A LITTLE LAND 256 



AND A LIVING 



use and the consequent crowding of the workers 

 into slums and tenements. The farmers' natural 

 customers, the great plain people, are not able 

 to buy the things they need. This is mainly 

 because their rents or the prices they have to 

 pay for their home sites are so high, and be- 

 cause those lots where homes and shops and fac- 

 tories ought to be are kept idle, and mines, coal 

 lands, clay pits, quarries, and sand banks, that 

 are now needed to employ the people, are un- 

 worked, or only partly worked. 



The suburbs and the country districts are un- 

 developed or half developed, because the money 

 raised by taxation is insufficient to pay laborers 

 who need the jobs, for making good roads, 

 bridges, streets, water works, and other neces- 

 sities of civilized life. So the growth of sec- 

 tions near the cities is checked till the specula- 

 tors cut their own throats, and there is a fall in 

 prices or " dull times in suburbans." 



There is neither reason nor justice in allow- 

 ing owners of valuable lands to hold them al- 

 most untaxed until the pressure of population 

 forces the prices up to fancy figures which 



