It seems impossible to imagine an emergency that would justify any
government in nationalizing all the land at once without compensation.
None but a wealthy government could afford the compensation requisite;
and the emergency would have to be severe indeed, to make it wise of
them to incur such an expense. We can imagine a government in a newly
settled country starting on the understanding that all land was State
land, and that all ground rents were to be paid into the State
exchequer. This would amount to taking rents for taxes; and instead of
a landlord in every district we should have a tax-gatherer. Probably
further taxation would be necessary: in England at any rate the annual
expenditure exceeds the rental by some twenty millions. Government, we
may suppose, would grant leases of land: when the lease fell in, the
rent would be raised for unearned increment, and lowered for
decrement, but not raised for improvements effected by the tenant
himself. In that case the tenant in two or three generations might be
a quasi-proprietor, his rent being ridiculously small in comparison
with the annual value of the holding.
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