84+ 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



vious gains or losses, there would be two 

 cases to consider — one in which society gives 

 compensation to private holders, and the 

 other in which it reclaims the land by out- 

 right confiscation. In the first case it would 

 plainly be unjust to ask society to assume 

 the burden of any " earned decrease." Sup- 

 pose, for example, that A and B each own 

 land of which the maximum value has been 

 one hundi-ed dollars, and that when society, 

 or the state, buys the land, A's is at its maxi- 

 mum, while B's has fallen to fifty dollars. 

 Can B claim that he should receive as much 

 as A because his (B's) land has once been 

 worth as much as A's, when it is now worth 

 to the buyer only half as much ? But in the 

 second case — where confiscation is the hy- 

 pothesis — it would be clearly inconsistent in 

 society to assume the loss of the " earned de- 

 crease." Using the same example as above, 

 if A gets nothing, can B, whose land is worth 

 fifty dollars less, claim that he ought to get 

 fifty dollars because the said land has fallen 

 that much in value ? The truth is, that what 

 Mr. Benton calls the "earned decrease" is 

 in most cases only a reduction, according to 

 its size, of the " unearned increment " ; that 

 the former is nearly always less than the 

 latter, and serves only to cancel part of it. 

 Sometimes, however, social fluctuations de- 

 stroy values which have been produced by 

 actually expended labor. This fact, it seems 

 to me, Mr. Benton should have brought more 

 prominently into view ; it affords the best 

 foundation for his argument. 



The deduction drawn by Mr. Benton from 

 the example which he gives to show how 

 worthless land is in some parts of New Eng- 

 land is a very peculiar one. He says : " A 

 friend of mine bought a productive farm of 

 one hundred and sixty acres in Massachusetts 

 a few years ago, with a good house, barn, 

 and other fixtures upon it — and he did not 

 pay the price that the ham alone cost. . . . 

 This means getting the land itself for lcf:s 

 than nothing, which is on better terms than 

 Henry George's creed calls for." Has it not 

 occurred to Mr. Benton that his friend may 

 have paid for the land, and got the barn and 

 other improvements for nothing? "Surface 

 improvements " may, and often do, become 

 absolutely valueless ; but it is hard to con- 

 ceive, so long as they have not reached this 

 condition, that the ground on which they are 

 fixed should be worth nothing. 



The statement that neither Mill nor Spen- 

 cer has offered any solution of the problem 

 of dealing with the " unearned increment " 

 is scarcely justified by the facts. Mr. Ben- 

 ton should read Mill's " Principles of Politi- 

 cal Economy" and Spencer's "Social Statics" 

 a little more closely. In the former he may 

 refer to Book V, Chapter II, section 5. As 

 to the latter, I am sorry to say that I haven't 

 the book at hand, and can not give him the 

 exact reference, but if he will have the pa- 

 tience to search for it he will find that Spen- 

 cer also has a plan. 



George P. Garrison. 

 Austin, Texas, July 10, 1SS8. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



STATE EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. 



"VTTE ventured in onr last number a 

 VV few remarks on the unsatisfac- 

 tory results, in tbis city, of the political 

 management of education. Evidence is 

 now forthcoming that in England the 

 cause of popular education has been no 

 better served by state interference than it 

 has been in this country. A Royal Com- 

 mission that was lately appointed to in- 

 quire into the condition of education in 

 Great Britain has made its report, and 

 in that report there occurs what we 

 can only interpret as a distinct admis- 

 sion of the superiority of voluntary ef- 

 fort over state control in the sphere 

 of education. The report is not in our 

 possession, but the following quotation 

 from it appears in an English newspa- 



per : " If it were needful to strike a bal- 

 ance between the efficiency of the two 

 systems of board and voluntary school 

 management, the evidence would lead 

 us to divide the honors. The system 

 of management transacted outside the 

 school is most vigorously conducted by 

 the school board, dispensing the money 

 of the rate-payers; but in the closer su- 

 pervision of the school, and effective 

 sympathy between managers and teach- 

 ers, or managers and scholars, the com- 

 mission pronounce in favor of the effi- 

 ciency of voluntary management. In 

 the combination of the advantages of 

 both systems we look for progress in the 

 future." We confess to being at a loss 

 as to what, precisely, is meant by "the 

 system of management transacted in- 



