Part 15 (2/2)

It promises a living wage, decent housing accommodation, an insurance against unemployment, and security in old age, and leaves the question of national owners.h.i.+p or private owners.h.i.+p to be settled by posterity.

LAND REFORM AND THE SINGLE TAX

Apart from the ideals of Socialism, the democratic ideal of a community owning the full value of its land was presented by Henry George, an American economist, in 1879, and his book ”Progress and Poverty,” was at once received with enthusiasm by certain reformers in England and America.

George visited England in 1881, 1884, and 1889, and his visits resulted in a strong movement for the taxation of land values. This movement has been inspired by an ideal of a democratic community as definite as the Socialist ideal, and it has grown steadily in popular favour as the justice of a tax on land values has been recognised. ”Progress and Poverty” is the bible of the Land Reformers, as Marx's ”Capital” is (or was) the bible of Socialists. It is claimed that a tax on land values is the true remedy of social and economic ills, and that democracy can eradicate the root-cause of poverty by such a tax. In this belief the followers of Henry George have preached the Single Tax, as it is called, with unquenchable fervour, and the Liberal Party has been gradually won over--if not to the Single Tax, at least to a tax on land values. Many Conservatives, too, favour the taxation of land values in cities, and all the princ.i.p.al munic.i.p.alities have pet.i.tioned Parliament in favour of this method of taxation. But it is the democratic ideals of Henry George that have been the life of the movement for the Single Tax, and but for these ideals the movement would never have become a living influence towards democracy, or inspired a social enthusiasm.

The charm about the Single Tax propaganda is that its ideals of democracy do not discourage the practical politician and the average citizen from supporting what seems a necessary and reasonable proposal. Without committing themselves at all to Henry George's full scheme for the total abolition of land monopoly by a tax of twenty s.h.i.+llings in the pound on all land values, and without abandoning the common British suspicion of the doctrinaire and the political idealist, the ordinary shopkeeper and householder are quite of opinion that urban values in land can be taxed legitimately for the benefit of the community, and that democracy would do well to decree some moderate tax on land values for the relief of the overtaxed non-landowner.

So the taxation of land values is presented by its advocates as a social reform more radical and democratic than all other social reforms, as a reform that in fact would make democracy master of its own land, and the people free from the curse of poverty; and it is accepted by the great ma.s.s of working people as a just and useful method of raising revenue for local and imperial needs.

Socialism, social reform, the Single Tax--various are the ideals of a democratic people at work at the business of government, and various are the means proposed to establish the democracy in economic freedom.

CHAPTER IX

THE WORLD-WIDE MOVEMENT: ITS STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS

EAST AND WEST

The movement towards democracy is world-wide to-day, and the political const.i.tutions of the West are desired with fervour in the East.

For generations there has been agitation in Russia for representative government, and men and women--in countless numbers--have sacrificed wealth, reputation, liberty, and life itself in the cause of political freedom. On the establishment in 1906 of the Duma, a national chamber of elected members, there was general rejoicing, because it seemed that, at length, autocracy was to give place to representative government. But the hopes of the political reformers were short lived. The Duma still exists, but its powers were closely restricted in 1907, and the franchise has been narrowed, to secure an overwhelming preponderance of the wealthy, so that it is altogether misleading to regard it as a popular a.s.sembly.

In Egypt and in India the Nationalist movements are directed to self-government, and are led by men who have, in most cases, spent some years at an English University, or have been trained at the English Bar.

Residence in England, and a close study of British politics make the educated Indian anxious for political rights in his own country, similar to those that are given to him in Great Britain. In England the Indian has all the political rights of a British subject. He can vote for a member of Parliament, he can even be a member of the House of Commons. On two occasions in recent years, an Indian has been elected to Parliament: Mr.

Dadabhai Naoroji sat as Liberal M.P. for Finsbury, 1892-5; Sir M.M.

