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• Essays On Economics and Society 1850–1879
• The Savings of the Middle and Working Classes 1850
• The Regulation of the London Water Supply 1851
• Newman’s Political Economy 1851
• The Law of Partnership 1851
• The Income and Property Tax 1852
• The Bank Acts 1857
• The Income and Property Tax 1861
• Currency and Banking 1867
• Endowments 1869
• Thornton On Labour and Its Claims 1869
• Leslie On the Land Question 1870
• Land Tenure Reform 1871
• Property and Taxation 1873
• Chapters On Socialism 1879
• Editor’s Note
• Chapters On Socialism
• Preliminary Notice
• Introductory
• Socialist Objections to the Present Order of Society
• The Socialist Objections to the Present Order of Society Examined
• The Difficulties of Socialism
• The Idea of Private Property Not Fixed But Variable
• Appendices
• Appendix A: Mcculloch’s Discourse On Political Economy (1825)
• Appendix B: Petition On Free Trade (1841)
• Appendix C: Examination Paper In Political Economy Set By Jsm (1872)
• Appendix D: Land Tenure Reform Association: Public Lands and Commons Bill (1872)
• Appendix E: Bibliographic Index of Persons and Works Cited In the Essays, With Variants and Notes

Appendix D

Land Tenure Reform Association: Public Lands and Commons Bill (1872)

LAND TENURE REFORM ASSOCIATION

Chairman, Mr. J. Stuart Mill

Treasurer, Mr. P. A. Taylor, m.p. Hon. Secretary, Colonel T. A. Cowper

Offices:—9, Buckingham Street, Strand

PUBLIC LANDS AND COMMONS BILL

The Second Reading of the Public Lands and Commons Bill will be moved by Sir C. Dilke, on Wednesday, July 3rd. The Bill is brought in by Sir C. Dilke, Mr. Morrison and Mr. P. A. Taylor, and applies only to Public Lands, or Lands held by Corporations, Charities, &c. for public uses, to Commons and Rights of Way. It not only provides for the more economical administration of public lands, but contains provisions calculated largely to promote the social and material well being of the industrial classes.

The Bill provides for the appointment of overseers of all public lands, commons, and rights of way; the salaries of such overseers to be defrayed out of the proceeds of the lands under their charge. Their duties in regard to public lands will be to manage them in the most economical and efficient manner, to let such lands by public tender, and when tenders are equal, to give the preference to that in which the largest number of persons are interested, thus affording facilities for co-operative agriculture and co-operative building.

The duties of the overseers in regard to public commons and rights of way will be to make enquiries into the nature and extent of public rights, report the result to the Home Secretary, and mark the extent of such commons and rights of way upon maps of their several districts, thus permanently securing the rights of the public.

All earnest Land Reformers are therefore urged to support the Bill for the following reasons:—

• 1—Because it is desirable that as large a number of persons as possible should have an interest in the soil.
• 2—Because there is a growing disposition on the part of the present administrators of public lands and others to dispose of them to private individuals, and invest the proceeds in other kinds of property.
• 3—Because it is to the public advantage that no lands over which the public have any rights should pass into the hands of individual proprietors.
• 4—Because it is notorious that the present administration of public lands (the value of which is estimated at £500,000,000) is often attended by gross abuses, which the Bill would render almost impossible.
• 5—Because, from the absence of constant supervision, lands formerly devised for public purposes, have been converted to private uses.
• 6—Because, although co-operative agriculture has been successfully tried, as at Rahaline, in Ireland, and Acrington, in Suffolk, opportunities for extending its operations are not afforded by private landowners.
• 7—Because the Bill would prevent the annexation by private persons of strips of common land, and the stoppage of rights of way, actions which are now often indulged in with impunity.
• 8—Because the effect of the Bill would be to make known the whole extent of the lands over which public rights exist, and to secure such public rights in the future.

The Executive Committee of the Land Tenure Reform Association trust that their friends in the various constituencies will use every effort in behalf of the Bill, especially by communicating with their parliamentary representatives, and by obtaining resolutions from associated bodies in its favor, which also should be forwarded to the local members.