COAL COMMISSION.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 May 1919, Page 5

COAL COMMISSION.

THE SLIGHT OF THE WORKERS. WEALTHY TITLED OWNERS. London, May 9. At the Coal Commission Lord Tredegar, giving evidence, said he owned 82,000 acres in South Wales, of which some had been in the possession of his family long before the Norman conquest; some had been purchased in 1739 and some in 1710. His predecessors had Required the balance by innumerable small purchases. Many of ,the titles were written in "Dog Latin," Mr Hodges quoted a speech by Mr. Lloyd George at Swansea in 1912, in which he stated that the ground landlords had so pressed upon the minors that when they came out of the mines instead of finding renewed vigor and strength, they found crowded houses unfit for human habitation, which bred disease and degradation. The men whose wealth they made at .the risk of their lives grudged them every inch of air space and sunlight. Lord Tredegar denied that this was a fair statement of the conditions in South Wales.

The Marquis of Bute, in evidence, eaid that he owned 12,952 acres, the royalties from which yielded on the average £109,277. His ancestors acquired the bulk of the land as a grant from Edward VI. for raising an army.— Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assu.