< / . 
 
 / \0 
 
 LAND L 
 
 AND THEIR 
 
 RESULTS 
 
 AT HEOAdlB AAISTO ABROAD. 
 
 LLlfe* 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SAUNDERS 
 
 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 IP -R I O E SIXFEISTGE. 
 
 HULL : 
 
 EASTERN MORNING NEWS.” 
 

 
LAND LAWS 
 
 AND THEIR 
 
 RESULTS, 
 
 A.T HOME A. 3STO A BHOAD. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM SAUNDERS. 
 
 HULL : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE “EASTERN MORNING NEWS” OFFICE, WHITEFRIARGATE. 
 

 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/landlawstheirresOOsaun 
 
LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS, 
 
 AT HOME AND ABROAD. 
 
 W ILTSHIRE is a county where the breezy downs 
 abound in waving corn, and the fertile valleys 
 are rich with all kinds of verdure. I can 
 understand people wanting food in Connemara, 
 where stones are more abundant than bread, but it is 
 clear that Providence never intended any one to suffer 
 from hunger in Wiltshire, where at least bread and 
 bacon ought to be ever abundant. But what are the 
 facts? In my young days the wages of labourers were 
 6s. per week. I well remember the time when at a con- 
 clave of farmers the wages were reduced from 7s. 
 to 6s. per week, and how the workmen, previously 
 listless, perceptibly slackened their slow pace and 
 constantly observed to each other, u Well, anyhow 
 we are doing enough for a shilling a day.” In 
 harvest time they cut the wheat crops for 7s. per 
 
 acre. 
 
 the 
 
 f and if a man worked from 4 o’clock in 
 morning until 8 or 9 o’clock in the evening, and had 
 a woman to help him, he would cut three-quarters 
 of an acre in a day. But harvest work lasted only 
 about a fortnight in the year, and barely enabled 
 them to pay the rent of their miserable cottages. 
 
 I did not then know that what made the men 
 so pale, the women so thin, and the children so 
 listless, was sheer starvation. In the midst of 
 wealth and plenty these hard-working* 
 
 men were 
 
 slowly but surely starved. I can see before 
 
 me 
 
 
4 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 now the gaunt figures of men who died early, and 
 who I now know died of starvation. While these 
 men and their families were wanting food, wagon 
 loads of unthreshed barley were taken every winter 
 by my father’s house, and scattered in the woods to 
 feed the pheasants, while the peasants were left to 
 starve. The young men who had unusual energy 
 saved themselves by wiring rabbits, and oc- 
 casionally netting a pheasant. These bad 
 fellows were sent to Devizes gaol, and when 
 let out, went elsewhere, leaving our locality 
 to innocence and inactivity. I see how it is that 
 many good people in our neighbourhood went to 
 heaven : it was because they were starved on earth. 
 If any one doubts that they were starved, let 
 him calculate what a housekeeper can obtain 
 for 6s. per week towards the maintenance of a 
 family. 
 
 During a recent visit to Wiltshire I found 
 that nearly all the men who worked so patiently 
 forty years ago are now in the churchyard. 
 
 A few are living, and living on the pittance 
 they obtain from the parish. In one respect the 
 condition of the people is altered for the worse : 
 every inch of road-side land has been taken from 
 them. Two or three families in the neighbourhood 
 kept cows forty years ago, which they pastured on 
 the common land at the side of the road, but all 
 these lands have since been added to the property of 
 the landlords, and it h now almost impossible to buy 
 milk for the children, for the farmers are 
 much to “ large ” to sell milk. But, 
 worse than all, the only playground for miles 
 round was ruthlessly, and I fear hopelessly, enclosed 
 last year by the lord who owns the adjacent land ; 
 and county policemen have been introduced, whose 
 chief duty seems to be to prevent children from 
 
SMALL AND LARGE FARMS. 
 
 O 
 
 playing in the so-called marketplace, which, however, 
 has long since ceased to be used for a market. 
 
 There is one redeeming feature : a small 
 portion of the land in the locality has been let 
 during nearly a hundred years past in small allot- 
 ments of a few acres each. Of course for such a 
 privilege the owners have demanded, and have 
 received, more than twice the rent which they 
 expected the large farmers to pay ; but neverthe- 
 less, the small holders have generally done well, 
 and I found some of them last year living com- 
 fortably on a moderate competence in their old age. 
 The labourers, too, have had their wages increased, 
 but even 10s. or 12s. per week is quite insufficient to 
 provide the necessaries of life, and this rise of wages 
 is the result of a demand for labour elsewhere, and 
 does not come from the farming prosperity of the 
 neighbourhood. Indeed the farmers are badly off ; 
 many of them have been ruined, and are seeking 
 their fortunes elsewhere. Several of the farms are 
 tenantless, and good land is offered in vain by the 
 owners at 20s. per acre, on a lease for 21 years, and 
 the first year free. Yet on these terms land is unlet, 
 and is apparently going out of cultivation. This is 
 the state of things which I found last autumn. 
 
 It formed a strange contrast to what I had 
 just seen during a visit to the United States. There 
 the landlord, farmer, and labourer are rolled into 
 one. Agriculture is thus carried on by men who 
 work for themselves on their own land. They work 
 with a will, and are amply rewarded. 
 
 In England, the unprecedented development of 
 mechanical industries and commerce has distracted 
 attention from the land, and the aggregation of 
 population in large cities has caused a large pro- 
 portion of our countrymen to be entirely unac- 
 quainted with land, in the agricultural sense. So 
 
6 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 much is this the case, that many persons would he 
 almost alarmed if they found themselves in a field 
 alone, and if a Londoner visits an agriculturist he 
 thinks himself insulted when his country cousin 
 earnestly invites him, in the language of Punch , to 
 u come and see this lovely pig.” For he knows not 
 that the infant pig has lines of beauty in which a 
 genuine artist may take delight. 
 
 For a correct appreciation of this subject, it is 
 necessaiy to understand, at the outset, the essential 
 difference between land and other kinds of property. 
 If a man makes bricks, or builds houses, his property 
 is obviously the result of industry ; he owns what 
 he has created, and thus possesses a natural title 
 which no one is inclined to dispute. All property 
 other than land is the result of industry, and its 
 value is subject to competition, as more bricks can 
 be made or more houses built if the present owners 
 of bricks or houses require an exorbitant price 
 for them. Land is the gift of Nature ; it is 
 essential to the exercise of every industry, 
 without it we cannot live, or move, or have 
 our being. It is limited in extent, and its 
 absolute possession in large quantities is incon- 
 sistent with human liberty. A large landlord, with 
 uncontrolled powers, has more authority over the 
 inhabitants of his district than is claimed by, or 
 allowed to, any government upon the earth. 
 
 No principle is more clear or more important, 
 than that every right which involves a monopoly 
 must be held subject to the control of the Govern- 
 ment, in the interests of the public. Thus with re- 
 gard to railroads, Government not only lays down 
 the conditions under which the right to construct a 
 railway is granted, but it reserves to itself the power 
 of subsequent interference, if necessary, for the pro- 
 tection of the public. No one would think of giving 
 
LEGISLATION BY AND FOR LANDLORDS. 
 
 7 
 
 uncontrolled power to a water company, which in- 
 fluences only one of the necessaries of existence. 
 A large landowner controls nearly all the conditions 
 of human life. 
 
 In England, the large landowners got the 
 upper hand at Runnymede, and have maintained 
 a preponderating influence in the Legislature since 
 that time. As landlords possess similar dispositions 
 to other persons, they have a habit of taking care 
 of their own interests, which are sometimes advanced 
 at the expense of other people. Mr. Wren 
 Hoskyns thus expressed himself on this point : 
 “Land long held, and still in a measure holds, with 
 us, the dangerous prerogative of being its own law- 
 giver — a power hardly to be trusted to any human 
 hands without check or counter-weight.” 
 
 From time to time, landlords in this country 
 improved their opportunities until they relieved 
 themselves of many of the obligations under which 
 they originally held their lands. They then 
 cast their eyes upon the common lands, over 
 which the public had rights, and they declared 
 that it would be much better if these lands were 
 in their own possession ; and so Acts were passed 
 which practically gave the common lands to the 
 lord of the manor, or other holders of land in each 
 manor or parish. They were thus summarily taken 
 away irom poor persons who had previously 
 used the commons for the purpose of maintaining 
 cows, donkeys, or geese, and in numerous cases 
 where industrious persons had erected small dwel- 
 lings upon common land, these houses were claimed 
 by the lord of the manor. The Legislature, elected 
 by landlords, acted religiously upon the principle that 
 u w’hosoever hath, to him shall be given, and 
 whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, 
 even that which he seemeth to have.” 
 
8 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 This action on the part of English landlords 
 was not always unpopular, and, to their credit it 
 may be said, they took the land with so much 
 courtesy, and used their powers with so much 
 moderation and liberality, that many of the 
 people felt rather obliged to them than other- 
 wise. It was industriously circulated that the 
 poor were greatly benefited by enclosures, as 
 they were employed on the enclosed lands ; and 
 respecting the rest of the community it was urged that 
 every one would benefit by the increased production 
 of the soil. The fact was overlooked that the 
 employment of labourers would have been at least 
 as great, and the benefit of increased produce quite 
 as much, if some consideration had been bestowed 
 upon the claims of those who had previously 
 benefited by the use of the common lands. The 
 people of London, however, refused to be charmed 
 out of their common lands, and were therefore 
 exempted from the Enclosure Acts which have been 
 so fatal to other communities. Thus the common 
 lands around London, to the distance of 15 miles, 
 have been preserved, and are now worth — well, the 
 same area covered with cloth of gold would not be 
 worth half as much. 
 
 It will thus be seen how it happened that the 
 land in this country got into the hands of a few 
 landlords ; but how is it that the number of landlords 
 is still diminishing? It occurs in this wise : When 
 William the Conqueror distributed land to his favour- 
 ites he gave them the power of settlement or entail — 
 that is, it was ordained that a man should have the 
 power of so settling his lands that they must be 
 inherited by his son and his son’s heir, who may 
 be unborn at the time of the settlement. If the son 
 comes to grief, however badly, and all his brothers 
 and sisters, and all the brothers and sisters of the 
 
THE LAW OF ENTAIL. 
 
 9 
 
 future grandchild-heir, become paupers, still the 
 land remains unassailable ; and by continued ke- 
 settlement, which systematically takes place, the 
 claims of relations and creditors are defied, the 
 land kept together, and the original name and title 
 handed down to posterity. 
 
 This arrangement, which originated in the 
 vanity of Frenchmen, we have continued, and the 
 effect is this : a large portion of the land in Eng- 
 land, variously estimated at one-half to four-fifths, 
 is thus settled or entailed. These settled estates 
 cannot be made smaller, but they may be made 
 larger. Where there is a tendency to change, and 
 change can be made only in one direction, of course 
 that direction is taken, and thus estates have in- 
 creased in size until nearly all the agricultural land 
 in the kingdom is now in the hands of 30,000 
 landowners, and this number is constantly diminish- 
 ing. Thus we have a state of things the like of 
 which, or anything approaching to it, cannot be 
 found in any other country in the world. 
 
 If we had nothing further to say about English 
 land laws, they would present a most wonderful 
 topic for our consideration. When we remember 
 what land is, and how its value mainly originates in 
 the industry of others than the owners, it is almost be- 
 yond belief that individuals can be allowed to 
 monopolise such vast areas, and charge other persons 
 what they please for the right of working and 
 living upon them. But not only are the rights of 
 property over extensive districts permitted to 
 those who do not personally work the land, but 
 they are allowed to retain this right, while the 
 property of which they enjoy the use is relieved 
 of the ordinary obligation of paying debts and 
 providing for children, which attaches to the pos- 
 sessor of other property. Until 1833, land that 
 
10 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 was not under settlement could not be taken for 
 the payment of ordinary contract debts, and in the 
 present day the owner of a settled estate may leave 
 his creditors unpaid, and all his children except one 
 unprovided for, and yet transmit the estate, unim- 
 paired, to his eldest son; in fact, he not only may do so, 
 but he most do so. However honest or tender-hearted 
 he may be, he cannot detach a single acre to pay 
 injured creditors, or to support children other than 
 his heir, who inherits the property whether the father 
 wills it or not. However weak or wicked the eldest 
 son may be, he must have the land in accordance 
 w T ith the settlement. 
 
