Labour and the Popular Welfare

THE DIVISIBLE WEALTH OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

The Welfare of the Home, as the Logical End of Government.

I wish this book to be something which, when the subject of it is considered, the reader perhaps will think it cannot possibly be. For its subject—to describe it in the vague language of the day—is the labour question, the social question, the social claims of the masses; and it is these claims and questions as connected with practical politics. Their connection with politics is close at the present moment; in the immediate future it is certain to become much closer; and yet my endeavour will be to treat them in such a way that men of the most opposite parties—the most progressive Radical and the most old-fashioned Tory—may find this book equally in harmony with their sympathies, and equally useful and acceptable from their respective points of view.

But if the reader will consider the matter further, he will see that my endeavour is not necessarily so impracticable as it seems to be. A very little reflection must be enough to show anybody that many of the political problems about which men differ most widely are concerned with an order of truths which, when once they have been examined properly, are the same for all of us; and that a preliminary agreement with regard to them is the only possible basis for any rational disagreement. I will give one example—the land-question. About no political problem is there more disagreement than about this; and yet there are many points in it, about which men may indeed be ignorant, but about which, except for ignorance, there cannot be any controversy. Such for instance is the acreage of the United Kingdom, the number of men by whom the acres are owned, the respective numbers of large and of small properties, together with their respective rentals, and the proportion which the national rent bears to the national income. The truth about all these points is very easily ascertained; and yet not one man in a hundred of those by whom the land-question is discussed, appears to possess the smallest accurate knowledge of it. A curious instance of this ignorance is to be found in the popular reception accorded some years ago to the theories of Mr. Henry George. If Mr. George’s reasonings were correct as applied to this country, the rental of our titled and untitled aristocracy would be now about eight hundred millions: and few of his admirers quarrelled with this inference. But if they had only consulted official records, and made themselves masters of the real facts of the case, they would have seen at once that this false and ludicrous estimate was wrong by no less a sum than seven hundred and seventy millions; that the eight hundred millions of Mr. George’s fancy were in reality not more than thirty; and that the rent, which according to him was two-thirds of the national income, was not in reality more than two and a quarter per cent of it. Now here is a fact most damaging to the authority of a certain theorist with whom many Radicals are no doubt in sympathy; but it none the less is a fact which any honest Radical is as much concerned to know as is any honest Tory, and which may easily supply the one with as many arguments as the other. The Tory may use it against the Radical rhetorician who denounces the landlords as appropriating the whole wealth of the country. The Radical may use it against the Tory who is defending the House of Peers, and may ask why a class whose collective wealth is so small, should be specially privileged to represent the interests of property: whilst those who oppose protection may use it with equal force as showing how the diffusion of property has been affected by free trade.