The Economy of Local Rates 181 
gratuitously assumed, tend to the benefit of the com- 
munity as a whole. 
The inhabitants of a locality are perpetually being 
changed in number and personnel not only by birth 
and death but by migration. At the census of 1901 
less than three-quarters of the native inhabitants of 
England were found in the counties in which they 
were born, and of these a very large proportion must 
have belonged to that third of the population which 
always consists of children. It is probably quite safe 
bo surmise that more than half of the natives of Eng- 
land cease to live in the town or rural district in which 
they were born at some time or other before their 
decease. Migration is therefore the rule rather than 
the exception, and to ignore it is only a foolish kicking 
against the pricks. If localities competed in an effort 
to benefit their own particular inhabitants, the localities 
which were the richest, and therefore the most success- 
ful in the effort, would be the most attractive to the 
class of immigrants which expects to receive in benefits 
more than it will pay, and such immigrants would 
keep on coming in to them until the effort to benefit 
the inhabitants became so burdensome that the con- 
dition of the inhabitants of these localities was brought 
down to an equality with that of the inhabitants of 
other localities. 
It is sometimes supposed by those who have 
attempted to assimilate Ricardian theories that rent 
cannot be abolished, but must always go to somebody. 
This is only true if some person or institution has 
control over the land and desires to use that control 
in a profitable manner. Any landlord could wipe out 
his rent by employing enough people on his land: