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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024924254 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 la Lif^ Worth Living? 12tli edition. ' Octavo. Cloth. 
 
 $1.25. 
 
 " The author handles his subject vigorously, and makes 
 out a strong case. He believes life is worth living, and, fur- 
 thermore, that a re-action against materialism, and a revival 
 of faith, are at hand, and that the religious principle will con- 
 quer It is an excellent book, and well worth reading." — 
 Lewiston Saturday Journal. 
 
 Social Equality : A Study in a Missing Science. 
 
 An analysis of the principles and possibiUties of the social 
 and political democracy of Europe. $1.00. 
 
 "It wiU add much to its author's reputation as a clear 
 and logical thinker, and a forcible and entertaining writer." 
 — New-York Herald. 
 
 A Romance of the Nineteenth Century. Cloth, extra, 
 
 $1.00. Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 " The motive is admirable, — the influence of love in de- 
 veloping the religious instinct in two lovers, and purifying 
 the character; and upon this idea the author has wrought 
 with remarkableliepth of insight and strength of delin- 
 eation." — New-York Tribune. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers. 
 
 27 AND 29 West 23d Stbbbt, New York. 
 
PROPERTY AND PROGRESS 
 
 A BRIEF INQUIRY INTO CONTEMPORARY 
 SOCIAL AGITATION IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. MALLOCK 
 
 NEW YORK 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 AND 29 West 23d Stbbbt 
 1884 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The aim of the present volume, which has been 
 reprinted without substantial alteration from the 
 pages of the "Quarterly Review," can be very 
 simply stated. One of the principal features by 
 which Continental politics have been, during mod- 
 ern times, distinguished from those of England, 
 has, during the last few years, developed itself in 
 England also. I refer to the attempts being now 
 made by extreme Radicals on the one hand, and 
 avowed Socialists on the other, to identify politics, 
 in the minds of the poorer classes, with some 
 wholesale seizure, in their behalf, on the property, 
 or on part of the property, of the richer ; to repre- 
 sent the accomplishment of such a seizure, as the 
 main task incumbent on. a really popular govern- 
 ment ; and to madden the people with a conviction, 
 that, untU the seizure is made, they will be suffering 
 & chronic wrong. 
 
 When we consider the squalor and misery that 
 exist in the heart of our wealth and civilization, it 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 is not surprising that language of this kind should 
 sound to many like a new social gospel. The aim 
 of the present volume is, to examine, accurately and 
 calmly, into the exact amount of truth underlying 
 this appeal to the sympathies ; and to enable the 
 reader to judge whether our contemporary social 
 agitators are men of science, revealing to us new 
 social possibilities, or merely quacks beguiling us 
 with new delusions, — whether, in other words, they 
 are the best friends of the people, or whether they 
 are practically their worst and their most insidious 
 enemies. 
 
 March, 1884. 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PKOGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 Mr. George's book has more than enough ability to 
 
 entitle its arguments to careful consideration . 1 
 
 Especially as they are arguments eminently calcu- 
 lated to inflame the social and political pas- 
 sions of a large section of the community . 3 
 
 Actual facts prove this 5 
 
 Character of Mr. George's intellect ... 7 
 
 Mr. George regards the persistence of poverty as 
 
 the great social problem 9 
 
 He considers that the orthodox economists are 
 
 wrong in their explanation of it . . .11 
 
 He maintains, against the economists, (a) That low 
 wages do not depend on scarcity of capital, (b) 
 nor on population pressing against the means 
 of subsistence 13 
 
 But it is due, he maintains, to private property in 
 land, and the consequent payment of rent to 
 private individuals . . . . . .16 
 
 Analysis of Mr. George's theory of wages . . 18 
 
Vm TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kefutation of Mr. George's theory of wages. 
 Wages shown to have the relation to capital 
 which the orthodox economists assert. Mr. 
 George refuted by his own admissions . . 23 
 
 Mr. George's anti-Malthusian theory, that popula- 
 tion does never press against the means of 
 subsistence 37 
 
 Mr. George's theory of population refuted by his 
 
 admissions .43 
 
 Analysis of what Mr. George conceives to be the 
 most important of his discoveries, — his theory 
 of rent as a cause of poverty . . . .49 
 
 This notion shown to be founded on an absolute 
 
 ignorance of the facts of statistical history . 53 
 
 His whole theory confuted by a comparison with 
 
 such facts 55 
 
 With the exception of a residuum of truth, which, 
 for practical purposes, is absolutely unim- 
 portant 60 
 
 Mr. George's theories have been already tested, 
 and the attempt to put them in practice has 
 brought misery on the people .... 65 
 
 Futility of Mr. George's scheme exposed further . 68 
 
 And his own vagnieness and confusion of thought 
 
 with regard to it . . . . . .70 
 
 This shown by his own admissions with regard to 
 
 Ireland 77 
 
 Unreal nature of the religious tone of the book, 
 which is a good illustration of its scientific 
 value . ' 80 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix 
 
 « 
 
 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Singular want of perception, on the part of the 
 general public in England, of the extreme 
 social importance of the science of Political 
 Economy . 85 
 
 Revolution in the modern world indissolubly bound 
 
 up with certain economic theories ... 87 
 , Appearance of revolutionary tendencies in Eng- 
 land . . 89 
 
 The strength of these tendencies shown by the ex- 
 traordinary success of Mr. George's book, and 
 by the unscrupulous rhetoric of leading Eadi- 
 cals . . . . . . • . . .91 
 
 Revolutionary theories must be refuted before they 
 
 can be silenced 94 
 
 Nor ought we to lose time in doing so, since at- 
 tempts are at this moment being made to mad- 
 den the English masses with the doctrines of 
 Continental Socialism 95 
 
 A text-book of Socialism for the English working- 
 classes, and' a manifesto of English Socialists . 99 
 
 These afford us a clear epitome of the principles of 
 (so-called) Scientific Socialism. Such Social- 
 ism resolves itself into three main principles : 
 (a) All wealth is due to labor; (6) The land 
 of each country is the collective property of 
 the people of that country; (c) Until these 
 two principles are recognized and acted on, the 
 position of the poor will continue to grow more 
 and more intolerable 100 
 
 Analysis of the Socialistic theory of the natural 
 
 right of the people to the land . . . 103 
 
X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Grotesque character of this theory shown . . 113 
 
 Analysis of the Socialistic theory of the relation of 
 
 wealth to labor 127 
 
 With special reference to the Socialistic view of 
 
 capital 129 
 
 And the effects of machinery on value . . .139 
 
 Socialistic theory of the relation of wealth to labor 
 
 refuted . . . ' . . . . . .141 
 
 And that by the 'aid of the very illustrations by 
 
 which the Socialists seek to establish it . . 142 
 
 And the statistics by which they seek to illustrate 
 
 it 150 
 
 The real causes of wealth examined . . . 153 
 
 And illustrated by- examples from modem indus- 
 trial history ....... 157 
 
 The fundamental error, or lacuna in thought, that 
 
 underlies the entire Socialistic theory . . 161 
 
 Certain moral truths which are grasped by the 
 Socialists find their most practical exponent in 
 a thoughtful and humane Conservatism . • . 163 
 
 THE STATISTICS OF- AGITATION. 
 
 The Socialistic view, alluded to in the last' article, 
 as to the continually increasing misery of the 
 working-classes, under the present social sys- 
 tem, yet remains to be examined . . . 167 
 
 And it is specially important to examine it because . 
 it is believed in by an immense number of 
 people who are not Socialists .... 171 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi 
 
 PASE 
 
 The view in question, as formulated by a typical 
 
 Socialistic agitator 172 
 
 The agitator's figures esamined, and shown to be 
 absolutely false, by appealing to the very 
 sources from which he professed to have taken 
 them 174 
 
 This kind of reckless falsehood emulated by promi- 
 nent Radicals 188 
 
 And actually believed in, and echoed, by clergy- 
 men, bishops, and Conservative writers . . 190 
 
 An example of how recklessly Social statistics are 
 
 falsified 192 
 
 Necessity of checking such language, by exposing 
 
 its inaccuracy in detail 193 
 
 Are the rich getting richer, and the poor poorer? . 194 
 
 And, in the first place, what does this language 
 
 mean? 194 
 
 It might mean several things 195 
 
 But not one of these possible meanings is true . 196 
 
 As undoubted facts and figures, if we only take the 
 
 trouble to consult them, show .... 197 
 
 The growth of wealth since 1843 . . . .201 
 
 The constantly increasing amount that has gone to 
 
 the poor 203 
 
 Immense growth of the classes with moderate 
 
 means 206 
 
 Whilst the individual income of the rich has been 
 
 diminishing, not increasing .... 210 
 
 A more particular instance of the inaccuracy of the 
 modem agitator is his language as to the land- 
 question 213 
 
 Small proportion of rental taken by large land- 
 owners 214 
 
Sil TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Enormous collective rental of the middle class and 
 
 small land-owners 215 
 
 Socialistic theory of the economic tendencies of 
 
 society wholly disproved by facts . . . 220 
 Further instances of the reckless character of Kadi- 
 
 cal agitation 221 
 
 (a) As to the expense of the monarchy . 221 
 (6) As to the absolute wealth of the large 
 
 land-owners 226 
 
 (c) As to their wealth in comparison with 
 
 that of the large capitalists . . . 229 
 
 (d) As to the historical aspect of the land 
 question 234 
 
 (e) The condition of the peasantry . . 235 
 (/) The population of the rural districts . 236 
 {g) The history of English pauperism . , . 237 
 (h) The relations borne by the rural to the 
 
 urban populations 239 
 
 A particularly ludicrous extract from a pamphlet 
 
 by a Radical physician 243 
 
 Persistence of a section of the very poor. Its 
 
 wretchedness, but its comparative smallness . 246 
 The only right course for the philanthropist is to 
 
 look at every side of the question . . . 247 
 And, if he does this, he will recognize that the worst ' 
 
 way in which to set about reforming social 
 
 abuses, even of the worst kind, is to exaggerate 
 
 their magnitude 248 
 
 Conservatism (in the wide sense of the word) the 
 
 best, indeed the only, hope for the English 
 ' people 248 
 
PEOPERTY Aro PROGRESS. 
 
 Progress and Poverty : An Inquiry into the Cause of 
 Industrial Depression, and the Increase of Want with 
 Increase of Wealth. The Remedy. By Henry George. 
 London, 1882. 
 
 There has been a strong disposition among 
 certain English critics, to regard Mr. George as 
 though he were nothing more than a charlatan, 
 and to think, upon that ground, that a passing 
 sneer will dispose of him. In both these views 
 we consider them wholly wrong ; but, even were 
 the first of them never so well founded, we should 
 fail to see in it the least support for the second. 
 Were Mr. George's subject mathematics or bib- 
 lical prophecy, then, no doubt,, the case would 
 be widely different. An ingenious writer, not 
 many years ago, maintained that the earth was 
 shaped like a Bath bun ; and another, that Mr. 
 Glrdstone was the real beast of the Revelation ; 
 but had Dr. Tyndall lectured against the first 
 theory in Albemarle Street, or had Canon Farrar 
 denounced the second at Westminster, we should 
 have thought the distinguished critics about as 
 
 1 
 
2 PROGRESS AND POVERTT. 
 
 wise as the men they criticised. We do not find 
 a " Janus " crossing swords with the Jumpers, 
 nor the Astronomer Royal refuting Zadkiel's 
 Almanac. But though the Zadkiels and the 
 Jumpers, of abstract science and theology are 
 forever safe from any serious notice, and reach 
 their highest honor when we sometimes conde- 
 scend to smile at them, the moment they enter 
 the domain of politics they become amenable to 
 a new kind of tribunal. 
 
 Our meaning is not recondite. False theories, 
 when they bear directly upon action, do not 
 claim our attention in proportion to the talent 
 they are supported by, but in proportion to the 
 extent to which action is likely to be influenced 
 by them ; and, since action in modern politics so 
 largely depends on the people, the wildest errors 
 are grave if they are only sufficiently popular. 
 How they strike the wise is a matter of small 
 moment ; the great question is, how they will 
 strike the ignorant : and the modern politician, 
 who disdains to discuss a doctrine merely be- 
 cause none but the very ignorant could be 
 duped by it, acts much like a man who lets him- 
 self be knocked down by a burglar because his 
 honor will not permit him to fight any one 
 but a gentleman. Thus it is easy to call Mr. 
 George's proposals ridiculous, and to say that 
 his fallacies have been again and again refuted; 
 
. SUCH A BOOK MUST BE ANSWERED. 8 
 
 but nothing is gained by these facile and futile 
 sarcasms. For practical purposes, no proposals 
 are ridiculous unless they are ridiculous to the 
 mass of those who may act upon them ; in any 
 question in which the people are powerful, no 
 fallacy is refuted if the people stiU believe in it ; 
 and, were Mr. George's book even a lower class 
 of production than it has ever been said to be 
 by its most supercilious critics, we should not, 
 for that reason, in the present condition of 
 things, esteem it one jot less worthy of a full 
 and candid analysis. 
 
 Let those who disagree with us consider the 
 following facts. " Progress and Poverty," what- 
 ever its merits or its demerits, is remarkable first 
 and foremost as containing one special proposal. 
 This is a proposal, urged with the utmost plain- 
 ness, for the wholesale and indiscriminate plun- 
 der of all landed proprietors. We say plunder, 
 and we use the word advisedly : that, and that 
 alone, wUl express Mr. George's meaning. Oth- 
 er writers have again and again suggested that 
 it would be well if the class in question could 
 be bought out by the State ; but Mr. George's 
 point is, that there should be no buying in the 
 matter. Let us not buy them out : let us sim- 
 ply use force, and turn them out. " That," he 
 says, "is a much more direct and easy way; 
 nor is it right," he adds, " that there should be 
 
i PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 any concern about them." Now, without paus- 
 ing at present to comment on this teaching, let 
 us ask simply what success it has met with. 
 " Progress and Poyerty " has been published 
 for but three years — for three years in America, 
 and in England only one. In America its sale 
 was so large and rapid, that it had already gone 
 through a hundred editions there before it was 
 known by so much as its name here ; and here, 
 though its circulation has been most probably 
 smallei', its reception in some ways has been 
 even more significant. In America the author, 
 so far as we have been able to learn, has failed 
 hitherto to make any practical converts. He 
 has been more fortunate on this side of the 
 Atlantic. One of the chiefs of the Irish Land 
 League has become his enthusiastic disciple ; 
 and what was yesterday the mere aspiration of 
 the thinker, will probably to-morrow be the ac- 
 tual demand of the agitator. Nor is this all, or 
 nearly all. Mr. George's London publishers 
 have lately re-issued his book in an ultra-pop- 
 ular form. It is at this moment selling by thou- 
 sands in the alleys and back-streets of England, 
 and is being audibly welcomed there as a glori- 
 ous gospel of justice. If we may credit a lead- 
 ing Radical journal, it is fast forming a new 
 public opinion. The opinion we here allude to 
 is, no doubt, that of the half-educated ; but this 
 
SOCIAL DANGER OF SUCH BOOKS. 5 
 
 makes the matter in some ways more serious. 
 No classes are so dangerous, at once to them- 
 selves and to others, as those which have learned 
 to reason, but not to reason rightly. They are 
 able to recognize the full importance of argu- 
 ment, but not to distinguish a false argument 
 from a true one. Thus, any theory that serves 
 to flatter their passions will, if only put plausi- 
 bly, find their minds at its mercy. They will 
 fall victims to it, as though to an intellectual 
 pestilence. Mr. George's book is full of this 
 kind of contagion. A ploughman might snore, 
 or a countrj''f gentleman smile, over it ; but it is 
 well calculated to turn the head of an artisan. 
 
 This alone would suffice to give it a grave 
 importance, but half of the story yet remains 
 to be told. It. is* not the poor, it is not the sedi- 
 tious only, who have been thus affected by Mr. 
 George's doctrines. They have received a wel- 
 come, which is even more singular, amongst cer- 
 tain sections of the really instructed classes. 
 They have been gravely listened to by a con- 
 clave of English clergymen. Scotch ministers 
 and nonconformist professors have done more 
 than listen : they have received them with 
 marked approval; they have even held meet- 
 ings, and given lectures, to disseminate them. 
 Fiuallyj certain trained economic thinkers, or 
 men who pass for such in at least one of our 
 
6 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 universities, are reported to have said that they 
 see no means of refuting them, and that they 
 probably mark the beginning of a new political 
 epoch. 
 
 It is easy to think too much of the impor- 
 tance of facts like these : it is equally easy to 
 think far too little of them. It is to this latter 
 extreme, we fear, that the conservative party 
 inclines: we have therefore no hesitation in 
 putting our case strongly. We say once more, 
 and with even greater emphasis, that were Mr. 
 George's arguments intrinsically never so worth- 
 less, were his knowledge never so slight, his 
 character never so contemptible, his book has 
 acquire^ an importance, from the special success 
 it has met with, which would make it our duty 
 to examine its wildest falsehoods with the same 
 attention we should give to the gravest truths. 
 
 We have other reasons, however, for taking 
 Mr. George seriously. Our arguments thus far 
 have supposed him to be a charlatan pure and 
 simple, but we have supposed that for argu- 
 ment's sake only. Our own judgment of him 
 is something widely different. It is true, as we 
 purpose presently to show in detail, that, in all 
 his main positions, he is as false to fact as the 
 most crack-brained astrologer, and as hostile to 
 society in- his proposals as the most malignant 
 criminal; but, in spite of this, he himself is 
 
INTELLECTUAL POWER OF MR. GEORGE. 7 
 
 neither criminal nor crack-brained. In tone 
 and in moral method, he betrays many faults 
 and weaknesses. His self-conceit is inordinate ; 
 his temper is often petulant ; his finer feelings 
 are so tainted by self-consciousness, that he can 
 rarely express them without striking an atti- 
 tude ; and his practical programme, as we have 
 seen, is monstrous. None the less we believe, 
 that, in spite of all these defects, the intention 
 he has started with is thoroughly pure and hon- 
 est ; and that, however his character may change 
 for the worse hereafter, he is at present an un- 
 selfish philanthropist. He is the friend" of the 
 poor, he is not the enemy of the rich. He seeks 
 to save, not to ruin, civilization ; and he almost 
 equals a czar or an English Tory in his hatred 
 and horror of our modern proletarian anarchists. 
 Morally, therefore, he fully deserves a hearing ; 
 and our condemnation of his doctrines, though 
 it will certainly not be softened, will at least be 
 accompanied by a certain respect for himself. 
 What we have said of his character applies with 
 equal force to his intellect. Grave as his errors 
 are, they are the errors of a vigorous thinker; 
 and he falls into delusions which most men would 
 escape from, from perceiving arguments that 
 most men would be blind to. It is indeed no 
 exaggeration to say, that he uses more logical 
 strength in floundering in the quicksands of 
 
8 PEOGBSSS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 falsehood, than has sufficed to carry others far 
 up the rocks of truth. Should any reader, out 
 of prejudice, be inclined to question this, let 
 him turn aside from Mr. George's main thesis,- 
 to the remarks he makes by the way, and to his 
 handling of subsidiary subjects. We shall there 
 find not only casual sentences which have all the 
 terseness, and more than the truth, of Hobbes, 
 we shall find chapters also in which certain of 
 the most cherished delusions of Radicalism are 
 submitted to a keener and far more merciless 
 criticism than they have ever met with since 
 they began their wretched existence. Mr. 
 George's power will thus be at once apparent. 
 In the strength with which he attacks one order 
 of falsehoods, we shall learn the strength with 
 which he supports another ; and, if the delusions 
 to which he is himself a victim are greater and 
 more dangerous than those over which he tri- 
 umphs, this will only form the weightiest reason 
 possible why we ourselves should try to dispel 
 the former. The difficulty of the task is, we 
 think, not equal to its importance. It has re- 
 quired greater skill on Mr. George's part to see 
 his way into his errors, than it will require on 
 ours to see the way out of them. 
 
 If this be the case, however, it is but fair to 
 Mr. George to acknowledge, that, in some meas- 
 ure, we have his own talent to thank for it. 
 
MB. GEORGE'S MAIN THESIS. 9 
 
 His book is a model of logical and lucid arrange- 
 ment. He shows us exactly what he wants to 
 prove, and the exact steps by which he means 
 to prove it. The track of his thought is thus 
 so distinctly marked, that we can at once see 
 where he stumbles or goes astray, or where he 
 jumps instead of bridging a chasm. Half the 
 ease we find in proving his meaning false, is due 
 to the clearness with which he shows what his 
 meaning is. 
 
 The great problem which he attempts to solve 
 is as follows. He starts with reminding us that 
 the present century has been, so far as mate- 
 rial progress goes, the most astonishing period 
 in all human history. Wealth has increased 
 beyond the dreams of the alchemist. Science 
 and industry have performed greater miracles 
 than any foreseen by Bacon in his visions of 
 the New Atlantis. Nor do the wonders show 
 any signs of ceasing. Scarcely a week passes 
 without some new achievement — some new in- 
 vention which will minister to our comfort, or 
 help us to escape from some immemorial evil. 
 But there is an evil, which, amidst all this 
 progress, nothing touches, nothing seems to 
 alleviate. On the contrary, it is growing daily 
 greater; and, having long been a disgrace, it 
 will soon be a menace, to our civilization. That 
 evil is the poverty of the industrial classes. It 
 
10 PBOGBESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 is true, that, in some sense, the poor have been 
 always with us ; but never before were their 
 numbers or their misery so great or so porten- 
 tous- as they are, or are fast becoming. " Ma- 
 terial progress," says Mr. George, " does not 
 merely fail to relieve poverty ; it actually pro- 
 duces it : " and it can be seen to do so, he adds, 
 under such varieties of local circumstance, that 
 the fact in question is plainly no mere accident, 
 but is bound up in some way with material 
 progress itself. Here, he exclaims (we are quot- 
 ing his own words), "is the great enigma of 
 our times. It is the central fact from which 
 spring the industrial, social, and political diffi- 
 culties that perplex the world, and with which 
 statesmanship and phila,nthropy and education 
 grapple in vain. From it come the clouds that 
 overhang the future of the most self-reliant 
 nations. It is the riddle which the Sphinx of 
 Fate puts to our civilization, and which not to 
 answer is to be destroyed." Mr. George in his 
 present volume undertakes to answer it. He 
 engages to show us, not only why poverty is 
 connected with progress, but, further, that the 
 connection is not in any way necessary ; that 
 the evil is artificial, not natural ; and that it is 
 in our power almost at once to cure it. 
 
 That men hitherto have failed to understand 
 this, is due, he says, to the following simple fact. 
 
ATTACK ON THE ECONOMISTS. 11 
 
 Almost as soon as the riddle he speaks of began 
 to be widely asked, some of the acutest of mod- 
 ern thinkers supplied the world with an answer 
 to it ; that answer has hitherto been all but uni- 
 versally accepted ; and in certain essential points 
 that answer is wrong. We have missed the 
 truth, because we have rested content with 
 falsehoods. These falsehoods are no vague 
 things. They are two well-defined doctrines, 
 which at present form the basis of all Political 
 Economy. They are, the current theory of 
 wages, and the current theory of population. 
 Now, in these theories, were they only true, we 
 should, no doubt, find exactly what we are look- 
 ing for, — a full and sufficient explanation of 
 poverty keeping pace with progress. Unfor- 
 tunately, however, we should find more than 
 that. We should find not only what was the 
 cause of the evil, we should find also that there 
 was no possible cure for it. We should have 
 to regard it as something ordained by Nature ; 
 and, however the benevolent might still con- 
 tinue to deplore it, none but the ignorant would 
 see any hope in attacking it. Such a conclu- 
 sion Mr. George pronounces to be horrible. It 
 is wholly repugnant, he says, to our inherent 
 sense of the fitness of things ; and it ought of 
 itself to be enough to condemn the theories that 
 support it. But what ought to be, is not always 
 
12 • PBOGEESS AND POVEETT. 
 
 what is. The impious theories — for so Mr. 
 George describes them — still hold their own. 
 They still lead the world to impute to God or 
 Nature what is really the result of our own so- 
 cial injustice. The first step, therefore, is, fully 
 to expose their falsehood. Before the reader 
 can be shown the cure for poverty, he must be 
 shown that it has never been really proved to 
 be incurable. 
 
 Mr. George begins accordingly with the cur- 
 rent theory of wages. This theory, to quote 
 his own account of it, is, " that wages are fixed 
 by the ratio between the number of laborers 
 and the amount of capital devoted to the em- 
 ployment of labor, and that they constantly 
 tend to the lowest amount on which laborers 
 will consent to live and reproduce, because the 
 increase in the number of laborers tends nat- 
 urally to follow and overtake any increase in 
 capital." This theory, Mr. George maintains, 
 is not only not the truth, but is the direct re- 
 verse of the truth ; and no true conception of 
 the social problem is possible till we have once 
 for all put another in the place of it. His own 
 counter-theory is as follows : " Wages," he says, 
 " instead of being drawn from capital, are drawn 
 from the produce of the labor for which they 
 are paid." This, he tells us, is the great pri- 
 mary truth, which we must learn to substitute 
 
ME. GEORGE'S ALTERNATIVE DOCTRINES. 13 
 
 for the hitherto current falsehood ; and, the mo- 
 ment we have done so, a new light will break 
 on us. "For if each laborer," he argues, "in 
 performing the labor, really creates the fund 
 from which his wages are drawn, those wages 
 cannot be diminished by the increase of labor- 
 ers; but on the contrary, as the eiEciency of 
 labor manifestly increases with the number of 
 laborers, the more laborers, other things being 
 equal, the higher should wages be." 
 
 This, however, says Mr. George, is only half 
 the matter. It will avail us little to have de- 
 molished the current theory of wages, unless 
 we demolish also the current theory of popula- 
 tion. It will be observed, he says, that, in the 
 inference just quoted, he has been obliged to 
 make a proviso, — ^^ other things being equal." 
 He supposes, that is to say, that the produc- 
 tive powers of nature do not tend to diminish 
 " with the increasing drafts made upon them by 
 increasing population." But that is the very 
 thing which at present the economists suppose 
 they do ; and he is thus led to the second point, 
 in which he declares the economists to be wrong. 
 
 "The current doctrine [he says] as to the deri- 
 vation and law of wages, finds its strongest support 
 in a doctrine generally accepted, — the doctrine to 
 which Malthus has given his name, — that popula- 
 tion naturally tends to increase faster than sub- 
 
14 PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 sistence ; ... so that doubling the application of 
 labor does not double the produce." 
 
 To put the case more plainly, he quotes Mill's 
 well-known statement of it: — 
 
 "'A greater number of people cannot, in any 
 given state of civilization, be collectively so well 
 provided for as a smaller. The niggardliness of 
 nature, not the injustice of society, is the cause of 
 the penalt3' attached to over-population. An unjust 
 distribution of wealth does not aggravate the evil, 
 but, at most, causes it to be somewhat earlier felt. 
 It is in vain to say that all mouths which the in- 
 crease of mankind brings into existence bring with 
 them hands. The new mouths require as much food 
 as the old ones, and the hands do not produce as 
 much.' 
 
 " All this [says Mr. George] I deny. I assert 
 that the very reverse of these propositions is tfue^ 
 I assert, that, in any given state of civilization, a 
 greater number of people can collectively be better 
 ■provided for than a smaller. I assert that the in- 
 justice of society, not the niggardliness of nature, 
 is the cause of the want and misery which the 
 current theory attributes to over-population. I 
 assert that the new mouths which an increasing 
 population calls into existence require no more food 
 than the old ones, while the hands they bring with 
 them can in the natural order of things produce 
 more. I assert, that, other things being equal, the 
 greater the population, the greater the comfort which 
 
RESULTS OF THESE DOCTRINES. 15 
 
 an equitable distribution of wealth would give to 
 each individual. I assert, that, in a state of equal- 
 ity, the natural increase of population would con- 
 stantly tend to make every individual richer instead 
 of poorer." 
 
 Such are the results of Mr. George's destruc- 
 tive criticism. Wages are not drawn from capi- 
 tal: population does not increase faster than 
 do the means of subsistence. Having estab- 
 lished, as he conceives, these two great prin- 
 ciples, he appeals in triumph to the reader to 
 note the consequence of his victory. He " has 
 raised," he says, " an Antaeus from the earth." 
 He has shown that poverty, whatever its true 
 cause be, is not caused by any permanent law 
 of nature. What, then ? The inference surely 
 is simple : it must be caused somehow by some 
 behavior of man. Again he asks, what, then ? 
 And the answer is simpler still : let govern- 
 ments for the future make men behave differ- 
 ently. Let us agitate a little ; let us pass a 
 few Acts of Parliament, — and, so far at least as 
 material comfort goes, the earth will presently 
 be turned into a garden of Eden. To Mr. 
 George, all this seems exceedingly plain sailing. 
 To say that an evil is caused by human con- 
 duct, is for him the same thing as to say that it 
 is curable. Human conduct can, of course, be 
 altered by legislation ; and he has nothing now 
 to ask but, in what human conduct is wrong. 
 
16 PSOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 The answer to this question forms the real 
 gist of his book. The. wrong conduct, the 
 universal piece of injustice, to which all the 
 poverty of the civilized world is attributable, 
 consists, he says, in our treatment of land as 
 private property. As laborers multiply, and 
 machinery grows more perfect, not only is there 
 more wealth in the world absolutely, but more, 
 also, in proportion to the number of laborers. 
 The laborer, however, still remains poor. What 
 becomes of the wealth? Mr. George tells us 
 that it is all absorbed in rent, and is thus 
 drained away in the bottomless pockets of the 
 landholders. A nation, he says, grows more 
 and more productive ; but wages do not rise, 
 nor does interest on capital rise ; the only thing 
 that rises is rent ; and the landholders are the 
 only class that grow richer. They form, as it 
 were, a waste-pipe low down in a cistern, which 
 prevents the water, no matter what the supply 
 be, from ever rising above a certain level. 
 
 Mr. George, in arguments which we shall by 
 and by touch upon, supports this position with 
 much labor and emphasis ; and he then pro- 
 ceeds to his great practical message. If the rest 
 of the world is poor because the landholders 
 are rich, the cure for poverty is, to seize upon 
 the landholders' property, and forcibly make it 
 over to the nation at large, or to the state, with- 
 
povshty due to bent. 17 
 
 out, as he puts it, making any " bother " about 
 compensation. Were the lancJholders to be 
 compensated, or bought out, we might as well 
 leave the matter alone. We should be simply- 
 paying out of one pocket, what we put into 
 another. What we have to do is, not to buy, 
 but to take. The proposal, no doubt, may at 
 first sight seem startling to us ; but Mr. George 
 tells us we may make our consciences easy. 
 The landholders, he says, are nothing but a set 
 of robbers ; and the state, in fleecing them for 
 the good of the general public, would be doing 
 nothing but again claiming its own. Let the 
 state do this, he continues, and the thing we 
 have dreamed of is accomplished. Poverty 
 and misery will be at once cut at the roots. 
 The change will be as great, and very nearly as 
 sudden, as the transformation scene in a panto- 
 mime. Some colossal fortunes may perhaps 
 shrink in the process; but all, save the very 
 rich, will be seen to have grown richer. The 
 tramp and the beggar will be men of leisure 
 and affluence. Want will be unknown. It 
 wUl be a thing of the barbarous past. All 
 tears will be wiped away from all eyes : and 
 even those who lose most in pounds, shillings, 
 and pence, will be more than compensated by 
 seeing how just their loss is ; " for, in welcom- 
 ing Justice, men welcome the handmaid of 
 
18 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 Love." "Let imagination," says Mr. George, 
 " fill out the picture : its colors grow too bright 
 for words to paint." 
 
 Such, in outline, is Mr. George's argument, 
 which thus resolves itself into the following 
 five propositions : — 
 
 Firstly, As the production of wealth grows 
 greater, the share that goes to the laboring-class 
 grows less. 
 
 Secondlj'', The laboring-class creates its own 
 wages as it receives them ; it being wholly false 
 that wages are drawn from capital. 
 
 Thirdly, Population does not increase faster 
 than do the means of subsistence ; and thus the 
 current explanations of poverty are no explana- 
 tion at all. 
 
 Fourthly, Poverty really is caused by the 
 appropriation of land by individuals. 
 
 Fifthly, Poverty would be cured by the con- 
 fiscation of the land by the state. 
 
 Each of these propositions we shall now dis- 
 cuss separately. The first we shall keep till 
 last, but the other four we shall take in the 
 order in which we have just stated them ; and 
 in each case we shall show Mr. George to be 
 wholly wrong. 
 
 His theory of wages we shall examine with 
 some minuteness, — not that it is really essen- 
 tial to the rest of his argument, but because it 
 
MR. GEORGE'S TSEORY OF WAGES. 19 
 
 will prepare us for the kind of blunderings that 
 follow it. His statement of it naturally divides 
 itself into two parts, — firstly, the proof that, 
 wages are not drawn from capital ; secondly, the 
 proof that they are drawn directly from labor. 
 
 He begins, accordingly, with reminding us, 
 that, were the current theory true, the more 
 abundant the capital, the higher would be the 
 wages. " Higher wages," he says, " (the mark 
 of the relative scarcity of labor) must be accom- 
 panied by low interest (the mark of the rela- 
 tive abundance of capital) ; and reversely, low 
 wages must be accompanied, by high interest." 
 He then directs us to observe what actually 
 happens, and declares with the utmost confi- 
 dence that the above is " not the fact, but the 
 contrary." The fact is, he says, " that interest 
 is high where and when wages are high, and 
 low where and when wages are low" (p. 17). 
 To see that he is correct, he says, "We need 
 only open our eyes to one of the plainest phe- 
 nomena in the whole world of business." 
 
 " In those alternations [he says] known as ' good 
 times ' and as ' hard times,' a brisk demand for 
 labor and good wages is always accompanied by a 
 brisk demand for capital and stiff rates of interest. 
 While, when laborers cannot find employment, and 
 wages droop, there is always an accumulation of 
 capital seeking investment at low rates." 
 
20 PBOGRESS AND POVEBTY. 
 
 Mr. George, however, is not content with 
 generalities. He seeks to clinch the matter by 
 one particular instance : — 
 
 "In California [he says], when wages were 
 higher than anywhere else in the world, so also 
 was interest higher. Wages and interest have, in 
 California, gone down together. When, however, 
 wages were five dollars a day, the ordinary bank- 
 rate of interest was twenty-four per cent per annum. 
 Now that common wages are two dollars, or two 
 dollars and a half, a day, the ordinary bank-rate is 
 from ten to twelve per cent " (p. 17). 
 
 Wages, therefore, he argues, are clearly not 
 capital divided by the number of laborers ; 
 which is the same thing as saying that they are 
 not drawn from capital *at all. Mr. George 
 takes little merit to himself for exposing this 
 fallacy. His only wonder is, that any reasoning 
 man should have been deceived by it. The 
 grand truth that must replace it, is, he thinks, 
 equally evident; and we have only missed it 
 hitherto through some strange logical obliquity. 
 That grand truth, as we have seen already, is, 
 that wages are drawn directly from the produce 
 of the labor for which they are paid, and that 
 " the maintenance and the payment of this 
 labor do not even temporarily trench upon 
 capital " (p. 22). In certain cases, and to care- 
 less observers, Mr. George admits that they, no 
 
MR. GEORGE'S THEORY OF WAGES. 21 
 
 doubt, seem to do so ; but this is only because 
 the observers have been careless, and, in examin- 
 ing the matter, have never begun at the begin- 
 ning. Mr. George will show them what the 
 beginning is. 
 
 " Supposing [he says] a hundred men to be 
 landed, without any stock of provisions, in a new 
 country. Will it be necessary for them to accumu- 
 late a season's stock of provisions before they can 
 begin to cultivate the soil? Not at all. It will only 
 be necessary that fish, game, berries, etc., shall be 
 so abundant, that the labor of a part of the hun- 
 dred may suffice to furnish daily enough of these 
 for the maintenance of all, and that there shall be 
 such a sense of mutual interest, or such a correlation 
 of mutual desires, as shall lead those who in the 
 present get the food, to divide (exchange) with 
 those whose efforts are directed to future recom- 
 pense. [That is to say, the crops of the ensuing 
 year]" (p. 66). 
 
 There, exclaims Mr. George, is the whole 
 matter in a nut-shell. This illustration will 
 surely enlighten every one : it will explain his 
 point, and at the same time show the truth of 
 it. The point is, he says, to put it in different 
 words, that wages are drawn from " contempora- 
 neous production " of food, not ^'■previous " pro- 
 duction ; and the men whose work will produce 
 food in the future, or other objects of desire 
 
22 PBOGRESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 which are not food, are virtually paying in 
 advance those who give them food in the pres- 
 ent. If, of the hundred men in the new coun- 
 try, half plough and sow, while the other half 
 catch and cook enough rabbits for the whole of 
 them, this arrangement only exists through the 
 fact that the second half wish for the corn that 
 will be produced by the labor of the first, and 
 the first half wish for the rabbits that ar§ 
 caught by the labor of the second ; each at the 
 same time wishing for the results of its own 
 labor also. Each, that is, wishes for rabbits 
 and corn both ; but both can only be obtained 
 by this division of labor. 
 
 , "We [thus] see [says Mr. George] that each 
 laborer is endeavoring to obtain, by his exertions, 
 the satisfaction of his own desires : we see, that 
 although the . . . division of labor assigns to the 
 producer the production of but a . ,. . part . . . 
 of the particular things he labors to get, yet, in aid- 
 ing the production of what other producers want, 
 he is directing other labor to the production of the 
 things he wants — in effect, producing them himself. 
 And thus, if he makes jaek-ljnives, and eats wheat, 
 the wheat is really as much the produce of his labor 
 as if he had grown it for himself, and left wheat- 
 growers to make their own jack-knives " (p. 68). 
 
 In other words, his wages are drawn from a 
 fund newly created by the very work for which 
 
THEORY OF WAGES EXAMINED. 23 
 
 he is paid them. We shall, in fact, get a clearer 
 view of the matter if we cease to say that he 
 " earns " them, and say instead that he " makes " 
 them. He makes them himself: they are not 
 advanced by capital. To this, says Mr. George, 
 there are never any exceptions ; and the very 
 cases which are most certain to seem so, are 
 precisely those which prove the rule most 
 clearly, not as exceptions to, but as examples 
 of, it. A ship, for instance, may take two years 
 to buUd ; and wages are paid to the workmen 
 long before it is finished. But these wages do 
 not come out of capital ; for, before the capital- 
 ist pays them, " his own capital has been added 
 to by the value of the partially completed ship, 
 ... as is shown by the fact, that if he were 
 asked, at any stage of the construction, to sell 
 [it], ... he would expect a profit " (p. 59). 
 Thus the workmen have added to his capital 
 before they take any thing from it, and the 
 part that they have added is the precise part 
 that they take from. They simply receive a 
 proportion of what they have already given. 
 
 Such is Mr. George's new theory of wages. 
 Let us now see what its value is. To begin, 
 then, with the first part of it, his demolition of 
 the doctrine that wages are drawn from capital : 
 his apparent easy triumph is here entirely due 
 to his forgetting half the doctrine before he 
 
24 PBOGBESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 begins attacking it. This doctrine, at starting, 
 he says quite correctly, is that wages are fixed 
 by the ratio between two quantities, — " the 
 number of laborers, and the amount of capital 
 devoted to the employment of labor." This is 
 the doctrine which he is going to prove false. 
 But, when we come to the promised attack, we 
 find, to our no small surprise, that the first of 
 the said quantities has disappeared altogether ; 
 that for the ratio between the two he has substi- 
 tuted the amount of the second; that even from 
 that he has taken its most essential qualifica- 
 tion ; and that, in place of the doctrine which 
 he says has deceived everybody, he is tilting at 
 one which was never even stated by anybody. 
 Economists never said that the rate of wages in 
 a country was determined by the amount of capi- 
 tal in that country, but by the ratio between the 
 amount of capital seeking investment, and the 
 number of laborers seeking employment. It 
 is perfectly true, that in good times interest is 
 high, and that in bad times interest is low. But 
 this does not mean that there is less capital 
 in the good times than the bad, in proportion to 
 the number of laborers, but merely — and this 
 is a very different thing — that there is less in 
 proportion ^o the number of undertakings in 
 which the employers of labor become anxious 
 to use it. What we have here to deal with is. 
 
