xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 447 



receive the full product of their labours. To facilitate 

 their exchanges they might establish a token or paper 

 currency, and they would then have little use for gold or 

 silver. How, then, could idlers live, if these workers, in 

 the Parliament of the country, simply declined to pay 

 the interest on debts contracted before they were born ? 

 What good would be their much-vaunted " capital," con- 

 sisting as it mostly does of mere legal power to take from 

 the workers a portion of the product of their labours, 

 which power would then have ceased; while their real 

 capital buildings, machinery, &c. would bring them 

 not one penny, since the workers would all possess their 

 own, purchased by their own labour and the rents of their 

 own land ? Let but the workers resume possession of the 

 soil, which was first obtained by private holders by force 

 or fraud, or by the gift of successive kings who had no 

 right to give it, and capitalists as a distinct class from 

 workers must soon cease to exist. 



No Right to Tax Future Generations. 



Another principle of equal importance is to refuse to 

 recognize the right of any bygone rulers to tax future 

 generations. Thus all grants of land by kings or nobles, 

 all " perpetual " pensions, and all war-debts of the past, 

 should be declared to be legally and equitably invalid, 

 and henceforth dealt with in such a way as to relieve 

 the workers of the burden of their payment as speedily 

 as is consistent with due consideration for those whose 

 chief support is derived from such sources. Just as we 

 are now coming to recognize that a " living wage " is 

 due to all workers, so we should recognize a " maximum 

 income " determined by the standard of comfort of the 

 various classes of fund-holders and State or family 

 pensioners. As a rule, these persons might be left to 

 enjoy whatever income they now possess during their 

 lives, and when they had relatives dependent on them 

 the income might be continued to these, either for their 

 lives or for a limited period according to the circumstances 

 of each case. There would be no necessity, and I trust no 



