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society and the ideal of useless pleasure or superior patronage for which it stands, nothing of permanent value can be done.

If there were to be a revolution in Great Britain, one of the first of its results would be the wholesale confiscation of the land. But a revolution is not likely, and still less is it desirable. The Socialist proposes to deal with the land in a political and constitutional way. He would begin by putting income from rent in a separate category for purposes of taxation, just as a Liberal Government treated "unearned income," and these incomes would have to bear taxation, say, 5 to 20 per cent. higher than other forms of income. He would at once restore the machinery of land valuation and encourage public bodies to possess themselves of land on that valuation. He would use these valuations for taxation purposes, and allow no monopoly hold-ups to escape their burdens. He would schedule all private parks and mansions existing by virtue of land monopoly, so that they would not be destroyed if they could be used for public purposes when the changes in land-owning transferred rent from private to public use. Working through village life committees and district associations of agriculturists, a Socialist administration would create an agricultural organization for the using of land, and its model and experimental farms and colleges, its central laboratories for the application of science to agriculture, and departments for the collection of agricultural knowledge acquired both at home and abroad, would restore life to the country and make the land once again the source of the community's energy. Thus the deadening and wasteful hand of land monopoly might disappear in the course of a couple

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of generations. If impatient people object that this is too slow, and cast longing eyes to Russian communism as a better, because a more rapid way, I observe that nothing could be more absurdly vain and unprofitable than to decree such a complete change in a day, as the Russian Government is itself finding out. We have not an organization to profit by it, and our people have not the experience or the habits to make good use of it. It would be a breaking up of the old before the new was ready to take its place, and that is not progress but chaos. To those who object from the other side that the break is too great, and would destroy old classes and distinctions that do hold some good in them, I would observe that these classes are already destroyed and that, as every list of honours and sale of estates show, they are being kept up in appearance as we re-create the past by dressing people for a pageant or fancy dress ball. economic foundation for a landed aristocracy has gone; its historical roots have been cut. The war has laid a heavy axe upon this old order. As it was after the Napoleonic wars, old estates have changed hands, this time largely to their cultivators, who have bought them at values which can be economical only on the assumption of a continuation of exceptionally high prices being secured for farm produce. Some old historical buildings have been sold out of families with whom they are associated in living bonds. Family historical treasures have been dispersed. The ruin, or the vandalism, of our ancient aristocracy, left in this way to put treasures to the hammer that on account of associations belong as much to the nation as to any private individual, have, within the last few years, greatly impoverished the nation. Everything warns us against passively

allowing the war profiteer and his kind to adorn himself in the old garments and dignities of those who belonged to history, and arm himself with their powers. What is precious must be preserved, and the corporate people alone can do it; what is spurious must be held in the low esteem which belongs to it.

The system of distribution and production determined by a monopoly of land is, in any event, so bad that no community that has gone through the war can afford it as a luxury or a show, and when the dignified historical superstructure of an aristocracy which was supported by it has become a ruin, public good taste will forbid the erection of spurious imitations in its place.

PROFITS AND INTEREST

Profits and dividends-the share of capital -dominate the present system of distribution. Land exacts its monopoly toll, labour its competitive wages, capital controls the system which pays both. Having the whip hand, it can effect such results as those I have described in the section on production. It gets its market price-interest, it pays itself for all the risks it runs, it gathers unto itself the many advantages which it can turn to profit or can grasp before any other interest can possess them. Thus we get that distribution of national wealth which Sir Leo Chiozza Money in particular has tabulated in such a variety of effective ways. In 1918, when the national income was estimated at £2,150,000,000 and the population was 46,000,000, only 1,100,000 to 1,200,000 persons had incomes of over £160 a year amounting to an aggregate of £1,025,000,000; 15,000,000 manual workers had, in the aggregate,

£775,000,000, and about 4,000,000 people who for social purposes would be classed amongst the lowest classes of the petit bourgeoisie had £350,000,000. According to the Revenue estimates, over £700,000,000 included in the first class was "unearned " under the definition of the Finance Act and came from rent, interest, dividends. Therefore, almost as much was secured by capital and land as their share of the national income as went to labour as its share, and the bulk of the former was distributed, perhaps, amongst not many more than a quarter of a million people.* The effect of the war on distribution cannot as yet be told, as things have not yet become normal. Estimates have been made showing these results. The Board of Inland Revenue state that the wealth added by individuals to their private fortunes during the war was £4,180,000,000, two-thirds going to 340,000 people.† But it is not sufficient to quote such figures. It may be true as Mr. Allen contended before the Royal Statistical Society that the changes in distribution during the war made towards equality by lowering the value of large incomes, and increasing that of smaller ones, but the conditions under which that has been done

*The same is true of America where it is estimated that interest, rent and profits absorb $12,800,000,000 of the national income, and wages and salaries only $11,300,000,000. (King : Distribution of Wealth and Income amongst the people of the United States," p. 158). Mr. Jett Lanck, Secretary to the National War Labour Board, states that since the war, the portion of national income going to profits was increased immensely."

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† A member of the House of Representatives in America stated as a deduction from the income-tax returns that the 69,000. persons whose income in 1914 exceeded $20,000 a year, pocketed $3,000,000,000 more during the war years than during the three pre-war years.

"Journal," January, 1920, pp. 86-126.

were artificial, and as this is being written, the process of re-adjustment has begun. With the fall in prices the larger incomes are increasing in value, with the fall of wages the lower ones are becoming less valuable; in the background is the power of the owners of the National Debt to exact as toll from the national income an unheard of amount. In the adjustment, property is to increase its exploiting power, and labour is to have its share relatively diminished.

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It is evident that capital is stronger in its organization than it was before the war, and supposing there were the same conditions otherwise, it would be in a better position to increase its share of the national production than before 1914. The destruction of real wealth by the war, the draining of credit and the heaping up of public debt, have forced up prices, and will have to be paid for from the incomes which national and local government can command through taxes and rates. That crushes down upon people living on fixed incomes, or on incomes that cannot easily be expanded. But the greater part of the people can respond to rising standards of exchange, and capital in industrial use can respond first of all.* Whilst the war was still on, and during the uncertain months that immediately followed it, legislation had to be used to restrain capital on some points. The Rent Restriction Act was the best example of this. But it was neither general in its scope nor was it applied with vigour. As a result of the war interest has gone up, combination has increased, the latent credit of the nation has

* The effect upon markets, however, must not be overlooked. A country where costs of production are relatively high is a country with limited trade.

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