Fabian Tract No. 7. 



CAPITAL AND LAND. 


'THE FABIAN SOCIETY. 

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THE practical aim of Sociali ts with regard to the materials of wealth 
is• " the emancipation of land and industrial capital from individual 
and class owner hip, and the vesting of them in the community for 
the general benefit." Land and capital are instruments with which 
man works for the producti n of wealth, material for the maintenance 
of hi existence and comfort. Now it is imp rtant to notice that, 
though in common talk we separate th two, and though political 
economists have given a scientific dignity to thi rough cla sification 
of the instruments of production, distinguishing a "land " that 
which ha · been provided by " Nature,'' and as "capital" that 
which ha · been made by human inchl'try, the eli tincti n is not one 
which can be clearly trace I in dealing with the actual things which 
are the instruments of production, because most of these are compounded 
of the gifts of Nature and the result ' of humbn acti~·ity. 

" Land." 
The only instruments given to u by Nature are climate, physical 
forces, and virgin soil. The u e of the ·e pa~sc~ with legal " property '' 
in the land to which they belong, and they are consequently clas eel 
with " land." Tho~e virgin soils are called good or fertile which 
contain in abundance element which the chemi try of animal or 
vegetable life can com·ert into the materials of human food, clothing, 
c'C. ther mineral elements of particular patche · of oil are convertible, 
by the arts of the mining, metallurgic, building, and engineering 
ind ustrie ·, into a thou 'and form of wealth. 

How " Land" gets Value. 
But even the e qualities of virgin oil are of no use or value 
unle ·s they arc found in acces ible positions ; and their advantage 
to the proprietor f the land increases rapidly as human society 
develops in their neighborhood ; whibt in all advanced societies 
we find large area of town lands whose usefulne s and value have 
nothing to do with their oil , but are clue entirely to the social 
existence and activity of man. Land in Cornhill, worth a million 
pounds an acre, owes it" value to the world-wide indu try and commerce 
whose thread ' are brought together there, not to it natural 
fertility or to the attractions of its climate. "Prairie value" is a 
fiction. Unpopulat d land has only a value through the expectation 
that it will be peopled. 
The " natural" capabilitie of land are thus increas d, and, 
indeed, even called into existence, by the mere development of 
society. But, further, e\·ery foot or agricultural and mining land in 
England has been impro,·ed as an .instrument of production by the 
exercise of human labor. 
Fir t , of human labor no/ on that land it~elf ; by the improYement 
or the general climate, through clearing of fore t and draining 

• See the" l'asis" of the Fal.ian Society, to he ol t;lilled :~t ~;6 Strand, " '.C. 

3 

of marsh ; by the making of canals, roads, railways, rendering eyery 
part of the country acces ible ; by the growth of villages and towns, 
by the improvement of agricultural science ; and still more by the 
development of manufactures and foreign commerce. Of all this 
human labor, no man can say which part has made the value of his 
land, and none can prove his title to monopolise the value it has made. 

Secondly, all our land has been improved by labor bestowed 
especially upon it. Indeed, the land itself, ns as z·nstrume1ll of }1'0duchon, 
may be quite as truly said to be the work of man as the 
gift of Nature. Every farm or garden, every mine or quarry, is 
saturated with the effects of human labor. Capital is everywhere 
infused into and intermixed with land. Who distinguishes from the 
mine the plant by which it exists ? Who distinguishes from the 
farm the lanes, the hedges, the gates, the drains, the buildings, the 
farm-house ? Certainly not the English man of business, be he 
landlord, farmer, auctioneer, or income tax commissioner. Only the 
bold bad economist attempts it, and, we must add, some few amongst 
our allies, the Land N ationalisers. It may be worth while to digress 
for a while in the company of these latter. 

A Word to " Land Nationalisers." 

The arguments revived in our generation by John Stuart Mill 
and Henry George, and the activity of the various societies that 
have taken in hand the work of diffusing them, have now converted 
an immense body of public opinion to the Socialist view of the 
justice of, and urgent necessity for, N ationalisation of the Land ; or, 
at least, the confiscation of ground rents, mining royalties, and 
similar unearned profits from the soil. Land Nationalisers go, 
generally, so far with Socialist that (in the word of the Fabian 
" Basis") they " work for the extinction of private property in land, 
and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent, 
of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as 11·ell as for the 
advantages of superior soils and sites." 

But some, who are thus far Land Nationalisers, still shrink from 
any interference with the legal powers enjoyed by the holders of 
capital. Hence a most unfortunate separation exists between them 
and the Socialists, whose design of nationalising the industrial capital 
with the land appears to them unjustifiable and unessential. 

Capitalist and Landlord in One Boat. 