 But it is not enough that landlords retained 
 land free from ordinary social claims, that they 
 relieved themselves from the public obligations 
 under which they obtained their lands, that 
 they absorbed the public commons and the valuable 
 frontage strips which lined the sides of our public 
 roads, but further, they passed laws, the carrying 
 out of which would be regarded as atrocities if 
 perpetrated in Bulgaria. As an illustration of what 
 these laws are, it may be mentioned that a landlord 
 can leave his rent uncollected for several years, and 
 if the cattle or sheep of a neighbouring farmer come 
 upon the land, he may seize them for the rent due 
 from his own tenant, and thus confiscate the pro- 
 perty of a perfectly innocent neighbour. 
 
 At the very time that much of the common land 
 was taken from the poor and added to the broad acres 
 of the rich, the Government, under the influence of 
 landlords, imposed a tax upon the imported food 
 of the people in order to increase the rentals of 
 land The labourers, thus deprived of their common 
 lands, and with the price of food enhanced by legis- 
 lative enactments, have suffered, during the present 
 century, from want of the actual necessaries of life to 
 
STARVATION WAGES. 
 
 11 
 
 a degree which is probably unknown in any other 
 civilized country in the world. Within a com- 
 paratively recent period the wages of a Wiltshire 
 labourer, as we have seen, did not exceed 6s. per 
 week, upon which he had to maintain himself and 
 his wife and children. Even at the present moment 
 there are parts of the United Kingdom where the 
 wages are only 8s. per week. The following state- 
 ment appeared in The Times of Dec. 23rd 1879, : — • 
 “At a meeting of the Midleton (Ireland) Board of 
 Guardians on Saturday, it was reported by the 
 Relieving Officer that he had given provisional out- 
 door relief to live families of able-bodied men at 
 Cloyne. The men had been idle from want of em- 
 ployment, and their families were starving, the 
 children in some instances being nearly naked. It 
 was intimated that the relief could not be legally 
 continued, and that the men, with their families, 
 should come into the workhouse. The agent of 
 Lord Midleton stated that in the town of Midleton 
 there appeared to be no distress ; he could not find 
 labourers to work for 8s. a week. Mr. Robert Pen- 
 rose Fitzgerald expressed his belief that the practical 
 result of giving relief works in the union would be 
 to increase the rate of wages, and thus to aggravate 
 the position of the farmers, who, in his opinion, were 
 the worst off. A general feeling was expressed that 
 in any works initiated by the guardians, care should 
 be taken not to raise the standard of wages or to 
 employ men who had work with farmers.” 
 
 These figures mean semi-starvation. We find 
 from the experience of the managers of our prisons 
 and workhouses that human life cannot be efficiently 
 maintained at the cost stated, and every housekeeper 
 knows that the cheapest food cannot be provided 
 for the shilling or eighteenpence per head per week 
 upon which many British workmen and their families 
 
12 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 have had to subsist. Even double that amount is 
 insufficient, and the attempt to keep men on such 
 starvation wages is as unwise as it is inhuman. No 
 one would think it economical to half starve a horse, 
 and it is worse than wasteful to half starve a 
 labourer. 
 
 Agriculture in the United Kingdom is carried 
 on under the most favourable natural circumstances. 
 The soil is varied and fertile, the climate allows of 
 more working days than are possible in any other 
 country, the former has the richest market in the 
 world close to his doors, all the appliances of 
 mechanics and science close at hand, and capital at 
 the lowest rate of interest. Under these circum- 
 stances those who cultivate the land ought to be 
 prosperous and independent, but such terms as 
 prosperity and independence would be quite out of 
 place if applied to the condition of the people in 
 districts of the United Kingdom which are solely 
 dependent on agriculture. 
 
 We shall not find in any part of the world a 
 system of land legislation and tenure which 
 resembles our own. A hundred years ago many of 
 the European nations were suffering from compli- 
 cated land systems, and, being more completely 
 dependent upon agriculture than the United 
 Kingdom, they suffered still more severely than 
 ourselves from obstructive land laws. Under the 
 pressure of necessity, changes were introduced 
 which have now been in operation a sufficent 
 length of time to enable us to test the results and 
 benefit by the experience which other nations 
 have gained. 
 
 It would be impossible to follow in detail the 
 history and present position of the land laws of the 
 various countries of Europe. The leading principles 
 of the land systems on the Continent differ in 
 
THE RIGHTS OF OCCUPIERS. 
 
 13 
 
 general from the land system in this country in this 
 essential particular, that they favour the distribution 
 of land, and we favour its aggregation. In England 
 our land legislation recognises only the right of 
 owners, and the rights of occupiers have been 
 disregarded. No man can participate in the 
 distribution of an English common unless he is 
 the possessor of manorial rights or of landed 
 property in the manor. However much a man may 
 have used the common, if merely a tenant or a 
 labourer, he was allowed neither part nor lot in the 
 matter; by the enclosure all his rights were, to use 
 the words of the act, “extinguished.” In Continental 
 legislation the rights of occupiers were fully 
 recognised, and treated with great liberality. 
 
 In France, a change in the land system 
 was the result of a sudden revolution, and a 
 settlement was effected under military dictatorship 
 by which the occupiers of land were confirmed in 
 possession, and rents were abolished. Landlords 
 who did not occupy their own lands lost them. In 
 Germany, Austria, and other countries, a change 
 was brought about by carefully considered legis- 
 lative enactments, made on what was regarded as 
 an equitable basis in accordance with the general 
 desire of the people. 
 
 The effect of the sub-division of land has been 
 the subject of fierce controversy. Great pains 
 have been taken to impress upon the people of this 
 country that it is impossible to work land with ad- 
 vantage in small quantities, and of France it was 
 confidently predicted that the distribution of land 
 would cause the country to become a u pauper 
 warren,” and that misery and starvation would be 
 the result. It is at least clear that these fore- 
 bodings have not been realised ; under political 
 and commercial conditions far less favourable than 
 
14 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 our own, the peasant proprietors of France, so far 
 from adding to the pauperism of the nation, have 
 been enabled to advance to the Government those 
 enormous sums required to redeem their country 
 from the clutch of Germany. 
 
 In August, 1869, Lord Clarendon addressed a 
 circular letter to Her Majesty’s Representatives 
 abroad, in which he stated that u Her Majesty’s 
 Government are very desirous of obtaining the 
 fullest information in regard to the laws and customs 
 affecting the tenure of land in the several countries 
 of Europe, with the view of ascertaining what points 
 there may be in such laws and customs as could be 
 usefully adopted in the settlement of land tenure 
 in Ireland, which is a question of pressing 
 importance. 
 
 a It must be borne in mind that in Ireland the 
 relations of landlord and tenant are founded on the 
 express or implied contract of the parties, and not 
 upon tenure or service, and that, as the vast majority 
 of the occupiers of land hold by verbal agreement, 
 from year to year, they are liable, upon the deter- 
 mination of their tenancy, to be evicted without any 
 compensation for their improvements, and also to 
 have their rents raised at the discretion of the 
 landlord. 
 
 “ The object of the queries in part A is to afford 
 Her Majesty’s Government full information as to 
 the conditions of small proprietors in the various 
 countries in Europe where they exist, and their 
 mode of living, cultivation, etc.” 
 
 The answers to this circular are very voluminous, 
 occupying two large Blue-books, of more than 
 900 pages. They afford copious information, with 
 intelligent comments upon the effect of land legis- 
 lation in almost every county. 
 
FACTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES. 15 
 
 The following summary gives the substance of 
 these reports in their original order : 
 
 REPUBLIC OF HAMBURG. 
 
 The land throughout is in the hands of small proprietors, 
 who live in their own houses, and cultivate their own soil. They 
 live comfortably, and some of them are wealthy. 
 
 They seem reluctant to admit the fact that they are doing 
 well, a characteristic which belongs otherwise to the farmers of 
 many other countries. 
 
 Division of property at death follows — Roman Law. 
 REPUBLIC OF BREMEN. 
 
 The whole of the land is in possession of the cultivators of 
 the soil. 
 
 The small proprietors are generally in circumstances of 
 sufficient comfort to support their families respectably. 
 
 REPUBLIC OF LUBECK. 
 
 One-fourth of the territory is domain of the State, let 
 generally on leases for 20 years. One-fourth belongs to large 
 proprietor. One-half to small proprietors. 
 
 The small proprietors live in circumstances of great comfort, 
 and the relations of landlord and tenant, where such exist, are 
 very friendly. 
 
 SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN. 
 
 More than half of the land belongs to large proprietors ; the 
 rest of the soil is in the hands of small proprietors. Average 
 size of large estates, 4,000 to 6,000 acres. 
 
 The estate of Quarnbeck, 4,000 acres, is let in farms of 100 
 to 200 acres each, at 39s. per acre, mostly for terms of 14 to 21 
 years. 
 
 Farms are let by written contract. Holdings at the will of 
 the landlord are unknown. 
 
 The relations between landlord and tenant are friendly, and 
 no legislative interference is called for. 
 
 The peasant proprietors are well fed and clothed, and live, on 
 the whole, very comfortably. 
 
 DUCHY OF SAXE-COBURG GOTHA. 
 
 By far the greatest part of the land is occupied by small 
 proprietors. 
 
 Tenants exist on properties belonging to the Ducal House, to 
 the Church and Rectories, or to the Towns. 
 
16 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 A day-labourer with a family is far from well off. The small 
 properties are frugal and improving. Their debts have been 
 reduced, and many have saved small fortunes. 
 
 Farms let by tender; leases 12 to 18 years. Landlord has 
 no exceptional privilege over other creditors. Tenants, as 
 
 compared with small properties, are much better educated in 
 every way. 
 
 GREECE. 
 
 Barely one-seventh of the whole superfices of the kingdom 
 is actually under cultivation. 
 
 The State owns three-fourths of the territory. 
 
 The small proprietors are extremely frugal and parsimonious 
 in their habits, and tolerably well housed and fed. They are both 
 warmly and comfortably clad for the climate, and genera’ ly appear 
 to be in comparatively easy circumstances. Whatever may be the 
 amount of money they possess, it does not in any way cause them to 
 alter their mode of living. Extensive estates have been purchased 
 by the peasants in adjacent villages without any apparent difficulty 
 on their part in finding the requisite amounts. 
 
 Quantity of land held by each tenant is 15 acres. Tenancy 
 usually from the year to year. No competion for land. Peasant 
 proprietors are better off than tenants. Intestate estates are 
 equally divided amongst children. Laws favour sub-division of 
 land. Government land let for 15 per cent, of produce. 
 
 There are several reports from various districts in Greece, 
 usually of the same purport as the one quoted. 
 
 FRANCE. 
 
 Property is generally divided into three classes : — 
 
 1st. — Proprietors averaging 600 acres, about... 50,000 
 
 2nd. „ 60 „ ...2,500,000 
 
 3rd. „ 6 „ ...5,000,000 
 
 With some rare exceptions, all great properties have been 
 gradually breaking up, and even the first and second classes are 
 now fast merging into the third. 
 
 When land is let the leases vary from one year to thirty 
 years. The tenant can sell his interest, unless his lease forbids 
 his so doing. 
 
 A testator may bequeath one-fourth of his property as he 
 pleases if he has three children, one-third if fwo children, and one- 
 half if only one child. Remainder must be distributed amongst 
 his children without distinction of sex or age. 
 
FRANCE. 
 
 17 
 
 It will he found as a general rule, that the small proprietor 
 accommodates himself to the circumstances of the locality which 
 he inhabits and that his standard of living is generally such as to 
 show that he is, if not always contented, at least comfortable. 
 
 The prevalent public opinion is that the tenure of land hy 
 small proprietors has been advantageous to the production of the 
 soil, and has tende l to the improvement of the material condition 
 of the agricultural population. ... It conduces to political 
 as well as social order. 
 
 The division of land has been attended with great benefit, 
 but the unlimited partition of the small properties, as they 
 already exist, would destroy this benefit, and be productive of 
 serious evil. 
 
 Mr. Sackville West, who drew up the report respecting 
 France, makes the following observations : — 
 
 ‘‘The system hy which the tenure of land is regulated may 
 be said to have affected the character and social condition of the 
 population more than it has been itself affected bv them. It has 
 been, in fact, the cause, and certainly the arbitary cause, of 
 the change ; for it sprang up, as it were, upon the ruins of a 
 previous State, and was moulded into a system by military 
 supremacy. 
 
 “ The small proprietor has been the creation of a system which, 
 whatever may be urged against it, has reconstituted the rural 
 economy of the nation, and more than doubled the produce of 
 the soil.” 
 
 KINGDOM OF WURTEMBURG. 
 
 The land is now almost entirely occupied by small proprietors. 
 Of these 150,000 are farmers, occupying 3,500,000 acres, and the 
 remaining 543.000 acres, devoted to agriculture, are occupied by 
 180,000 peasant cultivators. 
 
