s escaped the land nationalisers; his
land is now become capital and is sacred. The position is so glaringly
absurd and the proposed attempt to discriminate between the capital
value and the land value of estates is so futile, that it seems almost
certain that the land nationalisers will go as far as the Socialists.
Whatever the origin of land and capital, the source of the revenues
drawn from them is contemporary labour."[431]

Most Socialists think it wiser to tax capital gradually out of
existence than to confiscate it at one stroke. "The direct
confiscation of capital affects all, the small and the great, those
unable to work and the able-bodied, everybody in an equal way. It is
difficult by this method, often quite impossible, to separate the
large property from the small invested in the same undertakings. The
direct confiscation would also proceed too quickly, often at one
stroke, while confiscation through taxation would permit the abolition
of capitalist property being made a long-drawn process, working itself
out further and further in the measure as the new order gets
consolidated and makes its beneficent influence felt."[432]

The argument that excessive taxation would drive capital out of the
country is laughed at by Socialists. A Socialist pamphlet says: "It is
true that the land-sweaters and labour-skinners whom the people keep
on electing to rule and rob them can still frighten noodles by
threatening that they will run away from the country and take their
capital with them; that

They'll ship the mines and farms to Amsterdam,
The houses and the railways to Peru,
The canals and docks to Russia,
The woods and workshops off to Prussia,
And all the enterprise and brains to Timbuctoo.

"We calmly reply that there is not one single service that all the
landlords, financiers, and their lesser parasites pretend to perform
for society that could not be performed far more efficiently and
infinitely more cheaply without them."

Straightway those rich men started
To move their capitals.
On board of ships they carted
Their railways and canals;
With mines mine-owners scurried.
The bankers bore their books.
With mills mill-owners hurried.
The bishops took their crooks.[433]

The despoiled capitalists might leave the country, but they would have
to leave in the country all their property except perhaps a few
valuables which they might remove.

Prop