THE "REDUCTION TO INIQUITY." 65
landowner, the owner of land, as an owner of land, is not a producer. And surely he knows that the term "rent" as used in political economy, and as I use it in the books he criticizes, never represents the interest on capital, but refers alone to the sum paid for the use of the inherent capabilities of the soil.
As illustrating the usefulness of landlords, the Duke says:
My own experience now extends over a period of the best part of forty years. During that time I have built more than fifty home- steads complete for man and beast ; I have drained and reclaimed many hundreds, and inclosed some thousands, of acres. In this sense I have "added house to house and field to field," not as pulpit orators have assumed in similar cases that I might "dwell alone in the land," but that the cultivating class might live more comfortably, and with better appliances for increasing the produce of the soil.
And again he says that during the last four years he has spent on one property 40,000 in the improvement of the soil.
I fear that in Scotland the Duke of Argyll has been " hiding his light under a bushel," for his version of the way in which he has " added house to house and field to field" differs much from that which common Scotsmen give. But this is a matter into which I do not wish to enter. What I would like to ask the Duke is, how he built the fifty homesteads and reclaimed the thousands of acres? Not with his own hands, of course; but with his money. Where, then, did he get that money? Was it not taken as rent from the cultivators of the soil ? And might not they, had it been left to them, have devoted it to the building of homesteads and the improvement of the soil as well as he? Suppose the Duke spends on such improvements all he draws in rent, minus what it costs him to live, is not the cost of his living so much waste so far as the improvement of the land is concerned ? Would
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