 The farmers are of a superior class ; they and their families 
 live habitually on meat, their clothing is of good quality and 
 their daughters may be seen wearing silk dresses. 
 
 The condition of the smaller cultivators is much disputed. 
 Where they cultivate the vine the uncertainty of the crop often 
 leaves them in great distress, and they suffer severely in years 
 when the vine crop fails. Speaking generally, however, the evils 
 of small holdings are not sensibly felt in Wurtemburg, as, for 
 instance, they are in Ireland. The laws enjoin the equal division 
 of paternal property. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 GRAND DUCHY OF BADEN. 
 
 Tlie pastures, which amount to seven per cent, of the 
 whole, are communal property, and are used in common by the 
 citizens of each commune. The land is generally much sub- 
 divided. Large estates are rare. Land is divided equally 
 amongst heirs. 
 
 The small proprietors are clad in woollen and cotton stuffs, 
 and inhabit solidly built house , with windows, stoves, and chimneys. 
 The sitting and bedrooms aie, generally, seperate. The rooms 
 contain wooden, mostly unstuffed-, furniture. Their food is bread, 
 milk, pot at< ies, vegetables, salads, peas, beaus, pork , and occasion a lly 
 beef or mutton. 
 
 The small proprietors do not differ from the larger proprie- 
 tors in respect to their dwellings, clothing, mode of living, or 
 education. They attend the same schools, and take in the same 
 way an interest in all the affairs of public life. Since the revolu- 
 tion, in 1 84^, there as been a great improvement in the houses 
 and mode of living of the peasants. 
 
 The prevalent public opinion is that the system of small 
 freeholds tends to promote the greater economical and moral 
 prosperity of the people, to raise the average standaid of education, 
 and to increase the national powers of defence and taxation. 
 
 It seems to be a generally established fact that small farmers 
 realise larger returns than the large farmers do from the same 
 number of acres, and the result is that large properties and large 
 farms are disappearing and being parcehed out among a number 
 of small farmers. 
 
 ITALY, SOUTHERN PROVINCE. 
 
 The land is chiefly occupied by proprietors. Farms vary 
 from 200 to 300 acres — occasionally 1,000 acres. Leases 4 to 6 
 years. 
 
 One half of the landlord’s property must be equally divided 
 among lus children. 
 
 The small proprietors, except in the Calabiias, are tolerably 
 well housed and fed ; they have fresh meat once or twice a week. 
 
 BELGIUM. 
 
 About one-fourth of the land is cultivated by prop] ietors and 
 three-fourths by tenants. 
 
HAMBURG, BREMEN, LUBECK, HOLSTEIN, GOTHA. 19 
 
 The relations between landlord and tenant are said to be in 
 general friendly, but, in the country round Tournai, Ath, and 
 Oourtrai, an ill feeling termed “ mauvais gre ” prevails. This feel- 
 ing seems to have originated from the landlords exacting a sum of 
 money from incoming tenants previous to allowing them b» take 
 possession of their farms, and at the termination of the lease 
 refusing to pay the sum exacted. The evicted tenant. Leling 
 himself aggrieved, caused out rages to be perpetrated which were 
 of a very serious nature — assassinations, rick burning, destruction 
 of stock and crops — the actual perpetrator being, as a rule, hired 
 from a distance. 
 
 From 183G to 1841 there had been 43 acts of incendiarism 
 and 11 assassinations. 
 
 In Belgium children inherit property in equal shares. 
 
 Sinai! proprietors who farm their own land occupy in general 
 well-constructed houses, and are comfortably clad. 
 
 Throughout the provinces, of Flanders sj ade husbandry 
 prevails. The whole ot the labour on the farm is sup; lied by the 
 family. The parents and two adult children can easily work a 
 farm of twelve-and-a-half acres. If the children are young a day 
 labourer is usually employed during the harvesting. 'The farmer’s 
 •wife manages the dairy and stable departments. The sale of 
 butter should, and does, indeed, pay all the household weekly 
 expenses. 
 
 Farms are generally let upon lease. Landlords usually provide 
 .and maintain all buddings. 
 
 Under the system of small proprietorships it is observed that 
 the land 
 
 Is better manured. Nothing capable of being turned into 
 -compost is wasted. 
 
 It is kept cleaner. The artisan devotes all his leisure time to 
 the cultivation of his small holding ; and all spare hours of labour 
 are utilised by the whole family, his wife and children assisting him 
 in weeding and the lighter occupations connected with land. 
 
 It is more productive. When half of one crop is gathered, 
 the other half is already planted or sown. 
 
 The prevalent opinion in Belgium is in favour of the sub- 
 division of land, and of small holdings ; the latter are particularly 
 favourable to high rents. 
 
 PORTUGAL. 
 
 Two-thirds of a man’s estate descends absolutely to his lawful 
 heirs. Relatives in the same degree take equal shares. 
 
20 
 
 LAND LAWS AND TIIEIR RESULTS. 
 
 The rural population is described as ailing, weak, and 
 apathe'ic. The people are too weak and possess too little energy for 
 the physical effort demanded of them. 
 
 This description is more applicable to the class of very small 
 proprietors than to the hired labourers, who, in many cases, are 
 supplied with rations. 
 
 Ten per cent, of the population are landowners. 
 
 Entails were abolished in 1863. 
 
 An intelligent interest is now being steadily developed in all 
 questions of rural economy ; the stagnation of centuries is 
 gradually yielding before the spread of enlightenment. 
 
 THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 Practically the whole of the tenant farmers of Groningen 
 hold under interminable leases, subject to the payment of a small 
 annual rent, and certain obligation on specified occasions, such as 
 marriage or succession. 
 
 The quantity of land held by each proprietor farmer may be 
 said to vary, generally, from fifty to one hundred and twenty-five 
 acres. The landed proprietors engaged in the cultivation of their 
 own farms invariably live on these farms. 
 
 A duty of four per cent, is levied on the registration of 
 a transfer. The tenant is bound to stock and properly cultivate 
 the farm. The landlord usually provides all buildings. If a 
 tenant erects buildings, he is at liberty to remove them. 
 
 In case of half, or more than half, of the harvest being 
 destroyed by some unforeseen accident or misfortune, a pro- 
 portionate diminution in the rent has to be made for that year. 
 
 The law of inheritance requires the division, in equal portions, 
 amongst the children or next of kin. 
 
 PRUSSIA. 
 
 The Prussian law had been, to the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, occupied in more and more recognising 
 the encroachments of the lord of the manor upon the land and 
 the serfdom of the peasants, but Frederic the Great marked his 
 reign by many an act of legislation which testified to a better 
 conception of the true relations of man and land. 
 
 In 1739, the Provincial Governments we^e ordered to pre- 
 vent the evictijn of a peasant except upon well-founded grounds, 
 and upon the lord of the manor replacing him by another 
 
PRUSSIA. 
 
 21 
 
 peasant cultivator. In 1749, Frederic the Great prohibited, 
 under penalties, all absorption of peasant lands. In 1704, the 
 re-peopling of peasant farms, which had been abandoned since 
 the war of 1756, was commanded, under heavy fines. 
 
 At the death of Frederic the Great the largest portion of 
 the peasants’ estates were subject to the more or less absolute 
 dominion of lords of the manor. The remainder of the peasant 
 estates were held as freeholds, but the owners were generally 
 more or less restricted in their powers of dealing with their 
 property. 
 
 Rights of common were so numerous and onerous as to 
 materially interfere with the prosperity of the community. 
 
 The progress of remedial legislation was slow, until after 
 the peace of Tilsit. Then Prussia made a sudden and great 
 stride, and has continued to advance rapidly in the path of a 
 development of her agricultural resources. 
 
 In 1807 a committee prepared a project of law, which aimed 
 at facilitating the acquirement of absolute ownership. Its 
 underlying principle was, as the King stated, “ to remove what- 
 ever had hitherto hindered the individual from obtaining that 
 degree of well-being which he was capable of reaching by ex- 
 ertions according to the best of his ability.” 
 
 The objects of the edict of 1807, were : — 
 
 1. — To abolish all encroachments on personal freedom. 
 
 2. — To abolish all restrictions of rights of property in land. 
 
 3. — To relieve the peasants from the burden of being the special 
 
 and sole class for payment of most of the public burdens. 
 
 4 . — To abolish the powers of lords of the manor, and to convert 
 
 peasant lands into free and absolute property, with com- 
 pensation to the lords of the manor. 
 
 The enumeration of the powers and rights abolished without 
 compensation comprises all those arising from the dominion 
 and jurisdiction of the feudal lords, and the dues levied on their 
 account ; various fines, such as fines for keeping cattle or bees, 
 fines on baptisms, etc. ; also services of personal attendance, the 
 obligation to sell produce to the lords of the manor, and the 
 obligation to labour for the customary wages of the district. 
 
 Respecting the commutation of real charges, normal prices 
 are fixed for services rendered by the day, and the value of ser- 
 vices rendered by the piece is ascertained by arbitration. Dues 
 on corn were commuted according to their price at Martinmas, 
 on an average of twenty-four years. 
 
22 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 The balance of these charges is the commutation rent. 
 The possessor of a property in laud is empowered to require such 
 a reduction of that rent, if necessary, as shall leave to him the 
 full third of the net proceeds of his property. The commutation 
 rent-charge can be discharged by payment down of eighteen 
 years’ purchase. 
 
 The policy of Prussia has always been not to carry the 
 obligation of compensation so far as to offer a gift with one 
 hand, and to render it valueless by the imposition of conditions 
 with the other. Since, in commutation of n al charges and 
 services, the State struck out all the ascertained amount of 
 commutation in excess of the two-third’s of the peas ant farmer’s 
 net income from the land. Otherwise the peasant might have 
 received a valueless gift, and the policy of the State would have 
 been partially defeated. 
 
 The abolition of services of forced labour released the 
 peasants from 5J millions of days of hand labour, and 21^ 
 mi Hi ns of days of team labour. The commutation of real 
 charges and services has caused a sum of £28.500,000 sterling 
 to pass from the peasant to the lord. The value of the com-, 
 muted labour to the lord was £2,250,000 a year, whereas the 
 capital they received only yields, at four percent., one half of 
 that sum annually. If, therefore, there had been nothing more 
 in the operation than the exchange of one commodity against 
 another commodity — of land against labour — the peasant 1111151 ; 
 be held to have gained, and the lord to have lost pecuniarily by 
 the bargain. But this conclusion is reversed, or at any rate' 
 Equalised, by the consideration that there existed various other 
 rights on the part of the peasant, and various other obligations 
 on the part of the lord, which entered into the account for 
 commutation. 
 
 Whatever hardships it may now or then have inflicted, 
 there is scarcely a voice raised in dissent from the praise 
 universally bestowed in Prussia upon the wisdom and policy of 
 the national agriculture legislation. 
 
 The most important object of the intervention of the 
 sovereign in Prussia was the preservation of the peasant lands 
 from the rapacity of manorial or qnasi-manorial lords The 
 grievous defects of the Prussian agricultural economy at the 
 Commencement of the century were on all sides recognised, 
 and, whereas, in France a terrible revolution had removed 
 similar defects, in Prussia an admirable legislation evoked- 
 suddenly by a national disaster begins, without a revolution, ta 
 produce a most wonderful transformation of the former agricul-s 
 tural economy into the existing beneficial organisation of her 
 agricultural forces. 
 
PRUSSIA. 
 
 23 
 
 No commutation can exceed two-thirds of the value of the 
 peasant’s land. There are various reasons of equity for this 
 limitation, as well as the paramount reason of State policy, that 
 the peasant should he able to discharge his pecuniary obligation 
 without being forced co dispose of his land. 
 
 The common law requires that parents should leave their 
 children a fixed quota of their property, one-third for one or 
 two children, one-half for three or four children, and two-thirds 
 for more than four children. The term of leases is usually 
 twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four years. 
 
 The result of all this legislation is, that land is the absolute 
 property of a large number of owners, that each owner is quite 
 independent of any other owner, and that any other relations 
 between man and land are rare throughout the kingdom. 
 
 The desire of the cultivator to own land is the same in both 
 countri s, but the principle of absolute property in the land for 
 .the cultivator is wanting in Ireland. Hence in Prussia that 
 desire is satisfied, and in Ireland that desire is unsatisfied. 
 
 The number of small proprietors is 1,400,000. Of these, 
 about 000,000 possess sufficient land to support themselves and 
 their families. The minimum for this purpose is seven acres, or 
 thereabouts, in very fertile and well-favoured districts, and in- 
 creases, according to the decreasing local advantages, to twenty 
 acres or more. 
 
