THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 December 1883, Page 7

THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREETHOUGHT REVIEW. Sir, —Will you kindly allow me to bring to the notice of your readers the following extract bearing on Land Nationalisation:— " It is well said, 'Land is the right basis of an Aristocracy,' whoever possesses the Land, he, more emphatically than any other is the Governor, Viceking of the people on the Land, The Land is mother of us all ; nourishes, shelters, gladdens, lovingly enriches us all ; in how many ways, from our first wakening to our last sleep on her blessed mother-bosom, does she, as with blessed mother-arms enfold us all Men talk of ' selling' Land. Land, it is true, like Epic poems and even higher things, in such a trading world, has to be presented in the market for what it will bring, and as we say besold'; but the notion of ' selling' for certain bits of metal, the Iliad of Homer, how much more the Land of the World-Creator, is a ridiculous impossibility. We buy what is saleable of it: nothing more was ever buyable. Who can or could sell it to us ? Properly speaking, the Land belongs to these two : to the Almighty God ; and to all His Children of Men that have ever worked well on it, or that ever shall work well on it. No generation of man can or could, with never such solemnity and effort, sell Land on any other principle ; it is not the property of any generation, we say, but that of all the past generations that have worked on it, and of all the future generations that shall work on it." This extract is not, as may be supposed, from the pen of a red-hot follower of Henry George— is from a work called " Past and Present," written by a man honored by all Englishmen name is Thomas Carlyle. 1 am, &c, E. T. New Plymouth, November 10th, 18S3.