Note 9 — Chapter III

The reader must observe that I speak of the rent of the land, not of the land itself, as the subject of the above calculation. I forbear to touch the question of any mere change in the occupancy or administration of the land, or even of any scheme of nationalising the land by purchasing it at its market price from the owners; for by none of these would the present owners be robbed pecuniarily, nor would the nation pecuniarily gain, except in so far as new conditions of tenure made agriculture more productive. All such schemes are subjects of legitimate controversy, or, in other words, are party questions; and I therefore abstain from touching them. I deal in the text with facts about which there can be no controversy.