MY LIFE 



(7) Tt would also bring about a great moral reform, since all experi- 

 ence proves that the possession of land on a secure tenure is the best 

 incentive to sobriety, industry, and thrift. 



(8) And, lastly, all this can be effected Without any financial opera- 

 tion or increased taxation, and with no greater interference with landed 

 property than is allowed to many of the speculations of capitalists of 

 far less general utility, and often of none whatever. 



Whether the originator of the conference obtained any- 

 thing worth the thousand pounds expended is doubtful. There 

 was no independent and judicial summing-up of the evi- 

 dence adduced, and the opinions expressed, and the great 

 variety and contradictory nature of these opinions, often 

 quite unsupported by any facts, must have left his mind in a 

 state of greater confusion and uncertainty than before. At 

 all events, I believe he did not leave any large sum to be 

 devoted to helping on the cause he had so much at heart. 

 At the meeting devoted to the land question, at which my 

 paper and one by Professor Francis W. Newman were read, 

 the discussion, instead of being kept to the subject of the two 

 papers, consisted mainly of a declamatory battle between 

 the socialists and individualists, both declaring that our 

 proposals were useless, because they were not in accordance 

 with those of either party. Mr. A. J. Balfour, however, did 

 criticize my proposals, declaring, without adducing any evi- 

 dence, that if labourers all had from one to five acres of land 

 on a secure tenure, they could not live on it, and would there- 

 fore be quite as much dependent on the farmers and obtain 

 as low wages as when they were quite landless. This amazing 

 statement was made in the face of the almost life-long experi- 

 ence of Lords Tollemache and Carrington, in four counties, 

 and of facts adduced in the reports of the latest Royal 

 Commission on Agriculture, which an M.P. and prospective 

 Prime Minister ought to have known something about. 

 Professor J. Shield Nicolson also sent a " Note on Dr. 

 Wallace's Paper," the chief points being that five-acre lots 

 would not alleviate agrarian distress in the Highlands — which 

 I knew quite as well as he did — and more especially that my 

 simple method of valuation would utterly break down and 



