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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

all  their  material  wants.  How  is  it,  then,  that  poverty  continues
in  our  midst  and  reaches  the  very  producers  of  all  this  wealth  ?
Has  the  progress  of  civilization  for  its  inevitable  result  the
creation  of  pauperism  ?
Mr.  George  tries  to  show  that  economists  are  mistaken  in
attributing  this  excessive  inequality  to  what  they  call  the  law  of
wages  and  the  law  of  population.  They  maintain  that  if  wages
are  insufficient,  it  is,  firstly,  because  there  is  not  enough  capital
destined  for  the  support  of  labour  ;  and  next,  because  the  too
rapid  increase  of  population  reduces  the  share  of  each  labourer
to  the  bare  necessaries  of  life  or  even  lower.  Mr.  George  disputes ­
  both  these  propositions.  The  labourer,  he  maintains,
lives  on  the  product  of  his  labour  and  not  upon  capital  ;  if,  then,
a  portion  of  his  product  was  not  taken  away  from  him,  he
would  be  better  off  in  proportion  as  labour  became  more
productive  ;  and  as  to  the  law  of  Malthus,  it  is  inapplicable  to
man,  for  of  all  living  beings  he  alone  can  augment  without
limit  the  production  of  all  that  is  necessary  for  his  subsistence.
Extreme  inequality  proceeds,  according  to  Mr.  George,  solely
from  rent,  which  swallows  up  all  the  advantages  of  economic
progress.  There  are  three  factors  of  production  :  land,  labour,
and  capital.  Each  is  remunerated  by  a  part  of  the  produce  which
is  called,  in  the  case  of  land,  rent  J  in  the  case  of  labour,  wages  ;
and  in  the  case  of  capital,  interest.  The  produce  is,  therefore,
equivalent  to  rent,  plus  wages,  plus  interest.  If  rent  increases,
wages  and  interest  will  be  less  ;  for  the  produce  minus  rent  is
equivalent  to  wages  plus  interest.  In  proportion  as  population
and  wealth  increase,  the  price  of  food  rises,  and  consequently
the  rent  of  land  which  produces  the  food  also  rises.  Improvements ­
  in  the  arts  which  diminish  the  cost  of  production  also
contribute  to  increase  the  profits  of  the  farmer,  and,  soon  afterwards, ­
  the  income  of  the  landowner.  The  rise  in  rent  may  be
checked  by  improved  methods  of  agriculture,  which  create  more
produce,  or  by  the  cheapness  of  means  of  transport,  which
enable  food  to  be  brought  from  a  sparsely  peopled  country  to  &
densely  peopled  one  ;  but  these  checks  to  the  rise  of  rent  are
only  temporary.  The  general  increase  of  population  causes
them  little  by  little  to  disappear.  The  clear  gain  from  all