King Country Chronicle Thursday, June 12, 1919 "A VERITABLE LANDSLIDE."

King Country Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 1223, 12 June 1919, Page 4

King Country Chronicle Thursday, June 12, 1919 "A VERITABLE LANDSLIDE."

The colonisation of England has been advocated from time to time by people who were generally regarded as extremists, bat to-day the people of the Mother Country are witnessing a revolution in the ownership of land that has no parallel in the history of the nation. Till to-day agricultural Britain has been a country of large land owners and tenant farmers. The protection of his Lordship's Bporting lights came before the needs of his tenants. Agriculture languished and steadily ths population in the country districts dwindled away. War showed how completely the people depended upon imported foodstuffs, and, naturally, there came an inquiry as to the cause of the decline in this important department of national life. And, now, Britain is patting her house in order with grave determination. To-day, as a writer has said, "we are the direct witnesses of n<* slow, imperceptible evolution, but of a veritable landslide in historic acres—a mighty, yet bloodless, revolution in the ownership of British real estate far transcending anything that has gone before."" The process of gab-division is proceeding with amazing rapidity. Laat year one firm alone sold over half-a-million acres of land for a sum of more than £5,500,000. Anothar firm catalogued for sale in the first six months of this year over balf-a-million acres, scattered all over England. Estates of renown have been sold, including the Duke of Westminster' Eaton Estate in Cheshire, 114,569 acres of the Duke of Sutherland's Scottish holdings, 32,000 in Ayrshire, and 14,000 in Ross and Sutherland. From Devonshire to the Shetlands the disposal of ancient estates is proceeding apace. In many instances, such as the sale of the Duke of Portland's Ayrshire property, the land was offered for sale to the tenants by private negotiation, but, apart from those transactions, the sales officially reported jumped from £3,570,000 in 1915 to £11,352,598 in 1918. Doubtless in . many cases the tenant has merely affected a change from rent to interest, but students of the movement agree that the change will be to the benefit of the nation. Having got absolutely security of tenure the farmer will have every incentive to develop hie

property, knowing that the improvements will be to his own benefit There is a vast difference between renting and owning a piete of land, and this pkaeant consciousness of proprietorship will make for a more progressive farmer. The new order of things may play havoc with the game laws. The rearing of pheasants may not flourish. But, it will mean the establishment of a class of email holders, owning their land, and anxioas to develop it to the maximum extent. Well might the writer already quoted say: "There haß been no such land revolution since the passing away of the feudal aristocracy after the Wars of the Roses." Anyone who follows the trend of events at Home mast be impressed with the manner in which the nation is facing the tremendous task of reconstruction. Labour charters that, before the war, would have been condemned as the works of anarchists are accepted unanimously; a scheme for the erection of 1,(100,000 dwellings is commended on all sides; a Land Acquisition Bill that woald have endangered the safety of a Government, is now before Parliament. Tbe Old Country, as we are pleased to refer to it on occasions, is showing Bign of every energy and daring, and it would be well if ou? own Government displayed a little of the same thoroughness in tackling problems accentuated by war.