◆¹ But the more important part of the matter still remains to be noticed. The popular idea is, as I just now said, that we should, in confiscating the rental of the kingdom, be merely robbing a handful of rich men, who would be probably a deserving, and certainly an easy prey. The facts of the case are, however, singularly different. It is true, indeed, if we reckon the land by area, that the large landlords own a preponderating part of it: but if we reckon the land by value, the whole case is reversed; ◆² and we find that classes of men who are supposed by the ordinary agitator to have no fixed interest in the national soil at all, really draw from it a rental twice as great as that of the class which is supposed to absorb the whole. I will give the actual figures,[12] based upon official returns; and in order that the reader may know my exact meaning, let me define the term that I have just used—namely “large landlords”—as meaning owners of more than a thousand acres. No one, according to popular usage, would be called a large landlord, who was not the owner of at least as much as this; indeed the large landlord, as denounced by the ordinary agitator, is generally supposed to be the owner of much more. Out of the aggregate rental, then—that total sum which would, if divided, give each man twopence a day—what goes to the large landlords is now considerably less than twenty-nine million pounds. By far the larger part—namely something like seventy million pounds—is divided amongst nine hundred and fifty thousand owners, of whose stake in the country the agitator seems totally unaware; and in order to give to each man the above daily dividend, it would be necessary to rob all this immense multitude whose rentals are, on an average, seventy-six pounds a year.[13] Supposing, then, this nation of smaller landlords to be spared, ◆³ and our robbery confined to peers and to country gentlemen, the sum to be dealt with would be less than twenty-nine million pounds; and out of the ruin of every park, manor, and castle in the country, each adult male would receive less than three-farthings daily.

◆1 Were the National Debt and the Railways confiscated, the results would likewise be hardly perceptible to the nation as a whole.

◆¹ And now let us turn to the National Debt and to the railways. The entire interest of the one and the entire profits of the other, would, if divided equally amongst the population, give results a little, but only a little, larger than the rental of the large landlords. But here again, if the poorer classes were spared, and the richer investors alone were singled out for attack, the small dividend of perhaps one penny for each man daily, would be diminished to a sum yet more insignificant. How true this is may be seen from the following figures relating to the National Debt. Out of the two hundred and thirty-six thousand persons who held consols in 1880, two hundred and sixteen thousand, or more than nine-tenths of the whole, derived from their investments less than ninety pounds a year; whilst nearly half of the whole derived less than fifteen pounds.

◆1 The Monarchy costs so small a sum, that no one would be the richer for its abolition.

◆¹ And lastly, let us consider the Monarchy, with all its pomp and circumstance, the maintenance of which is constantly represented as a burden seriously pressing on the shoulders of the working-class. I am not arguing that in itself a Monarchy is better than a Republic. I am considering nothing but its cost in money to the nation. Let us see then what its maintenance actually costs each of us, and how much each of us might conceivably gain by its abolition. The total cost of the Monarchy is about six hundred thousand pounds a year; but ingenious Radicals have not infrequently argued that virtually, though indirectly, it costs as much as a million pounds. Let us take then this latter sum, and divide it amongst thirty-eight million people. What does it come to a head? It comes to something less than sixpence halfpenny a year. It costs each individual less to maintain the Queen than it would cost him to drink her health in a couple of pots of porter. The price of these pots is the utmost he could gain by the abolition of the Monarchy. But does any one think that the individual would gain so much—or indeed, gain anything? If he does, he is singularly sanguine. Let him turn to countries that are under a Republican government; and he will find that elected Presidents are apt to cost more than Queens.

◆1 All such schemes of redistribution are illusory, not only on account of the insignificance of their results,

◆2 But also on account of a far deeper reason, on which the whole problem depends.

◆¹ All these schemes, then, for attacking property as it exists, for confiscating and redistributing by some forcible process of legislation the whole or any part of the existing national income, are either obviously impracticable, or their result would be insignificant. Their utmost result indeed would not place any of the workers in so good a position as is at present occupied by many of them. This is evident from what has been seen already. ◆² But there is another reason which renders such schemes illusory—a far more important one than any I have yet touched upon, and of a far more fundamental kind. We will consider this in the next chapter; and we shall find, when we have done so, that it has brought us to the real heart of the question.

CHAPTER IV

The Nature of the National Wealth: first, of the National Capital; second, of the National Income. Neither of these is susceptible of Arbitrary Division.