When it is decided by our authorities that a new city shall be built to meet the requirements of increasing numbers, and to establish that convenient co-operation in branches of industry and trade which close association affords, its location is left entirely to the judgment of a board of government officers, of sanitary and civil engineering skill. If, as is frequently the case, the proposed site is already occupied by one or more tenants in rural pursuits, they are scrupulously indemnified in all losses which result from their dispossession.

I wish to impress upon you here, that a tenant, under our government, has even greater security of possession than your land owners. The prevailing sense of justice, and a widespread interest, have established the right of a renter to hold and enjoy, against all competition, his allotment during his life. He has also the right, under our custom, to convey its possession by will; and it is more generally the case on our planet than on yours, that a piece of land is held for generations in the same family.[Pg 184] Our government exercises some rights of interference, to the end that the size of a farm shall conform, as near as possible, to such dimensions as to employ no great excess of labor over that capable of being supplied by the family of the occupant. In a general way, the tenant enjoys the same rights of ownership which are held by your individual holders in fee, except that he cannot convey title, and does not take to himself any emolument arising from increased value. His rent is simply an equivalent to your tax, with the very important difference, that its amount depends entirely on the season’s productiveness, and is never a burden.

Once decided upon, the proposed city becomes the subject of universal interest. Its plans are submitted and approved, just as your proposals for a single edifice. All its parts must conform with each other; the choice of its location chiefly depends upon drainage and water supply, and it possesses these advantages in the highest perfection. Every house must be erected in conformity with rules. Work is commenced by the erection of public buildings in the center, and the laying of drain, water, heat and electric conduits through its newly surveyed streets. People come to it, as they come to your new cities, for the[Pg 185] purpose of gain in trade and industry, and locate themselves as they choose under a fixed and uniform land rental. They erect edifices as you do, varying them as they like in their internal structure, but strictly conforming in their outer elevations to the style adopted by our architectural commission, which supervises also the material employed, and the safety and durability of the work. Any disreputable or depraved quarter is of course impossible under this plan; nor could such an encouragement and propagation of crime exist in one of our cities, as they do in yours, even had we the class of tenants to people them. It must be charged among the evils of your landlordism, that it not only promotes vice through its tendency to impoverish your masses, but is ready at all times to multiply it, by affording quarters for convenient association.

The spectacle of our city in course of construction is very different from yours. The government has set aside, what may be computed in your way as millions of money for the institution of various works designed for the health and comfort of the new population, and people are arriving in thousands from all quarters to do the work. Every one of them is impressed with that feeling and[Pg 186] interest which can only arise from ownership, and there is not a single one of them who is not performing some of the work. No one of them has a hope for honor and wealth by getting a monopoly of the land. No rich man comes with his accumulations to get a perpetual lien upon the industries that are just now springing up, and to hold for himself and his descendants the privilege of exacting daily for all time a larger share of the earnings of labor than your slaveholders derive from their human chattels. All choose to work, because it is both honorable and profitable to do so, and also because it is a duty, the conscious fulfillment of which is attended with a feeling of happiness.

The systematic and regular use of the voluntary muscles, without excessive fatigue, has not only an important influence on health, but assists as well to develop perfect and well rounded brains, out of which can only come those evenly balanced minds which create, out of the power of intelligence, the blessings of human progress; whence only come those level headed men, who are distinguished among yourselves as being never wholly the product of learning. It is an axiom with us, that he who does not produce has no right to consume, and this doctrine[Pg 187] has been so carried out in our society that physical inertia, no matter how much attended with wealth, is exceedingly rare. As a consequence, affluence with us is not beset with the terrible penalties of ill health. The muscular body in all conditions of life is made to act with the brain and nerves.

We shall suppose, now, our city has reached a period of its growth equal in time to your decade. Its grand temple is not quite completed. Its streets stretch away in the distance, none of them narrower than a hundred of your feet, and some of them more than twice as wide, to accommodate the airships and the larger warehouses. The lines of uniform house fronts, relieved on the street corners by elevated towers, reach out sufficiently far into the gradually changing suburbs to give a hint of the long and beautiful perspectives that are to come. From the center outwards there are reserved, at intervals of about a half mile, spaces corresponding with the area of two blocks, which make a circular belt around the whole. These are cultivated and embellished in the highest style of gardening and landscape art. Here are located our public baths, statues, monuments, conservatories, and arenas for athletic sports. These pleasure grounds, so[Pg 188] convenient and accessible, diversify our city life with a taste and flavor of the country. Our city grows in a solid expansion. There are no straggling suburbs, like yours. Blocks are erected together, and always in continuation of the appropriated space adjoining them. The intercourse and demeanor of our population are, as you may expect, unlike yours. The general air of serenity and contentment, the uniform politeness, and the absence of degradation, with its frequent unpleasant and disgraceful episodes, mark the difference between your city population and ours.

It concerns us most, however, to make a comparison of our wealth producing agencies, and the channels of their distribution, and for this purpose we shall take our metropolis as it stands in its maturity. It contains, now, like your city of advanced growth, about three hundred thousand inhabitants. Its land rentals have been subjected to constant modification, and are in some places very much higher than they were at first. In certain localities, where trade has concentrated, the public fund has been increased by a considerable advance of rent to store keepers, but there is no exorbitant demand of rent for such favored places as there is with you. The purpose[Pg 189] of rent with us being only to meet the expenses of government, its total is limited; and consequently, while in the mercantile and trade districts, where wealth and capital are most heavily engaged, it has been materially advanced, a corresponding reduction has taken place in the residence portions. The direct and immediate effect, therefore, of an appreciation of land value, is to reduce living expenses among the masses by curtailing their rents. In the absence of any monopoly of private ownership, there is no case, even in the most concentrated places, where rent forms anywhere near so large a proportion of business expense as with you. By your land ownership methods, landlords have an access to both pockets of the tenant. Out of one they take to the limit of their greed whatever sum they choose for the privilege of business quarters, or a dwelling place, and from the other a tithe on everything consumed by the enhanced cost of its distribution.

As our material wants and needs are very much like yours, it is not hard to make a comparative estimate of the savings of industry. We produce more wealth than you in a given time, even with our shorter daily periods of work, because, with few exceptions, all are engaged in[Pg 190] the business of production. By this increased productiveness every consumer is richer. He is able by a smaller amount of labor to procure a greater amount of the objects of desire. Our production is more perfect than yours, by the use of more perfect machinery. Our division of labor is more complete than yours. Our workmen having abundant leisure for intellectual development, all the practical advantages of knowledge and science are immediately brought into effect. By avoiding your great waste of capital by excessive government expenditures, it is constantly so abundant with us that its proportion to labor makes labor remunerative.

We have now assumed for the purpose of comparison that the two cities, one of Mars and one of the Earth, have each three hundred thousand inhabitants; and that, allowing for women and children not engaged in productive industry, one hundred thousand of each city is actively engaged in industrial pursuits. As the general prosperity of each city depends upon the earnings of this one hundred thousand, and the accumulations in capital and wealth upon the amount saved by these productive classes, let us make a relative esti............