TBEORT OF WAGES EXAMINED. 25 
 
 not the sum-total of capital, but the sum-total 
 of the capital that can be employed with profit. 
 The theory of wages is concerned with this 
 alone ; and the very rise of interest, that Mr. 
 George appeals to, proves that this is greater in 
 good times than in bad. His position is refuted, 
 and its absurdity shown, by the very fact which 
 he cites to support it. We are not the first 
 to notice this truly singular reasoning. It has 
 been exposed already by M. Emile de Laveleye^ 
 in a brief review of Mr. George's book; and 
 that review, though in most points insuflScient 
 and careless, contains one passage at any rate 
 which we may quote with advantage here. It 
 refers to what Mj. George alleges about Cali- 
 fornia, " that there wages were high when capital 
 was scarce, while in England capital is abundant, 
 and wages low." To this statement, which, as 
 a Californian himself, Mr. George brings out 
 with a somewhat bullying air, M. de Laveleye, 
 a complete master of the subject, calmly replies 
 as follows : — 
 
 " I do not hesitate to say, that, relatively to the 
 amount of wages paid, the amount of capital advan- 
 tageously employed in California far exceeds that 
 in England. In California, every field-laborer or 
 small proprietor possesses his tools, his land, his 
 
 1 Contemporary Eeview, Novemlier, 1882. 
 
26 PBOGRESS AND POVEHTT. 
 
 timber, or his mines ; and there are scarcely any 
 hired workmen, because every one sets up on his 
 own account. In order to induce an able man to 
 work for wages, you must offer him a very large 
 share of the produce, wliich is considerable : wages 
 are, therefore, of necessity high. In England, capi- 
 tal employs workmen only when they are to be liad 
 cheap, for the profit to be made is much reduced by 
 competition. The demand for a laborer at two dol- 
 lars a day, which was unlimited in California, could 
 not exist in England ; for his labor there would not 
 be worth two dollars. . . . We see, then, that, in 
 California, capital demands hands at any price, and 
 in unlimited number ; whereas in . England the 
 demand is limited, and at a low price. The theory 
 of economists, therefore, holds good." 
 
 Such is Mr. George's famous outset. This is 
 what he calls "raising an Antaeus from the 
 earth." He boasts, like Don Quixote, that he 
 will cut a giant asunder; and his blow, when 
 it falls, merely knocks down a nine-pin. This 
 beginning is hardly promising ; and, as we pro- 
 ceed farther, matters become worse. If he fails 
 in showing that wages are not drawn from capi- 
 tal, he fails still more signally in showing that 
 they are drawn from the produce of the labor 
 they are paid for. His error here is of so crude 
 and glaring a kind, that it can only escape de- 
 tection from the very fact of its obtrusiveness. 
 
THEOBY OF WAGES EXAMINED. 27 
 
 To reveal it to all the world, nothing is needed 
 but to point at it. 
 
 Let us take Mr. George's illustration of the 
 workmen who build a ship. It is one which, 
 he thinks, must prove his case conclusively. 
 The ship, let us say, — speaking only of wages, 
 apart from materials, — will be two years in 
 building ; and it will cost ten thousand pounds. 
 Thus we shall have the capitalist every week 
 paying the workmen (in round numbers) a hun- 
 dred pounds in wages. Mr. George maintains, 
 that, before even the first week's payment is 
 paid by the capitalist, the hundred pounds has 
 been already advanced him by the workmen in 
 the shape, we will say, of the ship's keel. For 
 just as the finished ship, or the produce of a 
 hundred weeks' labor, is neither more nor less 
 than the capitalist's ten thousand pounds, not 
 lost or lessened, but merely changed in form, 
 so, says Mr. George, the produce of one week's 
 labor is neither more nor less than the capital- 
 ist's hundred pounds. It is simply so many 
 sovereigns that have been handed to him over 
 the counter, and which he has given change for 
 in silver, minus the commission. The keel is 
 the sovereign, the men's wages are the silver. 
 
 Now, the parallel here drawn, so far as it goes, 
 is true ; but, though true, it is signally incom- 
 plete ; and it stops exactly at the point which 
 
28 PBOGSESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 would have made it relevant to the discussion. 
 A sovereign is a sovereigi^ to the workman just 
 as well as the capitalist, but the result of a 
 week's work on the keel of a ship is not. That 
 to the workman, if like a coin at all, is like the 
 coin of a foreign country, which, until he has 
 changed it, is merely a piece of rubbish to him, 
 and which he can change only because the capi- 
 talist will give him change for it. In giving 
 his work, then, to the capitalist, and, in return, 
 getting his wages, he is not giving a sovereign, 
 and getting twenty shillings, but giving a lump 
 of dirt, and getting a sovereign ; and the num- 
 ber of sovereigns he gets for the lumps of dirt 
 depends on the number of sovereigns the capi- 
 talist has at his disposal. Give a penny apiece 
 to a hundred starving beggars, and send them 
 to a baker's late some Saturday night. If the 
 baker in his shop has only fifty rolls, each of 
 the men can get only half a roll apiece. Their 
 pennies, were they shillings, would get them 
 nothing more. The journeymen shipwrights 
 are exactly like these men with the pennies: 
 the capitalist they are working for is exactly 
 like the baker. Now, what, in effect, does Mr. 
 George say to this ? Put into these terms, we 
 at once see its absurdity. He says that the 
 rolls are not drawn from the baker's shop, but 
 out of the beggar's pockets. The beggar does 
 
MB. GEOBGH'S WAGM-THEORY EXPOSED. 29 
 
 not give a penny for a roll, but he gives a roll 
 for a roll ; or, rather»^lie brings a roll into the 
 shop for a moment, and then with the same roll 
 simply walks out again. If that be the case, we 
 may ask, why does he go into the shop at all ? 
 Why should there be any buying and selling in 
 the matter? And so with the ships. If the 
 workmen, in building it, really make their own 
 wages, why do they work for the capitalist, and 
 not for themselves ? The essence of the trans- 
 action is,^that there is an exchange. The gist 
 of the question is, why should the change be 
 made ? Why is one thing given for another ? 
 And Mr. George's answer is, that the two 
 things are the same. 
 
 This, were it true, would be merely half an 
 answer ; but, in point of fact, it is not true. It 
 would not be true, even when the ship was fin- 
 ished. This, however, is not Mr. George's 
 point. His point is, that it is true the very mo- 
 ment the ship is begun ; and he thinks he proves 
 this by saying, that, at any time during its buUd- 
 ing, the unfinished ship has a definite money 
 value, and the owner would expect to be able 
 to sell it at a profit. Very likely he would, 
 but he would expect to sell it to whom ? Plain- 
 ly, to some other capitalist, who would only buy 
 it that he might finish it, and who, until it were 
 finished, could put it to no use whatever. Or 
 
30 PBOGSESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 it might possibly pass through a dozen different 
 hands, and at each transfer a higher price might 
 be paid for it ; but its value would still depend 
 on the prospect of its being finished by some 
 one, and until it was finished would be value in 
 prospect only. Who would give a farthing for 
 the finest keel in the world if the conditions of 
 sale were, that it was to always remain in the 
 dock, and that nothing more was to bemadded to 
 it ? Surely Mr. George must see, that, whatever 
 it might have cost the capitalist, it would not be 
 equivalent to the wages paid in making it; for it 
 would not be equivalent to any value at all. Or 
 let us put the case in a slightly different way. 
 Let us suppose that the ship is an experiment, 
 and, when finished, turns out a failure. Let us 
 suppose, for instance, that it is like the Bessemer 
 steamer. Does Mr. George think that this piece 
 of floating lumber, which will never carry either 
 man, woman, or cargo, nor add a fraction to the 
 productive powers of any thing, is in any way 
 the source of the seventy thousand dinners which 
 a hundred workmen have eaten during the two 
 years they have been engaged on it ? So far as 
 producing those dinners goes, the men might 
 just as well have been paid to twiddle their 
 thumbs. This surely must be evident to even 
 the meanest capacity. And what is true of a 
 finished ship, if only it sails badly, is true of any 
 
MB. GEORGE'S WAGE-TEEORT EXPOSED. 31 
 
 ship before it can sail at all. We are not deny- 
 ing, that, if the ship succeeds, the work done on 
 it during the first week will be worth the week's 
 wages some day ; but that they are not drawn 
 from it now is at once proved by the fact, that 
 the wages are paid the same, whether the ship 
 succeeds or no. The work of the first week, if 
 taken alone, is equally valueless in either case ; 
 and it will be so for a hundred weeks to come : 
 but the value of the wages is complete the 
 moment they are paid ; and the beef, the beer, 
 and so forth, which they are used to purchase, 
 have been necessarily produced a hundred weeks 
 previous to any practical retui;n being made for 
 them. That is to say, they have been drawn 
 from capital. 
 
 We have more yet to add. Let the ship be 
 successfully finished, and ready to take in cargo ; 
 and let us agree that at last the owner has his 
 capital back again, — that the ship to him is now 
 the same as j£10,000. True, it is the same to 
 him, but it is not the same to the shipwrights. 
 It is capital only to one who has more capital to 
 expend upon it. Unless it can be manned and 
 victualled, it would be as valueless still as ever ; 
 so that, even had it been completed before a 
 penny had been given in wages, the wages would 
 still be determined by what the capitalist was 
 able to pay for it. If he could pay little, nobody 
 
32 PBOGBSSS AND POVERTY. 
 
 else could pay any thing. The value of the ship 
 would be, therefore, its' value to him ; and each 
 workman's wages would be a fraction of that 
 value. Even on this supposition, wages are 
 drawn from capital. Mr. George's case is so bad 
 that it cannot be proved, even from his own 
 erroneous premises. 
 
 Surprising, however, as his position with regard 
 to this question is, we can easily trace the false 
 steps that have led him to it. 
 
 "The fundamental fault [he says], that in aU 
 economic reasoning must be firmly grasped, and 
 never let go, is, that all society, in its most highly 
 developed forms, is but an elaboration of society in 
 its rudest beginnings, and that principles obvious in 
 the simple relations of men are merely disguised, 
 and not abrogated or reversed, by the more intricate 
 relations that result from the division of labor, and 
 the use of complex tools and methods" (p. 29). 
 
 And he then proceeds to the illustration, we have 
 already quoted of the hundred men who settle in 
 a new country. In this small compass the whole 
 matter is before us. What Mr. George calls his 
 " fundamental truth," is about the most funda- 
 mental falsehood that it was in his power to 
 formulate. No doubt, society in its most highly 
 developed forms is the same as society in its 
 rudest beginnings in some points ; but there are 
 other points in whi6h it is altogether difPerent, 
 
34 PBOGBESS AND POVMRTT. 
 
 specified circumstances, civilization can begin 
 without previous accumulation of capital ; but 
 Mr. George fails to note that these circumstances 
 are exceptional, and that, though they may foster 
 a civilization as long as it is in its cradle, they 
 will be at once destroyed by it as soon as it 
 begins to toddle. 
 
 For let us note what these circumstances are. 
 They are a supply on the spot of " fish, game, 
 berries, and so forth," so easy to take that it 
 might just as well be in a larder, and so abun- 
 dant that nothing need be done to maintain it. 
 Now, no doubt there are some new countries 
 where a state of things like this actually does 
 exist; but it exists only so long as the countries 
 are new. By and by, as population increases, 
 the game and the berries, though they may in- 
 crease also, will increase only because labor is 
 now applied to them ; because game is bred as 
 well as merely caught, and fruit-trees planted as 
 well as merely rifled. Thus, though the food of 
 the first year may be the produce of " contem- 
 poraneous " labor, that of the fifth, the tenth, 
 or the twentieth, will be the produce of " pre- 
 vious." labor. Wages are only not drawn from 
 capital so long as the food-supply needs no 
 human pare to maintain it. So much, then, for 
 Mr. George's case. Let us now remind him that 
 that case is exceptional, and let us ask him to 
 
ME. GEORGE'S WAGE-THEORT EXPOSED. 35 
 
 consider the normal case instead of it. Let us 
 suppose, that, in the new country, there are no 
 game and berries at all. Some of the finest 
 corn-land in the world was in this condition 
 when the first settlers came to use their ploughs 
 upon it. On what does Mr. George think that 
 these settlers lived ? There is no room either 
 for doubt or quibbling here. They lived evi- 
 dently on food they had brought with them ; 
 that is to say, on capital, and nothing but capi- 
 tal. Or let us take a clearer example still. A 
 trading-ship is sent on a six weeks' voyage. 
 During those six weeks, on what do the crew 
 live ? Mr. George delights in illustrations, and 
 with illustrations we have answered him. His 
 are exceptional, and do not prove his point: 
 ours are normal and homely, and altogether dis- 
 prove it. 
 
 We will not be content, however, with con- 
 futing Mr. George ourselves. We will make 
 him do it out of his own mouth. 
 
 "In the great San Joaquin Valley [he says], 
 there were, [in 1877, owing to a total failure of the 
 crop] many farmers without food enough to support 
 their families until the next harvest-time, let alone 
 to support any laborers. But the rains came again 
 in proper season, and these very farmers proceeded 
 to hire hands to plough and sow. For every here 
 and there was a farmer, who had been holding back 
 
36 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 part of his crop. As soon as the rains carae, he was 
 anxious to sell before the next harvest brought lower 
 prices ; and the grain thus held in reserve, through 
 the machinery of exchanges and advances, passed to 
 the use of the cultivators, — set free, in effect pro- 
 duced, by the work done for the next crop." 
 
 "We will request the reader to consider this 
 passage well. Had Mr. George expressly de- 
 signed it to destroy instead of supporting his 
 theory, he could have written nothing better 
 adapted to his purpose. The farmers, he ad- 
 mits, are enabled- to go on with their labors 
 only because some other farmers have corn al- 
 ready accumulated. But this last year's corn, 
 he actually goes on to declare, is the produce 
 of the ploughing done for the crop of next year. 
 Surely, if this be the case, the result will be 
 somewhat singular. If this year's ploughing 
 produces last year's crop, then this year's plough- 
 ing can multiply last year's crop. The more 
 acres the farmer ploughs, the more of last year's 
 bushels will appear in the padlocked barn. 
 This absurdity, of course, needs no comment. 
 But, though this is not true, the exact reverse 
 is ; and, what is more, Mr. George himself admits 
 it. Though this year's ploughing cannot in- 
 crease last year's corn, the amount of last year's 
 corn does limit this year's ploughing. Thus 
 once more we see that wages are drawn from 
 
MR. GEORGE ON MALTHUS. 37 
 
 capital. Mr. George's enemy here has found 
 hun out with a vengeance. His illustration is 
 like a Balaam, which he has invoked to curse 
 the economists, and which, as soon as he has 
 got hold of it, blesses them altogether. 
 
 But we have already dwelt too long upon this 
 branch of our subject. Let us now pass on to 
 the next. It will afford the reader a very similar 
 spectacle. Mr. George attacks the Malthusian 
 theory exactly as we have seen him attacking the 
 theory of wages, — with the same weapons, the 
 same ferocity, and with the same ill-success. 
 He begins with declaring, much as he did in the 
 former case, that the falsehood he is about to 
 expose is the most palpable thing conceivable, 
 and would never have become current but for 
 certain adventitious circumstances. One of 
 these was, that it flattered and soothed the rich, 
 by assuring them that they were not to blame for 
 the vice and misery of the poor. The other, 
 which is far more important, is, that it seems to 
 fit in with the Darwinian theory of evolution. 
 Darwin, it has been said, " is Malthus all over-, " 
 and, conversely, it is supposed that Malthus is 
 " Darwin all over." Mr. George admits that this 
 view of the matter is plausible, and further, that, 
 if true, it would be all in favor of Malthus. 
 His first care, therefore, is to show us that it is 
 not true, and that, however Malthusianism may 
 
38 PROGBESS AND POVEBTY. 
 
 resemble Darwinism on the surface, it is at bot- 
 tom a wholly different thing. His point here 
 he makes with considerable skill, and it is with 
 pleasure that we acknowledge that he does so ; 
 though, as we shall see presently, it is rpally no 
 use to him afterwards. Darwin, he says, asserts 
 that there is a struggle for existence among the 
 animals; Malthus, among men: but the first 
 assertion may be true, and the latter wholly 
 false, because in a special way men and animals 
 differ. 
 
 "Of all living things [Mr. George writes], man 
 is the only one who can give play to the reproduc- 
 tive forces, more powerful than his own, which 
 supply him with food. . . . Both the jay-hawk and 
 the man eat chickens ; but, the more jay-hawks, the 
 fewer chickens ; while, the more men, the more chick- 
 ens. Both the seal and the man eat salmon ; but, 
 when the seal takes a salmon, there is a salmon the 
 less ; . . . while, by placing the spawn of the sal- 
 mon under favorable conditions, man can so increase 
 the number of the salmon as to more than make up 
 for all that he may take. . . . Within the limits 
 of the United States alone, there are now forty-five 
 millions of men, where there were only a few hun- 
 dred thousand ; and yet there is now within that 
 territory much more food per capita for the forty- 
 five millions than there was there for the few hun- 
 dred thousand. It is not the increase of food that 
 has caused this increase of men, but the increas"e of 
 
MB. GEORGE'S THEORY OF POPULATION. 39 
 
 men that has brought about the increase of food. 
 ... In short, while all through the vegeta,ble and 
 animal kingdoms the limit of subsistence is inde- 
 pendent of the thing subsisted, with man the limit 
 of subsistence is, within the final limits of earth, 
 air, water, and sunshine, dependent upon man him- 
 self" (pp. 116, 117). 
 
 Now, in all this, with the exception of one 
 parenthesis, Mr. George is as true as he is lucid ; 
 and even in that parenthesis the error is implied 
 rather than stated. It is a sin, not of commis- 
 sion, but of omission. But that otnission, as we 
 shall presently see, is fatal ; and, though what 
 we have just quoted may be very fine writing, 
 it will turn out to be very poor reasoning. Mr. 
 George says, that, as men multiply, they widen, 
 pari passu, the limits of their subsistence, and 
 will continue to do so till every mile of the earth 
 is peopled; therefore, he says, till this remote 
 event be accomplished, the limits of subsistence 
 can never be pressed against by population. 
 The premise is true, but not the implied infer- 
 ence. It by no means follows, because the 
 limits of subsistence are elastic, that very great 
 pressure may not be required to stretch them. 
 Mr. George argues as though they must be one 
 of two things, — so ahsplutely rigid that they 
 can be bent by nothing, or so absolutely yield- 
 ing that they can be bent by any thing. If he 
 
40 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 ■ can prove that they are not like the trunk of 
 an oak-tree, he thinks he has proved that they 
 must be like the twig of a hazel. It never oc- 
 curs to him that there is yet a third alternative, 
 and that they may possibly be like the bow of 
 Ulysses. Because they are not a ridge of moun- 
 tains which no one can climb, they need not be 
 a chalk-line which anybody can step over. 
 They may instead be like a long succession of 
 forts, which are always being taken, but always 
 being taken with loss. This third alter^iative 
 Mr. George utterly misses, and it is this third 
 alternative that represents what is really the 
 case. The earth, he says, " could " maintain " a 
 thousand billions of people " as easily as at 
 present it maintains its thousand millions. Mr. 
 George declares that no one can doubt the 
 fact, and for our present argument we have no 
 wish to dispute it ; but he seems hardly aware 
 what the fact he has stated is. The earth could, 
 he says, maintain a thousand billions 'of people. 
 This in itself, however, is only half a sentence. 
 The word could is conditional, and is wholly 
 without meaning, except as referring to some 
 implied clause of conditions; and this clause 
 Mr. George has altogether forgotten. The earth 
 could maintain a thousand billions of people, 
 only if the thousand billions of people knew 
 how to extract their maintenance from it. The 
 
MB. ghosge's teeoby of population: 41 
 
 whole of New York might be built upon cooked 
 beefsteak; but, unless the New-Yorkers knew 
 that the steak was there, it would not keep a 
 single beggar from starving ; and beggars might 
 starve and die in the streets for centuries, be- 
 fore chance revealed the abundance they had 
 all this while been walking on. The earth, five 
 hundred years ago, was as large as it is now ; 
 but, before Columbus discovered America, it 
 was but half its present size to the then popu- 
 lation of Europe : and, though America has 
 been yellow with corn from Long Island to 
 San Francisco, the European limit of subsist- 
 ence would not have been an inch the wider 
 for it. "The final limits of earth, air, water, 
 and sunshine," though they may some day pre- 
 vent the limit of subsistence from expanding, 
 are simply the limits of its maximum : they are 
 no measure of its minimum. Because a quart- 
 bottle will hold ho more than a quart, it does 
 not follow that there need be in it so much as 
 a, wineglass. The question is, not how much 
 food exists, but how fast is it found? not 
 whether hunger is in advance of the powers of 
 nature, but whether it is in advance of the pow- 
 ers of human invention: and enterprise. 
 
 We will' come back to this point presently. 
 We must first observe how Mr. George reasons 
 in neglect of it. In particular spots, even over 
 
42 PSOGBESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 very large districts, he admits that population 
 may be too dense for the soil to nourish. Nay, 
 it may not only outstrip, it may even destroy, 
 the food-supply. He cites London as an obvi- 
 ous case in point. The corn and mutton con- 
 sumed by the inhabitants of the city are not 
 sown and fattened on the asphalt pavement. 
 But the inhabitants of London might be 
 doubled on its present area, and yet they 
 would press on the limits of subsistence no 
 more than they do already. For though they 
 did not grow corn, or breed sheep, they would 
 be producing objects of human desire of some 
 kind ; and that is virtually producing corn and 
 sheep somewhere. And what is true of London 
 may some day be true of England : indeed, it 
 is partially true now. English soil will not pro- 
 duce enough food for the English people, but 
 the English people virtually produce enough 
 food for themselves. Though they may not 
 have worked directly in the furrows, they have 
 worked for the workers ; and that comes to the 
 same thing. The Lancashire manufacturer who 
 clothes the American ploughman, is, in effect, 
 increasing the world's harvest himself. For 
 the economic condition of no place is of any pri- 
 vate interpretation. That is the essence of Mr. 
 George's doctrine. We must regard the earth 
 as a whole, not country by country ; and, as 
 
MM. GEORGE ON POPULATION, REFUTED. 43 
 
 long as food is raised on the planet somewhere, 
 it is altogether a minor question where. The 
 more factories there are in one place, the more 
 cornfields there will be in another; and, if 
 there is corn in Egypt, there cannot be famine 
 in Palestine. " [Thus]," says Mr. George, " the 
 globe may be surveyed, and history may be 
 reviewed, in vain for any instance of a consid- 
 erable country in which want can be fairly at- 
 tributed to an increasing population" (p. 95) 
 It is, of course, plain that the foregoing argu- 
 ments are closely bound up with Mr. George's 
 theory of wages ; and that in itself is enough to 
 show that they must be false. But, besides his 
 theory of wages, there is another error involved 
 in them, — another distinct stone added on to 
 the fabric of falsehood; and it is that error 
 which we are now about to expose. Mr. George, 
 as usual, does all he can to help us. He sup- 
 plies us himself with the exact arguments we are 
 in want of. We have only to do the one thing 
 that he does not do ; and that is, to draw from 
 them the only rational inference. The reader 
 wiU have observed, that, in the sentence we just 
 tiow quoted, the author slips in a certain word 
 of qualification. Never, he says, during the 
 whole course of history, has want in any coun- 
 try been caused by the pressure of population ; 
 that is to say, he adds, in any considerable coun- 
 
44 PBOGBESS AND POVEBTY. 
 
 try. Now, to this word considerable Mr. George 
 appends a footnote. It is as follows : — 
 
 "I say considerable country, because there may 
 be small islands, such as Pitcairn's Island, cut off 
 from communication with the rest of the world, and 
 consequently from the exchanges which are neces- 
 sary to the improved modes of production resorted 
 to as population becomes dense, which may seem to 
 offer examples in point. A moment's reflection, 
 however, will show that these exceptional cases are 
 not in point." 
 
 Now, that is the very thing we propose to 
 show they are ; and we fear that Mr. George 
 cannot have bestowed the moment's reflection 
 he speaks about, or he would certainly have 
 given a very different account of the result of 
 it. A country like Pitcairn's Island is, he says, 
 an -exceptional case. However true may be 
 his own theory generally, it is, at all events, 
 false there. He has driven Malthus ignomin- 
 iously out of Europe and America; but the 
 dishonored philosopher has found one refuge, 
 at any rate, where to this day he reigns like a 
 fallen angel; and Mr. George descries him in 
 the remote southern seas, still sitting on his 
 dolorous throne, and watching one wretched 
 population pressing against the limits of sub- 
 sistence. In Pitcairn's Island, as Mr. George 
 admits, Mr. George is wrong, and Mr. Malthus 
 
MR. GEORGE ON POPULATION, REFUTED. 45 
 
 is right. Now, what is the reason of this ? The 
 reason, says Mr. George, is that the island is 
 " cut off from communication with the rest of 
 the world." Plainly, however, he cannot mean 
 this statement absolutely. Pitcairn's Island is 
 not in the moon. It is washed by a terrestrial 
 sea. Ships have touched at it, and ships do 
 touch at it. All, then, that Mr. George can 
 possibly mean, is, not that it is cut off from com- 
 munication with the rest of the world, but that 
 it cannot communicate with it without a cer- 
 tain effort and difficulty. But Pitcairn's Island 
 is not peculiar in this. The condition is essen- 
 tially that of every other country, and the dif- 
 ference between it and them is one of degree 
 only. Of all other countries, England and 
 America are perhaps the two which are now 
 most closely connected ; but the connection ' 
 was not established without infinite pain and 
 effort, and it costs constant effort every day to 
 maintain it. All we need here speak of, is the 
 question of the American food-supply. This 
 reaches England only through the most com- 
 plex and delicate machinery, which was slow 
 in construction, which is easy to derange, which 
 it is possible to ruin, and which it is diificult to 
 add to. England only gets from America be- 
 cause it gives to America ; and what it gets de- 
 pends, not on what America grows, but on 
 
46 PBOGBESS AND POVEETT. 
 
 what the Americans desire of the things that 
 England makes. Thus, so far as Englishmen 
 subsist on the produce of American cornfields, 
 it is not the extent of the cornfields that forms 
 the limit of this subsistence, but the wants and 
 the tastes of the Americans as related to Eng- 
 land's powers of supplying them. Now, such 
 wants and tastes are of all things the most lia- 
 ble to vary. There may be a point beyond 
 which they cannot shrink, as there is certainly 
 a point beyond which they cannot expand ; but, 
 though they may never entirely disappear, yet 
 any day they might dwindle; and, did they 
 dwindle, what would happen is obvious. The 
 limits of subsistence for England would be sud- 
 denly narrowed, and the population of England 
 would at once be pressing against them. Eng- 
 land would partially " be cut off from commu- 
 nication with the rest of the world." It would 
 be advancing within measurable distance of the 
 condition of Pitcairn's Island. 
 
 Mr. George, therefore, in speaking of the 
 limits of subsistence, has wholly mistaken what 
 those limits are. They are neither the powers 
 of nature by themselves, nor the hands and 
 hunger of men by themselves. They are some- 
 thing far more complex, and far harder to deal 
 with. They are conditions of society and civ- 
 ilization in one country as compared with 
 
MALTHUS VINDICATED. 47 
 
 another: they are ignorance and knowledge, 
 cowardice and courage, force of habit, and local 
 attachments. In a word, they are the limits 
 of the human character, — the limits, not of the 
 wants, but of the wills, of men ; not of the 
 number of hands that could work for food, but 
 of the enterprise, the knowledge, and the gen- 
 ius, that directs them where to work for it. 
 Many men starve in their own country because 
 they love it too well to leave it, or because they 
 are too weak to make the effort required to do 
 so. Many men starve, not because there is no 
 work to be done, but because they do not know 
 where the work is; and, the more civilization 
 advances, the more labor is divided; and, the 
 more densely the world becomes peopled, the 
 more fatal does such ignorance become, and 
 such knowledge the more difficult. 
 
 Here, then, are two limits, at least, that 
 population tends to press against, — the limit 
 of habit and local attachment, and the limit of 
 knowledge ; and it is by limits of this kind, that, 
 practically, the limit of subsistence is prescribed. 
 Thus it is not, as Mr. George supposes, one 
 thing, but many. There is a separate limit, not 
 only for every country, but for every district, 
 and for every town. There are limits within 
 limits, circles within circles, like so many india- 
 rubber rings enclosed in larger ones, and the 
 
48 PBOGEESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 thickness and elasticity of no two alike. Some- 
 times one may yield and enlarge suddenly, and 
 then for a time the pressure against it ceases : 
 again, another, instead of expanding, may con- 
 tract. The Malthusian theory does not deny 
 this. All that it asserts is, that, in expanding 
 the india-rubber rings, some pressure has to be 
 always exerted ; and that, on the average, a cer- 
 tain proportion of people are always injured by 
 the pressure before they are able to relieve it. 
 To put the Malthusian theory into these terms 
 is not only to show that it is notoriously and 
 indubitably true, but that it is the very truth 
 that Mr. George himself has all along been as- 
 serting. The limits of subsistence are widened 
 by discovery or invention ; but the mother of 
 invention is necessity, not comfort; and the 
 child is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth 
 in pain. 
 
 What, then, have we seen thus far? Merely 
 that Mr. George, for all his pains and his bra- 
 vado, has left the economists exactly where he 
 found them. Instead of showing that there is 
 no connection between poverty and the limits 
 of capital and poverty and the limits of subsist- 
 ence, he has unintentionally shown us how 
 strict this connection is. Here, however, is a 
 point important to notice. Neither has Mr. 
 George shown unintentionally, nor the econo- 
 
ME. GEORGE ON RENT. 49 
 
 mists intentionally, that all poverty is due to 
 the above-named causes, but merely that some 
 is, and probably always must be. The most 
 bigoted Malthusian would not dream of main- 
 taining, that, because some poverty was caused ' 
 by the increase of population, more could not be 
 caused by the increase of pick-pockets, and that 
 a great deal more might not be caused by fires. 
 Thus, though Mr. George has failed in proving 
 his first two points, it does not follow that he is 
 not partly right in his third. His third point 
 is, that the cause of all poverty is the private 
 ownership of land ; and that, if private owner- 
 ship were abolished, poverty would cease. Now, 
 it is plain from what we have just seen, that 
 this cannot be true of all poverty ; but we have 
 seen nothing as yet to show that it may not be 
 true of some. That is a question on which we 
 have yet to enter. Like the one we have dis- 
 cussed already, it divides itself into two parts- 
 First, does private ownership in land, as a fact, 
 cause any poverty at all ? and secondly, would 
 any poverty be lessened by making all land over 
 tg the state ? 
 
 We begin with the first. With regard to this, 
 we have already stated Mr. George's general 
 position. Private property in land causes pov- 
 erty, because it diverts rent into the pockets 
 of the landholders. That is to say, it perpetu- 
 
50 PBOGBESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 ally mulcts the productive workers of the com- 
 munity of a certain part of their produce. 
 Now, let us at once say that thus far Mr. George 
 is entirely right. We not only concede his 
 point, but we cannot conceive how any one 
 could doubt it. If a tenant's rents are every 
 year remitted to him, cceteris paribus, he is, of 
 course, a richer man. If they are not remitted 
 to him, cceteris paribus, he is poorer than if they 
 were. A beggar would be a Croesus if he had 
 never to pay his bills ; and, if our zero-point of 
 wealth is fixed by our getting any one thing 
 without payment, we, of course, become poor 
 relatively the moment we have to pay for it. 
 Poverty thus used, however, is wholly a relative 
 term ; and whether it means any thing or noth- 
 ing in respect of the present inquiry, depends 
 wholly on the absolute meaning we attach to it. 
 The question is not, are men poorer because 
 they pay rent ? That, of course, they are. The 
 question is, how much poorer ? The main point 
 of Mr. George's argument is, not that rent robs 
 tradesmen of truffles, but that it robs beggars 
 of bread. It is only when we come to this 
 question of quantity, that we join issue with 
 him ; and here we affirm that he is not only 
 wrong, but grotesquely and absurdly wrong. 
 His errors, as he puts them, are diffused over 
 so many paragraphs, adorned with so much ex- 
 
HIS GROTESQUE NOTIONS OF RENT. 51 
 
 cited rhetoric, and intermixed with so much 
 acute reasoning, that their true character may- 
 escape the ordinary reader ; but let them only 
 be put into a brief and comprehensible form, 
 and to any sane man they will sound like the 
 ravings of a lunatic. 
 
 For what Mr. George asserts is this. As 
 population increases in a country, there is not 
 only more wealth in that country actually, but 
 more in proportion to the increased number of 
 inhabitants. Each thousand pounds of capital 
 naturally yields higher interest: each laborer 
 naturally earns ("i.e., is maker of") more wages. 
 But the whole of this increase is swallowed up 
 by rent. The landholders alone get richer, 
 and capitalists and laborers remain just where 
 they were. Let us take an example. There is 
 a small farm in a remote country district, bring- 
 ing the farmer in a hundred pounds a year, out 
 of which hundred he pays thirty in rent. By 
 and by a town springs up in the neighborhood : 
 the small farmer becomes a large market-gar- 
 dener, and his hundred pounds a year soon 
 mount to a thousand. His gross annual profits, 
 before his rent is deducted from them, are thus 
 nine hundred pounds more than they were 
 before ; and if to these profits his rent bore the 
 same proportion as formerly, his net income 
 would be seven hundred, not seventy, pounds 
 
62 PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 a year. It would have increased by an annual 
 sis hundred and thirty pounds. But, according 
 to Mr. George, nothing of this kind happens. 
 The whole of the six hundred and thirty pounds 
 are confiscated by the landholder. This is 
 ridiculous enough, but Mr. George means more 
 than this. Add six hundred and thirty pounds 
 to the original rent of thirty, and the tenant's 
 profits are still three hundred and forty. His 
 original income still would be nearly five times 
 as much as before. But Mr. George maintains 
 that it actually remains the same, — that it is 
 not increased at all. That is to say, out of the 
 annual thousand pounds of produce, the land- 
 holder takes, not six hundred and thirty pounds, 
 but nine hundred and thirty ; and the tenant 
 still remains with nothing but his original sev- 
 enty. 
 
 The particular illustration we have just given 
 is our own, but it includes nothing but what 
 Mr. George actually says. We can well imagine 
 that the reader may doubt the fact : we there- 
 fore present him with Mr. George's own words. 
 Having devoted an entire chapter to impressing 
 on us the obvious truth, that " when productive 
 power increases, as it is increasing in all pro- 
 gressive countries," the value of land proportion- 
 ately increases also, and rents become propor- 
 tionately higher, Mr. George proceeds solemnly 
 
HIS GROTESQUE NOTIONS OF BENT. 53 
 
 to draw from it the following inference: " If the 
 value of land," he says, " [thus] increases pro- 
 portionately, all the increased production will be 
 swallowed up by rent, and wages and interest will 
 remain as before " (p. 154). Nor does this state- 
 ment stand by itself. Mr. George repeats it 
 over and over again, first in one form, then in 
 another. He makes it wholly impossible for a 
 moment to doubt his meaning. 
 
 A more astonishing piece of reasoning than 
 this, we venture to say, cannot be found in 
 literature. Let us apply it for a moment, not 
 to the rent of land, but to the wholly analogous 
 case of the interest on borrowed capital. It is, 
 of course, true, that, the more money a man 
 borrows, the more annual interest he will have 
 to pay. Supposing he is able to borrow at five 
 per cent, if he pays fifty pounds a year for the 
 use of one thousand pounds, he will pay a hun- 
 dred pounds a year for the use of two thousand. 
 That is to say, the sum he pays the lender will 
 increase proportionately ^ to the sum he borrows 
 
 1 The word proportionately may perhaps be somewhat 
 ambiguous; but Mr. George expressly uses it in its ordinary 
 aud obvious sense, as equivalent to in the same ratio as : for, 
 in the sentence that follows the one just now quoted, he says, 
 that if the value of land, instead of increasing proportionately, 
 " increases in greater ratio than productive power, rent will 
 swallow up even more than the increase "(p. 154). The error 
 to be guarded against is the misuse of the word proportion- 
 ately for increasing in an increasing ratio. 
 
54 PROGRMSS AND POVERTY. 
 
 from him. But Mr. George's meaning is noth- 
 ing of this kind. He asserts, indeed, that the 
 sum will increase proportionately ; but that is 
 his premise ; it is very far from being his con- 
 clusion. His conclusion is, that, because it will 
 increase proportionately, therefore it will not 
 increase proportionately at all : on the contrary, 
 it will increase out of all proportion. In other 
 words, because the first thousand pounds are 
 borrowed at five per cent, therefore the second 
 must necessarily be borrowed at fifty, or at 
 whatever rate will swallow up the borrower's 
 profits. 
 
 Now, a state of things like this is, no doubt, 
 not inconceivable : indeed, under certain excep- 
 tional circumstances, and in certain places, it 
 may be actual. And just as there may be usu- 
 rers in the lending of money, so also there may 
 be usurers in the letting of land. We do not 
 assert the contrary. What we do assert is, that, 
 though private ownership of land may produce 
 such a result sometimes, the result is accidental, 
 and in no way necessary ; and the only question 
 before us is, not, must it take place always ? — 
 for then it certainly ne^d not, — but does it take 
 place, as a fact, in the times and countries 
 we are dealing with ? The two countries Mr. 
 George specially deals with are England and 
 America. It will be quite enough if we ask. 
 
HIS GROTESQUE NOTIONS OF RENT. 55 
 
 does it take place there? We have no need 
 here for theories and deductions. Mr. George's 
 formal reasonings may be cast to the four winds. 
 We have merely to look notorious facts in the 
 face, and ask, not, what must be ? but, what is ? 
 Is it, then, a fact in England and America, 
 that the landholders, as production increases, 
 pocket all the increase, and that all the rest of 
 "the community, so far as wealth goes, remain 
 stationary ? Do merchants, manufacturers, and 
 bankers starve, and do landholders alone make 
 fortunes ? Is nouveau riche a synonymous term 
 with landholder? To ask this question is to 
 answer it, and to answer it with a derisive 
 negative. Have the men, whom we hitherto 
 supposed to have made fortunes in cotton-spin- 
 ning, been, not really cotton-spinners, but merely 
 the ground-landlords of factories? Have Mr. 
 Bright and Mr. Chamberlain made neither 
 screws nor carpets, but wrung their fortunes 
 in rack-rents from anonymous firms that have ? 
 Are these Sauls really among the prophets ? So 
 far are landholders from being the only class 
 that gain by material progress, that they are 
 not even the class that gain most by it. Mr. 
 George alludes continually to the wealth of the 
 Duke of Westminster. Let him compare that 
 with the wealth of the house of Rothschild. 
 Even in towns where land is most remunera- 
 
56 PROGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 tive, it brings more per foot to the occupier 
 than to the owner. Or let us take a case from 
 the history of the midland counties. An embar- 
 rassed squire discovers coal on his property. 
 A company is formed, a pit is opened ; and the 
 embarrassed squire suddenly rolls in riches. 
 Mr. George, no doubt, would find this a fine 
 theme for his eloquence. If we wanted to see 
 where the newly found wealth went, he would 
 tell us to look into the squire's stables, at the 
 new wing of his house, or at his wife's jewels 
 and carriages. All, he would say, that the coal 
 should have added to the well-being of the 
 country, is diverted to himself by this rapacious 
 and useless blood-sucker. B^t let us put this 
 wretched rhetoric to the test of facts, and how 
 much truth shall we find really at the bottom 
 of it? What proportion of the value of each 
 toij is, as a fact, paid to a man like the squire 
 in question ? If a ton of coal at the pit's mouth 
 be worth eight shillings, of that eight shillings 
 the squire would receive about sixpence. In- 
 stead of receiving the larger part of its value, 
 he would receive but one-sixteenth of it ; whilst, 
 if we measure its value by its cost to the gen- 
 eral public, instead of one-sixteenth he would 
 receive little more than one-fiftieth. Men who 
 have coal on their property become, no doubt, 
 extremely rich ; but they are rich, not because 
 
HIS GROTESqUE NOTIONS OF BENT. 57 
 
 out of each ton they appropriate much, but be- 
 cause there are many tons out of which they 
 appropriate little. Finally, let us pass to a case, 
 which, though not really so strong as this, is 
 perhaps here more forcible, because it is more 
 notorious, — the normal case of the owners of 
 agricultural land. Of all securities in which 
 money can be invested, agricultural land is the 
 one which yields the lowest return. There is 
 no jieed to substantiate this fact. It is so well 
 known as to be proverbial. We are at the 
 present moment speaking more particularly of 
 our own country ; but, as Mr. George says that 
 his theories are exemplified better here than 
 anywhere else, our own country by itself is 
 quite sufficient to refute him. We say, to re- 
 fute him ; but it seems almost an abuse of the 
 word to talk about refuting an assertion so 
 monstrous as Mr. George's. Even M. de Lave- 
 leye, whose hatred of large landlords is as great 
 as Mr. George's own, who avowedly sympa- 
 thizes with the aims of the Irish Land League, 
 and who would in England be ranked with the 
 extremest Radicals, puts dside Mr. George's 
 statement pn this point, as a thing below the 
 level of criticism. " A single glance round," he 
 says, " is enough to show its falsehood." 
 
 "Who [he exclaims] occupy the pretty houses 
 and villas which are springing up in every direction 
 
58 PEOGSSSS AND POVERTY. 
 
 in all prosperous towns ? Certainly more than two- 
 thirds of these occupants are fresh capitalists. The 
 value of capital engaged in industrial enterprise ex- 
 ceeds that of land itself, and its power of accumu-^ 
 lotion is far greater than that of ground-rents. The 
 immense fortunes amassed so rapidly in the United 
 States, like those of Mr. Gould and Mr. Vanderbilt, 
 were the results of railway speculation, and not of 
 the greater value of land. We see, then, that the 
 increase of profits and of interest takes a much 
 larger proportion of the total value of labor, and is 
 a more general and powerful cause of inequality 
 than the increase of rent." 
 
