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rise, rents and land values increase, the net result of prosperity being to increase rent. All produce, over and above what is necessary for a bare subsistence, tends to resolve itself into rent, and thus to percolate in a variety of ways out of the hands of those who produce into the hands of those who receive rent, and who do not produce, but live upon what is produced by others, to whom it is desirable that the increase in production should go, in order that the general standard should be raised, and poverty diminished if not eliminated.

Our system of social irrigation is bad-the gradients of the social fabric are so arranged, that the waters of life run too rapidly and too exhaustively down the myriad streams of existence into the great sea of landlordism, and are lost in an ocean already filled to repletion, leaving behind a few well-to-do rivers, several struggling streams, and numerous dried-up water-courses.

Then follows a consideration of the ownership of land.
To whom does the land belong?

It is said that a body of Puritans passed three resolutions :

I.

That the earth is the Lord's.

2. That he has given the earth to his people.
3. That we are his people.

Absurd as they seem, and are, when put in this bare way, the people of England at this day virtually acknowledge the force of these resolutions. How we wrap ourselves round with the drapery of false notions! A fiction or a phrase blinds our perception, takes possession of our imaginations, and the clever rogue who invented them walks off with the real thing, while we are hugging ourselves in the intense enjoyment of the unrealities which his sophistries have created, and meanwhile the eternal laws of God are held in abeyance.

To whom, I say, does the earth belong?

If one could take a list of the present owners of land in England, and trace back their titles to the original source from whence they came, it would be found that the great bulk of landed property has been inherited from people who obtained it in a questionable, immoral, or dishonest way. The larger portion would be found to be in the possession of those whose ancestors were the assistants or the favorites of men who conquered this country, when prevailed—

"The good old rule, the noble plan

That they shall get who have the power,
And they shall keep who can."

Another portion would be found in the possession of the descendants of the ignoble favourites of Henry VIII., Charles II., and others of the divinely appointed rulers under whom England and Englishmen have suffered for centuries.

And we should find another large portion of land, which was once common-land, had been quietly but effectually enclosed and added to existing estates, by a conscientious old nobility.

If we said that all this was wrong, we should be told that the country had allowed these methods to be adopted, that possession had been so

long held that a legal right had been established, and the law recognized the right.

It is possibly useless to reply that we had no hand in producing or allowing to be produced such a state of things-that we ought not to suffer for the negligence of some, and the rapacity and dishonesty of others of our ancestors-that we do suffer, and that if the law has allowed a state of things to exist by which we suffer, we have a right to expect the law to rectify the wrong and ameliorate the suffering.

The landowners have inherited their lands, and they insist on the inalienable rights of inheritance, but why do they sever from the land the wrong and immorality by which they came into their possession?

But other things than these have been inherited-the wrongs, the suffering, the spoliation to which our ancestors were subjected, the protests which they failed to make effectual-the rights which they could not sustain-these we have inherited-these are our possession.

And why should the landowners stick to the best part of their inheritance and drop the worst, and expect us to forget that we also have an inheritance?

On other grounds than these-and higher grounds-Mr. George proceeds to argue this question. He not only shows that land is unjustly held, but he asserts that there should be no such thing as private ownership of land. He considers that it is, like air, the common possession of all mankind. That every man has a right to an equal enjoyment of the use of it. "We cannot do, we cannot exist without it," he says, "and no man can add to or take away one particle of it."

His argument is not that the country should be split up into little lots, each man existing on his own patch-but that the whole people, through the Government of the people, ought to be the holders and owners of all land.

Thus each of the inhabitants would benefit in his degree in a rational way. There is no advocacy of communism of levelling up-of equal distribution of goods in this work. It is not so quixotic.

Having established, as he thinks, the assertion that all the people have an equal right in the land, he goes on to show how he proposes that, in the present complex state of things, the idea should be carried into effect. He would interfere as little as possible with existing institutions, and adopt a process which would be productive of as little harm and injustice as the doing of a great right and the establishment of a supreme act of justice could well be. A process which has the merit of being prac

ticable.

His proposition, in short, is for the Government to take possession of all land rents. Simply land rents, not the rents of houses, or of any improvements, or human productions, which may bring rents or increased rents. Whatever man has achieved, that, and the results of it, he would leave in the hands of the present holders. But the land-the gift of the Creator to all his creatures-that he would confiscate from the individual and give to the Government for the benefit of the whole community.

