BRITONS' COMMON RIGHTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 3 April 1907, Page 2

BRITONS' COMMON RIGHTS.

British Premier Cainpboll-Bannennan announeits that Britain will try to reform the land system of the Old Country by preventing the elllux of people from 'the land. This is, as we have often intimated, the greatest question in British politics. England is densely populated, but only in the towns. The land-holders are mostly tenant farmers. The lords and the squires are their landlords, their masters, the men who tell tlicm how to vote, and insi-t, as a ■ divine right, but they shall do so. Britain is waking up to the. fact that Britain cannot depend on the land-owners 1o defend the country, as it wili surely have to be defended.' Britain knows that the problem of poverty could be solved by the landlords to-morrow if the landlords could be made to disgorge their land, and sell it .outright to the small holders. The majority of Bi'-S tain is uncultivated because, althougn the landlords let it to tenants, they regain sporting rights and one can't sport with great eclat over cultivated lands. Thq Ministry know that the landlords won't work the land and won't let others work it. They know that this drives the rural population to the towns where it is overcrowded. They know that large towns, mid consequent small vitality in the people, is weakening the defensive strength of the country and that other countries know it, 'too. They know that the people are losing the old worship for class, and that they are struggling to assert what they are told they possess—their freedom. The Slate is unable, except by purchase, to put Crown tenants on the land. It can by Act of Parliament take the great holdings from the great lords and distribute it to tlu; people whose forefathers bought it with their blood—and had it annexed by the feudal lords whose successors hold it by no other title than the right of ihe might of their forefathers and their yeomen. Britain has watched thy struggle of the peasantry in Russia, and Britain has seen in that tumultuous land concessions granted to peasants that have never been granted to leiuiiil, farmers in Britain. Britain has seen that tho withholding of the people's birthright in Russia, lias resulted in revolution, and Britain feels that the withholding of common rights to Britons will lead to graver danger in tin- Homeland if tile Lords are not brought to reason or their House remodelled or abolished. For it is. the Lords who will have the power of veto in any reform that may lie suggested in land matters.