 We do not quote this passage to corroborate 
 our own denial of what Mr. George has said, so 
 much as to convince our readers that Mr. George 
 has actually said what we have denied, and 
 thus to bring home to them what an extrava- 
 gant falsehood underlies the main argument of 
 this mischievous book. 
 
 We do not say that what Mr. George asserts 
 could not happen : we do not even say that it 
 never has happened. All we say is, that it does 
 not happen. Much of the money of England 
 once went to Rome. Possibly some day much 
 may go again, but we are perfectly certain that 
 much does not go at present. Mr. George would 
 be quite as much in accordance with facts, if he 
 said that modern poverty was due to the grow- 
 
THESE NOTIONS DISPROVED BY FACT. 59 
 
 ing exactions of the Pope, as he is in saying 
 that it is due to the growing exactions of the 
 landlords. So far, indeed, are the exactions of 
 the landlords from growing, that, though rents 
 increase absolutely, they tend to decrease rela- 
 tively. They become less in proportion to the 
 ability of the people to pay them ; and though 
 the landlords may still, as a class, be the richest 
 people in the country, that is not because their 
 rents are higher, but because they themselves 
 are fewer in number. A district, which, if 
 rented at four pounds an acre, would barely 
 keep two thousand attorneys in villas, miglit be 
 rented at two, and keep ten dukes in castles. 
 This will show that what we assert is not in 
 contradiction to reason, whilst an appeal to his- 
 tory will show that it is in accordance with fact. 
 Once more let us refer to M. de Laveleye. " In 
 the' Middle Ages," says that gentleman, " the 
 number of persons living on the interest of capi- 
 tal was exceedingly few. Nearly all the rich 
 lived on the produce of land. Now, in coun- 
 tries where civilization is advanced, as in Eng- 
 land, more than half the rich live on the interest 
 of their capital." ^ Had Mr. George been a per- 
 son of the least historical information, he would 
 have known this fact without requiring to be 
 
 1 Contemporary Review, November, 1882, p. 795. 
 
60 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 told it. Had he known it, he could scarcely 
 have missed perceiving, that, put in another 
 way, it simply amounts to this: that his own 
 theory is not only false to facts, but that it 
 absolutely inverts them ; and that the history of 
 progress, so far as land is concerned, is virtually 
 the history, not of the rise of rent, but, as re- 
 lated to progress generally, of its constant and 
 steady decline.^ 
 
 Now, how is Mr. George's position affected by 
 our recognition of the true state of the case? 
 Something of what he asserts is still left to him, 
 and to that something we bid him welcome. 
 Though rent declines, it certainly does not 
 cease ; and, as we have said already, if all rent 
 could be abolished, rent-payers certainly would 
 be so much the richer. So much we concede, 
 and willingly. But it is evident from the facts 
 we have been just considering, that the increase 
 of riches thus gained to the public, though it 
 might do something to alleviate poverty for the 
 moment, for the moment even would only do 
 little, and each succeeding year it would do less 
 and less. To attempt to cure poverty by the 
 abolition of rent would be the attempting, in 
 the case of a leaky cistern, to remedy the waste, 
 from a hole in the side, by checking evaporation 
 
 1 This fact is dwelt upon at greater length In the essay on 
 The Statistics of Agitation. 
 
MR. GEORGE'S PRACTICAL PROPOSALS. 61 
 
 at the surface. Something might be done in 
 that way, but not much. In a small and in a 
 decreasing percentage of cases, the evil might 
 be nipped in the bud, but it would not be even 
 so much as touched at the root. 
 
 If Mr. George, then, likes to assert the abdve 
 theoretical proposition, he is, we say, welcome 
 to do so. Even theoretically it means exceed- 
 ingly little. But our main objection yet remains 
 to be made to it ; and that is, that practically it 
 means nothing at all. Having shown that the 
 cure, supposing it to be applied, would be inade- 
 quate, we shall now point out that it is wholly 
 impossible to apply it. 
 
 Mr. George proposes to abolish rent by mak- 
 ing the state the universal landlord ; and rent 
 would thus virtually cease, he says, not by 
 ceasing to be paid, but by being paid' for pur- 
 poses that would benefit those that paid it. It 
 would, in other words, be transformed into a 
 land-tax, which would take the place of all 
 other forms of taxation. The way in which he 
 says such a change would be most easily effected 
 will explain, perhaps, more exactly what the 
 change he contemplates really is. 
 
 " I do not propose [says Mr. George] either to 
 purchase or to confiscate private property in land. 
 The first would be unjust ; the second, needless. 
 Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if 
 
62 PROGEESS AND POVEBTY. 
 
 tliey want to, possession of what they are pleased 
 to call their land. Let them continue to call it their 
 land. Let them buy, and sell, and bequeath, and 
 devise it. We may safely leave them the shell if 
 we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate 
 the land : it is only necessary to confiscate rent. 
 
 " Nor, to take that for public use, is it necessary 
 that the state should bother with the letting of lands, 
 and assume the chances of favoritism, collusions, 
 and corruption, that it might involve. It is not 
 necessary that any new machinery should be created. 
 The machinery already exists. Instead of extend- 
 ing it, all we have to do is to simplify and reduce 
 it. By leaving to land-owners a percentage of rent, 
 which would probably be much less than the cost 
 and loss involved in attempting to rent lands through 
 state agency, and by making use of this existing 
 machinery, we may, without jar or shock, assert the 
 common right to land by taking rent for public 
 uses. 
 
 " We already take some rent in taxation. We 
 have only to make some change in our modes of 
 taxation to take it all. 
 
 " What I propose, therefore, as this simple, yet 
 sovereign, remedy, which will raise wages, increase 
 the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish 
 poverty, give remunerative employment to whoever 
 wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen 
 crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, 
 purify government, and carry civilization to yet 
 nobler heights, is appropriate rent by taxation." 
 
TBEIR IMAGINABY RESULTS. 63 
 
 It is not essential to Mr. George's scheme that 
 it should be carried out exactly in the way thus 
 indicated, but the means he recommends will 
 illustrate the end he insists on. Now, let us 
 suppose that end accomplished : let us suppose 
 all rent to be appropriated by taxation. How 
 will this tend to produce the effect he prophe- 
 sies ? We gather from Mr. George that it will 
 do so in four ways, — firstly, by abolishing all 
 existing taxation, and thus making living incal- 
 culably cheaper to every one ; secondly, in case 
 the land-tax should exceed the existing revenue, 
 by returning the surplus to the tax-payers, in 
 the shape of public works or otherwise ; thirdly, 
 by preventing land-owners from keeping land 
 unoccupied in expectation of a rise dn its value ; 
 and lastly, by making rents themselves lower. 
 Let us take these four ways in order. 
 
 As to the first, we may grant Mr. George his 
 point. His programme* if carried out, would, 
 no doubt, make living cheaper ; and, for a. time, 
 certain classes might be really the better off for 
 it. But it would be for the time only : for, if 
 living became cheaper, soon wages would be- 
 come less ; and things would again be just where 
 they are now. 
 
 As to the second point, it is, no doubt, con- 
 ceivable that the proposed land-tax might yield 
 a surplus to the government, which they might 
 
64 PBOffRESS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 expend, as Mr. George suggests, partly in public 
 institutions, and partly in direct assistance to 
 the poor, — such, for example, as endowing their 
 children on marriage. But nothing would be 
 j:eally gained by this in the end. For it is the 
 very essence of the case, that the surplus thus 
 employed should be returned to the community 
 as a gift, not as wages for labor. Now, such a 
 gift must take one of two forms. It must be. 
 either of the nature of a free library or museum, 
 or else it must be of the nature of a free largess 
 of corn. Only in the latter case, however, will 
 it bring any relief to what Mr. George means 
 by poverty. Starving men cannot eat book§ or 
 fossils; and beggars are beggars still, though 
 they beg under marble porticos. The only gift 
 — for we repeat, it is a gift we are dealing with^ 
 — that could in any way save from poverty those 
 that would else be poor, is not money spent on 
 the public generally, but money given to individ- 
 uals for the purposes of private consumption, — 
 such, for instance, as the marriage-portions Mr. 
 .George speaks of. If the land-tax, therefore, 
 were to yield any surplus revenue, this would 
 
 1 Mr. George is essentially not a state Socialist. He 
 emphatically does not mean that the state is to he the one 
 capitalist, and that all the nation are to be either clerks or 
 operatives in the national house. He further expressly repudi- 
 ates the doctrine, that every one should work according to his 
 ability, and be paid according to his wants. 
 
THEIR REAL FUTILITY. 65 
 
 enable the state to touch the suffering classes, 
 only by converting it into a vast charitable in- 
 stitution, ready to give inexhaustible outdoor 
 relief. The state would be thus doing, only on 
 an infinitely larger scale, what it did with such 
 disastrous effects for the populace of ancient 
 Rome. In the very act of relieving poverty, it 
 would be creating it. It would be quenching 
 thirst with sea-water. As to this fact, there is 
 no room for doubt. The evidence of all experi- 
 ence is in agreement, and is conclusive ; and even 
 Mr. George himself, by implication, admits the 
 truth of it. One illustration, however, happens 
 to occur to us, which is so singularly apposite, 
 and also so little known, that it -may be worth 
 mentioning here. Mr. George's expedient for 
 the abolition of poverty was actually tried in 
 England, on a small scale, some eighty years 
 ago. A certain philanthropic gentleman left an 
 estate of four thousand a year to the inhabitants 
 of three villages in Herefordshire. He did, that 
 is to say, just what Mr. George recommends. 
 He nationalized (as it were) amongst the tenants 
 what was once the revenue of the squire. Before 
 many years had elapsed, these three villages had 
 become three warrens of paupers. More misery 
 was produced by this ill-ad vised, generosity than 
 could have been possibly caused by the most 
 merciless rack-renting; and so wretched and 
 
66 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 scandalous did the state o£ things become, that 
 a special Act had to be passed through Parlia- 
 ment to revoke the gift that had caused so much 
 misery. There is yet another case, also not 
 generally known, in which Mr. George's pro- 
 gramme has again been virtually anticipated. 
 It has been alluded to recently in a slight but 
 most sensible work by Mr. John Poison, entitled 
 " Affluence, Poverty, and Pauperism." " There 
 is a fund," says Mr. Poison, " raised every year 
 by Jews throughout the whole world, for the 
 benefit of the poor Jews in Palestine. . . . This 
 fund is called the ' Haluka.' " A correspondent 
 of the " Jewish Chronicle, writing from Jerusa- 
 salem in August, 1880, says, — 
 
 " In regard to the Haluka — here at Jerusalem, 
 the rabbis, the heads of the Hebrew coinmunities, 
 and the converts, distribute money and provisions, 
 and sometimes pay taxes and house-rents, ostensi- 
 bly in charity, but practically in support of indolence, 
 and in encouragement of poverty. ... If the re- 
 generation of Syria is to be attempted, . . . the 
 first step would be to regulate the {laluka, . . . 
 which at present corrupts and demoralizes the Jew- 
 ish population." 
 
 We may therefore dismiss at once Mr. George's 
 dreams of a possible surplus revenue as a means 
 for the cure of poverty. It would do less in the 
 desired direction than even the nominal cheapen- 
 
FOLLY OF MR. OEOBGF'S SCHEME. 67 
 
 ing of the cost of subsistence which might result 
 froin\ the re-adjustment of taxation. Nothing, 
 then, now remains for us to consider, but the 
 two last of the four ways mentioned, in which 
 Mr. George declares that his magnificent scheme 
 will operate. 
 
 These two are really the most important; 
 and, could Mr. George make good his case with 
 regard to them, it would be of comparatively 
 little matter that he lost it with regard .to the 
 two others. For the deepest root of poverty, 
 according to him, is, not that private property 
 in land makes living dear, but that it tends to 
 shut out an increasing portion of the population 
 from the only means of making any living at 
 all; that is to say, it keeps land idle, or put 
 to relatively unproductive uses, which millions 
 of the poor are longing at this moment to oc- 
 cupy, and out of which, if they occupied it, they 
 could make an excellent living. Mr. George's 
 exact meaning as to this point, it is somewhat 
 difficult to define. Indeed, it seems he has not 
 been at the trouble to make it very exact to 
 himself. Sometimes his language suggests that 
 he contemplates every citizen becoming a tenant 
 of the state to some extent, and drawing some 
 advantage directly from his occupancy of a part 
 of the soil ; and, again, at other times, he speaks 
 of farmers and farm-laborers as though the 
 
68 PBOGBJSSS AND POVERTY. 
 
 existing system would still continue, and the 
 latter would benefit only through the increased 
 wealth of the former, and their increased num- 
 ber, which would cause a competition for labor. 
 Were Mr. George's proposal really worth any 
 thing, it might be worth while to examine this 
 particular question more closely ; but, as matters 
 stand, the reader will see presently that one con- 
 fusion more, or one confusion less, does not 
 affect the result one way or the other. It is 
 enough for us to grasp what Mr. George does 
 make clear : having examined this, we shall have 
 little need to go farther. Now, his general 
 meaning, or argument, is plain enough. He 
 means, that, if land were the property of the 
 state, any one who wished to get land would be 
 able to get as much land as he could use ; and 
 that, having got it, he would be able to thrive 
 on the use of it far better than he would now. 
 
 He would be able to get land because it would 
 no longer pay large holders to monopolize it. 
 It would enable him to thrive because the sum 
 he would have to pay would be less in proportion 
 to his earnings than what he would pay now. 
 
 On these two points Mr. George is quite 
 explicit. We will quote his words as to each 
 of them. As to the first he says, — 
 
 " Land speculation would receive its death-blow ; 
 land monopolization would no longer pay ; for, . . • 
 
FOLLT OF MB. GEORGE'S SCHEME. 69 
 
 if the men who wished to hold land without using 
 it would have to pay very nearly what it would be 
 worth to any one who wanted to use it, . . . no one 
 would Qare to hold land unless to use . it ; and land 
 now withheld from use would everywhere be thrown 
 open to improvement." 
 
 As to the second he says, — 
 
 "Everywhere that land had attained a value, 
 taxation, instead of operating, as now, as a fine upon 
 improvement, would operate to force improvement. 
 Whoever planted an orchard, or sowed a field, or 
 built a house, or erected a manufactory, no matter 
 how costly, would have no more to pay in taxes than 
 if he kept so much land idle. . . . Thus, the bonus, 
 that, wherever labor is most productive, must now 
 be paid before labor is exerted, would disappear. 
 The farmer would not have to pay out half his 
 means, or mortgage his labor for years, in order to 
 obtain land to cultivate ; the builder of a city home- 
 stead would not have to lay out as much for a small 
 lot as for the house he puts upon it ; the company 
 that propose to erect a manufactory would not have 
 to expend a great part of their capital for a site. 
 And what would be paid from year to year to the 
 state would be in lieu of all the taxes now levied 
 upon improvements, machinery, and stock" (pp. 
 392, 393). 
 
 Hereupon Mr. George breaks forth into a 
 psean of triumph. 
 
70 PBOORMSS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 "Consider [he exclaims] the effect of such a 
 change ! . . . With natural opportunities thus set 
 free to labor, the spectacle of willing men unable to 
 turn their labor into the things they are suffering 
 for, would become impossible ; the recurring par- 
 oxysms which paralyze industry would cease ; every 
 wheel of production would be set in motion ; demand 
 would keep pace with supply, and supply with 
 demand ; trade would increase in every direction, 
 and wealth augment on every side." 
 
 To all this we reply, — as Mr. Burchell did to 
 the fashionable gossip of Miss Carolina Wilhel- 
 mina Amelia Skeggs, — "Fudged' We main- 
 tain that Mr. George's- scheme would have none 
 of these effects that he enumerates ; and that, 
 though for a moment some classes might bene- 
 fit by it, even they would benefit by it for the 
 moment only, and that these classes would em- 
 phatically not be the poorest. We maintain, 
 that, in the long-run, so far as the general public 
 is concerned, the evils Mr. George complains of 
 would remain wholly unaltered ; that rents would 
 be no lower ; land no easier to get ; and that the 
 beggar might go houseless in the streets, exactly 
 as he does now. And we make use of Mr. 
 Burchell's exclamation, because Mr. George is 
 not only talking nonsense, but nonsense which 
 so clever a man as he is ought himself at once to 
 have seen through. 
 
HIS SCHEME EXAMINED CLOSELY. 71 
 
 To make this perfectly clear to the reader, we 
 must ask him to dwell for a moment on a point 
 we have not yet touched upon. Though Mr. 
 George would turn all land-owners into tenants 
 of the state, he does not propose to turn them 
 into tenants at will. On the contrary, he asserts, 
 with all the emphasis possible, that one of the 
 first essentials to making the most of land, is 
 complete security of tenure ; and the effect of 
 this scheme, so far as the occupiers are con- 
 cerned, would be, he says distinctly, to make 
 them practically " the owners, though in reality 
 they would be the tenants of the whole people." ^ 
 Now, bearing this in mind, let us take a simple , 
 example. Mr. George's scheme, we will say, has 
 been put into operation ; and a man under its 
 provisions possesses a farm, for which he pays a 
 certain rent, or tax. Now, Mr. George tells us, 
 that no matter what use the man put his farm 
 to, whether he " planted it as an orchard, sowed 
 it as a field, or built on it a house or manufactory, 
 no matter how costly, he would have no more to 
 pay in taxes than if he kept so much land idle." 
 Let us suppose that he builds on part of it, not 
 a manufactory, but a town. What would happen 
 then ? As Mr. George himself has most forcibly 
 
 1 The Irish Land Question, by Henry George, p. 32, lu 
 this pamphlet Mr. George applies the views put forth in 
 Progress and Poverty to Ireland. 
 
72 PBOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 pointed out, there would be a rise in tlie value, 
 not only of the land built upon, but in the value 
 of the rest, which is still, we will say, in pasture. 
 On Mr. George's supposition, how will the man 
 be situated now? This pasture-land is still in 
 his possession. He cannot be evicted by the 
 state. He cannot have his rent raised on what 
 are practically his own improvements. But, 
 though he pays for this pasture-land no more 
 than he did originally, other people; he knows, 
 would be willing to pay more to him ; nor is 
 there any thing in the nature of the case to pre- 
 vent his holding this land oh Speculation, and 
 sub-letting it on exactly the same terms as he 
 would do were he the owner of the fee-simple. 
 Mr. George says that the value of the land would 
 be determined by the highest bid that would be 
 made to the state for it at any given moment. 
 But the answer to this is, that a given piece of 
 land is not in the market at any given moment. 
 As soon as a lot was knocked down to a buyer, 
 it would be his till he chose to part with it. 
 Meanwhile, no matter how its value increased^ 
 this increase would be his also ; nor does Mr. 
 George's scheme provide any means of taking it 
 from him, unless any Naboth at any moment 
 might have his vineyard bought over his head by 
 any speculating Ahab. The smallest attention 
 to the commonest of existing facts would have 
 
HIS SCHEME EXAMINED CLOSELY. 73 
 
 taught Mr. George this. He need only inquire 
 of the first house-agent he comes across, to learn, 
 that, rich as are the owners of town-land, by far 
 the larger proportion of the unearned increment 
 goes in many cases into the pockets of middle- 
 men. And, whatever these men do under their 
 present landlords, they would do all that, and 
 more, supposing their landlord to be the state. 
 As to the next point, our case is clearer still. 
 Even supposing true what we have just shown 
 to be impossible, that rents would become less, 
 owing to the state being the landlord, how 
 would this benefit either of these two classes, — 
 men who wished for land in a district already 
 occupied, or men too poor to pay any rent at 
 all? Mr. George does not pretend that rent 
 would cease, and he does not pretend that 
 acres would be multiplied. No matter who 
 owned the ground of Bond Street, and no mat- 
 ter how low the rents were, for all that, there 
 would not be a shop the more. If all the shops 
 were occupied, the street would be Tsarred to 
 any new tradesman, no matter how anxious he 
 was to set up business there ; nor would the fact 
 of the street being really national property, in 
 which he himself therefore had some infinitesi- 
 mal share, give him any more right to the use 
 of a single inch of it, than the fact of his having 
 a share in the Great Northern Railway would 
 
74 PBOGBMSS ANI> POVEUTY. 
 
 enable him every day to go from York to Lon- 
 don for nothing. So, too, with regard to the 
 poor : is it easier for a beggar to pay a pound 
 to the state than to pay it to a private land- 
 lord ? Mr. George tells us that the main merit- 
 of his scheme is the benefit it will confer upon 
 men in the plight of beggars, — not on the mod- 
 erately rich, but on the extremely poor. But 
 not once, in the whole course of his pages, does 
 he attempt to answer the question we have just 
 asked. Supposing a tradesman fails, and can 
 no longer pay his land-tax. The state will 
 evict him, just as a private landlord would. 
 He will be as completely houseless and home- 
 less in the one case as in the other. Supposing 
 in his misfortune he met Mr. George at the 
 street-corner, who informed him that he had 
 an inalienable right to the soil of England. 
 Perhaps, at first, he might see some hope in this ; 
 but we doubt much if he would continue to do 
 so, when he learned that this inalienable right 
 was nothing but an inalienable right to pay rent 
 to the government — and even that for a site 
 only, without so much as a shed upon it. 
 
 But it is impossible here to criticise Mr. 
 George's meaning; because, so far as we can 
 see, there is absolutely no meaning to criticise. 
 From the beginning of his argument to the end 
 of it, we seem to have been going from bad 
 
ASSERTION MET BT ASSERTION. 75 
 
 to worse. But this, the most important part of 
 it, eclipses all the rest. His other fallacies, 
 however grave in reality, are all defended with 
 some show of argument, and many of them 
 with extreme ingenuity ; but this he supports 
 by nothing but vehement and repeated asser- 
 tions, which, though sometimes they may wear 
 a false appearance of calm, are always in reality 
 on the verge of becoming hysterical. Such 
 being the case, there seems but one course open 
 to us. False arguments can be met by true 
 arguments; attempts at proof can be met by 
 disproof; but a mere assertion, which has no 
 proof to back it, which is plainly made only in 
 the blindness and excitement of passion, and 
 whichi is in direct defiance of every principle 
 of common sense, — such an assertion can be 
 met by nothing but a curt and contemptuous 
 contradiction. Where Mr. George attempts to 
 prove himself right, we have proved him wrong : 
 it is here sufficient if we simply assert him to 
 be so. We appeal from Mr. George in hysterics 
 to the public in a state of sobriety, and we 
 have every confidence that the public will bear 
 us out. 
 
 We have now followed Mr. George through 
 all his main positions ; and, one after another, 
 we have shown them to be whoUy untenable. 
 In doing this, we have sincerely regretted one 
 
76 PBOGRESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 thing, that, in. showing how unsound he is in 
 all that is essential to his case, we have had no 
 space to show how justly and how brilliantly 
 he reasons oDj many points that are accidental 
 to it ; but this omission has been unavoidable. 
 At some future time we may possibly find oc- 
 casion to supply it, but that time is not now. 
 At present we must content ourselves, not with 
 extending our criticisms, but merely with sum- 
 ming them up, and completing them. What, 
 then, we have seen is this. Mr. George's book 
 is in a double sense a failure. He has not de- 
 stroyed any of the theories of the economists : 
 he has not established any theory of his own. 
 He has not shown that wages are not drawn 
 from capital. He has not shown that popula- 
 tion does not press against the limits of subsist- 
 ence. He has not shown that private ownership 
 of land is the cause of poverty ; and, finally, he 
 has not shown,' that, even if it were, it would be 
 possible to abolish it. On the contrary, he has 
 shown just the opposite. He has shown, that, 
 however a robbery of the present generation of 
 landlords might for a time benefit the more opu- 
 lent and influential of the robbers, private prop- 
 erty in land would itself remain untouched. It 
 would change hands, and it would change in 
 name. But it would certainly not pass into the 
 hands, of the poor; and, if it changed in any 
 
MR. GEORGE SELF-REFUTED. 77 
 
 thing but in name, it would be merely a change 
 for the worse. We go even farther. We can- 
 cel the "if" we have just used; and we assert 
 that the change would be for the worse — abso- 
 solutely. We assert, that if the existing landed 
 aristocracy of the United Kingdom were dis- 
 possessed, and ,the land taken by the state, 
 whilst town-land would be no cheaper than it 
 is at present, all other land would be dearer ; 
 and we shall prove this from Mr. George's 
 own admissions. Were the s^ate the landlord, 
 then, according to Mr. George, as we have just 
 seen, rent would be fixed by the " highest bid- 
 der : " it would be, as he elsewhere puts it, "the 
 full competition rent." Remembering this, let 
 us turn to the following passage, which occurs 
 in the opening chapter of Mr. George's pam- 
 phlet on Ireland:-;— 
 
 " Miss C. G. O'Brien, in a recent article in the 
 ' Nineteenth Century,' states that the tenant-farmers 
 generally get for such patches as they sub-let to 
 their laborers twice the rent they pay the landlords. 
 And we hear incidentally of many ' good landlords ; ' 
 i.e., landlords not in the habit of pushing their ten- 
 ants for as much as they might get by vigorously 
 demanding all that any one would give. 
 
 " These things, as well as the peculiar bitterness 
 of complaints against middle-men and the specula- 
 tors who have purchased encumbered estates, and 
 
78 PSOGBESS AND POVERTY. 
 
 manage them solely with a view to profit, go to 
 show the truth of the statement that the land of 
 Ireland has been, by its present owners, largely 
 underlet, when considered from what we would deem 
 a business point of view. And this is but what 
 might be expected. Human nature is about the 
 same the world over, and the Irish landlords as a 
 class are no better nor worse than would be other 
 men under lilie conditions. An aristocracy such as 
 that of Ireland has its virtues as well as its vices, 
 and is influenced by sentiments which do not enter 
 into mere business transactions, — sentiments which 
 must often modify and soften the calculations of cold 
 self-interest. But with us the letting of land is as 
 much a business matter as the buying or selling of 
 pig-iron or of stocks. An American would not 
 think he was showing his goodness by renting his 
 land for low rates, any mdre than he would think 
 he was showing his goodness by selling pig-iron for 
 less than the market-price, or stocks for less than 
 the quotations. So in those districts of France and 
 Belgium where the land is most subdivided, the 
 peasant proprietors, says M. de Laveleye, boast to 
 one another of the high rents they get, just as they 
 boast of the high prices they get for pigs or for 
 poultry."^ 
 
 This points its own moral. According to 
 Mr. George's scheme, the landlords would, be 
 dispossessed, and the_middle-men would be left. 
 
 I Irisli Land Question, p. i. 
 
MB. GEORGE'S NOVEL METHOD. 79 
 
 The state would be harder than the landlords, 
 and the middle-men would be harder than the 
 state. 
 
 We have one observation more to make ; and 
 that relates, not to Mr. George's economic the- 
 ories, but to the general proposition with regard 
 to modern society with which he sets out. As 
 wealth increases, he says, the poor not only get 
 absolutely more numerous, and relatively more 
 poor, but relatively more numerous, and abso- 
 lutely more poor. The poor get poorer, he 
 says, as the rich get richer; aU intermediate 
 conditions are being eliminated ; society is fast 
 dividing itself into " the extremely rich and the 
 extremely poor." Now, we cannot discuss this 
 assertion at any length. We can only say, that 
 though it is continually made, and though to 
 superficial observation there seems much to jus- 
 tify it, all who have studied the subject carefully 
 are unanimous in declaring that it is wholly 
 untrue. The poverty that underlies civilization, 
 is, no doubt, a terrible evil ; it may easily de- 
 velop into a dangerous one ; but, so far is it 
 from being relatively an increasing evil, that 
 there is every reason to believe it to be some- 
 what diminishing; whilst as to the middle 
 classes, instead of being destroyed by modern 
 progress, they are, on the contrary, its special 
 and most«evident product. 
 
80 FB0GBE88 AND POVEBTT. 
 
 Such, then, is the wretched tissue of falsehoods 
 which forms the integral part of Mr. George's 
 book. Such is the book which an , Irish agita- 
 tor takes for his gospel, and which has actually- 
 passed for a new revelation in the science of 
 political economy. We have no fear that think- 
 ing men will be long deluded. But the danger 
 of Mr. George's book is, that it does not appeal 
 to thinking men. The popularity it aims at, 
 the popularity it has attained, is due, not to the 
 keenness of its arguments, but to the peculiar 
 character of its rhetoric, and the policy of con- 
 fiscation which it advocates. Mr. George dis- 
 tinctly says that what he trusts to for the success 
 of his doctrines is their appeal to the " popular 
 imagination." " Even the most prejudiced," he 
 adds, " can be relied on to listen with patience 
 to an argument in favor of making some one 
 else pay what they now are paying." ^ But he 
 is far from relying only on the naked passion of 
 covetousness. He does all he can to clothe and 
 ally this with the combined excitement of reli- 
 gious and of class feelings. His pages bristle 
 with allusions to Dives and Lazarus, to the 
 goodness of God, and the cruelties of rich men, 
 to the agonies of white slaves, and the orgies of 
 white slave-owners. Current political economy, 
 
 1 Irish Land Question, p. 41, from a chapter entitled How 
 to Win. 
 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 81 
 
 he says, is " blasphemous " and " cynical ; " and 
 his "blood boils " when he thinks of the theory 
 of Malthus. Now, all this is intelligible to the 
 lowest class of readers ; and it has this double 
 danger, that it excites their worst passions by a 
 false appeal to their best : whilst the arguments 
 of the book, as distinguished from its rhetoric, 
 are to such readers nothing but a sort of logical 
 hocus-pocus, — a magical formula in a tongue 
 they do not understand, which justifies the 
 counsels given them in a tongue they do. 
 
 We do not believe Mr. George to be insin- 
 cere. We believe, on the contrary, that his first 
 and most complete dupe is himself ; and as this 
 is the best, indeed the only, excuse we can make 
 for him, we shall present the reader, at parting, 
 with a specimen of his singular simplicity in the 
 face of his own arguments. Mr. George tells 
 us, and we believe him to speak quite honestly, 
 that the sight of all the poverty and distress in 
 the world have led him to doubt in the possi- 
 bility of a wise and benevolent God. But now, 
 he proceeds, since he has found out how to 
 remedy poverty, since he sees prospectively vice 
 and misery dying away from the earth, his faith 
 in God, and in God's goodness, is coming back 
 to him. There is something pathetic in this 
 naive avowal, but it is surely one which no 
 sensible man would have made. Does not Mr. 
 
82 PBOGBSSS AND POVEBTT. 
 
 George see, that, if the vice and misery that have 
 so long existed in the world is any valid argu- 
 ment against the goodness of God, the argument 
 would be strengthened, not destroyed, were this 
 evil to come suddenly to an end ? As it is, the 
 Theist accepts its presence as a mystery, believ- 
 ing that there is some reasbn for it beyond his 
 powers of comprehension ; but, could it be really 
 abolished by Mr. George's " simple expedient," 
 he would at once ask why it was not abolished 
 before ? So far as regards the Deity, there is 
 but one possible answer. He either did not 
 wish to abolish it, or he did not know how to 
 abolish it. Thus, in the one case we should 
 have to regard Mr. George as more benevolent 
 than the Deity ; or, in the other, the Deity as 
 more stupid than Mr. George. 
 
 Mr. George's vindication of God's ways is on 
 a par with his vindication of his own scheme for 
 amending them. 
 
SOCIALISM IN EI^GLAro. 
 
 England for All. By H. M. Hyndmak. London, 
 1881. Socialism made Plain. London, 1883. 
 
 Political Economy has been called " the 
 dismal science j " and the phrase, when we con- 
 sider how far it has become proverbial, seems 
 to us to be very full of significance. We are 
 inclined to question, indeed, if, in the whole 
 English language, there can be found another 
 which expresses, with equal brevity, such a 
 mass of general ignorance on a subject of equal 
 moment. 
 
 We trtist the reader will be good enough not 
 to mistake us. We do not imply for a moment 
 that a treatise on the subject -in question can 
 ever possess the attractions of light literature, 
 or that a discussion on rent can be made as 
 exciting as a love-story. But Political Economy 
 has been called the dismal science, par excellence, 
 not because the public have found its details dry, 
 but because they have failed to see how its con- 
 clusions affect themselves. Few studies could 
 in themselves be dryer than those of the geolo- 
 gist, or the philological critic of the text of 
 
 83 
 
84 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Scripture. Yet neither of these has ever been 
 called " dismal." The public recognized almost 
 instantly how much was involved in each, that 
 profoundly affected the inmost life of everybody ; 
 and even the simplest Christians heard in their 
 hearts an echo of what seemed^ on the surface 
 merely the distant disputes of specialists. But, 
 with regard to Political Econoiny, all such per- 
 ception has been wanting. To students, no 
 doubt, it is allowed to be a subject of interest, 
 and to tradesmen and politicians one of serious 
 practical importance ; but its importance and its 
 interest are supposed to end with these narrow 
 limits. It has not yet dawned on the average 
 well-to-do Englishman, that the problems which 
 this science deals with are problems which have 
 the most vital connection with himself, and that 
 there is hardly a home which might not be 
 wrecked or revolutionized if some day or other 
 they were to receive a new answer. 
 
 Xet such is indeed the case. What Theology 
 was to the religious struggles of the Reformation, 
 and the yet deeper religious disquiet that has 
 prevailed during the present century, Political 
 Economy is to the analogous social disquiet 
 which during the same period has been spreading 
 itself all through Europe ; which, now in one 
 place, now in another, is continually filling thp 
 air with dim rumors of revolution ; which more 
 
POLITICAL ECONOMY AND REVOLUTION. 85 
 
 than once has deluged Paris with blood ; which 
 keeps German cities at this moment in a state of 
 minor siege ; which imbitters the conditions of 
 civilization even wh^n it lacks vigor to menace 
 them; and which certain politicians who call 
 themselves English statesipen, having done their 
 best for a time to excite and use it in Ireland, 
 are now endeavoring by every art in their power 
 to make the inspiring principle of the " Liberal- 
 ism oi the future " in England. 
 
 The disquiet we allude to is a thing of which 
 all are sensible. To say that we are surrounded 
 by a spirit of social revolution is as much a 
 commonplace as to say that we are surrounded 
 by a spirit of scepticism. But whereas, in the 
 case of the latter, the educated English public 
 sees perfectly well the scientific questions that 
 are implicated, in the case of the former it sees 
 nothing of the kind whatever. Any school-boy 
 can tell us that the denial of the soul's immor- 
 tality is closely connected with the discoveries 
 and the disputes of physiologists; that our 
 whole conception of man's position in the uni- 
 verse is affected by the extent to which we 
 accept the doctrines of Darwin ; and that 
 whether or not we are in any way-morally re- 
 sponsible, depends on whether or not we are in 
 any way free agents. But when Birmingham 
 capitalists denounce landlords as robbers, and 
 
86 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 far more logical Socialists denounce Birmingham 
 capitalists ; when, in one form or another, it is 
 on all sides being said, or insinuated, that prop- 
 erty is at present distributed in wrong propor- 
 tions; that these proportions are capable of 
 being wholly and permanently altered, and that 
 nothing is progress that does not tend towards 
 such an alteration,, — how few people there are 
 who would be able off-hand to tell us what 
 scientific questions are at, the bottom of these 
 incendiary doctrines! Most members of the 
 upper and middle classes would pronounce such 
 doctrines fatal to all existing society, but we 
 much doubt if they would be able to indicate 
 why and where they are false. 
 
 And yet, if they are false, they must be false 
 for some distinct reason. They must be false, 
 not merely because the upper and middle classes 
 are shocked by them, but because they are 
 founded on scientific falsehoods — the perversiqn 
 or rejection of some broad natural facts ; and they 
 must be capable, as such, of being stated in ac- 
 curate terms, and confronted with the truths, 
 equally distinct, that correspond to them. In 
 like manner, supposing these same doctrines to 
 be true, they would not be true because they 
 were acceptable to the poor, — because they 
 promised to comfort Lazarus, and to torment 
 Dives, — but because they were in harmony 
 
SOCIALISM AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM. 87 
 
 with the actual order of nature, and were parts, 
 as such, of a true scientific system. Common 
 sense might suffice to show us thus much ; but 
 we do not insist on it here because it is shown 
 us by common sense, but because it is expressly 
 recognized and insisted on by the modern revo- 
 lutionaries themselves. 
 
 The real leaders of the Socialistic movement 
 of to-day are so far from regarding fanaticism 
 as a substitute for thought, that thought with 
 some of them has apparently been the origin of 
 their fanaticism. They have not been content 
 to attack society as it is, merely on the ground 
 that it contains so much misery ; nor have they 
 sought to justify the various measures they ad- 
 vocate, merely by appeals to a general sense of 
 justice. They have approached the subject, in 
 the first place, as savants rather than philan- 
 thropists. Before declaiming against the rich, 
 they have tried to satisfy themselves as to the 
 real origin of riches ; before attempting to ex- 
 cite a rebellious feeling amongst the poor, they 
 have with equal care examined into the causes 
 of poverty ; and they profess, as the apologists 
 of social revolution, to stand or fall, not on pas- 
 sion, but on proof. 
 
 English Radicals, in moments of militant en- 
 thusiasm, delight to inform the world that " they 
 care nothing for Political Economy." The lead- 
 
88 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND, j 
 
 ing Socialists of the day indulge in no such silly 
 bravado. They know that for a man to say he 
 cares nothing for Political Economy is about as 
 sane as for a man to say that he cares nothing 
 for arithmetic. For their part, Political Econ- 
 omy is the very thing that they do care for; 
 and the estimate they have formed of the pres- 
 ent, and the hopes they entertain of the future, 
 would have in their eyes no value whatever, 
 except as parts of what they conceive to be a 
 true economic system. Nor in forming this 
 system for themselves, as the basis of society as 
 it is to be, have they shown any disrespect for 
 those older economists, whose theories assume 
 or assert the perpetuity of society as it is. On 
 the contrary, they endeavor toJound their most 
 revolutionary conclusions on the same methods 
 as those followed by Mill and Mr. Fawcett. 
 Most of the old science is actually appropriated 
 by the new ; and the latter depends for its dis- 
 tinctive character and tendency, less on what it 
 has substituted for the former, than on what it 
 has added to it. Thus in the forces, whatever 
 be their real magnitude, that are now arraying 
 themselves against the existing social order, the 
 main thing to be reckoned with is not a con- 
 spiracy, but a creed. If we may borrow a phrase 
 from Mr. Michael Davitt, the only dynamite 
 that really threatens society is the " moral dy- 
 namite " of a new economic science. 
 
mSE OF ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 89 
 
 That the educated classes in England should 
 be so little aware of this fact, is due, no doubt, 
 to a very obvious cause. Although the chief 
 revolutionary theorists of the present epoch 
 have declared that the wrongs and evils, from 
 which they are going to redeem humanity, have 
 reached their extremest and most horrible de- 
 velopment in England, England has till lately 
 been, of all European countries, the one in 
 which such theorists have met with least re- 
 sponse from the people. It is therefore not 
 altogether surprising, that the upper classes 
 amongst us should have paid but little atten- 
 tion to doctrines which were received so coldly, 
 even by those in whose direct interest they 
 were promulgated, and that they should have 
 failed to trouble themselves about the scientific 
 basis of conclusions which seemed to belong 
 practically less to English life than to dream- 
 land. 
 
 But the excuse for this apathy unfortunately 
 exists no longer. During the last few years 
 events have moved quickly in England; and 
 the attitude of the masses with regard to the 
 social problem is no longer what it was, even in 
 a very recent period. Those theories, which, 
 in countries like France and Germany, have 
 already been recognized by statesmen as a 
 source of such serious danger, have at length 
 
90 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 begun to make appreciable way amongst our- 
 selves. As the reader will see presently, we 
 are as far as possible from being alarmists : but, 
 if it is foolish to exaggerate facts, it is equally 
 foolish to ignore them ; and we have no hesita- 
 tion in saying of the fact we are now asserting, 
 that it demands our closest, and even our most 
 anxious, attention. 
 
 There are many persons, who, when this view 
 is suggested to them, seek to re-assure them- 
 selves by comparing the popular temper of to- 
 day with the popular temper as it was during 
 the times of the Chartist agitation, or during 
 the earlier years of the trades-unions : and we 
 are far from denying, that, in mere point of 
 ferocity, the discontented classes of this genera- 
 tion contrast favorably' with those of the last. 
 This fact, however, really proves precisely what 
 it seems to disprove. What constitutes the 
 danger of social discontent to-day, is, not its 
 intensity, but its basis. It represents, not the 
 presence of any exceptional suffering, but the 
 growth of a speculative conviction ; and the fact 
 that its temper is less ferocious than previously, 
 shows, not that it has lost in strength, but that 
 it has gained in confidence. 
 
