730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rent, and wages and interest remain as before. If the value of "land 

 increases in greater ratio than productive power, rent will swallow up 

 even more than the increase ; and, while the produce of labor and cap- 

 ital will be much larger, wages and interest will fall. It is only when 

 the value of land fails to increase as rapidly as productive power 

 that wages and interest can increase with the increase in productive 

 power." 



The conclusion reached by Mr. George as to the laws which gov- 

 ern the distribution of wealth may now be stated in such form as to 

 show their relation to each other, and to contrast them with the laws 

 as taught by current economics. According to Mr, George — 



" Rent depends on the margin of cultivation, rising as it falls, and 

 falling as it rises. 



" Wages depend on the margin of cultivation, falling as it falls, 

 and rising as it rises. 



" Interest (its ratio with wages being fixed by the net power of in- 

 crease which attaches to capital) depends on the margin of cultiva- 

 tion, falling as it falls, and rising as it rises." 



As taught by the economists, rent is the same. 



" Wages depend upon the ratio between the number of laborers 

 and the amount of capital devoted to their employment. 



" Interest depends upon the equation between the supply of and 

 demand for capital ; or, as is stated of profits, upon wages (or the cost 

 of labor) rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise." The wide 

 difference between the two sets of laws thus contrasted is evident. In 

 the laws as generally taught there is no mutual relation by which they 

 are all bound in a single whole. As stated by Mr. George, on the con- 

 trary, they all correlate with each other, and form a complete whole. 



The conclusions embodied in these laws are : That, where land is 

 free, labor when unassisted by capital will take the whole produce ; 

 that where it is assisted by capital it will take the whole, less the 

 amount necessary to induce the storing up of labor as capital ; where 

 part of the land is appropriated, labor and capital will receive what is 

 left of the produce after the deduction of rent, or what they could 

 have produced on land free to them ; when all land is appropriated, 

 the return to labor and capital can be forced to the limit on which 

 these factors will consent to reproduce. This being the relation be- 

 tween the three factors in production, it remains only to see the man- 

 ner in which increase in population and improvement of the arts affect 

 rent, to understand the full effect of the force that presses so con- 

 tinuously upon industry. 



While Mr. George allows the effect that increasing population 

 would have in increasing rent by lowering the margin of cultivation, 

 he yet thinks that this is not the main way in which it affects rent. 

 As population increases in any community, certain land — land at the 

 center of trade and production — acquires new powers, an increased 



