Credit Money and the Preciotcs Metals. 235 



admissions in the last paragraph, anybody will take 

 exception to my employment of the term "unearned 

 increment." Those admissions concede the rights of in- 

 heritance, the right of each member of the community to 

 obtain the largest reward he can for the judicious employ- 

 ment of his capital or of the faculties, knowledge, or skill 

 which he possesses. They imply the free play of in- 

 dividualism, recognition of the full rights of property, and 

 they characterise all personal action, even that of the mere 

 lender or investor, as labour or service of a certain quality, the 

 quantitative value of which depends on the quantity of the 

 labour, or the products of labour, which it can secure in 

 exchange under the unrestricted operation of the law of 

 competition.* 



How, then, can an "unearned increment" arise? 

 Hitherto it has been regarded as arising most conspicu- 

 ously from what John Stuart Mill has described as the 

 ** natural monopoly " of land ; and its remedy in this case 

 is the object of the proposals of Mill and Mr. Henry 

 George for the taxation or nationalisation of land. I do 

 not propose to discuss the land question ; but, in 

 passing, it is necessary to make one or two remarks as 

 part of the line of thought which I am following. The 

 monoply of land by the State would not necessarily be a 

 violation of what we understand by natural economic laws ; 

 it would be merely an extended application of the joint- 



* I willingly admit that the term " unearned increment " is objectionable ; 

 it is not sufficiently neutral as an economic expression, for it seems to imply a 

 conclusion which may be a matter of argument. I have adopted it, however, 

 because it is more generally understood than the terms "plus valeur," "plus 

 value," or "surplus value." Moreover I do not think that Sir Louis Mallet, 

 who has so vigorously denounced Mill's employment of it, would have objected 

 to its application in the particular case which I am about to consider, that of a 

 "surplus value" arising, not from a natural, but from an artificial monopoly. 

 His enthusiasm for the principles of "free exchange" made Sir Louis Mallet, 

 the disciple, friend, and successor of Cobden, an opponent of gold-mono- 

 metallism and an advocate of the joint standard of gold and silver. 



