THE BRITISH LAND CRUSADE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 30, 4 February 1913, Page 4

THE BRITISH LAND CRUSADE.

For gome months past there have been rumours afloat at Home that the Asquith Government contemplates a further attack upon the landholders. When Mr. Lloyd George first submitted to Parliament his famous Budget, including his land tax proposals, the Unionists warned the country that this was only the prelude to a more vigorous and direct attack upon the landed interest. And Mr. Lloyd George's own statements have recently emphasised this warning. For the Chancellor of the Exchequer is by no means satisfied with what he has done to transfer some share of the heavy burden of taxation -from the masses to the "classes," and he has assured the people of England that he means to make the landholders pay for the privileges they have enjoyed so long. Naturally his political opponents have done their best to distort thi3 statement into a confession of faith in the Single Tax and a policy of expropriation on the lines laid down by professed land nationalises. Not only Mr. Lloyd George but Mr. Asquith has expressly repudiated any such idea. But while the proposals that the Chancellor has now brought forward are certainly far less drastic and comprehensive than such Liberals as Mr. Outhwaite would approve, at the same time they are certain to be denounced furiously by the Unionists as a deliberate attempt on Mr. i Lloyd George's part to vent his vindictive spite on fhc landowners and the political party that they represent. But Mr. Lloyd George, unless we are entirely mistaken In our conception of him, is chiefly concerned not with the misdeeds of the capitalist and the landowner, but with the woes of the worker, and more particularly of the agricultural labourer. If our interpretation of his policy is correct, he is far from desiring to carry on a "raging and tearing" propaganda against the landed interest, except in so far as the welfare of the workers ! is now sacrificed to the apathy and sel-j fishness of the privileged classes. Aud i men far less enthusiastic and impetuous I than the Chancellor of the Exchequer' have confessed themselves shocked and ashamed at the contemplation of the deplorable state into which certain sections of the British workers have now fallen. Mr. Lloyd George suggests that Parliament should pass a law enforcing a minimum wage of £1 a week for farm labourers. That such a provision should be necessary in England is surely a sufficient excuse for the Land Reform party and the policy that Mr., Lloyd George is now folldwing out. In a country where, according to the best statistical authorities, 22/ a week is at present a bare living wage, more than a million workers have to be content with less than 20/ a week. And among the agricultural labourers, as we have recently had occasion to point out, the average wage in many parts of the country falls far below this modest level. In some of the \yestern counties, aa the "Daily News" recently showed, the average wages of farm workers range from 12/ to 18/ a week, and their Living accom-rnodataon is of the poorest and most inisera'ble description. Mr. Lloyd Georgp is determined that such roproaches against civilisation shall be wiped out so far as •England is concerned, and he proposes not only to fix a minimum wage for farm workers by law, but to make arrangements that will help to solve the vexed problem of housing for the agricultural labourer as well. .Another awgestion included in the Chancellor's progtramme evidently points in the direction of the Co-operative Land Banks, which have done so much to improve the condition and to promote the prosperity of the rural population on the Continent. It is likely that the suggestion for "reform in the rating of large suburban properties" will sound ominously to English earns. But when the scheme is fully detailed it will probably be found to contain nothing more portentous than such provision fox rating on land values as can be applied in this country for the purpose of breaking up __rg« suburban areas. On the whole, there is nothing in Mr. Lloyd Gewrge's proposals that from the e_u_dpoint of ooloodal Liberalism can be termed anarchistic or revolutionary, and all convinced democrats wjll wish, him success in his struggle with the privileged classes on bettralf of the mdu_triali__. at Home.