They use the argument that capital, unlike land, is created bylabor, and is therefore a proper subject of private ownership, \\·hile 
land is not. Socialists do not overlook the facts on which this 
argument rests, but they deny, on the grounds ::tlready partly stated, 
that any distinction can be founded on them sufficiently clear and 
important to justify the conclusion drawn.. Btit, supposing we 
assumf it true that land is not the product of labor, and that capital 
is ; it is not by any means true that the rent of land is not the 
product of labor, and that the interest on c::tpital is. Nor is it true, 
as Land 1\'ationalisers frequently seem to assume, that capital neces.
s::trily becomes the property of those whose labor produces it ; 


whereas land is undeniably in many ca es owned by persons who 
have got it in exchange for capital, which may, according to our 
premisses, have been produced by their own labor. Now since 
private ownership, whether of land or capital, simply means the 
right to draw and dispo e of a revenue from the property, why 
should the landowner be forbidden to do that which is allowed to 
the capitalist, in a ociety in which land and capital are commercially 
equivalent ? Virgin soil, without labor upon or about it, can yield 
no revenue, and all capital ha been produced by labor working on 
land. The landlord receive the revenue which labor produces on his 
land in the form of food, clothing, books, pictures, yachts, racehorses, 
andcommand ofzitdustrzal capdal, in whatever proportions he thinks 
best. The owner hip of land enables the Iandi rd to take capital for 
nothing from the laborers a fast as their labor create it, exactly as it 
enables him to squander idly other portions of its product in the 
manner that so scandalises the land nationalisers. When his tenants 
improve their holdings by their own labor, the landlord, on the expiration 
of the lease, remorselessly appropriates the capital so, created, 
by raising the rent. In the case of poor tenants holding farms from 
year to year in Ireland, the incessant stealing of capital by this 
method so outraged the moral ense of the community, that the 
legislature' interfered to prevent it long before land nationalisation was 
commonly talked of in this country. Yet land nationalisers seem to 
be prepared to treat as sacred the landlords' claim to private propertyin capital acquired by thefts of this kind, although they will not hear 
of their claim to property in land. Capital sen ·es a an in trument 
for robbing in a precisely identical manner. In England industrial 
capital is mainly created by wage workers-who get nothing for it 
but permission to creat in addition enough ·u b istence to keep each 
other alive in a poor way. Its immediate appropriation by idle proprietors 
and shareholders, whose economic relation to the workers is 
exactly the same in principle as that of the landlords, goes on every 
day under our eyes. The landlord compels the worker to convert 
his land into a railway, his fen into a drained level, his barren seaside 
waste into a fashionable watering place, hi mountain into a 
tunnel, his manor park into a suburb full of hou es let on repairing 
leases ; and lo ! he has escaped the land nationali ers: hi land is 
now become capital, and is sacred. 

The position is so glaringly absurd, and the proposed attempt to 
discriminate between the capital Yalue and the land value of estates 
is so futile, that it seems almo t certain that the land nationalisers 
will go as far as the Socialists, as soon as they understand that 
the Socialists admit that labor has contributed to capital, and that 
labor gives some claim to ownership. The Sociali ts, howe\'er, must 
contend that only an insignificant part of our capital i now in the 
hands of those by whom the labor has been performed, or even of 
their descendants. H w it was taken from them, none should know 
better than the land nationalisers. 

It is carcely necessary to nlarge on or illu trate the obvious 
truth that, whatev r the origin of land and capital, the source of the 
revenue drawn from them is contemporary labor. The remainder 


of thi tract may ~till further impre~s the impos ibility of maintaining 
any hard and fa t line between them, either a regards their characteristic 
and importance in deYeloped societies, or the defen ibility of 
their priYate owner hip or the arguments for their nationali ation. 

" Capital." 
To return from our digression : vVhen we con ider what is usuallycalled capital, we are as much at a loss to disentangle it from land as 
we are to find land which does not partake of the attribute of capital. 
For though capital is commonly defined as wealth produced byhuman labor, and de tined, not for the immediate ~atisfaction of 
human wants, but for tran formation into, or production of, the 
means of uch satisfaction in the future ; yet railways, doch, canal , 
mine~, etc., which arc classed as capital among the instruments of 
production, are really only somewhat elaborate modification of land. 
The buildings and the plant with which they are worked are further 
removed from the form of land, but we lump the lot a capital. All 
farming improYements, all indu trial buildings, all shops, all 
machinery, raw material, liYe and dead tock of eYery kind, are 
called capital. A.nd just as there is a purely ocial element in the 
value of land, so are there purely social elements in the ya[ue of 
capital ; and ib ,·alue, in all its forms, depends upon its acce sibility 
and fitnes::. here and now, and not on the labor it ha co t. 
The ew Ri,·er Company's \Vater Shares haye their present 
enormous value, not because Sir Hugh Myddleton' yenture was 
costly, but because London has become great. The u::.efulnes:, of 
fixed and unchangeable form · of capital increases and decreases 
through external cau::.es, just a · does that of land. If instrument of 
production must be cla sified, the best diYision of them is into z·mmoz•
ab!es and mm•ables / the annual value of building::., railways, 
mines, quarrie , waterwork::., gasworb, durable fixed machinery, and 
many other form of so-called capital, manife tly agreeing with that 
of land in fluctuating according to the cau e the effecb of which 
are generalised in the "Law of Rent" of abstract economic . 
Besides indu trial capital, there is a considerable amount of what 
has com·eniently heen called "con umers' capital." Dwelling-houses,
ami all their dome tic machinery and conveniences are as neces ary 
for production a land and factorie ; for though the worker uses 
them in hi::. character of consumer, they are necessary to maintain 
him in efficiency for his work. All private stores of food and 
clothing, all forms of per onal property, may likewise be cia sed as 
consumers' capital. It will, howeYer, be eYident that, in cla ing 
the e as capital, the signification of that name is becoming yery 
vague and indefinite. 
Finally, we haYe such purely non-material and ocial kinds of 
capital as banking and credit organi ation , inventions, and other 
deYice for extending and intensifying our power oyer Nature; social 
force of immen e importance for the carrying on of wealth production, 
largely capable of ocial ownership, not entirely capable of 
priyate monopoly, but at present appropriated by ome indiYiduals 
more than by others. 


