Appendix IV

THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE LAND

By SAMUEL SMITH, M.P.

Up till recent years no such phrase as the Nationalization of the Land was heard in England. It is doubtful if the idea it conveys was even intelligible to the mass of the people. In other countries it may possibly have been used as a symbol of extreme socialistic theories, but to all intents and purposes it is only within the last three or four years that the group of ideas indicated by this novel term has taken any hold of the average British mind.

It can, however, no longer be said that those ideas lie outside the scope of public discussion: though it is true that very few of our leading statesmen have deigned to notice them, and, though few publicists of any weight have lent their advocacy to the cause, it cannot be denied that they are making way among considerable classes of the community, especially the artisans of our great towns. This rapid progress is no doubt owing very much to the wide circulation of that remarkable book by Henry George, of America, entitled Progress and Poverty, a book which I shall treat in this paper as the chief exponent of those views. It appears to me that our leading statesmen must no longer keep silence on this subject. Though it may appear to them too visionary to admit of serious discussion, it is being diffused so widely among the masses as to forebode trouble in the future, unless met by rational argument.

So far as I understand this novel doctrine, it is that the State ought to own the entire land of the country on the ground that it is the legitimate property of the whole community-that it ought never to have been alienated to private owners-that their rights are usurped, and must be brought to an end either by compulsory purchase, or by simple confiscation. Mr. George goes so far as to advocate the latter method, on the ground that private property in land is as immoral as slavery, and he extends his anathema not only to agricultural land, but to building land in towns, and argues that even a freehold on which the owner has built a house is as much a robbery of the public domain as the largest estate of a Highland Laird. He condemns not only the great estates of our aristocracy, but the small properties of the French peasantry and the homestead farms of the American yeomen. In his eyes the possession of any portion of the

earth's surface by a private owner is theft, and the stolen goods ought to be restored to the public that has been defrauded.

I am not aware that any body of British opinion has endorsed these extreme views. When the Trades' Congress last year advocated the Nationalization of the Land, I do not suppose they meant confiscation, and I question if they extended the term to property in towns. Probably their leading idea was the improvement of British agriculture; and I much doubt if they, or any of their sympathizers in this country have clearly thought out the subject, or perfected any plan for the acquisition of the soil or its cultivation after it was acquired. This phrase has a fine grandiose sound about it, like other well-known catch words, which take captive minds that have not analyzed the question or grappled with the real difficulties of the case. It has a delightful vagueness, which covers many shades of meaning, and makes it no easy task to analyze or refute it.

I shall, in the first instance, deal with the form it assumes in Mr. George's book, where he boldly recommends confiscation on the ground of the immorality of private ownership. I do so because it is quite obvious that the State cannot acquire possession of the soil at full market value without to a certainty making a loss on the transaction, as was well shown by Professor Fawcett in his Liverpool address some two years ago. It is plain to me that as this agitation proceeds it will develop more and more into Communistic lines, and tend to assume the form of naked spoliation.

Now the main ground on which Mr. George makes this startling proposal is, that the land originally belonged to the state or community, and that it was wrongfully granted away to favoured individuals, and he compiles a brief history of ancient civilization to prove his point. I will go with him so far as to allow that before the earth was peopled land was not appropriated, and while population was very sparse it was not worth the while of individuals to claim special plots of land. The origin of all communities that we know anything of was the tribal state, when a clan or tribe, under a chieftain of their choice, roamed over a wide tract of country, supported by the produce of the chase or by their flocks and herds. Agriculture, in our sense of the word, did not exist in the infancy of the race. Our ancestors lived, as savage tribes do now, by hunting and fishing, and afterwards by pastoral pursuits; and so there was no motive for the private appropriation of land. But the point I wish to bring out is that usually private ownership of land arose when agriculture commenced, for the simple reason that no one would toil to raise crops which he could not enjoy. Indeed, so invariable has been the rule, that we may almost say that civilization has never made a commencement, or at least has never advanced beyond a rudimentary stage, till private ownership in land, or at least individual occupancy, was recognized by the law of the State. The necessary stimulus for cultivating and improving the soil was wanting, till security was given that he who laboured should enjoy the fruits of his labour.

But without going back to the dim and dusty records of antiquity,

we have only to take a survey of the condition of the globe to-day to prove the truth of my assertion. We still have in active existence every form of human society, from the most barbarous to the most refined. We still see a large part of the earth tenanted by races as primitive in their habits as our forefathers were when they were clothed with skins of beasts, and possessed the soil of this island in common. Nearly all Africa, considerable portions of North and South America, a large portion of Central Asia, the interior of Australia, New Guinea and many other islands of Polynesia are all in that state of primitive simplicity. In these regions the land is not appropriated; it is either the common possession of the tribe or the battleground of contending tribes. Now, Mr. George gravely assumes that all our modern property and degradation are the result of private land ownership, that all would disappear if we reverted to the happy Arcadian times when land communism prevailed; and it is natural for us to ask if we find an absence of poverty and degradation among those portions of mankind who have preserved the primitive tradition unimpaired.

Let us travel through Africa with Stanley or Livingstone, let us accompany our expeditions to Ashantee, or Abyssinia, or Zululand, in quest of the golden age of plenty-do we find anywhere even a trace of such social well-being as to be worthy of comparison with the worst governed country in Europe? Do we not find slavery, polygamy, the most horrid oppression and barbarous cruelty, the invariable accompaniments of this primitive state of existence? Do not famines and pestilences periodically desolate those tribes, while human life is scarcely valued more than that of the brutes? The Red Indians who once roamed over the North American Continent, and still hold large reserves in the far West, were all Land Communists; there was never private appropriation, nor, as a necessary consequence, was there any agriculture worthy of the name. These rude tribes lived by the chase, and a province that will now support, in plenty, a million of Anglo-Saxons, could scarcely sustain a thousand of these roaming savages. Wherever we find the land unappropriated, whether among Zulus, or Red Indians, or Maoris, or roving Tartars in Central Asia, we find a savage and degraded state of mankind, and we find almost invariably that the first step in civilization is coincident with the private appropriation and careful cultivation of the soil.