 There is a singular illustration of w;hat we 
 are now saying, which we have lately dealt with 
 in the pages of this " Review." We refer to Mr. 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF MR. GEOBGE. 91 
 
 George's book, "Progress and Poverty," and 
 the sale it has met with amongst the poorer 
 classes in this country. Now, that book, despite 
 its constant outbursts of rhetoric, is yet, in the 
 main, an elaborate economic treatise, which no 
 human being would hava either written or read, 
 who did not believe that the great questions 
 discussed in it can be settled only by strict 
 scientific methods. It is, therefore, in two ways 
 at any rate, full of instruction of the most im- 
 portant kind for us. It illustrates, in the first 
 place, how, amongst the revolutionary leaders 
 themselves, it is recognized, that the fulcrum of 
 the lever of social revolution must, jof necessity, 
 be some definite economic theory; and it shows 
 us, in the second place, by its enormous sale 
 in England, how large a section of our own 
 lower classes is familiar with the idea that 
 some social revolution would be desirable, and 
 is eagerly waiting to be assured on scientific 
 grounds that it is practicable. 
 
 Such is the moral of Mr. George's book, and 
 a very plain and a very instructive moral it is. 
 We allude here, however, to the book and to its 
 author, merely because they illustrate influences 
 of far more importance than thfemselves. It is 
 a mistake to think that such doctrines as' Mr. 
 George's can be popularized only by means of 
 open advocacy. Before they can bear their full 
 
92 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and final fruit, it may, no doubt, be necessary 
 that they should be explicitly stated and rec- 
 ognized; but people may be practically more 
 than half converted to them before they have 
 received any conscious recognition at all. His- 
 tory illustrates this by the analogous case of 
 religion. Wherever Science has successfully 
 made war upon Faith, it has generally under- 
 mined it by cautious and vague implication, 
 before it has been able effectually to deal it any 
 direct blow ; and it has suffered, nay, enjoined, 
 the retention of prayers and symbols, whilst it 
 has all the while, in secret, been sucking the 
 life out of them. It is precisely this, which in 
 the region of social politics is to a great extent 
 taking place in England now. Though there 
 may be at present among us, even in spite of 
 Mr. George, but little open propagandism of 
 revolutionary ^ doctrines, yet such doctrines are 
 at this very moment being propagated all around 
 us in a far more insidious way. Our modern 
 English Radicalism, in so far as it appeals to 
 the people, is nothing more than an unavowed 
 
 1 We are quite aware that Mr. George does not call himself 
 a revolutionist, but he certainly is so in the general sense 
 ol that word. For not only does he base all his reforms on 
 the complete spoliation of a class, but his avowed aim is to 
 alter the whole structure and appearance of society ; and he 
 believes that this transformation can be accomplished by an 
 alteration of certain laws. 
 
SOCIALISTS AND RADICALS. 93 
 
 and undigested socialism ; and it assumes, like 
 socialism, to speak in the name of science. To 
 its middle-class exponents, such as Mr. Cham- 
 berlain and Mr. John Morley, it seems, no 
 doubt, to' be something entirely different ; but 
 its real character, as a living force in politics, 
 is to be sought in its relation, not to the middle 
 class, but to the people ; and on the people its 
 general effect is as follows : its favorite method 
 being to set class against cjass, it conveys to 
 them, as it were in solution, the belief that 
 there should be no classes at all. By constantly 
 praising the poor at the expense of the rich, it 
 similarly conveys the belief that the rich are 
 plunderers of the poor; and, from doing this 
 always in connection with the stir of practical 
 politics, it conveys the further belief, that 
 classes and property are things which can be 
 equalized by the government, and that any good 
 government will make it its aim to equalize 
 them. 
 
 Sijch being the case, we may compare English 
 society, we do not say to a house that is on fire, 
 but to a house that is full of exceedingly inflam- 
 mable materials. In other words, when we con- 
 sider the intellectual condition of a large section 
 of the English working-classes ; the spread 
 amongst them of what is popularly called edu- 
 cation ; the consequent ferment in their minds 
 
94 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of thoughts, hopes, and ideas, that have been 
 schooled into activity, but have not been 
 schooled into order; the respect for scientific 
 authority, without the ability to test it ; together 
 with the fact, that a powerful political party is 
 constantly implying to them that the calm teach- 
 ings of science correspond with the promptings 
 of their own most dangerous passions, — when 
 we consider all this, it is impossible not to see 
 that any successful attempt to propagate in this 
 country those explicit theories of revolution 
 which have already had such fatal effect upon 
 the Continent, might be fraught with effects 
 l;iardly less fatal here, or might at all events 
 bring us face to face with very serious social 
 dangers. 
 
 We propose, therefore, in the present article, 
 to inquire what these theories of revoliltion are ; 
 or, rather, since they all of them rest on some 
 theories of political economy, to inquire in 
 what precise points the political economy of 
 the revolutionaries is peculiar, and how far in 
 these points they are in agreement or disagree- 
 ment with fact. Nor let any one think that 
 this is a superfluous task. The strength of the 
 revolutionary cause is, as we have said, its sup- 
 posed basis in science ; and since at the present 
 moment it is winning its way by argument, by 
 argument only is there any chance of meeting 
 
SOCIALISM MUST BE ARGUEB WITH. 95 
 
 it. It is an enemy, let us remember, to be dis- 
 credited rather than crushed. 
 
 It may also be salutary to remind a consid- 
 erable number of persons, that, however false 
 and hollow the revolutionary science may be, 
 its falsehood is apparent only on near inspec- 
 tion ; and we defy any one to prove, on a dis- 
 tant or cursory glance, that it is not in reality 
 as true as it professes to be. We may think 
 those foolish who believe in it after they have 
 examined it, but those are more foolish who 
 laugh at it before they have examined it. A 
 further consideration yet remains to be added. 
 Not only do the economic theories of socialism 
 deserve to be studied, in order that we may be 
 competent to refute them, but we believe that 
 the study of them, besides showing their false- 
 hood, will lead to the elucidation of a number 
 of corresponding truths, which have never as 
 yet received any accurate statement, and which, 
 once recognized, will in a very important way 
 enlarge the boundaries of economic science. 
 
 Should any thing be still needed to quicken 
 the interest of our readers, and bring the sub- 
 ject before us still more nearly home to them, 
 it may be well to call their attention to the fol- 
 lowing fact : those who have watched, during 
 the course of the last few years, certain proces- 
 sions that have defiled through Pall Mall and 
 
96 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Piccadilly, on their way to this or that demon- 
 stration in Hyde Park, may, perhaps, have 
 noticed the presence here and there of a banner 
 inscribed with the proposition that " Wealth is 
 the creation of labor." These banners, we have 
 reason to believe, were the ensigns of a certain 
 body which calls itself the "Democratic Fed- 
 eration." It is, at all events, a fact that snch a 
 body exists ; that its members are so numerous 
 as to be counted by tens of thousands ; and that 
 their main object is neither more nor less than 
 to imbibe and disseminate the principles of ad- 
 vanced Continental Socialism. Our readers 
 may thus learn that the theories on which we 
 propose to engage their attention are not only 
 theories that might be propagated in England 
 any day, but such that a propagation has al- 
 ready actually begun. 
 
 We have alluded, however, to the Democratic 
 Federation, not only to show how near to us is 
 the danger we are about to analj'ze, but because 
 it happens to introduce us to something which 
 will most conveniently aid us in our analysis. 
 For this band of apostles and converts does not 
 derive its principles from any such vague sources 
 as oral tradition or exhortation. The main 
 points of its creed have been all of them writ- 
 ten down for it, and embodied in a succinct 
 treatise. There we find a perfectly unmistak- 
 
SOCIALISTIC PEOPAGANDISM. 97 
 
 able statement, not, indeed, of all the construc- 
 tive schemes of Socialism, —for the nanie of 
 these is Legion, — but of the fundamental prin- 
 ciples on which all these schemes repose, and 
 on the truth of which all revolutionists agree 
 that the very possibility of any real revolution 
 depends. The title of this treatise is " England 
 for All ; " and its author, Mr. H. M. Hyndman, 
 who is, we believe, the chairman of the afore- 
 said Democratic Federation, though apparently 
 destitute of any literary ability, is exceptionally 
 well qualified to treat his subject with authority. 
 He is not only a person of considerable reading 
 and of education, but he has been a diligent 
 student of socialistic literature in general, and 
 of the writings of Karl Marx in particular; 
 and we may be perfectly confident that we 
 meet, in the main principles laid down by him, 
 not merely with the opinions of a Socialist, but 
 with the foundations of all socialism. It is to 
 his book, therefore, that we shall principally 
 refer, in setting before our readers the views 
 that we propose to criticise. 
 
 First, however, let us turn for a moment to a 
 slighter literary product that emanates from the 
 same source. What we refer to is a certain half- 
 penny pamphlet, called " Socialism made Plain ; " 
 which has been published very recently, and 
 which purports to be " The social and political 
 
98 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 manifesto of the Democratic Federation." This 
 aims at setting forth, in as brief a compass as 
 possible, the special application of Socialistic 
 principles to England; and the following ex- 
 tract from it will form, in our opinion, a useful 
 introduction to a more detailed examination of 
 the subject : — 
 
 "All wealth is due to labor; therefore to the 
 laborer all wealth is due. 
 
 " But we are strangers in our own country. 
 Thirty thousand persons own the land of Great 
 Britain, against the thirty millions that are suffered 
 to exist therein. A series of robberies and confis- 
 cations has deprived us of the soil which should be 
 ours. The organized brute-force of the few has for 
 generations robbed and tyrannized over the unor- 
 ganized brute-force of the many. We now call for 
 nationalization of the land. We claim that land in 
 country, and land in towns, mines, parks, mountains, 
 and moors, should be owned by the people, for the 
 people, to be held, used, built over, and cultivated, 
 upon such terms as the people themselves see fit to 
 ordain. The handful of marauders, who now hold 
 possession, have, and can have, no right, save brute- 
 force, against the tens of millions whom thesy wrong. 
 
 ' ' But private ownership of land in our present 
 society is only one, and not the worst, form of 
 monopoly. . . . Out of the thousand millions of 
 pounds taken by the classes who live without labor, 
 out of the total yearly production of thirteen hun- 
 
A SOCIALISTIC MANIFESTO. 99 
 
 dred millions, the landlords who have seized onr 
 soil, and shut us out from its enjoyment, absorb 
 little more than sixty millions as their direct share. 
 The few thousand persons who own the national 
 debt . . . exact twenty-eight millions yearly from 
 the labor of their countrymen for nothing: the 
 shareholders, who have been allowed to lay hands 
 on our great railway communications, take a still 
 larger sum. Above all, the active capitalist class, 
 the loanmongers, the farmers, the mine-exploiters, 
 the contractors, the middle-men, the factory-lords, 
 — these, the modern slave-drivers, these are they 
 who, through their money, machinery, capital, and 
 credit, turn every advance in human knowledge, 
 every further improvement in human dexterity, into 
 an engine for accumulating wealth out of other 
 men's labor, and for exacting more and more sur- 
 plus value out of the wage-slaves whom they em- 
 ploy. So long as the means of production, either 
 of raw materials or manufactured goods, are the 
 monopoly of a class, so long must the laborers on 
 the farm, in the mines, or in the factory, sell them- 
 selves for a bare subsistence wage. As land must 
 in future be a national possession, so must the 
 other means of producing and distributing wealth. 
 By these means a healthy, independent, and thor- 
 oughly educated people will steadily grow up around 
 us, . . . ready to organize the labor of each for 
 the benefit of all, and determined, too, to take 
 finally the control of the entire social and political 
 machinery of a state, in which class distinctions 
 and class privileges shall cease to be. 
 
100 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 " The land of England is no mean heritage ; there 
 is enough and to spare for all ; with the powers 
 mankind now possess, wealth may easily be made 
 as plentiful as water, at the expense of trifling toil." 
 
 To the details of this passage we shall return 
 hereafter. All that at present we have occasion 
 to remalrk, is, that, besides illustrating the appli- 
 cation of Socialistic principles to England, it 
 points us directly to what these principles are, 
 when reduced to their simplest elements. Every 
 form, it will be found, of modern revolutionary 
 system, has for its foundation the following 
 three doctrines, on the truth of two of which it 
 depends for even its speculative justification, 
 and on the truth of the third for the probability 
 of its ever having any practical influence. These 
 doctrines, though in reality they are exceedingly 
 complex ip their contents, are treated by the 
 Socialists as though they were almost axioms ; 
 and they are capable of being stated in exceed- 
 ingly simple terms. The first of them stands 
 at the head of the passage we have just quoted. 
 It is the doctrine, that, apart from the raw 
 materials of nature, labor is the sole cause of 
 wealth. The second is the doctrine that ,the 
 land of any given country belongs of right to 
 the people of that country collectively. And 
 the third is the doctrine, or rather the historical 
 estimate, which is expressed by the common 
 
MAIN DOCTRINE OF SOCIALISM. 101 
 
 saying with regard to our national progress, 
 that its necessary tendency, as matters now 
 stand, is to make the rich constantly richer, and 
 the poor poorer. In these three propositions, foi 
 the Socialists, lie all the law and the prophets. 
 
 How this is so, if not at once perceived by 
 the reader, can easily be made clear to him by 
 a very brief explanation. Let him be careful to 
 remember, then, that the Socialistic doctrine of 
 labor is always to be taken with an expressed 
 or implied reservation ; that it is by no means 
 meant to exclude from the causes that produce 
 wealth those natural sources that supply us with 
 raw material ; and that the Socialists admit, as 
 fully as the most orthodox and conservative of 
 economists, that all such wealth as comes in the 
 form of rent represents, not the labor of the cul- 
 tivator, but the bounty of the soil he cultivates. 
 Unless, then, the right of private owners to the 
 soil be denied, there can be no ground for attack- 
 ing a non-laboring landed aristocracy. Whilst 
 if, in addition to the bounty of the soil, there 
 be yet other causes of wealth besides labor, 
 there vtUI, in addition to the landed aristocracy, 
 be another noiv-laboring class, to attack which 
 will be equally impossible. But the Socialists, 
 as we have seen, represent all the evils of civ- 
 ilization as due to the diversion of wealth from 
 the laborers to the non-laborers, and the only 
 
102 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 hope of improvement as lying in the extinction 
 of the latter. It is thus plain that Socialism, 
 as a theory, necessarily rests on the only two 
 premises on which such an extinction can be 
 proved to be either just or possible. The third 
 proposition, as to the tendency of the existing 
 social system, though not, like the two former, 
 essential to Socialism as a theory, is essential, 
 for the following reason, to the practical hopes 
 of the Socialists. If it were the tendency of 
 things, as at present constituted, to bring about 
 naturally a better condition for the laborer, then 
 clearly the laborers would have other hopes be- 
 sides those held out to them by Socialism, and 
 hopes which would require on their part far less 
 trouble to realize ; whilst even if things tended 
 merely to remain as they are now, the Socialists 
 are doubtful, and with good reason, whether, 
 supposing the people to know there was nothing 
 worse in store for them, they would risk a revo- 
 lution, in the hope of any thing better. The 
 Socialists know that such changes as they advo- 
 cate are changes that can be accomplished only 
 by a strenuous and continued struggle, and that 
 such a struggle requires, not conviction only, 
 but passion. Thus their chief ground of confi- 
 dence that the required passion will develop 
 itself, is the belief that the condition of the 
 people is getting every year more intolerable ; 
 
SOCIALISM AND TEE LAND. 103 
 
 and tliatby and by, whether they like the exer- 
 tion or not, sheer misery will force them to 
 combine in earnest to alter it. This, however, 
 is not all. Almost equally important to the 
 practical calculation in question is the corollary 
 to this belief that the poor, in the process of 
 becoming poorer, become, not poorer only, but 
 at the same time more numerous ; that the rich, 
 conversely, are becoming, not only richer, but 
 fewer; and that thus the party of revolution 
 is increasing, not only in determination, but in 
 strength ; whilst the party that is interested in 
 resisting it, is becoming less capable of resist- 
 ance. 
 
 We shall-now proceed, under Mr. Hyndman's 
 guidance, to examine in detail these three doc- 
 trines, whose general scope and bearing are thus 
 sufficiently intelligible. We shall keep till last 
 the estimate of the existing situation, and shall 
 begin with the two propositions on which So- 
 cialism reposes as a theory. Of these the most 
 important, beyond all comparison, in its conse- 
 quences, is that which relates, not to the land, 
 but to labor. But, as it requires to be dealt 
 with at much length, we shall be best consult- 
 ing the intellectual comfort of the reader if we 
 dispose of the former and simpler question first. 
 
 Let us take, then, the cry, to be heard on so 
 many sides, " The land for the people," and 
 
104 SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 
 
 ask, What do the Socialists mean by it? and 
 how is this meaning justified ? Its meaning, we 
 think, is by this time perfectly clear ; and it is 
 far from being so absurd upon the face of it as 
 many people suppose. No doubt, during the 
 late land agitation in Ireland, such insane 
 phrases were continually to be heard, as that 
 the " land ought to be as free as the air ; " but 
 it may safely be said, that this kind of rabid 
 rhetoric was never for a moment believed in, in 
 its literal sense, by the most ignorant demagogue 
 who ever mounted a tub or a table. Pasture- 
 land, it is true, may be free within certain 
 limits ; but it is perfectly clear, that agricultural 
 land cannot: and we may be sure that the 
 stanchest of Mr. Parnell's supporters, though he 
 may have thought his neighbors free to breathe 
 as much air as they pleased, never meant that 
 they should be free to dig up his own potatoes. 
 Those who maintain the doctrine, that the land 
 belongs to the people, mean no such nonsense as 
 this. Instead of denying the necessity of secure 
 and permanent possessions, their grand aim is 
 to multiply secure and permanent possessors. 
 Neither do they mean that these possessors 
 individually should be able to appropriate so 
 many acres for nothing. Their programme, 
 when translated into plain practical terms, is 
 simply that the state should be the universal 
 
SOCIALISM AND TSE LAND. 105 
 
 landlord, and that every citizen has a right to 
 rent directly from the state at least as much 
 land as he can himself profitably occupy. Now, 
 we have shown already, in our article on Mr. 
 George's volume, that these principles, if acted 
 on, would fail wholly of their intended result ; 
 but it is perfectly clear that they fully vindicate 
 in theory the collective ownership of the land 
 by the whole people. For, ex hypothesi, every 
 citizen who desires it may have direct access to 
 the soU; and, ex hypothesi, the money he pays 
 in rent is more or less directly spent for his own 
 benefit.^ 
 
 Having thus shown that the doctrine before 
 us involves no practical absurdities that can 
 make it not worth discussing, we may proceed 
 to inquire seriously on what grounds it is justi- 
 fied. Now, we must be careful, in so doing, not 
 to confuse two things. The conception we have 
 
 1 This might happen in three ways. If the aggregate 
 rental of the land sufficed only to pay the common expenses 
 of government, the rent of the landholders would be simply a 
 necessary tax; whilst the interest in the soil of those who 
 were not landholders, would he proved by the fact that they 
 paid no taxes themselves. The land paid the taxes for them. 
 Supposing, however, the rental of the land more than covered 
 the common expense of government, the surplus might be 
 expended in public buildings and institutions, in free educa- 
 tion, and so forth; or, as Mr, George has suggested, the citi- 
 zens might receive an annual bonus from the government, in 
 some form or other. That is to say, the value of the land 
 would be annually distributed amongst them. 
 
106 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to deal with is the people's right to the soil, not 
 the expediency of the people's buying the soil. 
 They are not represented by the Socialists as in 
 the position of a railway company, applying for 
 power to purchase what is admitted to belong to 
 others, but as in the position of proprietors, 
 applying for power to eject trespassers from 
 what is already their own. On no other ground 
 than this can the existing landlords be called, 
 as Mr. Hyndman calls them, " marauders." It 
 is true that certain Socialists, and Mr. Hynd- 
 man himself is amongst them, would not object 
 under certain circumstances to the expropriated 
 landlords being in some degree compensated. 
 This, however, does not alter the matter. Such 
 compensation would, according to their princi- 
 ple, be an act of generosity, not an act of jus- 
 tice. The thieves might deserve to be treated 
 tenderly, but they would none the less be 
 thieves. Mr. George, who, in this matter, 
 merely follows the Socialists, puts the case very 
 plainly, as follows : " To the landed estates7' 
 he says, " of the Duke of Westminster, the 
 poorest child that is born in London to-day has 
 as much right as has his eldest son. Though 
 the sovereign people of the State of New York 
 consent to the landed possessions of the Astors, 
 the puniest infant that comes wailing into the 
 world, in the squalidest room of the most miser- 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 107 
 
 able tenement, becomes, at that moment, seized 
 of an equal right with the millionnaires ; and it 
 is robbed if this right is denied." And again, 
 " Natural justice can recognize no right in one 
 man to the possession and enjoyment of land, 
 that is not equally the right of all his fellows." 
 This, then, is the doctrine that we have to 
 examine, — this supposed principle of natural 
 and universal justice. Now, Mr. Hyndman, in 
 explaining it with special reference to England, 
 spends much time in dwelling on what he thinks 
 the nefarious enclosure of the commons, on the 
 reduction of the land-tax, and the doubtful titles 
 of many existing landlords. But though all 
 these points may, no doubt, admit of discussion, 
 he merely weakens his case — not strengthens 
 it — by introducing them here. It is as though 
 a preacher were maintaining that the wearing 
 of all clothes was a sin, and, in support of his 
 position, were to adduce the fact, that certain 
 dandies in London had not paid their tailors' 
 bills. The view which the Socialists really take 
 of land-owning is very much like the view which 
 other people take of slave-owning. The special 
 immorality of possessing a slave is supposed to 
 consist, not in the owner's not having paid for 
 him, but in the fact that a slave is something 
 which cannot' in justice be sold. So the real 
 point for which Mr; Hyndman is contending is, 
 
108 SOCIALISM IJHr ENOLAND. 
 
 not that certain landlords have acquired their 
 estates unfairly, but that it is unfair for any 
 one to acquire any estates at all. The histori- 
 cal facts he alludes to are thus nothing more 
 than accidents. They do not constitute the 
 offence he- is denouncing : the utmost they can 
 do is to aggravate it. "What we are concerned 
 with is the doctrine that all land-owning is rob- 
 bery, — not the charge that this robbery has 
 been, in some cases, accompanied with violence. 
 
 For argument's sake, then, when we speak of 
 private land-owners, we may presume, that, his- 
 torically, there- is no flaw in their titles, and 
 that, however unjust it may be that they should 
 keep their acres, either they or their fathers 
 have paid an honest price for them. We shall 
 waive points of history as altogether irrelevant, 
 and confine ourselves wholly to the question of 
 natural justice. 
 
 On what ground, then, let us ask, does natu- 
 ral justice deny the right of a man to own all 
 the land that he can pay for ? And, supposing 
 that six Americans had bought up the whole of 
 England, on what ground would such justice, 
 as apart from political expediency, maintain 
 against these men that the land still belonged 
 to the nation ? The answers to this question, 
 on general grounds, are so numerous, that there 
 was certainly no need for Mr. Hyndman to 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 109 
 
 resort to history for more. We believej in fact, 
 that, when looked at from a certain point of 
 view,* there are few general propositions with 
 respect to social subjects for which, at first 
 sight, there seems Sb much to be said, as for 
 this one with regard to the property of a nation 
 in its native soil. There is hardly a situation 
 insulting to the instincts of patriotism, hardly 
 a picture of destitution shocking to the instincts 
 of humanity, which a little imagination, and a 
 little loose logic combined, may not easily pre- 
 sent to us as the legitimate consequences of a 
 denial of it. England in the hands of six rich 
 Americans, the Highlands made a desert for 
 another six to sport over, bloated idleness, 
 starving industry, and the bulk of a nation 
 mere tenants-at-will in the country of whose 
 greatness they are themselves the authors, — it 
 would be perfectly easy, unless our judgnjent 
 stopped us, to multiply images of this kind in- 
 definitely, and to cite them as proofs, one 
 stronger than another, of the essential injus- 
 tice of the private appropriation of land. We 
 may content ourselves, however, with an extract 
 from Mr. George, who, in the following sen- 
 tences, gives the gist of all, and says better than 
 Mr. Hyndman Ayhat Mr. Hyndman means : — 
 
 "The comparative handful of proprietors who 
 own the surface of the British Islands would only 
 
110 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 be doing what English laws give them full power to 
 do, and what many of them have done on a smaller 
 scale already, were they to exclude the millions of 
 British people from their native islands. And such 
 an exclusion, by which a few hundred thousand 
 should, at will, banish thirty million people from 
 their native country, while it would hp more striking, 
 would not be a whit more repugnant to natural right, 
 than the spectacle now presented of the vast body 
 of the British people being compelled to paj' such 
 enormous sums to a few of their number, for the 
 privilege of being permitted to live upon and use 
 the land which thej'' so fondly call their own, which 
 IS endeared to them by memories so tender and so 
 glorious, and for which they are held in duty bound, 
 if need be, to spill their blood, and lay down their 
 lives. ... To this manifest absurdity does the rec- 
 ognition of the individual right to land arise when 
 carried to its ultimate [conclusion] , — that any one 
 human being, could he concentrate in himself the 
 individual rights to the land in any country, could 
 expel therefrom all the rest of its inhabitants ; and, 
 could he thus concentrate the individual rights to 
 the whole surface of the globe, he alone of all the 
 earth would have the right to live." 
 
 But Mr. George reduces all this to a yet 
 briefer compass, and puts it into its proper sci- 
 entific form, when he says, in the same chapter 
 as that from which we have just quoted, " that 
 private property in land can, in the last analysis, 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. llj 
 
 only be justified on the theory, that some men 
 have a better right to existence than others." 
 
 Now, let us take the converse of this proposi- 
 tion, and we shall at once find the very thing we 
 are looking for. If the ultimate justification of 
 private property in land is the theory that some 
 men have a better right to existence than others, 
 the first principle of justice, by which such prop- 
 erty stands condemned, is the opposite principle 
 that the right of all men to existence is equal. 
 This alone, however, is not sufiicient. It would 
 prove but half of what is wanted. For what 
 natural justice is supposed by the Socialists to 
 inform us, is, not merely that the human race 
 are the collective owners of the earth, but that 
 special sections of the human race are the col- 
 lective owners, severally, of certain special parts 
 of it. The Americans are the owners of Amer- 
 ica; the Indians are the owners of India; the 
 Irish are the owners of Ireland ; and, when Mr. 
 Hyndman calls his book " England for All," he 
 does not mean "England for all the world." 
 He means " England for all the English." The 
 above principle, therefore, as to the natural 
 right to live, is, in the logic of Socialism, evi- 
 dently accompanied by another. The Socialist 
 must maintain, not only that every man has an 
 equal right to live, but that every man has a 
 right to live in his own country. 
 
112 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Now, to neither of these principles can we our- 
 selves assent unconditionally. Our exceptions 
 to the first, however, are so unimportant, that 
 for argument's sake we will treat it as though it 
 were absolutely true ; and as to the second, 
 though it requires to be strictly limited, we 
 freely admit that there is a great deal of truth in 
 it. Agreeing with the Socialists thus far, what 
 we shall seek to show is this: that the equal 
 right of every man to live, is in no way incom- 
 patible with private land-owning; that the equal 
 right of every man to live in his native country, 
 can be maintained only with limitations that 
 are of a very serious nature ; and that, in so 
 far as it can be maintained at all, it is an argu- 
 ment, not for the injustice of private land-own- 
 ing, but for its justice. 
 
 Let us return for a moment, then, to one of 
 Mr. George's illustrations. A man, if he owned 
 the soil of a whole country,, might expel, Mr. 
 George says, all the rest of the inhabitants ; or, 
 if he owned the soil of the whole world, he would 
 have at his mercy the lives of the whole human 
 race. But either of these positions, Mr. George 
 continues, would be monstrous : and yet private 
 land-owning might conceivably lead to either ; 
 therefore -.private land-owning is a monstrous 
 piece of injustice. Now, the above extreme 
 illustrations are, no doubt, useful in one way ; 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 113 
 
 but they are useful, not as showing the injustice 
 of private land-owning, but as showing the 
 absurdity of this whole method of argument. 
 They expose something, but that something is 
 themselves. For if there be any thing sound in 
 the principle on which they are founded, that a 
 man may own nothing which it is conceivable he 
 may misuse grossly, then not only is it unjust 
 that a man should own land, but, with very few 
 exceptions, it is unjust that he should own any 
 thing. If a squire may not own the land of a 
 parish, because it is conceivable he might expel 
 the villagers, the baker may not own the bread, 
 because it is equally conceivable that he might 
 starve them , because any one with a sharp 
 weapon might conceivably commit a murder, 
 therefore a schoolmaster can have no property 
 in a penknife , and it is plain that nobody may 
 buy a cartload of building-materials, because a 
 great contractor conceivably might heave half 
 a brick at a clergyman. 
 
 This argument is false for two reasons. In 
 the first place, it involves a completely wrong 
 notion of what constitutes the justice of any law 
 or institution. In the second place, it involves 
 a completely wrong notion of what constitutes 
 private property. The justice of a law or an 
 institution is altogether relative, not to what 
 those affected by it conceivably might do, but 
 
114 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to what they probably will do. The Duke of 
 Westminster might make Belgravia a desert. 
 Mr. George, when he was in England, might have 
 stabbed the Duke of Westminster. But it no 
 more follows from hence that the duke has no 
 right to his land, than it follows from hence that 
 Mr. George ought to have gone about London 
 in handcuffs. We shall be told, np doubt, that 
 the two cases are not parallel ; because the law 
 forbids murder, whilst it does not forbid whole- 
 sale evictions. This, however, is no answer to 
 our argument. Some evictions, we quite admit, 
 might be monstrous. Our point is, that the law 
 has no call to forbid them, because it does not 
 appear that such monstrous evictions are prob- 
 able. When the Duke of Westminster shows 
 any desire' to expel all the Belgravians, when 
 the Duke of Bedford proposes to turn Govent- 
 Garden into a game-preserve, and when it comes 
 to be the ambition of English landlords gener- 
 ally, not to get their rents, but to get rid of their 
 tenantry, then we may be certain that the Eng- 
 lish land-laws will be altered ; and we should 
 ourselves be the first to admit they ought to 
 be." But, on precisely the same principles, if 
 Mr. George bought a knife, with the avowed 
 purpose of murdering every second person he 
 met, he ought to be locked up, and his knife 
 taken away from him ; whilst if any large sec- 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 115 
 
 tion of the public were to buy knives likewise, 
 with an avowedly similar purpose, the right to 
 buy knives at all would have to be very speedily 
 limited. The fact, that a crime or an enormity 
 is not forbidden by the law, shows, not that the 
 law sanctions it, but that no sane man appre- 
 hends it. 
 
 Absurd, however, as is the conception formed 
 by the Socialists of what constitutes justice in a 
 law or a legal principle, the conception they 
 have formed of what constitutes private prop- 
 erty is more absurd still. Private property, 
 they seem to imagine, is such property, and 
 such property only, as its possessor can be 
 allowed to use in any way he pleases. Hence, 
 any thing that might be used to the, detriment 
 of the public in general, and the use of which 
 must consequently be limited by legislation, is, 
 they argue, not private property at all. Now, 
 this conception of private property is the con- 
 ception, no doubt, of boys playing at marbles ; 
 but that it should ever have imposed itself on 
 a rational and thoughtful man, we confess is 
 beyond our comprehension. For, so far is the 
 private ownership of an object from being in- 
 consistent with the use which the owner makes 
 of it being limited, that it is precisely the limita- 
 tions on the use of such objects that make up 
 the substance of more than half the laws of the 
 
116 SOCIALISM IN- ENGLAND. 
 
 world. Is not a knife a proper object of pri- 
 vate ownership? Mr. George and Mr. Hynd- 
 man both admit that it is. Yet what can be 
 clearer, as we have already pointed out, than 
 that the use of a knife must be subjected to 
 the very strictest limitations. Or let us take the 
 case of a cabman who owns his own horse and 
 hansom. Does the English law, or does any 
 human being, fail to recognize these as the 
 cabman's private property? Yet is the cab- 
 man legally able to do as he likes with them? 
 Can he drive them down Piccadilly at the rate 
 of twelve miles an hour? When standing in 
 the rank, can he refuse to take a passenger? 
 Can he exact half a sovereign for going from 
 Hyde Park Corner to St. James Street ? 9r can 
 he, to work off his temper, beat his horse to 
 death in the stable? If, then, a man may still 
 own a knife, t'hough he may not stick it in his 
 neighbor's back ; if a cabman may own a horse, 
 though he may not cruelly maltreat it, — there is 
 no shadow of proof that a man may not own 
 land in the fact, that, under certain circum- 
 stances, he cannot be allowed to denude it wan- 
 tonly of its inhabitants. The utmost that could 
 be proved from the arguments we have been 
 just considering, would be that the law, under 
 certain circumstances, should compel a land- 
 lord to let his land, just as it compels a cabman 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 117 
 
 to take a passenger in his cab, and perhaps 
 compel him to let it on certain fixed conditions. 
 But unless all private property be inadmissible, 
 which the modern Socialists do not maintain,^ 
 it is impossible to deduct from the principle 
 that all men have a right to live, that, even if a 
 landlord should be compelled to let his land, he 
 has not a right to own all the land he can buy, 
 and, having bought it, to demand a full rent 
 for it. 
 
 The theory, however, that we are now en- 
 gaged in combating, does not merely deny that 
 land can be the property of the individual. It 
 asserts that it is by nature inalienably the prop- 
 erty of the nation. Hence, as we have seen 
 already, we had the two first principles to ex • 
 amine into, — not only the principle that all 
 men have a right to live, but the principle that 
 every man has a right to live in his own coun- 
 try. The first .we have disposed of: it remains 
 for us to examine the second. 
 
 This, then, we are told, is a self-evident truth: 
 every man has a right to live in his own coun- 
 
 1 " There is to every thing produced by human exertion a 
 clear and indisputable title to exclusive possession." — Prog- 
 ress and Poverty. 
 
 /" Do any say we attack property ? We deny it. We at- 
 tack only the private property of a few thousand loiterers and 
 slave-drivers, which renders all property in the fruits of their 
 own labor impossible for millions." — Socialism made Plain. 
 
118 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 try ; the English, for instance, have a right to 
 live in England ; and we can hear the Socialists, 
 as they fling down the moral gauntlet, asking 
 with confidence what Englishman will deny it. 
 Now, if popiilation were altogether stationary, 
 we certainly should not be disposed to deny 
 this ourselves ; and, even as matters stand, we 
 shall make it appear presently that we are pre- 
 pared to defend the right of the English to 
 England, to the utmost length that is demanded 
 by patriotism, or permitted by common sense. 
 When we reflect, however, that population is 
 not stationary, but increasing, we cannot but 
 see that this supposed natural principle is far 
 from being true in the universal way claimed 
 for it. For whether we be Malthusians, or 
 whether we be anti-Malthusians, it must be 
 clear to us all, that, in any given country, the 
 population will, if it goes on increasing, be too 
 large for that country to nourish some day; 
 and thus, in every country, which, according to 
 modern notions, is prosperous, a time will come 
 when a certain proportion of the citizens must 
 inevitably lose this right which is declared to 
 be inalienable. 
 
 This consequence, and its bearing on the 
 present question, will become clearer if we ex- 
 amine more closely what the Socialists mean 
 by country. For the word country, when used 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 119 
 
 in one of its senses, means often some area so 
 extensive that the possibility of its being over- 
 populated is apt to elude the imagination. It 
 may, for example, mean all the Russias ; it may 
 mean the whole of the United States ; or it 
 may mean the British Islands. It may mean, 
 in fact, any area, or group of contiguous areas, 
 which are united under one government. But 
 it is perfectly evident, that, when the Socialists 
 use the word, they use it in a sense very much 
 narrower than this ; and it is evident, if for no 
 other reason, from one very familiar fact. In 
 illustrating this right, which they assert, of 
 every man to live in his own country, the two 
 cases they adduce as most strikingly to the point 
 at this moment, are the case of the Irish, and 
 the case of tl^e .Scotch Highlanders. Now, the 
 Irish peasant is not told that he has a right to 
 live in Birmingham, nor the Highland crofter 
 that he has a right to live in Edinburgh. What 
 is claimed for the one is, that he has a right to 
 live in Ireland ; and what is claimed for the 
 other is, that he has a right to live in the High- 
 lands. Clearly, then, what the Socialists mean 
 by a man's country, is not an area co-extensive 
 with the rule of the gove'rnment under which 
 he lives, but one much more special and definite. 
 The question therefore arises. How far is it spe- 
 cialized ? Has the Connemara peasant a right 
 
120 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 merely to live in Ireland ? or has he a special 
 right to live in Connemara? Has the Ard- 
 namurchan crofter a right merely to live in the 
 Highlands ? or has he a special right to live in 
 Ardnamurchan ? What are the boundaries, if 
 driven beyond which, a man's inalienable right 
 to his own country is violated? Are they 
 the boundaries of his native country? or the 
 boundaries of his native parish ? or the bounda- 
 ries of his native potato-patch? Are they an 
 arm of the sea, or a chain of hills, or a river, 
 or a hedge, or a gutter ? Where does his right 
 begin, and where does his right end? Now, 
 though, if such a right exists at all, it may be 
 impossible to give to this question any one uni- 
 versal answer, there are still certain cases in 
 which it can be answered with the utmost pre- 
 cision. If we violate the right of a native of 
 Ross-shire by expelling him from his native 
 glen, we equally violate the right of a native of 
 one of the Hebrides by expelling him from his 
 native island ; and one of the Hebrides (at 
 least, if it be of moderate size) will be an exam- 
 ple, at once complete and manageable, of what 
 the Socialists really mean when they speak of 
 a man's country. 
 
 Let us take, then, the island, or we may call 
 it the country, of Rum, and apply the Socialis- 
 tic doctrine of inalienable rights to that. The 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 121 
 
 island of Rum, which is about seven miles 
 in length, contained, towards thfi end of the 
 last century, a population of 300 inhabitants. 
 Of these, subsequently, all were expelled but 
 twelve, in order that the island might be turned 
 into a deer-forest for an Englishman. Now, for 
 argument's sake we will admit that this expul- 
 sion was every whit as unjustifiable as any 
 Socialist can represent it to be. But it clearly 
 does not follow from this admission, that the 
 people of Rum, because they were the people 
 of Rum, had an inalienable right to live on 
 their native island. For let us suppose that 
 the expulsion had never taken place, and the 
 whole 300 had been left to increase and multi- 
 ply : what would have happened then ? Here 
 we are on solid ground. We are dealing, not 
 with imaginary quantities, not with vague 
 quantities. We can say what would have hap- 
 pened, with certainty. The greater part of Rum 
 consists of a barren mountain: it would be 
 hopeless to establish there any kind of manu- 
 facture, and even Mr. George himself would 
 not attempt to maintain that it could yield sub- 
 sistence for more than 600 people. Now, if pop- 
 ulation had increased there, as it has done over 
 Great Britain generally, this limit of 600 would 
 have been reached a full fifty years ago ; and,, 
 between that time and this, there woifld have 
 
122 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 been born in the island nearly 300 people more 
 than could by any possibility live there, or, 
 what is precisely the same thing, could have 
 any possible right to live there. In other words, 
 during the last fifty years this one country 
 would have produced some 300 citizens, who 
 not only had no inalienable right to live in it, 
 but whom their fellow-citizens had an inaliena- 
 ble right to expel.^ 
 
 If, then, the- people of Rum had any special 
 right to remain in their native island at all, 
 this was not only because, as a race, they had a 
 better right to it than the rest of the world, but 
 because a certain number of themselves had a 
 better right to it than the remainder. And 
 what is true of a small island like Rum, is 
 equally true in principle of a great country like 
 England. As Mr. George himself has repeat- 
 edly admitted in his arguments, the district is 
 the image of the kingdom ; and what is true in 
 principle with regard to the soil of the one, is 
 true in principle with regard to the soil of the 
 other. The right, then, of the English to Eng- 
 
 1 Or we may look at the question in another way. If a 
 man has an inalienable right to live in a certain country, it 
 may be contended with equal justice that he has an inalien- 
 able obligation to live in it. Now, let us suppose for a mo- 
 ment that this obligation were enforced by our government, 
 and that no Irishmen, for instance, were allowed to emigrate 
 to America. It is perfectly clear that we should at once hear 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 123 
 
 land, no matter how valid, rests not on any in- 
 alienable natural right, which inheres by birth 
 in all Englishmen equally, but is a right which 
 depends on a number of variable circumstances, 
 and which, even if it inheres in all Englishmen 
 to-day, does so only by accident, and will cer- 
 tainly not do so to-morrow. 
 
 This national right, however, which is thus 
 left us, is still far from insignificant. It is sim- 
 ply that right for which, from time immemo- 
 rial, noble and peasant have fought side by side ; 
 and the Duke of Wellington valued it as highly 
 as does Mr. Hyndman. This right, as we have 
 already said, we admit; but if we consider it 
 now, having examined its real nature, we shall 
 see, that, in asserting it, we are so far from as- 
 serting any right in the nation as against the 
 private land-owners, that we are really doing 
 all we can to justify the right of the private 
 land-owners as against the nation. For if the 
 right to live on a certain portion of the earth's 
 surface be vested, not in mankind in general, 
 but in a certain special race, and not even in 
 
 Irom the Socialists, tliat, in addition to the right to live in his 
 own country, a man had also an inalienable right to leave it. 
 But what would this come to? Either that a man has a right 
 to live in any spot he pleases, wholly irrespective of the in- 
 terests of others ; or else, that he has merely a right to live 
 somewhere, — a proposition which we have allowed to he true, 
 hut shown to he wholly irrelevant to the question of private 
 ownership in land. 
 
