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SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.
connected with more than one newspaper, first as a compositor
and afterwards as managing editor.*
As early as 1869 Mr. George made the land question his
special study, and in 1871 he published a pamphlet entitled
“ Our Land and Land Policy.” Many of his peculiar economic
theories—those, for instance, on the laws of wages, interest, and
population—are, perhaps, largely due to a hasty generalization
from what he saw going on in California, where there was
originally fertile and even gold-producing land to spare, but
where small settlements were rapidly developing into towns and
cities, and “ the tramp was appearing with the locomotive.” In
1878 a minor official position gave him leisure to develop his
theories in his great work, “ Progress and Poverty.” In October,
1881, Mr. George came to this country as correspondent of
the Irish World, a paper which represents the revolutionary
Separatists among the Irish-Americans. In June, 1882, he
lectured in the Rotunda, Dublin, on the Irish Land Question ;
but as he advocated the abolition of private property in land
as opposed to a peasant proprietary, the aim of the Land
Leaguers, he did not succeed in making many converts. Early
in the present year (1884) Mr. George again visited England in
order to undertake a lecturing campaign under the auspices of
the Land Reform Union. A large meeting was held in St.
James’s Hall, London, on the 9th of January, when the chair
was taken by Mr. Labouchere, M.P. Mr. George also addressed
meetings in Plymouth, Birmingham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh,
Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, and other places ; but although
he frequently carried his audience with him, the lecturing tour
* About this time (1865) Mr. George drew up a set of rules for his
future conduct in the form of a little essay, which is published by his admiring
biographer as “throwing so much light” on the character and career of
his hero. In it he says :—“ I am constantly longing for wealth. . . .
Wealth would bring me comforts and luxuries which I cannot now obtain ;
it would give me more congenial employments and associates ; it would
enable me to cultivate my mind, and exert to a fuller extent my powers ; it
would give me the ability to minister to the comfort and enjoyment of those
whom I love most; and therefore it is my principal object in life to obtain
wealth, or at least more of it than I have at present.” He then expresses
disgust at the little progress he has made in the past towards attaining this
end, and makes the good resolution to amend his ways in the future.
