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

LAND NATIONALIZATION 321intervals to occupy my mind, but having becomestrongly impressed by the teachings of Spencer, Mill,and other writers as to the necessity for restrictingrather than extending State agency, and by theirconstant reference to the inevitable jobbery andfavouritism that would result from placing themanagement of the whole land of the country in thehands of the executive, I did not attempt to writefurther upon the subject. But when the topic ofIrish landlordism became very prominent in the year1879-80, an idea occurred to me which seemed toentirely obviate all the practical difficulties whichwere constantly adduced as insuperable, and I at oncetook the opportunity of the controversy on the questionto set forth my views in some detail. I did thisespecially because the Irish Land League proposedthat the Government should buy out the Irishlandlords,and convert their existing tenants into peasantproprietors,who were to redeem their holdings bypayments extending over thirty-five years. Thisseemed to me to be unsound in principle, and entirelyuseless except as a temporary expedient, since itwould leave the whole land of Ireland in the possessionof a privileged class, and would thus disinheritall the rest of the population from their native soil.In my essay I based my whole argument upon agreat principle of equity as regards the right ofsuccession to landed property, a principle which Ihave since further extended to all property.^ Butthe suggestion which rendered land nationalizationpracticable was, that while, under certain conditionsstated, all land would gradually revert to the State,what is termed in Ireland the tenant-right, and inEngland the improvements, or increased value given* See my " Studies, Scientific and Social," vol. ii. chap, xxviii.Y