Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/76

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somewhat smaller income than the man of older family. It has, in fact, come to this, that the private property in Adam's land is divided between three men, the first doing none of the work and getting half the produce; the second doing none of the work and getting two-fifths of the produce, and the third doing all the work and getting only one-tenth of the produce." And then, later, when the land is all filled up, there comes in a still further supply of new-comers, "a man in a strange plight—one who wanders from snow-line to sea-coast in search of land, and finds nothing that is not the property of some one else . . . the first disinherited son of Adam, . . . who is himself for the moment foodless, homeless, shiftless, superfluous and everything that turns a man into a tramp or a thrall. Yet he is . . . able to deal puissantly with land, if only he could get access to it. . . . What if the proletarian can contrive—invent—anticipate a new want—turn the land to some hitherto undreamt—of use—wrest £1,000 a year from the soil and site that only yielded £1,000 before? If he can do this, he can pay the full £1,000 rent and have an income of £500 left for himself. This is his profit—the rent of his ability—the excess of its produce over that of ordinary stupidity."