The nearest thing to a least common denominator which I can find after searching diligently the speeches of the Liberal leaders and their backers is that most of them are in favour of doing something to the “land monopoly.” Exactly what they propose to do to it I cannot quite discover. “Overthrowing the land monopoly” may mean Leasehold Enfranchisement; it may mean the Taxation of Land Values; it may mean Small Holdings, Free Sale or the Nationalisation of Land. The last suggestion may be dismissed; we are certainly no more likely to get that from the Liberals than from the Tories. Small Holdings are excellent things, but the principle has been conceded, and we are as likely to get a further extension of it from the Tories as from the Liberals, in any case this policy does not touch the essence of the social question. Leasehold Enfranchisement, Free Sale, etc., are sham reforms of middle-class origin of which we now hear little. There remains the Taxation of Land Values. The Taxation of Land Values is very popular with the Liberals just now. Whether it would be equally popular with them were they in office is perhaps a matter for legitimate speculation. It will be remembered that it was part of their programme in 1892, and is to this day faintly discernable on the newly cleaned slate of the party. As however it is re-emerging into prominence it maybe well to say something in reference to it. A good deal of confusion is inevitable concerning this particular proposal, arising from the fact that it may be regarded in two entirely different lights. It may be considered simply as one way among many others of raising revenue to meet necessary public expenditure, or it may be regarded as a practical application of the economic doctrines associated with the name of Henry George, who taught that all revenue should be raised by a single tax (or more properly rent) on the site value of land. Now Georgian economics have made practically no headway in this country; their _a priori_ logic, their reliance on abstract assumptions rather than on history and practical experiment, their rigidity and inflexibility of application, are exasperating to a people naturally impatient of metaphysics but keenly alive to immediate social needs. People who begin their economic speculations, as the Georgites generally do, by discussing what are the natural rights of man and deducing from this an ideally perfect system of taxation and government put themselves out of court with practical men. There are no natural rights of man; there is no abstractly perfect economic or political system; we are painfully struggling by means of many experiments and many failures towards something like a decently workable one.