 It is not intended to affirm that all these 600,000 owners 
 are able to bring up families in average comfort, and without 
 occasional straits, but that they rely entirely upon the pro- 
 ductiveness of their agricultural labour on their land, and in 
 average times keep poverty at a great distance, and aie in a 
 position by great thrift to increase the ease of their position. 
 
 The remaining 800.000 are day labourers, or have another 
 industry as auxiliary to their agriculture. Public bidding seems 
 to be adopted in respect of the State demesnes, of lands of com- 
 monalities, and of lands in mortmain. The State demesnes 
 have largely profited by it, but the competition seems seldom to 
 have raised tne rent too high. 
 
 In purely agricultural districts pauperism is very rare and 
 beggars are unknown. As regards the returns of land, 'the small 
 and middle proprietors obtain a greater return per acre than the 
 large proprietors. 
 
 The contrast between the 1,000,000 agricultural proprietors 
 of Prussia, and the 30,000 farming proprietors, and the 2o0,000 
 tenant-farmers of Great Britain, is startling. Such uncoil- 
 
24 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 tradicted assertions as that one-half the lmd in England is in the 
 hands of under 200 individuals, and in Scotland of a dozen 
 individuals, are incredible to Prussian ears, and betoken to 
 Prussian authors and others an unsound agricultural organ- 
 isation. Tenants are to the proprietors as one to twenty. 
 
 The average price of land is, for tillage £52 10s. an acre in 
 the department of Bonn, and £53 an acre in the department of 
 Cologne, and for garden land £76 10s. and £124 respectively, 
 and for meadow land in the former £46 an acre. It is not 
 unusual for the land to be purchased in many parts of the 
 kingdom at fifty to eighty years’ purchase lor agricultural 
 purposes. Yet the purchasers are not ruined. 
 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 The system of land occupation in the United States of 
 America may be generally described as by small proprietors. 
 
 Tlie pi oprietary class throughout the country is, moreover, 
 rapidly on the increase, whilst that of the tenancy is diminishing. 
 
 The theory and practice of the country is for every man to 
 own land as soon as possible. 
 
 The term of landlord is an obnoxious one. Land is so cheap 
 .there that any provident man may own land in fee. 
 
 Heavy taxes are paid on land. Absolute titles to land are 
 easily and quickly acquired, and the cultivation of the soil is so 
 remunerative that tenants soon accumulate the means of pur- 
 chasing the land, and of thus becoming proprietors. 
 
 The fees for registering deeds are very small, say from one 
 to four dollars (3s. to 12s.) 
 
 For ordinary conveyances the cost may be stated at from 
 three to five dollars (9s. to 15s.), to which about two dollars (6s.) 
 may be added for recording. 
 
 Although practically any one man may acquire as much land 
 as he can pa^ for, the whole tendency and effect of the laws 
 of this country are conducive to dispersion and multitudinous 
 ownership of land. 
 
 In many European countries the sale and transfer of land 
 are hampered by legal complications, which entail heavy expenses. 
 In the United States, on the contrary, the sale and transfer of land 
 are concluded with about the same ease as would be the sale 
 of a watch. 
 
 An instance could be cited of an estate (in one of the 
 Northern States,) that consisted of real property worth 
 
UNITED STATES. 
 
 25 
 
 £206,612, and personal property, valued at £02,644, which 
 was left by the testator to his children, ilis son and son-in-law 
 were the executors. Within three months after his death, the 
 property, real and personal, was divided among his heirs, each 
 entering into fil l possession of his share ; all the necessary legal 
 formalities were fulfilled, and the whole expense of probate and 
 other fees, cost of registering and engrossing the several deeds 
 of partition and all other papers, and every expense did not ex- 
 ceed the sum of £22 l Os. 
 
 SWITZERLAND. 
 
 The quantity of land usually held by “small proprietors” 
 varies from 6 to 12 acres each. On the death of the owner the 
 land is equally divided amongst the children. The duty on trans- 
 fer by inheritance varies from 2 to 12 per cent., according to the 
 degree of relationship. The duty on sale is 5 per cent. The 
 quantity of land usually held by tenants is — in very small farms — 
 near the town, from 10 to 20 acres each; at a greater distance 
 from the city, farms are 30 to 50 acres. Improvements, especially 
 buildings, are executed by the landlords. The landlord has a 
 special right (leg d) on improvements made by the tenants without 
 remuneration, if not agreed upon beforehand. The laws of the 
 country favour the dispersion of land by allowing its division in 
 equal parts amongst the children of the deceased owner. 
 
 AUSTRIA. 
 
 The whole tenure of land throughout the “'Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire” now rests upon the common basis laid down by the 
 Austrian Laud Laws of 1848-9. Previous to that period the 
 Austrian peasantry were serfs. They were legally subject to forced 
 labour. In return for this forced labour, a certain portion of land 
 was allotted by his feudal seignieur to the peasant serf, and culti- 
 vated by the latter exclusively on his own behalf and to his own 
 profit. Under this regime, therefore, the peasant, although a serf, 
 was also a proprietor. 
 
 Subject to certain duties payable on transfer, &c., to his feu- 
 dal superior, the serf, or bondsman, was the legal owner of the land 
 he cultivated. He could sell it ; he could mortgage it ; he could 
 transfer or bequeath it by testamentary disposition. The Land 
 Laws of 1848-49 abolished the feudal system in Austria. The 
 conditions of forced service and feudal impost under which he 
 previously held the land allotted to him were then removed, and 
 he was invested by the State with the free and unconditional 
 ownership of it The compensation was fixed and provided for in 
 the following way : — The Commission having calculated the 
 
26 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 pecuniary value of the feudal rights enjoyed by each proprietor, 
 and the consequent compensation due to each proprietor for 
 the ab ditioii of t!io<e rights, presented to the Government its esti- 
 mate of the total amount. From this estimated total the Govern- 
 ment c mcelled one-third. Two-thirds rem lined to be provided 
 for The amount represented by these two-thirds the State under- 
 took to pay in 5 per cent, bonds the whole debt he i 1 1 •_»' redeemable 
 in 40 years by annual dra wings at par. One-third of the amount 
 neee^ary for this purpose is provided for by a tax levied exclusively 
 on the new peasant pr »prietors and regirded as the price piyable 
 by them to the State for the immense advantage which they have 
 derived from the legislation of 1848. The remaining one- third is 
 assessed as a surtax on the local taxation of eich p’ovince, and 
 aim n illy voted as part of the local budget by each of the 
 Provincial Diets. 
 
 The result of this arrangement is, that of the compensation 
 assigned by the Land Commission to the great proprietors, one- 
 third has been altogether disallowed by the State, and one of rdie 
 remaining two-thirds is raised by a tax levied upon the great 
 proprietors themselves. The great proprietors generally, and, so 
 far as I am competent to judge, jusLly, complain of this. 
 
 But there are, at the present moment, very few of them who 
 are not ready to admit that, in despite of this apparent injustice, 
 in despite also of the great inconvenience and In avy pecuniary loss 
 to which they were subjected by the suddenn-ss of the change 
 through which they have passed, that change has been, on the 
 whole, beneficial to themselves, as well as to all other classes of the 
 population, from an agricultural no less than from a social point of 
 view. The improved condition of the peasant is, in most provinces 
 of the empire, conspicuous. The laws of 1848-49 created, it is 
 true, an entirely new class of peasant proprie ors, and that class is 
 now. on the whole, a thriving one ; but those laws left intact the 
 old class of great proprietors, whose properties are at this day as 
 large as (and much better cultivated and more remunerative than) 
 they were previous to 1818. 
 
 In most of the provinces, and especially in Upper and Lower 
 Austria, the small proprietary is decidedly flourishing ; the owners 
 of small properties are able to maintain themselves in a consider- 
 able am Hint of comfort. The tenant farming system, common to 
 Great Britain and Ireland, is practically unknown in the Austrian 
 Empire. 
 
 A remission of the rent of the farm can be demanded by 
 the farmer when the produce of an estate, farmed only for one 
 year, has been reduced to more than half the usual produce iA 
 consequence of extraordinary circumstances. 
 
RUSSIA. 
 
 27 
 
 There can be no doubt that both the value of the 
 landed property and the prosperity of the whole agricultural 
 class have b en greatly augmented by the results of the 
 great measures carried in 1848 with regard to the land. 
 The market price of land has, in most provinces, risen 
 more than 100 per cent., and since that period, on the 
 other hand, there can be no doubt whatever that every impulse 
 in the way of agricultural improvement has come, and continues 
 to come, exclusi\ ely from the great landowners. * 
 
 RUSSIA. 
 
 In 1801, when the laws that now regulate the tenure of land 
 in Russia proper, came into operation, at least 8o per cent, of the 
 population were more or less firmly attached to the sod they 
 cultivated. Each male serf enjoyed the usufruct of about 10 acres 
 of land. The mean rate of quit-rent levied from the serfs in 
 money, where they rendered no service, was about 2s. 3d. per acre. 
 A plan — that of permitting the peasantry to purchase, or rather 
 to redeem, in addition to their homesteads, certain fixed allotments 
 of land — originated with the landowners themselves. 
 
 The leading principles on which the Emancipation Act is 
 now based, are as follow : The compulsory sale by the lord, at the 
 desire of the serf, of the serf’s homestead, either on terms of 
 mutual agreement or on conditions fixed by the law. State as- 
 sistance in the redemption (purchase) by the serf of his 
 homestead, and teritorial allotment, provided the lord shall agree 
 to sell the latter. The lord obtains compensation for the loss of 
 serf-lab* >ur, and for the cession of lands, in Government Stock, 
 in the proportion of 80 per cent, of the valuation of the latter. 
 The peasantry were made to guarantee collectively the exact 
 payment of their quit-rents, taxes, and ‘‘redemption dues;” that 
 collective responsibility was laid on the village communes, which, 
 as separate bodies, became the purchasers of the land ceded to 
 the peasantry, who thus became in a measure only tenants 
 under communes. 
 
 In order, on the other hand, to prevent the dissolution oi- 
 the commune — the administrative and financial unit — the 
 Emancipation Act was calculated, by a variety of subtle pro- 
 visions, to prevent the peasantry from leaving the soil, to which 
 they were, therefore, attached almost as firmly as in 1592. 
 
 A division and sub-division of families began soon after 
 18G1, and, although partially checked by the Central Govern- 
 ment, continues to this day, in a ratio that bids fair to place the 
 majority of adult peasants at the head of separate households. 
 
28 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 On the 1st November, 1SG9, almost exactly one-third — viz., 
 about three millions of the male population of ex-serfs in Russia 
 proper — were made perpetual tenants of homesteads and allot- 
 ments of at able land at a rental of about 2s. per acre. 
 
 The past legislation of Russia in regard to land legislation 
 would seem to afford a practical lesson of the injuriousness of laws 
 intended to stimulate artificially the formation of a class of small 
 proprietors and the attachment of a peasantry to the soil. 
 
 * 
 
 SILESIA. 
 
 The peasants have been relieved from feudal service at a 
 comparatively recent period. They have attained the position 
 of substantial yeomen, and can be said to constitute a valuable 
 element in the social arrangement of the Russian dominions. 
 
 The class has preserved the economical habits for which the 
 peasantry are generally known, and their standard of living is 
 still very simple. The fare I saw on their table was, however, 
 substantial and abundant, and their whole arrangements such as 
 to confiim what I heard on trustworthy authority in these 
 localities — that most of them had arrived at that stage at which 
 they were accumulating capital and becoming quite able to afford, 
 out of their savings, marriage portions for their sons and 
 daughters. 
 
 As regards the cultivation of the farms owned by this clas9 
 of freeholders, it has been constantly improving during the last 
 twenty years. 
 
 BAVARIA. 
 
 Judging from the information I have been able to obtain, 
 both from official and private sources, I should say that the 
 general feeling in this country is decidedly favouialde to the 
 system so widely spread over the whole kingdom — that of laud 
 cultivation by the peasant proprietors — this system being in ac- 
 cordance With the traditions and habits of the population, and 
 its results, upon the whole, satisfactoiy ; for, as 1 have already 
 stated, the general condition of this class of proprietors is ac- 
 knowledged to be, in the main, prosperous, and one with which 
 they have reason to be well satisfied. 
 
 TURKEY. 
 
 Fixed money-rents are the exception, being discouraged by 
 the Koran. Human wants are reduced to a low standard, but 
 are easily satisfied all through European Turkey. The laxity of 
 
TURKEY. 
 
 29 
 
 justice, however, almost entirely prohibits the improvement of 
 the soil by the investment of capital. The land is held chiefly 
 by small proprietors. Between 20 and 30 acres is the average 
 extent of land cultivated annually bv each small proprietor. 
 Land has absolutely no value in the credit market. 
 
