arer than the proposition that
the failure of wages to increase with increasing productive power is due
to the increase of rent.

The value of land depending wholly upon the power which its ownership
gives of appropriating wealth created by labour, the increase of land
values is always at the expense of the value of labour. And, hence, that
the increase of productive power does not increase wages is because it
does increase the value of land. It is the universal fact that where the
value of the land is highest civilisation exhibits the greatest luxury
side by side with the most piteous destitution.

The changes which constitute or contribute to material progress are
three: increase in population, improvement in the arts of production and
exchange, and improvement in knowledge, government, and morals. The
effect of increase of population upon the distribution of wealth is to
increase rent, and consequently to diminish the proportion of the
produce which goes to capital and labour in two ways. First, by
lowering the margin of cultivation; and second, and more important, by
bringing out in land special capabilities otherwise latent, and by
attaching special capabilities to particular land. The effect of
inventions and improvements in the productive arts, including division
of labour between individuals, is to save labour--that is, to enable the
same result to be secured with less labour, or a greater result with the
same labour, and hence to the production of wealth.

Without any increase in population, the progress of invention constantly
tends to give a larger and larger proportion of the produce to the
owners of land, and a smaller proportion to labour and capital; and,
therefore, to decrease wages and interest. And, as we can assign no
limit to the progress of invention, neither can we assign any limits to
the increase of rent short of the whole produce. Another cause of the
influence of material progress upon the distribution of wealth is the
confident expectation of the future enhancement of land values which
arises in all progressive countries from the steady increase of rent.
This leads to speculation, or the holding of land for a higher price
than it would otherwise bring. It is a force which constantly tends to
increase rent in a greater ratio than progress increases production, and
tends to reduce wages, not merely relatively but absolutely.

_III.--The Common Right to Land_

The fact that the speculative