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capital they can make out of it rather than from any wish to improve the economic position of the countryside.

It may work for clearness if we enumerate the chief fallacies regarding land that are current in the minds of many townsmen.

(a) 'God made the land we cultivate, and, therefore, no individual should have a prescriptive right to own it.' That sounds reasonable on the face of it; but probe a little deeper. Land, in its natural state, is not fit for cultivation. It is only made fit for cultivation by the expenditure of years of hard work on the part of man, and in a later stage of development by the outlay of much capital.

In this country the rural landowner has drained the land, made roads, built houses and farm buildings, and he and his immediate predecessors have, as a rule, spent far more on improvements than the present selling value of the farm.

We may say, in opposition to the idea that the land as a free gift of God should belong to all men and be held by the State for the benefit of all men, that 'the land in many parts of England is as much a manufacture (compared with its original state) as the silk gown of a judge in Westminster is a manufacture from the silk worms that feed on the mulberry leaves in Tuscany.'

(b) When the man in the street hears of the gross rental received by all landowners being 280,000,oool. a year (as shown in the Schedule A returns), he makes no distinction between the urban owner and the rural owner.

Out of this 280,000,000l. only 50,000,000l. go to agricultural landowners, and the rest to urban owners. Of that 50,000,000l., 25,000,000l. go back in the upkeep of the farms, and only the remaining half can be termed income. It is legitimate to say that this 25,000,000l. a year is the interest on the capital put into improving the land and making it workable, and is not rental for the land itself; and that it only represents about 2 per cent. on that capital.

The urban owner as a rule does not develop his land in the way the agricultural owner does. The value of his land is mainly due to the presence of the community, and its activities in developing roads, light and water supplies, drainage, etc., and often the owner does not even build the houses that stand upon his land.

(c) A common impression is that all this rental goes to a few vastly wealthy people, whereas there are between one and two million persons receiving it. In addition there is the host of collateral income-takers, i.e., people who hold mortgages on land. If any crude attempt is made to nationalise the land, these people will have to be reckoned with.

(d) It is often said that rental is the millstone which weighs down the agricultural industry-in other words, that English landowners rack-rent the land. The selling value of land is referred to as exorbitant, and as having gone up enormously as a result of the war.

There is little ground for these assertions. The average rental of agricultural land to-day is about Il. per acre, whereas similar land in Continental countries is letting at about double that rate. In the same way the selling value of land in nearly every other country is higher than in England.

A further fallacy is that land is a monopoly. How can it be a monopoly when several millions of acres come into the market each year at an average price of under 25l. per acre? The writer knows of land which has been sold within the last few years for 3l. an acre, including buildings, land which would have realised 30l. an acre in countries with an organised agriculture.

(e) It is the common view that our system of land tenure is one of ownership, but that wrongly describes it. It is a system of tenancy, and would remain a system of tenancy, with all its drawbacks, if the land were nationalised.

(f) It is assumed that if a farmer has to buy his farm he must sink so much of his capital in the purchase that he has not enough left to work the farm properly; but this, of course, need not be so. In other countries systems of land purchase exist which enable farmers to buy under fair financial conditions, and they are in no way crippled.

(g) It is put forward that the farmer has fair access to working capital, that the banks advance all he requires; but this is not so. The credit in this country provided by banks to farmers is an outstanding 20,000,000l., as against 360,000,000l, in Germany (in 1913).

(h) People still talk about the need of fixity of tenure! This is now so thoroughly established that the bad tenant cannot be turned out at all, and the country and industry suffer in consequence.

(i) There is still talk about free access to land, but this is provided for in the Acts passed during the last ten or fifteen years. Often new legislation is demanded, when the demand should be that existing legislation be put in force.

(1) There are still people who believe that Whitehall can farm or that county agricultural committees (more or less under the direction of Whitehall) can conduct our farming operations.

Whitehall knows well that it cannot farm, and county agricultural committees, although they worked energetically during the war, would not function properly in times of peace.

(k) It is often said that occupying farmers in England cultivate their soil worse than tenant farmers. This may be true, but it is wrong to suppose that this is due to something inherent

in occupying ownership. Occupying owners have generally purchased under unfavourable financial conditions, and, having sunk too much of their available capital in purchase, have left themselves crippled and without sufficient working capital. This does not occur in countries with an organised agriculture, where occupying owners are able through credit to raise loans for increasing working capital. It is also suggested that it is harder to control the standard of cultivation of the occupying owner than of the tenant. But at this moment there is no control of the tenant, whereas an effective credit system provides the soundest control, since it offers so strong an inducement to the farmer to raise his standard of cultivation.

(1) There is an unreasonable assumption that State ownership would have the effect of raising the standard of the indifferent farmer. This is an unsound argument, since, in the end, State ownership would mean control by the Treasury. We should have its dead hand fastening a cold grip upon the industry and bringing apathy and stagnation in its train.

