n by the commercial interests were a series of
incessant wars, in which every individual owner, firm or combination was
fiercely resisting competitors or striving for their overthrow.

THE INVULNERABLE LANDOWNER.

But the landowner occupied a superior position which neither political
conditions nor the flux of changing circumstances could materially
assail. He was ardently individualistic also in that he demanded, and
was accorded, the unimpaired right to get land in any way that he
legally could, hold a monopoly of as much of it as he pleased, and
dispose of it as he willed. In the very act of asserting this
individualism he called upon Society, through its machinery of
Government, for the enactment of particular laws, to guarantee him the
sole possession of his land and uphold his claims and rights by force if
necessary. These were all the basic laws that he needed and these laws
did not change. From generation to generation they remained fixed,
immovable. The interests of all landowners were identical; those of the
traders were varying and conflicting. For long periods the landowner
could expect the continuance of existing fundamental laws regarding the
ownership of land, while the shipper, the factory owner, the banker did
not know what different set of laws might be enacted at any time.

Furthermore, the landowner had an efficient and never-failing
auxiliary. He yoked society as a partner, but it was a partnership in
which the revenue went exclusively to the landowner. The principal
factor he depended upon was the work of collective humans in adding
greater and greater values to his land. Broadly speaking, his share
consisted in merely looking on; he had nothing to do except hold on to
his land. His sons, grandsons, his descendants down to remotest
posterity need do even less; they could leisurely hold on to their
inheritance, enlarge it, hire the necessary ability of superintendence
and vast and ever vaster riches would be theirs. Society worked
feverishly for the landowner. Every street laid and graded by the city;
every park plotted and every other public improvement; every child born
and every influx of immigrants; every factory, warehouse and dwelling
that went up;--all these and more agencies contributed toward the
abnormal swelling of his fortune.

A PROLIFIC BREEDER OF WEALTH.

Under such a system land was the one great auspicious, facile and
durable means of rolling up an overshadowing fortune. It