This is a radical solution, and radical it needs must be, seeing that the evils to be remedied are too deep for superficial means to avail much in the moving of them.

To many, perhaps to most, certainly to those people who would suffer directly, it may appear that the adoption of the solution suggested would be productive of more harm than good.

They would ask why those who have worked hard and with the produce of their labour bought land should be deprived of it?

To this we could only make the harsh, and somewhat unsatisfactory reply, that they are a minority, and, as a minority, must suffer somewhat for the general good; and we should add that they would not suffer so much as at the first sight it would appear they would. They would benefit in the general advance and prosperity of the whole community. But they would reply, how would this process cause the general community to advance and prosper? In this way. If the Government took possession of all land rents it would receive an income therefrom which would enable it to abolish all other rates and taxes-thus removing numerous restrictions detrimental to trade and the use of land-the removal of which would cause an expansion which would return in benefit to each and all of the inhabitants of the country.

This process would also abolish fees for transfer of land, costs of collecting taxes, costs of litigation in connection with land, and numerous other processes of expenditure which are at present a dead tax upon the nation. It would bring into cultivation also much of the land which is at present unproductive--finding employment for more people, and adding an extra production to the wealth of this country. Do we propose to compensate those from whom the land is taken? Here lies the weakest, and perhaps the least defensible of all Mr. George's arguHe does not propose that compensation should be given, and it is the absence of such a proposal which will probably make a solution of this scheme unattainable-in this country at ieast.

ments.

Still, if we look at the rest of this book we shall find that there is little except this to which overpowering objection can be made, and I think that, adopting his line of argument up to this point, a method which may be more acceptable and therefore more practicable may be found.

Certain it is that the present state of things cannot continue to exist. We have graduated-very slowly--from a worse state of things, and we shall continue to graduate, at an increasing ratio of speed, I believetowards a better state; and this little book will have had some part in accelerating our motion for

"Never yet,

Share of truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed;
After hands, from hill and mead,
Reap the harvests yellow."

GETON.

Song.

WHERE is the green-kirtled spring?
Remembrance of her prompts my song,

I will ask yon wild bird on the wing
Can he tell where she lingers so long.
Stay, sweet bird !

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Clippings.

HE following clippings from the Solihull Satellite of June 31st, 2253, may be found interesting.

PROFESSOR CERTAIN'S LECTURE.-Last night at the Institute of Universal Knowledge, Professor Certain, M.A., Y.E.S., &c., read a paper on The Time will come. The learned Professor shewed his vast knowledge of our Literature, Science, and Art, by quoting an infinite number of authorities to shew that the Time would come. Amongst others, he adduced the lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet:

"The time is out of joint; O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it right."

These lines, he contended, contained a flagrant and palpable interpolation. A beautiful metaphor culled from the field of medicine has been spoilt by some meddling hand. When anything is out of joint, the obvious duty of the surgeon is to set it-in splints or otherwise-until it coalesces again. The lines, therefore, should read :— "The Time is out of joint; O cursed spite

That ever I was born to set it."

It is merely some tenth-rate critic who has added the word "right," for the paltry sake of the rhyme. Now how had the Time got. out of joint? By overstraining itself in running, of course; and it was running thus hard, that it might come, and come the more quickly. Thus the Professor proved from Shakespeare that the time will come-nay, probably would now have been here, but for the unfortunate accident above alluded to. Again, he referred to a favourite remark of the eminent tragedians of the past. They were men whose very business it was to perceive the hidden springs of life, and to study the nature of things; and they were continually reiterating, with tragic solemnity and every accompaniment of dramatic gesture, The Time will come. Were we to suppose they were telling lies all the time? These are only single instances of the many which the learned Professor gave to prove his position. Altogether, the large audience was delighted by a most able and instructive address.

DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT MARBLE STATUE.-In some recent excavations made in the neighbourhood, a workman came upon an ancient marble statue in a state of excellent preservation. The only damaged part was the nose, and this is probably owing to the man's pickaxe having struck against that part of the face. It has since been recognised as that of George Dawson, a celebrated orator who lived in the 19th century. It is a magnificent specimen of sculptor's work,

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