274 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chat. 



Before considering how the land so acquired should be 

 dealt with in order to realize the greatest good to the 

 community, and avoid all the evils that, result directly 

 and indirectly from absolute individual ownership, I would 

 call attention to the advantage of the very gradual acqui- 

 sition of the land which the mode here advocated would 

 ensure, so that the necessary machinery for dealing with 

 it might be adequately tested, and much valuable experi- 

 ence gained, before the bulk of the land became national 

 property. By means of the law of intestacy, as already 

 explained, a few estates would at once drop in ; while 

 from the law which limited the future transfers of land 

 to three in number, other estates would lapse in the course 

 of a very few years, and afterwards in gradually increasing 

 numbers,justas the more perfect State and local organi- 

 zation and modified habits of the people became better 

 adapted to utilize the changed conditions of tenure. 



Proposed Land-tenure. 



I will now proceed to explain in detail the exact manner 

 in which the land so acquired should be held by the people, 

 in accordance with the general principles already laid 

 down ; and in doing so, I shall endeavour to show that it 

 is possible to give full satisfaction to every just sentiment 

 of ownership of the land, to every desire for family per- 

 manence, to every home feeling and local attachment, 

 which it should be a primary object of Government to 

 maintain and restore. The encouragement and extension 

 of such sentiments and influences is of the highest im- 

 portance to the real well-being of the community, and it 

 is one of the greatest objections to the present system of 

 land-tenure that, by leading to vast accumulations of land 

 in the hands of comparatively foAV individuals, it has 

 more and more destroyed these beneficial influences, by 

 condemning the bulk of the population to the mere tem- 

 porary occupation of house and land, and has thus made 

 us what an earnest and talented writer has well termed 

 " A Dishomed Nation." ^ 



1 See Rev. F. Braham Zincke, in Contemporary Review, August 1880. 



