CHAPTER XVIII 



HERBERT SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION : 

 A CRITICISM 



ALL my readers know the name of our great philosophic 

 thinker and writer, Herbert Spencer, but they are perhaps 

 not aware that to him is primarily due the formation of the 

 Land Nationalization Society. In 1853, soon after I 

 returned from my travels in the Amazon Valley, I read his 

 book on Social Statics, and from it first derived the con- 

 ception of the radical injustice of private property in land. 

 His irresistible logic convinced me once for all, and I have 

 never since had the slightest doubt upon the subject. He 

 taught me, that " to deprive others of their rights to the 

 use of the earth is to commit a crime inferior only in 

 wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or 

 their personal liberties ; " and when he added, that how- 

 ever difficult it might be to find a practical means of re- 

 storing the land to the people, yet " justice sternly com- 

 mands it to be done," a seed was sown in my mind which 

 long afterwards developed into that principle of the 

 separation of the inherent value of land from the improve- 

 ments effected in or upon it, which was the foundation of 

 the proposals in my article " How to Nationalize the Land " 

 (see Chapter XVI.), and this article led to my association 

 with Mr. Swinton, Dr. Clark, M.P., and other friends in 

 the formation of the Land Nationalization Society. In 

 one of his latest works, however, entitled Justice, and 

 forming part of his Principles of Ethics, Mr. Spencer repu- 

 diates his legitimate offspring Land Nationalization 



