ENGLISH OWNERS OF LAND IN THE UNITED STATES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1984, 7 May 1885, Page 2

ENGLISH OWNERS OF LAND IN THE UNITED STATES.

The Bill introduced into the United States House of Representatives prohibiting aliens and foreigners from acquiring and owning lands has been ordered to be reported back to the House by the Public Lands Committee, with a recommendation that it should pass. The members of the committee state that they have learned with reasonable certainty that certain gentlemen, chiefly Englishmen, have acquired,' and now own, in the aggregate, about twenty-ohe.million acres of land within the United States,' although they have not sufficient information to state the quantity owned by untitled aliens. The report proceeds :- "This alien, non-resident ownership will in timo lead to a system of landlordism incompatible with the best interests and free institutions of the United States. The foundation for such a system is being laid brqadly. In the Western States and territories a considerable number of- immigrants are annually arriving..'who are to become tenants and herdsmoh' oivthe

vast posssessionß of these foreign lords under contracts made before they sailed for America." The report says further: —"The avarice and enterprise of European capitalists havo caused them to invest many millions in American railroad and land bonds, covering perhaps 100,000,000 dols., the greater part of which, under foreclosure sales, will most likely before many years, become the property of these foreign, bondholders, in addition to their present princely possessions. It is thus manifest that if tho present alien ownership is an evil, of wliichwe have no doubt, the probabilities of the near future still more imperatively demand legislation for its prevention."