Many people see quite clearly that, the population of England being 25,000,000, the next baby born has a right to one twenty-fifth-millionth part of the area of England in soil of average fertility. The arrangements of society by which the laud is partitioned among a limited class, and the complicated rights sanctioned by law in one plot of land, are considered of no validity as against the natural right of the new-born baby. I do not see this theory to be self-evident: on the other hand the supporters of it always give it as fundamental, axiomatic; they no doubt presume rightly that the land is limited, and that if one man holds more than his arithmetical share, he must push out somebody else from his arithmetical share: while a man who keeps a hundred pocket-knives does not perceptibly hinder other people having numerous pocket-knives. Still I do not see how this consideration weighs against Lord Derby's title to his lands, if the body politic has determined that on the whole it is best for the community that land should not be held equally by all, and sanctions by law Lord Derby's monopoly of a large area. On the theory of the natural right of every infant born to its arithmetical share, the monopolisers of land are liable to a perpetually recurring ransom: this can only practically be carried out by a special National Rate on Real Property (i.e. Land, with the houses, mines, etc., inseparably attached to it), which must be in addition to such taxes as income tax, succession duty, etc., which land already suffers equally with trades, professions, offices, and personalty. The local rates in England exceed £25,000,000 annually; and the ratepayers perhaps reckon this a large enough ransom. I should remark in passing that one man with 1000 acres of land does not dispossess any more babies of their rights than do ten men with 100 acres each. The ransom therefore must be a strictly level rate: to put a higher rate on large holders, or to despoil large holders of a portion of their landed property, will be to work the ransom unfairly. It hence will follow that any heavy ransom is now impracticable. Of late years some farms have gone out of cultivation because they will not pay the tithe, land tax, and rates already on them: to put any heavy ransom on the land would at once throw large areas in England out of cultivation.

The question of the ransom, therefore, is not so all-important as has been considered; the rates at present being £25,000,000, it might be possible to levy an additional national rate of £5,000,000 to keep down the perpetually upspringing rights of new-born infants, without throwing land out of cultivation to any sensible extent. The whole question will lie thus between a total rate of £25,000,000 and £30,000,000. I am about, however, as a corollary to this subject, to suggest a way of forming a National Rate Book which probably would not materially alter the present rating, but which would alter entirely the taking of land for public purposes, and would effectuate all that is good in the phrase the Nationalisation of Land.

This phrase is liberally used but rarely defined. Different orators appear to have quite different ideas as to what it means; and when they explain what they suppose it to mean, they generally prove that, in the way they understand it, it would be serious national damage.

It is unnecessary to observe that landlords now (omitting individual exceptions and idiosyncrasies) expend their best endeavours in getting the best rent they can for their land. They have no prejudices in favour of farms of a particular size; a landlord of a farm of 1000 acres would let it directly in five-acre plots if he could get a better (and equally certain) gross rent by so doing. "Nationalisation" is often taken to mean that Government is to buy land and let it out in small plots. But apart from expense of Government management and objections to Government interference, we may safely assume that there would be a national loss by this procedure: the private owner would discover very quickly if he could make a profit by letting his farms piecemeal.

All Government interference can do to improve the produce of the land is to abolish all restrictive laws, and to make the general tenure of land such that every piece of land shall fall into the hands of that man who is able to make the most of it. The National Rate Book now suggested is designed to accomplish this end. We will subsequently consider how it might assist public companies. As the suggested way of getting a National Rate Book is at first sight rather startling, I would premise that it is no rash invention of mine; it worked admirably in Attica—as see Demosthenes or Boeckh.

To make the National Rate Book, each landowner values (with the magistrate) his land at what price he pleases; the State has the right to buy the land at any time at that price, plus 33-1/3 per cent for compulsory purchase. The magistrate sees that each separate house, farm, and plot is valued separately. No person need prove his title; any man can value any piece of land, and need not prove himself to be owner, tenant, or agent; but any piece of land valued by no one would be claimed as public property.

