[Footnote 201-3: If older writers, like _Steuart_, etc., speak so little of capital, labor and rent, and so much of city and country, it is not on account of ignorance simply. The contrast between the latter was then much more important than to-day, and that between the former much less developed. When, indeed, _Colton_, Public Economy of the United States, 1848, 155 ff., claims that because in America the three branches of income do not exist in so separated a condition as in Europe, therefore European Political Economy and its theories are not applicable to America, he forgets that science should not be simply a description or impression made of the reality, but an analysis of it.]
[Footnote 201-4: It is a very characteristic fact that, in our days, when workmen are spoken of, it is generally day laborers and tradesmen that are understood. In Prussia, in 1804, 17.8 per cent. of the population earned their living by letting out their labor; in 1846, 22.8 per cent. as day-laborers, servants, journeymen, tradesmen and factory hands. (_Dieterici._)]
[Footnote 201-5: _Ricardo_, Principles, ch. 4, recognizes the bright side as well as _Sismondi_, N. P., I, 268, or _Buret_, De la Misère des Classes laborieuses en Angleterre et en France, 1841, its dark side. _Sismondi_ thinks that land and the capital employed in its cultivation are found to the greatest disadvantage in the hands of the same person. The existence of a thrifty peasant class (also of a class of tradesmen) is one of the best means to prevent the too wide separation of the three branches of income.]
HARMONY OF THE THREE BRANCHES OF INCOME.--NECESSITY OF THE FEELING OF A COMMON INTEREST.
Every class corresponding to a branch of the national income must live with the consciousness that its interests coincide with the economic interests of the whole nation. Whenever the entire national income increases, each branch of it may increase without any injury to the others, and, as a rule, does really increase.[202-1] But it is possible that the land owning class may be specially dependent on the prosperity of the whole people. How easy it is for workmen to emigrate; and how much easier yet for capital! England, to-day, can scarcely carry on a great war, in which it would not, at least at the beginning, have to fight English capital.[202-2] Where the treasure is, the heart is also! The land alone is immovable. It alone cannot be withdrawn from the pressure of taxation or from the distress of war. It alone cannot flee into foreign parts.[202-3] [202-4] At the same time, it cannot be denied that the possibility of being able to carry one's fortune out of a country in one's pocketbook and to be able to procure there with one's money the same conveniences, customs, etc., to which one was accustomed at home, is, under certain circumstances, an important element of political and religious freedom. Moreover, the bright side and the dark of every class of owners, especially the dread of all unnecessary and also of all necessary change, must be common to rent and interest. Hence, where there is a marked and well-defined separation of the branches of income, it will be always considered a difficult but unavoidable problem, how to enable mere labor to take an active part in the affairs of the state.[202-5]