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SOCIALISM m ENGLAND. 
mentioned as having organized Mr. George’s lecturing cam 
paign. This society, which has lately taken the name of the 
English Land Restoration League,” derives its inspiration 
from “Progress and Poverty.” It has at present only two 
branches actually formed, one at Plymouth, and one in the 
borough of Finsbury (London) ; but Mr. Verinder, the secre 
tary of the League, informs me that “ arrangements are nearly 
completed for branches in Carlisle, and among the English and 
American residents in Paris.” He further says that kindred 
Leagues, not actually branches, exist at Hull, Birmingham, 
Leeds, etc. This League differs from Mr. Wallace’s Society on 
the question of compensation, by declaring that it “ cannot 
tolerate the idea that the people of England shall be compelled 
to buy back the land which is theirs by natural right, or to 
compensate those who now appropriate their earnings for the 
loss of power to appropriate those earnings in future.” Fol- 
lowing Mr. George, it proposes “ to increase taxation on land 
until the whole annual value is taken for the public benefit.” 
A “Scottish Land Restoration League” has also been 
formed in the present year on similar lines to its English 
sister. Both Leagues seem to be influenced by the Christian 
Socialist movement ; but what in the English programme 
appears as an abstract right, is called in the Scotch manifesto 
“ a gift fresh from the Creator to each generation whom He 
calls into being. ’ The Scotch manifesto, too, magnanimously 
says that it will not raise the question of how much compensa 
tion the landlords should pay to those who have been for so 
long “unjustly disinherited.” 
An attempt has been made to form a similar League in 
Ireland, at Belfast, and Mr. Michael Davitt, the original 
founder of the Land League, though he does not appear to have 
connected himself with the “ Irish Land Restoration Society,” 
has long been known to advocate the socialistic system as 
opposed to the “ reactionary views ” of Mr. Parnell, who has 
always aimed at the establishment of a peasant proprietary. 
There are not wanting some signs of a split on this question 
among the Irish agrarian reformers, but Mr. Parnell has the 
farmers with him almost to a man. They want to get their