110 LAND AND LABOR. 



into the writhing flesh. It can not, will not always 

 continue. 



Fifteen years ago, in the New York constitutional 

 convention, George William Curtis, in discussing the 

 matter of the consolidation of railroad interest, said : 



"I presume no student of history ; I presume no scholar in 

 political science, will deny that what the great baronial power 

 was in mediaeval civilization, and what the great slaveholding 

 oligarchy has been in our politics, the vast consolidation of cap- 

 ital will be in the future of this country, if the people do not in- 

 terpose. Gentlemen who speak so lightly of monopolies should 

 understand that the danger of our civilization is the towering 

 tyranny of capital." 



The developments of the last fifteen years, in the 

 direction to which Mr. Curtis so forcibly calls atten- 

 tion as shown above, has given a force to his language 

 that at this time makes it most notably significant. 



The last edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 

 the article on LAND, makes some wholesome reflec- 

 tions on this matter very pertinent to our present 

 condition. It shows the growth of landownership in 

 Rome ; the creation of tenants and tenantcy at will, 

 under the name ofprecarium, and large estates capa- 

 ble of subdivision, which resulted in 



" the long struggle of which the successive Agrarian Laws were 



the landmark and remedies A century later the 



Gracchi again endeavored to restore health to the body politic 

 by a distribution of the state lands among the proletariat. The 

 attempt was stifled in blood, but the necessity of the measure 

 was proved by the fact that a full generation later Caius Julius 

 Caesar carried out the same reform. 



" But the time for remedy, however, was past. The great 

 estates (lattfundia) had already been created; they were 



