of sapping the industry of millions of busy hands of all else but a bare sustenance and a shelter from the elements. That rent does not to any great extent enter into the cost of your agricultural products, is due to the abundance of new land coming constantly under cultivation, and to that equalizing of situations which your railroads promote. An increase in the demand for food, and the promise of an advance in its price, brings under cultivation lands of lesser fertility or those more remote from your markets. The monopoly power of agricultural land ownership is thereby effectually destroyed. So long as these favorable conditions exist, the cost of your food staples will be governed by the value alone of the labor employed. The profits of capital, therefore, take no part in them until they leave the hands of the producer. There is no value in your cultivated lands of the lesser fertility, except in the opportunity they afford for labor to exchange its services for money. This class of land fixes the price of and cheapens the food of the Earth. The value of all lands from these upwards in degrees of fertility is estimated by the amount of produce derived from a given amount of labor, and except in a few favorite situations there is as yet no monopoly value in your cultivated lands. To this, more than anything else, is due the comparative cheapness of your food, and the steady and unrestricted increase of your population. In time, however, for reasons to obvious to require mention, rent must enter into the original element of cost among your food staples, just as it now so largely takes a part in the cost of their distribution. The fullest manifestation of the evils of your private ownership system will then take place. The signs of what may occur at that rapidly approaching critical period are to be seen in the completely merciless character of your wealth holders, who, in the face of a divine intelligence, which has so charitably provided an even abundance to all, attempt to subvert the natural laws of trade by unfair combinations, known among you as trusts and syndicates, wherein the common welfare is made a sacrifice to their determined and unscrupulous love of gain.