My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

320 MY LIFEfuture " unearned increment " of land values forthe State, to which purpose it was to be strictlylimited. I accepted the offer, but proposed a newclause, giving the State power of resuming possessionof any land on payment of itsnet value at the time,because, as I pointed out, the greatest evil was themonopoly of land, not the money lost by the community.This he himself supported, but suggestedgiving not the current value only, but somethingadditional as compensation ; and I think the clausewas drawn on these lines.The last letter I had from Mill was in April, 1871,when a great public meeting of the Association wasto be held on May 3, as to which he said, " It wouldbe very useful to the Association, and a great pleasureto myself, if you would consent to be one of thespeakers at the meeting. There is the more reasonwhy you should do so, as you are the author of onevery valuable article of the programme. Were youto explain and defend that article, it would be aservice which no one is so well qualified to render asyourself." I had then recently visited the stonecircles and bridges of Dartmoor, and also Stonehenge,and urged the importance of preserving them. Atthat time there would probably have been no questionof paying more than the actual selling value of theland, and we should have been spared the disgrace ofhaving our grandest ancient monument, after centuriesof neglect and deterioration, claimed to be privateproperty, and having an exorbitant price demandedfor it. But Mill's death soon afterwards put an endto the Association, and we had to wait many years forthe present very imperfect legislation on the subject.The question of land nationaUzation continued at