience of the working of the present system can shut his eyes to the fact that it entails unnecessary expense upon the suitor.”
“The Law Journal” of Jan. 21 contains an obiter dictum which treats the address as an attack upon the bar, and declares, that “an institution like the bar seems likely to stand for some time to come the kind of rhetoric with which it is assailed, whether or not from the tongues of them of its own household.”
“The Irish Law Times” is responsible for the following statement: “A bill will be introduced next session in connection with the fusion of the two branches of the legal profession. The bill was introduced last year, but too late to be read a second time. It is called the ‘Suitor’s Relief Bill,’ and is backed by eight Conservative members, and provides that every suitor shall be heard either by barrister or solicitor before any tribunal, and that a solicitor may practise as a barrister, and vice versa.”
CORRESPONDENCE.
THE JUSTICE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN LAND.
Cambridge, Mass.
In the January number of the Harvard Law Review Mr. Samuel B. Clarke reviews, from a judicial stand-point, Henry George’s doctrine concerning land, reaching the conclusion that the ownership of land by private individuals is unjust. The object of this paper is to test the soundness of the reasoning through which this conclusion is reached.
Mr. George’s primary propositions, as expressed by Mr. Clarke, are not to be disputed. Few will attempt to deny that “each human being, as against all others, and, so far as interference with him by them is concerned, is entitled to himself, to his life, to his liberty, to the fruits of his exertions, to the pursuit of happiness, subject only to the equal correlative rights of every other human being.” Our laws recognize the right of an unborn babe to life, and seek to protect it from violence, even though it be the parents who threaten it. To protect life, liberty, and property, laws are framed, and that such laws may be made and enforced, government is necessary. As a government succeeds or fails in securing to those under its jurisdiction these fundamental rights, it is strong or weak; and, to a marked failure, the natural sequence is a revolution. When an institution is found to be repugnant to the natural rights of individuals, the government or the people, who are the source of government, may abolish that institution. If private property in land is adverse to natural rights the American people, who have for this reason already abolished property in slaves, may abolish property in land. Starting, then, from this common ground, let us follow George’s chain of argument, as Mr. Clarke gives it, and see if it contains no unsound link.
Concisely given, the reasoning is as follows: It is agreed that all men have equal rights to life. A right to life means nothing if it does
