294 
SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. 
an account of the rival scheme of land nationalization proposed 
by Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the celebrated naturalist. 
In 1882 Mr. Wallace published his book, “ Land Nation 
alization ; its necessity and its aims,” with the object of showing 
that “a properly guarded system of Occupying Ownership under 
the State ” would afford a complete remedy for the evils of 
landlordism, and of explaining how the change may be prac 
tically effected “ with no real injury to existing landowners,” 
and “ without producing any one of the evil results generally 
thought to be inseparable from a system of land nationalization.” 
In the earlier chapters of his book Mr. Wallace discusses the 
causes of poverty in the midst of wealth, and illustrates the 
evils resulting from Irish, English, and Scotch landlordism 
mainly by quotations or compilations from well-known writers. 
He then contrasts the system of Occupying Ownership with 
that of Landlordism, and endeavours to show that “just in pro 
portion as the cultivator of land has a permanent interest in it, 
is he well off, happy, and contented.” Mr. Wallace’s piethod 
is an induction from facts, but he claims the support of Mr. 
George’s deductive reasoning, which, he says, is “ founded on 
the admitted principles of Political Economy, and the general 
facts of social and industrial development.” Finally, in his 
last chapter, after maintaining that Free Trade in land, as 
advocated by many English Liberals, would merely have the 
effect of increasing the large estates and intensifying the evils 
of Landlordism, Mr. Wallace propounds his own solution of 
the question, which may be summarized as follows :—The State 
must be the sole owner of the land. 1 he tenants under the 
State must have a permanent tenure, and must be subject to no 
restrictions as to cultivating, selling, or transferring their holdings \ 
but sub-letting must be absolutely prohibited, and mortgages 
strictly limited. The ownership of the State is not to be merely 
nominal, as in England to-day, but is to involve the receipt 
of a perpetual quit-rent in respect of the inherent value of the 
land. The amount of this quit-rent will be determined in the 
following way :—An elaborate valuation of every separate plot 
of land in the United Kingdom will have to be made, and the 
annual or rental value so fixed must be divided into two parts.