INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 259 



which they would have to bear their share, the fund- 

 holders (who we suppose had rejected the scheme of ter- 

 minable annuities), would find out their mistake, and 

 begin to ask themselves why they should suffer in order 

 that certain unborn individuals might live in idleness at 

 the expense of the nation. The supposed honest plan of 

 going on paying interest for ever, is really dishonest, 

 because it perpetuates a heavy burthen on the whole 

 community, not for any real benefit to any existing portion 

 of the community, but for the injurious and immoral 

 purpose of providing that even in unborn generations 

 certain selected individuals shall be able to live idle lives 

 at the expense of their fellows. The alleged confiscation, 

 on the other hand, is really the honest course, because, 

 while providing that no living individual shall suffer either 

 in purse or vicariously by the suffering of those dear to 

 them, it provides for the abolition of an unjust burthen 

 which we have inherited from evil times, but which 

 will become still more unjust and harder to bear the 

 longer it exists. 



How to Deal with the Land. 



Having thus, we- will suppose, got rid of all such 

 permanent means of investment as railway-stocks, gas 

 shares and the public funds, there would remain only 

 the land of the country. But this, as I show in the four 

 succeeding chapters of this volume, is the most injurious 

 to the community of all forms of permanent investment 

 of capital, since it secures to the capitalist not only the 

 general power due to wealth, but enables him to absorb 

 in the form of increased rents a large portion of the 

 nation's surplus wealth-production, and gives him also 

 direct power over the health, the happiness, and the lives 

 of his fellow citizens, who must live upon the land on his 

 terms so long as he is allowed to possess it and deal with 

 it as he pleases. For these reasons alone, all possession of 

 land except in limited quantities for personal occupation, 

 should be prevented, and then the last remaining means 

 by which a permanent and ever increasing income can be 



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