A man who valued himself unfairly low would not be bought out at once and dispossessed by Government, unless it happened that during that year his land was taken up by Government or by a railway company for some public purpose. The regular course of business would be as follows:—An owner A would put his house and curtilage in the Rate Book at £1200. The sycophant B would come to the magistrate, offer £1600 for the property, and lodge the £1600 with the magistrate. The magistrate then, without divulging the name of the sycophant, would write to A either to rate his house at £1600 (paying a fine for so doing), or to take £1600 for it. If he took the £1600, B would get the property, and Government the increased rate. If A preferred raising his rateable value to £1600, B would get the fine, Government would get the increased rate.

The utmost pressure put upon any owner under this system would be that, if he would not pay rates on x pounds for his property, he would lie obliged to take x pounds for the property.

The 33-1/3 per cent for compulsory purchase is illusory, and I have only put it in the statement of the scheme to meet an objection which I know to be common (and equally illusory). It is clear that if I know I am going to get 33-1/3 per cent for compulsory purchase, whether from Government or a secret sycophant, I shall proportionately undervalue my property. Thus if I estimate the real value of my house and curtilage at £1200, and feel that I do not care if I sell at that price, I shall put it down in the Rate Book at £900. This applies to all owners, so that the allowance for compulsory sale would only artificially depreciate by one-fourth all the rateable values put down in the magistrate's book.

I have not stopped to cumber the statement of this simple plan by adding the details necessary to meet severance of a farm by a railway company, etc. The provisions to meet complicated tenures, etc., would run much the same as in the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act.

It will be at once seen that this form of Rate Book would really nationalise the land by bringing each piece into the hands of him who could make most out of it. If I saw my way to use a piece of laud so that it should be worth £1000 to me, and if on looking into the Rate Book I saw that the present owner only considered it worth £600 to him, I should at once lodge my £900 with the magistrate. A few owners would really feel as Naboth. They could indulge this feeling by putting a very high rateable value on their property. The high rates they would thus have to pay would be the due ransom of the land; but in general every piece of land would pass into the hands of him who could make most of it. There would spring up, as in Attica, a large class of professional sycophants. By their incessant operations, properties small and great would be continually passing from the slothful and the old-fashioned to the enterprising and modern-educated. No nationalisation of the land could get so much out of it or conduce so highly to progress as the National Rate Book. We should have companies and adventurers buying up all sorts of pieces of land, just as formerly they speculated in taking up land for mining in Cornwall. We should see an extraordinary activity in the employment of capital in England.

For all public improvements, as a new street or a Government military station, a few minutes with the map and Rate Book would show the Government officer or engineer the best route or plot to take, and would also show him the exact cost of the land for the scheme. There would be no law expenses, no prolonged fights, no juries, no arbitrations.

Wastes, downs, heaths, bogs, would be rated very low. It would be in the power of Government to take up largely and at small cost large areas of Surrey heaths, etc., to provide air and recreation ground for an evergrowing metropolis. In this manner, too, public commons and quasi-public commons might be secured to the public all over England: a public-spirited town-council or a local Kyrle Society would have a wide field and an immense stimulus for action.

I have not stopped to rebut the common (but mistaken) idea that burdens on the land (being in gross not more than the rackrent) affect the cultivation. Partners have long drunk at market dinners "Confusion to the black slug that devours the English farmer." How is it that these farmers did not (do not) see that there are tithe-free farms (and some tithe-free parishes) in England, and that the tenants of such farms get no advantage by being tithe-free?

As I explain elsewhere, a tenant with several years of his lease to run is (economically considered) a part landowner: if the tithe were suddenly abolished, tenants with leases would get relief as well as their landlords. So if a new tax or rate is laid on land (and made payable by the tenant), all tenants with leases will have to pay such tax or rate out of their own pocket so long as their lease lasts; afterwards it will fall wholly on the landlords.

It is repeated now, in nearly every country newspaper, that the English farmer cannot compete with the American grower because of the burdens on the land of England. I will not write out (I cannot improve) Ricardo's proof that rent does not enter into price. The "burdens" on land are really first charges on the rackrent and do not affect a year-to-year tenant at all. When a farmer meditates taking a farm he asks not merely what is the rent: he inquires what is the tithe, what the average amount of the rates (and is that likely to increase or diminish during the next seven years); the intending tenant only wants to know what sum in all he will have to pay for the farm; whether any of this payment is called tithe or not, or whether some of it is quit-rent, or whether he is to pay the land tax for his landlord's convenience,—about all this he cares nothing; they are mere questions of names to him.