ited. Where there is limitation
of supply monopoly is always possible, and against monopoly the
principles of free competition declared war. To Cobden himself, free
trade in land was the pendant to free trade in goods. But the attack on
the land monopoly could be carried much further, and might lead the
individualist who was in earnest about his principles to march a
certain distance on parallel lines with the Socialist enemy. This has,
in fact, occurred in the school of Henry George. This school holds by
competition, but by competition only on the basis of a genuine freedom
and equality for all individuals. To secure this basis, it would purge
the social system of all elements of monopoly, of which the private
ownership of land is in its view the most important. This object, it
maintains, can be secured only through the absorption by the State of
all elements of monopoly value. Now, monopoly value accrues whenever
anything of worth to men of which the supply is limited falls into
private hands. In this case competition fails. There is no check upon
the owner except the limitations of demand. He can exact a price which
bears no necessary relation to the cost of any effort of his own. In
addition to normal wages and profits, he can extract from the
necessities of others a surplus, to which the name of economic rent is
given. He can also hold up his property and refuse to allow others to
make use of it until the time when its full value has accrued, thereby
increasing the rent which he will ultimately receive at the cost of
much loss in the interim to society.

Monopolies in our country fall into three classes. There is, first, the
monopoly of land. Urban rents, for example, represent not merely the
cost of building, nor the cost of building plus the site, as it would be
if sites of the kind required were unlimited in amount. They represent
the cost of a site where the supply falls short of the demand, that is
to say, where there is an element of monopoly. And site value--the
element in the actual cost of a house or factory that depends on its
position--varies directly with the degree of this monopoly. This value
the land nationalizer contends is not created by the owner. It is
created by society. In part it is due to the general growth of the
country to which the increase of population and the rise of town life is
to be attributed. In part it depends on the growth of the particular
locality, and in part on the direct exp