2(34 STUDIED, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL 



attention to a principle of great importance which appears 

 to have been overlooked by political economists and 

 ignored by legislators, namely, that the system which 

 enables a permanent and sometimes an increasing revenue 

 to be derived from nominal wealth long after the real 

 wealth it is supposed to represent has ceased to exist, is 

 wrong in itself; and that, like all wrongs, it inevitably 

 leads to suffering. One of the evil results of this system 

 is that it affords the main, if not the only, support to 

 millionnaires and to hereditary plutocrats. 



I have further endeavoured to show that we may 

 remove all the sources whence vast revenues can be 

 derived by individuals without any productive exertion on 

 their part, not only without injury but with the most 

 beneficial results to the community. Lastly, I believe, 

 that it is in some such view as to the economic error and 

 moral wrong of deriving permanent incomes from 

 perishable wealth, that we shall find the true solution of 

 the problem of the antagonism between capitalists and 

 labourers now everywhere agitating the civilized world. 



