NATIONAL TAXES 39 



lively, the land of England belongs to the 

 people of England." All this sounds very 

 like accepting the most extreme proposals for 

 the recognition of the nationalisation of the 

 land. If the land belongs to the people, 

 surely the people have a right to do what 

 they like with their own, and inter alia, to 

 impose any taxation they please. 



Anyone, however, who reads the reports of 

 cases in which the people try to assert their 

 supposed rights to the ownership of the land 

 in the courts of law, will soon discover that 

 in practice, if the national ownership of land 

 ever existed (except as a convenient legal 

 fiction), it has long since been abandoned. In 

 the language of the people, the people have 

 not the right even to look at the land which 

 is said to belong to them, and at the instance 

 of a private person, the right of access may be 

 denied to the most beautiful scenery and to 

 the most imposing historical monuments. 



