LAND TENURE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4802, 12 August 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

LAND TENURE.

In the January number of the Fortnightly Review there is an article on the Channel Islands and Land Tenure which contains matter of no slight interest to Australian readers. The object the writer has in view is to show the loss of productive power, and therefore of national wealth, as well as other evils occasioned by the concentration of the landed property of the nation in the hands- of a few, and he illustrates his subject by a, comparison of the condition and resources of the Channel Islands with those of the Isle of Wight. The latter is well-known as a fashionable wateringplace, much resorted to in summer by wealthy visitors, and by invalids in winter. It is the head-quarters of the Royal Yacht Club,’and contains a marine residence for the Royal Family. Notwithstanding these advantages, however, it falls far short in population and wealth of the Channel Islands, although the acreage of these islands is 'considerably less than that of the Isle of Wight. The area of the Isle of Wight is 86,810 acres, whije the aggregate of the Channel Islands is only 48,098 acres, Jersey containing 28,717, Guernsey 16,005, and the smaller islands 3376. Of this area a considerable proportion consists of irreclaimable waste land, being of granite formation, at a general elevation of between two and three hundred feet above the level of the sea.

In Guernsey the proportion of this useless land is one-third, or more than 5000 acres ; it is greater in Alderney and Sark, but not so great in Jersey. We may, therefore, estimate tho area of cultivable land in the Channel Islands at about half of that of the Isle of Wight, yet they support just about one-third more population. The Registrar-General's census returns for 1871 show the population of the Isle of Wight as 06,219 ; that of the Channel Islands 89,501. Mere excess of population, irrespective of tho condition of the people, is of course no subject for exultation, but the writer shows that these islands excel not only in population, but ia wealth also. He tells us that he saw in the Channel Islands no indications of poverty—on the contrary, every one seemed to be living in ease and comfort and to enjoy a sufficiency of everything. The number of substantial houses in tho environs of the two towns of St. Helier’s and St. Peter’s Port surprised him, and ho makes the remark that those accustomed to tho uninhabited look of rural parishes in England would wonder, in travelling through the country parishes in the islands, how so many people could find the moans to live in such good houses. A month's search for some of tho mean and dilapidated kind, of which so many specimens are to bo seen in England, proved quite unsuccessful. No dirt and rags, no want or decay, no signs of the extinction of self-respect were anywhere visible. He found tho churches large and well-kept; tho same with the churchyards and tho village schools. The roads, too, were in excellent condition, especially in Jersey. The roadside margins consisted generally of stone walls or welltrimmed hedges or earthbanka, upon or beside which rows of trees were planted, some of which were fruit trees, but whether fruit or timber trees, all bore signs of being well tended. Another interesting feature of tho , country which tho writer observed as affording additional evidence of the condition

of the people was tho general market. In the Channel Islands every square foot of land is turned to account, and tho result of it is that the markets are kept constantly supplied with an abundance of fresh fruit, vegetables, and dairy produce, which are sold at prices that bring these very desirable articles of diet within the reach of all classes ot the population, and which are at the same time remunerative to the grower. In the Guernsey vegetable market the writer counted more than 100 peasant women in their stalls, many of them exhibiting upwards of 30 baskets, containing every variety of garden and dairy produce. For such articles as these many million's a year are sent from England to the peasant proprietors of Normandy and Holland, and such produce passing through the hands of shopkeepers is more than doubled in price by the time it reaches the consumers.

