268 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



tenant and take steps to end these conditions by 

 converting the tenant-farmer into a self-respecting 

 owner. The stories of how Ireland has been con- 

 verted from a land of poverty and ignorance into a 

 prosperous country are but indicative of the change 

 which comes even to the poorest when the alchemy 

 of ownership is permitted to play upon the worker 

 and awaken even the most shiftless into self-respect, 

 ambition, and a desire for better things. 



Four — all of these elements enter into and form 

 part of the farm colony. This is the natural organ- 

 ization of farming. Co-operative farming is to be 

 the farming of the future. Not compulsory co-op- 

 eration; not state [socialism, but the farm colony in 

 which many of the present wastes will be eliminated 

 and the extortion of land speculator, money-lender, 

 and distributor will be ended. The farm colony in- 

 volves cheap land. In those countries that have de- 

 veloped it, the entrance of the state into the market 

 as a buyer has immediately increased the price of 

 land. Like every other activity of society it added 

 to the unearned increment of the owners. Land- 

 value taxation is a necessary corollary of the farm 

 colony. Otherwise the land speculator will reap the 

 advantages of the change by an added burden to the 

 colonists. 



Credit, too, must be provided at a cheap rate and 

 on easy conditions. And such credit can only be 

 supplied by action of the state under some such 



