would have caused the disappearance of this class; it would most probably only have swallowed up its surplus population. As it was, the yeomen, except in a few isolated localities, have simply vanished.

It would have been only natural if these large properties, formed in the manner just described, had in the course of time been broken up and brought into the market. But there were several causes to prevent this. One was the system of entail and family settlements, under which the great proportion of land is now held; another is the artificial value placed upon land owing to the political and social advantages accruing to its owners. The House of Lords was and still is composed entirely of landowners. Up to the Reform Act, 1832, the House of Commons was entirely in the hands of the same class, which even now has a larger representation than any other body in that House.

It is not surprising, then, when we find that legislation up to quite recent times has been entirely in favor of the large landowner, and entirely adverse to the interests of the yeoman farmer and peasant proprietor. And, indeed, even in recent times, instances of this partiality are not wanting.

So then we have arrived at exclusive individual ownership in land.

The assertion is sometimes made that since exclusive individual ownership is a product of evolution, that it is therefore the highest form of ownership. But the fact that exclusive individual ownership is the product of evolution does not prove that it is the best possible form of property in land. It may be a necessary consequence since, as a matter of fact, exclusive individual ownership in land has always followed communistic possession. This fact, then, only goes to show that such ownership is only a step in the development of property in land: it does not prove that such form of ownership is the final solution of the question. On the contrary, if there be any so foolish as to assert that the evolution of property in land has reached its fullest development in exclusive individual ownership, he can have but a small acquaintance with the most elementary laws of evo

lution and the tendency of modern thought and practice. Exclusive individual ownership is obviously tending to some form or another of Collectivism. Of this tendency there are numerous indications. In theory, indeed, every freeholder holds as tenant of the Crown; and, in fact, whenever his land is required for public purposes, the State compels him to sell whether he likes it or not. The present attempts to apply the principles of betterment. and of taxation of ground values to land in London are proofs, if proofs were needed, of the same tendency.

And, in conclusion, let it not be thought that I am here advocating a return to primitive communism. Such a return would be theoretically retrogressive, and in practice utterly impossible. But what I do advocate is a higher form of primitive communism to which the name of Collective Ownership may be given. At the risk of trespassing upon the reader's patience, I will here roughly define what I mean by this term "Collective Ownership."

Collective Ownership then is ownership of the land by the State or by its delegates, such as municipalities, county councils, district councils, or parish councils. Such ownership may extend to any buildings, works, or other improvements upon the land. Individual ownership of the bare soil is entirely excluded. The most that the individual is able to acquire is the use or possession of the land, together with such buildings, works, or improvements as may happen to exist thereon. Now such a tenure as this is not a mere ideal. In a crude form it existed for hundreds of years in the Roman Empire, and was eminently successful.

It came to be known by the name of Emphytensis. Lands taken in war (agri vectigales) were granted by the Roman State on long or perpetual leases at a fixed rent (vectigal). After the time of Constantine this tenure was adopted by corporations and private individuals, was extended from lands to houses and received the name of emphytensis. As long as the tenant (emphytenta) his heirs or assignees paid the fixed rent (canon) to the owner his heirs or assignees so long was the possession assured to him. But the ten

ant was not entitled to compensation for improvements upon giving up possession, and this is probably to be explained by the fact that the rent was fixed. If the rent were in arrears for three years and in some cases for two years the possession was forfeited and the tenant could be evicted. The tenant, however, could alienate during his life, and unless the owner, who had the right of pre-emption, chose to exercise this right, he was bound to accept the new tenant if a fit and proper person. Here then is a basis for an equitable and practical system of land tenure. The State becomes the Collective Owner and the individual the Possessor. There must of course be compensation for improvements if the State redeems, but, on the other hand, the rent must be subject to periodical assessinents, not upon the improvements made by the tenant, but upon the increased or decreased value of the land. The tenant's improvements will belong to him and form his tenant rights. Thus the State will obtain all unearned increment and the tenant will pay more or less rent as the case may be, and if he gives up possession he will sell his tenant-rights for the best price obtainable in the market.

