10 counties, we may say six peers returned as 68 landowners. Let us see how any of them-say the Duke of Bedford-stands in the return. There can be nothing invidious in selecting one of the best landlords in the United Kingdom. In the lists for the counties of Bedford, Cambridge, and Devon, the Duke of Bedford appears as a great landowner. He is returned in each as the owner of more than 10,000 acres. In the counties of York, Buckingham, Cornwall, Dorset, Huntingdon, and Northampton, he is returned as the possessor of more than 1,000 and less than 5,000 acres, while in the counties of Hertford and Lincoln he is returned as the owner of more than I acre and less than 100 acres. The effect of this is to make the superficial result of the New Domesday Books very misleading. Not only is the Duke of Buccleuch returned as 14 landowners and the Duke of Bedford as 10 landowners, but there is consequent error in any estimate of the various classes of landowners. In the category of great landowners the Duke of Bedford makes a threefold appearance; then in the category which many assume is composed of squires, his grace makes a sixfold entry; and last and lowest of all, he is placed in the ranks of the small owners, who some would have us believe are peasant-proprietors or yeomen, and there he stands as two landThis is only an example, and undeniably a fair one, of the fallacious character of these returns. owners. But we should be on comparatively safe ground if we could assume that the Blue Books need investigation only in regard to the 12,791 persons who are returned as owners of four-fifths of Great Britain. It is published for our acceptance and belief that in this island there are not fewer than 269,299 persons among whom is distributed the ownership of 11,597,514 acres of land in parcels varying in size from 1 to 500 acres. I wish that these figures, which appear in the New Domesday Books, were true, or anything like true. I know they were compiled with care and assiduity under the supervision of an eminent public servant. But I fancy that if these books had been issued under Liberal instead of Conservative auspices, the grand totals would not have been promulgated without a large allowance for necessary deductions, to which I am about to refer. We who, from motives of national policy, desire to see a much wider diffusion of property in land, do not complain that in this category we have no indication of the number of persons contained in it who derive their subsistence from the cultivation of their own land. It is, we know, in great part made up with gentlemen-owners of two or three acres of lawn and shrubbery; with tradesmen-owners of what is known as accommodation land in the neighbourhood of towns in which their commercial or other business is carried on. This confusion of classes was inevitable. No one who has any positive acquaintance with the facts would suppose that of the 130,000 persons returned as possessing more than 1 acre and less than 10 acres there is beyond a mere handful of what may be called peasant-proprietors. All this, however, applies to the figures when we have reduced them to the actual number of persons owning land varying in extent from 1 to 500 acres. But how is this to be accomplished? Officials sitting down to compile a New Domesday Book, with unlimited power of obtaining correct returns, would not think of including the separate properties of corporations, in some cases giving the name of the corporation, many times repeated, and in others the name of the occupier or incumbent, as that of the landowner. Yet this is what has happened throughout these returns. The North-Western Railway Company is counted as 28 landowners. Trustees of Poor' stand as 40 landowners in the single county of Bucks. The compilers have made an attempt to distinguish the lands of corporations by italics, but in this respect there has been a notable failure. I have selected for careful examination the returns relating to three counties-Bucks, Hertford, and Lancaster. The choice was made for no other reason than because the three principal members of the Government reside in those shires. In the county of Bucks I find that the only Church lands represented by italics are those of 1 perpetual curate, 1 rector, and 3 vicars; in Hertford, there are only 2 rectors and 1 vicar; and in the county of Lancaster only 2 rectors and 5 vicars. But in the first county there are no fewer than 235 landowners with the title of 'Reverend ;' in the second there are 159; and in the third there are 286 Reverend' landowners. Of course, with very few exceptions, these clerical landowners are in possession of glebe lands, and their names ought therefore to have been placed in italics. In the county of Bucks there are 273 'owners' or corporations in italics, and if we add that number to the total of the clerical owners' of glebe lands, we have a deduction of 508, or about one-sixth, to make from the 3,288 reputed owners of more than 1 acre in that county. The areas of these public lands are