6 

What is the Estimated Value of our National Stock of 

the above-named form of Wealth? 

In December, 1889, Mr. Robert Giffen attempted to compute the 
capital yaJue of realised property in the United Kingdom as it was 
in the year r8 5· The following table is reproduced from that furnished 
by him, the ~ures being corrected according to the official 
R eturns of Income-1 ax Assessments for r 891-92. The estimate of 
the value of the capital is arrived at by taking what Mr. Giffen considered 
a ~uitable number of years' purchase of the income :-


No. of Capital

Gross Annual Value of Property Assessed. 

Years' Purchase. Value. 

Under: Schedule A-
Lands, rent-charges, tithe , &c. £ 57,69-t,82o 26 £r ,soo,o65,320 
Land with houses on it qo,s8-t,o63 IS 2, !08,760,945 
Other profit from land r,ozo,726 30 30,621,780 

Schedule B-
Farmers' profits s8,12o,8-t3 8 -t6-t,966,7HtSchedule C1nterest 
from Public Government 
Fund , not English* 2 5,330,802 25 633,270,050 

Sehedule 0Quarrie 
, mines, ironworks, &c. r 3,258,os2 .. 53,032,208t 
Gas Works s,r 19,992 25 127,999,8oot 
Water Works 3,567,697 20 71,35 3,9-tot 
Canals, &c. 3,{90,720 20 69,8141400t 
Fishings and shootings 698,641 20 I 3,972,82ot 
:.1 arkets, tolls, &c . 618,567 20 I2,371,3-t0t 
Public Companies 60,438,687 20 r,2o8,773,7+0t 
Foreign and Colonial Investments• IS,3I3,42I 20 3o6,268,-t2ot 
Railways in United Kingdom 36,4{{,911 28 I ,o2o,-tS 7,so8t 
Railways out of do.* 7,367.950 20 I{7,359,000tInterest paid out of Local Rates, &c. s.69-t,o76 25 q 2,351,900 
Other similar profits r,824,7I7 20 36,-t9-t.3-t0Trades and Profe sions (taking

one-fifth of the gross incomes 
as interest on capital) ... 37.915,239 IS 568,728,585t 

Trades and Professions omitted 
from asses ment, say 20 per 
cent. on amount assessed 
(£r89,576,r97), taking one--fifth 

of this income also as interest 
on capital 
Income from capital of non-l:lxpayers 
Foreign Investments, not included 
under Schedules C and D* 
Movables, not yielding income ... 
Government and Local Public 
75,000,000 
7o,ooo,ooo 
IS 
!0 
375 ,ooo,ooot 
7oo,ooo,ooo 
I ,ooo,ooo,ooot 
Property, say sso,ooo,ooot 
T otal estimated capital value £r r,2 55 ,4o8,s6o 

• These claims constitute part of the social question of other nations than our 
own. The amount in the last case is conjectural, but based on Mr. Giffen's statistics. 
t These amounts being conjectural, are reproduced with small additions from :V[r.
Giffen's estimates for I885. 
t Of these totals, which make up the "industrial capital" of the country,
amounting to £ -t,S53,8H ,225 1 no less than £2,698,790,896 is under Joint Stock 
manag-ement. 


7 


" Land " and " Capital " Indistinguishable. 

It may be noticed that there is no attempt in this table to distinguish 
between what Land Nationalisers might think should be 
classed as land, and what they would admit to be capital. The 
common sense of the ordinary business man and statistician recognises 
that such distinction' is impracticable and arbitrary. To the business 
man they are both equally forms of property, merely different kinds 
of investments -that is, arrangement for obtaining a revenue from 
the labor of others. The practical statesman sees in them simply 

ources of income, and assesses them equally to income tax. Indeed, 
that famou tax of 20 per cent. on rent, of which the English Land 
Restoration League and many Radicals are demanding the reviYal, 
was not imposed~ as a land tax at all, but formed part of the incidence 
of a general tax of four shillings in the pound on the annual yalue of 
ALL REAUSED PROPERTY AXJ1 SALEABLE C\TERESTS, excepting only 
farm stock and household furniture. Will not the Land Nationalisers 
take this hint, and include rr!! unearned incomes in their" Single Tax" 
Program me? 

Who own all this Land and Capital? 
\Vho, then, are the Landlords and the Capitalists amongst us ? 
They are those persons who own the instruments of wealth-production 
and enjoy the profit of them. In England, as in all deYeloped industrial 
societies, almost the whole of the land and industrial capital, and 
most of the consumers' capital (chiefly consisting of dwelling houses), 
is at present owned and controlled by one set of people, while it is 
another set of people who produce wealth by using them. 

" Capitalists." 
A glance at Mr. Giffen's table will show how little of the 
material wealth of England is available for immediate enjoyment or 
consumption, and how large a proportion is in the form of machinery 
to aid labor in the supply of our wants from day to day. The value 
of moyable personal property, not employed as instruments of production, 
must be less than one-tenth of the total. Dwelling-houses, 
and the land attached to them, may amount to about two-tenths 
more. But occupying ownership of these properties is the exception,
and most of them are used by their owners as an investment 
yielding rent, paid out of the earnings of working occupiers. The 
whole of the remainder consists of land and capital employed for 
wealth-production in agriculture, mining, transport, and other industries, 
trades, and professions. 

