COMMUNAL JOTTINGS.

Evening Star, Issue 13013, 7 January 1907, Page 8

COMMUNAL JOTTINGS.

to thx jmrroß. Sir, —There is a word charm as well a-s any other, and some of us are fascinated bv communal holdings of land, which we call Land Nationalisation. Politicians dangle the term in and during their platform orations, but wisely drop them on attaining Cohinei rank. They have evidently been amusing us while common sense" has exposed its faflacy. This common sense is learnt from the communal holdings of the Russian peasants. Under this system, which goes back, no doubt, to prehistoric times, all the members of the community have equal rights in the common land, nobody owning it outright (some 317,000,000 acres in all). From time to time a redistribution of farms is made, and each peasant tills as he pleases. They follow oat the ideal of Christian love as inculcated by their priests. This communal system of j ownership is treated as a single, unit, and each peasant crops the same as his neigh- I bar. There is no initiative, because there is no edncation, and the people are not allowed to think for themselves. During the "war they were tangbt to believe that the Japanese were microbes that crept into the soldiers' top boots, and, being invisible, leffled the Christian warriors without giving them the chance of striking a blow. These Russians have a psychology which is by no means Kke ourselves, aiTl yet many of us desire communal- farm holdings on their svstem in preference to the Freehold. One rejoices to learn, however, that the Cabinet (their political amusement notwithstanding) has denounced Land Nationalisation, which is only another term for cornmtmisrn. Socialism is a fallacy when it savs that all wealth is produced by labor, and that tiierefore to labor all \rcaßh belongs, because brains produce •OTartii also. Moreover, it assails the ascendancv and triumph of the family. It is true Christianity did the same thing in the earlier centuries, but the mistake was evolutionary, rectified as time went on, and the egotism of the family became the prime factor in onr crvilisation.—l am, etc, F.M. January 7.