(m) It is loosely held that the creation of State ownership would bring about a return to the mediæval communal society; but such would not be the result, even if such a thing were desirable. Our society is too large and complicated for such a return. Individuals in the old communal system were their own masters and managed their own affairs, and though at the outset the State might set out to be the servant of the public (and in such matters an indifferent servant), it would speedily become a tyrannical

master.

(n) In regard to rural housing, while there is a great need for new houses in rural districts, it is wrong to say that there is anything approaching the overcrowding and unhealthy conditions that exist in the crowded streets of the town. It is very often overlooked that townsmen and urban workers have to a large extent taken possession of cottages originally intended for country people. In small towns with one or two factories the inhabitants often occupy houses in the country as far as seven miles away from their work. County council employees, roadmen, postmen, railwaymen and policemen are in the aggregate occupying large numbers of agricultural cottages.

Unfavourable economic conditions are compelling large landowners to break up their estates, and, on the other hand, small occupying ownerships have doubled since 1917. Here we have a movement actually at work which has proved beneficial when rightly handled in every other country. The point of immediate importance is to see that we handle it rightly.

If occupying ownership is developed on right lines, until 70 or 80 per cent. of the farms are in the hands of owners rather

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than of tenants, we shall see a great moral effect upon the cultivators of the soil.

Ownership of the land by the man who tills it brings a direct interest in the land that no form of tenancy can give. It provides an incentive to improve the land, which experience has shown to be absent from all forms of public ownership tried in the history of the world. It encourages thrift. If a man has to repair his own buildings and look after them, he will usually take that ' stitch in time which saves nine.' The tenant farmer looks to the landowner to do these repairs, and in consequence they are manifold and costly. It encourages independence and enterprise. The occupying owner has to rely upon his own initiative instead of trusting to his landlord (whether an individual or the State) to help him out of difficulties that he should grapple with.

In considering this question of ownership and the effect upon the character of the people we must not think only of the farmer, but also of the labourer. One of the most disastrous things that has happened in agriculture during the last 150 years has been the gradual and complete divorce of the agricultural labourer from direct interest in the soil. I do not advocate the return to common lands or any such system, but easier access to land for agricultural labourers. In Continental countries the large majority of agricultural labourers own land. Even the dock labourers of Antwerp own some land. It is not too much to say that it is highly dangerous to society to have a large landless proletariat, and we have a larger landless proletariat than exists in any other country. Apart from the moral aspect, there is nothing that works for social solidarity like a multitude of small owners. I do not put this point forward from any political consideration, because I do not believe such owners would necessarily be Conservatives. Having a direct stake in the country, they would give balance to the social fabric. They would not lend themselves to wild experiment with the nation's greatest asset.

What is the economic advantage of small occupying ownerships? The cost of administering the land is reduced to a minimum. In those parts of England where the soil is suitable there would be a large increase in small holdings under 50 acres, each owned and cultivated by the family, where to-day we see a plurality of farms in the hands of a large tenant, who can only live on one of them. One can see the effects of such a system in districts like Lancashire, Cheshire, or South Lincolnshire. Special means should be devised to enable the capable labourer with little capital to become a small holder. As a small holder, a man is his own master, and although small holders are not to-day making as good a living as they should, this is not because the farm is too small to be an economic unit, but because of lack of organisation in our agricultural industry. Granted such conditions as exist in other countries, the financial position of small holders would be greatly improved. I am not thinking of the few thousands of small holders placed upon the land by county councils under the 1908 Act, or ex-service men under the Ex-Service Men's Facilities Act, but of the great mass of 260,000 farmers who hold 50 acres or under (the total number of farmers in England and Wales is 409,000).

The study of such accounts as are available of the properly handled family farm shows a high yield per acre, and a higher output per man and a higher profit per acre, than among the larger farmers.

The objection to occupying ownership voiced by the Lloyd George Land Report of 1913, and still, apparently, uppermost in his mind, appears to be that if State-aided purchase were instituted upon terms which were financially sound the tenant farmer would be in a worse financial position, because :

(a) A proportion of his capital would be sunk in the land, where it would earn only a low rate of interest, with the result that he could not employ it as working capital on the land;

(b) If he had more than one child the difficulty mentioned in (a) would be aggravated, for in order to provide for the younger children the farm would have to be mortgaged or sold at his death;

(c) He would actually be in a worse financial position, as the interest and sinking fund, together with expenses, repairs, tithe and land tax, would generally amount to considerably more than his present rent.

The answer to these objections is the creation of a proper land bank system to enable farmers to buy their farms. If the State guarantees interest on the capital necessary for financing a purchase scheme, it does not provide the capital itself. The creation of satisfactory land purchase systems has proved quite simple in other countries, and must be less complicated than any form of purchase by the State. The everyday transaction of the purchaser paying the seller is at work under conditions favourable to both.

Objection (a) is answered by the creation of a proper system of credit to enable the farmers to increase their working capital. Such a system properly developed and used would provide our farmers with more working capital than they have ever enjoyed before.

In regard to (b), all that can be said is that the system has worked perfectly in other countries without the indicated difficulties arising.

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