_Socialism_ does not mean the "sharing out" of property; on the contrary, it means the collective ownership of property. "Britain for the British" does not mean one acre and half a cow for each subject; it means that Britain shall be owned intact by the whole people, and shall be governed and worked by the whole people, for the benefit of the whole people. Just as the Glasgow tram service, the Manchester gas service, and the general postal service are owned, managed, and used by the citizens of Manchester and Glasgow, or by the people of Britain, for the general advantage. You will be told that the present holders of the land have as much right to the land as you have to your hat or your boots. Now, as a matter of law and of right, the present holders of the land have no fixed title to the land. But moderation, it has been well said, is the common sense of politics, and if we all got bare justice, "who," as Shakespeare asks, "would 'scape whipping?" Socialists propose, then, to act moderately and to temper justice with amity. They do not suggest the "confiscation" of the land. They do suggest that the land should be taken over by the nation, at a fair price. But what is a fair price? The landlord, standing upon his alleged rights, may demand a price out of all reason and beyond all possibility. Therefore I propose here to examine the nature of those alleged rights, and to compare the claims of the landholders with the practice of law as it is applied to holders of property in brains; that is to say, as it is applied to authors and to inventors. Private ownership of land rests always on one of three pleas-- 1. The right of conquest: the land has been stolen or "won" by the owner or his ancestors. 2. The right of gift: the land has been received as a gift, bequest, or grant. 3. The right of purchase: the land has been bought and paid for. Let us deal first with the rights of gift and purchase. It is manifest that no man can have a moral right to anything given or sold to him by another person who had no right to the thing given or sold. He who buys a watch, a horse, a house, or any other article from one who has no right to the horse, or house, or watch, must render up the article to the rightful owner, and lose the price or recover it from the seller. If a man has no moral right to own land, he can have no moral right to sell or give land. If a man has no moral right to sell or to give land, then another man can have no moral right to keep land bought or received in gift from him. So that to test the right of a man to land bought by or given to him, we must trace the land back to its original title. Now, the original titles of most land rest upon conquest or theft. Either the land was won from the Saxons by William the Conqueror, and by him given in fief to his barons, or it has been stolen from the common right and "enclosed" by some lord of the manor or other brigand.