Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/758

 says, "one of the most intricate problems society will one day have to solve." But though the inequity of private property in land has been so generally seen, and though it has also been seen that grave practical injury must result from such a wrong, no one, so far as I know, has before attempted to follow out the effects of this wrong in all the ramifications of industrial society. To understand in any way adequately Mr. George's position, the arguments which support his conclusions, and the facts which he has brought to bear upon the question, a study of his book is necessary; but some idea may be gained of the character of his inquiry, though none of his interesting and graphic treatment, by such an outline as can be here given.

Land and labor are the two factors from whose union springs all wealth. Land is the storehouse of all materials, and the place on which all labor must be exerted. Labor is the force which unceasingly shapes these materials into forms suited to human use. Between these two factors all the wealth created must be divided. Labor may, however, be separated into two forms, past and present, or capital and labor. The division of wealth, then, is between land, capital, and labor. The respective shares of these factors are rent, interest, and wages.

Before proceeding it will be necessary to determine the meaning Mr. George attaches to some economic terms used. In an economic sense labor is all human exertion in the production of wealth. Wages is the return made to this exertion. The payment received by the hired laborer, the clerk, or the professional man, the game of the hunter or the gold of the gold-digger, are equally wages. The kind of work done, or whether the work is done for one's self or for some one else, does not affect the character of the compensation. Whatever is recompense for exertion is wages. As to the meaning of capital, economists are not so well agreed, Mr. George defines it as "that part of wealth used to obtain more wealth"—the part in the hands of the producer to be devoted to productive uses. The term "wealth" Mr. George confines to those things whose destruction would decrease and whose increase would augment the aggregate possessions of a community. Bonds, mortgages, etc., when they are between the members of a community, are not, in this sense, wealth. By land is to be understood all natural capabilities, which are a gift to man. It includes fertile fields, ore-deposits, water-powers, the air, the sea, etc. Rent is the compensation received by the owner of any of these natural capabilities for their use. In ordinary speech the term is used to express the return for the use of some of the products of labor and capital, such as houses, improvements made on land, machinery, etc., but as used in economics it excludes the return made for any of these things. Return for the use of such things is properly interest on capital; return for the use of those things freely given by Nature to man is alone rent.