BRITISH COAL COMMISSION.

Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15075, 19 May 1919, Page 5

BRITISH COAL COMMISSION.

ANCIENT RIGHTS

OWNERSHIP OP WELSH COAL-

FIELDS.

(Australian and N.Z. Cable Association)

London, May 9. At the Coal Commission, Lord Tredegar, in evidence, • said he owned 82,000 acres in South Wales, of which some had been in the possession of Ms family long before the Norman Conquest. Some was purchased in 1639 and 1710.^; His predecessors had acquired tfte balance by innumerable small purchases. Many titles were written in Dog Latin. Mr Hodges quoted a speech by Mr Lloyd George at Swansea in 1912, in which he stated that landlordism of the ground so pressed upon the miners that when they came out of the mines, instead of finding renewed vigour and strength, they, found crowded houses unfit for human habitation which bred disease and degradation. The men whose wealth they made ai the risk of their lives grudged them every inch of air space and. sunlight. ' Lord Tredegar denied that this was a fair statement.

The Marquis of Bute, in evidence, said he owned 2852 acres, the royalties of which yielded an average of £109,----277. His ancestors acquired the bulk of the land as a grant from Edward VI, for raising aii army.'