124 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 that race as a whole, but only in a certain sec- 
 tion of it, how can it be contrary to any prin- 
 ciple of natural justice that one set of men 
 should possess rights, as owners, which are in 
 their own way no more exclusive than the 
 rights which another set are allowed to possess 
 as occupiers? The Socialists say that 30,000 
 English landlords can have no right as against 
 30,000,000 English tenants. Surely we may 
 ask, with equal justice, what right can 30,000,- 
 000 English tenants have, as against 1,200,000,- 
 000 other human beings, including amongst 
 them many of their own countrymen? If one 
 man may not appropriate a particular spot of 
 land, why may a body of men ? If a small body 
 may not, why may a large body ? Where does 
 natural justice draw the line between 30,000 
 and 30,000,000? Or how does a nation, as 
 against the rest of the world, differ from a land- 
 lord as against the rest of his nation ? 
 
 The Socialists, no doubt, will say that a 
 nation owns its soO. because it does what the 
 landlords do not : it collectively works upon it. 
 This, however, is only evading the difficulty. 
 Why should one nation have a better soil to work 
 on than another? Why should one nation 
 have silver, gold, coal, iron, and petroleum, 
 while another has none of these ? Why should 
 one nation be basking in the sunshine of Naples 
 
SOCIALISM AND THE LAND. 125 
 
 or Andalusia, and another be hiding in huts 
 from the cold of the arctic zone ? It is impos- 
 sible to answer these questions by any appeal 
 to the natural rights of man. If we regard 
 men merely as men, the Chinese have as much 
 right to the coal of England as the English: 
 the Esquimaux have as much right as the Nea- 
 politans to the climate of Southern Italy. All 
 we can say is this, and this is quite sufficient. 
 Unless it were recognized, with regard to the 
 surface of the earth, that the rights of men to 
 it are distributed, not equally, but unequally ; 
 that some men, without any personal merit of 
 their own, have an exclusive right to its richest 
 and most delightful parts, whilst others have 
 a right only to the parts that are most barren 
 and miserable ; that for some is the healthy hill- 
 side, for others the pestilential plain ; for some 
 the harbors and the navigable rivers, for others 
 the iron-bound coast and the rock-strewn moun- 
 tain torrent; for some the perennial spring, for 
 others the perennial winter ; for some the fields 
 of corn, for others the fields of ice, — unless this 
 were recognized as the order and rule of nature, 
 no progressive civilization of any kind would 
 be possible ; and mankind would consist of noth- 
 ing but a multitude of warring and wandering 
 tribes, perpetually either plundering or being 
 plundered. We are not now attempting to 
 
126 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 prove that the ownership by private persons of 
 the fee-simple of the soil is expedient: we are 
 only concerned to show that the modern Social- 
 ists are so far from having done any thing to 
 prove the contrary, that the very argument 
 which they have thought to be most conclusive 
 against it, instead of being a proof of its inex- 
 pediency, is an analogical illustration of its 
 justice. 
 
 We have dealt at such length on the Socialis- 
 tic view of the land-question, not only because 
 of its importance to the system of the Socialists 
 themselves, but because a number of persons, 
 who are by no means Socialists, appear to enter- 
 tain some vague suspicion that it may be true. 
 We must now, however, quit these high discus- 
 sions as to natural justice and inalienable rights, 
 and descend to humbler, but still more impor- 
 tant, ground. We mean the question of the re- 
 lation of wealth to labor. And we say this 
 question is more important, not only because it 
 is so in point of theory, but because, in an age 
 like ours, it is so also in practice. According to 
 the calculations of Mr. Hyndman and others, 
 whilst the Socialistic theory of land would, if 
 adopted in England, alter the existing distribu- 
 tion of but £60,000,000 annually, the effect of 
 adopting the Socialistic theory of labor would 
 be to alter the existing distribution of ^£900,- 
 000,000. 
 
SOCIALISTIC THJEORY OF PBODUCTION. 127 
 
 Such being the case, we shall perhaps make 
 the discussion simpler if we put our difference 
 with the Socialists as to the land altogether out 
 of sight, and figure to ourselves, in dealing with 
 the relation of wealth to labor, that our argu- 
 ment refers to a country in which the land has 
 been already nationalized. All the rents, we 
 will suppose, are paid to the state, and are 
 absorbed in defraying the ordinary expenses of 
 the government. Thus, so far as the individual 
 citizens are concerned, the land has no longer 
 any share in the production of wealth at all ; 
 and we may cease to complicate the problem by 
 making any further allusion to it. All the 
 wealth that the citizens can enjoy, that is to say, 
 all the wealth of the country, except what goes 
 in taxes, has been clearly produced, not by the 
 land, but by some other agency or agencies. 
 
 The Socialists say it has been produced by one 
 agency only, and that agency is labor. We 
 have already quoted their formula. All wealth 
 is due to labor: therefore to the laborers all 
 wealth is due. This is the propositioo that we 
 are now about to examine ; and, before discuss- 
 ing its truth, we must begin by making our- 
 selves quite clear as to its meaning. 
 
 The first thing, then, that we have to notice in 
 regard to it, is its difference from the proposition 
 that corresponds to it in the theories of the 
 
128 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 orthodox economists. It advisedly suppresses 
 all mention of capital. It is this suppression, 
 that, in the eyes of the Socialists, alone gives it 
 its supposed meaning and value. Practically, 
 therefore, the immediate question before us is, 
 not how the Socialists assert the claims of labor, 
 but how they manage to get rid of the claims of 
 capital, and to prove, in so doing, that the ca:pi- 
 talists are robbers and marauders. 
 
 It will be well to observe, then, that capital, as 
 here used, is far from being synonymous with all 
 accumulated wealth. It means only such wealth 
 when used for a particular purpose. It is, as Mr. 
 Hyndman says, "the saving of past labor /or 
 the special purpose of increasing the future store." 
 Thus the same sum of money will be either 
 capital or not capital, entirely according to the 
 Tlse its possessor makes of it. Two men, we will 
 say, have each £10,000. The one spends this 
 sum in champagne and race-horses ; and, at the 
 end of a short time, the whole of it has disap- 
 peared. The other invests it in a cotton-mill ; 
 lives for the rest of his life on an income of £500 
 a year, and leaves the principal undiminished to 
 his children. Of the two men the latter only is 
 a capitalist ; and strange as it may seem, alluding 
 to the Socialistic theory, the latter only is a rob- 
 ber. For the mere possession of £10,000, or, 
 for the matter of that, £100,000, is not neces- 
 
SOCIALISTIC THEORY OF PRODUCTION. 129 
 
 sary, in the eyes of the Socialists, any crime 
 whatever. Their theory of the relation of wealth 
 to labor expressly sanctions a man's right to 
 save every thing he can abstain from spending, 
 and to give or bequeath this to whomsoever he 
 pleases ; and thus the heir of a large family of 
 misers might have the possession of an immense 
 sum of money, to which the Socialists would 
 heartily bid him welcome. Mr. Hyndman espe- 
 cially says that a sum of this kind, in the posses- 
 sion of a single individual, need represent in 
 itself no robbery at all, but " merely the result 
 of past frugality on the part of some hard-;Work- 
 ing man, with a keen eye to the good of his 
 species, as well as to his own immediate interest." 
 The robbery begins only when this sum, instead 
 of diminishing with each draught that is made 
 on it, is so employed as to enable the owner to 
 spend yearly a certain given proportion of it, and 
 yet yearly, without any exertion of his own, to 
 have that proportion somehow made good again. 
 The capitalist is not a robber because he has 
 his cake, and he is not a robber because he 
 eats his cake. He is a robber only because, in 
 eating one cake, he is making somebody else 
 supply its place with another. 
 
 We will illustrate this by an example which 
 Mr. Hyndman himself offers us, and which he 
 tells us is taken from " the regular operations of 
 
130 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 a factory." He supposes a man with a fortune 
 of something over £10,000, to employ this for- 
 tune as follows : With the bulk of it, that is to 
 say, with the £10,000, he buys a cotton-mill, con- 
 taining 10,000 spindles ; and with his remaining 
 few hundreds he sets the mill going. Such a 
 mill, says Mr. Hyndman, " produces every week 
 a pound of yarn to the spindle. The waste of 
 the cotton amounts to 6 per cent. Therefore 
 10,600 lbs. of cotton are converted [weekly] into 
 10,000 lbs. of yarn, and 600 lbs. of waste." The 
 capitalist accordingly buys 10,600' lbs. of cotton, 
 which cost him £342 ; £10 he spends in buying 
 a week's coal and sundries ; and he sets aside 
 £20 to make good a week's wear and tear of the 
 machinery, and £6 for a week's ground-rent of 
 his premises. Thus the total weekly expense, 
 exclusive of the wages of the hands, is £378. 
 The weekly wages of the hands are £52. Ac- 
 cordingly, the capitalist, at the end of his first 
 week of business, will have spent, inclusive of the 
 original outlay, £10,430. Meanwhile, however, 
 his mill will have spun 10,000 yarns of cotton ; 
 and the value of this will be £510. Let us now 
 consider what his position at the end of the first 
 week is. With regard to the bulk of his money, 
 it is totally unchanged. The mill and the 
 machinery, which represent his £10,000, are Just 
 what they were at starting; for he has spent £20 
 
SOCIALISTIC THEORY OF PROFITS. 131 
 
 in keeping them so. His ^10,000, therefore, is 
 still his own, exactly as it would have been had 
 he hidden it away in a stocking. It has neither 
 been increased nor lessened. All that has 
 changed, then, is the remaining £430 ; for, hav- 
 ing spent this sum in the ways above mentioned, 
 he receives at the week's end, in return for it, 
 £510. He receives not only the whole of it back 
 again, but £80 added to it. That is to say, the 
 capitalist, during the week, has lost nothing ; 
 and, so far as work goes, he has done nothing. 
 Simply £80, which he has not worked for, has 
 come to him somehow. The question is, how ? 
 What is the origin of this additional £80 ? 
 
 This Mr. Hyndman undertakes to tell us, 
 and he leads us up to it by the following train 
 of reasoning. The cotton yarn which is sold by 
 the capitalist could not possibly be sold by him 
 for a less sum than the total of all the sums 
 which he has himself spent in its production. 
 What these sums are, we have seen already: 
 £20 in deterioration of machinery, £10 in 
 coal, £6 in ground-rent, £342 in raw mate- 
 rial, and £52 in wages, making in all £430. 
 Thus, of the £510 for which the yarn is sold-, 
 £430 simply replaces what the capitalist has 
 spent on its production. Now, if the yarn were 
 worth no more than this, and were sold for no 
 more than this, then, says Mr. Hyndman, the 
 
132 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 transaction would be perfectly fair. "What had 
 been paid out by the capitalist in' securing the 
 various means of production, and what was 
 paid to him in the money's worth of the prod- 
 uce, would in that case be equal. The two 
 sides of the account would balance. Such, 
 however, is not the case here. On the one side 
 is £430; on the other ^£510. That is to say, 
 the capitalist has bought the means of produc- 
 tion for £80 less than the fair value of the 
 produce. Now, says Mr. Hyndman, what has 
 happened becomes clear. For some one or more 
 of the various means of production, the capital- 
 ist has somehow or other paid £80 too little ; 
 livhich means, translated into slightly different 
 language, that he has got £80 worth of the means 
 of productions for nothing. The only question 
 is, which of the means of production are these ? 
 Which is it that he has stolen ? This, says Mr. 
 Hyndman, is very easy to answer, because for 
 all the means of production, except one, we can 
 be quite sure that he had to pay the uttermost 
 farthing. The coal, use of the ground, the 
 repairs of the machinery, the raw material, — as 
 to all these things, says Mr. Hyndman, he hfis 
 not been able to- help himself: "he has bought 
 them at their actual value, and paid for them 
 at their actual price." They are worth as much 
 as, and no more than, that price, just as the 
 
PROFITS SAID TO BE ROBBEBT. 133 
 
 yarn is worth the £510 for which he sells it. 
 Since, then, he has paid <£80 too little in some- 
 thing, it can only be that he has paid £80 too 
 little in wages, or for the labor of the men 
 employed by him. Their labor really should 
 be worth £132, whilst what he has paid for it 
 has been only £52. That is to say, Mr. Hynd< 
 man continues, of the ten hours a day for which 
 these men will have worked, they have been 
 paid for four hours only, and have worked six 
 hours for nothing. 
 
 Having brought us to this point, Mr. Hynd-. 
 man sums up as follows : — 
 
 " There is a comparison at hand which philan- 
 thropizing capitalists — and there are many of them 
 — will understand if they do not appreciate. Under 
 the old system of corvie^ a man was obliged to give, 
 say one day's work in the week, or at most two, to 
 his lord without any payment. Such a man, though 
 he had the remaining five or six days wholly to him- 
 self, was thought little better than a slave. Nor 
 was he. English capitalists would, of all men, sub- 
 scribe largely to relieve human beings from continu- 
 ing in such a shameful and degraded position. But 
 here at home we have men, women, and children 
 who are obliged to give four, five, and six hours a 
 day to the capitalist for nothing, and yet are thought 
 free. A factory-hand, who, as in the instance given 
 above, provides six hours a day of extra labor, 
 makes the capitalist a present of three days' work 
 
134 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in the week for nothing. He gives, in fact, three 
 times as much labor for nothing in the week to his 
 employer, as the serf who works one day in the 
 week under corvie is obliged to offer in unpaid labor 
 to his lord. But in the one case, under the system 
 of daily or weekly wages, the necessairy labor and 
 the extra labor are lumped together, as so much 
 paid-for labor : in the other they are divided. Thus 
 the forced, extra, unpaid labor for the capitalist^- 
 the industrial corvie — escapes notice, though it is 
 three times greater than the other ; and the capital- 
 ist is thrice as heavy a master as the feudal lord." 
 
 We are now in a position to understand what 
 the Socialists mean when they declare that 
 capital, as a thing distinct from labor, is not an 
 agent in the production of wealth at all. They 
 mean, in the iirst place, that all such capital as 
 is invested in inert matter, such as machinery, 
 raw material, and so forth, is, in Mr. Hyndman's 
 words, "simply reproduced without increase." 
 Thus, out of the ^£510 worth of yarn produced 
 in the cotton-mill, the machinery^ is to be cred- 
 ited with the production of so many pounds' 
 worth only, as represents the loss incurred in 
 wear and tear; the coal, and the raw cotton, 
 are to be credited, in a similar way, with the 
 production of so many pounds' worth only, as 
 
 1 " The machine . . . adds no more value to the commodity 
 produced than the wear and tear during the process of work." 
 — Enyland/07- All, p. 73. 
 
SOCIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF CAPITAL. 135 
 
 represents their own replacement; and so on 
 with every part of the capital, except that spent 
 in wages. "Ordinarily," says Mr. Hyndman, 
 " the rate of surplus value is calculated on the 
 total amount of capital employed, constant and 
 variable, and is dubbed profit on capital. But 
 this is wholly incorrect. The rate of surplus 
 value produced, the proportion of labor turned 
 to account by the capitalist, should be reckoned 
 only on the amount of capital advanced to pay 
 the owner for that labor." Thus, according 
 to the Socialistic theory, one man might own all 
 the machinery, and all the raw material, in Eng- 
 land, and yet not be a penny the richer for it 
 himself, nor any one else the poorer. As long 
 as his wealth remained in this form, it would 
 stand in his name : that would be all. He 
 might just as well be the owner of a diamond 
 spade, which he lent to a man for nothing, to 
 dig up potatoes with.^ 
 
 Here, then, we -are confronted with a some- 
 what startling result. The great bulk of, the 
 wealth that we ordinarily consider capital, is, in 
 the Socialistic Economy, not capital at all ; for 
 it does not in itself serve "the special purpose 
 of increasing the future store." Strictly speak- 
 
 2 Thus, according to this theory, if a man invests part of 
 his profits in adding to his mills and his machinery, he hene- 
 fits by this only because it enables him to find employment 
 for more unpaid labor. 
 
136 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ing, nothing is capital except the wages fund ; 
 and hence we are now able to de£ne it more 
 exactly. Instead of merely saying that capital 
 is wealth " set apart for the special purpose of 
 increasing the future store," we may say it is 
 wealth set apart for the special purpose of buy- 
 ing labor at less than labor's worth. 
 
 And now follows the final question. How is 
 it that the capitalists are able to accomplish this 
 special purpose ? It is all very well to say 
 they are robbers ; but what puts it into their 
 power to rob ? The answer is to be found in a 
 further examination of the wages fund. Just as 
 one part of the wealth of the capitalists consists 
 of a monopoly of raw material and machinery, 
 so the wages fund consists of a monopoly of 
 the daily necessaries of existence. These are 
 theirs to give or to withhold : the laborers are, 
 therefore, completely at their mercy, and can 
 be forced to labor, not for their labor's worth, 
 but for the lowest sum that will keep them in 
 working-order. That is to say, they can be 
 forced, as we have seen before, to give the capi- 
 talists the larger part of their labor for nothing ; 
 since, if they do not, the capitalists can leave 
 them to die. And here let us pause once more, 
 to consider that other portion of the wealth of 
 the capitalists, which we have said is not capi- 
 tal. Practically, the fact of its being monopo- 
 
SOCIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF CAPITAL. 137 
 
 lized as it is, helps to keep the laborers in the 
 grip of the capitalists, and, though not robbing 
 them itself, holds them down while they are 
 being robbed ; but, theoretically, this wealth — 
 that is to say, the raw material and the ma- 
 chinery — might just as well be owned by the 
 laborers themselves. According to the Social- 
 istic theory, that would in no way alter the 
 situation. For a set ,of men who were abso- 
 lutely starving would be none the less at the 
 mercy of a man with food, and be obliged to 
 take it at whatever terms he offered them, from 
 the fact of their owning a cargo of raw cotton 
 and a cotton-mill. They cannot eat raw cotton 
 and spindles; and, unless they eat something, 
 the raw cotton and spindles are useless. It will 
 thus be seen that the raw material and the 
 machinery in a country at any given moment 
 are, according to this theory, virtually a part 
 of the laborers. The three elements together 
 form, as it were, one animal, in which the raw 
 material is like the stuff out of which a silk- 
 worm spins its web, and the machinery is merely 
 an enlargement of the organs by which this 
 spinning is effected. 
 
 Such, then, is the train of reasoning by which 
 the Socialists eliminate capital from the causes 
 of wealth. They reduce it itself to a mere mo- 
 nopoly of the daily means of subsistence, which 
 
138 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 enables the monopolists to drive an unjust bar- 
 gain with the laborers ; and they reduce its 
 profits to the products of so many hours and 
 days of forced or unpaid-fOr labor. In putting 
 this theory before the reader, we have carefully 
 abstained thus far from any comments on it of 
 our own. We have been merely anxious to 
 state, as clearly as possible, what the Socialists 
 themselves mean. And we are bound to say, 
 that if we look at only so much of the matter 
 as they themselves look at, or choose to show 
 us, their arguments seem convincing to a very 
 singular degree. They are logical, ingeni6us, 
 lucid ; they convey to us a constant sense that 
 they are exposing some time-honored fallacy ; 
 and, above all, they result in putting the situa- 
 tion before us in a form that can be grasped 
 almost instantly by the imagination. We, are, 
 however, now about to examine them ; and we 
 shall have, we conceive, little difficulty in show- 
 ing that their apparent force iS due, not to their 
 profundity, but to their partiality, and that they 
 rest, in the last resort, on one of the most abject 
 sophisms that ever imposed themselves on the 
 meanest of human intellects. 
 
 We will begin, then, by directing the reader's 
 attention to a certain point that will probably 
 have occurred to him already. Since machinery, 
 according to the Socialistic theory, is simply re- 
 
MACHINERY ANB VALUE. 139 
 
 produced without increase ; since, in the words 
 we have already quoted from Mr. Hyndman, 
 " it adds no more value to the commodity pro- 
 duced than the wear and tear during tlie process 
 of work," — it may seem doubtful why, accord- 
 ing to this theory, machinery should exist at 
 all ; and one might be tempted to conceive of 
 the Socialists as actually maintaining that it has 
 left production exactly where it found it, and 
 has done nothing for men, except just repay 
 them for the trouble of keeping it in order. 
 But though, as we shall see presently, what 
 they maintain is something quite as absurd as 
 this, still it is not this. " Machines," says Mr. 
 Ilyndman, " so vastly enhance the power of 
 human labor," that, " at first sight," it would 
 appear, that, by' their aid, " men would be re- 
 lieved from excessive drudgery, and yet wealth 
 abound more than at any previous period. . . . 
 And," he adds, "there is nothing necessarily 
 chimerical in these ideas." Thus, to return to 
 the figures he gives us from the typical opera- 
 tions of a factory, the labor that, with the assist- 
 ance of machinery, produced 10,000 lbs. of yarn 
 in a week, might, according to his own admis- 
 sion, without that assistance barely produce a 
 thousand; and he would accordingly himself 
 credit the machinery with nine-tenths of the 
 whole weekly product. 
 
140 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 How, then, it may be asked, can he possibly 
 reconcile this with the seemingly incompatible 
 doctrine, that all wealth is due to labor ? He 
 does so in this way : not by denying that the 
 product of labor is increased by machinery, but 
 by maintaining that the addition it thus receives 
 adds nothing to its value. The 10,000 lbs. of 
 yarn that are produced weekly, with the assist- 
 ance of machinery, sell, he says, for £510 ; but 
 supposing the machinery to be non-existent, 
 and the weekly product to be reduced to 1,000 
 lbs. only, the weekly product in value, would 
 still be paid the same. A thousand pounds of 
 yarn would be worth £510 then, just as 10,000 
 lbs. of yarn are worth £510 now. Conversely, 
 could the machinery be so improved that the 
 weekly product should be, not diminished, but 
 doubled, its value would still remain at £510. 
 Twenty thousand pounds of yarn would be 
 worth no more than 10,000, just as the 10,000 
 were worth no more than 1,000. Thus, if a mill, 
 with its present machinery, produces 10,000 lbs. 
 of yarn weekly, yarn is worth about a shilling 
 a pound ; if there were no machinery at all, 
 the yarn would be worth about ten shillings a 
 pound; and, if the machinery had its present 
 efficacy doubled, the yarn then would be worth 
 about sixpence a pound. In other words, ma- 
 chinery cheapens commodities so exactly in pro- 
 
LABOR AND VALUE. 141 
 
 portion as it multiplies them, that its one effect 
 on the wealth which it assists in producing, is, 
 not to increase the value of the whole, but 
 merely to diminish the value of the separate 
 parts. Hence, argue the Socialists, a man who 
 owns machinery, and allows laborers to use it, 
 though he adds to the productiveness of their 
 labor, adds nothing to its value, and has no 
 claim whatever to any share in the results of it. 
 Were this not the case, the Socialists themselves 
 admit that their whole system would fall at 
 once to the ground. For supposing that this 
 theory of value were not true, and that ma- 
 chinery did what this theory says it does not, 
 add value as well as bulk to the gross results of 
 labor, then all, or, at any rate, most, of this im- 
 mense added value would justly go to the men 
 whose machinery had been the means of adding 
 it. It is, then, this theory of value that is, as 
 Dr. Schaffle says, " the great Archimedean pivot ' 
 from which the modern Socialists would turn 
 the economic world upside down ; " and it will 
 be seen, that, consequently, our whole present 
 inquiry narrows and resolves itself into an 
 examination of it. 
 
 Our first question with regard to it will natu- 
 rally be, On what grounds do the Socialists them- 
 selves support it? And a,ny one who has realized 
 its full enormity and absurdity will, perhaps, be 
 
142 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 little surprised to hear that they have, on their 
 own confession, hardly examined into its grounds 
 at all. Marx, who was the first to deduce from 
 it the Socialistic theory of capital, assumes it as 
 an axiom to be accepted, rather than as a con- 
 clusion to be proved ; and Mr. Hyndman, who 
 is simply an exponent of the views of Marx, 
 follows and illustrates the exact procedure of 
 his master. Having devoted a considerable 
 part of a chapter to repeating, in various ways, 
 that, "in all exchangeable value, the quantity 
 of human labor is the measure," he compla- 
 cently goes on to observe, that "there is, of 
 course, nothing new in all this ; " and that, " at 
 this time of day, it needs no elaborate demon- 
 stration." He calls it "a generally admitted, 
 though a little-regarded, truth j " and, if we 
 may judge from one of his footnotes, he seems 
 to think that Professor Stanley Jevons is the 
 only person who ever questioned it. Although, 
 however, he disdains to defend formally a theory 
 which he thinks so little liable to attack, he 
 gives, in passing, certain hints of the process 
 by which he and his instructors have arrived at 
 it. He quotes two passages, to which we shall 
 recur presently, — one from Adam Smith, and 
 one from Ricardo, — both of which he has en- 
 tirely misunderstood, but in which he conceives 
 it to be stated; and he takes the following 
 
SOCIALISTIC THEORY OF VALUE. 143 
 
 illustration to show its self-evident charac- 
 ter: — 
 
 " Say that a coat is worth twice as much as ten 
 yards of cloth. The coat is useful, and satisfies a 
 particular want. Two kinds of qualities of labor 
 are embodied in it, — that of the tailor who made 
 the coat, and that of the weaver who wove the cloth. 
 So far as its usefulness is concerned also, it makes 
 no difference whether the tailor wears it, or his cus- 
 tomer. The coat is assumed to be worth twice as 
 much as ten yards of cloth, — worth, that is, twenty 
 yards of cloth. In point of value, coat and cloth 
 as well are two expressions of labor itself. Thus 
 the coat is worth twice as much as the cloth, be- 
 cause the cloth contains only half as much human 
 labor ; and it needs twice the quantity of labor to 
 produce the coat complete, cloth and all, as to pro- 
 duce the cloth.alone. Keduce the quantity of labor 
 needed to make a coat by one-half, and two coats 
 are only worth what one was before. Double the 
 quantity of labor needed to make a coat, and one 
 coat is worth what two were before. . . . But, of 
 course [Mr. Hyndman adds], if the labor is more 
 productive, more values in use are obtained in a 
 given time, and if less productive, less : only the 
 value for exchange remains unaltered." 
 
 ' The foregoing illustration Mr. Hyndman con- 
 siders to be a perfect type of all productive pro- 
 cesses, and the relation of labor to value, which 
 it indicates, to be only^obscured, not altered, by 
 
144 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the intricacies of the capitalistic system. And 
 of one thing, no doubt, it is a perfect type, — not 
 of all productive processes, but of the waj'' in 
 which Mr. Hyndman and the Socialists reason 
 about all productive processes. We shall there- 
 fore make use of its assistance in showing how 
 ridiculous their reasoning is. 
 
 Let us first observe, then, that, like many 
 things that are false, Mr. Hyndman's illustration 
 has a certain grain of truth in it. It is un- 
 doubtedly true, that in an exceedingly simple 
 community, in which all the coats were madp by 
 one man, the exchangeable value of a coat, 
 within certain limits, would rise and fall with 
 the hours that are necessary to produce it. We 
 will suppose, for instance, four men wrecked on 
 a desert island, with a large cargo ^of cloth. A 
 cave supplies them with shelter, but the cli- 
 mate renders coats a necessity. One of their 
 number makes the coats : the three others pro- 
 cure food. Each of them requires three coats 
 in the year ; that is to say, they require twelve 
 coats in all: and each coat takes a month in 
 making. Thus, to supply the community with 
 coats occupies the tailor for the entire year. 
 Accordingly, since he can plainly do nothing to 
 get food for himself, the lowest value that his 
 coats can possibly have is the value represented 
 by a year's supply of food, which must be given 
 
FOREGOING TlIEOEr REFUTED. 145 
 
 him. This we will suppose to be worth £18. 
 The community therefore requires during the 
 year £72 worth of food in all; it takes each of 
 the three men a year to procure £24 worth ; and 
 thus they are occupied the whole year in pro- 
 viding the needful food, just as the tailor is oc- 
 cupied in providing the needful coats. The 
 value, therefore, of the twelve coats is neces- 
 sarily £24; that is to say, £2 a coat.^ This is 
 not only the lowest possible value, but the 
 highest possible value ; for just as the tailor 
 could make the coats for no less, so his com- 
 panions could offer for them no more. Thus 
 far, all is perfectly simple. Let us now suppose 
 the situation slightly changed. A coat, we will 
 say, takes the tailor a fortnight to make, not a 
 month ; and he can thus produce in the j'ear, 
 not twelve coats only, but twenty-four. What 
 will happen 'now? If he produces twenty-four 
 coats, it is perfectly plain that he can get no 
 more than £24 for them, for there is no more 
 than £24 available; and it is perfectly plain, 
 also, that he can sell them for no less. Each 
 coat, therefore, will, in this case, be halved in 
 value. Itwillbe worth, not £2, but £1. Thus 
 
 1 It will, of course, be recollected that the three others 
 have to present the tailor with his own three coats, which 
 they virtually do by feeding him whilst he is making them. 
 Thus the income of each of the four is £24, £18 being in food, 
 and £6 in coats. 
 
146 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 far Mr. Hyndman is perfectly right, but we 
 have now come to the point where his long 
 course of error begins. We have just said that 
 the coats would be worth £1 apiece if the tailor 
 produced twenty-four of them in a year. The 
 question arises, Would he produce twenty-four ? 
 This question, and its attendant considerations, 
 the Socialists utterly neglect; and yet here 
 really lies the key to the whole problem. 
 Twelve coats, we have said, are all that are ne- 
 cessary to the community. The second twelve 
 would be mere luxuries. Why should not the 
 tailor continue to make twelve only, as hereto- 
 fore, sell them, as heretofore, at i£2 apiece, and 
 live six months of the year in idleness on the 
 labor of his companions ? The Socialists would 
 answer, that, were he to attempt to do this, his 
 companions would soon remedy matters by 
 making their coats for themselves. Why should 
 they feed the tailor for a month to do what they 
 themselves could do in a fortnight? Now, un- 
 der certain circumstances, this reply might be 
 perfectly valid ; but its validity would depend 
 altogether on one condition, that all the four 
 men were equally capable of coat-making, and 
 that the special productiveness of the tailor's 
 labor was in the nature of the labor, not in the 
 talents of the man. Were such not the case, — 
 had the tailor alone the power of making a coat 
 
FOREGOING THEORY REFUTED. 147 
 
 in a fortnight, whilst none of the others could 
 make it in less than a month, — the tailor's coats 
 would still retain their old value in exchange, 
 wholly irrespective of the diminution of the 
 labor bestowed upon them. 
 
 If this is not sufficiently clear already, we 
 have only to suppose our community somewhat 
 larger. Instead of one tailor clothing four 
 people with twelve coats a year, we will sup- 
 pose ten tailors clothing forty with a hundred 
 and twenty. At first, each of these tailors 
 makes only twelve coats a year. They are thus, 
 all of them, fully occupied ; and they receive 
 for their coats, as in the former case, £2 apiece, 
 which, as in the former case, is the only price 
 possible, — at once the highest and the lowest. 
 By and by, however, one of the ten tailors so 
 far outstrips the rest in dexterity, that, instead 
 of making only twelve coats in the year, he 
 makes sixty. But the utmost number of coats 
 required in the year by the community being, 
 as we have said, no more than a hundred and 
 twenty, there would now, if all the tailors still 
 continued working, be produced annually forty- 
 eight coats too many. What would be the 
 result of this on the value of the coats ? It is 
 plain, that, if it affected the value of any of 
 them, it would affect those only that were made 
 by the exceptional tailor ; for, from the terms 
 
148 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of the proposition, those made by the others 
 are as cheap as possible already. Let us sup- 
 pose, then, that for a year this exceptional tailor 
 sells sixty coats for £1 apiece, the others being 
 unable to sell theirs for less than £2. What 
 will happen is evident. The whole of the cheap 
 coats will be sold to a certainty ; and the other 
 nine tailors will have a hundred and eight coats 
 between them, of which sixty indeed_ must be 
 sold, but of which not more than sixty can be. 
 Here, then, are four tailors, whose work as tai- 
 lors at once becomes superfluous, and is obliged 
 to cease. The supply of coats again sinks, so as 
 just to meet the demand ; and those made by 
 the exceptional tailor rise naturally in value to 
 ,£2 as formerly.^ Thus, thirty-six people now 
 produce the same given income that was before 
 produced by forty. Of these, thirty-five have 
 still X18 a year in food, and £6 in coats: 
 whilst the thirty-sixth has, like the others, £6 
 in coats ; only, instead of £18 in food, he has 
 £90. He has, therefore, every year £72 worth 
 of food more than he can consume himself. 
 Meanwhile the remaining four of the forty — 
 
 1 It would be impossible for the increased production of 
 coats to lower the average cost of coats; because sixty of the 
 requisite coats — those produced by the ordinary tailors — 
 are already at their lowest price: nor could the exceptional 
 tailor be forced to sell his coats at less than £2, because no- 
 body else could undersell him. 
 
FOREGOING THEORT REFUTED. 149 
 
 the four tailors who have 'been thrown out of 
 work — have been obliged to seek for food and 
 clothing somehow. Their sedentary habits have 
 made it impossible for them to produce food 
 themselves ; and, of the other inhabitants, one 
 alone has more than he needs for his own per- 
 sonal consumption. This man is the rich tailor: 
 he is the sole repository of the available food 
 on the island. They have been accordingly 
 obliged to betake themselves to him, and, in 
 return for his supporting them, to put their 
 services at his. disposal. He divides between 
 them his .£72 worth of surplus food; that is to 
 say, he gives them £18 apiece annually, and 
 three coats ; and sets them to work at making 
 carpets, wall-hangings, and bed-furniture for 
 himself, the total value of which is, as Mr. 
 Hyndman would agree, the value of the food 
 and coats of the four men who have made them , 
 that is to say, .£96. Thus the increased pro- 
 ductiveness of the one tailor's labors has done 
 precisely what Mr. Hyndman declared it would 
 not do : it has increased the exchangeable value 
 of his products, in exact proportion as it has 
 increased their bulk and number. His labor 
 for the whole year is worth not only his own 
 three coats, and £18 worth of food, but it is 
 worth his own three coats, £18 worth of food, 
 and £96 worth of carpets and curtains besides. 
 
150 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The reader may easily elaborate this illustra- 
 tion for himself; but for our present purpose it 
 is all-sufficient as it stands, and we should but 
 obscure its point by adding to it. It proves, 
 as it stands, with the force of a mathematical 
 demonstration, that increased productiveness 
 fails to enhance value, and that goods exchange 
 according to the hours of labor embodied in 
 them, only in a society where the talents of all 
 the members are equal, and that, the moment a 
 man appears whose powers are above the aver- 
 age, the Socialistic theory becomes from that 
 moment an absurdity. 
 
 But we will not content ourselves with this 
 imaginary case : we will now proceed to a real 
 one. Our parable of the desert island, Mr. 
 Hyndman may perhaps persuade himself, is 
 nothing but a tissue of arbitrary assumptions 
 of our own. We will therefore turn to an 
 island, as to which he can be under no such 
 delusion. We will turn to England, and to 
 the history of English industry ; we will imitate 
 Mr. Hyndman in taking actual figures; and, 
 to avoid the possibility of any dispute in the 
 matter, the figures we will take shall be Mr. 
 Hyndman's own. The following is the passage 
 in which he gives them : — 
 
 " In these islands the comparison between what 
 was and is, can scai'cely be expressed in sober lau- 
 
A SOCIALIST SELF-REFUTED. 151 
 
 guage. . . . TakiDg the 5-ears 1848 and 1878, the 
 period of one generation since last there was an 
 agitation in favor of justice to the multitude, we 
 find that the total gross annual value of property 
 and profits assessed to income-tax in Great Britain 
 and^ Ireland — about half the annual gross value 
 or less — was, in round numbers, £275,000,000 in 
 1848, as against £578,000,000 in 1878, or an in- 
 crease on assessment for income alone of upwards 
 of 110 per cent in the thirt}- years. Yet the total 
 population in 1848 was 28,000,000, as against 
 nearly 34,000,000 in 1878. Here, then, in the 
 United Kingdom an increase of annual assessed 
 income of 110 per cent, or of £303,000,000, since 
 1848, has been accompanied by an increase in the 
 population of only 6,000,000, or at the rate of less 
 than 20 per cent in the tliirty years." 
 
 Mr. Hjndman cites these figures to prove 
 that English poverty cannot be due to over- 
 population. What they may prove in that way 
 this is not the place to consider. We are about 
 "to use them for a very different purpose. First, 
 however, let us add to them one detail more. 
 Of the above-meutioned 6,000,000, by which 
 the population has increased, the larger part, as 
 Mr. Hyndman often remarks, have developed 
 into a new non-laboring middle class ; and the 
 laboring-classes have increased by barely 2,000,- 
 000. Accordingly, when we consider, that, in 
 1848, the hours of labor were longer by one 
 
152 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 fifth than in 1878, we shall find that the total 
 number of labor-hours contributed by the la- 
 borers was considerably smaller during the lat- 
 ter year than during the former. Now, then, 
 let us turn to the fact which Mr. Hyndman 
 proclaims so loudly, that the value of the com- 
 modities produced during the latter year was 
 greater by £303,000,000 than that of those pro- 
 duced during the former. Why was their value 
 greater by this enormous sum? According to 
 him, it can be for one reason only, that they 
 embody a greater quantity of human labor. 
 This, however, it is perfectly plain they cannot ; 
 for, on Mr. Hyndman 's own showing, they em- 
 body not more, but less. What reply will Mr. 
 Hyndman make to this? Perhaps in despera- 
 tion he will seek to escape from the difficulty 
 by declaring that his figures refer to value in 
 use, not to value in exchange. But even this 
 verbal refuge he has already closed against him- 
 self; for he says of those very commodities, in 
 the very chapter we have quoted from, tl^at 
 " the whole world is laid under contribution " 
 to furnish these islands for an equivalent for 
 only part of them. The increased value that 
 he speaks of is value in exchange, and it is 
 essentially value in exchange. There is no 
 room for a moment's doubt about it. And thus 
 the crowning fact, that Mr. Hyndman insists 
 
RXAL CAUSES OF WMALTH. 153 
 
 on as an agitator, is simply an example on a 
 gigantic scale of tlie truth, on the denial of 
 which he founds his entire system as a theorist. 
 These are his words when he is laying his 
 theory down: "To the working-classes I say. 
 All wealth is produced by labor, and goods ex- 
 change in proportion to the quantity of human 
 labor which is embodied in them." He asks 
 the working-classes to look at the wealth of this 
 country ; and the wealth of this country shows 
 them, again to quote his own words, that, to an 
 extent "which can scarcely be expressed in 
 sober language," goods exchange out of propor- 
 tion to the quantity of labor which is embodied 
 in them. No demonstration of any thing, we 
 conceive, could be more complete and absolute 
 than this demonstration of the fallacy of the 
 great first principle of Socialism — and that, 
 from tlie materials which a Socialist himself 
 supplies us with. 
 
 And now, having settled thus much, let us 
 carry our inquiry farther. Since all wealth is 
 demonstrably not due to labor, but can go on 
 increasing and increasing, whilst the quantity 
 of labor remains stationary, or even duninishes, 
 to what is the increase, when this happens, due ? 
 It is due to two things, — to machinery, and to 
 the direction of labor. As to the part played 
 by machinery, the truth of this becomes evident 
 
154 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the moment that we recognize the fact, that in 
 creased productiveness increases value in ex- 
 change, and not only value in use ; for the 
 enormous productive power it adds to human 
 labor is a fact as much insisted on by the Social- 
 ists as by anybody: and, oddly enough, Mr. 
 Hyndman himself, forgetting for a moment his 
 theory, and lapsing into common sense, declares 
 that what " has gone to the few " has been " the 
 riches due to machinery." ^ As to this point, 
 then, we need have no further argument. But 
 what varies the value of labor, even more than 
 machinery, is that direction or organization of 
 labor, for certain preconceived purposes^ to 
 which the existence of machinery is itself due. 
 This question, indeed, forms the real heart of 
 the matter, and we must consider it with our 
 utrdost care and attention. 
 
 Here, again, a large part of the truth is ad- 
 mitted already by the Socialists. Marx and Mr. 
 Hyndman agree fully with all other Economists, 
 that labor becomes more productive from being - 
 minutely divided, as well as from being assisted 
 by machinery. But the singular point about 
 
 1 " The riches due to machinery have gone to the few." — 
 England for All, p. 73. Evidently these riches are riches, 
 not in use, but in exchange. A cotton-lord does not live 
 amongst bales of cotton, nor does Mr. Chamberlain lie- down 
 upon screws. The screws and the cotton due to machinery 
 are wealth to the capitalists only when exchanged. 
 
