[24] See C 6980, page 79.
[25] It has been constantly stated that the land rents of the United Kingdom amount to £250,000,000. Such an estimate is unwarranted.
[26] It is only in the large towns that land rents have risen. Many towns of less than 20,000 in population are decreasing in size and their rents consequently falling. In the ten years ended 1901 no less than 187 towns of from 2,000 to 50,000 inhabitants declined in population.
[27] The point is of so much importance that it may be well to quote some expressions of opinion on the subject.
"In practice there is little doubt that the majority of intending tenants, both in town and country, do take the precaution of enquiring what rates or taxes they will have to pay, and vary their estimates accordingly. In their case, then, it is the landlord, and not the tenant, who bears the burden of the rates." "Land Nationalisation" (p. 86), by Harold Cox. (Methuen & Co.).
"We have assumed with most economists, that in the end, on the average, the rates, however levied, fall upon the owner (inasmuch as they compel him to lower the rent which he demands for his property)." "Towards a Social Policy" (p. 49), by a Committee of Liberals. "The Speaker" Publishing Co. Ld.
CHAPTER VIII
THOSE WHO WORK AND THOSE WHO WAIT
WE have seen that, although the sum of the land rents taken by the owners of the British area is actually very great, it is small as compared with the total of the national income. We have also seen that there is a simple explanation of this. We have become a manufacturing and a town-dwelling people, and the area occupied by our factories and towns is very small. The chief demand for land is confined to the outskirts of such towns as are increasing in size. The landlords of the big towns have their pockets increasingly filled with unearned increment, while the landlords of the empty country are reminded in the most practical possible way of that inherent quality of immobile area to which we have referred as the distinguishing characteristic of land. When we speak of a town as growing rapidly we refer to the growth in relation to the area of the town, not in relation to the area of the country. I reiterate this point because, when it is once realised, we see our way as a community to an exceedingly simple solution of many important problems. We speak of the enormous size of London. As a matter of fact, the whole area administered by the London County Council is but 75,000 acres. Again, "Greater London" contains but 443,000 acres, and yet is the dwelling-place of 7,000,000 people, or far more than the entire population of the 2,420,000,000 acres of the Dominion of Canada.
We shall return to the foregoing considerations hereafter.