BRITAIN'S LAND PROBLEMS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 142, 15 December 1908, Page 6

BRITAIN'S LAND PROBLEMS.

One of the most noticeable points about the Unionist manifesto to which we devoted two leading articles last week is the- hopeful and progressive tone of the references to the land question. A ! party which includes most of the largo j landowners of the United Kingdom, and j holds undisputed sway in the House of territorial and hereditary privilege is ' not likely to put its hand to any draa» tic scheme of land reform. But the constructive proposals, of the new unauthorised programme, show that thera is a new sphifc stirring- among the rank and file of tho party, ?nd that the easy pace of Mr. Balfour and the shining I talent of the House of Lords for leaving ' ill alone will not- suffice for many of the younger Unionists who have already an influential position in, the party, and in thie course may havo a controlling one. The sneers at the Small Holdings and' Allotments Acfc of 1907 which are I appropriate to Conservatives of tho old school find no echo in. the programme published by the Morning Post. On the contrary, "tho large number of applications which have been made by men of an apparently suitable class" for land under th^t Act is welcomed as evidence "that the deplorable decrease of the rural population is not due to any lack of men willing, if able, to obtain a footing upon the land." The Act in question would have had a very poor chance of passing €he House of Lords— or even the House of Commons —a- few years ago. It actually empowers the County Councils — and failing them, the Board of Agriculture, which is the supreme authority in the administration of the Act — to purchase or take land on lease for small holdings, and where it is not otherwise available on reasonable terms to acquire it compulsorily. When we recall the pious horror with which even in this country the attempt | to endow the State with similar powers was hailed, we are the heartier in our congratulations to the British Government upon the great step in advance which ,it has induced the Legislature to takfe. It is still more significant that the Unionists, instead of nagging at a measure which squares so ill with old fahioned theories as to the sacred rights of property, are determined not merely to give it a fair trial, but to improve its chances. The need of the tenants under the Act for mutual help and for more help from the State is freely recognised by the authors of the manifesto. "It, is not to be expected," they say, "that any great extension of small holdings can be successfully accomplished without a much greater development of agricultural co-operation in all its forms, and of State assistance in such matters as the dissemination of technical information, than has yet taken place." It is gratifying, indeed, to find Unionist opinion strongly inclining, though not yet officially so declared, in favour of much the same means for promoting agriculture which our own State has for years been practising with success. If the British Liberals have done well in bringing the land within easy reach of tho small farmer and the agricultural labourer, the Unionists are providing a necessary supplement to this good work in insisting that they snail be taught how to use it. With both the great parties determined to make a success of the experiment, we may really see something adequate accomplished towards the solution of the alarming problem of the rural depopulation of England. A thoroughgoing reform of local taxation which would transfer certain charges to the National Exchequer is also declared by the manifesto to be an essential part of any serious attempt to improve the conditions of agriculture, and how much the farmer may expect from Tariff Reform is moderately and astutely put. "Duties on imported foodstuffs, oven -if too small to affect prices, would nevertheless," he is told, "by producing national revenue mainly at the expense of the farmer's foreign competitors and in relief of his own taxation, tend to mitigate the severity of foreign competition." The Tariff Reformers have often been taunted with promising to make tho farmer's fortune, while at the same time assuring tho consumer that the prices of food would not be raised, but we do not see that this candid statement of the case is reasonably open to cavil. A point on which Liberals and Unionists may possibly bo as hopelessly divided as on Tariff Reform is one which is painfully familiar in New Zealand politics. "It seems likely,'" says the Unionist manifesto, "that tho absence of due facilities for the acquisition of the freehold by somo of the prospective occupiers will prove a sorioua obstaclo to tho satisfactory working of tho County Council system." Tho difficulty and cost of "the mauagemont in perpetuity of a large estate, not compact but scattered in fragments over tho wliolo county, and .occupied by a great number of small tenants," aro emphasised. The building [iroblom presonls another serious diffiotilly, 113 (he auuual cost ot the buildings would bo considerably and perhaps prohibitively increased to the tenant by tin* durublo nnd expensive buildings which ttlono it would pay tho landlord, whether privnto or public, to erect. It in also urged that "a large class of freeholdorN given nUbility to tho institutions of Jho Stnto, inwl in particular is an imp<<<Hmt'Ut< to> .tho ppogres3 ofi £rucle HuPmHiih)." Tlio argument for the retimlitm of tho freehold which carries moat' woit;ht in Now Zealand — viz., that tho tuml irt luuuul in ordinary course, and nimrli til together from tho exertions of tho occupiers, to increase in value — does not iipply to the conditions of England, vhoro rural land has for about half a century been subject to an unearned decrement ; and it will be. very interesting to watch how tho controversy devclop.B in .tho Old Country