* ltwas an "Aid" (or tax upon realised property) imposed primarily upon all 
persons " having any Estate in ready :\1onies, or in any Debts whatsoever owing to 
them, within this Realm or without, or having any Es~lle in Goods, \Vares, 
Merchandizes, or other Chattels or personal Estate whatsoever " . . except "the 
Stock upon Lands and such Goods as are and for H ousehold Stuff " . . . at the 
rate of "four Shillings in the Pound according to the true Yearly \'alue thereof," 
computed at 6 per cent. of their capital ,·alue (see the Act of Parliament of r6g2, + 
William and Mary, cap. I., sec. 2), including also the emoluments of public officers, at 
that time regarded as saleable property (sec. 3), and finally" to the end a further Aid 
and Supply for their Majesties' Occasions may be raised," a similar tax is imposed on 
Lands " according to the true yearly Value thereof at a Rack Rent " (sec. 4). 

8 

Four-fifth!> of our national wealth, we may safely say, consi t 
of such instruments. The wants of the community are supplied 
from year to year, and week to week, by the reciprocal sen·ice& 
of the active \\"Orkers who use and administer them. The worker, 
of whatever kind, is paid by a wage, a salary, a professional income, 
or profits due to his skill in organising or directing industry, the 
amount of which is determined by competition between himself and 
other workers. The owners ofthe instruments of production receive 
as rent and interest such an amount of the value of the produce as 
equali es the normal income of the workers in each calling; that is to 
say, they obtain from the workers who are using their land and capital 
a toll equal to the difference between the product of industry engaged 
in "·ith any particular instrument of land or capital, and the productof the like industry engaged in with the least efficient instrument 
actually employed anywhere at the time. 

Some of the workers are, it is true, themselve capitalist , that i~ 
to say, own larger or smaller amounts of land and capital ; and many 
capitalist work. How many, and how much? Here are some fact 
gathered from the Report of the Commis ioners of Inland Revenue 
for 1890-911 and other reliable sources. 

" Landlords." 
The landlords (i.e., persons owning more than a field or a tenement 
each) number only r8o,524. Out of a population of 37,ooo,ooo, 
one two-hundredth part of the population owns ten-elevenths of the 
total area."' 
Five-sixths of the properties assessed to land and house tax are 
owned by person whose incomes exceed £400 a year.tNot four per cent. of persons dying (of whom one-half are adults) 
leave behind them £300 worth of property, including personaleffects not of the nature of land or industrial capitaU 
One-half of the wealth of the kingdom is held by persons who 
leave at death at least £2o,ooo, exclusive of land and houses. The e 
persons form a class somewhat over 2 5 ,ooo in n umber.ll 

"Workers." 

How much land and capital do the manual labor class own ? 
Supposing that thq were the owners of the wlzo/e of-
the deposits (r89r) in the P.O. Savings Banks§ £7r,6o8,oo2 

, , Trustee , § 42,873,563the Consols purcha ed for small holders by the Post Office§ 3,087,765the nominal capital (r89o) of the Building Societies~... 52,482,577 

* :\1ulhall's "Dicti"onary of Statistics," p. 266. 
t Inland Re,·enue Report (Abatements and Exemptions, Schedule A).
t See Probate Duty Returns. 
See Mulhall's "Dictionary of Statistics," pp. 278, 279. Also "Facts for 
Socialists," published by the Fabian Society; price Id. 

§ See "Statistical Abstract." 

; See" Statistical Abstract," and "Report of Registrar of Friendly Societies." 

The" Co-operative Annual" gives a higher figure for the Stores Capital, but includes 
that of the Civil Sen·ice and other middle-class societies. 


9 


The nominal capital (1890) of the Trade Unions, CooperatiYe 
Societies, 
Friendly and Pro-

h 


,_,..-

Yiden t Societies~... 

, , Industrial Life As ur


ance Societies~ ... 8,873,o8z 
they 11·ould own land and capital Yalued at ... £196,r88,zo7 
that i::, to say, barely more than one-sixtieth part of the land and 
capital with which they work. The number of perso11s " employed 
at wage '' in the industries of the kingdom, i estimated at about 
fourteen million , including over four million women. The share of 
the able-bodied manual workers, in property, then, must average not 
more than £q per head of those in employment, producing less than 
twelYe shillings a year interest. \iVhat the nlue of the capital 
owned by workers above the manual labor class may be, can only 
be conjectured. But we know from the Income Tax returns that out 
of the total of 16! millions of separate income , only rl million 
amount to £rso a year and upwards; and we haye noticed how small 
is the number of persons owning large amounts of property in the 
instruments of production. 

What sort of a System is this ? 
Labor politicians, Land Nationalisers, ConservatiYes, Radicalsr 
all who interest themselYes in social science as the study of the wellbeing 
of man, 11·ill agree 11·ith us that 

The Use of Land and Capital 

should be to sen·e as instruments for the actiYe, the energetic, the 
industrious, the intelligent of mankind to produce wealth for themselves 
and those who are necessarily dependent on them, and to 
maintain the conditions of healthy existence for the society which 
they compose. And will they not al o agree with us that it is 

The Abuse of Land and Capital 

that they should be made by the laws of any people a " property'r 
often owned by entirely idle and unprofitable persons, who may exact 
hire for them from those who are working for the maintenance of social 
existence, or may eyen refuse the would-be workers access to these· 
indispensable instruments of industry? For what are the effects? 

