Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/210

 upsetting propositions. The nationalization project, in particular, which they rejected, got no support from the example of countries which, like Switzerland, had long freed themselves from old traditional land conditions, or which, like the United States of America, had never been subject to them. Two conditions, however, were successfully contended for on behalf of the whole people. First, that every requirement of land that could reasonably claim a public interest or object, must be allowed; of course, on due and full compensation. Second, that all land, while still in its natural unimproved state, must be, or continue to be, open to the public. It was intolerable that, for instance, a handful of proprietary should, on any consideration whatever, fence out the people from the wild mountains and glens of their native land. No plea should be allowed here, any more than to the ordinary thief, on the ground of time and non-disturbance. And even if fancy values, at times and places, did suffer somewhat under this open commonage, the whole people might fairly plead, per contra, their gift of that unearned increment of value, which was admittedly so effective everywhere in the other direction.

The altered conditions of society had brought upon us, by this time, a decided change in the national sentiment in respect to social precedence and public rank. Alas! that it must no longer be that "Eng-