254 MY LIFE [Chap. 



the discussion, instead of being kept to the subject of the two 

 papers, consisted mainly of a declamatory battle between 

 the socialists and individualists, both declaring that our 

 proposals were useless, because they were not in accordance 

 with those of either party. Mr. A. J. Balfour, however, did 

 criticize my proposals, declaring, without adducing any evi- 

 dence, that if labourers all had from one to five acres of land 

 on a secure tenure, they could not live on it, and would there- 

 fore be quite as much dependent on the farmers and obtain 

 as low wages as when they were quite landless. This amazing 

 statement was made in the face of the almost life-long experi- 

 ence of Lords Tollemache and Carrington, in four counties, 

 and of facts adduced in the reports of the latest Royal 

 Commission on Agriculture, which an M.P. and prospective 

 Prime Minister ought to have known something about. 

 Professor J. Shield Nicolson also sent a "Note on Dr. 

 Wallace's Paper," the chief points being that five-acre lots 

 would not alleviate agrarian distress in the Highlands — which 

 I knew quite as well as he did — and more especially that my 

 simple method of valuation would utterly break down and 

 satisfy no one, and contending that "nothing but an eloborate 

 system of law and judicial machinery could make such a plan 

 tolerable " ! He had himself read a paper, with suggestions 

 for a number of mild ameliorations of the present system, 

 which, in its essentials, was to remain untouched. 



The result was, I think, to show that a conference of op- 

 posing parties, each looking at the question from an absolutely 

 different standpoint, and with no possibility of agreement as 

 to fundamental principles, cannot lead to any definite con- 

 clusion. The method adopted by the Land Nationalization 

 Society was the only one calculated to produce any definite 

 results, viz. to lay down certain fundamental principles, capable 

 of logical demonstration, and by means of an association for 

 the purpose to educate the public on the subject, both by 

 argument and by a constant appeal to all facts or experi- 

 ments which serve to illustrate the evils of the present system 

 and the benefits of that which we propose to substitute for it. 

 This has been done both by land nationalizers and socialists 



