CHAPTER XXXIV 



LAND NATIONALIZATION TO SOCIALISM, AND THE FRIENDS 

 THEY BROUGHT ME 



Soon after I returned from the Amazon (about 1853), I read 

 Herbert Spencer's " Social Statics," a work for which I had 

 a great admiration, and which seemed to me so important in 

 relation to political and social reform, that I thought of 

 inviting a few friends to read and discuss it at weekly meet- 

 ings. This fell through for want of support, but the whole 

 work, and more especially the chapter on " The Right to 

 the Use of the Earth," made a permanent impression on 

 me, and ultimately led to my becoming, almost against my 

 will. President of the Land Nationalization Society, which 

 has now been just a quarter of a century in existence. In 

 connection with this movement, I have made the acquaintance 

 of a considerable number of persons of more or less eminence, 

 and my relations with some of these will form the subject of 

 the present chapter. 



The pubHcation of my "Malay Archipelago" in 1869, 

 procured me the acquaintance of John Stuart Mill, who 

 on reading the concluding pages, in which I condemn our 

 " civilization " as but a form of " barbarism," and refer, among 

 other examples, to our permitting private property in land, 

 wrote to me from Avignon on May 19, 1870, enclosing the 

 programme of his proposed Land Tenure Reform Asso- 

 ciation, and asking me to become a member of the General 

 Committee. Its object was to claim the future " unearned 

 increment " of land values for the State, to which purpose 

 it was to be strictly limited. I accepted the offer, but 



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