AN EXAMPLE.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3999, 22 October 1881, Page 1

AN EXAMPLE.

At to the proposal newly made in this colony that th* land shtll.be nationalised, .< itnd the Utopii¥: condition 6f the universe thus made, secure, we find it nutria it nothing new, vot has already for inlay . years, presented, itself to. the, brains of somewhai flighty men elsewhere. In a recent number of. the, Sppetalpr, foe instance, there is, a review of toe autobiography written by a wild and unstable man named Joseph Barker^ who seems t« hare caused a good deal of, trouble and annoyance in his time to whatever neighbourhood he may hare lived isrand' who was in torn Methodist,: Unitarian,/and Atheist, being evidently endowed with the spirit of progress." ?At one part of bis career he;aesoribts 'his plans 'aY foiUws, and _wj. find .that mtQ-ihem^ters the_~ qoestion oF the land. '* x VWbuldi"'; lie writes, "have, no King, no'Qneen, no House of Lords, and no^otaie' Churcbw I would abolish the laws oif entail ahdprimb* geniture, and reduce land 1 to a level with other kinds of property., The sale of land should be as untrammeled as that of common merchandise, and it should bt v liable to be taken for debt. I broached startling views with regard to the right of property in land, and urged that as it wai naturally common property, it should be considered as belonging to the nation or Government^ and made to bear the principal burden of taxation.". . "Holding these opinions," says the reviewer,' 1 #bich he lived long enough to defpise, ' joined the Chartists. , Here, at least, we have no very encouraging illustration of the issues attained by one who hungered after the nationalisation of the land.—N. Z. Tablet. ''