CHAPTER I.
PRIVATE PROPERTY AND SOCIALISM.
Distribution of wealth.HAVING considered the production of wealth in the last book, we now pass, by a natural sequence, to expound the principles which regulate the distribution of wealth. In some of the remarks on the production of wealth, it was necessary to anticipate the fact that the wealth produced is distributed amongst different classes. The wages of the labourers, the profits of the capitalist, and the rent of the landlord, have been spoken of. Allusion has also been made to some of the sources which supply the wealth thus distributed; for instance, the nature of capital could not be explained, without showing that the capital of the country is the fund from which the wages of the labourers are supplied, and, therefore, if the capital increases, the wages paid must increase. Although in this manner, the subject of the distribution of wealth has been slightly encroached upon, yet nothing has hitherto been said in reference to the principles which determine the relative amounts of the shares into which wealth is distributed. It, therefore, remains to explain why wages are high or low, why profits rise or fall, and why rents in one country vary so greatly in amount at different times and in different places. This book, therefore, will probably be more interesting than the last, because in it questions will be discussed of the greatest practical importance; we shall have occasion to show how wages and profits are affected by such combinations as strikes, and how industry is influenced by the different tenures of land which exist in different countries; the subjects discussed will, in fact, have equal interest for the philanthropist and the
