and this can never be the case under a system of landlordism and unlimited bequest. Mr. Spencer's fundamental principle of social justice, therefore, logically implies that the power of free gift and bequest should be placed under strict limitations, the State taking to itself all above the amount which may be judged necessary for providing each heir with such ample education and endowment as may give him or her a favourable start in life-after which they must be left to receive the results of their own nature and actions; while the surplus property thus accumulated will form a fund out of which to endow in like manner all those whose parents are not able to provide for them. This branch of the subject however does not directly concern us here except in so far as it leads us to consider the application of the Spencerian principles of JUSTICE to the land question.1 We are told distinctly that no landowner should be allowed to leave his land in such a way as to permanently alienate it from the community to which it rightly belongs. But to concede the right of unlimited gift or bequest does so alienate it; therefore no such right should exist. There is another principle, which was asserted by the great jurist Jeremy Bentham, and which is of some importance as a guide :-That laws should never be such as to disappoint "just expectations"-expectations which people had been brought up to consider both legal and equitable. Such an expectation, in our country, is that of succeeding to one's father's property. But no one can have such an expectation till he is born, nor even for some few years afterwards. We may therefore, from every point of view, equitably enact that, from the date of the law, no land shall descend to any person then unborn. We may also rightly add that it shall descend only in the direct line that is to children and children's children living at the time of passing the Act, because no collateral relatives have any just or reasonable claim or expectation of succeeding to the land. 1 This problem is more fully treated in chapter xxviii. of this volume. Here then, by this simple and perfectly equitable principle, we have found a means of transferring the people's land back to the people, by a gradual process which would rob nobody and cost nothing; and thus the whole huge mountain of difficulty which has induced Mr. Spencer to look upon the restoration of the land as a moral and financial impossibility crumbles into dust. The mode of acquiring the land now suggested was advocated in my first article on Land Nationalization (see Chap. XVI.), and I myself, and many of my friends, still think it to be the best. Of course we may and do also advocate the power of compulsory purchase by local authorities to supply the immediate wants of the people. But while this was being done, wherever needed, land would be continually accruing to the State by the dying out of the direct heirs of landlords; and land thus acquired, always administered by the local authority and the proceeds of the rents equitably divided between the State and the locality, would continually reduce the weight of both imperial and local taxation. This concludes all that needs now be said of Mr. Spencer's new work. There are some other points I should have liked to touch upon, but they are of less importance from our present point of view. I hope that I have shown with sufficient clearness the fallacies that underlie his recent utterances, and have thereby enabled all land reformers to continue with a good conscience to quote the burning and logical denunciation of landlordism to be found in Social Statics, notwithstanding the author's recent attempt to minimize the effect of them. CHAPTER XIX SOME OBJECTIONS TO LAND NATIONALIZATION ANSWERED. In the present chapter I deal with a few of the most frequent of the objections of those who oppose Land Nationalization, and also discuss a few of the difficulties which are often felt even by those who are fully in sympathy with the principle. State-tenants versus Freeholders. When Nationalization of the Land is advocated, a great many people reply, "I don't see the good of Nationalization, I prefer freeholders to State-tenants." Let us therefore see what are the comparative advantages of the two modes of tenure. In order that the greatest number of people may become freeholders, many Liberals advocate the abolition of all restrictions on the sale and transfer of land. They say, make every man who owns land an absolute owner, with power to sell, or divide, or bequeath as he pleases, and plenty of land will come into the market. Then, every one who wants land can buy it, if able to do so; and if the mode of transfer is also made simple and cheap every thing will have been done that need be done. We shall then have free trade in land; there will be no limited or encumbered estates; and capital will flow to land and develop its resources. But people who talk thus forget that we have already had two great experiments of this nature, both supported by these very arguments, and that both have utterly failed. About forty years ago the dreadful condition of the Irish peasantry was imputed to the prevalence of entailed and encumbered estates the owners of which had no money to spend on improvements, and a most radical measure was passed by which all these estates were brought into the market and sold to the highest bidder. But the result was not as expected. Capital flowed into the country, but with no benefit to any one but the capitalist. English manufacturers and speculators became owners of Irish land, and sometimes laid out money on it; but they were harder landlords than those whom they replaced; they looked upon the land they had bought merely as a means of making money, and utterly ignored the equitable or customary rights of the unhappy tenants. Irish distress was not in the least degree ameliorated by this drastic measure from which so much was expected, and it is now rarely spoken of, while legislation on totally different lines has been found necessary. The second example of the utter uselessness of pouring capital into a country so long as the people are denied any right to the use of land is afforded by Scotland. In the early part of this century, the great demand for wool made sheep-farming profitable, and many of the highland landlords were persuaded that they could double their incomes by establishing great sheep-farms on their vast estates. They did so. Many thousands of valuable sheep were introduced; much money was spent in fencing and in building new farmhouses for the lowland farmers, while the rights of the hereditary dwellers on the soil were utterly ignored, and, by a series of barbarous evictions, these poor people were banished to the sea-shore, or forced to emigrate. The result was, for a time, beneficial to the landlords, who proclaimed the scheme a great success; but it was most disastrous to the people, who, ever since, have been kept in a state of serf-like subjection and pauperism. The present condition of the Highlands is a direct consequence of the application of capital to the land by landlords while the rights of the people were ignored; and the result of these two great experiments in Ireland and Scotland should teach us that any similar experiment in England cannot possibly lead to good results. It is true the conditions of society in England are different. There are here more capitalists ever competing for the possession of land; but "free trade" would simply enable those wealthy capitalists who desire land to obtain it more easily. What chance would the poor man have against such competitors? With population and wealth and manufactures ever increasing, as they are in England, the poor man will have less and less chance of getting land, so long as it is to be obtained solely by purchase, and there is neither compulsion to sell, nor right to buy at equitable prices. Effects of Land Monopoly. As land is ever getting scarcer in proportion to population, and in private hands must necessarily be a monopoly, it offers the greatest temptation to speculators, who even now frequently buy up estates offered for sale and resell them in small plots at competition prices which no poor man can afford to give; and this will continue to be the case so long as land is treated as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit. We maintain that this is a monstrous wrong and should never be permitted. Land is the first necessary of life, the source of food and of all kinds of wealth, and a sufficiency for health and enjoyment is absolutely needed by every one. It is a political crime to permit land to be monopolized by a few, to allow the wealthy to employ it for mere sport or aggrandisement, while thousands live in misery and have to suffer disease and want because they are denied the right to live and labour upon it. In order that all may have equal rights to use and enjoy the land of their birth, it must become, not theoretically only, but actually, the property of the State or Local authority in trust for all; and for all to derive equal advantages from it, those who occupy it must pay a rental to the State for its use. This is the only way to equalise the advantages derived by the several occupiers of land of different qualities and in different situations |