There is no monopoly, it seems to me, which
bears such evil fruit as the monopoly of all the land of a country in
the hands of a few. It is bad for the country, bad for the people, and
bad for the landlords, whether the monopolists are honorable companies,
a landed aristocracy, or an ecclesiastical corporation. God's-law, which
is the law of our faith, shows plainly how the Great Lawgiver regards
the monopoly of land by the care which He took to have a direct interest
in the land of Canaan by personal inheritance for every Jew. To guard
against the might of greed, to prevent the poor of the land, touched by
misfortune or snared by debt, from sinking into farm laborers or serfs
of the soil he instituted the year of jubilee when every man returned to
his inheritance.
I first thought over these things in connection with the land question
in Ireland when travelling there and seeing the evils arising from the
existing tenure of land. I met with testimony everywhere of how often
and how fatally the will of a lord interfered to prevent prosperity.
There might have been a seam of coal opened in Antrim but for one
landlord.
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