WCP2632

Letter (WCP2632.2522)

[1]1

Meredith, Gloucester

2nd. June 1882.

My dear Sir

Many thanks for your book on Land Nationalisation. I have just finished reading it, and I quite accept its general conclusions, for which I was somewhat prepared by the study of H. George's2 "Progress & Poverty",3 read on board ship while returning[2] from South Africa.

The indictment against landlordism4 is complete, and if the Irish people can only succeed in breaking its yoke from off their necks, they may yet give the lead to their patient and docile fellow subjects on this side of the Irish Channel.

In Denmark much of what you suggest has been recently done, with the happiest results, as I pointed out in an[3] article last year in the Fortnightly Review5 of July.

"Free Selection"6 is the law in Australia generally, although the conditions there are so different from those of Great Britain that the two cases can hardly be compared, and the colonies have not guarded themselves properly against the ultimate rise of landlordism.

I hope to run down and visit you at Godalming,7 perhaps on Sunday week, but I will send a post-card. I return to town on Monday next.

Yours very truly | David Wedderburn [signature]

[4]8

1
Address is printed.
2
George, Henry (1839-1897). American writer, politician and political economist.
3
George, H. (1879) 'Progress and Poverty An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth: the remedy' W. M. Hinton and Company, San Francisco.
4
The system by which owners of property receive rents from the tenants who use it.
5
An influential British magazine that was published from 1865 to 1954.
6
Australian system which allowed settlers to choose areas of crown land and acquire the freehold by a series of annual payments.
7
ARW was living in Nutwood Cottage, Godalming, Surrey at this time.
8
David Wedderburn written in hand alongside British Museum stamp on otherwise blank page.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP2632.2522)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Paterson, Gavin [2018-11-13] Transcription checked by Paterson, Gavin [2018-11-13] Transcription checked by Sherwood, Danni [2020-08-10]

Please cite as “WCP2632,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP2632