XVIII H. SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION 339 



that the vast estates of the abbeys and monasteries whose 

 inmates had educated the people and relieved the poor, 

 were absorbed by them, often for no services at all, often 

 for disgraceful services. We find a little later, in 1692, 

 that the remnant of their feudal duties was, with their 

 own consent, commuted into " a tax of 4s. in the pound 

 on a rack-rent without abatement for any charges what- 

 ever ; " and we find that the valuation made at that date, 

 which we may be sure was a low one even then, has been 

 fraudulently maintained by a landlord parliament to this 

 day, notwithstanding the increase of land-values to many- 

 fold its amount at that date. Yet again we find that even 

 during the past century about three millions of acres of 

 common lands have been most inequitably enclosed and 

 divided among the landlords, thus robbing the people of 

 the last remnant of their rights to their native soil, and 

 creating more pauperism. And lastly, it must be remem- 

 bered that pauperism itself has been a direct benefit to 

 the landlords, inasmuch as the poor-rates were once openly, 

 and are still actually, " relief in aid of low wages " paid 

 by all classes of the community, and which enabled, and 

 still enable, farmers to get cheap labour and landlords 

 higher rents. Under these circumstances, and remembering 

 all these iniquities of the past, even landlord assurance 

 will probably recoil before making the claim Mr. Spencer 

 suggests, that payment of poor-rates since 1630 is really a 

 re-purchase of the land from the people ! 



But in all this discussion and in much more of a like 

 kind that I have neither time nor inclination to notice, Mr. 

 Spencer misses the real point at issue. It matters not 

 to us, now, whether existing landlords or their ancestors 

 got possession of the land equitably or fraudulently, or 

 whether all landlords (as some have done) bought the land 

 at full value with hard-earned money. It matters not 

 whether the ancestors of the present landless class were 

 serfs or nobles, whether they never had land, or whether 

 they sold or gambled away their inheritance. All this 

 has nothing whatever to do with the main question, which 

 is, the essential wrong to the community of private pro- 

 perty in land ; whether to deprive others of the use of 



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