266 LAND In all of them a vast hierarchy of official inspectorship would be demanded, which, even if adequate, would eat up the profits. In all of them red-tapeism of regulation would forbid the progress derived from freedom to experiment. For the case of the culture of land, an art involving such variety of method applied to such variety of circumstance, it seems, as yet, impossible to conceive arrangements by which joint possession could result in beneficial production. We know it even among families to be at present a hindrance and source of loss. Nor has any definite scheme been yet proposed by socialists to show how it could be worked by the state. Till its advocates at least do this, and permit us to judge as men of business of the practical effect of their system in a given area and with given machinery, it were waste of time to discuss their aspirations and their imaginary results.
Doctrine of supremacy of private rights.
Those who, at the opposite pole, refuse to admit the right of the state to impose such conditions on private property as it deems for the general benefit may be dismissed even more briefly. Not only do they show entire ignorance of the history of land tenure at all times, but they belie the daily action of British legis lation. Parliament seldom lets a session pass without making laws which assert the right of the state to take possession of property for public or private benefit, to tax it, and to restrain or regulate the rights of its owners over it. Nor is there any theory of the basis of property which does not tacitly admit that it is subject to the authority of the community. If derived from occupation, it owes its title to the agreement of the community to support that title. If derived from labour, it is valid only for the life of the labourer, and whoever succeeds to him must take it, not as a gift from a dead man whose rights end with the grave, but as a gift from the state, which deems that there is advantage in encouraging labour by the certainty of transmitting its produce. In every view it must be admitted that the state, by whose regulations and force property is maintained, must have an unqualified right to prescribe the conditions under which it will confer its gifts on private individuals.
The general object of supporting private property in land is to increase its produce, by inducing the owner, through motives of self-interest and affection for his family, to bestow on it the greatest amount of labour. It is agreed by all practical authorities that the soil of Great Britain might be rendered greatly more productive by the increased expenditure of capital, which when explained means in one shape or other the larger employment of labour, both in effecting permanent improvements and in conducting the arts of cultivation. The interest of the public in strengthening the motives which may lead to such additional production is unquestionable. The soil is the support of the nation, furnishing to it primarily both its subsistence, its clothing, its fuel, and the raw materials of its trade with other countries. Some indeed argue that freedom of trade with other countries, permitting unrestricted import of all these articles, has rendered the profitable use of the soil at home comparatively unimportant. But this is inaccurate for several reasons. First, importation involves at all events the expense of all that labour which is devoted to the carrying trade. Secondly, it involves dependence on other nations for other articles than food, to an extent which may easily become fatal. If, for instance, agriculture in England were to employ less labour, because it was more profitable to import wheat for subsistence and cotton on which to employ labourers, there is not only the risk, sufficiently grave, that both may be stopped by war, but the ever present probability that manufacturing industry may be displaced by competition from countries where its raw material can be obtained without the cost of carriage, and where in some cases labour may, owing to climate or a lower standard of living, be cheaper. Such a rivalry is already visible in America, in India, and in Russia. If through these causes the manufactures should decay, and the artisans be driven to emigrate, certainly the depopulated fields of Great Britain would be unable to maintain her in her present rank among nations.
Law of diminishing production.
An entirely opposite school has, however, stated a principle, which, though not applied by it to the question of the tenure of land, would if true be hostile to the application of further capital to the soil. Political economists (see, e.g., Mill, bk. i. chap, xii.) have asserted that every successive application of capital to cultivation must be less profitable than the first. This is called the "law of diminishing production from land," and it has been said to be "the most important proposition in political economy." But the fact is that it is true only if the qualification be added "in the existing state of knowledge." That is to say, it is true that, if a given amount of labour applied in raising wheat, for example, will raise 16 bushels on an ordinary soil, twice the amount of labour will not, per se, raise 32 bushels on the same soil, or even 16 bushels on a very inferior soil. But chemistry and experiment tell us that if, instead of spending the second quantity of labour in merely ploughing twice instead of once, we spend it in purchasing and applying nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash in proper proportions to the soil, either directly as artificial manures, or still more cheaply as manure from animals whose food has contained these elements, we do get a return considerably more than double for the double amount of labour which the application involves. This is exemplified in the fact that rents rose about 20 per cent. in England when these appliances came into use, in spite of a stationary range of prices, showing that the additional capital thus devoted to agriculture gave a higher return than the capital that had been previously employed.
A further illustration may be found in the fact that the capital that has been expended by the Improvement Companies in England, under the supervision of the Inclosure Commissioners, has yielded on an average a return of 15 per cent. of increased rental on the expendi ture, over and above the profit made by the tenant farmer (Caird). Since this average includes a few cases in which defective knowledge has led to loss, it is evident that, when capital is applied to agriculture with reasonable scientific knowledge and skill, it is capable of still yielding returns at a full average rate, even after payment of the salaries earned by the scientific and practical education which has directed its employment. Nor is there any reason to believe that the process has come, or nearly come, to an end. It certainly does not follow that soil is capable of unlimited production; for it is quite certain that its powers in this respect are sharply defined by the amount of light and heat which in any given situation the plants growing on it can receive. But it is becoming daily more probable that up to that limit advancing science and practical skill will tend to equalize the cost of production, making the application of labour to inferior soils as profitable as to superior, and making capital as productive when approaching the limit of its useful application as when it is, in the form of rude labour, applied to soils newly brought under cultivation.
Nationalization of land.
But, on the other hand, the doctrine that the land can be made more productive by the application of more capital, and that the state has a strong interest in increasing production, is fatal to all that variety of proposals which have been made for what is called, in rather uncouth and exceedingly vague phrase, "nationalization of the land." All of these start with the suggestion that the land of the country, being the property of the community, should be resumed
