8 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



The contemporary politics of many countries 

 will provide instances of this. 



Nor is it a fact that these complete land 

 policies, coming so wonderfully to life, are 

 always conceived in insincerity. Doubtless, they 

 often owe their being to the fact that those 

 whose business it is to woo the people recognize 

 that there is no other issue of economics or of 

 politics on which it is so easy to talk in terms 

 of nonsense, and to have speeches without 

 thought acclaimed as valuable political dis- 

 coveries. But certainly they spring up very 

 often in the breasts of men who have never 

 harboured a thought of a parliamentary candi- 

 dature, but who hear that all is not well with 

 the land — that there is a land problem — and 

 feel in perfect good faith that it is assuredly a 

 part of every man's natural comprehension to 

 know how to deal with our common mother, the 

 earth. 



I would fain not be classed with these experts 

 by nature ; and would stand apart also from 

 another class of experts who, having been 

 brought up amidst the intricate maze of tradi- 

 tions which govern the use of the land in Eng- 



