On Wednesday Mr. Bright delivered a really fine address against
Mr. George, whose theory of nationalising the land he compared to the theory once popular in the Southern States of nationalising labour. The planters meant to enslave all labour, white as well as black ; and the out- come of Mr. George's scheme, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer as sole landlord, would be just the same. To
accept such a scheme, the people of England must have lost not only all their common-sense, but all reverence for the Ten Com- mandments. He maintained that if the sale of land were only free, that is, liberated from the laws of primogeniture and settle- ment intended to agglomerate estates, the forces of dispersion, the principal of which is the desire for larger interest, would be,at the forces of accumulation, and land would again fall into- many hands. He would make the transfer of land perfectly. simple, just as the transfer of .11 ship or other exceedingly valu- able property is simple, and would in case of intestacy have some- law for fair division among children. Indeed, we are not quite sure- that Mr. Bright did not go further, and hint at a modification of the liberty of bequest. He was not clear, but his idea that a man is bound to provide for his children after his death, as well as during his life, makes distinctly in that direction. We could not go quite so far, as we should hold the children only entitled to inherit if they have played the children's part, but we see no- objection to a law compelling distribution among a number of legatees equal to the children. Such a law might be inex- pedient—and we most not blind ourselves to the fact that it ends the aristocratic system—but it would not be immoral. Mr. Bright ended by saying that the proper time for dealing finally with the land question would be when the "three millions" of rural voters had been brought into the constituency, a statement in which we heartily concur.
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