BEAL CAUSES OF WEALTH. 155 
 
 the Socialistic theorists is, that, having said thus 
 much, they think they have said all. Division 
 of labor, they admit, increases production ; but 
 they never dream of inquiring what has caused 
 division of labor. One would imagine, from 
 the manner in which Mr. Hyndman speaks 
 about it, that somehow or other it had taken 
 place spontaneously, in accordance with some 
 natural impulse on the part of the laborer , that 
 so many thousands had instinctively taken to 
 bricklaying, so many thousands to making pins' 
 heads, so many thousands to painting china 
 plates, and so many thousands to stoking the 
 fires of steam-engines. One would imagine 
 that the connection between various industries, 
 and between the various parts of the same in- 
 dustry, was as simple as the connection between 
 killing a sheep and eating it. One would ima- 
 gine that a knowledge of the remotest routes of 
 commerce, and of the products of the most dis- 
 tant countries, formed part of the ideas which 
 the dullest peasant was born with; and that 
 the details of the locomotive, with which even 
 now but a few thousands are familiar, were 
 evolved " like an exhalation ". out of the com- 
 mon consciousness of millions. Of the real 
 truth of the matter neither Mr. Hyndman nor 
 any of his instructors seem, from their argu- 
 ments, to have had the smallest glimmering. 
 
156 SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 
 
 They seem never to have suspected, that, in the 
 advance of civilization, the division of labor 
 will not take care of itself ; and that the mere 
 division of it is in itself nothing, except as im- 
 proved and directed by some guiding-power 
 from without. 
 
 And yet a very little reflection will convince 
 us that such.is the case. Let us consider first 
 the necessity of the direction, and then con- 
 sider the quarter from whence the direction 
 comes. 
 
 It must be perfectly clear, then, that merely 
 to divide labor need not of necessity increase 
 wealth in any way. It need not even produce 
 it. A thousand men might dig a trench; as 
 fast as they dug it, another thousand might fill 
 it up again; and a third thousand meanwhile 
 might throw mud at the first two. Here would 
 be division of labor, but there would certainly 
 be no production of wealth. Three gangs of 
 navvies might begin a railway at three differ- 
 ent places, but the three fragments might never 
 meet. A thousand men might be employed in 
 fifty different groups, each group making some 
 separate part of a watch; and each separate 
 part might in itself be perfect; but, unless 
 these parts fitted each other, for all their per- 
 fection they would be of no more valx:^e than 
 pebbles. Division of labor increases the skill 
 
BEAL CAUSES OF WEALTH. 157 
 
 of the individual laborer, but the limits of this . 
 skill are reached almost as soon as was perfec- 
 tion of form in the individual types of Caxton ; 
 and it does as little in itself to promote indus- 
 trial progress as the beauty of Caxton's letters 
 did to quicken the power of printing. There 
 is nothing to show that the present generation 
 of mechanics can individually do finer work 
 than the mechanics of the last century. The 
 workmen of Boule were as skilful as those of 
 Gillow. One of Tompion's assistants, had he 
 been born in this generation, might have be- 
 come a foreman at the Swindon engine-works. 
 Manual skill, no matter how great, is developed 
 and dies with each generation that possesses it ; 
 it is not transmitted from father to son ; it is 
 not progressive. What is progressive, is not 
 the faculties of the laborers, but the knowledge 
 of the men by whom labor is directed. The 
 laborers begin exactly where their fathers be- 
 gan. The directors of labor begin exactly 
 where their fathers ended. 
 
 And now comes the question. Who are these 
 directors of labor? and what are the causes, 
 either within or without themselves, that have 
 raised them to such a position ? This is a ques- 
 tion that can be answered only in one way ; 
 and that is, by an appeal to history. To judge 
 from the language of Mr. Hyndman, one would 
 
158 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 think that it was as easy a thing to have in- 
 vented the steam-engine, as to file the head of 
 a nut, or to plane the surface of a slide-valve ; 
 and that it was as much a matter of indifference 
 who was the engineer of a railway, as who 
 turned the first sod with a spade. One would 
 think, that to have originated the alpaca manu- 
 facture had been an effort of the same nature 
 as carrying a can of beer, and that the workmen 
 of England had drawn lots as to who should do 
 it. One would think that the laws of electri- 
 city had been discovered by a mob in Trafalgar 
 Square, and been enunciated by acclamation. 
 But what has really been the case ? We have 
 no hesitation in saying, that the industrial prog- 
 ress of the modern world, and that rapid 
 growth of wealth which Mr. Hyndman justly 
 says is so astonishing, has been the creation, 
 not of the labor of many, but of the intellect, 
 the ingenuity, and the perseverance of the few ; 
 and that, despite numberless cases of cruelty, of 
 oppression, and extortion, it is, broadly speak- 
 ing, at the present moment in the hands of the 
 very men, or the heirs of the very men, who 
 have created it, and are creating it. As we 
 have observed, this is a matter of history and 
 observation ; and we refer Mr. Hyndman, and 
 the entire school of Socialists, to the hard facts 
 of the case, which may be easily acertained by 
 
GENESIS OF THE RAILWAY SYSTEM. 159 
 
 any of them. It is not our purpose here to at- 
 tempt, even in outline, an account of the prog- 
 ress of modern invention and manufacture ; 
 but we wiH take two events, which, from their 
 evidently typical character, will, for our present 
 purpose, be as good as a thousand. We will 
 take the history of the railway system and the 
 history of the alpaca manufacture. 
 
 Mr. Hyndman, in several places, declaims 
 against the state for having allowed private in- 
 dividuals to " seize upon " the railways of this 
 country. Now, who, does he think, made the 
 railways ? He himself of course answers, " The 
 navvies ; " and it is on their labors, he implies, 
 that the private individuals have seized. We 
 will therefore ask him for a moment to consider 
 the origin of the word " navvy." He will find 
 in it, to use the phrase of Archbishop Trench, 
 a most instructive chapter of "fossil history." 
 Navvies were originally the class of workmen 
 who were employed in the making of navigable 
 canals ; and, had not their labors been given 
 some new direction, the same class of workmen 
 would be making navigable canals still. What, 
 then, turned the makers of canals into the 
 makers of railways, and worked, in doing so, a 
 miracle like that of changing lead into gold? 
 The navvies themselves were not the alchemists. 
 They themselves were merely the individual 
 
160 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 molecules. The workers of the change, the 
 creators of the new wealth, were a set of men, 
 whose numbers, when compared with the na- 
 tion, were infinitesimal, and whose names, 
 whose biographies, the parts they played, the 
 rewards they reaped, could be all set down with 
 exactitude in a pamphlet of fifty pages. Grant- 
 ing, which is not the case, that mere labor, 
 without any direction, would suffice to make 
 canals, all the difference between a canal and a 
 railway, between a barge and a goods-train, is 
 the creation, not of the laborers, but of this 
 narrow and numbered minority. 
 
 The case of the alpaca manufacture is simpler 
 still. ,This manufacture was the creation not 
 even of a minority. It was, as Mr. Hyndman 
 knows perfectly well, the creation of one single 
 man. " Little could Pizarro have fancied," as 
 Dr. Blaikie writes, " when he found the natives 
 of Peru clothed from the wool of an animal, 
 half sheep, half camel, and brought home speci- 
 mens of it for the museums of the Old World, 
 that, three or four centuries later, the vigorous 
 brain of a Yorkshire spinner would fasten upon 
 that material, gaze at it, tease it, think of it, 
 dream of it, till he compelled it to yield its 
 secret, and then, by means of it, supplied cloth- 
 ing for millions, and employment (that is to 
 say, the means of subsistence) for thousands of 
 his race." 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ERROR OF SOCIALISM. 161 
 
 These two cases speak for themselves. We 
 have little need to point the moral to be drawn 
 from them ; and, before Mr. Hyndman again 
 assumes labor to be the source of all value, 
 we would recommend him to visit the Patent 
 Museum at South Kensington, and meditate on 
 the "Rocket" and "Puffing Billy," and, if 
 that is not sufficient, to take the train to Sal- 
 taire, and ask himself where Saltaire would 
 have been, but for the creative faculties that 
 were localized in the brain of its founder. 
 
 We have said that , a key to the errors of the 
 Socialists may be found in the passages Mr. 
 Hyndman quotes from Adam Smith, and from 
 Ricardo. Adam Smith undoubtedly says that 
 "Labor was the first price, the original pur- 
 chase-money that was paid for all things." But, 
 though Mr. Hyndman has quoted the sentence 
 that follows, he utterly fails to perceive its real 
 significance. " In that early and rude state of 
 society," Adam Smith continues, "which pre- 
 cedes both the accumulation of stock and the 
 appropriation of land, the proportion between 
 the quantities of labor necessary for acquiring 
 different objects seems to be the only circum- 
 stance which can afford any rule for exchan- 
 ging them for one another." Here really is 
 the whole point of the argument. "In that 
 early and rude state of society," labor undoubt- 
 
162 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 edly is the sole source of value ; but it is the 
 sole source of value in that rude state of society 
 only. The Socialists err from the singularly un- 
 scientific procedure of taking a barbarism that 
 is essentially stationary as a type of a civiliza- 
 tion of which the very essence is movement. 
 Mr. Hyndman's quotation from Ricardo shows 
 this with equal clearness. "Labor," says Ri- 
 cardo, "is really the foundation of the exchange- 
 able value of all things, except those which 
 cannot be increased by human industry." And 
 again, " the quantity of labor realized in com- 
 modities regulates their exchangeable value." 
 This is what Ricardo says. This is what Mr. 
 Hyndman quotes. But Ricardo merely says 
 that labor is the foundation of the value : Mr. 
 Hyndman argues that it is also the superstruc- 
 ture. He does not see that the same rock or 
 gravel will support either a Westminster Abbey 
 or a Brighton Pavilion, and that the difference 
 between a pig-sty and the Cathedral of St. 
 Peter's consists in what is built, not in what 
 is built upon. 
 
 The same astonishing oversight, the same la- 
 cuna in thought, is shown us with the same 
 clearness in another part of his argument. We 
 supposed just now three thousand men engaged 
 in digging a trench, and filling it up again ; 
 and we asked if their labor would be produc- 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ERROR OF SOCIALISM. 163 
 
 tive of -wealth. We, of course, said "No;" 
 and Mr. Hyndman would say " No," too. But 
 why? He admits that "use is an essential 
 element of exchangeable value ; " and things 
 which are useless, whatever labor tliey may 
 have cost, have no value at all. But he speaks 
 of use as though it were an absolute thing, and 
 as though all objects were divided into two 
 classes, — those that are useless to anybody, 
 and those that are useful to all. He regards 
 use, in fact, as a single unchanging unit, which, 
 to show us the value of any given product, 
 need only be multiplied by the labor-hours 
 taken in producing it. This view is merely 
 another instance of how the type of all society 
 is for him a stationary barbarism. For, in such 
 a barbarism, his theory is perfectly true. When 
 men require nothing but the bare necessaries of 
 existence, use is a constant unit; and useless- 
 ness has all the precision of a cipher in arith- 
 metic. But, the moment a step in advance is 
 made, this ceases to be true ; with every farther 
 step it becomes less true ; and, long before civ- 
 ilization has come to maturity, it has become a 
 grotesque falsehood. For the process of civili- 
 zation is a double one. It consists, not only in 
 satisfying wants that are inevitably felt, but 
 in building up a fabric of new wants. It is a 
 creation of the ingenuitj' and the imagination 
 
164 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of the few, acting upon the desires and on the 
 character of the many. We can see this at this 
 very day. Did any of us want the electric 
 light before some few experts had shown it to 
 us ? Let us look at the windows of any shop 
 in London, except those of the butchers and 
 the bakers, and we shall see in the goods ex- 
 hibited for sale a constant effort at creating 
 some new want, whether it be for some new 
 fabric, or for some new book, or for some new 
 bonbon. 
 
 We might pursue this subject farther, but 
 space forbids us.^ Before quitting it, however, 
 for the present, there are certain remarks that 
 we desire to make in conclusion. False as we 
 have shown this Socialistic theory to be, there 
 are not a few points of which we shall do well 
 to let the Socialists remind us. We have shown, 
 that to say that the profits of capital are essen- 
 tially, or eyen mainly, the products of unpaid 
 
 1 The Socialistic estimate of the existing situation, — the 
 doctrine that the yearly tendency of things, as they are, is to 
 make the rich richer, and the poor poorer, — we must consider 
 on another occasion. Whenever we do so, we undertalje to 
 show, hy reference to authorities which Mr. Hyndman him- 
 self refers us to, that the case is the precise reverse of what 
 Mr. Hyndman himself asserts it to he; and that, did he pos- 
 sess the candor of an ordinary man, or the arithmetic of an 
 ordinary school-boy, the sets of statistics on which he avow- 
 edly bases his calculations would have been enough to show 
 him this. 
 
CONCLUSION. 165 
 
 labor, is not only false, but ridiculously and de- 
 monstrably false. But there can, we fear, be 
 little doubt, that, of a portion of these profits, 
 it has in many cases been true. Of this the 
 Factory Acts, carried in the teeth of the Radi- 
 cal party, are, we fear, an admission the truth 
 of which cannot be doubted. But these very 
 Factory Acts, though they form a sombre com- 
 ment on the past, may form for the Constitu- 
 tional party a model and an encouragement for 
 the future. We, of all parties, should be the 
 first to prevent labor from robbing capital ; but 
 we, of all parties, should be the first, also, to 
 prevent capital from robbing labor. We do 
 not profess to treat all men as equal now ; we 
 do not hope or promise to make them ever 
 equal at any time ; but it may be at once our 
 effort and our hope, that even the humblest 
 and the poorest shall be able to lead a life that 
 shall be consistent alike with his happiness and 
 his self-respect. The greatest danger that now 
 threatens progress is the close connection, which 
 such men as Mr. Hyndman are doing all they 
 can to establish, between demands which are 
 really made by misery, and can only be ignored 
 by cruelty, and demands which could only be 
 made by madmen, and only listened to by fools. 
 It rests with us, if it rests with any party, to 
 break this hateful and unhallowed association ; 
 
166 SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and to show, that, however far we differ from 
 our opponents, we can at least echo those mem- 
 orable words of Cobbett's, "There never yet 
 ^as, and never will be, a nation permanently- 
 great, consisting for the greater part of wretched 
 and miserable families ; " to show that it is for 
 others to trade on misery, but that it is for us 
 to do all that can be done by laws, to alleviate 
 it. 
 
THE 
 
 STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 Scientific Socialism. Letters to the "St. James's Ga- 
 zette.'' By H. M. Hyndman. January and Febru- 
 ary, 1883. 
 
 Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom, 1883. 
 
 Supplement to the Thirty-fifth Annual Report of the 
 Registrar-General, 1875. 
 
 Census of England and Wales, vol. iii., 1883. 
 
 We lately set before our readers, in all its 
 main points, that general theory as to the 
 production of wealth, on which all forms of 
 Socialism, pretending to appeal to the reason, 
 avowedly and ostentatiously rest. We ap- 
 proached the subject in a candid spirit ; we 
 did it full justice in stating it ; we admitted it 
 to be in some points so ingenious and plausible, 
 that its inventors might well be the dupes of 
 their own ingenuity, and numbers of honest 
 men might well be the dupes of its inventors. 
 We did more than this: we urged on our 
 readers to reflect how highly dangerous these 
 characteristics made it; and we earnestly en- 
 treated all true Conservatives not to allow 
 themselves to despise it, until they were in a 
 position to see, and to show to the people, ex- 
 actly why it is despicable. 
 
 167 
 
168 TSE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 We did not offer this advice as a precept 
 merely: we promised ourselves to put that 
 precept in practice. Fully aware, for our own 
 part, how mad and how monstrous the theory 
 is to which we were then calling attention, and 
 how easy to sneer, and to cause others to sneer, 
 at it, provided only those others have an inter- 
 est in deriding its tendencies, we handled it 
 with as much deference as though it really 
 were what it claimed to be, — a complete and 
 coherent body of scientific doctrines ; and not 
 till we had set its arguments one by one in 
 order, till we had localized exactly the points 
 where the reasoning broke short or halted, till 
 we could say with distinctness on every such 
 occasion, " Here the logician ends, and here the 
 dolt begins," did we invite the reader to unite 
 his judgment with ours, and pronounce what 
 presents itself to us as the new Economic Gos- 
 pel, to be at once the most specious, and yet 
 the crudest, tissue of fallacies that has ever 
 threatened society, or disgraced any modern 
 thinker. 
 
 In doing thus much, however, we have only 
 half completed the task which, in our last arti- 
 cle, we marked out for ourselves. We there 
 treated Socialism as though its doctrines were 
 purely speculative; but, as we reminded the 
 reader at the time, this is far from being the 
 
AGITATORS AND POVEBTT. 169 
 
 case. Not only has the Socialist a distinctive 
 theory of political economy, but he has a dis- 
 tinctive view of social history also, and more 
 especially of recent and contemporary history. 
 Not only does he say, that, as property is at 
 present distributed, most property is theoreti- 
 cally robbery, but he declares, that as a fact, 
 under the present system, society every year is 
 becoming practically more intolerable. The 
 rich, he says, are getting constantly richer, and 
 the poor poorer ; and hence we are fast hasten- 
 ing on to the inevitable social catastrophe. He 
 expresses this statement; he reiterates it; he 
 rings the changes on it ; he illustrates it with 
 long strings of figures; he emphasizes his 
 figures VTith long strings of exclamations. In- 
 deed, in addressing the populace, and in excit- 
 ing the passions which he trades upon, he trusts 
 more, at least in this country, to this method of 
 representing concrete facts, than to his exposi- 
 tion of. abstract theories. We purpose, in the 
 present article, to approach him, in his capacity 
 of historian and politician, in the same spirit in 
 which we approached him in his capacity of 
 political economist : and we engage to demon- 
 stratci by the most ample and unimpeachable 
 evidence, that his history and his statistics are 
 even more false than his economy ; that where- 
 as his economy failed because, taken as a whole, 
 
170 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION 
 
 it had no relations at all to reality, his history 
 and statistics fail because, taken as a whole, 
 they are in direct contradiction to it. 
 
 It is our present intention, however, to do 
 something more than this ; and what we have 
 to say of the professing Socialists will form the 
 text, rather than the body, of our argument. 
 The main point we shall seek to impress upon 
 our readers is, that the ignorance, the perver- 
 sion of facts, which we shall bring home to the 
 Socialists, is by no means confined to them ; but 
 that in a less grotesque — and for that very rea- 
 son in a more dangerous — form, it is infecting 
 at this moment almost every popular movement 
 that is started or countenanced by the so-called 
 Party of Progress; and is so far from being 
 confined to the manifestos of Socialistic federa- 
 tions, that it is reproduced in all its essential 
 features by that bourgeois member of the pres- 
 ent ministry, whom the socialistic federations, 
 most detest and despise. 
 
 After thus much of preface, let us proceed to 
 our work. We take up the thread of our criti- 
 cism where we dropped it in our last article ; 
 and we again make use of Mr. Hyndman as the 
 representative and spokesman of the Socialism 
 which is now trying to make itself a power in 
 England. Indeed, he is, we believe, as a matter 
 of fact, the source from which his followers and 
 
A TYPICAL AGITATOB. 171 
 
 associates take most of their detailed statements 
 and figures. Let us see, then, how Mr. Hynd- 
 man fares, when, after we have listened to his 
 menacing generalizations as to the course of 
 modern society, in which the rich get constantly 
 richer, and the poor poorer and more miserable, 
 we examine in detail those various statements 
 and authorities which he has publicly cited as 
 the most signal proofs of his position. We said 
 in our last article, of these pretended proofs, 
 that many of them proved nothing because 
 they are absolutely false to fact ; that such of 
 them as were true proved, not what Mr. Hynd- 
 man stated, but what Mr. Hyndman denied; 
 and that, did he possess the candor of an ordi- 
 nary man, or the arithmetic of an ordinary 
 schoolboy, the materials on which he avowedly 
 bases his calculations would have been in them- 
 selves enough to show him this. The reader 
 shall judge if we have spoken with too great a 
 severity. 
 
 As to his own view of the matter, Mr. Hynd- 
 man shall explain it for himself; and we are 
 able to point to a place where he does so with 
 the utmost plainness. During the course of 
 January, 1883, he addressed to the " St. James's 
 Gazette " a series of letters, under the heading 
 of "Scientific Socialism." ^ In them the So- 
 
 1 The first of these letters appeared In the " St. James's 
 Gazette " of Jan. 18, the last ou Feb. 5, 1883. 
 
172 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 cialistic doctrine, that the gulf between classes 
 is widening, that the rich are getting richer, and 
 the poor poorer, is stated with what purports to 
 be scientific precision ; and Mr. Hyndman com- 
 mits himself to certain figures, in illustration of 
 it, and gives for these figures certain well-known 
 authorities. There is no room, therefore, here 
 for any vague or doubtful generalities ; indeed, 
 the whole question, so far as Mr. Hyndman 
 is concerned, can be settled as peremptorily, 
 and very nearly as quickly, as a schoolmaster 
 judges the correctness of a child's addition sum. 
 It is to these letters, therefore, that we propose 
 first to refer. 
 
 Mr. Hyndman states his position broadly 
 thus. Speaking of society as at present organ- 
 ized, we have "as a result," he says, "on the 
 one side a class working far too hard for health, 
 and living in miserable social conditions ; on 
 the other side, a class which works not at all 
 with its hands, and enjoys luxury in excess 
 of what is reasonable; and," he adds (this is 
 a most important part of the statement), "the 
 gradations between the two are being gradually 
 crushed out." The working-classes, he goes 
 on to say, subsist, with very few exceptions, on 
 " starvation wages ; " and out of every 5s. which 
 their work is worth, from 3s. Ad. to 3s. 9d. is 
 pocketed by their emplo5'-ers, and from Is. Sd. 
 to Is. 8d. is left for themselves. 
 
A TYPICAL AGITATOR. 173 
 
 A correspondent of the same paper, signing 
 himself "M.," took occasion to question all 
 these statements, to cite in opposition to them 
 Professor Leone Levi, and to ask Mr. Hyndman 
 on what authority he made them. He observed 
 in particular, that, so far is it from being true 
 that all ^adations between the rich and poor 
 are being gradually crushed out, the rise of the 
 middle class is the main social feature of this 
 century. Here then, urged " M.," we have a 
 distinct question before us. Does Mr. Hynd- 
 man assert that the class of men with incomes 
 of from two hundred to five hundred a year is 
 now in process of being gradually crushed out? 
 Does the number of such men either absolutely 
 or relatively decrease in this country, frpm one 
 census to another ? The moment the question 
 was put in this definite shape, Mr. Hyndman 
 did not venture to utter another word with re- 
 gard to it ; but wholly ignoring the main point 
 at issue, which was the direction in which the 
 distribution of wealth was changing, he covered 
 his retreat by citing a large number of figures 
 as to the proportions in which it is distributed 
 now. Now, it is hardly necessary to point out 
 that statistics of this kind throw as little light 
 on the movement, or on the tendency of society, 
 as the mere statement, that at a given instant 
 three sticks are floating under London Bridge, 
 
174 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 throws on the question of which way the tide 
 is flowing. Mr. Hyndman's figures, however, 
 throw considerable light upon one thing: not, 
 indeed, upon his main theory and conclusion, 
 but on the private history of his own arith- 
 metic, and the various other processes, mental 
 or moral, by which that conclusion has been 
 arrived at. 
 
 To begin with a point to which we shall recur 
 presently, Mr. Hyndman supports his assertion, 
 as to the wretchedness of the working-classes, by 
 informing us that " the average age of the well- 
 to-do has now reached fifty-five : the average age 
 of the workers is twenty-nine;" and amongst 
 the workers, as the most ill-paid and wretched 
 of all, he especially makes mention of the agri- 
 cultural laborers. Now, we shall not urge, as 
 we well might, that an arbitrary division of so- 
 ciety into the workers and the well-to-do is too 
 vague to convey any definite meaning, is so 
 vague as to cover almost any conclusion, and 
 suggests the language of a gossiping girl rather 
 than that of a serious and scientific man ; but, 
 attaching to the figures such meaning as they 
 will bear, we will confront them with a few 
 others, which are really definite and intelligible. 
 We will take the average ages, as they are to be 
 gathered from the latest census-returns, of eight 
 different and distinctive classes of men, — colliers, 
 
AN AGITATOR EXPOSED. 175 
 
 brick-layers, navvies and plate-layers, rag-gath- 
 erers, agricultural laborers, farmers, bankers, 
 and peers. Tbe first five of these are certainly 
 classes of " workers," the two last are certainly 
 classes of the well-to-do ; whilst the farmers, as 
 a body, must be given an intermediate place. 
 Now, what are the average ages of the different 
 classes of workers? Those of the two first, and 
 of the two first alone, reach to a figure as low as 
 that given by Mr. Hyndman. The average age 
 of the navvies and plate-layers is thirty ; that of 
 the rag-gatherers is thirty-two ; and that of the 
 agricultural laborers, thirty-four. Let us next 
 turn to the average age of the well-to-do, which 
 Mr. Hyndman assures us is fifty-five. Now, it is 
 of course possible that, animated by the same 
 spirit that would call nobody happy till he was 
 dead, Mr. Hyndman may call nobody well-to-do 
 till he is past middle-age. In that case, of 
 course, we cannot quarrel with his average ; nor, 
 indeed, could we do so, had he chosen to raise 
 it to ninety. Since, however, it is only fair to 
 suppose that he uses the word in something of 
 its ordinary sense, we are justified in saying that 
 of the well-to-do classes there could be no better 
 examples than peers and bankers. Both, as class- 
 es, are exceptionally rich; and their average ages, 
 if Mr. Hyndman were correct, should exceed 
 fifty-five, rather than fall short of it. But what 
 
176 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 is the truth of the matter, as we gather it from 
 the census-returns? The average age of the 
 peers is only forty-two ; ^ the average age of the 
 bankers is only thirty-six. And now let us pass 
 to the intermediate class, the farmers. They, 
 though compared with the bankers they are poor 
 and live hardy, yet on the average live four years 
 longer. Their average age is forty. We appeal 
 to the reader if we have not here an excellent 
 specimen of that inaccuracy, either dishonest or 
 imbecile, which we have thought it our duty to 
 lay to Mr. Hyndman's charge. His error as 
 to the age of the working-classes, his virtual 
 inversion of the position of the agricultural 
 laborer, — • this in itself may be a comparatively 
 small matter : but it is not a small matter, that, 
 in comparing the workers and the well-to-do, he 
 distorts the situation by an error of eight hun- 
 dred per cent ; ^ and that whereas, according to 
 I 
 
 1 It is to te observed that this average is really too high; 
 the average ages of the peers, as it is to he gathered from the 
 census-returns, heing raised artificially from the fact that a 
 larger number of peers only succeed to their titles late in life, 
 and very few of them become peers tUl manhood. 
 
 2 According to Mr. Hyndman, a banker would, on the av- 
 erage, live fifty-five years ; the agricultural laborer, twenty- 
 nine : that is, the -former would live sixteen years longer 
 than the latter. As a matter of fact, he does, on the average, 
 live two years longer. It is impossible, however, even could 
 Mr. Hyndman defend his own statements, that any instruc- 
 tion could be got out of a classification that sets the workers 
 on one side, and the well-to-do on the other, as mutually ex- 
 
^JV AGITATOR EXPOSED. 177 
 
 him, the life of an agricultural laborer is blight- 
 ed and cut down to about half the length of a 
 banker's, it in reality falls short of the banker's 
 by only two years. 
 
 Let us next see how Mr. IJyndman deals with 
 the English land question ; and here we turn 
 for a moment from the letters on which we are 
 now commenting, tO his treatise " England for 
 All," which was our text in our former article. 
 It will be enough at this moment to quote a 
 single sentence. " The whole of the agricul- 
 tural land in the kingdom," says Mr. Hyndman, 
 " is practically owned by less than thirty thou- 
 sand persons , and not all the systematic fudg- 
 ing resorted to in the Landlords' Eeturns, known 
 as the New Doomsday Book, has been able to 
 
 elusive classes. Dr. Farr, in a letter to the registrar-general, 
 which is prefixed to the Supplement to the Thirty-fifth An- 
 nual Report of the Registrar-General, states that " the mean 
 lifetime in the healthiest districts of England, and in the 
 healthiest ranks, is forty-nine years; and there is no evidence, 
 that, under the most favorable conditions, it exceeds fifty 
 years " (p. iv.). He adds: " The mean age at death of people 
 in different businesses often furnishes very erroneous indi- 
 cations, as it is affected as much by the ages at which people 
 enter and leave, as by the salubrity or insalubrity of any par- 
 ticular profession " (ibid. p. liii.). It may interest the reader 
 to know the mortality per cent between the ages of twenty- 
 five and thirty-five of the following four classes, — agricultu- 
 ral laborers, solicitors, gamekeepers, and doctors. That of 
 the doctors is 1.287; of the solicitors, .890; of the agricultural 
 laborers, .892; and of the gamekeepers, .610. (Supplement to 
 Thirty-fifth Annual Report, etc., Tables 63 and 64.) 
 
178 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 shake that fact out of the minds of the people 
 of England."! With regard to this, we have 
 to observe at present, that Mr. Hyndman must 
 have either written about the New Doomsday- 
 Book without having ever seen it, or else he 
 must have wilfully suppressed the following 
 facts which the New Doomsday Book forces on 
 the eyes of its readers. So far are thirty thou- 
 sand people from owning all the agricultural 
 land in England, that, in addition to the thirty 
 thousand whose estates are most extensive, there 
 are more than seventy-two thousand with estates 
 of about twenty acres, more than twelve thou- 
 sand with estates of about two hundred acres, 
 and more than twenty-five thousand with estates 
 of about seventy acres ; and the rental of these 
 men, whom Mr. Hyndman declares to be non- 
 existent, is as great as the rental of the entire 
 English squirearchy .2 As we shall deal with the 
 land question at greater length presently, we 
 will pass on to some other of Mr. Hyndman's 
 statistics ; and these, we think the reader will 
 agree with us, are more remarkable still. 
 
 In order to show (we are returning to Mr. 
 Hyndman's letters) how iniquitous is the pres- 
 ent division of the good things of life, he tri- 
 umphantly cites the following figures from Mr. 
 
 1 England for All, p. 22. 
 
 2 The exact statistics will be found later on. 
 
AN AGITATOR EXPOSED. 179 
 
 Mulhall, which are really figures dealing with 
 the distribution of invested capital. " Accord- 
 ing," he says, " to Mr. Mulhall's estimates, 2,- 
 046,900 families of the upper and middle classes 
 possess together property to the value of £7,- 
 562,000,000 ; 4,629,000 possess only ^398,000,- 
 000. The first class have thus ^3,700 per 
 family, in round figures ; the second less than 
 £90. But 222,500 families actually own £B, 
 728,000,000, or nearly £26,000 per family. 
 ' Mein Gott ! ' as old Bliicher said, ' vat a city 
 for to sack ! ' and what an array of physical 
 force over against it ! " We venture to aflSrm, 
 that, considering the foregoing quotation with 
 reference to the impression Mr. Hyndman de- 
 sires to convey by it, it would be hard to par- 
 allel in the writings of any controversialist the 
 unscrupulousness or the ignorance implied in 
 Mr. Hyndman's use of it. Mr. Hyndman says 
 that the richer classes " have " nearly four thou- 
 sand pounds per family, the poorer " have " less 
 than ninety ; but what does he mean by " have " ? 
 He does not mean that they have these sums 
 buried, or hidden away in a stocking: he 
 means the sums to be taken as being, in some 
 obvious way, an index of the income on which 
 their owners live. But, as thus stated by him, 
 this is no index whatever. According to those 
 , very tables of Mr. Mulhall's from which Mr. 
 
180 TSE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 Hyndman quotes, those who '■'■have" ninety- 
 pounds enjoy annually a hundred pounds ; ^ 
 and those who '■'■have" twenty-six thousand 
 pounds enjoy annually only fifteen hundred; 
 whilst as to the middle class, who " have " about 
 a thousand pounds, what they enjoy annually 
 is two hundred and sixty. Thus the income of 
 the rich is one-seventeenth of what they " have " 
 the income of the middle class something over 
 a quarter of what they " have " and the income 
 of the working-classes is ten per cent more than 
 what they " have ; " and whereas for every 
 pound that Mr. Hyndman attributes to the 
 poor man, the poor man gets annually one 
 pound two shillings, for every pound that Mr. 
 Hyndman attributes to the rich man, the rich 
 man gets annually something short of one and 
 sixpence. Hence, if we express the proportion 
 of wealth that goes to the poor man as 1, that 
 which goes to the middle-class man will be 
 21, and that which goes to the rich man 15. 
 Now, these results must have been before Mr. 
 Hyndman's eyes. Nothing could have hidden 
 them from him, but an ignorance and a careless- 
 ness which would not only unfit him to be a 
 leader of thought in England, but would unfit 
 
 1 According to Mr. Mulhall's estimates, the average, in- 
 come of a working-class family in England is £100 a year. 
 The average amount of capital owned hy such a family, £86. 
 
AN AGITATOR EXPOSED. 181 
 
 him for even a place in the fourth form in a 
 school i and yet in dealing with this simple set 
 of proportions, 1, 2§, and 15, he contrives to 
 distort 21 into 11, and 15 into 300.- 
 
 But the exact nature of the moral or the 
 mental deficiency revealed in this method of 
 dealing with statistics will perhaps be better 
 realized by considering the following fable : A 
 choleric Indian officer, retired on half-pay, has, 
 we will say, an exceedingly pretty daughter, who 
 is treated with marked attention by two rival 
 young men. The father, not unnaturally, begins 
 to feel an anxiety as to the fortunes of tliese 
 would-be sons-in-law, and, as the easiest means 
 of arriving at some conclusion, consults Mr. 
 Hyndman, who knows the position of both of 
 them. Now, the actual facts are these : One of 
 the young men, Smith, has fifty pounds' worth 
 of gas-shares ; the other. Brown, has a thousand 
 pounds in the Three per Cents. Smith, however, 
 is an inspector of factories, and enjoys a salary of 
 five hundred a year ; whereas Brown is unable 
 to get any employment at all, and, having only 
 an annual thirty pounds of his own, is lodged 
 and boarded .by his maiden aunt at Clapham. 
 Mr. Hyndman, however, for reasons best known 
 to himself, is anxious to put Smith's case in the 
 worst light possible; and replies accordingly, 
 on being questioned by the father, that, whatever 
 
182 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 Smith's means may be, to his own certain knowl- 
 edge, where Smith has iifty pounds. Brown has 
 at least a thousand. Acting on this information, 
 and attaching to it its obvious meaning, the 
 father repels Smith's advances, and smiles upon 
 those of Brown. Brown proposes and is ac- 
 cepted ; the father ratifies the engagement, and 
 all goes well till the question comes of the set- 
 tlement, when the man who was represented as 
 being twenty times as rich as his rival is obliged 
 to confess that he is nothing but an idle pauper. 
 What the choleric officer will think and say of 
 Mr. Hyndman, our readers can well imagine. 
 We can only add, referring to actual facts, that 
 we ourselves, with regard to the matter before 
 us, are compelled to think of him in an exactly 
 similar way. 
 
 But a yet more curious criticism still remains 
 to be made. Mr. Hyndman, in the letters we 
 are referring to, as he has since done elsewhere, 
 committed himself with an arrogant dogmatism 
 to the monstrous statement, that, the income 
 of the United Kingdom being something like 
 ^1,300,000,000, rent and the interest on capital 
 amounted to ^1,000,000,000, whilst the wage- 
 earning classes, or, as he called them, " the pro- 
 ducers," had for their share only ,£300,000,000. 
 It was immediately rejoined by Mr. Hyndman's 
 critic "M.," that, if we consulted Professor 
 
^iV AGITATOR EXPOSED. 183 
 
 Leone Levi, we should find that Mr. Hyndman 
 had again distorted the situation by attributing 
 to the rich several hundred millions more than 
 they possessed, and attributing to the poor some 
 hundred and fifty millions less. To this Mr. 
 Hyndman answered, with an air of magnificent 
 and contemptuous superiority, "My figures as 
 to the general production, and the earnings of 
 the working-classes, were taken from Mr. Robert 
 Giffen, the head of the Statistical Department 
 of the Board of Trade, and President of the 
 Statistical Society ; and ' M. ' may rest assured 
 that, in the opinion of those best qualified to 
 judge, Professor Leone Levi is a very inferior 
 authority." Now, whether Mr. Hyndman means 
 that he has arrived at his figures, through his 
 own bungling in arithmetic, from the published 
 figures supplied to him in Mr. Giffen's " Statis- 
 tical Abstracts," or that he has had them, as his 
 words might suggest, from Mr. Giflfen privately, 
 we are unable to say. If he means the former, 
 we can very easily believe him ; if he means the 
 latter, we prefer to keep our opinion of him to 
 ourselves. We can only say, that, as he has 
 appealed to Mr. Giffen, to Mr. Giffen he shall 
 go ; and, if he really takes the trouble to under- 
 stand what that gentleman says, he will find his 
 own conclusion far more hopelessly stultified by 
 it than by the figures cited by " M." from Pro- 
 
184 TEE STATISTICS OF AGITATION: 
 
 fessor Leone Levi. Professor Leone Levi, as 
 reported by " M.," puts the income of the " work- 
 ers " at about £450,000,000, as against Mr. 
 Hyndman's £300,000,000. Mr. Hyndman ap- 
 peals from the professor to Mr. Giffen, that very 
 superior authority ; and Mr. Giffen replies that 
 the income of the "workers" is not indeed 
 £450,000,000, but £620,000,000.1 If, then. 
 Professor Leone Levi^ be really an authority 
 far inferior to Mr. Giffen, the extent of his in- 
 feriority is to be measured, not by the extent to 
 which he differs from Mr. Hyndman, but by the 
 extenl to which he agrees with him. 
 
 Here at any rate, even from Mr. Hyndman's 
 point of view, our case is plain. Mr. Hynd- 
 man cannot grumble: for we are testing his 
 figures by the figures of one whom he acknowl- 
 edges to be his own authority, and an authority 
 further, as he expressly declares, unimpeachable 
 "in the opinion of those best qualified to judge." 
 We have seen the result. Accepting as we do 
 Mr. Hyndman's opinion of Mr. Giffen, we have 
 , seen that Mr. Hyndman, in dealing with the 
 
 1 Mr. Giffen, indeed, maintains that, using the word " work- 
 ers " in its proper sense, the working income of the kingdom 
 is £800,000,000. The £620,000,000, mentioned in the text, is the 
 income of those " workers " only who have less than £150 a 
 year per family. ' 
 
 2 As a matter of fact. Professor Leone Levi's difference 
 from Mr. Giffen, if any, is only apparent, and due to some 
 unimportant difference in classification. 
 
AN AGITATOR EXPOSED. 185 
 
 income of the Kingdom, writes 300 when he 
 should write 620, and 1,000 when he should 
 write 580. The whole sum in question being 
 ^e 1,300,000,000, to be divided into two portions, 
 he is wrong as to one portion by £420,000,000, 
 and as to the other by £320,000,000 ; making a 
 total error of £74 in every £130 he deals 
 with. To put the matter briefly, the real state 
 of the case is, that the income of the wage- 
 earners is £40,000,000 more than that of the 
 rest of the nation : according! to Mr. Hynd- 
 man's calculations, it is £700,000,000 less. Mr. 
 Hyndman, in fact, is about as near the truth in 
 this matter as he would be if, supposing that 
 Lord Hartington is six feet high, and Mr. 
 Gladstone five feet nine, he were gravely to in- 
 form the members of the Democratic Federa- 
 tion, that Mr. Gladstone was ten feet high, and 
 Lord Hartington only three. 
 
 The reader may perhaps be tempted to ask 
 why, if Mr.'Hyndman's statistics be such a tis- 
 sue of falsehoods ; why, if Mr. Hyndman him- 
 self be so absurd and so wretched a reasoner, — 
 it is worth while to consider and expose him 
 at all ; to expose a reasoner who has no logic, 
 a statistician who has no arithmetic, a writer 
 who has no style. When we were reviewing 
 Mr. George's " Progress and Poverty," we ima- 
 gined a similar question put to us with regard 
 
186 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 to that work ; and the answer we then made 
 to it, we repeat in substance here. In dealing 
 with theories and figures that are directly ad- 
 dressed to the people, no absurdity is too gross 
 for instructed men to expose, which is not too 
 glaring for ignorant men to entertain ; and with 
 regard to Mr. Hyndman, whatever his absurdi- 
 ties are, they are not absurdities that ignorant 
 men would see. In the first place, his theory 
 of production is not his own : he is merely the 
 clumsy interpreter of it ; and, even when seen 
 through the medium of Mr. Hyndman's per- 
 sonal blunders, this theory, as we have said 
 before, is specious to a high degree. It is as 
 specious to those who think a little as it is 
 contemptible to those who think much. In the 
 second place, his statistics as tO' the distribution 
 of wealth, and the position of classes in Eng- 
 land, are absurd only because they happen to 
 be utterly false, and because they involve cer- 
 tain errors in arithmetic, which only here and 
 there accidentally come to the surface, and 
 which, for the most part, it requires much spe- 
 cial knowledge to detect. We may add further, 
 that, low as is our opinion of Mr. Hyndman's 
 intellectual faculties, extreme mediocrity of in- 
 tellect is by no means inconsistent with a certain 
 determination of character; and that danger- 
 ous error may become doubly dangerbus, when 
 
WIDESPREAD MISCONCEPTIONS. 187 
 
 stupidity gives persistence to the zeal of its 
 missionaries. 
 
