236 Mr. Faraday on 



stock principle. The real question, then, in regard to land 

 is whether (omitting from the consideration all idea of 

 confiscation) nationalisation would be more economical 

 than private ownership ; that is, whether it would pay the 

 shareholders. The difference between a huge corporation 

 like the Great Western Railway Company,owningabout2,500 

 miles of railway, and the Indian Government, owning about 

 12,000 miles, is merely one of degree ; and the desirableness 

 of one or the other proprietorship obviously depends on local 

 circumstances. There can be no cast-iron rule ; that which 

 might be truly economical in India would not necessarily 

 be so in this country. It is too often overlooked that the 

 proverb " circumstances alter cases," has a very serious 

 application in economics. In his book " Le Collective 

 isme," M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu has advanced ver}' co- 

 gent arguments tending to show that the cessation of 

 private ownership in land would not be economical ; in 

 short, that it would tend to diminish the general wealth of 

 the community. Though benevolently disposed towards 

 some of the ideas of the collectivists, M. Emile de Laveleye 

 has given, in his various writings on Continental agriculture,, 

 very forcible illustrations of the economic advantages of 

 peasant proprietorship, which is, after all, an extreme form 

 of private ownership. In his posthumous essay on " The 

 Law of Value and the Theory of the Unearned Increment," 

 Sir Louis Mallet has also vindicated the economic theory 

 of property in land. {^Free Exchange. By the Right 

 Honourable Sir Louis Mallet, C.B. Edited by Bernard 

 Mallet.) If State ownership resulted in a decline of 

 economic efficiency — that is, if the land became less 

 productive, the lower classes might be poorer than at 

 present, even though the aggregate wealth were more 

 equally distributed. Now, it would surely be no satisfaction 

 to the working-man to know that his share of the produc- 

 tion bore a greater ratio to the share of the capitalist than 



