The wastes of England are the only land left the public. Elsewhere
the public can only walk along a pavement or a high road. The good
land is all pretty well in cultivation; and the best of what is left
can give but a moderate profit on reclamation, while its enclosure,
under Act of Parliament, deprives the public of it for ever. Hence
Professor H. Fawcett, throughout his parliamentary career, put his
veto with great success on all enclosure schemes. It is possible that
there might be a profit on the enclosure of Epping Forest: who will
now support that reclamation?

It is very desirable that wealthy private philanthropic individuals
and wealthy private philosophic societies, should try experiments in
small farming, market-gardening, co-operative farming, reclamation of
wastes, etc. There is no hindrance to their so doing: they can
readily hire as many farms as they please at cheap rents, and
subdivide them, and put in picked labourers with an advance of
capital. But that Government should embark in uncertain speculations
of this kind is quite another thing.

The safe general principle, whether in the sale of horses, the
letting of houses, or the letting of land, is that Government should
not interfere; or, to speak more correctly, Government interference
should only interfere to prevent restrictive covenants and to ensure
Free Trade, so that every article (land included) may pass without
restraint into the hands of the man to whom it is worth most. The
greater the individual profit the greater the national profit. Under
a section headed "Law," below, I will say something about the removal
of entail, etc.--a dry but important branch of the question. The
National Property Rate, with the aid of sycophants, would remove many