Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/533

human race, we might make short work of the matter. But, unfortunately, most of our present land-owners are men who have, either by their own acts or by the acts of their ancestors, given for their estates equivalents of honestly earned wealth, believing that they were investing their savings in a legitimate manner. To justly estimate and liquidate the claims of such is one of the most intricate problems society will one day have to solve.

What Mr. Spencer advocates is, in short, that the land should revert (a) to the human race, (b) after payment of compensation. And it seems to be generally admitted that the compensation would amount in the shape of interest on purchase-money to a greater sum than is now paid in rent.

So far, Mr. Laidler and Mr. Spencer do not seem to have much in common. The one point on which they do agree is that the existing titles to land are not legitimate, because they are founded on "force or fraud." Let us apply this view to England. When this country was conquered by the Normans the land fell into the hands of the sovereign, or, in other words, the State. It was then granted out in part to Normans, and in part to existing owners. How can it be said that the grantees obtained their land by force or fraud? They obtained it by grant from the State. The title of the State which made the grants did, no doubt, depend on conquest or force. But if this fact is to invalidate the title of existing owners, it must, a fortiori, utterly destroy the title of the State to resume its possession to-day.

The schemes, then, for dealing with the land appear to be three in number: (1) Mr. Laidler's, that the land should revert to the State without compensation; (2) that it should so revert with compensation; (3) Mr. Spencer's, that it should revert to the human race with compensation. Of these, the first has been truly described as robbery, and the second as folly. The third seems to be a philosopher's dream.

I have the honor to be your obedient servant,	Darcy Wilson.
Boodle's, St. James's Street, November 16th.

 

MR. SPENCER'S THIRD LETTER.

To the Editor of "The Times":

Sir: I suppose I may make a denial without continuing a controversy; and, unless I make it, a grave charge against me will remain unrebutted.

Over and over again Mr. Greenwood refers to the statement that I have said that "to right one wrong it is sometimes necessary to do another," and apparently wishes to force it upon me notwithstanding what I supposed was a sufficient repudiation. Being unable to recall all the contents of some ten thousand pages, written during forty years, I said as much as it seemed pos-