Except for the sale of corn and cattle, markets in England are almost.a thing of the past ; the market-places alone remain, the people who formerly used them, the peasant proprietors, having become extinct. The land is nearly all in large farms, which are made to grow only bread and meat. One of tho consequences of this state of things is that the bulk ot the people enjoy little variety of diet, and are deficient in the art of making the most of everything which is so observable among the peasantry of the Channel Islands, as well as those of France, Germany, and Switzerland. In the Channel Islands the laud is parcelled out among a number of small proprietors, who are directly interested in developing the capabilities of their land to the fullest extent. In Jersey the largest proprietors own 100 acres ; in Guernsey and Alderney fifty acres is a large estate; but by far the greatest number of holdings consist of less than two acres. This wide diffusion of landed property, however, has proved no ■ obstacle to the accumulation of a considerable amount of wealth, as is shown by tire liberal sums which the islanders can afford to spend in the construction ot useful public works. Guernsey is now spending £16,000 in building a covered market for vegetables and fruit. A broad street has lately been carried across the town of St. Peter’s Port, from the harbor to the heights, at a cost of £l-0,000, and upon the splendid harbor there has been spent the sum of £285,000. All these works have been carried out with island money only. Of the expenditure on the harbor, £65,000 has already been paid off, and the remainder is being liquidated at the rate of £15,000 a year. Some years ago Jersey constructed a harbor of a similar kind ; hut as this is only adapted for the vessels of light draught which formerly sufficed for the

trade of the place, a second is now being constructed in deeper water. The inhabitants of the Isle of Wight would not be able to find the means of constructing one such harbor. This naturally excites enquiries as to what is the cause of this difference between the resources of the two places, which are separated by only a narrow strip of water. The superior fertility of the soil is not sufficient to account for it, for parts of the Isle of Wight are as fertile as any parts of the islands, and the greater extent of area is more than sufficient to account for the inferiority of other parts. Nor is there much difference between the climate on the sbuth side of the Isle of .Wight and that of the islands. There is, however, a wide difference in the systems of land tenure which obtain in the two countries, and to this the writer, whose paper we are reviewing, attributes the difference in wealth and population.

Under the landlord and tenant system which prevails in England, in very few instances is the rent saved for the purpose of improving the land, a great portion of it is commonly spent elsewhere. The farmer does not consider it any part of his business to improve (except to fulfil the conditions of his lease) another man’s laud ; his object is to make as much capital out of the laud as he can, and in such a form that he can withdraw it when it suits his purpose. The capital made out of the land therefore does not revert to it as it does in the Channel Islands, where every farmer is his own landlord, and therefore devotes all his energies, his skill, as well as his capital, to the development of the resources of his land. Some idea of the loss of national wealth _to England, which is the result of neglecting to develop the productive powers of the land, may be gathered from the fact that small cultivators in the Channel Islands arc able to spend £4O ah acre in the culture of the potato, and that in 1873 the inhabitants of Jersey sent to London £300,000 worth of early potatoes, and Guernsey 50 tons of grapes, which were grown under glass. Of the general industry, sagacity, and intelligence of the Channel Islanders the writer speaks in the highest terms, and he attributes their moral qualities, as well as their national prosperity, to the wide diffusion of property in land. Property he considers to be the great national educator ; its. pursuit, use, and administration, the best means for developing the intelligence and moral qualities of ,the mass of mankind. The recent conflicts between labor and -capital in England which have been productive of; such disastrous consequences, he attributes to the want of an interest, in the general prosperity of the country on the part of the laborers, which the possession of property, hotvever small, would have given them. Home, he maintains, not the individual, is the natural unit of society, and there is no'true home where it is not the occupier’s own'property. There is much in the views of this writer which must commend them to the approbation of a large majority of the inhabitants.of this colony. The beat method of disposing of and settling the vast areas of land of which we are the fortunate possessors, has been a bone of contention ever since the foundation of the colony, and during the lost few years especially, has-been regarded as a legitimate subject for practising experiments by several successive administrations. The avowed object of recent legislation has been to prevent the monopolising of the land by a few to the obstruction of the industrial efforts of the many. How far this legislation will prove successful in accomplishing its object yet remains to be seen, but by disinterested persons it can scarcely be denied that the principle is a good one. The land of a country is naturally the property of the people who live in it, and whatever system of disposing of it is the best calculated to develop its resources is, at the same time, the best calculated to promote the national prosperity and the moral well-being of the people. °