LAND MONOPOLY. 66 1 



The New York World says : * ' The American laborer 

 must make up his mind henceforth not to be so much bet- 

 ter off than the European laborer. Men must be contented 

 to work for less wages. In this way the workingman will 

 be nearer to that station in life to which it has pleased 

 God to call him." Like quotations might be continued 

 indefinitely, but it is useless. The most careless observer 

 can not fail to see a growing disposition to monopolize the 

 land. 



Eighty years ago there was one farm owner in England 

 for every thirty-seven of the population} while now there 

 is but one owner in every thousand of the population, and 

 the ratio of landlords is increasing every year, placing the 

 great mass of people beneath the reach of hope, and tend- 

 ing more than any other cause to the development of the 

 merely animal passions, and the consequent increase of 

 crime. The condition of the English and Irish peasantry 

 to-day truthfully mirrors the near future of the American 

 farmers if land consolidation and landlordism is not 

 checked. As has been seen already one-fourth of the 

 American farms are cultivated by tenants and the number 

 is rapidly on the increase. Large farms are becoming more 

 numerous and there is a growing desire upon the part of 

 the capitalist to procure control of large tracts of land. 

 The result is inevitable. Consolidation and farming on a 

 large scale with cheap labor will as surely compel men 

 with small farms to sell, as the reaper and threshing ma- 

 chine drove the sickle and flail into the shade. Men may 

 not console themselves with the fact that they have a title 

 to their land and are out of debt. In the sale of their 

 products they will be compelled to meet and compete in 

 the markets with the cheap labor employed on large farms, 

 with the additional advantage of the use of all the im- 

 proved machinery which can be used thereon. It is not 

 only those who are in debt and those who have lost their 