So far from the sweeping generalization of Mr. George being true, that human misery and degradation have sprung from private ownership of land, we find from actual survey of the earth at the present time that precisely the opposite is true-that human misery is deepest where the land is not appropriated; and human happiness and civilization most advanced where the land is held by private owners.

I am aware that it will be objected that other things than agrarian causes account for the progress of the advanced races. Christianity, science and trade have elevated Europe, while Africa remains in primitive darkness. This is self-evident to any ordinary person, but Mr. George virtually ignores all moral causes for social progress,

or treats them so lightly as to leave the reader to infer that the possession of the soil is the only vital question for a nation's welfarethat if this be secured to the State, all other things will right themselves, and social perfection be speedily reached. The retort is obvious. Why have those communities that have acted on his principles for thousands of years remained in primitive barbarism, while all advance has been made by nations that discarded them? The reason is plainBecause they are not suited for mankind in a civilized state. Whenever progress is made to a certain stage the land becomes appropriated, while at the same time arts and literature arise, cities are built, and laws are framed. At that stage of human progress, where slavery and polygamy prevail, where private rights are at the mercy of the chief or despot, where agriculture is unknown, and population is kept down by incessant wars and famines, we find the land unappropriated. Wherever these abuses disappear, and the garments of civilization are put on, then private ownership of land appears. The pastoral or nomadic state is exchanged for the agricultural, and dense populations take the place of thinly-scattered tribes.

I am aware that some exceptions may be taken to this large generalization. I cannot go into minute details in such a paper as this. The case of India will present itself as an exception to some of my readers, regarding which I will only say that the State, from time immemorial, has owned the soil of India, and leased it to cultivating tenants; but so far from abolishing poverty, it has always been one of the poorest countries in the world. Speaking broadly, I contend that the theory of human progress I have sketched is nearer the mark than that of Mr. George. I hold that in place of private appropriation of land causing the deterioration of mankind, it usually accompanies their upward progress, and marks the first great advance from barbarism to civilization. If this be true, the main plank of the Communist platform disappears, and the ground is cleared for looking at some other sides of the question.

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But it will now be objected-grant that private ownership of land is the law of civilization, the methods by which it was brought about were unjust; large grants of land were made by kings to courtiers and favourites, great estates were gained by conquest and confiscation, might took the place of right, and the descendants of those “land robbers " to-day should receive no mercy. This is an argument we constantly hear. What is the practical worth of it? No student of history will deny that there have been many cruel conquests, many displacements of population, as weaker races were subdued by stronger; and one incident that usually accompanied those conquests was the allocation of the soil to the conquerors. In this way the corpus of the old Roman Empire was transferred to the chieftains and warriors of the rude tribes that overran it-the Goths, the Vandals, the Huns and the Franks paid little regard to the rights of the subject populations. The feudal system of modern Europe arose out of those conquests, and the land was conveyed by the chiefs to their vassals upon military tenure. In this way the soil of England changed hands, first upon the

Saxon, then upon the Danish, and lastly upon the Norman conquest, and that of Ireland some centuries later upon the English conquest. Very much the same process is going on at this day in all our colonies; the white race is gradually dispossessing the coloured races of their land in South Africa, in New Zealand, in Polynesia, while our American kinsmen have pretty nearly completed the spoliation of the Red Indians of North America.

These processes have usually been cruel and unjust, but it is the work of an archaeologist rather than a statesman to investigate the original titles by which most of the earth's surface passed to our ancestors. None but a dreamer could seriously think that modern titles should be impugned because Alaric, or Attila, or William the Conqueror acted unjustly. Modern civilization is the web woven of the warp and woof of conqueror and conquered, and it is well for humanity that time, which wears away all things, covers with the mantle of oblivion the rough processes by which they were knit together. Nations that are wise seek to bury the hatchet: it is only worthy of children to be ever seeking to keep alive race injuries that are irreparable and hoary with antiquity.

Indeed, those very processes by which the land of most countries has been transferred have been in truth the prelude to a higher civilization. No educated man can doubt that the Norman Conquest has made England a greater nation than it would otherwise have been, and every historian admits that the warlike tribes which overran the rotton and effete Roman Empire paved the way for the far higher civilization of modern Europe.

I dismiss, as the dream of Utopia, the idea that modern land tenures can be upset because ages ago they originated in conquest.

But again we are told that the feudal tenures of mediaeval Europe were very different from modern property rights; they were conditional on military service; the holder of a fief had to appear in the field with his retainers when called upon by his Sovereign; and these obligations, we are told, were unfairly commuted when standing armies took the place of feudal service. I reply, it is quite probable that the nobles made too good a bargain with their Sovereigns when the feudal system broke up, and the military baron was transmuted into the modern squire; but it is far too late in the day to overhaul titles on the ground of dubious transactions in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In all countries the statute of limitations bars inquiry into wrongs after a lapse of years. In England forty years of undisputed possession is adequate to give a valid title, and surely two or three centuries should be enough to satisfy even a legal purist. Further, the greater part of the land of Europe has changed hands by purchase since feudal times; much of it has been transferred many times over. The State has in all these cases recognized the title as indefeasible, and I could not conceive a grosser act of injustice than to confiscate the property of a modern purchaser of land in England, France or Germany because some dusty parchment threw doubt upon a transfer effected in the Middle Ages. Were States to