I am satisfied that nothing will ever prove effectual but the abolition of our present land system. This huge monopoly has, like Belshazzar, been weighed in the balance and found wanting. All history condemns the idea that a few people have absolute right to the use of the earth, to the exclusion of the rest. History informs us that landowners were simply trustees to the State for the land held, and were under the obligation to provide and equip at their own cost the defences of the nation, besides having other onerous dues to pay and duties to perform. But gradually the landholders, who are now called landlords, after having seized all public and Church property they could lay their hands upon, shifted these burdens from their own shoulders on to those of the people. The existing land system places the landlords in the position of antagonists of the general public, and the people are thrown into the grasp of a huge octopus, which is dragging them down to despair and the workers to the depths of misery, crippling the trade and commerce of the world. This landed system, which has grown up under successive Kings and Governments, and is now upheld by bad laws, is a crime against the people; it is a violation of Divine order and of the inalienable rights of mankind. It has created pauperism, that awful evil which inflicts an injustice and cruelty upon the honest workers and drives one out of every four into the Union workhouse. Farmers are ruined and willing workers are cast off the land they would gladly cultivate to seek a miserable existence in overcrowded cities, where their presence aggravates the miseries already existing. This system is a danger to society, and if not speedily remedied must bring disastrous consequences.