PROBLEMS OF PROPERTY. 339 



where monopolists like himself do not exist, or, in conjunction with 

 other such monopolists, order people off the face of the earth ! 



The second objection made to the present nearly absolute holding 

 of real estate is that, particularly in America, and in Great Britain 

 during the past century, the growth of population, the advance of 

 manufacturing towns, and general progress in trade and commerce, have 

 had the effect of enormously enhancing the value of land, increasing 

 rents, without owners having given the community any equivalent 

 whatever. Now, this unearned increment, as it is called, has bestowed 

 upon some British noblemen and American land-owners many millions 

 of value conferred by the mass of the people. This evident injustice 

 is especially pressing in America, where there can be no doubt that, if 

 the tenure of land remains as it is, the value of land apart from the im- 

 provements which labor may effect upon it, will be multiplied greatly 

 within a century. Various remedies have been proposed to correct 

 the evil. 



The nationalization of land as suggested by Mr. Herbert Spencer 

 has special reference to the United Kingdom. He would have the Gov- 

 ernment buy all the land from its owners at current market rates, and 

 let it on competition. Mr. Fawcett, in his criticism of this suggestion, 

 estimates the value of British lands and houses, apart from mines and 

 railways, at 4,500,000,000. This enormous sum exceeds by six times 

 the British national debt, and the raising of so large a sum as a loan 

 in purchase would probably enhance the rate of interest one per cent 

 beyond its present rate, and beyond the present rate of return received 

 as rent. An annual deficit of 50,000,000 is calculated as the probable 

 result of carrying out the proposal. Besides the special value attach- 

 ing to individual possession, a value forming part of the current prices 

 of land would be abolished when nationalization took place, and purely 

 economic rents, minus the expense of an objectionable government 

 control, would form the revenue to be credited against the interest on 

 the purchase-money. 



One of the leading pleas for nationalization of the land is the dep- 

 rivation suffered by those who own none; but could not complaint 

 be directed with .equal propriety against lessors by all other citizens 

 who would have to accept subleases ? The sole benefit that could be 

 hoped for from this scheme of nationalization would be the absorption 

 in coming time of the appreciation in value due to increased density 

 of population and other causes. This appreciation, if it takes place at 

 all in the generations of the near future, is not likely to be other than 

 moderate in the United Kingdom. 



Mr. Henry George, of San Francisco, in his striking book, "Progress 

 and Poverty," advocates much more heroic treatment of the evil of 

 unearned increment. The constantly increasing tax of landlords, as 

 tenants multiply an<J advance in industry, he regards as the main rea- 

 son why a wedge seems to be dividing more and more widely the rich 