If the access be refused-land kept out of cultivation ; tillagetumed into sheepwalks, and sheepwalks into shootings; natural 
sources of wealth locked up from u e ; the pleasant places of the 
earth, the mountains, the moors, the woodlands, the sea shores, 
parked and preserYed and placarded, that the few may have space 
for their pride, while the many must crowd into squalid cities and 
dismal agricultural towns, and take their holidays in herds on the 
few beaten tracks left free for them. In commerce-rings, corners, 
syndicates, pools, and monopolies, and all the fearful social loss and 
waste of under-production ; lock-outs, short time, and other expe-· 
dients of the reckless selfishness of capitalists who are nursing the 
market for private ends. 


IO 

II 

II 
I 


If access be grante::l-if the land and capital be devoted to their 
proper use, then it is on condition that rent and interest be paid to 
the proprietor, simply in virtue of his existence as such. He may 
or may not be doing some work of social utility, but the rent and 
interest are paid to him as an absolutely idle person, and it is this, 

The Tribute of Industry to Idleness, 

that Land Nationalisers denounce in its form of rent, and that 
Socialists, and all who have the Socialist spirit, denounce in all its 
forms. 

With the Land Nationalisers we are at one entirely on this point: 
-That so much of the annual value of land as they class as rent 
·(which is caused by the physical qualities, advantages, or position of 
land), is a toll taken by an idle class from the indu try of the rest of 
the nation, and should be re umed by the nation in the quickest and 
most effectual manner possible. 

With the non-Socialists we agree entirely on this point :-That 
so much of the income of any landlord as i cau~ed, not by rent as 
defined by the political economists, but by the exercise of hi own 
abilities as a superintendent and director of agriculture or industry, 
is of the nature of a salary, the competitive price of useful work d ne 
for society. And we further agree with the non-Socialists that so 
much of the income of any capitalist as is caused, not by interest as 
defined by the economists, but by the exercise of a similar abilityin the administration of capital and the organisation of industry, is 
equally of the nature of a salary obtained by useful work. 

We must, however, point out that the monopoly of land and 
capital has led, and still leads, to a virtual class monopoly of the 
opportunities of doing this kind of work, and of the education and 
training required for it ; and that not till these private monopolies 
.are abolished will the remuneration of such activity reach its normal 
level of competition Yalue. The same monopoly has given to the 
sons of the privileged classes an advantage ll'hich still keeps the 
wages of certain professions (the Bar for instance), to which acce5s is 
guarded by the useless COJw ention of a long and extravagant sham


,. 
education, above the level at which they \\'Ould stand were their 
opportunities equally open to all. 

The Amount of Tribute and its Effects. 

Of the tolls enumerated in Mr. Giffen's table \\'e cannot say what 
part should be classed as rent and what part as interest ; we can only 
state that the total income derived from real property-lands and 
buildings-must amount to about £2 2o,ooo,ooo a year ; and that, 
according to the table, at least £2 7o,ooo,ooo may be classed as pure 
interest on other instruments of production (apart from all reward for 
personal services).':' 

The profits and salaries of the class who share in the advantages 
-of the monopoly of the instruments of production, or are endowed 
by nature with any exceptional ability of high marketable value, 

* See "Facts for Socialists," p. 6. 

1 I 

:amount, according to the best estimate that can be formed, to aboutt£ 36o,ooo,ooo annually. While, out of a national income of some 
:[I,350,ooo,ooo a year, the workers in the manual labor class, fourhfths 
of the whole population, obtain in wages not more thant 
.{soo,ooo,ooo. 

Rent and interest alone, the obvious tribute of the workers as 
such to the drones as such, amount demonstrably to almost as much 
as this sum annually, and it may be safely said that the workers, from 
top to bottom of society, pay a fine of 

One-half the Wealth they Produce 

to a parasitic class, before providing for the maintenance of themselves 
and their proper dependents. 

Is a healthy existence secured for society by this arrangement? 

The income of the manual labor class is less than £40 per adult, 
and out of this they must pay heayy rents for the houses they live 
in. How much is left for healthy life? Even that little is not 
always Youchsafed to them. There are in London now at least 
35,ooo adult men who with their families (say roo,ooo) are slowlystarying for want of regular employment. 

".\t present the average age at death among the nobility, gent>y, and professionalclasses in England and \Vales is 55 years; but among the artizan classes of Lambeth 
it only amounts to 29 year ; and whilst the infantile death-rate among the well-to-do 
classes is such that only 8 children die in the first year of life out of 100 born, as 
many as 30 per cent. succumb at that age among the children of the poor in some 
districts of our large cities. The only real cause of this enormous difference in the 
position of the rich and poor with respect to their chances of existence lies in the fact 
that at the bottom of society wages are so low that food and other requisites of health 
are obtained with too great difficulty." (Dr. C. R. Drysdale, " Report of f ndustrial 
Remuneration Conference," p. 130). 

One in fiye of Londoners dies in the workhouse, hospital, or 
lunatic asylum ; one in fourteen of the manual labor class is a 
pauper, or has been one. 

