CONCLUSION 339 



purchase without securing to the payer the prize of the purchase, 

 cannot be described as equitable. 



In addition we stumbled over the question of freehold or tenancy. 

 " Holdfast " is, we know, the " better dog," and whoever has does 

 not care to give up. The merit of the question is very plainly 

 demonstrated in the trouble of increasing tenancy that Americans 

 now find imposed upon them, to their annoyance and grief, and that, 

 accordingly, they are earnestly endeavouring to shake off. Tenancy 

 is with them on the increase for the very same reason that among 

 ourselves it is being perpetuated — because, in general, though there 

 are no doubt periods of land slumps, the tendency in the movement 

 of land values is — quite naturally, since the population goes on 

 multiplying — in the direction of increase. The hiring out of land 

 resembles the hiring of labour already spoken of in this, that it does 

 not secure to the worker the full return for his occupation. The 

 employer of labour retains a balance over ; and the hirer out of land 

 looks to the increase in the capital value of land as the unspecified 

 balance coming to him. He looks for " betterment." That is very 

 markedly so in the United States, where speculators buy the land, 

 let it out anyhow, just in order to have it cultivated and to draw 

 some income, but who look for their main profit to the future sale. 

 And the nation and its authorities have found out the mischief that 

 this does to the national cause of keeping production, the great want 

 of the community, at a low level. The expectation of ' ' better- 

 ment " for the owner thus means a sacrifice for the worker, and a 

 loss for the nation. The occupying owner — provided that he is in 

 a position to maintain that status — enriches both himself and the 

 community. He is bound to study the permanent improvement of 

 his holding as well as its yields, and that improvement goes to the 

 credit of both himself and the nation, becoming all the more valuable 

 to both as population further and further increases. 



Some regard, in respect to that matter, ought also perhaps to be 

 paid to this fact, that the only land system known to us, which has 

 a right to claim divine ordinance for its conception, that is, the land 

 system of the Jews, although it distinctly treats land in general as 

 having been given as a common possession to the nation, and not to 

 individuals, yet not only distinctly provides for every member ol 

 the nation, except the very poor, owning his own allotted lot ol land, 

 but in addition makes that land practically inalienable. The mind 

 which dictated such system is likely to have been cognisant of, and 

 to have weighed well, the pros and cons of the problem. And tin- 

 voice of the same law which lays down these directions also plainly 



