al body of public
opinion, because it has been accustomed to regard the free disposal of
property and the unlimited exploitation of economic opportunities, as
rights which are absolute and unconditioned. On the whole, until
recently, this opinion had few antagonists who could not be ignored.
As a consequence the maintenance of property rights has not been
seriously threatened even in those cases in which it is evident that no
service is discharged, directly or indirectly, by their exercise. No
one supposes, that the owner of urban land, performs _qua_ owner, any
function. He has a right of private taxation; that is all. But the
private ownership of urban land is as secure to-day as it was a century
ago; and Lord Hugh Cecil, in his interesting little book on
Conservatism, declares that whether private property is mischievous or
not, society cannot interfere with it, because to interfere with it is
theft, and theft is wicked. No one supposes that it is for the public
good that large areas of land should be used for parks and game. But
our country gentlemen are still settled heavily upon their villages and
still slay their thousands. No one can argue that a monopolist is
impelled by "an invisible hand" to serve the public interest. But over
a considerable field of industry competition, as the recent Report on
Trusts shows, has been replaced by combination, and combinations are
allowed the same unfettered freedom as individuals in the exploitation
of economic opportunities. No one really believes that the production
of coal depends upon the payment of {24} mining royalties or that ships
will not go to and fro unless ship-owners can earn fifty per cent. upon
their capital. But coal mines, or rather the coal miner, still pay
royalties, and ship-owners still make fortunes and are made Peers.

At the very moment when everybody is talking about the importance of
increasing the output of wealth, the last question, apparently, which
it occurs to any statesman to ask is why wealth should be squandered on
futile activities, and in expenditure which is either disproportionate
to service or made for no service at all. So inveterate, indeed, has
become the practice of payment in virtue of property rights, without
even the pretense of any service being rendered, that when, in a
national emergency, it is proposed to extract oil from the ground, the
Government actually proposes that every gallon shall pay a tax to
landowners wh