Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/77

 But there also come other proletarians who are no cleverer than other men, who do as much but not more than they. In the meantime, owing to division of labour, the use of tools and money and the economies of civilization, man's power of extracting wealth from Nature is greatly increased, so that the produce of land on the margin of cultivation may rise considerably; if we suppose the yield to have doubled, then the proletarian who is not clever "can very well offer to cultivate the land, subject to a payment of, for instance, £1,600 a year, leaving himself £400 a year. This will enable the last holder of the tenant right to retire as an idle gentleman, receiving a net income of £700 a year, and a gross income of £1,600, out of which he pays £900 a year rent to a landlord, who again pays to the head landlord £500."

This picture, so brilliantly drawn by Mr. Shaw, is, of course, largely fanciful. In the first place, he begins by assuming, as quoted above, a country with undisturbed law and order, and a vast green plain virgin to the spade waiting the advent of man. But in fact countries are very seldom found under these comfortable conditions. They are much more likely to be found in the possession of savage