14 AUGUST 1909, Page 16

THE LORD ADVOCATE AND NATIONALISATION.

[To Tint Enrros or Tule "SrsorAroic."] SIR,—The Lord Advocate has announced the "principle" that "the land of the country—the land as distinct from the buildings erected on it and from the improvements made upon it—belongs to the nation." And he asserts this principle as the justification for the appropriation of a portion of the value of the land to public uses. (Parenthetically, it might be asked : Why not the whole, instead of a "portion" ?) The Lord Advocate is familiar with the maxim expressio unius exclusio alterius est, and therefore impliedly admits the private owner- ship of "the buildings " and "improvements" on it. But as these buildings and imp rovements—the bricks, stones, mortar, beams, fences, iron, steel, and other metal fittings, even the decorations of the walls and ceilings—were all originally a part or parts of "the land of the country," it would seem to the simple-minded that the Lord Advocate ought to restate his " principle " so as to concede to the persons whom the law at present rec ognises as the owners of "the land of the country" only that portion of the "value" of their property which is equivalent to the labour which has been expended upon it, and upon the materials of which the buildings and improvements are composed. The rhetorical flights of a Socialistic Chancellor of the Exchequer speaking to a Limehouse audience may perhaps be passed over in silence, but surely a serious lawyer ought to be held to the logic of

his profession.—I am, Sir, &c., S. R. H.