 We have, however, dwelt thus long on Mr. 
 Hyndman, and his errors, for reasons wider than 
 any that are connected merely with himself, or, 
 indeed, with the school whose doctrines he is 
 trying to propagate. The Socialists proper form 
 at this moment in England a body insignificant 
 in point of numbers ; and, easy as it may be to 
 excite amongst the wage-earning classes the idea 
 that their wages can be, and ought to be, higher, 
 and that one or other political party can make 
 them so, yet these classes generally neither know 
 nor believe any thing of the Socialistic theory 
 of capital ; and, however strongly they may feel 
 that the capitalist should not misbehave him- 
 self, they have no formal belief that the capital- 
 ist ought not to exist. But, though Socialism 
 as a scientific theory has made but little way 
 amongst the masses in this country, the case is 
 quite otherwise with the moral and statistical 
 estimates which the Socialists take of the exist- 
 ing social situation. It would be difficult to find 
 two people in England more bitterly opposed 
 to each other, from the very nature of their 
 respective situations, than Mr. Ilyndman and 
 Mr. Chamberlain. Just as the Tory land-owner 
 excites the envious hatred of the Radical capi- 
 talist, so does the Radical capitalist excite the 
 
188 TBE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 contemptuous hatred of the Socialist ; and yet, 
 when the two come to depict, for the benefit of 
 their respective constituents, the aspects and 
 tendencies of contemporary society, Mr. Cham- 
 berlain can find nothing better to do than to 
 echo Mr.Hyndman's language, and, with a cerr 
 tain change or rather suppression of detail, to 
 emulate his main mis-statements. 
 
 " Never before in our history [Mr. Chamberlain 
 has written quite recently] was the misery of the 
 very poor more intense, or the conditions of their 
 daily life more hopeless and' more degraded. . . . 
 The vast wealth, which modern progress has created, 
 has run into ' pockets ; ' individuals and classes 
 have grown rich beyond the dreams of avarice, . . . 
 but the great majority of the ' toilers and spinners ' 
 have derived no proportionate advantage from the 
 prosperity which they have helped to create." ^ 
 
 Here we have, in slightly different and in less 
 precise language, the same view of society, as at 
 present constituted, on which the Socialists ex- 
 plicitly found all their practical hopes, and to 
 prove which Mr. Hyndman has been invoking 
 his singular statistics. The Socialistic ideal, 
 according to Karl Marx, the lately deceased 
 
 1 Laborers' and Artisans' Dwellings. (Fortnightly Re- 
 view, December, 1883.) "We have already pointed out, in a 
 previous part of our present number (see p. 147, f.), that this 
 statement is not correct, even so far as the dwellings of the 
 poor are conoerned." (Quarterly Eeview, January, 1884.) 
 
WIDESPREAD MISCOJI^CEPTIOIirS. 189 
 
 leader of the sect, will realize itself through a 
 process of necessary evolution, and through that 
 only. It is a law inherent, he says, in the capi- 
 talist system of production, that capital, year by 
 year, becomes centred in fewer hands ; that a 
 small, number of great capitalists gradually 
 swallow up the large number of small ones. It 
 is a law also (he continues), and we may see it 
 all round us in operation, that, just as these 
 moneyed monopolists decrease in number, and 
 increase in wealth, the toilers and spinners do 
 the exact opposite: they decrease in wealth, 
 and they increase in numbers. Thus on the one 
 side are the rich, growing weaker and more 
 luxurious ; and on the other side are the poor, 
 growing stronger and more miserable. Hence, 
 the time must before long arrive, when the 
 present forces of production will necessarily 
 burst through their present capitalistic chrysa- 
 lis. " Even now," he exclaims, " the final hour 
 of the capitalistic system has struck. The ex- 
 propriators are already on the point of being in 
 their turn expropriated." ^ Mr. Chamberlain, 
 of course, does not draw this final conclusion ; 
 but none the less does he adopt the premises 
 
 1 Marx says, " The misery, the oppression, the slavery, the 
 degradation, of the working-class grows in proportion to the 
 diminution In numher of those capitalist lords who usurp and 
 monopolize all the advantages of this period of social evolu- 
 tion." (Kabl Mabx on Capital, chap, xszii.) 
 
190 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 from which Marx draws it, — only differing from 
 Marx in the loose way in which he thinks them, 
 and the vague and rhetorical way in which he 
 states them. Mr. Hyndman follows Marx ; Mr. 
 Chamberlain emulates Mr. Hyndman; and, just 
 as Marx has been the instructor of Mr. Hynd- 
 man, so is Mr. Hyndman, in this point, the type 
 of Mr. Chamberlain ; and Mr. Chamberlain, in 
 his turn, is the type of the Radical school at 
 large. The rich are getting richer; the poor 
 are getting poorer; those with small fortunes are 
 being crushed out ; those with no fortunes are 
 being crushed down, — this is the constant cry 
 to be heard through the whole country, not 
 merely from a few avowed Socialists, but from 
 every political sect, and from every individual 
 politician who endeavors to promote what he 
 thinks to be reform by agitation. 
 
 So persistent, indeed, is language of this pur- 
 port, — from so many quarters, in so many forms, 
 with such a voice of authority, is the same state- 
 ment made, — that not only have the agitators 
 more than half converted themselves, but they 
 have apparently converted many soberer men 
 also. Thus the growing impoverishment of the 
 masses in this country has, during the course of 
 the past few weeks, been assumed as a fact, and 
 has formed the prominent theme, not only of 
 Mr. Hyndman, of Mr. Chamberlain, and their 
 
AN AGITATOR IN THE CABINET. 191 
 
 respective imitators, but of the Roman-Catho- 
 lic Bishop of Nottingham in a pastoral, of an 
 Anglican canon in an address to the Church 
 Union, and of a sincere Tory in the pages of 
 " The National Review." 
 
 Such being the case, the reader will now 
 perceive that in dwelling, as we have done, on 
 the views of existing society which are held by 
 the Socialists generally, and stated for them 
 by Mr. Hyndman in particular, we have been 
 dwelling not merely on the eccentricities of a 
 limited sect of doctrinaires, but on a set of 
 opinions of the utmost practical moment, which 
 are affecting the judgment, the temper, the 
 hopes, the apprehensions, and the sympathies 
 of a minority, which might soon become a ma- 
 jority, of the entire English people. 
 
 Some may think that our language on this 
 last point must be exaggerated. They may 
 think it impossible that such errors as Mr. 
 Hyndman's can really be common to any large 
 number of men. If a man, for instance, in 
 dealing with a sum of ^£1,290,000,000, is wrong 
 in his calculations, as Mr. Hyndman is, to an 
 extent of £800,000,000, they may think that an 
 error of so absurd a character cannot possibly 
 be an example of any absurdity but his own. 
 If any of our readers think thus, we have 
 plenty of facts in store for them which will 
 
192 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 disabuse them of their opinion ; and one such 
 fact we shall submit to their notice now. Mr. 
 Chamberlain, in the article from which we have 
 already quoted, writing with all the authority 
 of a president of the Board of Trade, and with 
 all the prestige derived from his assumed special 
 information, declares that, "in the course of 
 the last twenty years, the annual income of the 
 nation has increased by .£600,000,000." ^ Now, 
 let us turn from this statement by the president 
 of the Board of Trade, to the official figures 
 which that board has issued, for the accuracy 
 of which the president is himself responsible, 
 an4 with which, presumably, he has at least 
 some general acquaintance. From these we 
 find, aS Mr. Giffen himself shows us, that, so far 
 is the national income from having increased by 
 ^600,000,000 during the last twenty years, that 
 it has increased only by £574,000,000 during 
 the last thirty ; and that the increase which 
 Mr. Chamberlain attributes to twenty years is 
 short by but one-seventh of the actual increase 
 during forty. Thus, an annual increase, which 
 
 1 The exact words of the sentence are these: " In the 
 course of the last twenty years it is estimated that the annual 
 income of the nation has increased by £600,000,000." But 
 plainly, when the President of the Board of Trade uses 
 the phrase it is estimated, he is referring to estimates for the 
 accuracy of which he himself vouches, — those elaborate 
 ofBcial estimates, in fact, which are prepared with his own 
 special sanction, and by bis own trusted subordinates. 
 
AN AGITATOR IN THE CABINET. 193 
 
 has been in reality about £19,000,000, is in his 
 estimate metamorphosed into £30,000,000; or, 
 to put the matter in a yet simpler form, in 
 every £1,000,000 that Mr. Chamberlain here 
 deals with, he overstates his own case by nearly 
 £600,000.1 
 
 After this example of the astonishing igno- 
 rance and inaccuracy of the modern agitator, 
 even when in the highest of positions, our 
 readers, we believe, will at length be prepared 
 to follow us in the searching inquiry we are 
 
 1 An eminent statistician writes to remind us that Mr.' 
 Giffen estimates the national income as twelve hundred mil- 
 lions as a minimum ; and that, therefore, the extent of Mr. 
 Chamberlain's error is probably somewhat overstated in the 
 text. In any case, it is sufficiently great to be instructive. 
 But a far more striking instance of the same recklessness on 
 his part is to be found in a comparison between his estimate 
 of the condition of the people in the article alluded to in the 
 text, and his estimate of the condition of the people made a 
 few weeks afterwards in a speech at Newcastle. The reader 
 is asked to compare the two following passages by the same 
 person (the president of the Board of Trade), the date of the 
 second being but a few weeks later than the first. " Never 
 before," he said, in the Fortnightly Review, " in our history 
 was the misery of the very poor more intense, or the condi- 
 tions of the daily life of the great majority of the toilers and 
 spinners more hopeless and more degraded." A few weeks 
 later, he said at Newcastle, " The Conservative philosophers 
 have for the last three or four years been going up and down 
 the country, declaring that the country is going to the dogs. 
 Meanwhile, the country goes on in the utmost unconcern. 
 The funds keep rising, the revenue increases, . . . every one 
 is in holiday garb. Nobody is in the least alarmed. More- 
 over, every one is so unconcerned." 
 
194 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 now about to institute. We propose, first, to 
 recur to that broad general proposition, as to 
 the progressive enrichment of the few, and the 
 progressive degradation of the many, on which 
 we have just been dwelling ; and, by reference 
 to those very authorities which the agitators 
 affect to be drawing upon, to show how gro- 
 tesquely false this proposition is, as a whole. 
 Then, having treated their proposition as a 
 whole, we propose to submit it to a yet further 
 analysis, and to show, with the added clearness 
 that comes of minute detail, how grotesquely 
 false it is in certain of its principal parts. 
 
 First, then, let us state the general proposition 
 once over again, so as to put it in as clear and 
 as definite a form as possible. When the rich 
 are said to be getting richer, the poor poorer, 
 and the intermediate classes to be suffering a 
 gradual extinction, what is it that is, in most 
 cases, meant ? For such language, if examined 
 seriously, will be found susceptible of various 
 shades of meaning. And it will be seen that, 
 alike on political and philanthropical grounds, 
 the differences between these various mean- 
 ings, which are at present confused together as 
 though they were very nearly identical, are 
 differences, really, of the most momentous kind 
 conceivable, and that they point to social ten- 
 dencies wholly incompatible with each other. 
 
VAGUENESS OF LANGUAGB. 195 
 
 Thus it is surely of the very first importance, 
 whether the growing poverty imputed to the 
 poor is absolute or relative ; whether the poor 
 are asserted to have less and less in proportion 
 to the rich, or less and less in proportion to the 
 necessities of existence. A man who has <£70 
 a year is poorer, as compared with a man who 
 has ^100,000, than a man who has £50 is, as 
 compared with a man who has ^610,000 ; but it 
 would convey to most people a singularly per- 
 verted impression, were it asserted that the 
 former was a poorer man than the latter. So, 
 again, it is a question of importance, also, 
 whether the growing riches imputed to the rich 
 are corporate riches or individual ; whether a 
 few large incomes are asserted to be swelling 
 into monster incomes, or whether a number of 
 moderate incomes are asserted to be swelling 
 into large ones ; and, finally, whether those per- 
 sons who are asserted to be lost to the middle 
 class are asserted to be lost to it because their 
 incomes increase, or because they diminish. It 
 depends entirely on the way in which these 
 questions are ■ answered, whether we are to 
 consider ourselves informed by the apostles of 
 agitation, and their disciples, that riches are 
 getting more diffused, or less diffused ; or that 
 the rich are getting stronger, or less strong; 
 that the poor are becoming better fed, or worse 
 
196 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 fed ; that they are sinking to the level of misery, 
 or only failing to rise to the level of vulgarity ; 
 that the tendency of things as they are is to 
 turn England into a clique of millionnaires' and 
 a nation of beggars, or into a nation of well-to- 
 do workmen and a second nation of well-to-do 
 capitalists. The Socialists, no doubt, are for 
 their part intelligible enough. Karl Marx dis- 
 tinctly says, and Mr. Hyndman, though with 
 less courage, repeats, that the rich are getting 
 richer as individuals, and fewer as a class ; and 
 that the poor are getting absolutely poorer as 
 individuals, and absolutely more numerous as a 
 class. But the Radicals who copy the lan- 
 guage of the Socialists, and the timid Conser- 
 vatives who are converted by the language of 
 the Radicals, neither show what they mean, nor 
 apparently know what they mean ; and, whilst 
 making certain statements with an air of the 
 most profound conviction, they seem perfectly 
 unconscious that their statements" may mean 
 wholly opposite things, or, at any rate, they 
 never indicate which of these opposite mean- 
 ings is their own. 
 
 We shall now introduce the reader to the 
 real facts of the case, and shall show him, by 
 unimpeachable evidence, that none of these 
 meanings are true, — neither the explicit mean- 
 ing of the Socialists, nor any one of the possi- 
 
OBDINARY OBSERVATION MISLEADING. 197 
 
 ble meanings of the Radicals. We shall show 
 him that the current language used about the 
 question before us, put on it what construction 
 we will, is false and misleading to so extraordi- 
 nary a degree, that it actually inverts — it does 
 not merely overstate — every one of those social 
 tendencies that it aflfects to describe ; and that 
 the picture of modern progress, which so many 
 are now accepting as genuine, is no more than 
 the fantastic dream of a madman. 
 
 To many people it may, perhaps, seem that 
 the questions we propose to deal with are ques- 
 tions which do not admit of being answered 
 with precision or certainty. The progress in 
 wealth or poverty of the richer and poorer 
 classes, the amount of the national income, and 
 the proportions in which it is distributed, they 
 probably think, can be dealt with only by some 
 shrewd process of personal observation; and 
 that the cbnclusion arrived at will be based on 
 certain sets of impressions, — impressions de- 
 rived from the squalor of " outcast London," 
 and the yearly increasing throng of carriages 
 in Piccadilly or Bond Street. Such, however, 
 is by no means the case. In dealing with vast 
 sums, and with vast numbers of people, no 
 doubt we cannot hope for absolute numerical 
 accuracy ; and, when a subject is susceptible of 
 very many forms of analysis, many most instruc- 
 
198 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 tive analyses may for many years be wanting. 
 But our present knowledge is quite sufficiently 
 detailed, and is more than sufficiently accurate, 
 completely to revolutionize, were it only within 
 the reach of the people, the view as to social 
 tendencies which is unfortunately at present 
 popular. 
 
 It is a common saying, that figures may be 
 made to prove any thing : but this, when true, 
 can be true only for two reasons, — either that 
 the figures can be falsified without fear of de- 
 tection ; or that the matters to which the figures 
 refer can be classified really on different prin- 
 ciples, while they purport to be classified on 
 the same. Thus the rich, the poor, the aristoc- 
 racy, the working-classes, the middle classes, 
 the bourgeoisie, are all terms, which, unless 
 defined with accuracy by each disputant who 
 makes use of them, will leave room for endless 
 misunderstandings and endless contradictions. 
 But if only we are definite in our use of terms, 
 and if only we are honest and open as to our 
 sources of information, the figures which relate 
 to the question now before us are as absolute 
 and unequivocal in their meaning as they are 
 commanding in their authority. The whole 
 case can be put with extreme simplicity. 
 
 To begin, then : the gross annual income of 
 this kingdom is a sum ascertainable with such 
 
ACCURATE INFORMATION OBTAINABLE. 199 
 
 accuracy, that, of those experts who have act- 
 ually set themselves to ascertain it, all have 
 arrived at conclusions so nearly identical, that 
 the greatest difference between their estimates 
 amounts barely to one-twelfth of the total.^ 
 
 Now, as every one knows without being re- 
 minded of it, we can tell from year to year the 
 total amount that is assessed to income-tax; 
 that is to say, we can tell, with great minute- 
 ness, how much of the gross national income is, 
 and has been, distributed amongst the richer 
 classes, from the few who possess their annual 
 tens of thousands, down to the many who pos- 
 sess from a hundred pounds to a hundred and 
 fifty. "We can also tell, with quite sufficient 
 exactness, the proportion of the population 
 amongst which these incomes are divided. 
 With regard, then, to the income of the poorer 
 classes, what follows must be clear. If we do 
 ■ two simple subtraction sums, — if we deduct 
 the amount assessed to income-tax from the 
 gross national income, and the number of those 
 
 1 Professor Leone Levi observes that such an amount of 
 difference, though sufficient to confuse us in comparing the 
 economic state of the country at periods closely succeeding 
 6ach other, is yet iilsnfflcient to obscure or distort the truth 
 the moment our estimates begin to extend its scope. Mr. 
 Mulhall has published a table showing the various sources 
 from which this gross, income is derived, and the amount 
 derived from each source, — e.g., from agriculture, from rail- 
 ways, from mines, etc. 
 
200 TEE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 who pay income-tax from the total national 
 population, — we shall at once have before us 
 two sets of figures, the one ddnoting the gross 
 income, and the other the total number, of the 
 poorer classes. 
 
 It is no doubt perfectly true, that, when we 
 attempt to go into details with regard to the 
 earnings of this and that class of laborers, we 
 at once become conscious of an insufficiency of 
 data ; but even supposing, what is not the case, 
 that we could do nothing more than, treating 
 the poor as a whole, to express their individual 
 incomes by a rough general average, yet the 
 figures before us are such, and are so peculiar, 
 as to give this average an exceptionally definite 
 value. In the case of the rich, were our data 
 equally scanty, it would be impossible to say 
 that an increase in their collective income was 
 any certain sign of an increase in their incomes 
 generally, as individuals ; for an unknown mi- 
 nority might be growing indefinitely richer, 
 whilst the rest might be remaining stationary. 
 But, in the case of the poor, this contingency 
 is out of the question ; for we know, from the 
 terms in which their collective increase is stated 
 to us, that no individual income is so much 
 as a hundred and fifty pounds, and therefore 
 a certain diffusion of the increased collective 
 riches is a necessity. Thus supposing that ten 
 
OROWTn OF THE NATIONAL INCOME. 201 
 
 men twenty years ago were living on starvation 
 wages of £20 each annually, their collective 
 income being thus <£200, and that now this col- 
 lective income has to our knowledge increased 
 to £1,000, yet the wages of no one man is as 
 much as £150, it is easy to see that this in- 
 crease, even if divided as unfairly as possible, 
 must necessarily be divided amongst at least 
 seven men out of the ten ; and it will be seen 
 presently, that, with regard to the exact figures 
 in question, we have much to guide us beyond 
 this deductive reasoning. 
 
 To actual figures, then, let us now turn ; and, 
 looking back over the last forty years, let us see 
 what facts are definitely known and recorded, 
 first, as to the increase in the gross income of 
 the country, and secondly, as to the manner in 
 which this increase has been distributed. 
 
 Let us begin, then, by taking the four follow- 
 ing periods, as to which it so happens that we 
 can speak with exceptional certainty, — 1843, 
 1851, 1864, and from 1880 to 1883 ; and let us 
 note what, at each period, was the gross in- 
 come of the nation.^ In 1843 it was, in round 
 
 1 The figures given in the text rest not on our own 
 authority only, but on that of the four following eminent 
 statisticians, — Mr Giffen, Mr Mulhall, Mr. Dudley Baxter, 
 and Professor Leone Levi. It will be found, on collating the 
 results of their respective calculations, that they all corrobo- 
 rate each other in a very singular degree. As to the estimate 
 
202 TRE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 numbers, £515,000,000 ; in 1851 it was £616,- 
 000,000; in 1864 it was £814,000,000; and 
 since 1880 it has reached, or perhaps some- 
 what exceeded, £1,200,000,000. These figures, 
 directly or indirectly, are all of them guaran- 
 teed by those very authorities to which Mr. 
 Hyndman refers as final. Let us now take, in 
 each of the above-mentioned years, the amount 
 that was assessed to income-tax. In 1843 this 
 was about £280,000,000 ; strangely enough, in 
 1851 we find it still to have been about the 
 same figure ; in 1864 it was about £370,000,- 
 000 ; and in 1880 it was about £577,000,000. 
 
 Let us now subtract these amounts assessed 
 to income-tax from the gross national income 
 of the years that correspond to them, and see 
 what light the result throws on the condition 
 of the poorer classes. The figures our sum will 
 yield us are as follows : for 1843, £235,000,000 ; 
 for .1851, £336,000,000; for 1864, £444,000,- 
 000 ; and for the period subsequent to 1880, an 
 amount certainly not less than £620,000,000. 
 Now, here we have the gross income, at the 
 different times specified, of all the persons or 
 families, in this country, with annual incomes 
 of less than £150; and we have only to set 
 
 for 1843, Mr. Mulhall's calculations, and those ol Mr. Giffen, 
 result in totals that differ by little more than two per cent; 
 and as to the estimates for the two last periods, Mr. Dudley 
 Baxter's result and Mr. Mulhall's differ by hut one per cent. 
 
THE POOR AND PATEBS OF INCOME-TAX. 203 
 
 against each amount the corresponding num- 
 bers of the population, to arrive at once, at 
 certain very definite conclusions. In the case 
 of the first two periods, this operation is per- 
 fectly simple, for the population in 1851 was 
 practically precisely the same as it was in 1843. 
 It had not increased by so much as 140,000 
 persons,^ and may in each case be stated in 
 round numbers as 27,000,000. In 1864 it was 
 verging on 80,000,000, and at the present mo- 
 ment it is approaching 86,000,000. We know, 
 however, that of this increase in numbers the 
 larger part proportionally Js to be attributed 
 to the richer classes. They have increased by 
 more than 200 per cent, or from 1,500,000 to 
 4,700,000; whilst the poorer classes, on the 
 contrary, have increased by but 20 per cent, 
 or from 26,000,000, in 1843 and 1851, to some- 
 thing over 30,000,000 now. Hence, the same 
 number of them that in 1843 had ,£235,000,000, 
 annually, had in 1851 ^336,000,000; and a 
 number that is barely greater by one-fifth has an- 
 nuallyi by this time, some £620,000,000. Now, 
 if we state this increase in terms of the aver- 
 age income per family, we find that each family, 
 amongst the poorer classes in England, had in 
 
 1 The population in 1843 was 27,555,699, in 1846 it was 
 28,002,094, and in 1851 it was 27,393,337. Our figures include 
 Ireland. 
 
204 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 1843 about ^40 a year, that in 1851 it had 
 £58, and that at the present time it has be- 
 tween £95 and iGlOO; that is to say, the in- 
 comes of those who have less than ^£150 a year 
 have increased during the last forty years by 
 130 per cent. 
 
 Of course, however, this is a general aver- 
 age only, and does not correspond exactly to 
 the real facts of the case. Some sections of the 
 poorer classes have bettered themselves faster 
 than others, and there is nothing in the figures 
 we have just cited to show that a certain pro- 
 portion may not have actually retrograded. 
 But let us put on the figures in this way the 
 worst construction we can ; let us suppose the 
 increase to be as partial as possible, and that, 
 instead of all the incomes having risen to £95 
 or £100, a certain number have risen to £150 : 
 yet even in that case the increase would have 
 diffused itself amongst nearly half of the popu- 
 lation in question. It could not have done less 
 than this, had the incomes of the remainder 
 remained stationary; whilst, if the incomes of 
 any section had diminished, the income must 
 necessarily have diffused itself amongst a larger 
 number still. 
 
 Or we may put the matter more forcibly, and 
 with equal certainty, thus : We will make three 
 suppositions, which pessimists as to the progress 
 
IMMESSE PROGRESS OF THE POOR. 205 
 
 of the poor are pretty certain to accept as actual 
 truth. We will suppose, that, of the families of 
 the poorer classes in this country, a quarter, at 
 least, have incomes below £50; that not more 
 than a quarter have incomes touching on £150 ; 
 and that the half left remaining have incomes 
 below £86. What will follow in this case? 
 Something, we conceive, that will perhaps as- 
 tonish the pessimist. It will follow necessarily, 
 that of this half just mentioned, whilst no 
 family have more than £85, no family can pos- 
 sibly have less.^ 
 
 Amongst the thoughtless or iU-instructed it 
 is not, perhaps, unnatural that conclusions such 
 as these should be received with suspicion ; and 
 we have observed with regret that, even by 
 those who should know better, they are some- 
 times set aside as "theoretical statistics," the 
 falsehood of which can be proved by one walk 
 through the streets of London. But in what 
 we have just stated there is nothing theoretical 
 whatever ; and nothing that is invalidated, or 
 even made paradoxical, by any recent revela- 
 tions as to the want and the misery that is in 
 the midst of us. To this appalling phenomenon 
 
 1 If the pessimist asks us by what process this result is 
 arrived at, we answer that it is arrived at by the same pro- 
 cess of arithmetic as that which shows us that if ten shillings 
 be divided amongst ten men, in such proportion that no man 
 has more than one shilling, no man can possibly have less. 
 
206 TBE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 we shall recur presently, and shall point out 
 that the facts which we are now insisting on, 
 though not lessening its horrors, yet set it in a 
 new, and, we trust, a more hopeful light ; but, 
 at the present moment, all that we are con- 
 cerned with is the certainty, within the limits 
 specified, of the above facts themselves. Let 
 us state them once more, so that the reader 
 shall be unable to mistake them. Those who 
 minimize or disbelieve in the general progress of 
 the poor, must certainly maintain that the poor- 
 est fourth part of the whole number of the 
 poor is not richer now by 25 per cent than 
 the poorest fourth part was forty years ago. 
 They will probably say that it is poorer ; but to 
 that statement we do not ask them to commit 
 themselves : we will merely ask them to reflect 
 that they are certainly committed to the state- 
 ment, that it is, at all events, not 25 per cent 
 richer. If, then, this be the case with regard to 
 one-fourth of the poor, we may know with abso- 
 lute certainty that, of the other three-fourths, 
 there is not one family whose income is not 
 double the average of forty years ago ; and that, 
 if the incomes of one-half are not more than 
 double that average, the incomes of the remain- 
 ing quarter must be more than three times as 
 great. Thus let us make the advance of the 
 poorer classes as partial as possible, and want 
 
GSOWTH OF THE RICHER CLASSES. 207 
 
 and misery as wide-spread and persistent as 
 possible, yet on any calculation, and on any sup- 
 position, at least three-fourths of them during 
 the past forty years — or 22,500,000 out of 30,- 
 000,000 — have grown, all of them, demonstrably 
 richer by at least 100 per cent; and, unless 
 amongst 15,000,000 the increase has been even 
 greater, at least 7,000,000 must be richer by 
 nearly 300 per cent. 
 
 Such being the facts with regard to the 
 poorer classes, the families whose incomes are 
 less, than =6150, let us turn to those whose 
 incomes are above that figure, — from the fami- 
 lies whose home is the ordinary suburban house 
 or the semi-detached villa, up to those whose 
 home is the Park or the Belgravian mansion, 
 the ancient manor or castle, or the modern 
 stucco palace. And here our task will be found 
 to be far simpler. We do not mean that our 
 conclusions will be more trustworthy ; we cer- 
 tainly do not mean that they will be more 
 instructive: but they will have the advantage 
 of greater precision, and they are arrived at 
 more easily. We need not content ourselves, as 
 we have just done, with saying. If such a class 
 has less than such a sum, then such and such a 
 class must have more ; but, taking the various 
 incomes with which we shall have to deal, we 
 can actually tell, in a large number of cases, 
 
208 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 the exact number of families that are in receipt 
 of such at this moment, and compare this with 
 the number that were in receipt of the same 
 income at a given date previously. 
 
 We are, as the reader is aware, extending 
 our survey , over the whole of the last forty 
 years. During, however, the first eight years 
 of this period, there was, as we have observed 
 already, no continuous increase, either in the 
 population of the country, or in the amount 
 assessed to income-tax. Nothing increased ex- 
 cept the income of the poorer classes ; and the 
 position of the richer in 1851 was practically 
 the same as it had been in 1843. It will be 
 sufficient, therefore, if, in our comparison of 
 the present with the past, we take as our point 
 of departure the more recent of these two dates, 
 which will practically carry us back to the 
 earlier. 
 
 And, first, let us recall to the reader the exact 
 point we are to inquire into. We have already 
 seen that the poorer classes are not growing 
 poorer. We are now to inquire in what sense 
 the rich are growing richer; and whether in 
 any sense it can be said of the middle classes, 
 that they are being gradually crushed out. Let 
 us, then, begin by stating precisely what we 
 mean by the rich, and by the middle classes; 
 and let us be careful to adjust our definitions 
 
THE RICH AND THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 209 
 
 to the most general meaning of the words. 
 When an agitator is contrasting the rich with 
 the poor, almost any one, in his sense, is rich 
 who has more than a few hundreds a year ; but, 
 when the rich are contrasted with the middle 
 class, it is plain that the line between them 
 must be drawn higher than this. It is our own 
 opinion, that, when the rich are thus signalized, 
 what is generally meant, and what is generally 
 understood, are men or families with not less 
 than a thousand a year; and we conceive that, 
 so far as money goes, all will be ranked in the 
 middle class who have less than a thousand a 
 year, and more than a hundred and fifty. In 
 case, however, our readers should not agree with 
 us, we will subdivide this division; and they 
 shall choose their definition for themselves. We 
 will divide those who have less than a thou- 
 sand a year into three further classes : those 
 whose incomes range from £150 to £300 ; 
 those whose incomes range from £300 to £600 ; 
 and those whose incomes range from £600 to 
 £1,000. And we will divide the rich into the 
 rich and the very rich ; calling those the rich 
 who have less than £10,000 a year, and those 
 the very rich who have more. 
 
 Thus much being settled, let us turn to that 
 section of the community in which the extinc- 
 tion of the middle class is declared to be most 
 
210 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 certain and most noticeable ; we mean the sec- 
 tion which is engaged in trade, in manufacture, 
 and in the various professional callings. Here 
 we are able to speak with an unusual degree of 
 exactness, because we have not only records 
 of the gross income of this section, and of the 
 total number of its members, but we have 
 records in which the incomes of the individuals 
 are classified according to a graduated scale, and 
 the actual number of persons is specified, enjoy- 
 ing, at various periods, each class of income. 
 We are thus enabled to see, with regard to this 
 section of the community, the exact changes, 
 that, during the period under review, have 
 taken place in the economic position and the 
 numbers of those who are called the rich and 
 the very rich, on the one side, and of those who 
 are included under the term of the middle 
 classes on the other. Let us treat these classes 
 with reference, first, to their number. We find 
 that, between 1851 and the present time, they 
 have one and all — not the rich alone, but each 
 grade of the middle class — increased enor- 
 mously, not only in absolute numbers, but also 
 in proportion to the increase of the whole popu- 
 lation ; and that it is utterly false to say of any 
 one of them, that it is in process of diminution 
 even, much less of extinction. We find, how- 
 ever, that if to any class such language could 
 
THE RICH AND THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 211 
 
 be applied with the least show of propriety, 
 that class would be the rich ; since, though all 
 have increased, the rich have increased the 
 least. The following are the exact figures : in 
 proportion to the increase of the population as 
 a whole, the class with incomes between ^6150 
 and j£300 has increased during the past thirty 
 years by 148 per cent ; the class with incomes 
 between ^£300 and ^600, by 130 per cent; the 
 class with incomes between £600 and £1,000, 
 by 77 per cent; and the class with incomes 
 above £1,000, by 76 per cent. But this is not 
 all. We find further, if we except the handful 
 of men — not more than 987 in all — whose in- 
 comes are above £10,000, and who have grown 
 richer individually as well as more numerous, 
 that, whilst the middle classes have been grow- 
 ing richer individually likewise, the bulk of the 
 rich have been growing individually poorer. 
 Thus the average income in the lowest grade 
 of the middle class was £164 in 1851, and is 
 £171 now ; whUst the average income amongst 
 all the rich, except the very rich, was, in 1881, 
 £2,193, and it is now not more than £2,069.i 
 
 1 Professor Leone Levi, in his paper on Eecent Changes in 
 the Distribution of Wealth, classifies the population thus: in- 
 come-tax payers, lower middle-classes, lahoring-classes, — the 
 lower middle-classes being composed of persons with an aver- 
 age income of £110. We think, however, that the classifica- 
 tion made in the text is more in accordance with popular 
 
212 TBE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 These figures, it is true, apply only to in- 
 comes derived from industry ; but, as Professor 
 Leone Levi remarks, " there is reason to believe 
 that they represent the condition of all descrip- 
 tions of interests." " In a note," he continues, 
 " to the appendix to Mr. Dudley Baxter's paper 
 on national incomes, by Mr. Gripper of the In- 
 land Revenue, it is stated that the number of 
 income-tax payers, under Schedule A, may be 
 taken to be divided in the same proportion as 
 under Schedule D ; and the same may be said 
 as to Schedules B, C, and E." We need not, 
 however, rest content with this piece of general 
 information : we can, to a great extent, test its 
 accuracy for ourselves. We cannot, indeed, 
 with regard to the other classes of incomes, 
 make the same exact comparison between the 
 present and the past ; but we can see that the 
 distribution of them at present, in two cases at 
 least, is practically the same as that 'which 
 exists' in the class just mentioned. The one is 
 the case of the employees of the Government 
 and corporate bodies, the immense increase in 
 whose gross annual income is almost wholly the 
 gain of an increased middle class ; the other is 
 the case, more important still, of the distribu- 
 tion of incomes derived from land. We touched 
 
 usage, and briiigs out more clearly the contrast between the 
 real facts of the case and. the current fallacies. 
 
THE LANDED ARISTOCRACY. 213 
 
 upon this matter when we were dealing with 
 Mr. Hyndman, and showed the absolute fallacy 
 of the current belief concerning it; but it is 
 now necessary that we should examine it more 
 minutely. 
 
 The current belief, as we all know, — the be- 
 lief which the Radical party are doing every 
 thing that they can to foster, — ;is the belief that 
 the whole ground-rental of this country is the 
 portion of the national income that is growing 
 most rapidly ; and that nearly the whole of it 
 " runs," if we may indulge in a slight play on 
 the elegant words of Mr. Chamberlain, "into 
 the pockets" of the landed aristocracy. But 
 what are the real facts? The moment we 
 approach these, the moment we look them full 
 in the face, this ridiculous and extravagant fic- 
 tion dissolves into the air like a dream. In a 
 country like ours, where high social position 
 depends on so many things, either taken togeth- 
 er or singly, — on wealth, on lineage or connec- 
 tions, on various personal qualities, — it is of 
 course impossible^ in arranging land-owners by 
 their acreage, to be quite accurate socially in 
 our definition of the aristocracy. We think 
 ourselves, however, to be substantially correct 
 in saying that the ownership of less than a thou- 
 sand acres does not, apart from other claims to 
 distinction, entitle a man to rank as a country 
 
214 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 gentleman; and it is evident that the "landlord," 
 when denounced in Radical oratory, is conceived 
 of as a person of larger estate than this. We 
 v^ill therefore define the landed aristocracy as 
 those land-owners who own more than a thou- 
 sand acres ; and we will divide those who own 
 less than this amount into small rural owners, 
 and into small urban and suburban owners. 
 And now let us take the case of England, and 
 compare facts with rhetoric. 
 
 The gross rental of England is about ^699,- 
 000,000.1 Of this amount, what goes to the 
 
 1 A most instructive instance of that inevitable perversity, 
 which Radicals always exhibit when dealing with the land 
 question, is to be found on p. 47 of The Financial Keform 
 Almanac for 1884, — a publication, the almost avowed object 
 of which is, by means of garbled statistics, to exhibit the 
 aristocratic landlords in a light as invidious as possible. 
 With reference to the holders of less than one acre, the com- 
 piler of the Almanac, though he cannot deny them to be 
 numerous, declares that their rental, as stated in the Dooms- 
 day Book, is rental not for the land only, but for all " fac- 
 tories, buildings, workshops, and houses " which stand on it. 
 This, he declares, is evident from the amount of rent recorded. 
 A statement more stupidly or more wantonly false it is hardly 
 possible to imagine. The average rental per acre of the small 
 urban properties in question is about £190. Now, on an acre of 
 land there would be room for fourteen large houses, each with 
 a frontage of 30 feet and a depth of 105 feet. Does the compiler 
 of The Financial Reform Almanac suppose that the rental 
 of these fourteen houses would be only £190 ? There are few 
 localities in which the rental of each one of these would not 
 be a larger sum. The value of the small suburban properties, 
 of three and four acres, is on the average about £13 an acre. 
 
MULTITUDE OF SMALL LAND-OWN EB.a. 215 
 
 aristocracy is, in round numbers, only ,£30,000,- 
 000; what goes to the class of smaller rural 
 owners, whose estates average from 700 to 20 
 acres, is ^6 33,000,000 ; and what goes to the sub- 
 urban owners, who, on the average, have four 
 acres, and the urban owners, who, on the aver- 
 age, have the fourth of an acre, is ^£36,000,000, 
 It will thus be seen that the landed aristocracy 
 -of England, the large proprietors, the "land- 
 grabbers," — that rapacious and profligate class 
 who are represented as appropriating almost the 
 whole rental of the country, — take of that ren- 
 tal really not so much as one-third ; and that 
 their gross receipts from their rural, their sub- 
 urban, and their urban properties together is 
 less by ;£ 6,000,000 than the receipts which tlie 
 smallest class of proprietors derive from their 
 suburban and urban properties alone. 
 
 Let us next consider these classes in point of 
 numbers. The landed aristocracy, all told, num- 
 ber about 5,000. Just below thena come 4,800 
 owners, with estates that average 700 acres ; 
 then come 32,000, with estates that average 200 
 acres ; then 26,000, with estates that average 70 
 acres ; and then 72,000, with estates that aver- 
 age 20 acres : the total number of the smaller 
 rural proprietors being thus not less than 133,- 
 000. Finally, there come the urban and sub- 
 urban proprietorSj — the latter with their four 
 
216 TER STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 acres, tlie former with their fourth of an acre, — 
 and the number of these is 820,000. To these 
 facts we must add another, which is notorious, 
 that, whilst the value of rural land has, during 
 the last five or six years, been decreasing, the 
 value of urban and suburban land has been 
 constantly rapidly increasing. It will thus be 
 seen that the classes of smaller land-owners, 
 not only in poiat of numbers, are not far off 
 from a million, and enjoy a gross rental more 
 than double that of the aristocracy, but that, 
 whilst the aristocracy have been growing as indi- 
 viduals poorer, the bulk of the smaller land- 
 owners have been growing as individuals richer. 
 
 We can see this without going farther into 
 details; but, if the reader is anxious to have 
 figures, he will probably find it quite sufficient 
 to learn that the rental of those owners, in Eng- 
 land and Scotland, who own estates of less than 
 fifty acres, is now greater by some four millions 
 than the whole agricultural rental, of both coun- 
 tries thirty years ago.^ 
 
 And now we conceive that, with regard to 
 the general question of how, under existing 
 conditions, wealth tends to distribute itself, we 
 
 1 The gross income of the United Kingdom assessed under 
 Schedule A, for land, in 1851 was £47,800,000. The gross in- 
 came of the owners in England and Scotland, of under fifty 
 acres, is at the present moment more than £51,000,000. 
 
