SOCIALISM  IN  ENGLAND.

299

holdings  for  nothing,  and  have  no  idea  of  virtually  paying  rent
to  the  State—not  even  to  an  Irish  Republic—in  aid  of,  or  in
substitution  for,  the  general  taxation  of  the  community.  It  is
just  possible  that  the  labourers,  who  are  beginning  to  find  out
that  they  have  gained  no  benefit  from  the  recent  agrarian
legislation,  and  who  assert  with  truth  that  the  farmers  are  far
harder  masters  than  the  landlords,  may  be  led  to  adopt  the
Socialistic  programme;  but  their  present  ideal  is  a  better
cottage  and  a  plot  of  land.  When  they  get  the  franchise  they
may  make  their  voices  better  heard;  but  they  lack  “the
sinews  of  war,”  an  essential  for  any  successful  agitation  in
Ireland.
Indeed,  neither  farmers  nor  agricultural  labourers  in  any  of
the  three  countries  are  likely  to  swell  the  cry  for  land  nationalization. ­
  In  Scotland,  the  country  perhaps  most  favourable
to  it,  the  Highland  Land  Law  Reform  Association,  which
lately  (September,  1884)  held  a  gathering  of  the  clans  at
Dingwall,  on  behalf  of  the  unfortunate  Highland  Crofters,  is
a  far  more  infiuential  organization  than  the  Scottish  Land
Restoration  League.  Its  programme,  however,  is  not  socialistic
in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term.  It  merely  asks  for  a  law,
somewhat  similar  to  the  Irish  Land  Act,  to  enable  the  Crofters
to  recover  rights  which  they  have  but  recently  lost.  Radical
changes  in  the  English  Land  Laws  are  pretty  widely  desired,
but  there  is  great  divergence  of  opinion  as  to  the  direction
which  the  particular  changes  should  take.  In  1882  the
Trades  Union  Congress  passed  a  resolution  in  favour  of  land
nationalization,  but  this  resolution  was  rescinded  last  year  at
Nottingham;  and  this  year  the  congress  at  Aberdeen,  while
calling  for  a  measure  which  would  “  provide  for  greater  security
of  tenure,  compensation  for  improvements,  and  bringing  the
land  within  the  reach  of  the  people,”  rejected  an  amendment
intended  to  embody  the  principle  of  land  nationalization.  The
Co-operative  Congresses  have  given  no  encouragement  to  any
scheme  which  does  not  embody  the  principle  of  compensation.
Indeed,  the  question  of  compensation  gives  rise  to  an  awkward
dilemma  :  Without  compensation,  nationalization  of  the  land  is
flagrantly  unjust  and  quite  hopeless  ;  with  compensation,  its