And I would go one step further. In addition to individual possession there must be Collective Possession. Here again I do not set up a mere ideal. Collective Possession has already been tried and not found wanting, and that too in Ireland of all countries in the world. It was in County Clare, between Limerick and Ennis, that this experiment in Collective Possession was attempted. The Ralahine Farm, owned by Mr. Vandeleur, was in 1830 let to his tenants as a whole at a fixed rent. The rent alone was £700 per annum for 618 acres, only 268 of which were under tillage.

The landlord advanced the necessary capital for the erection of a common hall, cottages, and farm-buildings, and for the purchase of stock and plant. The society was managed by a committee of nine members elected by ballot. At the end of the third year the society

could show a clean balance sheet, after having paid the rent and all interest on capital and after having erected several new cottages and maintained its members in plenty and comfort. In fact, not only financially, but socially, this experiment proved a complete success, and that, too, notwithstanding the fact that the condition of the country in general, and of this estate in particular, was as unfavorable to such an experiment as it was possible for it to be. For further particulars of this interesting institution I must refer the reader to the graphic description of Mr. Craig, Mr. Vandeleur's agent.*

The society was irretrievably ruined, not through any inherent defect, but owing to Mr. Vandeleur's unfortunate gambling proclivities, which resulted in bankruptcy to himself and all connected with him. The members of the society were treated as mere laborers on the estate, and all their interests and improvements in the property-their tenant-rights, in fact-were swallowed up in their landlords' bankruptcy. It was thus, by accident, and by accident only, that this experiment in collective possession ultimately failed.

In the tenure suggested here, provisions of course would be made to protect tenant-rights. It is impossible here and now to enter into detailed particulars of the proposed scheme of collective ownership embracing individual and collective possession. It is sufficient for my present purpose to have shown that this reform is not only possible, but also practicable. The fact that the tenure of emphytensis was in widespread operation fifteen centuries ago throughout the Roman Empire, a tenure in some respects identical with the Irish tenure by Ulster tenant right of to-day, and the fact that the collective possession of the Ralahine tenants actually existed and was entirely successful, at any rate justifies my view that collective ownership is not a mere ideal, but a true theory based upon ascertained facts.- Westminster Review.

JUST about sixteen years ago it was my fate to inflict on a Bradford audience a speech, which probably of all those present on the occasion I alone remember. I was the guest of my old friend, Mr. William Edward Forster, whom Bradford honored while living, and whose memory I know Bradford still keeps fresh, and as it was a meeting of Yorkshire Institutes, and his Education Bill had but recently been passed into law, it was inevitable that the talk should be about education. Probably, to save myself trouble, I might repeat the speech to-night, and nobody would find me out; but some learned antiquary might, and after sixteen years, besides its inherent faults, it would certainly, to use the modern slang, not be "up to date."

In sixteen years the present state and future prospects of education have wonderfully changed. And changed on And changed on the whole greatly for the better. More money is spent on education; the scope of education has been greatly widened; except in cases where so-called religious questions impede its work, the education of the whole country is becoming more and more general; and the general tendency of later legislation has been to increase the national expenditure on this national object.

All this is to most of us matter to rejoice at, and we wish the work throughout the country to spread, to grow, to prosper. But it would be vain to deny that all the while there are undercurrents of dissatisfaction, that there are murmurs heard both loud and deep, and heard from very different quarters. Our poorer citizens, our working classes are dissatisfied and complain. But they do not complain alone; the higher and hitherto ruling people, of whom Ben Jonson says that "they need not have anything more than a horse-race, or a hunting-match, or a day to dine with a citizen, and such innate mys

* An Address delivered in the Salt Schools, Shipley, Yorkshire, in June 1893.

teries," these men, too, complain, though for very different reasons, of the spread and growth of education, and of its unsatisfactory, sometimes in private they go so far as to say its positively mischievous, results. In my ignorance, which you must forgive, of what may be expected of your President on an occasion such as this, and still more of what may interest you, I will try to examine the reasons of the feeling I have described, how far they are just, how far they may be met and answered, and how, if and so far as they are just and well-grounded, that which produces them may be amended or removed.

