cleared it and settled on it, or he had worked and saved and with the product of his work had bought this piece of land, or he had inherited it from the man who had cleared or bought the land.  The ownership of the land implies work and saving and so is entitled to its reward.  Then there is the case of the man who has saved ten thousand dollars by labouring for twenty years and denying himself the necessaries of life.  Dr. Nearing admits that this man has worked in order to get his dollars; he even goes so far as to add that he had denied himself the necessaries of life in order to save.  Incidentally one may wonder how a man who has denied himself the necessaries of life for twenty years can be alive at the end of them.  This man has worked for his dollars, and, instead of spending them on immediate enjoyment, lends them to people who are building a railway, and so is quickening and cheapening intercourse and trade.  Dr. Nearing seems to admit grudgingly that in a sense he thereby renders a service, but he complains because his imaginary investor expects without further exertion to get an income from the product of his past service.  If he could not get an income from it, why should he save?  And if he and millions of others did not save how could railways or factories be built?  And if there were no railways or factories how could workers find employment?

If every capitalist only got income from the product of his own work in the past, which he had spent, as in this case, on developing industry, his claim to a return on it would hardly need stating.  He would have saved his ten thousand dollars or two thousand pounds, and instead of spending it on two thousand pounds’ worth of amusement or pleasure for himself he would have preferred to put it at the disposal of those who are in need of capital for industry and promise to pay him 5 per cent. or L100 a year for the use of it.  By so doing he increases the demand for labour, not momentarily as he would have done if he had spent his money on goods and services immediately consumed, but for all time, as long as the railway that he helps to build is running and earning an income by rendering services.  He is a benefactor to humanity as long as his capital is invested in a really useful enterprise, and especially to the workers who cannot get work unless the organizers of industry are supplied with plenty of cheap capital.  In fact, the more plentiful and cheap is capital, the keener will be the demand for the labour of the workers.

But when Dr. Nearing points out that the income of the ten thousand dollars would be equally secure if the owner of them had them left him by his father or given him by his uncle, then at last he smites capital on a weak point in its armour.  There, is, without question, much to be said for the view that it is unfair that a man who has worked and saved should thereby be able to hand over to his son or nephew, who has never worked or saved, this right to an income