The Magic of Property. No. 11.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 966, 3 August 1881, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Magic of Property. No. 11.

By E. A. McKechnie, Esq. (From the Star J Now this law which prevents the land being sold is said, and with reason, to be the source of most of the evils of svhich England, Scotland, and Ireland so bitterly complain. Consider some of the consequences of this law for a moment I —l, with my life estate, may become extravagant and wreckless. I may gamble, fall into debt, and “go to the bad ” in every possible way, but the land itself cannot be touched. Again, I may be utterly indifferent to my duties as a land proprietor. The land may require to be farmed scientifically, to be drained, to be fenced, to be'manured, to be looked after constantly, if it is to be made productive ; and I may neglect all these things; the land may become a wilderness, but it cannot be sold. This is the hardship. If it were not for the law we are considering, it would pass at once into the hands of men who would improve it—make a living out of it. If one set of men could not do so, it would be sold over and over again until it was held by some one who could make a profit out of it. This interference with the ordinary deal-

ings with property, according to the. exigencies of trade, or the wants and desires of individuals, must ever prove disastrous. Apply in your own minds the same law to other kinds of property —ships, horses, cattle, furniture, and such like, and notice how impossible it would be to conduct this business of the world if it generally prevailed. In thinking over the subject, you will naturally ask yourselves this question: How came it that these laws apply exclusively to land, and to no other sort of property ? The answer can readily be given. The persons who made those laws were land owners, and they made them to aggrandize themselves and their families, at the expense of the rest of the nation. All the laws they made relating to the land were entirely in favor of land owners. Eor instance, if any of you were my tenants and owed me rent, instead of having to sue you as for an ordinary debt and recover judgment, I could instruct a bailiff to enter the house at once, distrain on your goods, and sell as much of them as would pay me the amount due and costs. There is no other reason for this exceptional -state of things than the one I have mentioned. In the same way if you were foolish enough to put up an out-

house or other building on my land, or nail up a cupboard, shelves, or any other addition to my house, your property would at once become mine. From all this you cannot f»il but see how closely the land owners looked after their own interests in times past, or be surprised to learn that at present they stand one by another and protect those interests to the utmost. When I tell you it is estimated that twothirds of the land in Great Britain belong to great peers and commoners, you will realise the pressure necessary to force these land owners to legislate against themselves. But the system they protect has worked and is still working much mischief. Greatßritain, I fear, will have to pass through a serious crisis before self-interest can be made to give way and the land be free. Let us see some further results arising from the working of this law, and I fancy you will not then hesitate to say, as thousands have said before, that nothing further is needed to condemn the system —it is condemned by its own monstrous results. From a return moved for in the House of Lords, I am enabled to give you the following figures, to which I would ask your serious attention. The total area of England and Wales is, in round numbers, something over 37 millions of acres ; and it is curious to note how that vast extent of land is divided amongst the population exceeding considerably 34 millions of people—loo persons own nearly 4 millions acres; 874 persons own over 9 million acres — that is nearly one-fourth of the whole. If the land were divided equally among the population, these 874 persons hold what should belong to 8 or 9 million people. 4500 persons own more than one-half of all England and Wales, leaving the other half to be shared among more than 33,000,000 of people. But if we look at the individual holdings, they are more extraordinary still, and should create the greatest surprise and indignation. < hie Englishmen owns more than 156,397 acres, another 133,000 acres,

another 103,000, and so on till they come down to one or two thousand acres, which are considered very small estates. The returns relating to Scotland are still more astounding. The total acreage is about 19,000,000, to be divided among a population of about 3or 4 millions. Let us see the result. Seventy owners have about one-half of Scotland —1700 persons own 9-tenths, leaving only one-tenth for the rest of the people. Of individual owners one man has 1,326,000 acres, and also 32,095 acres in England, making in all a neat little property of 1,358,548 acres. If we look at poor unfortunate Ireland we shall find her area something over 20,000,000 acres, with a population between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 of her acreage ; 744 persons own about one-half of the island ; 14 persons own each more than 50,000 acres ; 3 persons own each more than 100,000 acres, and 1 man owns 170,119 acres. Consider these figures and the population of each country, and you cannot but own that a system that can produce such results must necessarily be defective. And though it was productive of no want or misery, you would still, in justice to the needs of the great mass of the nation, condemn it altogether, and insist upon its being instantly changed. The small farmer or farm laborer in England has only a miserable kind of cottage to live in with a little or no comfort, and having no lease even to that wretched habitation he may be turned out at any moment. He looks to his cottage simply for shelter. He will not repair or beautify it, or add to its convenience. He has no motive to render the place gay with flowers or expend his time to labor on its improvement. He has no feeling of love for the little homestead, though it is his home and the birth place of his children. And worse than all he has no motive for increased industry, self-denial, and temperance. And why is this —why does the English laborer differ from those of her own class in other parts of the world ? Because the land on which he toils is not his own, and do what he will, practise every virtue under the sun, is never likely to be. The absence of all incentive to save money is to me strikingly apparent by the increase in the consumption of alcohol during the years in which the labouring classes in England received higher wages than usual. The returns for many years invariably showed the same result. The higher the wage rate the greater the sum spent by the workmen in drink. I ascribe this to their having before them no settled object of ambition to acquire which would necessitate self-restraint. That great statesman, C. J. Fox, is said to have been accosted one evening on his way to the House of Commons by a woman whom he knew to be an habitual drunkard. Her shattered nerves and quivering frame showed how strong the drink crave was upon her. She begged for money, and he gave her half-a-crown. A friend with whom he was w’alking remonstrated strongly against this, saying he was encouraging vice, for she would most assuredly spend the money in drink. He excused himself by replying it was her only happiness. Now, that is the position to which the law has reduced the agricultural class in England. They have nothing to look forward to, nothing to struggle for, nothing to save for, nothing to hope for. Their lot is cast, so far as they are concerned. In wretched places of the earth, Where men have little joy from birth Until they die.

Hence it is they drink to fill up a vacant life, to lessen its bitter disappointment, to kill thought and care, to forget wretchedness in oblivion. So much for the picture wrought by the action of the English laws relating to land. I have sketched it here that it may serve as a beacon and warning to ourselves. Let us now turn our attention to the one presented by the working of the Continental system as it is called, and mark the contrast. In France large farming is to be seen in great perfection, as well as farming on a small scale, by owners of the land. According to the return there are some 50,000 proprietors, possessing each about 750 acres. There are 500,000 possessing on an average 75 acres, and about 5 millions holding 71 acres each. Compare this with the few but immense individual holdings in England. In Norway very few estates are under 40 acres, and many are above 400 acres, and they are all farmed by owners of the land. lu Prussia there are small properties — the large proprietors holding 400 acres

and upwards. But the middle-sized properties are 20 times more than those called large, and the small properties are as 90 to 1 of the large. In Switzerland the holdings, vary from 1 to 40 acres, generally speaking. Every writer on the condition of the peasant proprietors in all these countries are unanimous in describing it as a happy one. If a plot of ground is insufficient to support a peasant and his family, he meets his wants by laboring for others, as well as cultivating his own land. But as a rule he is well off ; his wants are amply supplied from his own land by his own exertions ; he is independent, he lives within his means, has no apprehension for the future, no fear of an increased rent or being turned out; but, free from anxieties, on these grounds he labors cheerfully to improve and add to the value of his property. Now bear in mind all this happiness, comfort and prosperity to millions of human beings is brought about by one simple expedient — making the land free —in the same sense and to the same extent as other property is free. (To be continued).