This view is expressed clearly in a speech made by the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain at Trowbridge in 1885—
We propose that local authorities shall have power in every case to take land by compulsion at a fair price for every public purpose, and that they should be able to let the land again, with absolute security of tenure, for allotments and for small holdings.
Others, again, recommend a land tax, and with perfect justice. If the City Council improves a street, at the cost of the ratepayer, the landlord raises his rent. What does that mean? It means that the ratepayer has increased the value of the landlord's property at the cost of the rates. It would only be just, then, that the whole increase should be taken back from the landlord by the city.
Therefore, it would be quite just to tax the landlords to the full extent of their "unearned increment."
In Progress and Poverty, and in the book on Land Nationalisation by Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, you will find these subjects of the taxation and the purchase of land fully and clearly treated.
My object is to show that it is to the interest of the nation that the private ownership of land should cease.
Books to Read on the Land:—
Progress and Poverty. By Henry George, 1s. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, & Co.
Land Nationalisation. By Alfred Russell Wallace, 1s. Swan Sonnenschein.
Five Precursors of Henry George. By J. Morrison Davidson. London, Labour Leader Office, 1s.