Social and Political Views 



tate the enclosure and improvement of common and other 

 lands now subject to the rights of property which obstruct 

 cultivation and the productive employment of labour," 

 Wallace ascertained many years later that no single part 

 of the land so enclosed had been cultivated by those to 

 whom it was given, though certain portions had been let 

 or sold at fabulous prices for building purposes, to accom- 

 modate summer visitors to the neighbourhood. Thus the 

 unfortunate people who had formerly enjoyed home, health, 

 and comparative prosperity in the cottages scattered over 

 this common land had been obliged to migrate to the large 

 towns, seeking for fresh employment and means of subsist- 

 ence, or had become " law-created paupers " ; whilst to 

 crown all, the piece of common originally '' reserved " for 

 the benefit of the inhabitants had been turned into golf- 

 links ! 



Again and again Wallace drew attention to the funda- 

 mental duties of landownership, maintaining that the public, 

 as a whole, had become so blinded by custom that no 

 effectual social reform would ever be established unless 

 some strenuous and unremitting effort was made to recover 

 the land by law from those who had made the land laws 

 and who had filched the common heritage of humanity for 

 their own private aggrandisement. 



With regard to the actual value of land, Wallace pointed 

 out that the last valuation was made in the year 1692, and 

 therefore, with the increase of value through minerals and 

 other products since then, the arrears of land tax due up 

 to 1905 would amount to more than the value of all the 

 agricultural land of our country at the present time ; there- 

 fore existing landlords, in clamouring for their alleged 

 rights of property, might find out that those " rights " no 

 longer exist. 



Yet another point on which he insisted was the right of 



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