Name of Company. Nominal Value of Shares or Stock. Dividend. Price of Shares (1905).
The British Gas Light Co., Ltd. £20 10    p.c. £41
The Ipswich Gas L. Co. (A Stk.) 10 13½ p.c. 28
Eastbourne Gas Co. (C Stock) 10 15    p.c. 28
Harrogate Gas Co. (A Stock) 100 17    p.c. 340
Aldershot Gas and Water Co. 10 11½ p.c. 23
Portsea Is. Gas Lgt. Co. (B Shs.) 50 13    p.c. 127
European Gas Co., Ltd. 10 11    p.c. 23
Bournemouth Gas and Water Co. 10 14    p.c. 30
Watford Gas and Coke Co. 100 13½ p.c. 276

In each of these cases the remuneration of labour is much less than the remuneration of those who "wait."

Thus the records of public companies place at our disposal a very fair picture of distribution as it is. We cease to wonder at the terrible error in the distribution of the nation's income. It is brought home to us that a few individuals, through a monopoly of capital, have a great economic advantage over the multitude of their fellows. That it is impossible to argue that the error of distribution accords, even roughly, with the intrinsic value of the various orders of services, is sufficiently shown in the case of these companies, for their gross profit is usually subject to deduction for the reward of brain-power before assessment by the Income Tax Commissioners. We see that it is not any form of ability, either in design or in organization (which is but design) or in manual effort which secures the largest rewards in industry. It is capital, as capital, which takes the lion's share of the product of the mental and manual labour exercised upon the small area of land which serves for the basis of our industries.[30] The landlord's share, although actually great, is relatively small. In agriculture the conditions are different. It is the landlord, as landlord, who takes the lion's share of the product of the cultivated acres of the United Kingdom.

[28]   I use this phrase with intention. Interest, once defined as the reward of "abstinence," is now usually explained by the economists of the schools to be the reward of "waiting." "Abstinence" has been laughed out of court.

[29]   The State has now agreed to buy out this undertaking.

[30]   In view of the fact that the Single Tax doctrines of Henry George are still sedulously propagated in this country it is of interest to quote here the following passage from one of Mr George's latest works:

"We have no fear of capital, regarding it as the natural handmaiden of labour; we look on interest itself as natural and just; we would set no limit to accumulation, nor impose on the rich any burden that is not equally placed on the poor; we see no evil in competition, but deem unrestricted competition to be as necessary to the health of the industrial and social organisms as the free circulation of the blood is to the health of the bodily organism—to be the agency whereby the fullest co-operation is to be secured. We would simply take for the community what belongs to the community, the value that attaches to land by the growth of the community; leave sacredly to the individual all that belongs to the individual; and, treating necessary monopolies as functions of the State, abolish all restrictions and prohibitions save those required for public health, safety, morals, and convenience."—From "The Condition of Labour" by Henry George. Published by Swan, Sonnenschein, 1891. Pages 91 and 92.

This gospel of unrestricted competition (in the same volume Henry George chided Pope Leo XIII. for counselling the State to restrict the employment of women and children) is actually preached to the poor as a solution of the problem of poverty.