Bhownagree as a Conservative for Bethnal Green, 1895-1906. Back in his native land, the Indian finds that he belongs to a subject race, and that the British garrison will neither admit him to social equality, nor permit him the right of legislation. Hence with eyes directed to Western forms of government, the Indian is discontented with the bureaucracy that rules his land, and disaffected from the Imperial power. But so many are the nations in India, and so poverty-stricken is the great mult.i.tude of its peasantry that the Nationalist movement can touch but the fringe of the population, and the millions of India live patiently and contentedly under the British Crown. Nevertheless, the national movement grows steadily in numbers and in influence, for it is difficult for those who, politically minded, have once known political freedom, to resign themselves to political subjection.

In Egypt the Nationalist movement is naturally smaller and more concentrated than in India and the racial divisions hinder its unity. Egypt is nominally under the suzerainty of Turkey, though occupied by Great Britain, and now that Turkey has set up a Const.i.tution and a Parliament, patriotic Egyptian politicians are impatient at the blocking out by the British authorities of every proposal for self-government.

As in India, so in Egypt: it is the men of education who are responsible for the Nationalist movement. And in both countries it is the desire to experiment in representative government, to test the const.i.tutional forms in common use in the West, and to practise the responsibilities of citizens.h.i.+p, that stimulates the movement. The unwillingness of the British Government to gratify this desire explains the hostility to British rule in India and Egypt.

j.a.pan received a Const.i.tution from the Emperor in 1890, and in 1891 its Diet was formally opened with great national enthusiasm. It is a two-chamber Parliament--a Council of n.o.bles, and a popularly elected a.s.sembly--and only in the last few years have the business men given their attention to it. Although the Cabinet is influenced by j.a.panese public opinion, it is not directly responsible to the Diet, but is the Ministry of the Mikado. The resolution of the j.a.panese statesmen of forty years ago to make j.a.pan a world-power made Const.i.tutional Government, in their eyes, a necessity for the nation.

In Europe, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all possess democratic const.i.tutions, and only the removal of s.e.x disabilities in the latter two is needed to achieve complete adult suffrage. Finland established complete democracy nine years ago, and, with equal electoral districts, complete adult suffrage, and the free election of women equally with men to its Diet, is a model democratic state. But the liberties of Finland are gravely threatened by the Russian Government, and there is no security for the Finns that their excellent self-government will be preserved. In Germany, with universal manhood suffrage, the struggle is to make the Government responsible to the elected Reichstag.

The British self-governing Colonies show a tendency of democracy to federate. The Australian Colonies are federated into a Commonwealth, and their example has been followed by the South African Colonies. New Zealand and Australia are at one in their franchise, which allows no barrier of s.e.x; but South Africa still restricts the vote to males. In Australia the working cla.s.s are in power, and the Commonwealth Prime Minister is a Labour representative. There is no willingness to grant political rights to those who are not of European race, either in South Africa or in Australia; and the universal republic dreamed of by eighteenth century democrats, a republic which should know no racial or ”colour” bar, is not in the vision of the modern colonial statesmen of democracy, who are frankly exclusive.

Only in New Zealand does a native race elect its own members to Parliament--and four Maori M.P.'s are returned.

TYRANNY UNDER DEMOCRATIC FORMS

Experience has proved that democratic and republican forms of government are no guarantee that the nation possesses political liberty.

Mexico, nominally a republic under President Diaz, was in reality a military autocracy of the severest kind. The South American Republics are merely unstable monarchies, at the mercy of men who can manipulate the political machinery and get control of the army.

It is too early yet to decide whether the const.i.tutional form of government set up in Turkey in 1908, or the republic created on the abolition of monarchy in Portugal in 1910, mark national movements to democracy. In neither country is there evidence that general political freedom has been the goal of the successful revolutionist, or that the people have obtained any considerable measure of political power or civil liberty. Ambitious and unscrupulous men can make full use of republican and democratic forms to gain political mastery over their less cunning fellows, and no machinery of government has ever yet been devised that will safeguard the weak and the foolish from the authority of the strong and the capable.

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