As there are 1,180,000 landowners in the United 
 Kingdom, each of whom has numerous friends pre- 
 pared to side with him, it is evident that it would be 
 a difficult and dangerous task to nationalise the 
 land by taking it without paying for it. Even if it 
 were not difficult and dangerous, the majority of 
 Englishmen believe that it is morally wrong to rob 
 any man. The only possible plan of land nationalisa- 
 tion is, therefore, to buy the land, and pay full value 
 for it. Now, the late Professor Fawcett, Mr. Gladstone’s 
 Postmaster-General, estimated the value of the land and 
 houses of the United Kingdom at £4,500,000,000, and 
 Mr. Giffien recently showed that in 1885 the income 
 from land and houses on which income-tax was paid 
 amounted to £194,375,000 a year. Taking the land 
 to be worth 26 years’ purchase in the market, and the 
 houses worth 15 years’ purchase, Mr. Giffien calculates 
 that the market value of the whole is £3,644,508,000. 
 That does not include quarries or mines or a number 
 of other things connected with the land ; so that 
 Professor Fawcett’s estimate is a very reasonable one. 
 But taking Mr. Giffen’s figures, £3,644,508,000 is 
 the sum the Government would have to pay the 
 present owners, if the land is to be nationalised 
 without a civil war. 
 
 Having got the total, we ought to consider — Where 
 will the money come from? The Government has no 
 money except what it borrows, or what it raises by 
 
taxing the people. We cry out against a £100,000,000 
 Budget and grumble at £80,000,000 of taxation. How 
 should we like to have to pay forty times as much ? 
 The thing would he simply impossible ! The Govern- 
 ment could not raise such a sum by taxation ; it would 
 have to borrow it. Well, we know that if a man wants 
 to borrow a very small sum he can get it easily enough 
 from a friend ; but if he wants to borrow £100 or so, he 
 will not find it so easy to get, and he will have to pay 
 interest for the loan. The more he wants to borrow the 
 more difficult it is to get it, and the more he will have to 
 pay for the loan. It is just the same with a nation. 
 The Government already owes, and has to pay interest 
 at the rate of per cent, on £700,000,000 ; and the 
 country is rich enough, perhaps, to borrow another 
 £100,000,000 or so at the same rate. But if the Govern- 
 ment had to borrow six times the National Debt, 
 it would be difficult to get the money at any price ; it 
 certainly could not be got at less than 5 per cent. Now 
 5 per cent, on £3,644,508,000 amounts to £182,225,400; 
 and that sum would have to be paid every year 
 by the taxpayer, in addition to what he pays 
 now, unless the Government raised it by way 
 of rent from the people who pay rent now. 
 To levy this rent an army of officials would have to 
 be employed. It costs more than £1,500,000 a year to 
 levy £25,000,000 of excise duties. It would cost more 
 than ten times as much to collect £182,225,400 of rent; 
 for it is not so easy to get payment from a poor tenant 
 as it is from a rich brewer. 
 
 Then other officials would have to be paid to see 
 that the tenants of the State did not waste its property, 
 and there would be more expenses for doing repairs, and 
 putting up new buildings, and making improvements 
 now made by the landlords. In the end, all these 
 things would send the amount to be levied up to 
 more than £200,000,000 a year; several millions 
 a year more than the £194,375,000 the landlords 
 receive now; and instead of the occupiers being 1 
 better off they would have higher rents to pay 
 than ever. 
 
 (Extracted from a Leaflet issued by the Liberal Unionist Association.) 
 
 Published by The Property Protection Society, 45, Parliament Street, S.W. 
 Printed by Metchim & Son, 20, Parliament Street, S.W., and 32, Clement’s Lane, E.C.