CHAPTER XXXV 



LAND NATIONALIZATION TO SOCIALISM, AND THE FRIENDS 



THEY BROUGHT ME 



Soon after I returned from the Amazon (about 1853), I 

 read Herbert Spencer's " Social Statics," a work for which I 

 had a great admiration, and which seemed to me so important 

 in relation to political and social reform, that I thought of 

 inviting a few friends to read and discuss it at weekly meet- 

 ings. This fell through for want of support, but the whole 

 work, and more especially the chapter on " The Right to 

 the Use of the Earth," made a permanent impression on me, 

 and ultimately led to my becoming, almost against my will, 

 President of the Land Nationalization Society, which has now 

 been just a quarter of a century in existence. In connection 

 with this movement, I have made the acquaintance of a con- 

 siderable number of persons of more or less eminence, and 

 my relations with some of these will form the subject of the 

 present chapter. 



The publication of my " Malay Archipelago " in 1869, 

 procured me the acquaintance of John Stuart Mill, who on 

 reading the concluding pages, in which I condemn our 

 " civilization " as but a form of " barbarism," and refer, 

 among other examples, to our permitting private property in 

 land, wrote to me from Avignon on May 19, 1870, enclosing 

 the programme of his proposed Land Tenure Reform Asso- 

 ciation, and asking me to become a member of the General 

 Committee. Its object was to claim the future " unearned 

 increment " of land values for the State, to which purpose 

 it was to be strictly limited. I accepted the offer, but pro- 

 posed a new clause, giving the State power of resuming 

 possession of any land on payment of its net value at the 

 time, because, as I pointed out, the greatest evil was the 



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