In passing upon this and statements appearing in subsequent paragraphs, I think I shall have fully answered your three previous questions. When it “became a matter of _self-interest_ for some _individual_ to improve the land” was it because of his ownership or of his _security of possession_? When you admit that “as long as each individual felt that his parcel of land might go out of his possession at the next regular division there was no incentive to improvement,” you have admitted the latter. “Not until the individual became assured that the _benefit of his labor_ would accrue to himself did the waste become a farm and the hovel a house.” What was his assurance—private ownership or security of possession? That it was not private ownership is proven by the tenant system in vogue in every civilized country in the world. Obviously it is not private ownership that impelled the landless tenant to go upon land owned by others, clear away the forest and “make the land a farm.” Then what is his assurance? Security of possession—the knowledge that he will be left unmolested to enjoy the “product of his labor.” This tenant enjoys his security of possession because of the _tribute_ he has been compelled to pay to the owner to leave him unmolested in his possession and enjoyment. Could he not be as secure in his possession if the land were owned and the exaction made by all the people? Therefore, “if the history of the world shows anything at all, it shows _this_,” that civilization has developed and progress has gone forward, not by reason of private ownership of land, but in spite of it. “If, what is manifestly impossible,” says Mr. George, “a fair distribution of land were made among the whole population, giving each his equal share, and laws enacted which would impose a barrier to the tendency to concentration by forbidding the holding by any one of more than a fixed amount, what would become of the increase of population?” Your assertion that there would be no improvement under such a condition as you mention is self-evident. But this, instead of being an argument against the Henry George philosophy, is, in fact, an argument in its favor. What Mr. George _does_ propose I shall endeavor to make clear in subsequent paragraphs when I touch upon your hypothesis regarding the primitive tribesmen.