LAND NATIONALIZATION 265 



pay the debts of a preceding generation from which they may have 

 received no real benefit. 



This question of interest thus becomes involved in the wider ques- 

 tion of the tyranny of capital over labour, and its remedy. At present, 

 civilized Governments act on the presumption that great accumulations 

 of capital are beneficial, and even necessary, to the well-being of the 

 community, and all legislation favours such accumulations. When the 

 people are once convinced that the reverse is the case, and legislation 

 is directed to favour small holders of capital, and to check its inor- 

 dinate accumulation, most of the evils complained of will cease. To 

 this end the first step would be to get rid of all Government funds, 

 guaranteed loans, railway stocks, etc., which are the main agents and 

 tools by which capital is accumulated and money is made to breed 

 money. This could be done in every case by making such stocks non- 

 transferable after a certain date, and then declaring the payments to 

 be terminable at the death of the holders and their living heirs, just 

 as I propose to do in the case of landlords. The railways should be 

 taken by the State, existing shareholders receiving annuities of the 

 amount of their average dividends, payable in like manner to them- 

 selves and their living heirs. The Limited Liability Act should be 

 repealed, because it has served only to foster the worst and most 

 iniquitious speculations, and has deluded the public into the idea that 

 they could safely share in the profits of commercial enterprises of the 

 nature and management of which they are profoundly ignorant. There 

 would remain no safe investments for money, except in some branches 

 of agriculture, manufactures, or commerce in which either the investor 

 or some relation or friend was personally interested, and thus would 

 be brought about the diminution and practical abolition of usury as a 

 system, and of whole classes living idle lives on the interest of money 

 derived from the accumulations of previous generations. 



Of course, it will be said that the plan here proposed is wholesale 

 confiscation and repudiation ; but a little consideration will show that 

 it is nothing of the kind, and that it is really the best thing that can 

 happen even to the individual holders of the stocks dealt with. In the 

 case of the National Debt, for example, fundholders are now threat- 

 ened with a reduction of interest of a quarter per cent., and later on of 

 a half per cent; and they will be forced to accept it, because the inter- 

 est on the public debt regulates that of all other good investments, 

 which will inevitably rise in price enormously if any considerable 

 portion of the amount now invested in the funds seeks other invest- 

 ments. The offer to pay off fundholders at par, will, therefore, be 

 illusory, and the vast class who live upon their dividends will inevitably 

 have their incomes reduced one-twelfth or one-sixth, while the cost of 

 living goes on continually increasing. Would they not be far better 

 off to have their present incomes secured to themselves and their 



