PEERS AT THE COAL COMMISSION .

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 200, 19 May 1919, Page 5

PEERS AT THE COAL COMMISSION .

FURTHER EVIDENCE OF LAND TENURE

CENTURIES-OLD TITLES

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright

London, May 9 (delayed). Before the Coal' Commission Lord Trodegar gave evidence that he owned 82,000 acres in South Wales, of which area some had been in the possession of his family since long before the Norman Conquest, while some was purchased in 1639, and other portions in 1710. His predecessors had acquired the balance by innumerable small purchases, and many of tho titles, were written in "dogLatin."

Mr. J. Hodges quoted a, speech by Mr. Lloyd G.eorge in Swansea in 11)12, in which ho stated that landlordism so ground down and oppressed tho miners that when they came out of the mines, instead of finding renewed vigour and strength, they found crowded houses whioh were unfit for human habitation, and which bred disease and degradation. Tho men whose wealth they made at the risk of their lives grudged them every inch of sunlight" and airspace. Lord Tredcgar denied that this was a fair statement of the conditions in South Wales.

The Marquis of Bute gave evidence that he owned 12,852 acres, the royalties from which yielded an average revenue of X 109.277. His ancestors acquired tho bulk of this land by way of. a grant-from Edward VI., for raising an army.—Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.