 The general circumstances of the small proprietors are such 
 as enable them to keep their families above actual want. There 
 are some of them who are believed to be in easier circumstances 
 than they care to acknowledge, and to have managed to save up 
 money, which they hoard for fear of exciting the cupidity of 
 others. 
 
 In Turkey no one can make a bequest of his landed pro- 
 perty. The Sheri Sherif, or Sacred Law, provides for the mode 
 of its transmission and division after the death of the owner. 
 
 The cultivation of the large farms under the “ metayer” 
 system, is, generally speaking, far inferior to that of small 
 proprietors. The lands of small proprietors are invariably better 
 cultivated and produce more abundant crops. 
 
 PIEDMONT. 
 
 The condition of the small proprietors, may, on the whole, be 
 considered a happy one, when their properties are not too deeply 
 mortgaged. Morewer the system is reputed to be an excellent 
 barrier against communistic doctrines. The small proprietor feels 
 that he has a stake in the country, and that he may hope to 
 advance in prosperity, while the simple labourer, especially when 
 not sharing in the produce of his toil, is condemned to gyrate in 
 the same circle and to see his children unable to rise higher than 
 himself. 
 
 LOMBARDY. 
 
 The average sizes of the small properties cultivated by the 
 owners themselves may be calculated at from 1 to 7 acres. 
 
 Public opinion holds that small properties are advantageous 
 on mountain soils where the spur of ownership is required to 
 compel production. From a social point of view the possession 
 of freeholds may always be considered a benefit to the peasantry, 
 and whenever la pefil culluh is possible to agriculture. 
 On irrigated lands small proprietors could hardly exist 
 unless they formed associations for the joint cultivation of the 
 soil. Owing to the non-occurrence of this contingency, the irri- 
 gated plains of Lombardy are in the hands of large and wealthy 
 proprietors, who are able to make the soil yield its increase. 
 
30 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 These reports are written, officially, by 53 
 gentlemen, most of whom are connected with the 
 English aristocracy, and would certainly not be 
 predisposed in favour of the sub-division of land. 
 No one can read them without being convinced that 
 the balance of evidence is strongly in favour of 
 facilitating the distribution rather than the aggre- 
 gation of land ; that the occupation of land by 
 small proprietors is found to be favourable to its 
 productiveness, and that the occupation of land by 
 a large number of persons strengthens the moral, 
 social, and political condition of a people. 
 
 These reports show the means adopted by 
 other Governments to give occupiers an opportunity, 
 of acquiring land ; in most cases the landlords were 
 called upon to make very large reductions upon the 
 actual value of their claims. In Prussia the 
 tenants were confirmed in possession on paying, 
 at the utmost, two-thirds of the value of the land ; 
 and they could either pay the amount as a perma- 
 nent rent charge, or commute the landlords’ claim 
 at 18 years’ purchase. 
 
 In Austria the landlords were paid two-thirds 
 only of the ascertained value of their claims, and 
 one-half of the amount thus paid to them was raised 
 by taxation which chiefly fell upon themselves. 
 Although at first discontented with these apparently 
 severe terms, they are now abundantly satisfied, 
 finding that the increased prosperity of the country 
 has enabled them to cultivate the estates left in their 
 possession with more profit, and that the value of 
 land throughout the country has risen 100 per cent. 
 
 These reports show that unjust action on the 
 part of landlords has produced the same results in 
 Belgium as in Ireland, and that the most serious 
 violations of law follow unjust evictions. 
 
 They also afford valuable precedents for dealing 
 
IRELAND. 
 
 31 
 
 with nearly all difficulties arising under various 
 systems of land tenure, of which perhaps the most 
 immediately appropriate to the case of Ireland is 
 the instance of evictions being suspended in Prussia 
 when the action of landlords had become intolerable. 
 
 Contrast the reports of Her Majesty’s repre- 
 sentatives in Europe on the condition of small 
 proprietors with the state of Ireland as described 
 by a writer in The Times of Jan. 1 6th, 1880, on a Irish 
 Farms and Farming.” He tells us that 
 
 “ Ireland yields only poverty to tens of thousands who should 
 be among the most happy and prosperous people oil the earth. 
 
 “ Here is a country which should at least be a Paradise of live 
 stock, a land flowing with milk, if not with honey . . . No 
 
 one acquainted with the soils of Ireland will class them generally 
 as inferior to the light sands and poor clays of Flanders, or will 
 compare their natural fertility unfavourably with the arable and 
 pasture of Denmark or of Holland. 
 
 “ In Ireland the quantity of cultivated land is 2f acres for each 
 head of the population. In Belgium the quantity of cultivated 
 land is only 1 acre per head. In Great Britain acre, and in 
 Holland lj acre. 
 
 “ At the lowest estimate there are 100,000 of the small farmers 
 living in the worst class of mud cabins, in a vast number of which 
 the cows and pigs share the solitary apartment with the family. 
 
 “ In 1871 there were no fewer than 512,801 mud cabins in 
 the country, of which 155,075 had but one room, and these were 
 occupied by 227,879 families.” 
 
 The tenancy-at-will of small holdings is exactly 
 calculated to bring about such calamities as that 
 from which Ireland is now suffering. In their 
 eagerness to obtain land, tenants will promise more 
 rent than the average of seasons enables them 
 to pay ; they are unable to save mone}’ in prosperous 
 seasons, and in bad seasons they have no resource 
 but starvation or repudiation. 
 
 What Irish landlords may do, and obtain the 
 support of the authorities in doing, can be seen by 
 
32 
 
 LAND LAWS AND TIIEIR RESULTS. 
 
 the action of Mr. William Scully, who purchased 
 Ballycohey, a town in Tipperary County, and 
 promptly proceeded to carry out his ideas of land- 
 lordism. Mr. Sullivan, in Hew Ireland , tells us 
 that Mr. Scully 
 
 “ Framed a form of lease for the Ballycohey tenantry, refusal 
 of which was to be tlie~sii» nal for their eviction. This was a most 
 astonishing document. The tenants were always to have a half 
 year’s rent paid in advance ; to pay t' e rent quarterly ; to 
 surrender on twenty-one days’ notice at the end of any quarter ; 
 to forego all claims to their own crops that might he in the soil ; and 
 they were to pay all rates and taxes whatsoever. Whoever refused 
 to accept these terms must quit.” 
 
 These terms were not, as they obviously could 
 not be, accepted, and the sequel is thus given in a 
 telegraphic report of the tragic event : 
 
 “Mr. William Scully, accompanied by a force of police and 
 other armed attendants, again attempted to serve the ejectment 
 notices on his Ballycohey tenantry. A lamentable tragedy ensued. 
 The tenants barricaded and loop-holed one of the houses, from 
 which they pourt d a deadly fire on the attacking party. The police 
 returned the fire and fought their way into the house which they 
 found evacuated. Three of the police party a re killed ; Mr. Scully 
 is wounded in seven places — it is thought mortally. Four police- 
 men are more or less seriously wounded. None of the tenantry 
 were seen ; none of them seem to have suffered. No arrests. 
 Indescribable excitement throughout the whole district.” 
 
 Sucli events demand and receive public 
 attention, while thousands of actions on tlie part of 
 landowners which bring hopeless desolation to 
 families pass unnoticed. A young couple, in the 
 north of Ireland, having married, were soon after- 
 wards visited by their landlord, who entered the 
 house, and, as both the husband and wife were 
 working on the farm, he had a few minutes to 
 himself, which he devoted to an active examination 
 of his tenant’s dwelling. Opening one of the 
 drawers, he discovered a teapot plated with silver, 
 and, placing it on the table, required the young 
 
IRELAND. 
 
 33 
 
 wife, when she returned, to account for its possession. 
 With pardonable pride, she related the fact that her 
 neighbours had given the teapot as a wedding 
 present, and was thunderstruck when the landlord 
 rejoined : u If you can afford a silver teapot you can 
 pay more rent, and I will at once write out a notice 
 to quit;” which he did, and presented on the spot. 
 This landlord was subsequently shot at and killed 
 on a public road. 
 
 In many cases the rent of small farms in Ire- 
 land is paid, not from the produce, but from the 
 earnings obtained by labour elsewhere, and often 
 by the remittances received from friends in 
 America. The sentimental and social attachments 
 of the Irish to the land of their birth is traded upon 
 by unscrupulous landlords to a degree which would 
 be almost incredible if experience had not so often 
 shown that greed of money deprives men of all feel- 
 ings of humanity. I have before me a letter written 
 a few weeks since by an unhappy tenant, who for 
 seven acres of land in the north-west of Ireland 
 pays four pounds per acre rent, and “ seven rates.” 
 His rent has been four times raised, and when asked 
 why he does not leave the place, he replies, a I have 
 a father 82 years of age and a mother 79, and if I 
 left them no luck would follow me in any part of the 
 world.” 
 
 We read in the report, previously quoted, 
 that in Prussia, up to 1739, the Land Laws 
 had been engaged in more and more recognising 
 the rights of landlords. Our Land Laws have been 
 so engaged up to 1870, when Mr. Gladstone passed 
 his u Irish Land Act.” Before that time multi- 
 tudinous Land Acts were passed, of which it has 
 been asserted that every one of them was in support 
 of the claims of the landlord. What Prussia com- 
 menced in 1739 we began in 1870. 
 c 
 
34 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 Mr. Bright affords an illustration of the rapid 
 manner in which opinions on the subject may be 
 changed. During the election of 1880 he said : — 
 44 How would it be possible to hand over to some 
 lawyer, county court judge, or magistrate to deter- 
 mine the rent of all the farms between tenant and 
 landowner? At any rate this is not a principle 
 which we admit in our markets and exchanges.” 
 A few months after using this language, Mr. Bright, 
 as a member of Mr. Gladstone’s cabinet, assented 
 to the identical system which he denounced, and he 
 now appears to recognise the fact that there is not the 
 slightest analogy between free markets, where all 
 meet on equal terms, and a transaction where a 
 monopolist deals with a necessitous tenant. It would 
 be more reasonable to allow Railway Companies 
 to demand what they please from each passenger, 
 than to permit landlords to demand whatever 
 they choose from occupiers of the land. 
 
 Land in its nature must be a monopoly — a 
 monopoly which may be less injurious under many 
 proprietors than under a few ; but proprietorship or 
 occupation in land involves a monopoly, and, upon 
 every principle of political economy and common 
 sense, a monopoly must be regulated in the interests 
 of the public. If the law may be invoked to make 
 the tenants proprietors, a course which Mr. Bright 
 recommends, why not make use of legislative 
 powers to stop evictions which are made in defiance 
 of humanity. 
 
 Mr. Bright tells us that u The growing opinion 
 in favour of wild theories is a vast volume which, 
 but for the power of England, would sweep away 
 the whole property and class of landed proprietors 
 in Ireland.” 
 
 I believe that not a single Member of Parlia- 
 ment for Ireland, has propounded any theory 
 
England’s responsibility. 35 
 
 half so radical as what has been accomplished in 
 Prussia and Austria. In these countries land was 
 supplied to small proprietors at two-thirds of its actual 
 value in one case, and one-half of its value in the other. 
 
 The results of this radical legislation, 
 are clearly shown by the fact that recently the 
 most powerful and conservative Emperor in the 
 world attended the ceremonies instituted to celebrate 
 the centenary of the author of this legistation. He 
 paid a high eulogium to his memory, and con- 
 gratulated the country upon the happy results which 
 had followed the legislative distribution of land on 
 liberal terms. 
 
 Allow the full force of so-called u commercial 
 principles” to exact from the occupiers all that 
 they can be compelled to promise, aud their will 
 be no peace for Ireland. The people, who for 
 centuries have been separated from the land by 
 violent confiscations and unjust legislation, must 
 now be placed in the occupation of it, on terms 
 which will be sufficiently liberal to stimulate and 
 reward their industry. 
 
 A deep responsibility rests upon England ; 
 without the exercise of her power, Mr. Bright tells 
 us that the growing power of public opinion would 
 sweep away the landed proprietors in Ireland. On 
 what terms, then, are we to stand between them 
 and the righteous indignation of the people ? Are 
 we to exact the uttermost farthing of the nominal 
 value of rack-rented estates for the benefit of land- 
 lords, whose rapacity has brought the people to 
 starvation ; and this at a time when land, without 
 our assistance, would not be worth to them a pound 
 an acre ? Instead of employing our strength for 
 the protection of the weak, we use it for enforcing 
 the demands of the powerful. 
 
