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. Its exclusive possession struck at the very root of human necessity. At a pinch people can do without trade or money, but land they must have, even if only to lie down on and starve. The impoverish, jobless worker, with disaster facing him, must first perforce give up his precious few coins to the landlord and take chances on food and the remainder. Especially is land in demand in a complicated industrial system which causes much of the population to gravitate to centers where industries and trade are concentrated and congest there.
A more formidable system for the foundation and amplification of lasting fortunes has not existed. It is automatically self-perpetuating. And that it is preëminently so is seen in the fact that the large shipping fortunes of a century ago are now generally as completely forgotten as the methods then used are obsolete. But the land has remained land; and the fortunes then