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46 denser, demand for land increases, and methods of using land are perfected. The returns to capital (the interest rate) show every indication of advancing. It certainly will not decrease in the near future.

Meanwhile the immortalization of capital proceeds apace. The day when capital could be easily dissipated has passed away. Accounting systems, insurance devices, depreciation funds, boards of directors, and trusteeships conserve capital, reduce risks, distribute dangers, and in general, provide against misadventures for which interest, at least in part, is supposed to be a recompense. When once created, capital does not disappear. Instead, every conceivable method has been devised to perpetuate it. It may even add to itself, as it frequently does, when earnings, instead of being used for the payment of dividends, are reinvested and turned directly into new capital.

The workers, meanwhile, are living, for the most part, a hand-to-mouth existence, successful if they are able to maintain health and keep up appearances. Against the value of the products which their energy creates, is charged the property incomes for which the labor of some one must pay. Today, the producers of wealth are saddled with an enormous property income charge which increases with each passing year—increases far faster than the increase in the population—and which, from its very nature, cannot be reduced, but must be constantly augmented.

Were there no protests from the producers of wealth, the future for capital would, indeed, be a bright one. With increasing stability, increasing safety, decreasing risks, an increasing interest rate, and increasing land values, the property owners might face a future of unalloyed hopefulness.

Fortunately, no such situation exists. On the contrary, there is every indication that, with the passing years, the producers of wealth will file a protest of ever increasing volume against an economic system which automatically gives to those who already have.