I explained at first that I do not suggest confiscation. Really the land is the King's, and by him can be claimed; but we will let that pass. Here we will speak only of what is reasonable and fair. Let me give a more definite idea of the hardships imposed upon the nation by the landlords. We all know how the landlord takes a part of the wealth produced by labour and calls it "rent." But that is only simple rent. There is a worse kind of rent, which I will call "compound rent." It is known to economists as "unearned increment." I need hardly remind you that rents are higher in large towns than in small villages. Why? Because land is more "valuable." Why is it more valuable? Because there is more trade done. Thus a plot of land in the city of London will bring in a hundredfold more rent than a plot of the same size in some Scottish valley. For people must have lodgings, and shops, and offices, and works in the places where their business lies. Cases have been known in which land bought for a few shillings an acre has increased within a man's lifetime to a value of many guineas a yard. This increase in value is not due to any exertion, genius, or enterprise on the part of the landowner. It is entirely due to the energy and intelligence of those who made the trade and industry of the town. The landowner sits idle while the Edisons, the Stephensons, the Jacquards, Mawdsleys, Bessemers, and the thousands of skilled workers expand a sleepy village into a thriving town; but when the town is built, and the trade is flourishing, he steps in to reap the harvest. He raises the rent. He raises the rent, and evermore raises the rent, so that the harder the townsfolk work, and the more the town prospers, the greater is the price he charges for the use of his land. This extortionate rent is really a fine inflicted by idleness on industry. It is simple _plunder_, and is known by the technical name of unearned increment. It is unearned increment which condemns so many of the workers in our British towns to live in narrow streets, in back-to-back cottages, in hideous tenements. It is unearned increment which forces up the death-rate and fosters all manner of disease and vice. It is unearned increment which keeps vast areas of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and all our large towns ugly, squalid, unhealthy, and vile. And unearned increment is an inevitable outcome and an invariable characteristic of the private ownership of land. On this subject Professor Thorold Rogers said-- Every permanent improvement of the soil, every railway and road, every bettering of the general condition of society, every facility given for production, every stimulus applied to consumption, _raises rent_. The landowner sleeps, but thrives.