Much of the feeling arises both in the higher and lower sort of men from a misapprehension, sometimes complete, of the higher end and object, the true purpose of what is called education; and the forgetfulness of the old and trite, but true and important, distinction between education and instruction. That they are essentially distinct no man of reflection will for a moment deny. It is plain that you may instruct without educating; it is not educating in any sense to teach the use of the hammer and the anvil, the lever or the pulley, or how to feed a machine with wool, or how to sharpen a razor or polish a pair of scissors; things most necessary to be learned, indeed, and without which no real work could be possible, but no more educating, that is drawing out the powers of, the mind than breaking stones upon a road or trimming ivy on a wall. If learning these things were education, and if education meant wealth or the means of making money, then, indeed, the poor man might complain with justice that he had thrown away his time, that education was a delusion and the desire for knowledge in the high sense was a snare.

But education does not mean wealth, nor is it necessarily the power of acquiring it. What it is, no doubt, is not easy to define; it has been defined

a hundred times-not often, perhaps, by men qualified to define it; very seldom, if ever, so as to exclude all that it is not, and to include all that it is. Those who know most about it will be least inclined to attempt to include it in a formula. But, without attempting to define it, which I disclaim, it means at least, as the very name implies, a drawing out of the powers of the mind, so that the educated man is better able than the uneducated to commune with the choice and master spirits of all ages, and has the means, if he will use them, to become, in many ways, happier in his life, and fitter to meet death, which "necessary end will come when it will come. A very clever Cambridge man once said that the advantage (I am afraid he said the only advantage) of an Oxford education was that it enabled a man to allude gracefully to a variety of subjects. Well, if any education does really enable a man to use a variety of subjects, not for display or "to find talk and discourse," but to illustrate or advance an argument, to clear the mind, to interest an audience, to convince an opponent, I should say that such an education was very useful, that a man who so used it had discovered its use, and that he was fitter for the world in which we live, and more likely to be effective in it, than a man who had no such education to use, or, if he had it, did not know how to use it. "Studies," says Lord Bacon, and by studies Lord Bacon meant what till lately, at least, was meant by education, studies are for light, ornament, and ability," and by ability I conceive he intended the power of dealing with fellow-men, the power to influence mankind and to benefit the

world.

It is not denied that great men may achieve greatness in particular pursuits without any general cultivation of the powers of the mind. But even such men are able to do more in their own age, and to impress themselves upon posterity if they have this cultivation than if they had it not. Julius Caesar, for example, was a very great general, but so apparently was Marius, and Marius could hardly write his name. Julius Cæsar, in the midst of the Gallic War, while passing across

the mountains from one part of his province to another, wrote a treatise,

De Analogia," in more than one book, which he dedicated to Cicero. The treatise has been lost, and scarce even a quotation from it survives by which we might judge of its value; but it was certainly as far from war or politics as can be conceived; and, though the power to write it did not make the generalship of Cæsar, it was part of the man. Marius is a name; Cæsar was a power for centuries; and even now, after 2000 years, his genius is felt in the empire he created.

Not

But it may be said, What has all this to do with the Salt Schools? You are wasting our time, and talking rubbish. We must have technical education; we don't want this general culture, which is only a fine name for sciolism and general shallow pretence of learning which does not advance trade or make men get on. Is that so certain? a word will you hear from me in disparagement of technical education. On the contrary, I maintain with energy that good technical education is the prime necessity of this time and this country. It is true that the enormous, I had almost said the immeasurable, increase in the amount of manufactures, the multitude of the workmen, the width and variety of the markets, the necessary substitution to a great extent of machinery for handwork,-these things have made it impossible that our manufactures should have the refinement, the perfection, the thoroughness of the old manufactures (I use of purpose a vague word, for I am too ignorant to be accurate as to date) of Italy, of France, of Holland and Belgium, of North and South Germany. But it is not, to my mind, by any means certain that those who are wisely and gradually submitted to technical education would not be the better for more general cultivation. An uneducated mind is very apt, even in technical handicraft, to suffer for want of breadth of view and largeness of understanding.

