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Two Letters on Henry George and the Land Question.

(The first written to a German reformer, who had asked for an expression of opinion on Henry George; and the second, to a Russian peasant in Siberia, who had heard something of Henry George and wished to know more.)

 

I.

In reply to your letter I send you the enclosed with special pleasure. I have been acquainted with Henry George since the appearance of his Social Problems. I read them, and was struck by the correctness of his main idea, and by the unique clearness and power of his argument, which is unlike anything in scientific literature, and especially by the Christian spirit, which also stands alone in the literature of science, which pervades the book. After reading it I turned to his previous work, Progress and Poverty, and with a heightened appreciation of its author's activity. You ask my opinion of Henry George's work, and of his single tax system. My opinion is the following:—

Humanity advances continually towards the enlightenment of its consciousness, and to the institution of modes of life corresponding to this consciousness. Hence in every period of life and humanity there is, on the one hand, a progressive enlightenment of consciousness, and on the other a realisation in life of what is enlightened. At the close of the 18th century and the