is obligation; fifth, provision should be made
for frequent auditing of accounts, official reports and inspection.

_Uses of interest._--In closing the subject of interest, it is well to
recall the fact that interest exists in the very nature of productive
energies, and that ability to transfer the use of property in any form of
capital without transferring the interest is most useful to society. It
sustains the aged, who must otherwise be wholly dependent, and the
childhood of the race in all development of body, mind and soul. Interest
sustains the mass of educational and charitable institutions, as well as
the individual life of multitudes whose present earnings could not keep
body and soul together. Moreover, the possibility of paying interest
secures to the enterprising young men of the world the opportunity to make
their highest energies productive. Thus the matter of interest pervades
the thrift of society as well as the sustenance, and cultivates everywhere
that present economy which provides for the rainy day. The fact that
nearly one-fifteenth of the population of the United States are depositors
in savings banks alone proves the extent and importance of interest to the
general welfare. With added facilities for depositing small savings in
postal savings banks, the advantage would be still more widely felt, and
the general economy in the use of both earnings and capital would be
promoted. All this extension of interest-bearing increases the tendency
everywhere noticed to a diminution of current rates. With a multiplication
of capital in any community, the rates of wages increase, while the rates
of interest diminish. Both tendencies are natural effects of the same
cause.

Chapter XXII. Principles Of Land Rent.

_Rent values of land._--The general character of rent, as connected with
the use of fixed capital and so associated with interest, has already been
touched upon. In that sense it depends upon the fact that possession of
wealth is universally an advantage in production of future wealth and is
subject to all the peculiarities affecting interest. But land rent, as
represented in the value of farms, city lots, mineral claims, fisheries,
water privileges, wharves, etc., has peculiarities of its own. Its
connection directly with rural wealth in the value of farm lands makes it
of special importance in this discussion. While rent, as such, is
comparatively unimportant to farming interests in the Unite