It is very well for Mr. George to condemn what Governments have done in the past, but the question "of the best method of disposing of unoccupied territory has bean before every one of our great colonies, and before the United States for several generations; and the universal instinct of them all has been that the individual ownership of land is the one great attraction which they can hold out to the settlers, whom it is their highest interest to invite and to establish. They know that the land of a country is never so well 'nationalised' as when it is committed to the ownership of men whose interest it is to make the most of it. They know that under no other inducement could men be found to clear the soil from stifling forests, or to water it from arid wastes, or to drain it from pestilential swamps, or to enclose it from the access of wild animals, or to defend it from the assault of savage tribes. Accordingly their verdict has been unanimous ; and it has been given under conditions in which they were free from all traditions except those which they carried with them as part of their own nature, in Harmony and correspondence with the nature and things around them (ARGYLL). Mr. George and others who argue for the "nationalisation of the land," seem to make the great error of comparing the exclusive occupation of the land to the exclusive occupation of the atmosphere.

Are the members of Government so far superior to their fellow-men that vo can confide to them the rights of absolute ownership in the soil, and constitute them the sole and universal landlord? Every year we are becoming more democratic.