COAL KINGS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10283, 19 May 1919, Page 5

COAL KINGS

DOMINATE KING GOAL LORDLY MONOPOLISTS. EVIDENCE BEFORE COMMISSION. By Telegraph—Press '.Association —Copyright Australian and N .Z. .Cable Association. LONDON, May 9 (delayed). Before tile Coal Commission, Lord Tredegar gave evidence that he owned 82,000 acres in South Wales, of which area some had been in the. .possession, of bis family since long before the Norman Conquest, while some was purchased in 1(339, and other portions in 1710. His predecessors had acquired the balance by innumerable small purchases, and many of the titles’ were written in “dbg-Latin.” Mr J. Hodges quoted a speech by Ir Lloyd George, in Swansea,, in 1912, in wliicli lie staved that landlordism' so ground down and oppressed the miners vliat when they came out of the mines, • instead of finning renewed vigour and strength, they' found crowded houses which wero unfit for human habitation, and which bred disease and degradation. The men whoso wealth they made at the risk of their lives grudged them every inch of sunlight and air space. Lord Tredegar denied that this was a fair statement of the conditions in South Wales.

Tho Marquis of Bute gave evidence that lie owned 12,852 acres, the royalties from -which yielded an average revenue of £109,277. His ancestors acquired the bulk of this‘land by way of a grant from Edward VI., for raising an army.