KARL MASX ON "CAPITAL." 217 
 
 have said enough to convince even the most 
 incredulous reader of the absolute falsehood of 
 the view that is at present popular. As the most 
 careful exponent of that view, we have cited 
 the late Karl Marx. He, po far as we know, 
 was the first person to state it in a scientific 
 form, and the first person who had the courage, 
 or the presumption, to declare that its truth 
 was demonstrable by exact scientific methods. 
 Marx' work on "Capital" was published in 
 1869, — in the very middle of the period whose 
 economic history we have been examining ; and 
 we are now able to test the theories of the best- 
 informed and most logical of all modern agita- 
 tors by those actual facts to which he appealed 
 with such arrogant confidence. A more crush- 
 ing and contemptuous rebuke it is impossible 
 to conceive, than that which these facts admin- 
 ister to one who, in the opinion of his disciples, 
 is the profoundest social philosopher of this or 
 of any century. So far as his estimate goes of 
 existing economic tendencies, whenever he has 
 written a plus sign, history has written a minus 
 sign; whenever he has written a minus sign, 
 history has written a plus sign. His assertion 
 was, that the rich are growing richer and fewer ; 
 the middle class, poorer and fewer; and the 
 poorer class, poorer and more numerous. His- 
 tory, on the contrary, shows us that the rich are 
 
218 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION: 
 
 growing poorer and more numerous; that the 
 middle classes are growing richer and much 
 more numerous ; and that the poor, in propor- 
 tion to these other two classes, are growing at 
 ouce less numerous and very much richer. 
 Finally, we may place before the reader the 
 following astonishing fact : Socialists and Com- 
 munists of the extremest and most sanguine 
 type imagine that we should secure a kind of 
 economic millennium, could we only distribute 
 amongst the many the heaped-up riches of the 
 few. A Socialistic poet has described this ope- 
 ration as a " strange new wonderful justice ; " 
 and he declares that " wonderful days " would 
 be ushered in by it, when " all should be better 
 than well." But even the extremest Socialists 
 hardly venture to maintain that it will be prac- 
 tically possible to despoil the few of every thing ; 
 and even the most sanguine Socialists have 
 hardly ventured to hope that the process, when 
 once started, can be completed in less than half 
 a century. But let such men, and all who are 
 inclined to listen to them, merely consult the 
 simplest records of history, and they will find 
 that this "strange new wonderful" piece of 
 justice has actually accomplished itself during 
 the past thirty years. If we look back to the 
 income of the country in 1851, and make every 
 allowance for the subsequent growth , of the 
 
EXTENT OF PBOGBESS OF THE POOB. 219 
 
 population, we shall find that the entire wealth 
 at that time belonging to the rich has since that 
 time been virtually divided amongst the poor.^ 
 We shall find that the total income of the poorer 
 classes to-day is equal to the total income of all 
 classes in 1851, and exceeds by a hundred mil- 
 lions the total income of all classes in 1843. In 
 other words, the poorer classes to-day are, as a 
 body, in precisely the same situation as they 
 would have been in, if, at the time of the first 
 Exhibition, the income of every rich man then 
 in the Country had been made over to them in 
 perpetuity. 
 
 So much, then, for the genetal proposition of 
 the agitator, which we have shown conclusively 
 to be either an ignorant or an impudent false- 
 hood. It remains for us to examine certain 
 particular applications of it, which are even 
 more practically mischievous than the general 
 proposition itself. Of these applications, the 
 most important are those that deal with mon- 
 archy and our existing land-system. The case 
 
 1 In 1861 the gross income of the country was £614,000,000. 
 The gross amount of incomes under £100 is at the present time 
 over £620,000,000. The gross amount of incomes over £150 
 was in 1843 about £280,000,000; of incomes under £150, £235,- 
 000,000. Thus the income of these classes has increased dur- 
 ing the past forty years by £385,000,000; i.e., by £185,000,000 
 more than the total income of the richer classes in 1843. The 
 number of the poor, meanwhile, has only increased from 
 26,000,000 to 30,000,000. 
 
220 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 with regard to the monarchy can be disposed of 
 with extreme brevity : we will therefore touch 
 upon that first. The few facts brought to light 
 by it are singularly full of instruction. 
 
 Most persons who have taken the trouble to 
 follow the received vagaries of Radical agitation 
 are familiar with the statement, which rarely 
 fails to meet with applause, that the monarchi- 
 cal institutions of this country are a growing 
 burden on the people, and ought to be abol- 
 ished on the grounds of their intolerable ex- 
 pense. Thus, to take one instance out of many, 
 during the May of last year, the following re- 
 marks were addressed to a crowded meeting at 
 Plymouth. The speaker, having prophesied the 
 downfall of the territorial aristocracy, went on 
 to say that : — 
 
 " The doubt would also arise whether we shall 
 much longer be able to afford an almost equally 
 expensive luxury, called monarchical institutions. 
 [Loud and long cheers ; and a voice, " Don't divorce 
 them : let them go together."] Listen, please, care- 
 fully [the speaker proceeded] to what follows on 
 EOYAL EXPENSES.! ' If any one fault, has been, 
 in a thousand shapes, charged upon Tories, it has 
 
 1 This extract is taken from a speech delivered by Mr. 
 ■Walter Wren at Plymouth, May 22, 1883. The capitals in 
 the text are Mr. Wren's own, and occur in an edition of his 
 speech, which was republished by him at the request of his 
 friends. 
 
THE AGITATOR ON MONARCHY. 221 
 
 been a disposition to uphold the dignitj' and mag- 
 nificence of the Crown. But notwithstanding the 
 ardent economy of the Whigs out of oflBce, their 
 declared hostility to squandering the resources of 
 the nation on royal personages, they no sooner 
 breathe the air and eat the dinners of a palace, than 
 a change comes o'er the spirit of their dream ; and 
 the immolation of the sinews and muscles of all 
 Britain as a holocaust to the Queen is neither 
 inconsistent with their former professions, nor a 
 severe tax on national industry. "We know not 
 how it is that royalty in all ages seems an insatiable 
 absorbent of money. . . . We humbly submit the 
 necessity of severe economy, rather than unmerciful 
 lavishness. In times of depression and dissatisfac- 
 tion, of poverty and reckless crime, nothing is so 
 much to be deprecated as needless waste of national 
 resources.' [Hear, hear ! and cheers.] These words 
 are from a Tory magazine, — ' Eraser's,' of October, 
 1840. If 1840 was a time of depression, poverty, 
 and crime, surely we are, if any thing, at a disadvan- 
 tage with the men of 1840. Surelj' the country is 
 beginning to make up its mind not to pay much 
 longer this severe tax upon its industry." 
 
 Now, the foregoing extract is taken from the 
 speech, not of an iineducated man, not of an 
 illiterate man, but of a man whose knowledge 
 is in many respects exceptional, and who had 
 exceptional opportunities, had he only cared to 
 use them, of knowing exactly what he was here 
 
222 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 talking of : that is to say, half an hour's intel- 
 ligent inquiry would have been enough to 
 show him these easily ascertainable facts, — 
 that the gross income of the kingdom being, as 
 we have already seen, something over £1,200,- 
 000,000, the utmost cost of our monarchical 
 institutions is something under .£1,200,000; 
 having realized which, he could have hardly 
 failed to reflect that the institution which he 
 denounced as such an insatiable absorbent of 
 money, and one to which " the muscles and 
 sinews of all Britain were immolated," takes 
 really from the nation no more than one pound 
 out of each ten hundred; and that the most 
 splendid and revered monarchy of which the 
 world can boast is but half the expense, in pro- 
 portion, to the great empire which it ornaments, 
 that to a man with a thousand a year is the 
 right to paint his crest lapon a bicycle. 
 
 Such, then, when reduced to facts and figures, 
 is the Radical attack upon the Monarchy. To 
 numbers, even among the Radicals themselves, 
 its absurdity must be apparent already ; but we 
 much doubt whether, even amongst Conserva- 
 tives, it is commonly realized how great the 
 absurdity is. The reader, at any rate, sees it 
 now ; and we beg to commend it to his very 
 earnest attention, not so much for the sake of 
 its own importance, as because it is a typie of 
 
BOTAL EXPENSES. 223 
 
 the absurdity, often far better concealed, which 
 underlies the onslaught of the agitator on exist- 
 ing institutions generally, and on the existing 
 land-system in particular. 
 
 First, however, let us say thus much : We 
 are not contending now that our existing land- 
 system is perfect. We are not denying that, as 
 time goes on, many changes may be needed. 
 We are not denying this, and we are not admit- 
 ting it. We are simply now dealing with the 
 question : all that we are concerned to show is 
 this, that, whatever may be the true view of the 
 matter, the views popularized by our contem- 
 porary agitators are demonstrably and ridicu- 
 lously false. 
 
 To begin, then: the falsehood most indus- 
 triously spread, and most widely believed in, is 
 precisely similar to the falsehood with regard 
 to the Monarchy. It is a statement, or insinua- 
 tion, that the wealth of the landed aristocracy 
 bears so large a proportion to the gross wealth 
 of the nation, that not only are their extortions 
 the chief burden of the poor, but their wanton 
 splendor and their colossal incomes dwarf into 
 insignificance all other classes of the rich. 
 Thus Mr. Walter Wren informed an admiring 
 audience, that, whilst the workingmen of Eng- 
 land were the creators of national wealth, " the 
 hereditary aristocracy were the squanderers and 
 
224 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 ■wasters of it." Similarly, Mr. Chamberlain has 
 described them as the men par excellence " who 
 neither toil nor spin ; " and Mr. George and his 
 many rivals and followers have declared ex- 
 plicitly that every increase in the income of 
 the country goes of necessity into the pockets 
 of this one class. We have already said 
 enoug^h, in our foregoing remarks, to show the 
 reader something of the value of views like 
 these. We have shown him, that is to say, 
 that, whatever may be the gains of the land- 
 lords, the landlords who take most from the 
 nation are the small landlords, not th? aristoc- 
 racy ; but we have not yet exhibited the income 
 of that aristocracy, in the exact proportion 
 which it bears to the income of the rest of the 
 community. Let us take, then, once again the 
 ^1,200,000,000 which constitute the gross in- 
 come of the nation, and ask how many millions 
 of this are paid annually in ground-rents. If 
 Mr. George and Mr. Wallace were even approxi- 
 mately right in their theories, the ground rental 
 of the United Kingdom — the income of the 
 iniquitous landlord — would be by this time 
 something over J 900,000,000. This is plainly 
 demonstrable from the explicit and reiterated 
 doctrines that form the gist of Mr. George's 
 " Progress and Poverty." We have merely to 
 apply these doctrines to the income of the 
 
RENT AND THE NATIONAL INCOME. 225 
 
 country at the beginning of the present cen- 
 tury, and compare that income with the income 
 of the country now, to arrive at the above re- 
 sult. But if we turn from Mr. George's theo- 
 ries of what must be, and condescend to look 
 at what is, we find that the income which Mr. 
 George would estimate at £800,000,000 is in 
 reality only £150,000,000 ; and that instead of 
 amounting, as according to him it would, to 
 two-thirds of the gross income of the nation, 
 it is in reality barely one-eighth. When further 
 we recollect that Mr. George and his fellow 
 theorists invariably conceive that a landlord 
 is synonymous with a large landlord, and that 
 nearly the whole of this country is owned 
 by squires and lords and dukes, their eiTor 
 becomes practically far greater still; for this 
 particular class, this territorial aristocracy, to 
 whom such writers impute nearly the whole of 
 their £900,000,000, take in reality cbnsiderably 
 less than £50,000,000. Thus the class that is 
 represented as appropriating by far the larger 
 part of the national income appropriates, in 
 reality, not more than one twenty-fourth of it. 
 In other words, Mr. George's entire theory is 
 founded on an assumption, and recommends 
 itself by an explicit statement, which is about 
 as true with regard to the economic position of 
 the landlords as a description would be of their 
 
226 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 personal appearance, in which it was stated that 
 they weighed nearly a ton and a half each, or 
 that they were, on the average, a hundred and 
 eight feet high. 
 
 Let us now turn from the school of Mr. 
 George to the school of Mr. Chamberlain. The 
 error we here encounter, if not so great, is, con- 
 sidering those who are guilty of it, even more 
 inexcusable. We do not suppose that the 
 President of the Board of Trade imagines, as 
 Mr. George does, that the commercial classes 
 have been stationary during this century of 
 trade and manufacture, and that all the in- 
 creasing gains of the merchant or the mill- 
 owner have been wrung from them in rack- 
 rents by those ogres, the lords of the soil. But 
 Mr. Chamberlain certainly does insinuate, and 
 his followers certainly say, that the incomes of 
 the landlords, in the course of our recent pro- 
 gress, have increased proportionately far faster 
 than the incomes of business-men and of share- 
 holders; and that the latter, as time goes on, 
 are becoming more and more dwarfed by the 
 former.^ Now to all this, as Professor Leone 
 
 1 This is the only meaning that Mr. Chamberlain's words 
 can possibly bear, when he denounces, in his article on La- 
 borers' Dwellings in Towns, the way in which wealth has 
 " run into pockets," and urges that those into whose pockets 
 it has run should be made responsible for the carrying out of 
 certain measures he advocates. 
 
LUDICROUS EBUOB of MB. GEOBGE. 227 
 
 Levi has shown, there is an exceedingly simple 
 answer ; and that answer is a reference to cer- 
 tain exceedingly simple statistics. Seventy 
 years ago, of the income of the richer classes, 
 the landlords took considerably more than 
 half; thirty-six years later they took little more 
 than a third ; and at the present moment they 
 take something less than a quarter. In 1864, 
 for every pound that was taken by the land- 
 lord, the rest of the richer classes took only 
 thirteen shillings. Now, for every thirteen 
 shillings that is taken by the landlord, the rest 
 of the richer classes take actually two guineas. 
 If, therefore, the wealth of the nation tends, as 
 Mr. Chamberlain says it does, "to run into 
 pockets," it is sufficiently evident into whose 
 pockets it runs. 
 
 The following figures will be of some inter- 
 est to the reader, and will serve to bring yet 
 more nearly home to him the wild and reckless 
 nature of such fallacies as Mr. Chamberlain's. 
 We will put out of the question all incomes 
 like Mr. Chamberlain's own, — incomes derived 
 by shareholders, or sleeping-partners, from the 
 commerce or the manufactures of the kingdom : 
 of the wealthier classes who are not land-own- 
 ers, we will take that section only which is ac- 
 tively engaged in business, and we will compare 
 the various incomes enjoyed by that single sec- 
 
228 TEE STATISTICS OF AGITATION: 
 
 tion witli the various incomes enjoyed by the 
 entire body of land-owners. To begin, then, 
 there are 66 incomes derived from land, of over 
 £50,000: in this one section of the business 
 world alone, there are 77. Of incomes be- 
 tween £10,000 and £60,000, there are from 
 land only 800 : in this one section of the busi- 
 ness world alone, there are 910. Whilst of in- 
 comes between £3,000 and £10,000, there are 
 from land only 1,634 ; and, in this section of 
 the business world alone, there are no less than 
 4,065. Or, to put the matter in a slightly dif- 
 ferent form, there are about 5,000 men whom 
 we have classed as the landed aristocracy, who 
 have estates of more than 1,000 acres ; and there 
 are about 1,900 men actively engaged in busi- 
 ness who have incomes of more than £5,000 a 
 year. The gross income of these 1,900 business 
 men is greater by £3,000,000 than the entire 
 rental of the 5,000 aristocratic land-owners. 
 These statistics are easily accessible to any 
 honest inquirer, and would be enough at once, 
 if the public were only aware of them, to cover 
 with confusion the whole of this Birmingham 
 faction, which is endeavoring to manufacture a 
 false public opinion by supplying' the public 
 with a false series of facts. Words fail us to 
 describe our amazement at that quality — 
 whether it be ignorance or dishonesty — which 
 
INCOMES FROM LAND AND TRADE. 229 
 
 enables the faction we speak of to lend them- 
 selves to such a proceeding. Dishonesty, in- 
 deed, we hardly like to impute to them ; and yet 
 the ignorance, which is the only alternative, is 
 a fault almost as gross and even more astonish- 
 ing. For is there not something almost as 
 gross as dishonesty in reckless ignorance which 
 refuses to be enlightened, and presumes to give 
 itself the dictatorial airs of knowledge? And 
 is it not astonishing that a set of eager politi- 
 cians, who are for the most part presumably 
 men of education, should, in dealing with what 
 they consider to be the most- burning of social 
 questions, have wholly neglected any system of 
 study which would have fitted them to take , a 
 clear and comprehensive view of it ? 
 
 And yet it is ignorance of this kind that we 
 are obliged to lay at their doors. If they spoke 
 absolutely in the dark, their position would be 
 more intelligible ; but they do not do this. 
 They do not think it enough to trust to their 
 own impressions. They are perpetually giving 
 the public chapter and verse for their state- 
 ments ; they affect to be speaking from historical 
 and statistical knowledge ; and their quotations 
 and references, though in many cases wholly 
 erroneous, do betray a certain amount of study. 
 The astonishing thing is, the method on which 
 their study is conducted. AU that they bring 
 
230 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 away from the domains of history and statistics 
 is a smattering of isolated facts, wholly divorced 
 from the facts most nearly connected with them, 
 — facts which thus would have no significance 
 whatever, unless cited in support of a theory 
 that has be6n conceived independently of them, 
 and which, so used, has but one connection 
 with truth, that these theorists always pervert, 
 and very frequently contradict, it. Thus, as an 
 illustration of the special rapacity of landlords, 
 it is a favorite commonplace with every Radi- 
 cal agitator, to say that the appropriators of so 
 many millions of rent could stand in a room of 
 such and such dimensions; but they wholly 
 forget to set by the side of this fact another, 
 that, if we take those whose income is derived 
 from other sources than land, we could put in 
 a yet smaller room the receivers of a yet larger 
 revenue. 
 
 On statistics proper, however, we have dwelt 
 long enough. We will now show the reader 
 how the agitator deals with history. Ancient 
 history, as we know, he does not deal with at 
 all ; and all allusion to that he regards as irrele- 
 vant trifling : but modern history he conceives 
 to be very full of instruction, and he delights 
 to • point his moral with various startling ex- 
 tracts from it. Whereas, however, when it is 
 appealed to by a Conservative, he calls every 
 
THE AGITATOR AS AN HISTOBIAN. 231 
 
 thing ancient history that is more than six 
 months old : modern history, when used for his 
 own purposes, often extends as far back as the 
 Norman Conquest, and generally as far back as 
 the close of the fifteenth century. We do not 
 mention this last period at random. We men- 
 tion it because constant and pointed reference 
 is made to it by Socialists and Radicals alike, 
 in their agitation for land-reform. To it the 
 people of to-day are told to look back in order 
 to realize what their rights in the soil are, and 
 how prosperous their condition would be if only 
 these rights were vindicated. For this special 
 application of history to the purposes of social 
 agitation, Karl Marx is mainly responsible ; and 
 many a Eadical, who has never even heard his 
 name, is to-day parroting theories which he first 
 brought into prominence. We will therefore 
 refer the reader to the language of Marx him- 
 self; or, since the original passages in question 
 are too long for quotation, to the abstract — in 
 reality a translation — which Mr. Hyndman 
 gives of them: — 
 
 "The fifteenth century was the golden age , of 
 agricultural England. Villenage had disappeared. 
 The country, far more populous at that time than 
 is commonly supposed, was occupied and cultivated 
 by free men who tilled their own land, subject only 
 to light dues, payable to feudal superiors. Such 
 
232 TEE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 day-laborers as there were, lived in perfect free- 
 dom, owned plots of land themselves, and shared 
 in the enornjous common land which then lay free 
 and open to all. Landless, houseless families were 
 almost unknown: permanent pauperism was un- 
 dreamed of. The feudal lords who maintained 
 around them crowds of retainers were at this time 
 merely the heads of a free, prosperous society, 
 which recognized them as their natural leaders alike 
 in war and peace. Notwithstanding, or rather by 
 reason of, the great subdivision of the land, the 
 wealth of the bulk of the people was extraordinary. 
 . . . Men so different as Cobbett and Fawcett, 
 Thornton and Eogers, are all agreed on these points. 
 They are of one mind, that the working agriculturist 
 of the fifteenth century was a well-to-do free man. 
 How do our present agricultural laborers figure in 
 comparison ? We can all of us judge of that, even 
 if the reports of agricultural commissions were not 
 at hand to tell us. . . . What is the reason of all 
 this increasing penury, accompanied in rural dis- 
 tricts by an astounding decrease of population? 
 Unquestionably the entire removal of the people 
 from the land is the chief cause of the mischief. . . . 
 Between the fifteenth and the beginning of the sev- 
 enteenth century the whole face of England had 
 been changed. The mere wage-earner took the 
 place of the laboring petty farmer. Yet, even so 
 late as the end of the seventeenth century, eighty 
 per cent of the population of England were still 
 purely agricultural. By the middle of the eighteenth 
 
KASL MARX AS AN HI8T0BIAN. 233 
 
 century, there was scarcely a yeoman of the old type 
 left in a county." ^ [The words of Marx are, " To- 
 wards the year 1750 the yeomanry had disap- 
 peared."] 
 
 We have said that the agitator in his deal- 
 ings with history is a smatterer , and, in prov- 
 ing the justice of this charge, the example of 
 Marx has an exceptional force and value. For, 
 in the ordinary sense of the word, — in the sense 
 in which it applies to Mr. Hyndman, — it would 
 be wholly inaccurate to call Marx a smatterer 
 at all. 
 
 He was, on the contrary, a man of great read- 
 ing and research ; and his work on " Capital," 
 in spite of its errors, is a storehouse of curious 
 facts. But, if we give the word smatterer its 
 true, not its superficial, intention, then Marx 
 was a smatterer of the most inveterate and mis- 
 chievous kind. We mean, that, however dili- 
 gent he may have been in accumulating facts, 
 he is not only often inaccurate with regard to 
 the facts which he accumulates, but these facts 
 are of one order only ; and others, which would 
 change the whole meaning of them, are al- 
 together ignored. Thus, it is, no doubt, true, 
 that, towards the end of the fifteenth century, 
 the people were enjoying a period of excep- 
 
 1 England for All, chap. i. The above extract Is an abridg- 
 ment from Marx's work on Capital, chaps, xxvii. and xxviii. 
 
234 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 tional plenty. But, in the first place, this 
 plenty is in itself exaggerated. Though there 
 seems to have been a universal abundance of 
 meat, there was a corresponding dearth of all 
 vegetable food. Many of the peasants in the 
 North had never even seen bread, and a diet of 
 meat exclusively was a general source of dis- 
 ease ; and, in the second place, the plenty, such 
 as it was, was due to an extraordinary cause, of 
 which Marx makes no mention whatever. The 
 population of England, until a comparatively 
 recent date, increased very slowly. At the 
 time of the Conquest, it is supposed to have 
 been about two millions ; by 1348 it had risen 
 to about three millions ; but in 1349 the most 
 dreadful pestilence recorded in modern history 
 swept off more than a quarter of the English 
 people ; and, long before this loss had been 
 made good again, one of a similar kind, though 
 not of the same magnitude, was inflicted on the 
 country by the wars of Henry V. with France. 
 It thus happened, that, at the period to which , 
 Marx alludes, there was a scarcity of labor in 
 England which is wholly without a" parallel ; 
 and it was to this scarcity, more than to any 
 other cause, that the rise in the wages of the 
 laboring-class was due. But even had this not 
 been the case, and had there been no such scar- 
 city, the comparison of that time with this 
 
KARL MABX AS AN HISTORIAN. 235 
 
 would be almost equally idle. The popula- 
 tion of England, then, whether suffering from 
 any temporary diminution or not, was hardly 
 more than one-seventh of what it is at the pres- 
 ent time ; and instead of saying, as Marx does, 
 that, since then, " the people have been removed 
 from the land," it would be truer to say, that, 
 since then, six new peoples have been allowed to 
 live on the land. Marx tells how minutely the 
 land was then divided, and he urges on us 
 the necessity, of a like subdivision now; but he 
 wholly forgets to inquire what minute subdivis- 
 ion means. An equal division then could have 
 given every family forty acres : now an equal 
 division would give every family less than six. 
 This entire aspect of the question escapes Marx 
 altogether; and he and his followers declaim 
 aloud the " astounding decrease " in our rural 
 population, forgetful of the fact that our rural 
 population now is double the population of the 
 whole of England then, and that what they are 
 pleased to call an astounding decrease, is really 
 an increase of more than a hundred per cent. 
 
 We will direct the reader's attention to two 
 other points, which will put Marx as a student 
 of history in a yet plainer light. The assertion, 
 that towards 1750 the yeomanry had disap- 
 peared, is not, like the assertions we have just 
 been considering, one-sided: it is absolutely 
 
236 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 false.' Large estates have been enlarging them- 
 selves ever since that date, and yet there are 
 some hundred thousand yeomen proprietors 
 still. Again, equally false, and even more mis- 
 leading, is the assertion, that, at the period 
 whose praise he celebrates, " landless families 
 were almost unknown, and permanent pauper- 
 ism undreamed of." He declares that landless 
 paupers began first to make their appearance 
 when the golden age was drawing to a close, 
 and that they were not numerous enough to 
 attract the notice of the law till the reign of 
 Henry VII., when, he says, " they were treated 
 like voluntary criminals ; as though it depended 
 on their own free will, as it once did, whether 
 they would work or no; and as though no 
 change had come over their condition." So far, 
 however, is this from being true, that legisla- 
 tion of the very kind he speaks of, had been 
 already begun some hundred and thirty years 
 before. It was again and again renewed dur- 
 ing the time when, he says, it never existed; 
 and one of the most remarkable evidences that 
 this was really the case, is to be found in a 
 statute from which he himself quotes.^ The 
 
 1 In the Statute of Laborers of 1349, to certain provisions 
 of which Marx himself alludes, it is commanded, because 
 " many valiant beggars, so long as they may live of begging, 
 do refuse to labor, giving themselves to idleness and vice, and 
 sometimes to other abominations, none shall, under color of 
 
KABL MARX AS AN HISTOBIAN: 237 
 
 point, ■which Marx is using every effort to prove, 
 is, that pauperism first began with the growth 
 of an oppressive bourgeoisie, and the spread 
 of a bourgeois spirit amongst the aristocracy. 
 What is proved by the historical facts, which 
 he overlooks or suppresses, is, that pauperism 
 began with that abolition of villenage which it 
 suits his purpose to treat of as an unmixed 
 social gain. We are not denying the impor- 
 tance of many of the facts he dwells upon. We 
 are only concerned to show how profoundly [ 
 
 pity or arms, give any thing to such which may labor." In 
 1376 the Rolls of Parliament contain a strong complaint by the 
 Commons against beggars, stating that, despite high wages, 
 they would run away from their masters, and lead an idle life 
 in towns. In 1383 it was ordained and assented that "to 
 refrain the malice of divers people, wandering from place 
 to place, running in the country more abundantly than they 
 were wont in times past," the justices and the sheriffs should 
 compel them to find surety for their good behavior, or, in de- 
 fault, commit them to the nearest gaol, and then do to them 
 "that, that thereof best shall seem to them by the law." 
 Again, a statute in 1388 says. Beggars impotent to serve, 
 shall abide in the cities and towns, where they may be dwell- 
 ing at the time of the proclamation of the statute ; and, if the 
 people of the said cities or towns will or may not suffice 
 to maintain them, then the said beggars shall draw them 
 to other towns within the hundred, rape, or wapentake, or to 
 the towns where they were born, within forty days after the 
 said proclamation made, and there shall continually abide 
 during their lives." It is not contended, that, in the picture 
 drawn by Marx of England in the fifteenth century, there is 
 no truth, but that a large part of the facts with regard to that 
 period have been suppressed, and all the most important 
 amongst its antecedent conditions: 
 
238 THS STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 their significance is altered by those which he 
 virtually denies, and how little the most in- 
 telligent study entitles a man to be trusted, 
 who goes to history, not that he may be taught 
 by it, but that it, under his management, may, 
 like a brow-beaten witness, be compelled to give 
 evidence in favor of some teaching of his own. 
 TJie question of the historical origin of pau- 
 perism is beside our immediate point, but we 
 have touched on the subject for the sake of the 
 illustration which its treatment by Marx affords 
 us. Our main reason, however, for thus refer- 
 ring to the fifteenth century, is the astounding 
 way in which the question of population is 
 wholly lost sight of in Marx's estimate of the 
 period, and the fact that this oversight on the 
 part of Marx is emulated to this day by every 
 Radical agitator in England. The instinct of 
 the Radical, the moment he hears this accusa- 
 tion, will be, we are well aware, to deny it ; and 
 he will remind us, that, with regard to the rural 
 districts at least, population, or rather depopu- 
 lation, is his constant theme. We reply, that, 
 no doubt, he is busy enough with the words, 
 but that, so far as we can judge by the state- 
 ments in which he indulges, he has no com- 
 prehensive acquaintance of any kind with the 
 thing. Let us take for instance the language 
 of Mr. Jesse CoUings. He, and the school of 
 
KARL MARX AND JESSE COLLINGS. 239 
 
 which he is so prominent an ornament, are 
 never weary of bewailing the decay of the Eng- 
 lish peasantry : it is their stock phrase, that the 
 inhabitants of the country are being driven into 
 the towns; and it is their stock lamentation, 
 that the country, once so populous, is, in com- 
 parison with what it used to be, fast becoming - 
 a desert. Now, we are by no means saying J;hat 
 this language shows no acquaintance with fact, 
 but we do say that it shows a singularly partial 
 acquaintance. Who would imagine, to hear 
 Mr. CoUings speak, that those country districts 
 of England whose appalling desolation he de- 
 plores, though they were somewhat more popu- 
 lous twenty years ago, have yet at this moment 
 nearly as many inhabitants as at the beginning 
 of this century were in country and towns 
 together ? ^ 
 
 This method, however, of dealing with the 
 rural population, is comparatively honest and 
 accurate when compared with that which the 
 Radicals generally, when discussing the land- 
 question, follow with reference to the popula- 
 tion of the kingdom as a whole. That the 
 
 1 The number of persons directly engaged in agriculture, 
 was, in 1861, 2,010,454; in 1881 tlie number was 1,383,184; but 
 almost exactly half of this decrease is due to the withdrawal, 
 not of men from agriculture, but of women. In 1801 the total 
 population of England and Wales was 9,060,393. In 1881 the 
 rural population alone was 8,337,275. 
 
240 TSM STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 population of the towns has increased enor- 
 mously, it is true, they do not deny: on the 
 contrary, they insist that it has done so. But 
 they invariably represent this increase as due to 
 a disastrous immigration from the country ; i 
 and, were their public and popular utterances 
 our only source of information, we should in- 
 fallibly conclude that the population of the 
 kingdom, as a whole, had increased but little 
 during the last two centuries, and had hardly 
 increased at all durmg the last eighty year^. 
 They never pause to consider that the increase 
 in London alone has been far greater, during 
 the last fifteen years, than the diminution of 
 the whole agricultural classes during the last 
 twenty ; and that, whilst the country population 
 is still, in spite of recent changes, almost as 
 great as the entire population in 1801, the new 
 population that has been added to the towns 
 alone has increased that entire, population by 
 nearly 150 per cent.^ 
 
 1 Thus Mr. Wallace, in his book on Land Nationalization, 
 p. 215, says, " The only true and effectual cure for all these 
 horrors and iniquities is, to draw back the population of the 
 towns to the country." "We are glad of this opportunity of 
 alluding to Mr. Wallace, in order to mark our sense of the 
 admirable temper and fairness pervading his whole book. In 
 this respect he stands alone in the school with which he has 
 associated himself. We sincerely regret that his judgment 
 and his keenness are not equal to his temper and his fairness. 
 
 2 " Notwithstanding the very great disturbance produced 
 
uhban and bubal population. 241 
 
 All this, we say, the Radical apostles of land- 
 reform never pause to consider. They are either 
 too ignorant to know it, too disingenuous to 
 admit it, or too much pre-occupied to remember 
 it. The last explanation is, we incline to be- 
 lieve, the true one ; but, whatever be the cause, 
 the result is still the same. The^e men, who 
 conceive themselves to be the most enlightened 
 of statesmen, and who boast that they will, by 
 an appeal to history, teach the people to realize 
 their true rights in the soil, habitually appeal 
 to periods, which, in the most vital point con- 
 cerned, are not parallels, but violent contrasts, 
 to our own. They are never weary of talking 
 of the vast common lands which the people 
 once possessed, which the rapacity of the land- 
 lords has stolen from them, and which, by some 
 means or other, ought to be given back to 
 them. But they quite forget, that, if the land 
 were distributed amongst even one-half of our 
 existing population, not only would no com- 
 mon land be restored, but every acre would 
 have to be taken of such common land as is 
 left. They quite forget, that, were even one- 
 
 in the natural distribution of the population, . . . the native 
 population show.s, after all, stationary habits of a very decided 
 character. Of the natives of England and Wales, who were 
 in the country at the time of the census, no less than 78 per 
 cent were enumerated in their native counties." — Census of 
 England and Wales, 1881, vol. iv. p. 61. 
 
242 Ths statistics of agitation. 
 
 half of the population allotted land in plots of 
 not more than ten acres to a family, all the 
 land in England would be occupied, and half 
 the population would be utterly landless still. 
 
 We again beg leave to say, that, whatever may 
 be our own convictions, we are not now writing 
 as apologists of the existing land-system : we 
 are only concerned to show the astounding 
 ignorance that underlies the present attacks 
 made upon it. And we must again take 
 occasion to impress upon the reader, that this 
 ignorance is by no means confined to what are 
 commonly called ignorant men. We have be- 
 fore us, for instance, a pamphlet on "Land 
 Nationalization," by Dr. Clark, a physician, and 
 member of several learned societies;^ and the 
 following sentences are a specimen of his wis- 
 dom. " At present," he says, " about one-half 
 of ■ our food-supply is imported ; three out of 
 every four loaves eaten in this country are 
 grown abroad; if we were to drift into war, 
 and even one of our thousand food-ships were 
 captured by the enemy, the advance in price 
 would be great. It is time our present land-sys- 
 tem was abolished, and the country again become 
 self-supporting.^^ We beg that the reader will 
 notice these last words. Dr. Clark evidently 
 
 1 A, Plea for the Nationalization of the Land, hy Gt. B. 
 Clark, M.D. 
 
VAGARIES OF LAND BEFOBMEBS. . 243 
 
 considers them to be the soundest and sternest 
 sense ; but can any thing, we ask, be more like 
 absolute raving ? He forgets precisely what we 
 have said all Radicals do forget, — he forgets the 
 growth of our population ; and he fails to see, 
 that, if his words have any meaning at all, they 
 must mean, either that one-half of our popula- 
 tion must be expelled, or that — stranger still — 
 the country must produce "again" twice as 
 much food as it ever produced before. We have 
 quoted Dr. Clark, not because he is a man of 
 any influence, but because he must necessarily 
 be a man of some education ; and because, as 
 such, he is a very excellent specimen of the 
 blindness, we might almost say the madness, 
 which, so far at least as the land-question is 
 concerned, the Radical school communicate to 
 all who come under their influence. These 
 men, who conceive themselves to be the pioneers 
 of progress, and are accustomed to taunt their 
 opponents with their superstitious worship of 
 the past, become themselves, the moment their 
 prejudice moves them, the ministers of a wor- 
 ship more superstitious still ; and, whilst derid- 
 ing the nation's reverence for a past that has 
 really existed, they work themselves into a state 
 of maudlin devotion for an imaginary past that 
 has never existed at all. 
 
 We would willingly have dwelt on this sub- 
 
244 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 ject longer; but space obliges us, for the pres- 
 ent, to bring our inquiry to a close. We trust, 
 however, that enough has already been said to 
 bring home to our readers the main fact we 
 have been most desirous to impress upon them. 
 We mean the fact that the party of agitation 
 generally, in commencing its measures, and can- 
 vassing for adherents, is doing far less by any 
 overt propagandism than by an elaborate sys- 
 tem of historical falsification, by which the 
 present, with all its tendencies inverted, is 
 interpreted by a past with half of its facts sup- 
 pressed, — a past which, in virtue of this treat- 
 ment, is as much like reality as a cherub is like 
 a man. This is the fact which we urge upon 
 the attention of our readers, and all our efforts 
 in the present article have been directed to en- 
 forcing on them its extreme magnitude and 
 importance. We have endeavored to open their 
 eyes to the kind of nefarious process to which 
 the public opinion of the country is at this 
 moment being subjected, and to the dexterous 
 way in which its hopes and passions are being 
 played upon; to the admiration being created 
 for a past that has never existed ; the alarm at 
 the extinction of a middle class which is really 
 fast increasing ; and the horror and indignation 
 at the increase of a poverty which is in reality 
 fast rising into competence. We ask our read- 
 
VAGABIES OF LAND EEFOBMEBS. 245 
 
 ers to consider all this, and to reflect, that, to 
 arrive at a true estimate of the situation, we 
 have not to assent to, but categorically to deny, 
 nearly every one of the beliefs that are at the 
 present moment popular. We must recollect 
 especially, that the English laboring-classes, 
 instead of being, as Mr. Wallace says, the pau- 
 pers of Europe, are in, reality the richest labor- 
 ing-class in the world, and that their propor- 
 tionate share in the progress of the past forty 
 years has been greater than that of any other 
 class in the community. 
 
 The importance of our realizing the actual 
 state of the case, of escaping from the dream- 
 world of the agitator, where all that is, is in- 
 verted, is incalculable. Such an escape on the 
 part of public opinion would be in itself a revo- 
 lution. We have, however, something more to 
 add, or our own estimate of the truth would be 
 gravely mistaken. When we declare that the 
 poorer classes as a body have advanced, and 
 are advancing, enormously, we do not for a 
 moment' close our eyes to the squalor and the 
 misery that still remain among us ; and, if any 
 Kadical thinks he is refuting our position by 
 pointing to the horrors of squalid and outcast 
 London, we reply that of these we are as fully 
 aware as he, and that our concern for them is 
 as fully as great as his. We differ from him, 
 
246 TEE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 not in not seeing them, but in seeing them in 
 their true proportions. If we were to find in 
 the road some unhappy man covered with blood 
 from a terribly mangled leg, we should not be 
 showing any want of compassion if we stoutly 
 maintained that the wound was in the leg only, 
 and that, in spite of his agony, not another 
 member was injured. Not only is compassion 
 for misery not best shown by exaggerating it, 
 but one of the chief conditions of its use is, that 
 it should not be exaggerated. With diseases in 
 the body politic, this is the case especially ; and 
 no more foolish or disastrous course can be 
 taken than to bewail the pain without consider- 
 ing the extent of the evil, and to treat a nation 
 as though it were in a dangerous fever, when 
 in reality it is suffering from nothing but an 
 acute local inflammation. It is our duty, if we 
 would not lose our heads, to keep our eyes on 
 what is going well with us, just as steadily as 
 on what is going ill with us ; and we trust that 
 the reflections contained in the present article 
 may assist the reader in forming some sound 
 opinions on the matter. 
 
 It will be recollected, that, in dealing with 
 the progress of the poorer classes, we showed it 
 to be impossible that more than a quarter of 
 their number should have failed to better their 
 position by at least'.lOO per cent during the last 
 
PROPORTION OF TEE VERY POOR. 247 
 
 forty years, and that even of this quarter a 
 very considerable proportion must have bet- 
 tered their position by at least 25 per cent. 
 But, when we speak of a quarter of the poorer 
 classes of this country, we are speaking of a 
 population of 7,500,000 persons; and there is 
 room in even half this number for enough 
 misery, not only to shock a philanthropist, but 
 to be a source of serious social danger to the 
 community. Were there only one family in 
 eight below the condition of comfort, the pro- 
 portion of the wretched that would belong to 
 London alone would be something like 500,000 
 persons. That certainly is a reflection suffi- 
 ciently distressing and serious. But even that 
 can^ be regarded in two ways. We may either 
 say. Is it not a disgrace to our civilization, is 
 it not a horrible thing, that one family out of 
 every eight should be 'on the verge of destitu- 
 tion ? Or we may say, on the other hand, Is 
 it not a triumph of our civilization, is it not a 
 most hopeful sign, that, in place of the pauper- 
 ism of forty years ago, seven families out of 
 every eight are in a condition of progressive 
 competence ? The agitator dwells only on the 
 first consideration; the optimist only on the 
 second. Both agitator and optimist are wrong. 
 The only right proceeding is, to give equal 
 weight to each ; and to do this is the charac- 
 
248 THE STATISTICS OF AGITATION. 
 
 teristic of true Conservatism. The Conserva- 
 tive differs from the Radical and the agitator, 
 not because he sees less, but because he sees, 
 more. And the result of this extended vision, 
 this dispassionate looking on both sides of the 
 question, is, not to make us think that there is 
 no misery to be alleviated, but to encourage us 
 in our efforts for alleviating it, and to show 
 us the direction and the spirit in which those 
 efforts must be made. 
 
 A dispassionate review of the history of the 
 past forty years, so far as it relates to the eco- 
 nomic condition of the people, will serve to show 
 us that the Constitution is not superannuated, 
 corrupt, or incapable of doing its work ; that it 
 is not dividing this country, as Mr. Chamber- 
 lain says it is, into two hostile nations of mil- 
 lionnaires and paupers, and will, if not radically 
 altered, produce a fierce social revolution ; but 
 that, on the contrary, under this very Constitu- 
 tion, wealth has been diffusing itself in a way 
 unparalleled in any other country ; that, whilst 
 both rich and poor have been gaining, the poor 
 have gained the most; and that England, with 
 her monarchical and aristocratic institutions, 
 allows to the people a measure of freedom that 
 is not tolerated for an instant in the lands of 
 universal suffrage.