Mr. Fawcett's speech was notable for its courage in dealing
lucidly with a rather 'abstract subject,—the socialistic scheme for the nationalisation of the land. To an audience of 4,000 persons, it is not easy to speak effectually on such a matter as that, but Mr. Fawcett made his speech both popular and convincing. He showed that peasant and peer and artisan (with his house purchased by the agency of a building society), would be alike expropriated by such a scheme ; and that if fill were to be compensated, it would cost between two and three times the amount of the existing National Debt. Moreover, when this had been done, the State would probably prove the most inefficient of landlords. In his reference to the redis- tribution of seats; Mr. Fawcett insisted once more on the intrinsic justice of the fair representation of minorities, and pointed out the presumption that the only popular equivalent for that course —the breaking up of large constituencies into wards—would greatly increase the danger of a narrow localism. On the whole, Mr. Fawcett's speech was a very singular example of the possi- bility of popularising abstract truths.
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