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

322 MY LIFEto the land by the owner or his predecessors, such asbuildings, drains, plantations, etc., would remain hisproperty, and be paid for by the new state-tenants ata fair valuation. The selling value of land was thusdivided into two parts : the inherent value orground-rent value, which is quite independent of anyexpenditure by owners, but is due solely to natureand society ; and the improvements, which are duesolely to expenditure by the owners or occupiers, andwhich are essentially temporary in nature. My experiencein surveying and land-valuation assured methat these two values can be easily separated. Itfollows that land as owned by the State would needno " management " whatever, the rent being merely aground-rent, which could be collected just as thehouse-tax and the land-tax are collected, the statetenantbeing left as completely free as is the " freeholder" now (who is in law a state-tenant), or as arethe holders of perpetual feus in Scotland.This article appeared in the Contemporary Revieivof November, 1880, and it immediately attracted theattention of Mr. A. C. Swinton, Dr. G. B. Clark,Mr. Roland Estcourt, and a few others, who hadlong been seeking a mode of applying HerbertSpencer's great principle of the inequity of privateproperty in land, and who found it in the suggestionsand principles I had laid down. They accordinglycommunicated with me; several meetings were heldat the invitation of Mr. Swinton, who was the initiatorof the movement, and after much discussion as toa definite programme, the " Land NationalizationSociety " was formed, and, much against my wishes,I was chosen to be its president.Our Society being established, it seemed necessaryto prepare something in the form of a handbook or