NATIONALISATION OF LAND.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3625, 23 February 1883, Page 4

NATIONALISATION OF LAND.

Recently at ameetintr in Liverpool, over 1000 people being present, the PostmasterGeneral, Mr Fawcett, a recognised authority 011 political economy, said : — So far as I have been able to understand the proposal, it seems to be contemplated that the State shall acquire possession of all the land. Those who advocate the scheme may be divided into two parties— viz., those'who hold with Mr Henry George the extreme opinion that the existing owners should be dispossessed by the State without compensation, while others consider that a fair compensation should bo given. No words are required to show the injustice of appropriating laud without compensation, nnd happily such a proposal lias received hardly any support in this country. It is not only" the property of the wealthy owner which would bo confiscated; the Miiall proprietor who by years of careful thrift and patient toil had acquired a plot of land, he too would be engulfed m this whirlpool of spoliation. It would be impossible to say where this wholesale appropriation would stop. The large landowner and the peasant proprietor would not be its only victims. If the State were to take without compensation all the land of the country, the workman, who through the agency of a building society is now abb to call his houso his ovm, would find Limscli dispossessed of the laud on which it "stands. H rlio nationalisation of the land without compensation is thus flagrantly iuijust, it can, J. think, be shown that nationalisation with compensation, though not so unjust, would prove incalculably mischievous in its consequences. It has been estimated that the annual rent of the agricultural land in this country is £00,000,000. Take this at thirty years purchase, and the amount of compensation required for the agricultural land alone would be .£2.000,000,000, or nearly three times the amount of the national debt, And when the State has become the possessor of nearly all the land, what is going to become of it? What principles are to regulate the rents to be charged : Who is to decide the particular plots of land that should be allotted to those, who apply for them r If the rent charged is to bo determined by the competition of the open market, in what respect Would a cultivator bo butter olf if he paid a -■onipetition rent to the State instead of to a private individual r And if the market price is not to be charged who is to bear the ]..«.<.' From what fund is the deficiency to bo"made goml ? Depend upon it, there is unly one to this question—vt must ci £uL tils h t,.:i. Ii ±c Government owned iLe 'iCuiii auu c:zoe ioc-gaii letting it on any other terms than those which regulate the transactions of ordinary commercial life, there would be opened indefinite opportunities for State patronage and favoritism, and the demoralising that would ensue would be more far-reaching and more baneful in its consequences than even the pecuniary loss which the scheme would involve. If land were to be allotted as a matter of patronage, who would have the fertile spots, and who would be relegated to those barren soils which under the moot favorable conditions will scarcely pay for cultivation ? The idea, which, I believe, forms the foundation of all these schemes ot nationalisation is that, with the advance in the wealth and population of the country, the value of the land constantly increases, and that the portion of the additional value which docs not result from nn application of capital and labor, but is the consequence (>f the general progress of the nation, is properly belonging rather to the nation than to'the individual, and might therefore bn fairly appropriated by the State. Practical effect was sought, to l>o given to this idea in the proposal made by Mr J". B. Mill not long before his death—that the State should appropriate what he termed theuneamed increment in the value of land. No one can possibly feel a higher respect for Mr Mill's authority than 1 do. As a political economist and a political thinker be must always occupy the highest rank, and personally I have derived so many advantages from his writings that I owe him a debt of gratitude which it is impossible over adequately to describe. But although this proposal with regard to the "unearned increment" of the land, sanctioned by his high authority, is deserving of most careful consideration* it seems to me that it can be defended neither on grounds of justice nor of expediency. If the State appropriated this unearned increment, would if not be bound to give compensation if laud became depreciated through no fault of its owner, but in consequence of a change in the general circumstances of the country r Although there is, perhaps, uo reason to suppose that the recent depression in agriculture will be permanent, yet it cannot be denied that in many districts of England there has been a marked decline in the selling value of agricultural laud within the last few years. If, therefore, the State in prosperous times appropriates in increase in value, and if in adverse times the falling oft' in value has to lie borne by the owner, land would at once have a disability attached to it which belongs to no other property. If we purchase a house, a manufactory, or a ship, we take the jmrcha.se with its risks of loss and chances of gain; and why with regard to laud, and to land alone, should ;t purchaser have all the risks of loss and none of the chances of gain r I fear, in making these remarks I may have wearied you ("No.no"); but the importance of the subject must be my apology, for I cannot help feeling that the advocacy of such proposals as thoso to which T have referred will take us, with regard to land reform, exactly in. the opposite direction to that in whieh'we oiiLrht to move. If we associate with the ownership of the land any disability or disadvantage which does not belong to other kinds of property, a direct discouragement is uttered to the investment capital in the improvement of the soil, whereas what above all things should be striven after is to promote the free fiow of capital to agriculture.