4. THE RANSOM OF THE LAND.

Many people see quite clearly that, the population of England being
25,000,000, the next baby born has a right to one twenty-fifth-
millionth part of the area of England in soil of average fertility.
The arrangements of society by which the laud is partitioned among a
limited class, and the complicated rights sanctioned by law in one
plot of land, are considered of no validity as against the natural
right of the new-born baby. I do not see this theory to be self-
evident: on the other hand the supporters of it always give it as
fundamental, axiomatic; they no doubt presume rightly that the land
is limited, and that if one man holds more than his arithmetical
share, he must push out somebody else from his arithmetical share:
while a man who keeps a hundred pocket-knives does not perceptibly
hinder other people having numerous pocket-knives. Still I do not see
how this consideration weighs against Lord Derby's title to his
lands, if the body politic has determined that on the whole it is
best for the community that land should not be held equally by all,
and sanctions by law Lord Derby's monopoly of a large area. On the
theory of the natural right of every infant born to its arithmetical
share, the monopolisers of land are liable to a perpetually recurring
ransom: this can only practically be carried out by a special
National Rate on Real Property (_i.e._ Land, with the houses, mines,
etc., inseparably attached to it), which must be in addition to such
taxes as income tax, succession duty, etc., which land already
suffers equally with trades, professions, offices, and personalty.
The local rates in England exceed L25,000,000 annually; and the
ratepayers perhaps reckon this a large enough ransom. I should remark