SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
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other evidences of general well-being. Finally, the increase of 
the return to capital has not been in any way in proportion, the 
yield on the same amount of capital being less than it was, and 
the capital itself being more diffused, while the remuneration 
of labour has enormously increased.” It is quite true, however, 
that a vast amount of want and misery exists side by side with 
a general increase in well-being. We have not to do merely 
with averages, important as they undoubtedly are as showing 
the general tendency. As long as there are two or three 
millions of people in extreme want, it is poor satisfaction to 
think that vast numbers of other people have more than they 
quite know what to do with. This inequality of wealth, even 
if diminishing, is certainly large enough to constitute a great 
social evil. What is its cause, and what is its remedy? If 
Mr. George has really answered these questions, he has done 
a great service to humanity. 
To put his answer shortly, Mr. George finds that rent 
swallows up the whole benefit of increased production in every 
progressive community, while the returns to labour and capital 
are stationary or even diminishing. His remedy is to make 
land common property, and his mode of applying the remedy 
is to confiscate rent by taxation. By rent, Mr. George means 
the whole annual value of land, less “ the clearly distinguishable 
improvements made within a moderate period.” It appears, 
then, that the working man has been making a mistake in 
supposing that “ his master is the enemy,” or at least in 
thinking that it is his employer who, in the shape of profits, 
gets the lion’s share of the produce. Of the three elements 
into which profits are divisible—compensation for risk, wages 
of superintendence, and return for the use of capital—the first, 
according to Mr. George, need not be considered in deter 
mining the law of the distribution of wealth, as risk is elimi 
nated in the totality of transactions ; the second is rightly called 
“ wages,” and should, he thinks, be classed with the wages of 
the ordinary labourer ; while the return for the use of capital 
is interest which, according to Mr. George, is likewise reducible 
to the law of wages, rising and falling with the rise and fall of 
wages. Hence Mr. George concludes that the primary division