THIS  POLICY  INVOLVES  NO  SOCIAL  DANGER  III

capital,  which  is  under-employed,  it  does  not  seem  reasonable ­
  to  suppose  that  such  taxation  imposed  upon  owners
of  land  and  capital  will  reduce  the  aggregate  income
derived  from  such  ownership.  For  since  the  direct  result
of  this  taxation  is  to  increase  the  general  consumption,
such  increase  must  in  the  nature  of  the  case  give  increased
employment  to  all  the  requisites  of  production.  Hence
it  would  appear  that  the  quantity  of  land  and  capital  for
which  rent,  interest,  and  profit  is  paid  will  be  larger  than
before,  though  the  rate  of  the  remuneration  for  the  use
of  each  piece  of  land  or  capital  may  be  kept  within
moderate  limits  by  taxation  or  by  the  pressure  of  labourorganisation.
  If  there  were  no  unearned  elements  of  income
they  could  not  be  taken  by  taxation  and  any  attempt  to
tax  socially  necessary  interest  would  defeat  itself.  The
complexity  of  our  industrial  organism  is  such  as  to  preclude ­
  me  from  here  tracing  out  the  exact  modus  operandi
by  which  a  new  tax  or  an  effective  demand  for  higher
wages  must  work.  But  if  the  principle  be  once  firmly
grasped  that  a  demand  for  commodities  is  the  only  ultimate
demand  for  the  use  of  land,  labour,  and  capital,  then  the
existence  of  “  unemployed  ”  producing-power,  is  proof  that
increased  consumption  is  possible  without  a  reduction  in
the  present  income  of  any  class  of  the  community.  The
legitimacy  of  a  “  progressive  ”  consumptive  policy  is  not,
therefore,  dependent  upon  a  theory  of  “economic  monopolies,” ­
  but  has  a  separate  justification.