334 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



and for various stated reasons arrives at the conclusion 

 that, though it may be, and is, right in principle, there 

 are insuperable difficulties in putting it into practice, and 

 that therefore " individual ownership subject to State- 

 suzerainty should be maintained." This, of course, will be 

 seized upon by our opponents as a great triumph for the 

 cause of landlordism, though as yet they seem hardly to 

 have realized that a Daniel has come to judgment in 

 their behalf. But we must always remember that they 

 mostly belong to what has been termed " the silly party," 

 and that they cannot therefore be expected to read 

 works on high philosophy. Land Nationalizers, however, 

 who have long quoted, and will continue to quote, from 

 Social Statics not because the book was written by 

 Herbert Spencer, but because it was among the earliest and 

 the most forcible of the arguments against private property 

 in land are bound to show that the philosopher has not 

 refuted his own work, and that it is his later and not his 

 earlier writings that are illogical, and are even inconsistent 

 with the main principles of his own philosophy. 



And first let us see what he still admits. After showing 

 how land-ownership has been derived from conquest or 

 usurpation, and that all the land originally belonged to 

 the Crown as representing the whole nation, he says : 



1 ' If the representative body has practically inherited the 

 governmental powers which in past times vested in the king, it has 

 at the same time inherited that ultimate proprietorship of the soil 

 which in past times vested in him. And since the representative 

 body is but the agent of the community, this ultimate proprietorship 

 now vests in the community." 1 



And he then remarks that even the Liberty and Pro- 

 perty Defence League admit this, saying in their Report 

 of 1889 that : 



* ' The land can of course be resumed on payment of full compen- 

 sation, and managed by the people if they so will it." 



In another place Mr. Spencer states, as proving the 



1 Jtistice, p. 92. 



