From: ddmcd@yahoo.com   
      
   Bobby Farouk wrote:   
   > By way of responding to Pete's query whether Orwell believed in revolution,   
   > I came across this As I Please, from August 18, 1944.  He responds to a   
   > reader who suggested his displeasure with railings returning to London   
   > squares gave support to theft.  Revolutionary, leftist incrementalist, or   
   > neighborhood crank?   
   >   
   > "If giving the land of England back to the people of England is theft, I am   
   > quite happy to call it theft.  In his zeal to defend private property, my   
   > correspondent does not stop to consider how the so-called owners of the land   
   > got hold of it.  They simply seized it by force, afterwards hiring lawyers   
   > to provide them with title deeds.  In the case of the enclosure of the   
   > common lands, which was going on from about 1600 to 1850, the land-grabbers   
   > did not even have the excuse of being foreign conquerors; they were frankly   
   > taking the heritage of their own countrymen, upon no sort of pretext except   
   > that they had the power to do so.   
   >   
   > Except for the few surviving commons, the high roads, the lands of the   
   > National Trust, a certain number of parks, and the sea shore below high-tide   
   > mark, every square inch of England is "owned" by a few thousand families.   
   > These people are just about as useful as so many tapeworms.  It is desirable   
   > that people should own their own dwelling-houses, and it is probably   
   > desirable that a farmer should own as much land as he can actually farm.   
   > But the ground landlord in a town area has no function and no excuse for   
   > existence.  He is merely a person who has found out a way of milking the   
   > public while giving nothing in return.  He causes rents to be higher, he   
   > makes town planning more difficult, and he excludes children from green   
   > spaces: that is literally all he does, except to draw his income.  The   
   > removal of the railings in the squares was a first step against him.  It was   
   > a very small step, and yet an appreciable one, as the present move to   
   > restore the railings shows.  For three years or so the squares lay open, and   
   > their sacred turf was trodden by the feet of working-class children, a sight   
   > to make dividend-drawers gnash their false teeth.  If that is theft, all I   
   > can say is, so much the better for theft."   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   where did you find AS I PLEASE in electronic form?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)