Hear Professor Huxley (11hneteenth Century for February, 1888) :


"Anyone who is acquainted with the state of the population of all great industrial 
centres, whether in this or other countries, is aware that amidst a large and 
increasing body of that population there reigns supreme . . . . that condition 
which the French call Ia misb·e, a word for which [ do not think there is any exact 
English equivalent. It is a condition in which the food, warmth, and clothing, which 
are necessary for the mere maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal 
state, cannot be obtained; in which men, women and children are forced to crowd 
into dens wherein decency is abolished, :~nd the most ordinary conditions of healthful 
existence are impossible of attainment; in which the pleasures within reach are 
reduced to brutality and drunkenness; in which the pains accumulate at compoundinterest in the shape of starvation, disease, tunted development, and moral degradation; 
in which the prospect of even steady and honest industry is a life of unsuccessful 
battling with hunger, rounded by a pauper's grave. When the 
organisation of society, instead of mitigating this tendency, tends to continue and 
intensify it, when a given social order plainly makes for evil and not for good, . men 
naturally enough begin to think it high time to try a fresh experiment. [ take It to 
be a mere plain truth that throughout industrial Europe there is not a single largemanufacturing city which is free from a vast mass of people whose condition is exactly 
that described, and from a still greater mass, who, living just on the edge of the social 
swamp, are liable to be precipitated into it." 

t See "Facts for Socialists," p. 7· t Ibid, p. 8. 


12 

Land Reform a Partial Remedy Only. 

How far would land restoration alone remedy this ? If it were 
possible to nationalise soil apart from capital, the ground rents 
recoYered for the nation might possibly amount to the present sum 
of our imperial and local taxation, £I35,ooo,ooo, or thereabouts. 
The pecuniary relief certainly could not amount to more. Land 
nationali ation might further immensely benefit society, where it 
now suffers from the curmudgeonism of private owners. But so 
long as capital continued to be u ed for the exploitation of the 
workers, so long would their economic slaYery continue. Those 
who retain the capital, without which the earth and all its products 
cannot be worked, will step into the place of the landlord, and the-
tribute of" interest" will be augmented. Society will be relieYed, 
but not freed. 

Objections to Socialism. 

But the " practical" objector may ask : Does not the .capitalist 
now administer his capital and direct industry ? Was not this 
admitted above ? And is not capital, the product of labor, maintained 
and augmented by saYing ? How will Socialists provide for 
the administration and increa e of capital ? 

" Management." 

The question is being answered by the contemporary development 
of industrial organisation. How much of the " management 
of land" is done now by the landlords, and how much by the farmer 
and the agent or the bailiff? The landlord's supposed function in 
this respect is almost entirely performed by salaried professional 
men. As to capital, who manages it ? The shareholders in the 
joint stock companies, who own more than fiYe-eights of the 
whole industrial capital? No! The shareholding capitalist is 
a sleeping-partner. More and more every day is the capitalist 
pure and simple, the mere owner of the lien for interest, becoming 
separated from the administrator of capital, as he has long

,. been separated from the wage-worker employed therewith. The 
working partner, with sleeping partner drawing interest, is everyday passing into the form of the director of a joint stock company. 
More and more is the management of industries falling into the 
hands of paid managers, and eyen the "directors" emphasise the 
fiction that they are not mere money-bags and decorative M.P.'s, 
by the humorous practice of taking fees for their labors at board 
meetings.
The administrator of capital can be obtained at present for 
a salary equiYalent to his competition value, whether the con-· 
cern to be managed be a bank, a railway, a brewery, a mine, 
a farm, a factory, a theatre, or a hotel. The transfer to the 
community (national or local) of the ownership of the main masses 
f industrial capital need make no more difference in this respectthan does the sale of shares on the Stock Exchange at the present 
moment. 


13 

" Saving." 

As for the savz"1lg of capital, what does that mean ? T he artificial 
instruments of production which form the bulk of property exist 
·Certainly only because human labor has byen devoted to the production 
of forms of wealth other than those which are for immediate 
consumption. Every man in receipt of an income has the option of 
taking out his claim on the labor of society in the form of immediate 
enjoyments, passing and perishing in the use, and leaving the world 
no richer-as luxuries of all kinds, leisure for amusement or travel, 
sen·ice of menials, Royal Weddmg illuminations, beer and skittles, or 
else in the form of more permanent products or of instruments which 
can be used for further wealth-production. All that he spends on 
the latter class of product is said to be saved.-and about two 
hundred million pounds annually, according to Mr. Giffen, are 
" sayed '' in this way by the creation of new houses, clocks, railways, 
roads, machinery, and other aids to future labor. If a man's income 
represents the competition-value of work done by him, it is said 
that he has " produced " the amount of saving so made, and has 
!>Orne title to its ownership. 

But just as the productive qualities of land are only maintained 
by the continuous application of human industry, so the most permanent 
forms of capital are perpetually wasting and being repaired, 
whilst, of the less durable forms, such as machinery, raw material, 
and farming stock, the whole is incessantly transformed, consumed, 
replaced and renewed. The capital s:tved by the original investor 
has long since disappeared. 

There are, however, very few forms of consumable wealth which 
can be "saved " at all. Food, clothing, ordinary comforts and 
luxuries, amusements, and all that makes up our daily life, admit of 
little storage. 

\Vhen we say that a man has saved so much wealth, we simply 
mean that he has abstained from taking out a claim which he had 
on society, and that its payment is by agreement deferred to the 
future. But the wealth which is to meet that claim doe not at 
present exist. It is to be produced by the workers, when, 11·here, and 
in the form asked for. 

If we admit the fairness and advantage of guaranteeing to every 
man the equivalent of the result of his own industry, we should deny 
that there is adequate social advantage in a system which permits 
him to com·ert this claim inLo a lien for a perpetual :tnnuity, an 
enduring tribute from the workers for the use of that which only 
their using can keep from perishing, while he retains all the time his 
claim to the repayment of the original '' sa\·ing " undiminished. 

