exposed to far greater risks than other property, and therefore ought in reason to pay a much higher rate of insurance.

3 Income from land is, far more than any other income, derived from the "unearned increment" which has grown up, without any outlay or effort on the part of the proprietor, from the industry and exertions of other classes of the community.

4. Land was originally held under the tenure of providing military service, and otherwise contributing a large percentage of its proceeds to the support of the State, from which it was only relieved by that most iniquitous robbery, only possible with a legislature of landlords, the commutation of the Land-tax for a wholly inadequate payment, and in many cases by the direct robbery of giving Church property, which was devoted to public uses, to private courtiers and favourites.

For these and other reasons I think that property in land, and especially that portion of it which is derived from "unearned increment," ought to bear a larger share of public burdens, both Imperial and local. This is not the place to enter fully into a discussion of this very difficult and complicated question, but I may illustrate my meaning by giving a practical instance which happens to have come under my own observation.

There is a mountain valley in South Wales which might have been worth £600 to £800 a year as grazing farms. But strata of coal and iron were discovered under the surface, and the result is that upwards of £1,000,000 of capital has been invested, as it has turned out ruinously for the first two or three sets of capitalists, and a town has grown up with a population of 8,000 inhabitants. The fortunate proprietor has got for the last twenty or thirty years, and is now getting, a secure fixed income of £8,000 a year from this property, and I cannot discover that he has ever had to contribute a single sixpence towards any local object. That is, he has already received some £150,000, and has a property which would sell for another £150,000, so that he has had a pure present of £300,000 made to him over and above the original value of his land. Now I consider that the law would have been much more just and more consistent with the interests of the community if the owner of the soil had been obliged out of this £300,000, which is the absolute creation of the population who have grown up on his land, to provide what may be termed the first requisites of civilised existence of a town of 8,000 inhabitants, such as sewers and sanitary arrangements, water and gas, at cost prices; schools, public baths and washing-places, a public park and playground, a public hall and library, &c. The same principle would apply in all cases in which an enormous additional value has been conferred on land by the growth of towns. If a landlord, as is now generally admitted, is not entitled to confiscate his tenants' improvements by raising the rent in consequence of

them, why should not the same principle apply to all improvements which have cost him nothing and in which he has had no part?

The railway companies of England and Scotland have paid not less than £50,000,000 beyond the fair existing value of the land required for their construction to landowners for the privilege of adding certainly not less than £150,000,000 to the market value of their estates, and in many cases relieving them of half the burden of local rates. Who finds the money to make this enormous present to a few fortunate landlords? Practically the travelling public, who have to pay higher fares than would have been necessary if railways could have been built at less cost.

The question of a progressive tax on wealth generally, as distinguished from wealth in land, has been put forward as part of a Radical programme, but it is attended with more difficulty. In the abstract there is no unfairness in making superfluity pay more than necessity for the support of the State, and this principle is already recognised by the present Income-tax. But its application requires great discretion. The crude proposal which I have seen, to tax rich men 50 per cent. on all they possess which is more than is good for them, is simply ridiculous. A sufficient answer to it is to quote Mrs. Glasse's directions for roasting hare, "first catch your hare." It is evident that any special taxation on personal property, carried beyond a certain point, will defeat itself by driving capital out of the country. It must be borne in mind, also, that large accumulations of wealth in the shape of movable capital are, as I have already said, different from large estates in land, inasmuch as they are not monopolies, and are in effect like large steam-engines, powerful and necessary elements in carrying out such operations on a large scale as are required by the conditions of modern civilization. Such fortunes, for instance, as those of the Vanderbilts and Jay Gould's, whatever may be thought of them otherwise, have been the principal means of carrying out thousands of miles of railway in the United States in new districts which would have been left out of the pale of commerce and civilization for many years if there had been no great capitalists to push forward a head of traffic and population.

Probably a heavy succession duty on the passing of superfluous wealth by inheritance would be the best financial mode of dealing with this class of cases.

I have dwelt at some length on these financial considerations, for they are at the bottom of the large social and sanitary questions which aim at an improvement of the conditions of life of the poorer classes, especially in populous cities. Science tells us clearly enough what are the conditions of healthy existence; what sort of houses people ought to live in, what air they should breathe, what water

they should drink, what opportunities they should have for instruction and recreation; but the money difficulty stands in the way of all the necessary improvements.

If the social evils which we all recognise and deplore are to be successfully grappled with, it requires an infusion of fresh energy into the machinery of Government, and especially into that which is the centre and primum mobile of all government, the House of Commons. It is lamentable for one who has sat, as I have done, for more than thirty years in that great assembly to see how it is daily deteriorating in character and efficiency. And this from no deterioration of its members, but, on the contrary, with a distinct improvement in the average standard of information and intelligence of a large majority of them, but solely because it is so fettered by old rules and conventional traditions that a small minority of pretentious bores, wilful obstructives, and factious freelances have been enabled almost to monopolise debate, and consume three-fourths of the time required for public business.

