The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1912. LAND-TENURE & THE EMPIRE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1633, 27 December 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1912. LAND-TENURE & THE EMPIRE.

Perhaps, it is natural that, absorbed in the contemplation of their own needs, the oversea, nations of the Empire should think very little of the effect upon the Mother Country of the tide of emigration from her ■shores. New Zealand has not mademuch demand upon -Great Britain for immigrants in recent years, but other dominions- have drawn- upon her very heavily; and a good many people at Home are: taking alarm. They realise that those who leave the Homeland to make new homes under other skies are not those to: whom the country could say fare-' well without regret. The bulk of these adventurous people are naturally men and women of grit and enterprise. The hooligan, the wastrel, or the failure is usually a hooligan, a wastrel,, and a failure, for want of those qualities which- inspire, the emigrant. In the Nineteenth Century for November; Sir Gilbert Parker shows how; serious the problem has become for' Britain. "In every boatload of emigrants,"' he says, "Britain sees herself drained of those elements that are essential, to national existence"; and within the last thirty-years the balance of loss is at least 4,000,000 people. One effect, of this' constant tide of emigration from Britain is an intensinca-, tion of the rural depopulation. In 1801 the population of the rural districts formed; 52.7 per cent, of the whole; in 1905 it formed only 28.7 per 'cent. Simultaneously the- proportion of the rural to the urban population has increased in France, Germany, and the United- States. There can be no question that this makes the problem a grave one for Britain. In healthy civilisations the country has always succeeded in feeding tho. cities, not only with food-, but with population-; but in Britain the cities and the colonies have nearly bled rural England dry, thus cutting off the blood-supply at the source.

The wretchedness of the situation, to men like Sir- Gilbert Parker, lies in the fact that it is not an inevitable one. The depletion of the rural districts in Britain can be checked by sound legislation, and legislation the value of which has in other countries been fcried and proved. At the present time Britain is the victim of two theories, according to Sir Gilbert Parker, one political', and one economic. The economic fallacy is that farming, to be profitable, must be conducted on a large scale. The political fallacy is that, there: should be no freehold ownership of land. As the writer points' out, this second' fallacy has not even the recommendation that it ever fitted the facts ':••"■

The theory of limited ownership is far. less' defensible than' the theory of largo farming, for the latter' at, least did for a considerable time achieve the desired result, while .the former has.never succeeded pr survived in any civilised', country where it has been tried,, if wo except Lord, Crewe's famous example of that "ancient civilisation"—Northern Nigeria.

Nothing in practical Radicalism has been more conspicuous than tho failure of the Small Holdings Acts, made all. the more conspicuous by tho enormous success of the IrishLand Purchase Act of 1903, which, as-our readers will recall, has resulted in making hundreds of thousands of Irish freeholders out of poor tenant farmers. This fine measure of reform has resulted inan agrarian revolution—contracts for sale having either been completed or approved for more than half thecultivable area •of Ireland. This fact is reflected in the falling- of the tide of emigration from Ireland, which is smaller than the efflux even from Scotland. The only hope for rural England that Sir Gilbert Parker can see is a' land policy that is true to the facts of human nature:

Unless land-holding be made attractive, unless it be invested with the eloments of hope and confidence, the policy of "speeding up" must not only bo in vain, but actually injurious, by reason of the disappointments it will- inevitably engender. The disappointment is already showing itself,- unreasonably, for what could be expected from the policy of 1908? If limited ownership, tenancy, has failed to satisfy other peoples, even under conditions so favourable to the tenants as those created iii Ireland under the Land Act .of 1881, or the perpetual rent-charge* of Denmark and Germany during tho first half of tho last century, or the leaseholds of New Zealand to-day, who could expect that the British peasant would bo satisfied or attracted by a system which imposed heavy rent, created. large charges for management, and oven demanded that tho tenant should purchase the land for tho county council, and still remain a rent-payer on his own land?

Sib Gilbert Parker, in his vigorous advocacy of the policy of small freeholds, is expressing truly the feeling of all thoughtful Unionists, and the land policy of the Unionist party. It is an amusing thing that this should be.callcda'"lofy" policy by the Socialistic Kadicals who; _ in Britain as elsewhere, are struggling to maintain the title of Liberal. It is a fact that it is tho hope of ownership that has brought the British emigrants to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In this country the battle of the tenures is won: it was only a combination of folly and cowardice, leading to a policy of trickery, that prevented the old Government from winning that battle for itself fifteen years ago. In Britain, unhappily, we must wait some years for tho full success of the only policy that will rc-vitaliso the rural districts. A sound agrarian policy

in the Mother Country may check the flow of emigrants to the oversea dominions, but that will be no bad thing for the Empire. The dominions need population, but Britain needs far more the revival of her rural activity. It is not Dukes that stand in the way, but. the LloydGeorge school of politicians, 'flic dominions will not, in the sum, profit from immigration that is duo to British misgovcrnment: it is not a matter for rejoicing if the limbs grow thick and strong through some disease of the heart.