the remark of Ricardo that rent is paid for the use of the original powers of the soil. On this fact Mr Garnier, in his valuable and exhaustive work, 'History of the English Landed Interest,' has some pointed remarks—

"What if it could now be found that rents entirely represented the income, such as it is, derived from capital sunk in the soil? Most capitalists dislike to publish abroad their income and expenditure. Most land proprietors have not preserved sufficient data for such purpose. But the present Earl of Leicester, with exemplary public spirit, has shown that his income now amounts to barely 2 per cent on a capital of £1,095,000 expended by himself and his predecessors on the Holtham estate."

This is by no means an isolated case. In 'The Unseen Foundations of Society,' the author, the late Duke of Argyll, instances a great estate in England on which the outlay on improvements had for twentyone years previous been at the rate of £35,000 a-year, whilst outlay on churches and schools has amounted in the last forty years to nearly £2,000,000. The Duke himself mentions one of his own properties upon which he spent £240,000 on purely agricultural improvements-that is, on reclamation of the soil, on drainage, and on buildings.

Not only were the landowners pioneers in agricultural reform, they were also workers in the cause of social progress. Sir Henry Maine has defined progress as the passage of society from the régime of status to that of contract, that is, from the stage when the

individual is bound by something not unlike the caste system to that of personal freedom. Occupancy of land under the long-lease system carried with it the economic emancipation of the worker. The right of the landowner to develop his estate to the uttermost would have been a barren right so long as he could not get the best class of tenants. These he could not get so long as the feudal system held sway, more particularly in the Highlands where the old local natives were bound to the soil. In the semi-feudal régime the people literally groaned under the oppression of the leaseholders, or "tacksmen " as they were called, who let the land to tenants who were in reality only sub-tenants. These subtenants were under no legal protection. It was clear that however eager a landowner was to improve his estate, no progress was possible until the harsh and arbitrary power of the "tacksmen was broken and the sub-tenants given something like security on the land. This carried with it a further reform of great consequence. It implied the right of the landowner to deal direot with the sub-tenant, and to select the most competent men on quite other principles than those of clanship. The "tacksmen" not only opposed the reform but fomented opposition among the people; and we have only to study the career of Forbes of Culloden to see how zealously he had to fight against the conservative habits and hereditary prejudices of

the very people he was seeking to help. It became a necessity, if the new system was to prevail, that farming tenants if they were to make the best of their lands should bring their own labourers with them. Here was a severe blow struck at the old clan idea, under which there was no play for individualism. Under the new system energy was recognised and rewarded, and thus under the guidance of land-improving proprietors the individual right to labour under proper legal agreements began to be recognised. Evidence that Scotland was gradually passing out of the stage of Militarism into that of Industrialism was by the action of the Scottish Parliament even at an early date calling upon landowners to exercise their powers in the direction of letting their lands to peaceable and loyal people, that is, to men who had no sympathy with the plundering habits of the clans. The substitution of legal security for feudal custom gave to the tenant increased status as a man, independently of all clan distinctions, and in this way the landowners were workers in the cause of individual emancipation and social peace. It is perfectly obvious that the step from Feudalism to Industrialism would never have been taken in Scotland if the landowners had not been owners in the absolute sense of the term, had not, in other words, possessed the fullest right to lease the land to the best available men, and to substitute legal agreements for

the old stagnant clan system. Here, then, we see that the rights of property insisted upon by the landowners could not be exercised without the acknowledgment of of the right of tenants to compete for land, and the right to security in possession of it so long as the conditions were fulfilled. In all this we have the germ of civilisation as understood by Bentham, and in harmony with his contention that Security is the fundamental principle of a well-ordered State.

In view of the foregoing the question may well be asked, How comes it that the popular mind and the leaders of a great political party have got hold of the delusion that landowners as a class have systematically used their power to enrich themselves at the expense of the community? That this is the Radical view is plain from the determination shown in the Budget to execute vengeance upon them in the shape of crushing taxation. The blame for this widespread delusion mainly lies at the door of the Ricardian School of Political Economy, in which the erroneous doctrine of the unearned increment originated. Once begin with Ricardo by differentiating land from all other kinds of property, once treat landowners as the possessors of a special kind of privilege, and when you come to taxation you will naturally lay upon them special burdens. In Ricardo's definition of rent is to be found the germ of the unearned increment and of all recent socialistic land taxation.

of rent. The conclusion to which Mill comes is, that 'any difference in favour of certain producers, or in favour of production in certain circumstances, being the source of a gain which, though not called rent unless paid periodically by one person to another, is governed by laws entirely the same with it." If, then, according to Mill, rent is just profit under another name, what becomes of Ricardo's contention that rent is the price paid for a unique monopoly, and the deduction from it that, in the name of unearned increment, the incomes of landowners by a process of taxation should be confiscated? Mill's definition of rent completely disposes of Mr Asquith's contention in a recent speech at a Budget demonstration, that in the name of unearned increment the State is entitled to levy a toll on the part of the value of the land which the community have created. But if, as Mill admits, rent is simply another name for profit, why does Mr Asquith exclusively associate unearned increment with land? The prosperity of every form of industry depends as much as land upon the presence of a prosperous community, without which there can be neither rents nor profits. If toll is to be levied on a part of a landowner's rent on the plea that without the community it could

have no existence, a like toll should be levied on a lawyer's fees on the ground that without a community addicted to litigation he would have no wealth at all. To put the matter in a nutshell, the fees of the lawyer and the profits of the manufacturer, or newspaper proprietor, contain as large an element of unearned increment as the rent of the landowner. For that matter, matter, unearned increment enters largely into the wages of the working-classes, whose increased rate of remuneration is due to the increased demands made upon them by the community. To be logical, Mr Asquith should ordain that when manufacturers' profits, lawyers' fees, and workingmen's wages rise above a certain point, toll should be levied on the increase, on the plea that as the various parties' abilities remain the same the increased value must necessarily be the creation of the community. In this matter the Socialists are more logical than their Liberal colleagues. They see no reason why the capitalist's profits should not be placed in the same category with the landowner's rents, and thus pushing the Ricardian theory to its logical conclusion, they demand the nationalisation of Capital as well as Land. That way anarchy lies. In the words of Bentham, "Society would return to the savage state whence it emerged."

VOL. CLXXXVI.-NO. MCXXVII,

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