generally small; all, it may be said, are included in the category we are at present examining-that of the reputed owners of more than 1 acre and less than 500, who are returned as numbering 269,299 in Great Britain. We have learned from the case of the Duke of Bedford and others that a large reduction must be made in this category for the peers, baronets, and other great gentry who are also returned in the former division containing all owners of above 500 acres, and the allowance for these great gentry has to be added to the holders of public lands who are not rightly returned as landowners. There are other errors; sometimes the name of a landowner is repeated in respect of separate properties in the same county. But to reduce this category to its proper dimensions would produce no very interesting result. Take the actual number of owners in this category at about 150,000; that total would include a very large majority who are not agricultural landowners. They are, for the most part, residential suburban proprietors. It is not unlikely that the true number of agricultural landlords does not exceed the famous estimate of 30,000. The New Domesday Books were to establish the absurdity of that estimate. In this they are unsuccessful. But we are not on the whole dissatisfied with these ponderous volumes. They exhibit the one great characteristic fact of the English land-system; that the ownership of four-fifths of the soil, if properly recorded, would be inscribed above the names of a number of persons between 5,000 and 10,000. It would be just as reasonable to say that the overflow of the Thames was caused by the policy of the Government upon the Eastern Question, as to assert that this possession of four-fifths of the soil by a body of persons who could be put into Exeter Hall is the result of economic laws. It is the consequence of the feudal customs of this country, established, confirmed, and encouraged by the force and operation of law. We know how it is done. The law declares in every county, except I believe one, in this island, that if a landowner dies intestate the eldest son shall inherit the whole property, and that his brothers and sisters shall be dependent upon his bounty. In Kent a peculiar rule prevails, which is unnatural only as regards the daughters of the intestate landowner-the property being divided in gavelkind among the sons, and the girls left destitute. The abolition. of this law of primogeniture is sought because it produces injustice, especially in the class of small landowners; primarily it is demanded because the English people will not consent to retain upon their statute-book a law which is offensive to natural ideas of morality and justice. But this narrowed ownership is especially due to the custom of entail and strict settlement which has been allowed to fasten so banefully upon the soil of our country. This cannot be a free country while the freehold is reserved to an unborn generation. Of these 40,000,000 acres in Great Britain (I do not speak of Ireland) to which I have referred, it may be said that they are in bondage. By legal devices, which are not advantageous to the personal interests of the nominal proprietors, nor to those of the people at large, these lands are, with insignificant exceptions, placed under permanent disabilities; they are the preserves of entail, fenced with strict settlement; they belong to no man, and to a certain extent they are doomed to infertility, because they are ever in waiting for the unborn hand of the next generation. We all know that this is opposed to the interests of the country; we none of us doubt that it would be for the advantage of the landlords that the fullest energies of proprietorship should be brought to bear through each generation upon agriculture. The material interests of the country demand from us an effort to free the soil, and in this our labour will be sweetened by the knowledge that while we shall be conferring a pecuniary advantage upon those who are at present the nominal owners of this vast and valuable area, we may fairly claim a part of that increase of value for the revenue of the State. This law of pri mogeniture, with its allied customs, is not a natural growth of English soil. It was introduced by the Norman Conqueror, who, in deference to the power of the capital, provided in the charter he gave to London that the children of an intestate should continue to inherit equally. Yet it matters little to us what was the distribution of the soil 900 years ago; our business and determination should be to provide in this our day such a distribution as, while it injures no man in his rights, shall be most beneficial to the nation. It is now my task to show (1) the rights of the people in the land, (2) the abuses of the existing land-system, (3) the measures of reform to be proposed, and (4) the consequences which may be expected to ensue. It is easy to prove that absolute property in land has never been conceded. As Mr. Froude is an admirer of the English land-system, it