"Freedom of debate," "rights of private members," "grievances before supply," and so forth, are watchwords which had a real meaning and did excellent service in former times, but under existing conditions they resolve themselves practically into rules under which the great and famous council of the nation may be blocked by a Warton, counted out by a Biggar, or prosed to for weary hours of precious time by men who have neither sufficient brain power to condense nor sense enough to know when they are talking nonsense, without any resource but that of folding its hands and groaning in helpless despair. But for the almost superhuman vigour of Mr. Gladstone, what chance would there be of any useful legislation? and if that were taken from it, what would be the state of the House of Commons? A Radical majority seems to me to be essential, if for this reason only, to save Parliamentary Government from dying of dry rot.

When I say "Radical," I must not be supposed to imply that there are not many good and earnest men in all parties, but I think that earnestness sufficient to overcome obstacles is the peculiar characteristic of true Radicalism. As long as the world exists I suppose it will be divided into the two classes of optimists and pessimists, Cavaliers and Puritans, those who take things easily and those who take them earnestly. The former are natural-born Conservatives as the latter are Radicals, the truth, as usual, lying between the two extremes. Now I do not for a moment deny that the tendency of modern progress has, on the whole, been good. The condition of all classes, especially of the working classes, has in my recollection changed greatly for the better. Still I do not think it can be denied that a great deal of evil, and of preventible evil,

exists, and that the complacent optimism in which we indulged some thirty or forty years ago has hardly been realised.

Although wealth has increased enormously, the condition of the poor, especially in large cities, has not improved, but become harder. Education has not extinguished crime; and free trade, with the vast expansion of commerce and manufactures, has failed to secure us against, though it has mitigated, periods of depression, when large numbers of industrious men have been unable to obtain "a fair day's wages for a fair day's work." This very progress, leading to more expensive habits and to ever-increasing accumulations of population in large towns, has in some respects aggravated the condition of large masses, who, either from their own fault or the fault of circumstances, have fallen out of the ranks, and form the waifs and stragglers of the army of industry. Even those who have kept their places, and whose material condition, as tested by wages, is perhaps better than it was fifty years ago, are more and more obliged to live under the depressing influence of miles upon miles of streets of badly-built, grimy, and ill-ventilated houses; and the statistics of drink show to what an extent they are driven to resort to unhealthy stimulants in the absence of pure air and innocent recreation. Let anyone read an authentic narrative of the state of the East-end of London, comprising half of its enormous population, and say whether it is a state of things which requires simply to be let alone, and whether some attempts ought not to be made by more vigorous, or, in other words, more Radical, legislation to remedy, at least partially, some of its more glaring evils.

The question of the "unearned increment" is evidently at the bottom of any remedial legislation. In a recent number of this Review various instances were given of respectable working men living with their families in single rooms. Why? The answer in all cases is, because rents are so high that, even when earning fair wages, they cannot prudently commit themselves to the cost of renting two rooms. And why are rents so high? Because it does not pay to build houses for lower rents. But again, why does it not pay? Not that the cost of bricks and mortar is too great, but that the price, or ground-rent, of the land on which the house stands is so excessive.

Clearly the poorer classes in large towns cannot be better lodged unless some local authority is empowered to do one or other of two things. Either, first, to expropriate land for building purposes at a rate below the present selling value, as fixed on the principle of the absolute and indefeasible right of the landowner to make the most he can of his own; or, secondly, to tax so much of this value as consists of "unearned increment" at a rate which will provide a sufficient fund to enable land to be obtained for the building of proper houses

for the working classes at moderate rents. To raise such a fund by ordinary rates on householders, who are, many of them, only one degree above those whom it is wished to relieve, would be practically impossible, and if possible would be only "robbing Peter to pay Paul." It is clear that the old axioms of political economy as to land have broken down in practice as regards two most essential matters security for tenants' improvements and the housing of the poor; and two questions have been raised which have come, or are fast coming, within the region of practical politics.

1. Is private property in land of such an absolute nature as to entitle the landowner to monopolise the additional value conferred on it by the improvements of others, whether they are the actual cultivators of the soil or the general community?

2. Does it justify the landowner in swelling his income, by building or allowing to be built, on his land, houses unfit for proper human habitation, or raised, by the cost of the land, to rents which the mass of the population cannot afford to pay ?

These questions have to be dealt with, and that soon, and I confess I can see no hope of their being satisfactorily settled by any limited class wedded by self-interest or old traditions to certain preconceived views, or otherwise than by bringing to bear on them a legislature representing the interests, the intelligence, and the right feeling of the community at large, and a Government of earnest practical men who are not readily frightened by shadows or deterred by obstacles.

Again, there is the state of Ireland, the one great and conspicuous failure of the British Empire. We have succeeded in almost all the great undertakings of the British race in modern times; we have faced Europe in arms; struck down the power of the greatest conquerors; founded new nations and prosperous colonies; established an empire of 200,000,000 of fellow-subjects in India; covered the seas with our commerce, and girdled the earth with our railways; reformed our institutions without revolution, and on the whole advanced the moral and material condition of the great mass of our population. But here, at our own doors, within twelve hours of the seat of Government, we have a population of five millions, one half of whom are worse fed, worse clothed, and worse housed than in any part of the civilised or, I might almost say, uncivilised world; and a majority of the other half, as they become better off and better educated, are showing their reviving energy mainly in more active agitation against our laws and institutions. This is the practical outcome of the attempt to apply the maxims of English law and the principles of English political economy to the case of Ireland; and I ask any impartial man to say whether it has not proved itself to be a complete failure, and whether there is any hope that, if we were to follow the advice of men like Lord Salisbury, and continue for