Socialists say--and the aphorism is constantly repeated--"A man can get an income only by working or stealing; there is no third way." In answer to this, it was pointed out by George that one kind of wealth, at all events--and we may add that here we have wealth in its oldest form--consists of possessions yielding a natural increase, which has been neither made by the possessors, nor yet stolen by them from anybody else.

That is to say, it consists of flocks and herds.

A shepherd or herdsman starts with a single pair of animals, from which parents there arises a large progeny.
This living increment has not been produced by the man, but it is still more obvious that it has not been produced by his neighbours, and it therefore belongs in justice to the man who owns the parents.

George pointed out also that whole classes of possessions besides are, for by far the larger part of their value, equally independent either of corresponding work or of theft.

Among such possessions are wines, whose quality improves with time, and which, if sold to-day, may be worth tenpence a bottle, but which four years hence may be worth perhaps half-a-crown.