may be well to refer to him upon this point. He is of opinion that 'private ownership in land is permitted because Government cannot be omnipresent, and personal interest is found, on the whole, an adequate security that land so held shall be administered to the general advantage. But, seeing that men are born into the world without their own wills, and, being in the world, they must live upon the earth's surface, or they cannot live at all, no individual or set of individuals can hold over land that personal and irresponsible right which is allowed them in things of less universal necessity.' I am glad to say that in every word of this statement I agree with Mr. Froude. As Mr. Lowe is understood to be opposed to the extension of the franchise in counties, he has also to some extent the confidence of those who are absolutists in regard to landtenure. Mr. Lowe's opinion as to property in land has lately been expressed with his customary candour. Land,' he says, ' is a kind of property in which the public must from its very nature have a kind of dormant joint interest with the proprietor.' Let us adopt Mr. Lowe's words, and henceforth speak of the national property in the soil as our joint interest' with the recognised proprietors. No intelligent person will deny the existence of this joint interest, who considers. that the doctrine of absolute property in land might lead to a denial of Mr. Froude's proposition that men must live upon the earth's surface.' 5 Among the abuses of the present system perhaps the greatest is that this joint interest' has, in its universal relation to the soil, been not only dormant,' not merely neglected, but ignored by Parliament. The people have been treated as if their property in the land had no existence. Their interest demands that the transfer of land should be simple, expeditious, and inexpensive. It remains complicated, dilatory, and costly, the percentage of expense being so uncertain and so onerous upon small purchases as to favour the aggregation English in Ireland, vol. i. p. 131. of land in few hands and the annexation of small properties to large estates. Their interest demands that the owner of land should be free to sell, or exchange, or to improve for his own advantage; and in the event of his becoming embarrassed, and therefore disabled from exercising a beneficial ownership, the public interest demands that his creditors should be empowered to take and sell his property for the discharge of their claims. The heir to one of the most ancient peerages has stated that 'seventy per cent. of the land in this country is held by men whose power over it is limited by modern settlement.' I think the figures I have taken from the New Domesday Books will lead to the conclusion that even this is too low an estimate, and we may say that nearly four-fifths of the soil of our country is placed in legal bondage. Over by far the greater part of this island there are no landowners. It is a public grievance that our landed gentry have but a limited interest in their inalienable properties, the rents of which they are at liberty to farm for their lifetime. Some of them from necessity, some from folly and extravagance, have reduced their estates to the lowest level of impoverishment. If these were freeholders, such land might be sold to men who would treble its productive powers. But it is settled,' and the 'joint interest' of the people must suffer until death passes it on to a new proprietor who perhaps will be as much embarrassed as his predecessor. The interests of the people demand that the tenure of land shall be such as will promote the best agriculture, and will therefore attract the largest amount of capital to be engaged in the cultivation of the soil. But their co-proprietors, the nominal owners of estates, have taken a different view, upon which they have acted. The land of England is now for the most part farmed by occupiers upon a yearly tenancy, to whom, as well as to leaseholders, landlords refuse a reasonable legislative security for tenant-right. Mr. Mechi published in 1871 the statement of a land agent that out of 1,500 farms he had let, fewer than 400 were on lease. I am bound to say that several proprietors have exhibited some consideration for the 'joint interest' of the public. In a previous publication I have quoted at length the speech in which the present Lord Derby declared his conviction that every acceptable tenant ought to have a lease. There could be no condemnation of his fellow-landlords more direct than this, or than that delivered by Lord Dufferin in the House of Lords when he said: "What is a yearly tenancy? Why, it is an impossible tenure--a tenure which, if its terms were literally interpreted, no Christian man would offer, and none but a madman would accept.' But if we are rational, we must admit that the landlord is free to take whatever 1872. Mr. H. R. Brand in Fortnightly Review, 1874. Free Trade in Land.' By Arthur Arnold. Contemporary Review, November • House of Lords' Debates, January 14, 1870. |