The " saving" of capital, the increase of the instruments of production 
and of permanent commodities by the abstention from 
consumption of all wealth produced, is undoubtedly an ad\·antage to 
society. If any individual, for the sake of rendering such ach·antages 
to society, abstains in any year from him elf consuming all that he 
has earned, by all means let hin1 be repaid in his old age, or when-
e\·er he wants th~ equivalent of his past acti\·ity. \Vhy sho~tld we not, 


as a transitional expedient, treat such economi ers a · we treat inYen-
tor~, and if they will not work without ·uch a precise guar:mtee, if 
they are till purely individuali tin their motive for activity, giYe them 
such a reward as we give.. individualist inventor in their patent rights, 
so I ng as such encouragement is necessary for the creation and intere 
t of our capital. But let that which society has maintained and 
fructified invariably pa·s to ocicty within a limited period. So much 

may be necessary for the present to promote aYing out of earned 
incomes ; for saving out of the unearned income of rent and interest, 
society can even now take it own·mea ·ure· by taxation for the increase 
f public capital. As soon as indu ·trial capital i· owned by 
those who u e it, provi ion out of income for all neces ary maintenance 
and increa e of the in truments of production will be an 
ordinary and obvious clement in its administration, as it is now in a 
joint stock company, and our pre ent precariou · dependence on the 
caprice or acquisitiveness of individuals will be superseded. 

W e appeal, therefore, to Land Nationaliser · to consider their 
reason for hesitating to work with us for the 

Nationalisation of Capital, 

on the ground that thee\' lution f industry has rendered land and 
capital indi tingui ·hable and equally indi pensable as instruments 
of production, and that, h !ding with ]. S. Mill that " the deepe t 
root of the evil and iniquities which fill the industrial world is . . . 
the subjection of labor to capital, and the enormous hare which 
the po sessors of the instrument · of inclu~try are able to take from 
the produce,'' we sec clearly that if they would make any imprcl\·ement 
in the condition of the agricultural laborer and his fellow 
wage-sla\'c in the towns, they will be forced to abandon the illogical 
di~tinctions that are sometime· drawn between the instruments with 
which they work. • 

.A in trumcnt · of production, the usc ami value of land :mel 
capital :
::tlike are due to human labor ; alike they arc used for the 
hindr:mce or exploitation of indu try by their proprietor; alike they 
are limited in quantity, and c n equently subject to monopoly ; alike 
they enable a private monopolist to exact tribute from the workers 
for the u~e of that which the workers have produced. 

The Political Situation. 

W e appeal to political reformers of :1ll parties to work with us 
in the spirit which is more and more merging politics in Socialism. 
Howe\·er much they may h ld aloof from the Land I\ationali ation 
m vement, :1ncl resent the imputation of Soei:1li tic tendencies, theyhaYe yet been, and still are, and will be, forced to modify our ocial 
sy tem in the S ciali ·t direction. \Vh.lt were the Tory FactoryActs, the Truck .Act ·, the 1ines H.egulations .-\cts, but limitati ns of 
the po\\'er of capital ? \Vhat are the .\clulteration Acts, the 

• :'\on-individu.dist ill\·cntnrs are those who, like the late Thomas Stevenson, 
ill i,·h":l F:uaday, Si • \\'i ll iam Simp>on, ~ntl a host of others, return gratuitously l') 
""·icty the fruits of their inventin: genius, ami take out no patents. 

I~ 

Merchant Shipping Acts, the Employers' Liability Acts? What 
wa the Abolition of the Corn Laws ? The 1llrwk L aue E xpress has. 
told us-a confiscation of the " property" of the landlords. What 
are the Irish Land Acts and the action of the Land Commissioners ? 
What are the proposals of official Liberals for a " just taxation of 
land Yalues and ground rents," and " taxation '' (apparently not 
necessarily " just " ) " of mining royalties,"" and of politicians of both 
partie for a sliding scale of income tax, and for differentiation between 
earned and unearned incomes, but projects for the partial recoYery 
for the nation of the toll which property takes from industry? What 
are the Allotments and Small Holdings Acts, but the beginning of 
provision for the municipalisation of land ? 

In what respect, then, do the ~upporters of these measures 
differ from us on grounds of principle? 

W hy are these Reformers not Socialists? \Vhy do they hesitate 
to join the only thoroughgoing party of social reform ? Have they 
not paved the way by their progressive restrictions of the depotism 
of the private employer ? And are they not constantly extending the 
sphere of social industry in the post office, the telegraphs, tramway , 
docks, harbors, markets, schools, the supply of gas and water, and 
many other public undertakings? Are they not steadily increasing 
the local taxation of realised property, and recoyering rent for public 
use, by the rates on rent for education, for parks, free libraries, public 
baths, and other social com·eniences ? 

All these are Socialistic measures, that is, they tend either to 
the reco\·ery of some portion of the tribute which landlord and 
capitalist now levy, or to the resumption by the community of the 
control of land and industrial capital. These measures of resumption 
we would extend by increased taxation (see Fabian Tract; No. I 1, 
"The 'vVorkers' Political Programme"), and by the extension of such 
communal administration, in the hope of leavening the Individuali t 
society in which we have to work. Such advances sen·e as palliatives 
of existing evils, as educational ex::tmples to the slow of understanding, 
as encouragements to the cautious and conservative. But whether 
the advance be slow or rapid, this we hold indisputable, that until 
the workers of this and every other country own and control the 
instruments they must work with, till then are liberty and manhood 
impossible for the majority ; and that until we cease to pay to noneffectives 
the half of our annual sustenance, it will be impossible for 
the many to obtain that existence and education in youth, that 
security and leisure in old age, and thos-e opportunities for human 
and appreciative life, which the resources of our country and our 
ci\·ilisation are amply sufficient to yield them. 

