236 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



But with land held only for use men would take 

 only as much as they themselves could cultivate. 

 For the agricultural worker would become an owner. 

 He would work for himself. So would the present 

 tenant. For the opening up of land to use and its 

 most profitable use would automatically end ten- 

 ancy just as it would end the surplus labor which 

 now permits the farmer to hold more land than he 

 himself can cultivate. 



The taxation of land values would be to America 

 like the discovery of a new continent. It would 

 open up hundreds of millions of acres. It would 

 greatly increase production. It would solve the 

 food problem and the high cost of living. For free 

 home-owning proprietors would be able to co- 

 operate as they are not able to do to-day. They 

 would have a sense of independence and freedom 

 that is only foimd in countries where peasant pro- 

 prietorship prevails. For free land makes free men. 

 It is the home-owning peasant that explains the 

 democracy of France. It is the home-owning peas- 

 ant that explains the democracy of Switzerland, 

 Holland, and Denmark. Wherever the relations of 

 the people to the land is on a basis of ownership 

 rather than of tenancy there we find liberty, freedom, 

 and democracy. For a home-owning people are a 

 free people — free politically, socially, industrially. 



And what is time of agricultural land is true of 

 the mineral resources, timber-land, and city land 



