The Unpopular Review | Page 7

in an epoch in which no evil was imputed to them. At first a small minority, usually regarded as fanatics, attack the interests in question. This minority increases, and in the end transforms itself into a majority. But long after majority opinion has become adverse, there remains a vigorous minority opinion defending the menaced interests. A hundred years ago the distilling of spirituous liquors was almost universally regarded as an entirely legitimate industry. The enemies of the industry were few and of no political consequence. Today in many communities the industry is utterly condemned by majority opinion. There is, however, no community in which a minority honestly defending the industry is absolutely wanting. Admitting that the majority opinion is right, it remains none the less true that adherents of the minority opinion would regard themselves as most grievously wronged if the majority proceeded to a destruction of their interests.
Where moral issues alone are involved, we may perhaps accept the view that the well considered opinion of the majority is as near as may be to infallibility. But it is very rarely the case that the question of the legitimacy of a property interest can be reduced to a purely moral issue. Usually there are also at stake, technical and broad economic issues in which majority judgment is notoriously fallible. Thus we have at times had large minorities who believed that the bank as an institution is wholly evil, and ought to be abolished. This was the majority opinion in one period of the history of Texas, and in accordance with it, established banking interests were destroyed by law. It is only within the last fifteen years that the majority of the citizens of that commonwealth have admitted the error of the earlier view.
In the course of the last twenty-five years, notable progress has been made in the art of preserving perishable foods through refrigeration. There are differences of opinion as to the effect upon the public health of food so preserved; and further differences as to the effect of the cold storage system upon the cost of living. On neither the physiological nor the economic questions involved is majority opinion worthy of special consideration. None the less, legislative measures directed against the storage interests have been seriously considered in a large number of states, and were it not for the difficulties inherent in the regulation of interstate commerce, we should doubtless see the practice of cold storage prohibited in some jurisdictions. Those whose property would thus be destroyed would accept their losses with much bitterness, in view of the fact that the weight of expert opinion holds their industry to be in the public interest.
What still further exacerbates the feeling of injury on the part of those whose interests are proscribed, is the fact that the purity of motives of the persons most active in the campaign of proscription is not always clear. Not many years ago we had a thriving manufacture of artificial butter. The persons engaged in the industry claimed that their product was as wholesome as that produced according to the time-honored process, and that its cheapness promised an important advance in the adequate provisioning of the people. We destroyed the industry, very largely because of our strong bent toward conservatism in all matters pertaining to the table. But among the influences that were most active in taxing artificial butter out of existence, was the competing dairymen's interest.
It is asserted by those who would shift the whole burden of taxation onto land that they are animated by the most unselfish motives, whereas their opponents are defending their selfish interests alone. Yet a common Single Tax appeal to the large manufacturer and the small house-owner takes the form of a computation demonstrating that those classes would gain more through the reduction in the burden on improvements than they would lose through increase in burden on the land. Let it be granted that personal advantage is not incompatible with purity of motives. The association of ideas does not, however, inspire confidence, especially in the breasts of those whose interests are threatened.
Extinction of property interests without compensation necessarily makes our legislative bodies the battleground of conflicting interests. Honest motives are combined with crooked ones in the attack upon an interest; crooked and honest motives combine in its defense. Out of the disorder issues a legislative determination that may be in the public interest or may be prejudicial to it. And most likely the law is inadequately supported by machinery of enforcement: it is effective in controlling the scrupulous; to the unscrupulous it is mere paper. In many instances its net effect is only to increase the risks connected with the conduct of a business.
When England prohibited importation of manufactures from France, the import trade continued none the less, under the