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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 86

A Word to "Land Nationalises."

A Word to "Land Nationalises."

The arguments revived in our generation by John Stuart Mill and Henry George, and the activity of the various societies that have taken in hand the work of diffusing them, have now converted an immense body of public opinion to the Socialist view of the justice of, and urgent necessity for, Nationalisation of the Land; or, at least, the confiscation of ground rents, mining royalties, and similar unearned profits from the soil. Land Nationalises go, generally, so far with Socialists that (in the words of the Fabian "Basis") they "work for the extinction of private property in land, and of the consequent individual appropriation, in the form of rent, of the price paid for permission to use the earth, as well as for the advantages of superior soils and sites."

But some, who are thus far Land Nationalises, still shrink from any interference with the legal powers enjoyed by the holders of capital. Hence a most unfortunate separation exists between them and the Socialists, whose design of nationalising the industrial capital with the land appears to them unjustifiable and unessential.