284 ^ IV LIFE 



• 



pelling his landlord to vote against his conscience, or to go to chapel 

 instead of to church I The tenant needs protection, the landlord does 

 not.* 



The same results might also be gained (and perhaps more surely) by 

 giving the Parish and District Councils power to take over all houses 

 whose tenants are threatened with eviction, or with an unfair increase 

 of rent; and that will come some day. But the plan of giving a legal 

 permanent tenure to every tenant is so simple, so obviously reasonable, 

 and so free from all interference with the fair money-value of the land- 

 lord's property, that, with a little energy and persistent agitation, it 

 might possibly be carried in a few years. Such an Act might be more 

 or less in the following form: — "Whereas the security and inviolability 

 of the Home is an essential condition of political freedom and social 

 well-being, it is' hereby enacted, that no tenant shall hereafter be evicted 

 from his house or homestead for any other cause than non-payment of 

 rent, and every heir or successor of such tenant shall be equally secure 

 so long as the rent is paid." A second clause would provide for a per- 

 manently fair rent. 



This formed part of my address to the Land Nationaliza- 

 tion Society at its annual meeting in 1895, and one would 

 have thought that some Liberal or Radical or Labour Member 

 would have made an effort to get so small yet so far-reaching 

 and beneficial a measure discussed in the House of Commons. 

 But no notice whatever was taken of the suggestion, and we 

 have had for the succeeding ten years, and have to-day, cases 

 of punishment by eviction for political or religious opinions. 

 It is true that it is but a small and isolated portion of the 

 much greater reform that we advocate, but, unlike most small 

 measures, it goes directly to the root of a shameful oppression, 

 and would do more to elevate the very poor and prepare the 

 way for real reform than many whole sessions of even ' lib- 

 eral " legislation. 



-fe j 



For about ten years after I first publicly advocated land 

 nationalization I was inclined to think that no further funda- 

 mental reforms were possible or necessary. Although I had, 

 since my earliest youth, looked to some form of socialistic 



1 The late Lord Tollemache voluntarily recognized this, and gave 

 his tenant-farmers leases for twenty-one years, determinable at their 

 pleasure, but not at his. 



