Britain for the British

by Robert Blatchford

By what means do the landlords and the capitalists get the meat and leave the workers the bones?

Let us deal first with the land, and next with the capital.

A landlord is one who owns land.

Rent is a price paid to the landlord for permission to use or occupy land.

Here is a diagram of a square piece of land—

In the centre stands the landlord (L), outside stands a labourer (W).

The landlord owns the land, the labourer owns no land. The labourer cannot get food except from the land. The landlord will not allow him to use the land unless he pays rent. The labourer has no money. How can he pay rent?

He must first raise a crop from the land, and then give a part of the crop to the landlord as rent; or he may sell the crop and give to the landlord, as rent, part of the money for which the crop is sold.

We find, then, that the labourer cannot get food without working, and cannot work without land, and that, as he has no land, he must pay rent for the use of land owned by some other person—a landlord.