THE COMING SLAVERY. 735 



owner the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light. Take now a 

 further step. Suppose an owner dies, and his estate with its slaves 

 comes into the hands of trustees, or suppose the estate and everything 

 on it to be bought by a company ; is the condition of the slave any 

 the better if the amount of his compulsory labor remains the same ? 

 Suppose that for a company we substitute the community ; does it 

 make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for others 

 is as great, and the time left for himself is as small, as before ? The 

 essential question is. How much is he compelled to labor for other 

 benefit than his own, and how much he can labor for his own benefit ? 

 The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that 

 which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain ; 

 and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. 

 If, without option, he has to labor for the society, and receives from 

 the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes 

 a slave to the society. Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslave- 

 ment of this kind ; and toward such an enslavement many recent 

 measures, and still more the measures advocated, are carrying us. 

 Let us observe, first, their proximate effects, and then their ultimate 

 effects. 



The policy initiated by the Industrial Dwellings Acts admits of 

 development, and will develop. Where municipal bodies turn house- 

 builders, they inevitably lower the values of houses otherwise built, 

 and check the supply of more. Every dictation respecting modes of 

 building and conveniences to be provided diminishes the builder's 

 profit, and prompts him to use his capital where the profit is not thus 

 diminished. So, too, the owner, ah*eady finding that small houses en- 

 tail much labor and many losses — already subject to troubles of inspec- 

 tion and interference and to consequent costs, and having his prop- 

 erty daily rendered a more undesirable investment — is prompted to 

 sell ; and, as buyers are for like reasons deterred, he has to sell at a 

 loss. And now these still multiplying regulations, ending, it may be, 

 as Lord Grey proposes, in one requiring the owner to maintain the 

 salubrity of his houses by evicting dirty tenants, and thus adding to 

 his other responsibilities that of inspector of nuisances, must further 

 prompt sales and further deter purchasers — so necessitating greater 

 depreciation. What must happen ? The multiplication of houses, 

 and especially small houses, being increasingly checked, there must 

 come an increasing demand upon the local authority to make up for 

 the deficient supply. More and more, the municipal or kindred body 

 will have to build houses, or to purchase houses rendered unsalable to 

 private persons in the way shown ; houses which, greatly depreciated 

 in value as they must become, it will, in many cases, pay to buy rather 

 than to build new ones. And then, when in towns this process has 

 gone so far as to make the local authority the chief owner of houses, 

 there will be a good precedent for publicly providing houses for the 



