THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. 



eminent Board, and administered, on the principles here suggested, 

 by the local authorities. For those who refuse there will be the 

 scorn and contempt of all good men. In the burning words of 

 Scott, 



" High though his titles, proud his name, 

 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, 

 Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 

 The wretch, concentred all in self, 

 Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 

 And doubly dying, shall go down 

 To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 

 Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." 



But the above-named amount is only a part, a very small part, of 

 the wealth that is immediately available. There are sitting in the 

 House of Lords sixty peers who hold possession of land producing 

 a rental of over 50,000 a year each. The sum total of these sixty 

 rentals is 5,405,900, so that the amount of the surplus is 2,405,000 

 a year, and as the average rental is something over a pound an acre, 

 this surplus represents considerably more than two million acres of 

 land. The owners of this surplus land should also be invited to 

 make it over to the nation, to be used, temporarily, for the bread 

 fund, but ultimately for the establishment of the co-operative col- 

 onies. Surely these sixty noble lords will not refuse, from their 

 great superfluity, to return a portion to the nation, for the use of 

 those workers who give to the land all its rental value! 



But these two surplus revenues, amounting to more than four and 

 a half millions a year, are over and above the enormous revenues 

 derived from the great London estates. Some of these would be 

 wholly available as surplus, since their owners possess incomes of 

 50,000 a year from other sources; while, in other cases the total 

 incomes would be brought to a higher amount than 50,000 by the 

 addition of the London property. There is thus^ available a fund of 

 at least six or seven millions a year, without reducing any rich man's 

 income below 50,000 a year. 



But we should not wish to shut out from this great act of restitu- 

 tion to the nation those persons who possess the comparatively mod- 

 erate wealth of from 10,000 a year upward, who might be invited 

 to contribute 10 per cent., 20 per cent., 30 per cent., or 40 per cent, 

 of their surplus over the same number of thousands in their income; 

 and this would certainly produce another million or two million per 

 annum, as there are over a thousand persons in this class with an 

 average income of about 18,000 per annum. 