36 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 In common justice, it must be remembered that 
 agricultural land is valueless without the labour 
 which an industrious population can bestow upon 
 it, and we have to consider what are fair terms 
 upon which the labourer may be allowed to work. 
 
 In dealing with this question we must take 
 into account the fact, which our daily experience 
 makes more plain, that good land is obtainable on 
 the other side of the Atlantic merely for the trouble 
 of settling upon it, and that the facilities for 
 bringing the produce of this land to our shores 
 have so largely increased that it will be impossible 
 for agriculturists in the United Kingdom to con- 
 tinue to pay the high rates for the rental or purchase 
 of land which it has hitherto commanded. If the 
 people of Ireland were placed upon the land 
 with responsibilities equal to the value which has 
 been obtained in former years, it would be im- 
 possible for them to meet their demands, and thus 
 industry would fail to obtain a due reward, and the 
 present scenes of misery, starvation, and distress 
 would be reproduced. 
 
 I applied to two gentlemen in Wiltshire to 
 give me some information as to farming there. 
 One was a farmer occupying 800 acres of land, 
 most of which is of excellent quality. He tells me 
 that he expends in labour £1,200 a year, or 30s. 
 per acre, and that the average value of his corn 
 crops in 1879 was 67s. per acre. He has carried on 
 his farm during the two or three bad seasons we 
 have had at a heavy loss, and he adds, u Many 
 farmers in this district have become bankrupt, and 
 many more must do so. Numerous farms in the 
 country are unlet, and tenants cannot be found 
 for them." 
 
 The other gentleman purchased six acres of 
 poor land twelve years ago, in order to test the 
 
SPADE HUSBANDRY. 
 
 37 
 
 possibility of spade cultivation, and fruit growing. 
 He sends me his balance sheet for 1879. 
 
 Six acres of Land in Wiltshire under spade 
 cultivation , 1879 . 
 
 Cost. 
 
 Tithes 
 
 Taxes 
 
 Manures 
 
 Seed 
 
 Labour 
 
 Personal Superintendence 
 
 Balance — Profit ... 
 
 Produce. 
 
 acre Peas 
 
 Carrots 
 
 Potatoes — Magnum Bonum 
 
 Clover — made well 
 
 Rye — four sacks and the straw 
 
 Mangolds — ten tons @ 20s 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Barley and Buckwheat 
 
 Fruits — made into preserves, less cost of sugar 
 and labour ] 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 14 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 6 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 60 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 15 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 L 01 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 93 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 L94 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 9 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 10 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 25 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 3 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 10 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 20 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 6 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 [06 
 
 5 
 
 0 
 
 £194 5 0 
 
 If the two acres of fruit had been under similar crops to the 
 other four acres, the result would have been £20 reduction in the 
 labour, and £62 5s. in the produce, leaving, then, a net profit of 
 £50 15s. 
 
 A man with a family could easily have done all the work, and 
 would have realised, with the fruit, £168 5s., and, without 
 fruit, £108. 
 
 The land is situated in the centre of Wiltshire, 
 five miles from a railway station. The quality is a 
 
38 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIK RESULTS. 
 
 poor green sand. Twelve years ago it was without 
 a fruit tree, and in such had condition that no one 
 could be got to take it. 
 
 The large result from the crops is owing to 
 the excellent condition in which the land has been 
 maintained for ten years ; and which, in a great 
 degree, counteracted the effect of the bad season 
 of 1879 so generally ruinous to the crops in the 
 neighbourhood. No allowance has been made for 
 rent, as the land is cultivated by a proprietor ; no 
 such work could be done on rented land. But if 
 rent, at £3 per acre, is deducted from the result, 
 there will still be a handsome balance. As a matter 
 of fact, the land, with the fruit trees, has improved 
 in value to an amount equivalent to the twelve years' 
 rent. 
 
 The land was profitable from the commence- 
 ment, and at no time was more than £100 of 
 capital, beyond the cost of the purchase, expended 
 upon it. 
 
 Of course it is not contended that all the land 
 in the kingdom can be thus employed, but we 
 might have many thousands of such occupiers. 
 The soil, climate, and proximity to markets makes 
 English land especially suitable for cultivation in 
 small quantities, and the extension of the system 
 would add inmeasurably to the prosperity and 
 happiness of the community. 
 
 One result would be a more frequent 
 interchange between the dwellers in town and 
 country, to the infinite advantage of both. The 
 inhabitants of towns cannot generally be received 
 as visitors, either in the great houses of the land- 
 lords or in the miserable dwellings of the labourers ; 
 but with a healthy class of small occupiers an 
 interchange of social life would be both possible and 
 advantageous. 
 
LORD SALISBURY. 
 
 39 
 
 During the auturpn of last year I travelled 
 through Belgium, Holland, the north of Germany, 
 and the north-east of France for the purpose of 
 seeing the condition of the land and its occupiers. 
 Throughout the whole journey I did not meet with 
 a single neglected field ; these extensive districts 
 are cultivated like gardens, and the dwellings and 
 general appearance of the people betoken abun- 
 dance, comfort, and social independence. 
 
 It is surprising how many fallacies respecting 
 land are blown away by a visit to other countries. 
 I will mention two by way of illustration. We are 
 sometimes told, with exclamations of pious horror, 
 that women work in the fields in France and 
 Belgium. It is true they do so, but under much more 
 favourable circumstances than they are employed in 
 England. W orking on the land i s part of their social 
 life, for the}^ work not in gangs but in family groups, 
 and nothing contributes more to health and 
 happiness. Again, we are told that in Belgium much 
 land is occupied with hedges. This also is true ; but 
 hedges there grow valuable wood, which forms an 
 important part of the occupier’s income. 
 
 Lord Salisbury, in a recent speech at Watford, 
 said, u Suppose a man possesses £500, and he 
 wishes to spend it in buying land, would he, in 
 reason, prefer to spend his £500 in getting 10 acres 
 in England, or in getting from 200 to 300 acres in 
 any of our colonies, or in the United States of America, 
 the soil being equally good, for the same sum?” 
 
 I confess that I cannot, without some alarm, 
 contemplate the expatriation from our shores of a 
 useful class of persons who are raising themselves 
 in the social scale by the exercise of industry and 
 thrift, the principles of which are so often expounded 
 to them. 
 
 Many men prefer remaining in this country, 
 
40 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 and it is both unjust and unwise to drive them 
 from it by laws which prevent the division of land. 
 For my own part, much as I believe in the United 
 States, I would far rather work 10 acres of land, 
 after the manner I have mentioned, in Wiltshire, 
 than 200 acres in the Western States. It is, 
 moreover, a serious matter to drive out of the 
 country the class of small farmers who have added 
 so much to the general development of other 
 countries. In doing this we cause a hiatus in 
 society, which accounts, in a great degree, for the 
 separation of classes which prevails in this country. 
 Emigration is an excellent thing when it arises 
 from hopeful enterprise, but it is a bad thing when 
 men are driven from us because we deprive them 
 of their natural position on the land, and they leave 
 our shore gloomy and discontented. Men of small 
 means are especially wanted in connection with our 
 land to fill up the gap now existing between 
 labourers and large farmers, and to supply those 
 productions which are the result of personal atten- 
 tion, and for which we are so unnecessarily 
 dependent upon our neighbours on the Continent. 
 
 The unequal manner in which land is now 
 taxed as compared with house property may be 
 illustrated by the following instance : 
 
 A house in the suburbs of London stands 
 upon two-thirds of an acre of land. The ground 
 rent is £30 upon a lease of 84 years. Ten years 
 ago the house cost in building £2,500, which is 
 about its present value. The ground rent and re- 
 version are worth at least £1,000. 
 
 Opposite to the house is a field of 2| acres of 
 land, which would sell readily for £1,000 per acre, 
 but the owner holds it for a higher price. If put 
 up to auction to-morrow as freehold, the field would 
 sell promptly for £2,500, the house might or might 
 not find a purchaser at £2,500. 
 
COMPARATIVE TAXATION. 
 
 41 
 
 Let it be remembered that the value of the 
 house has been obtained by the actual expenditure 
 upon it of labour for which £2,500 has been paid. 
 To the field nothing has ever been done by the 
 landlord ; it derives its value solely from the 
 aggregation of population in the locality. In a few 
 years the house will deteriorate in value, while the 
 field will become more necessary to the population 
 which surrounds it, and will command a still higher 
 price. 
 
 What is the taxation on these properties? 
 Here is a copy of the tax paper for the house. 
 
 TAXES. 
 
 Income Tax, House Duty, and Land Tax, for the year 1879, 
 ending 5th April, 1880. 
 
 Description of Property — House. 
 
 Amount of Assessment, £170. 
 
 Income Tax, Schedule A, 5 d. in the £ 3 10 10 
 
 Inhabited House Duty, 9d. in the £ 6 7 6 
 
 £9 18 4 
 
 Of this sum the only part that can be deducted 
 from the owner of the ground rent is 12s. 6d., i.e ., 
 5d. in the £ property tax on £30, which is all the 
 taxation of any kind that he pays. 
 
 The adjoining field is worth £2,500, although 
 no labour has been expended upon it. It is assessed 
 at £18 per annum, and pays property tax at 5d. on 
 £18, or 7s. Gd., as compared with £9 18s. 4d. for 
 house property of equal value, which has been 
 created by industry. 
 
 BATES. 
 
 These have to be paid by the owner or 
 occupier of the house, and of the field. The house 
 is assessed at £170 per annum, and the field, equal 
 
42 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 in value, at £18. The house pays for these rates 
 £30, the field £3 4s., and 7s. 6d. for Income Tax. 
 
 The Total Taxation on the three properties 
 is therefore as follows : — 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 Value of f Ground Rent — pays Ill 3 
 
 each 1 Field „ 3 12 6 
 
 £2,500. ( House „ 30 5 10 
 
 Thus the ground rent pays Is. 3d. ; th e field 
 2s. lid.; the house 31s. 6d. ; for each £100 of 
 value. 
 
 In the statistics of taxation we see all 
 these sums added together, and given as the tax- 
 ation on real property, and most persons jump to 
 the conclusion that this means taxation on land, 
 whereas they are mainly taxes on industry, as 
 industrial property pays 31s. 6d. per cent., and 
 land Is. 3d. per cent. 
 
 It should be observed that taxation on houses 
 falls invariably on the tenant or occupier. Houses 
 are created by the direct application of industry, 
 they can be erected indefinitely, and they will be 
 erected wherever tenants are found willing to pay 
 the cost of erection and a fair profit to the builder, 
 plus whatever taxation may be placed upon them. 
 
 Land is in the opposite position ; it is fixed 
 in quantity, and its value is not created or limited 
 by the cost of production, for it cannot be produced. 
 Its value arises from the necessity for its use, 
 and as that necessity becomes more urgent and 
 concentrated its value increases. In the centre of 
 London land is let at the rate of £20,000 per acre 
 per annum, and the recipients of these enormous 
 rents, which have rapidly increased, without any 
 effort on their part, to the present amount, are ex- 
 empted from all taxation except the property tax. 
 
 Our system of taxation thus exempts the 
 
4 
 
 TAXATION SHOULD BE REVERSED. 43 
 
 property which increases in value through 
 the industry of others, and places it upon that 
 which is the direct result of labour. This unfair 
 exemption of land involves a heavy burden on in- 
 dustry, and therefore checks enterprise. Of the 
 house rent that we pay, about one-fourth represents 
 taxation and another fourth ground rent. Of every 
 shilling that a working man pays for house rent the 
 ground landlord gets 3d. and the Government gets 
 3d., but for this payment the ground landlord does 
 nothing whatever. He merely stands upon the land 
 which nature has provided and says, “ You shall 
 not use the land unless you pay me so much.” 
 
 In valuing land for the purpose of taxation, 
 that portion of the value which is the direct result 
 of industry should be exempted ; thus, improved 
 cultivation, drainage, planting, or building, would 
 be taken into account, and in cases where 
 land has been reclaimed from the sea, or otherwise, 
 the cost of such reclamation would not be taxed. 
 The principle should be maintained of taxing the 
 value which arises without effort or outlay on the 
 part of the owner, instead of the opposite principle 
 which now prevails of placing taxation upon 
 industry. 
 
 Even if we are ourselves disposed to bear very 
 serious evils rather than disturb the existing state 
 of things, yet posterity has some claims upon us. 
 We have no riodit to establish or maintain laws 
 
 O 
 
 transmitting to future generations arrangements 
 which are essentially unjust. 
 
