To my great astonishment he introduced himself to me as a socialist.

"I don't believe like Marx," he said, "that labour produces everything, but I maintain that the task-work of the employed and directed labourer, of whatever grade--whether he uses a pen or a chisel--is always worth more than the wages which the employers pay him for performing it.

I feel this myself with regard to my own firm.

Month by month I am worth to it more than the sums it gives me.

This," he went on, with an odd gleam in his eyes, "is what I may not endure to think of--that others should be always appropriating values which I have produced myself; and nine out of ten of the men who become socialists, do so because they feel as I do about this particular point." [19] General Walker also seeks to assimilate the product of ability to rent; and my criticism of Mr.Webb in this respect applies to him also.
General Walker's book was mentioned frequently in connection with my late addresses in America; and it was said by one or two critics that I had borrowed from, and ought to have acknowledged my debt to, him.