The Ideal State 259 



orders ! When shall we learn wisdom ? Can anyone 

 honestly argue that we are bound to maintain laws 

 which enable a few individuals to draw exorbitant 

 rents from land and housing if we thereby create 

 misery, insanitation, poverty, drunkenness, vice, and 

 crime in increasing degree among the masses of our 

 citizens ? Most certainly not. Property has been 

 conserved too long to the detriment of humanity ; and 

 we believe to-day that no law can endure which acts 

 prejudicially to the physical and moral welfare of the 

 individual man. In the first place, it is a gross viola- 

 tion of the law of righteousness ; in the second place, 

 the laws at present established have been made by 

 man and can be repealed or amended whenever in his 

 wisdom he thinks fit. That being so, we demand 

 alteration in land and property laws, which violate the 

 health and happiness of the people, and are in direct 

 opposition to the altruistic principles at present 

 operating in human society. Such reforms will be 

 stigmatised as confiscation and robbery. This we can 

 pass unheeded ; the robbery has been all from the 

 poor man hitherto, and that must cease ; the rich man 

 has more than he requires, and will not suffer through 

 curtailment of unnecessary wealth or luxury, which are 

 only a stumbling-block in the path of his own ethical 

 development. Moreover, in many ways such reforms 

 would benefit the plutocrat. His class are ever crying 

 over the decadence of the race and the decline in 

 stamina of our soldiers and sailors, who, after all, are 

 the only real defence against the confiscation of their 

 property. Once our soldiers and sailors are defeated 

 by a foreign foe the rich man will soon discover that his 

 property is either confiscated or that it yields a very 

 small return comparatively. That being so, if his eyes 

 were not blinded by pure selfishness and greed, he 

 would see by the light of reason that it was his business, 