 What are we doing in this respect? If we look 
 ahead only half a century, what will happen? At that 
 time there may be born a baby who is predestinated 
 by our laws to inherit, say, a hundred thousand 
 acres of land. In the mean time, and before the 
 predestined baby comes into the world, fifty 
 
44 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 thousand other babies will be born on the same land. 
 Upon this land of their birth they can remain only 
 by permission of the predestined baby, and to him 
 they must pay whatever he chooses to demand for 
 the right to live and work*where they were born. 
 
 Well may the hard-headed Germans refuse to 
 believe that we permit such a state of things. Here 
 is an evil which not only exists but grows, and which 
 from its very nature must extend. If we do not 
 alter our laws land will become more and more con- 
 centrated in the hands of a small number of pre- 
 destined babies, who may grow up to be both weak 
 and wicked, and yet retain dominion over those 
 who were born before them. 
 
 There need be no hesitation as to the position 
 which young or unborn children are to occupy ; 
 there is as little kindness as justice in subjecting 
 anyone to the temptations afforded by an enormous 
 income, and an almost absolute dominion over his 
 fellow creatures, assured to him quite irrespective 
 of any efforts or merits of his own. 
 
 It is a disputed point with lawyers as to 
 whether such a thing as the absolute and uncon- 
 trolled possession of land has ever been granted by 
 our laws, but the legal question is not of great 
 importance, for a higher law, the law of necessity, 
 steps in and demands such things as are essential to 
 the national existence. It cannot be supposed by any 
 reflecting mind that thirty -five millions of people are 
 to be subject absolutely to a small and constantly 
 diminishing number of landowners, who do not, at 
 the present moment, exceed thirty thousand . 0 Are 
 thirty thousand, or probably half that number in the 
 
 * In this estimate only large landowners are taken into the account 
 as small owners will not be affected by the proposed alteration in taxation. 
 Where a man has a house with a small quantity of land his taxation would 
 be the same as at present, but he would pay on the land instead of on the 
 house. 
 
RIGHT versus PRIVILEGE. 
 
 45 
 
 next generation, to have the uncontrolled power to 
 determine fo*r ever how much other people are to 
 pay to them for the right of living and working upon 
 the land on which they were born ? 
 
 In the nature of things which no laws can alter, 
 it is essential that the powers of landowners or 
 occupiers should be limited, and be exercised only in 
 a manner consistent with the interests of the public. 
 This is a fundamental principle, the violation of 
 which by one generation does not bind succeeding 
 generations. The right of thirty-five millions of 
 people to live is greater than the claim of thirty 
 thousand persons to dictate to them the conditions 
 of life. As the thirty-five millions increase in 
 number, and the thirty thousand diminish, the 
 necessity for a solution of the problem becomes 
 more urgent, and will soon be imperative. 
 
VIRTUE REWARDED: 
 
 Or, TRUE STORIES OF LIFE IN WILTSHIRE. 
 
 u I do believe this baby will never stop crying,” exclaimed Janet 
 Mildmay ; and as she said this she smiled a pleasant smile, and even 
 laughed a little laugh. It was to her a new experience. She had never 
 fondled a baby whose crying she could not stop ; but before long she 
 succeeded with this one. She discovered the precise angle at which it 
 liked to be held, the exact amount of pressure at which it should be 
 squeezed, and the degree of motion at which it was soothed by shaking. 
 
 Fifty years ago Janet was a comely, fair-complexioned young 
 woman, and a great success as a nursemaid. She had the care of a small 
 infant, of whom the doctor said that his destiny was to add to the 
 number of short green graves in the parish churchyard, but the nurse 
 declared that her charge should not slip through her fingers, and she kept 
 her word. Janet had many suitors, but her prudence might have won 
 the praise of the Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus. She waited until she 
 was twenty-seven years of age and then accepted a young man who was 
 not only handsome and industrious, but was the owner of a small 
 freehold, consisting of a cottage and half-an-acre of land. 
 
 From the wedding-day John and Janet devoted themselves to the 
 cultivation of their small garden and eight acres of land, which a neigh- 
 bourly landlord was so good as to allow them to cultivate upon paying 
 three times as much rent per acre as was paid for similar land by the 
 large farmers in the locality. It was, and is, a fixed idea with Wiltshire 
 landlords that labourers should be kept in their places, and if they wish 
 to become small farmers their ambition must be repressed by a heavy 
 rent. So John and Janet had to pay £32 per annum for eight acres of 
 poor sandy land, which, at the present moment, is let as part of a large 
 farm at 20s. per acre, on condition that it is not sub-let to working 
 farmers in small quantities. 
 
 However, they strove, and for a time they throve. Twice a week 
 John took his horse and cart to Bath or Salisbury, with the produce of 
 his little farm, leaving home at eleven o’clock one night, and returning at 
 eleven o’clock the next. These hours were arranged in order to pass the 
 turnpikes on the same date, and thus avoid paying twice. The day after 
 his twenty-four hours journey, John was in the fields, for although his 
 horse wanted rest, he could not afford to take it. He and Janet and the 
 children that came to them worked early and late. For a quarter of a 
 century they toiled on, remaining poor, but not unthankful. Every 
 Sunday the parson preached contentment, and every year the landlord 
 collected the rent. 
 
LIFE IN WILTSHIRE. 
 
 47 
 
 But a man who drives his cart two nights a week, while working the 
 whole of six days and part of the seventh, cannot keep on for ever. John 
 was doing 50 per cent, more work than any man ought to be called on to 
 
 E erform, and yet it was impossible for him to earn a penny more than the 
 arest subsistence for his family and the £32 a year for his landlord. His 
 horse had a habit of getting old, and when it became necessary to obtain 
 a younger one John had to borrow £20. This sum was advanced by 
 a local capitalist, under the auspices of a local lawyer, and on the security 
 of the cottage and the land. Although John received only £20, the 
 mortgage deed was drawn* for £30, the balance being required for the 
 examination of title deeds and the preparation of documents. Ten years 
 after the mortgage was called in, the money was re-borrowed, £10 added 
 to the charges, and the cottage was mortgaged for £40. This process was 
 repeated a few years later, and the mortgage was swollen to £50, 
 although £20 was the total sum that the borrower had received. 
 
 With no other idea in their minds than that of duty, John and Janet 
 laboured on with scarcely a day’s holiday or a day’s illness. Endowed by 
 nature with good tempers and sound constitutions, their life was not 
 unhappy, so long as the fulness of strength enabled them to pay their 
 way. They thought but little of the future, for the present demanded 
 every effort. But the future came, and for it they were unprepared. No 
 people better deserved repose in their old age, but rest was not for them. 
 Even parish pay would not be given to this old couple, for they 
 possessed a cottage, and therefore could not be assisted. The parish is 
 not like Providence, helping those who help themselves, and as these 
 good people could not bear the idea of giving up the home of their youth 
 and had not spent the value of it at the public-house, they could get no 
 assistance from the fund “ for the relief of the poor,” a fund to which 
 they had so largely contributed. Day by day the old man continued to 
 labour until seventy summers had passed over him, and constant work, 
 without the thought of recreation, undermined his frame. 
 
 During that time what had he done? His active and intelligent 
 labour had been successfully devoted to the most ancient and most 
 important of human industries. I say successfully, for nature had not 
 been unkind to him. The land yielded her increase. The results of his 
 efforts were abundant to maintain him and his family in comfort 
 throughout the active period of life and provide for the repose which old 
 age requires. But the proceeds of his labours were taken from him ; he 
 enjoyed them not, and at seventy he died of weariness, starvation, and a 
 broken heart. 
 
 Who is responsible for a fate so different to that which he deserved ? 
 The man continued and remained to the end life’s faithful soldier, 
 contending against all difficulties, honestly striving, and always for 
 beneficent aims. Never a day but he went about doing good. His 
 patient continuance in well-doing was a model for mankind. On the 
 efforts of such men the world depends for comfort, happiness, security, 
 and advancement. There is not a class of society which could not be 
 better spared than those constant and devoted workers on the soil. Can 
 it be consistent with justice, or does it accord with our ideas of right, 
 that such men should live throughout their lives without rest or comfort ? 
 The man did all that society could fairly expect from him and much 
 more. Nature did all that we have a right to expect from her. The 
 result was abundance, and yet the man starved. By what robbery or 
 
48 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 wrong 1 was the food that he produced snatched from his lips, his life 
 rendered miserable, and his death a disgrace P 
 
 If the case stood thus alone we ought not to rest until we discovered 
 by what crime or blunder such an event had happened. How is it that 
 with a productive soil, a genial climate, and the most untiring industry 
 the honest labourer starved ? 
 
 The cause is not far to seek. The policy adopted in Wiltshire of 
 charging working men twice or three times as much for land as a farmer 
 has to pay took out of John’s pocket £800 in hard cash during the forty 
 years of his active life. The avowed obiect of this policy is to secure 
 labour at a small cost for large farmers. From this cause, if a working 
 man shows any aptitude, intelligence, or capacity for working on his own 
 behalf, he is to be discouraged, and if he wants land he must seek it else- 
 where, or pay for it, in Wiltshire, three times as much as is paid by the 
 large farmer. 
 
 It is obvious that this policy is selfish, hateful, and unjust, and it 
 cannot boast the small redeeming virtue of success. There is perhaps no 
 countv in England where landlords are more embarrassed, or where large 
 farmers are more distressed. And Wiltshire is a county for which Nature 
 has done much. The soil is rich, varied, and adapted to all kinds of 
 cultivation. Ten acres of land in Wiltshire will support a working 
 farmer and his family in the greatest comfort, and enable him to provide 
 for old age. Thousands of acres are now out of cultivation, producing 
 nothing but weeds, each thousand of which would maintain a hundred 
 families in prosperous industry. The cause of the distress and the remedy 
 are equally obvious. In the case to which we have referred, every letter 
 of which "records facts as they occurred, the sum which the man had 
 taken from him in rent amounted to £1,280. For this sum the landlord, 
 who demanded and received it, did nothing whatever, and it might have 
 been that he did not even pay his personal debts, for, as many persons in 
 Wiltshire know bv bitter experience, a landlord can demand his rent, 
 leave his debts unpaid, and yet pass on the land to his own son, just as if 
 he were an honest man. 
 
 The sum thus extracted from John’s hard earnings would have 
 enabled him to live a life of comfort, and to enjoy an old age of well- 
 earned leisure. 
 
 There are still in Wiltshire men able and willing to work the land if 
 they are allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labour. The men are there, 
 the soil is there. The market for the productions which may be 
 obtained is at hand, and by reversing a selfish and unjust policy, which 
 has brought ruin and starvation in its train, plenty and prosperity may 
 abound throughout the land. 
 
 But we have proceeded with the moral before concluding the tale. 
 What became of Janet ? Let it be said to the credit of humanity that to 
 the last she never lost her cheerful smile, and with all their troubles her 
 pleasant laughter was sometimes heard until her husband’s death. She 
 scrupulously paid every farthing that her husband owed and was then left 
 penniless. The cottage was not worth more than the amount of the 
 mortgage, but, because she owned it, relief from the parish was denied. 
 She was much troubled in her mind from not knowing how to answer the 
 letters she received from the Inland Revenue Officers on the subject of 
 legacy duty. Her relations were as poor as herself, but they tended her 
 with kindly care. For many months she suffered much pain from an 
 
LIFE IN WILTSHIRE. 
 
 49 
 
 internal complaint, which was never properly investigated or understood, 
 and at last, with a countenance as sweet as heavenly light, she prayed 
 that she might no longer be a pain to herself or, as she said, a burden to 
 her friends, and she was taken away. 
 
 “ Let us go to the landlord and tell him that we are out of work* 
 and ask him to let us have some of the unletland,” said the spokesman to 
 a party of working men in a small Wiltshire village. It was evening, 
 and the idea seemed as bright as the setting sun. Why should men be 
 out of work, their families without food, when all would be remedied by 
 placing willing hands upon the soil ? The big farmer had failed to 
 cultivate the land at a profit and had thrown up the farm, the fields were 
 1 ying waste, seed-time had come, and the time of harvesting had passed, 
 but the seed was not sown, the harvest was not reaped, and famine pre- 
 vailed where plenty might have been. 
 
 “ If the lordlord would let the land to us at the same rent as he 
 charges the farmer we could live upon it and do well,” the spokesman 
 said. “ But perhaps,” added one of the party, “ the landlord will ask 
 how we are going to live until the crops are ready, and what shall we say 
 to him? ” 11 Why, man,” said another, “if we have the land at a farmer’s 
 
 rent, we can get the little money that is wanted to help us until next 
 harvest. My brother has often said that he would lend me twenty 
 pounds if I had a good chance to use it. Half of twenty pounds would 
 keep me and mine for six months, and the other half would buy the seed, 
 and when the land is cropped we can borrow another five or ten pounds 
 to get along with.” The last speaker had no experience in borrowing, 
 and perhaps he did not know how much sorrowing went with it. But 
 anything was better than the existing state of things, so miserable and 
 unprofitable all round. 
 