These seem fine words to use as to

matters so purely practical. But let me explain. I will give you two instances, one which fell under my own observation, the other I came upon, in reading

the report and the evidence of the Commission on the alleged Depression of British Trade, presided over with such skill and ability by the excellent and very able man more generally and widely known as Sir Stafford Northcote. A man I knew desired to have six candlesticks made of old Sheffield plate, which he preferred (as most people who know anything about it do pre fer it) to its modern substitute, electroplate. He was willing to pay the price, and he wanted six candlesticks of separate patterns. The Sheffield plate he was obliged to abandon; he could not get it; at least, he was told so. The six candlesticks he could not at first get of separate patterns. Why? The workmen objected to use six separate models for a single order. Was it more trouble? Scarcely any, but they positively refused. At last he got what he wanted, picking up one here and one there, and with much trouble. Now, I am not going to say a syllable against the workmen. England is a free country, and they have a right to sell their property, that is, their labor, on what terms they choose. But no man in his senses can doubt that selfcreated difficulties of this sort have a tendency to injure trade, and if carried much further, and happening oftener, to drive trade away from England altogether, and to do great mischief not only to trade, but to the workmen. This is entirely apart from the thorny and disputable questions as to strikes and combinations, as to which, so far as my understanding of the law allows me, I have always done what I honestly could in favor of the workmen's freedom.

But there are limits of fairness and good sense which cannot be transgressed without direct harm to those who transgress them; and I think in cases such as these they are obviously transgressed. The case mentioned in Sir Stafford Northcote's Blue Book was stronger still. The Chinese, it seems-at least, large masses of themlike to use a particular kind of scissors, which are not in the shape in which English scissors are commonly made. The English makers would not make them according to the Chinese form. They said, and, as I understand, rightly said, that the English pattern was

really the best. But the Chinese did not think so. They preferred their old mumpsimus to the English sumpsimus. The Germans wisely consulted the wish of their customers, and at the date of Sir Stafford Northcote's Blue Book the Germans were largely supplanting, and threatened entirely to destroy, the English trade, because they condescended to make awkward scissors which the Chinese would buy, instead of, perhaps, much better-shaped scissors, which they would not. My authority is the Blue Book, and I will add only that it is really narrow-minded and foolish in the extreme to attempt to argue with a customer who wants a particular thing, which, if you cannot or will not give him, he will, of course, go and get elsewhere.

These are examples only, of which the Blue Book gave many others, and the general effect of which 1 dare say is well known to many who cast a wide and intelligent glance over the trade and manufactures of Great Britain. Surely I am not wrong in thinking that in such plain, every-day, purely practical matters as these, an acquaintance with the history, with the minds and manners of mankind, with the course of trade, with the elementary rules of economics would enlarge the views, would liberalize the practice, and would certainly improve the position of those who will not acquire the knowledge which no one can prudently do without, and who habitually violate principles which are not of their making, and which no one can defy with impunity. To me it seems nothing but common sense to say that to educate men as well as to instruct them is to enable them to use their instruction to the best advantage, and to make work more valuable by making it more intelligent.

Nor, on the other side, should it be forgotten by those who have to employ the workmen, that the spread of even the imperfect education which we see, brings with it consequences which must be faced by them, if they have sense and reason, though sometimes, perhaps, unfavorable in a certain sense to their position and to themselves. In former days, though the employers of labor, commercial, it may be, agricultural certainly, differed little from those whom