232 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



or Small Holdings Acts can merely serve as 

 palliatives. The unhealthy growth of greed, 

 monopoly and social arrogance on the one 

 side, and on the other dependence and poverty 

 in varying degrees, is so deeply rooted in the 

 past that complete eradication is necessary. 

 The Squire's rule, which individual caprice 

 could always employ as an engine of cruelty 

 and oppression, has from the increased 

 appropriation of the soil by wealthy outsiders 

 gradually lost any good influences it ever 

 possessed. The whole system of individual 

 ownership in the country's soil must be 

 destroyed. 



The two main methods suggested for 

 securing State ownership of the soil are (a) 

 the direct purchase of estates at a fair and 

 reasonable price, or (b) the conversion of 

 privately-owned land into State property by 

 means of a gradually increasing tax, up to 

 20/- in the , on the " unimproved value " 

 of the land. 



The second of these proposals has already 

 been noticed in dealing with the rating of 

 land values. As regards the first of them, 

 which in general appeals to the national 

 sense of fair play and has some kind of pre- 

 cedent in the great Conservative measure of 

 Irish Land-Purchase, the actual price of the 



