Land Nationalization

Expropriation with indemnification. This means the purchase of the land by the State. This system was proposed by a German named Gossen, who long remained unknown, and was rediscovered by the French professor Leon Walras, who felt that the State could not in justice confiscate real property, since this had been constituted and sanctioned under the guarantee of the law. The State had, however, the right, recognized under the legal codes of every country, to apply "expropriation for reasons of public utility on payment of a fair compensation," so it was only neces sary to apply this law to real property in bulk. The financial operation of effecting such a purchase might, however, it was argued, end by ruining the State ; for, obviously, to pay such com pensation, it would have to borrow the equivalent sum; and the charges resulting from this colossal loan might far exceed the revenue which the State could derive from its ownership of the land. Walras did not take this view, and proved by elaborate calculations, which cannot be reproduced here, that the State, even if it lost at first, would soon begin to find the operation profitable, by reason of the subsequent increased value of the revenues derived from the land.

Exploitation of Nationalized Land.

Let us assume the land nationalized, whether by confiscation or purchase. How is it to be exploited? Is the State to take direct control? This solu tion cannot be dismissed as impossible, since in every country the State is the owner and direct exploiter of certain lands, even if only forests. Nevertheless, the advocates of nationalization are unanimous in rejecting this solution; firstly, because it would impose on the State so vast a task as to absorb its entire activities, but principally because its effect would be to reduce all farmers to the position of simple State employees, and would thus most certainly entail a grievous falling-off in returns. The evil effects would be slightly mitigated if the management of the land, in stead of being left to the State, were entrusted to the parish or other local authorities, but would still be formidable.

All authorities therefore agree that the land should be placed by the State in the hands of professional agriculturists, who would, in the majority of cases, be none other than the previous owners. But then, it will be asked, where is the change? Will not the result simply be to term the owners of the land by a different name, to call them lessees instead of proprietors? Will not State ownership thus become a mere empty title, a domain entinente as it was called in the old French law ; a fiction like that existing in England, where even to-day, by a survival from feudal times, the king is deemed the owner of all lands in his realm? No ! For the new holder of the land will be subjected to obliga tions which will make his position more akin to that of a present day tenant farmer, than of an owner. They are these : (a) He will have to pay the State an annual rent, the amount of which, to avoid all favouritism, will probably be fixed by auctioning. It may

be objected that the result of this system would be that only the rich could obtain land, the poor being excluded. But no; for the lease will only be granted on condition of cultivation by the lessee's personal labour ; thus only such persons as have the neces sary strength and knowledge to make their tenure really profitable will compete for it; (b) such sale will be subject to periodical revision, but at intervals long enough to give the cultivators a certain security, e.g., every ten years. Increases of rent, if any, will not be made on the ground of improvements created by the cultivator, but solely on the ground of surplus values created by social accidents, such as the increase of population, a rise in prices, development of transport, etc. ; (c) the tenant will not be permitted to sell, sublet or mortgage his holding, but if he wishes to retire, must sell it to the State, which will provide him with a successor, indemnifying him for improvements, if any, made by him on his holding; (d) the tenant will not be permitted, under pain of forfeiting his title, to leave his land uncultivated ; nor to cultivate it by the use of hired labour. If the area of his holding is too great for him to work himself, he must submit to a reduc tion of it ; (e) the State must take advantage of this great opera tion to redistribute holdings generally, reassemble scattered strips, divide up estates of excessive size and promote combinations of cultivators or co-operative associations. It will even be advisable for the State, in granting leases, to give agricultural co-operative associations preference over individual cultivators.

This programme of nationalization is not a mere paper scheme; it is already in practice in the Zionist colonies in Palestine, where the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayenzeth Leisrael) is the sole proprietor of the land, and lets it out on the system indicated above. Similarly in Soviet Russia, private ownership having been abolished without indemnification, the whole vast soil of Russia belongs to the State, but has been restored to peasant tenure under the conditions described above ; though these, indeed, are not always respected by the "Koulaki," or rich peasant. The same plan has further been put into practice in a certain number of communal colonies or "enclaves" in the United States. The oldest of these is the Fairhope colony on the Gulf of Mexico. There is also one such colony, a very small one, in France, in Liefra, denartment of Ache The Taxation System.—This system was suggested almost simultaneously (by a synchronism very frequent in the history of doctrines, both social and physical) by Henry George, the American, in his "single tax system," expounded in his Progress and Poverty (1879), and by a Frenchman, Paul Toubeau, whose name has remained almost unknown, even in France, in his La re partition metrique de Pimp& (188o). The two systems, as we shall see, present considerable differences.