VILLAGES FOR SALE

Franklin Times, Volume XX, Issue 80, 14 July 1930, Page 7

VILLAGES FOR SALE

A PEER’S DECISION. “IMPOSSIBLE TAXES.” Three Yorkshire villages—Birdsall, Wharram, and North Grimston —in- ' eluded in an estate of 10,150 acres belonging to Lord Middleton are shortly to be sold, says the “Daily Telegraph.” j With the Birdsall estate, which has belonged to the Willoughby family since about 1760, will also go Birdsall House, and Lady Middleton will prob- j ably make their home at Settington , Hall, the Dowager House on the es- j tate. _ j In an interview Lord Middleton explained his reasons lor selling the, property. !

“I hope to be able to dispose of the

estate by private treaty, without splitting it up,” he said, “but I have not yet advertised it. “Under the present pressure of death duties and taxation, it is now clearly impossible for a landowner to keep possession of his property and manage it efficiently unless he has a considerable amount of outside capital to assist him. “In these days an agricultural pro- j perty of average farming value can j barely pay its way. Against the income j from farm rents and the microscopic J cottage rents must be set rates and j taxes, cost of management, repairs and j unkeep, forestry l and draining. The j income is all swallowed up. j “Tax Evasion.” j

■'“Some years back there began a practice of forming the estates into private companies in order to obtain capital for development and to avoid taxation which should never be levied on any business. This practice is now condemned as tax evasion by the wise and good who rule us. The result is the suffering of men who work on the roads and water supply and draining schemes and who are now on the dole.

“At the present day, if a landowner is to honour his traditional obligations the only thing for him to do is to sell bis property to a landowner who can afford to run it.

“If he does not succeed in doing this there are two alternatives. The tenant may borrow the purchase price of his land and continue to carry on under a crushing burden of debt.” i There was another alternative, continued Lord Middleton. When there

, was an estate in the stage of dilapidation and decay, under-populated and starved, it was a sign that the “wreckers” had been there—men who had bought the estate as a speculation, j made what they could out of it, and 1 passed on. And this was too often the fate of estates which had been forced ' on the market by crippling taxation. I The only results of the present in- : cidence of death duties and taxation | were tracts of derelict land, and undcri populated ,under-capitalised country--1 side, and unemployment among the best and healthiest people of England. i