" l\'ational Liberal Federation Resolution, 1891, 


as a transitional expedient, treat such economisers as we treat inven


tors, and if they will not work without such a precise guarantee, if 

they are still purely individualist in their motive for activity, give them 

such a reward as we give" individualist inventors in their patent rights, 

so long as such encouragement is necessary for the creation and in


terest of our capital. But let that which society has maintained and 

fructified im·ariably pass to society within a limited period. So much 

may be necessary for the present to promote saving out of earned 

incomes ; for saving out of the unearned incomes ofrent and interest, 

society can even now take its own-measures by taxation for the in


crease of public capital. As soon as indu trial capital is owned by 

those who 
use it, provision out of income for all necessary main


tenance and increase of the instruments of production will be an 

ordinary and obvious element in its admini tration, as it is now in a 

joint stock company, and our present precarious dependence on the 

caprice or acquisitiveness of individuals will be superseded. 

We appeal, therefore, to Land Nationalisers to consider their 
reason for hesitating to work with us for the 

N ationalisation of Capital, 

on the ground that the evolution of industry has rendered land and 
capital indistinguishable and equally indispensable as instruments 
of production, and that, holding with ]. S. Mill that "the deepest 
root of the evils and iniquities which fill the industrial world is . . . 
the subjection of labor to capital, and the enormous share which 
the possessors of the instruments of industry are able to take from 
the produce,'' we see clearly that if they would make any improvement 
in the condition of the agricultural laborer and his fellow 
wage-slave in the towns, they will be forced to abandon the illogicaldistinctions that are sometimes drawn between the instruments with 
which they work. • 

As instruments of production, the use and value of land and 
capital alike are clue to human labor ; alike they are used for the 
hindrance or exploitation of industry by their proprietor; alike they 
are limited in quantity, and consequently subject to monopoly; alike 

;• 
they enable a private monopolist to exact tribute from the workers 
for the use of that which the workers have produced. 

The Political Situation. 

We appeal to political reformers of all parties to work with us 
in the spirit which is more and more merging politics in Socialism. 
However much they may hold aloof from the Land Kationalisation 
movement, and resent the imputation of Soci:-tli~tic tendencies, theyha\·e yet been, and still are, and will be, forced to modify our social 
system in the Socialist direction. \Vh:~t were the Tory FactoryActs, the Truck Acts, the Mines Regulations r\cts, but limitations of 
the power of capital ? \Vhat are the Adulteration Acts, the 

* :'\on-indivitlualist iiH·entors are those who, like the late Thomas Stevenson, 
i\lich.tcl Faraday, ir \Villiam Simpwn, and a host of others, return gratuitously ! '>society 
the fruits of their invemive genius, and take out no patents. 

Merchant Shipping Acts, the Employer~· Liability Acts ? What 
wa~ the Abolition of the Corn La\\·s? The ")Jm-k L ane E xpress has. 
told us -a confiscation of the " property " of the landlords. What 
are the Irish Land Acts and the action of the Land Commissioners? 
\Vhat are the proposals of official Liberals for a " just taxation of 
land Yalues and ground rents," and " taxation '' (apparently not 
necessarily '' just " J " of mining royalties,"" and of politicians of both 
parties for a sliding scale of income tax, and for differentiation between 
earned and unearned incomes, but projects for the partial recoYeryfor the nation of the toll which property take from industry? What 
are the Allotments and Small H oldings Acts, but the beginning of 
proYision for the municipalisation of land ? 

In what respect, then, do the supporters of these measures 
differ from us on grounds of principle? 

\Vhy are these Reformers not Socialists ? \Vhy do they hesitate 
to join the only thoroughgoing party of social reform ? H ave they 
not paved the way by their progressiYe restrictions of the depotism 
of the priYate employer ? And are they not constantly extending the 
sphere of social industry in the post office, the telegraphs, tramways, 
dock , harbors, markets, schools, the supply of gus and water, and 
many other public undertakings? Are they not steadily increasing 
the local taxation of realised property, and recoYering rent for public 
use, by the rates on rent for education, for parks, free libraries, public 
baths, and other social conYeniences ? 

All these are Socialistic measures, that is, they tend either to 
the recoyery of some portion of the tribute which landlord and 
capitali ·t now levy, or to the resumption by the community of the 
control of land and industrial capital. These measures of resumption 
we would extend by increased taxation (see Fabian Tract, No. I 1, 
"The \Yorkers' Political Programme"), and by the exten ion of such 
communal admini tration, in the hope of leaYening the IndiYidualist 
society in which we haYe to work. uch adYances sen·e a palliatives 
of exi ting eYils, as educational examples to the slo"· of understanding, 
as encouragement to the cautious and consen ·atiYe. But whether 
the adYance be slow or rapid, this we hold indisputable, that until 
the workers of this and eyery other country own and control the 
in truments they must \YOrk with, till then are liberty and manhood 
impossible for the majority ; and that until we cease to pay to noneffectiYes 
the half of our annual sustenance, it will be impossible for 
the many to obtain that existence and education in youth, that 
security and lei ure in old age, and those opportunities for human 
and appreciatiYe life, which the resources of our country and our 
ci\·ilisation are amply sufficient to yield them. 

• ~ational Liberal Federation Resolution, 1891, 

I 

I 

F
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