In the circle of the human family, those endowed with keen, unerring foresight are comparatively few. It cannot be gainsaid that those few, knowing that land is fixed in quantity—which cannot be expanded as population increases, and as demand for it increases—saw in the early periods, as they see today, what a powerful advantage they could wield over their fellows by “fencing in” all the available land—by fencing out, not only the cattle, as you put it, but also their fellow-men. Is it not plain that this was the source of the power of which you complain? Was it not this that furnished the advantage you name? Can you not see the stream of unearned tribute wrung from the hands of honest labor constantly flowing into the coffers of these land owners? And seeing it, can you then maintain that great estates were not the ruin of Italy? What made the “ruling class of Rome, that had concentrated into their own hands all the tremendous powers of the State?” What gave them the power to “fix the taxes” and enact the “infernal laws” which you rightly contend ought to have been repealed? “Ah!” you say,“they _controlled the money_.” By what power did they come to control the money? Was it by a power inherent within themselves, or was it not the power which they derived from the corner which they held upon the _natural revenue_ which they diverted from the public treasury into their own coffers, thus making it necessary to provide for the common expense by unjust taxes upon the products of labor? “They controlled the money.” But what is money? Is it the means or the end? Is it not merely a labor-saving invention to facilitate trade? Is it not money only by common consent? Is it not merely a commodity converted for convenience into a medium of exchange? You make the point that by controlling the money, they controlled commodities. But if they had not controlled the land, which is the source of all commodities—even the money itself—how could they have controlled the money? Can you not see that men divorced from the toil and permitted to produce only on the terms of some other person are forced into the labor market, to vie with each other in a competition that grows keener and more vicious as a population increases?