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

326 MY LIFELongridge Road, South Kensington, when we had along talk, and he afterwards wrote to me as "Mydear friend and philosopher." On the occasion ofthis visit he introduced me to his step-daughter, MissMarie Corelli, a very pleasant young lady, whosefuture eminence as a writer I did not divine.Notwithstanding the scanty means of the majorityof the founders and members, the Land NationalizationSociety has struggled on for more than a quarterof a century. Its lecturers and its yellow vans havepervaded the country, and it has effected the greatwork of convincing the highest and best organizedamong the manual workers, as represented by theirTrades Unions, that the abolition of land monopoly,which is the necessary result of its private ownership,is at the very root of all social reform. Hence thefuture is with them and us, and though the capitalistsand the official Liberals are still against us, we waitpatiently, and continue to educate the masses in thecertainty of a future and not distant success.For about ten years after I first publicly advocatedland nationalization I was inclined to thinkthat no further fundamental reforms were possible ornecessary. Although I had, since my earliest youth,looked to some form of socialistic organization ofsociety, especially in the form advocated by RobertOwen, as the ideal of the future, I was yet so muchinfluenced by the individualistic teachings of Milland Spencer, and the loudly proclaimed dogma, thatwithout the constant spur of individual competitionmen would inevitably become idle and fall back intouniversal poverty, that Idid not bestow much attentionupon the subject, having, in fact, as much literarywork on hand as I could manage. But at length, in1889, my views were changed once for all, and I have