but because they are the only terms on which he can obtain something for which there is no substitute. There is certainly "nothing like it," and it is certainly" nothing like the old feudal system, there is nothing to be compared to it"—not even the right of asking what price you please for a horse that has won the Derby, a right also "seen beforehand." In no market but the English land-market is any commodity paid for over and over again; and in no other market is an improvement acknowledged by a "fine."
The plea for "freedom of contract" assumes a still more ironical aspect when we remember that the persons whose interests are to be thus protected are not taxed on these ever-increasing land values. Those to whom the ground landlord lets his land—and in letting it his contribution to the "prosperity of the country" begins and ends — those to whose exertions and sacrifices that increasing value is due, are taxed, but the landlord escapes. If those who are improving the land make more money as the years go on, they pay more and more into the public treasury. A careful inquiry is made into their "profits," but the value of the land itself is not inquired into. The value of the land may have increased three, four, or five times in the course of a century, but the owner of the soil still pays the original rate, and grows rich while he sleeps.
In England, property in land is protected far more effectually than property in money. Yet, of the two, property in money needs more protection, for whereas we are always being reminded that land "cannot run away," we all know that money cannot only "take to itself wings" by our own folly, but that when we are robbed of money it is seldom that we recover it. The worst that can happen to the ground landlord is to lose his rent for a time—his land remains where it was, and possession can be recovered, if his title is clear. But though there may not be the smallest doubt in the world that our money was our lawful property, the law seldom recovers it for us, even when it punishes the robber. This is usually the case even in the more vulgar branches of theft, such as burglary and pocket-picking, but when it comes to the more complicated devices of the swindler, our chances are