 The group of labourers were hard-headed fellows, and on talking it 
 quietly over the} 7 saw that the small amount, of money required in addition 
 to their own labour might be got if only they could induce the landlord 
 to let land to them on terms which would leaye a reasonable chance of 
 success. They resolved, therefore, to go in a body the next morning and 
 put the case before the great landowner, who owned most of the land in 
 the district. 
 
 But things often look very different in the morning when action is 
 necessary to what they do in the evening when talking only is required, 
 and so it was in this case. Of the seven wise men who discoursed so 
 discreetly and resolved so valiantly in the evening, all save one took in 
 the morning a different view of the matter. Their hearts were chilled at 
 the idea of seeing the great man, even if it should be possible to reach his 
 presence. But the one man, more determined and persevering than the 
 rest, resolved to do as he had said. He set out, and as he paced the six 
 miles to the great house he determined to tell the landlord exactly what 
 had passed, and respectfully to urge the case not only on his own account 
 but on behalf of his less courageous comrades. 
 
 He was so fortunate as to gain admittance to the landlord’s presence, 
 and told his tale as best as he could. He found himself, however, unable 
 to elaborate the details as he had intended. Speaking to the stern, 
 unsympathetic landlord was a very different thing to talking it over with 
 
 D 
 
LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 50 
 
 liis fellow sufferers. He felt that his representations were not equal to 
 the occasion, and be almost anticipated the landlord’s reply, which was 
 brief, emphatic, explanatory, and decisive. “ What,” said he, “ do you 
 think that I am going- to let labourers have land and leave the farmers 
 without labourers P The farmers can scarcely pay rent now, and they 
 will not be able to pay rent at all if wages are raised by labourers getting 
 land?” Now, this working-man had never read a book on political 
 economy, and did not know that it is necessary for one-half of the world 
 to starve in order that the other half may live, and so he went back to his 
 native village thinking hard and unchristian thoughts both of the landlord 
 and farmers, in whose interest the landlord had explained to him that he 
 acted. When poor men become educated and enlightened they may feel 
 some sympathy with landlords and farmers, and recognise the necessity of 
 starving on their behalf, but in his state of ignorance the labourer could 
 not quite see how the landlord is benefited, or the farmer either, by 
 letting land go out of cultivation. He knew that the land would give 
 work to himself and bread to his children. He longed to be upon it, and 
 when it was shown to him next Sunday at church that he ought not to 
 envy the rich, because, like Namaan the Assyrian, the rich man is liable 
 to trouble as well as the poor, he refused to be comforted, and even 
 denied the applicability of the argument. On his return he got but little 
 sympathy from his companions, who said that he had been silly in 
 supposing that the landlord would listen to his tale, although on the 
 previous evening they had promised to go with him. 
 
 More than two years have passed since this circumstance occurred, 
 the land is still unlet, and grows nothing but weeds. The landlord has 
 not had a sixpence of rent, and some of the cottages which, sheltered the 
 families of the seven labourers are closed, the wdndows boarded up, and 
 the men have gone to a land where labour meets with more encourage- 
 ment. The wheat, beef, and cheese which these men are producing on 
 the other side of the Atlantic are on sale in the Market-place of Devizes. 
 
THE EVICTION OF WIDOWS AT GOOLE. 
 
 The following correspondence appeared in the “ HULL EXPRESS.” 
 
 Sir, — As cases of alleged hardship in connection with the eviction 
 of widows from the estate of Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt, M.P., have excited 
 much attention, I determined to ascertain the facts from personal 
 observation. 
 
 To realise fully what an eviction means it must be noted that a good 
 deal of land in the locality has been positively made by the tenants. On 
 many of the fields nature has provided only a bed of peat, which is wholly 
 useless for agricultural purposes until it has been i( warped,” i.e., until 
 the river water (which is charged with soil) has been allowed to flow on 
 and off the land, with suitable arrangements for its distribution for a 
 period of four or five years. The construction of dykes and sluices, 
 with the necessary attention, involves a cost of about £20 per acre. 
 After this has been done an excellent soil is formed, and a valuable 
 property created. 
 
 To the cost of this the landlord does not contribute a farthing, and, 
 in many instances, the houses and farm buildings have been erected 
 by tenants either wholly or largely at their own cost. This expenditure 
 has been incurred under a yearly tenancy, upon the supposition that the 
 holding was regarded as perpetual, and in many cases the farms have 
 continued in the occupation of the same families for several generations. 
 Without the expectation of continuance no one would spend a whole 
 fortune, as many have done, in making the land and building upon it. 
 
 It appears that upon the estates of Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt a rule has 
 been established that widows shall not be allowed to continue the occu- 
 pation of farms. Until Mr. Alexander Meek became the agent of the 
 estate near Goole this rule was exercised with discretion and some 
 consideration was extended to widows in certain cases ; but since the 
 advent of Mr. Meek, the elder, about forty years ago, the rule has been 
 made inflexible, and the manner in which it has been exercised will 
 appear from the following facts. 
 
 The first evicted widow that I saw "was Mrs. Lee, who recently 
 occupied with her late husband a small public-house and seven acres of 
 land upon the Estcourt estate. The house being greatly in need of repair, 
 the landlord agreed to allow £70, and the tenants spent £170 upon 
 repairs and additions. While these were in progress, Mr. Meek visited 
 the house, and on Mrs. Lee calling his attention to the substantial 
 and extended character of the work they were doing, he observed that 
 her life appeared to be a good one, which led to the inference on the par 
 
52 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 of the tenants that their occupation was regarded as a permanency. In 
 June of the following year Mr. Lee died, and in September, to her horror 
 and astonishment, Mrs. Lee received notice to quit. What adds to the 
 hardship of the situation is the fact that during her husband’s life Mrs. 
 Lee was virtually the conductor of the public-house, while her husband 
 worked on the land, and as she is obviously capable and well qualified for 
 the work, there was no practical reason for depriving her of the tenancy. 
 Under the circumstances, she naturally appealed to Mr. Estcourt 
 personally to allow her to continue the house. His reply, which she 
 showed to me, was a confirmation of the notice to quit, and she quitted 
 the place, leaving behind her all the improvements upon which so large a 
 portion of their small fortune had been expended. As they were 
 moving, a photographic likeness of Mr. Estcourt turned up, which was 
 seized by Mrs. Lee’s little girl, and when asked by her mother what she was 
 doing with it, she replied “ I am cutting his eyes out because he is 
 sending us away.” 
 
 The case of Mrs. Garlick is still more distressing. This lady married 
 about eight years ago Mr. William Garlick, one of the tenants on the 
 Estcourt estate, whose family have long been in possession. A good deal 
 of the land which they occupied had been “ warped ” or created by 
 irrigation in the manner previously described. Mrs. Garlick brought her 
 husband a fortune of £5,000 or £6,000, and, as was natural under the 
 circumstances, a considerable portion of their money was expended in 
 enlarging the house and improving the farm. 
 
 Bad seasons and the prolonged illness of Mr. Garlick greatly reduced 
 the remainder. Last year Mr. Garlick died, and soon after his decease 
 Mrs. Garlick received notice to quit the farm upon which her fortune had 
 been expended. With the energy of despair a powerful appeal was made - 
 to the landlord on her behalf. It was pointed out that her trustees, 
 themselves practical farmers, were willing to undertake the management 
 of the farm until her son would be old enough to do so. It was shown 
 that if driven out of the farm where her money had been invested Mrs. 
 Garlick, with her young family would be left penniless. The appeal was 
 unavailing ; the decree of expatriation was enforced, and Mrs. Garlick 
 knew that she must leave. It was then asked that, under the circum- 
 stances, some allowance might be given for the expenditure that had been 
 made on the buildings. “ No.” The wealthy landlord must have every 
 farthing of the expenditure made by the now penniless widow. “ Won’t 
 you pay for the fittings of the bathroom, which we can remove if you do 
 not take them P ” “Not a penny — farmers don’t need bathrooms.” For 
 the hay, straw, and manure necessarily left upon the farm payment was 
 also refused, and that last claim became the subject of legal discussion. 
 
 Whatever may be the legal aspects of the case, it is surprising that 
 a landlord should decline to pay a, poor widow for actual moveable 
 property coming into his possession, but such was the fact, and a 
 day was duly appointed for the hearing of the case before an arbitrator. 
 In the meantime Mrs. Garlick’s farm had been let to a young man who 
 intended taking possession forthwith, and it was arranged that he and 
 his sister should occupy the house vacated by Mrs. Garlick. But no 
 sooner had he signed the agreement for the lease than he was seized with 
 remorse for taking the farm from which the poor widow under such 
 distressing circumstances had been evicted. On the day of the trial, his 
 evidence being wanted, his sister was asked to seek for him. She found 
 
THE EVICTION OF WIDOWS AT GOOLE. 
 
 53 
 
 him in an outhouse on the farm which he had taken, suspended by the 
 neck from a beam and — dead ! It appears that he had got upon a chaff- 
 cutter, tied a rope round his neck which he fastened to a beam, swung 
 himself off, and so was hanged. 
 
 After the shocking circumstance the Court decided not to meet again, 
 but to leave the case to the arbitrator with written arguments to be 
 furnished from both sides. 
 
 Mr. Meek has just published in the Goole Times a column and a half of 
 small type addressed to the arbitrator, containing his arguments on behalf 
 of the landlord’s claim to the hay, straw, and manure. However 
 important the legal argument may be in respect of the general relations of 
 landlord and tenant, they do not bear on the main features of Mrs. 
 Garlick’s case. Mr. Estcourt turns out a tenant admittedly and solely on 
 the ground that she is a widow. 
 
 He thus acquires the benefit of all the expenditure made with her 
 money upon the property. Continuance in the farm with the assistance 
 of her trustees would have provided a living for herself and three young 
 children. Of this she is deprived. Her appeal for compensation is dis- 
 regarded, and even where there is some ground for a legal claim to a small 
 portion of what was her own property it is resisted. 
 
 Whether such things as these are done in accordance with law or 
 in opposition thereto, it makes but the smallest difference to the parties 
 immediately concerned. It is no answer to this practical fraud that the 
 landlord robbed the widow and the fatherless in accordance with laws 
 which he and his ancestors made. It merely adds to their condemnation 
 that men in the position of Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt, entrusted with 
 legislative power on behalf of the community, committed such a breach of 
 trust as to make laws for their own especial benefit, and in defiance of the 
 commonest principles of right and justice. 
 
 Mr. Meek’s letter in defence of his landlord is instructive in one point, 
 and on that point it is positively appalling. He not only asks that these 
 miserable heaps and bundles of manure, and hay, and straw may be taken 
 from the widow and given to the landlord, but lie actually appeals to the 
 arbitrator to give costs against his penniless victim ! He writes — “ I further 
 submit that such award should carry with it not only the costs attending 
 it, but also the costs of the agreement and the reference ; ” and he adds, 
 “ The claim, if established, might very prejudically affect Mr. Sotheron- 
 Estcourt’s interest throughout the whole of his estates at Goole Fields, 
 Hook, and Holme, by transferring from him to his tenants a property of 
 considerable value in hay, straw, and manure.” 
 
 So the reason why costs are to be claimed from the widow and 
 the fatherless is to secure to Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt from other tenants 
 a property in hay which he has never grown, in straw for which he did not 
 sow nor reap, and in manure which he did not secure. 
 
 That such a plea, under such circumstances, can be advanced and 
 published by an astute land agent, shows that, by living for centuries on 
 the industry of others, landlords have become utterly hardened against the 
 claims of justice. 
 
 My experience at Goole proved that it is not only widows who are 
 the victims of landlord oppression. Cases came under my notice where 
 men had been subjected to injustice as great as that which has befallen 
 Mrs. Garlick and Mrs. Lee. Of these I will not speak, for they have not 
 come before the public, and I have no permission to bring them to the light 
 of public discussion. 
 
54 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIK RESULTS. 
 
 As the particulars of Mrs. Garlick’s case are now known. I trust that 
 she will not be allowed to suffer without an effort being made to render 
 that assistance which she so urgently requires. When Mr. Sotheron- 
 Estcourt sees this case through the greater light of public opinion, 
 perhaps he will not withhold what he can so easily supply. 
 
 Mrs. Garlick has spent a sum of £5,000 on his estate, which she 
 would surely have recovered had her tenancy been continued. He could 
 restore this amount without missing it from his vast resources. Time is 
 still allowed him for repentance, and for correcting the wrong which, 
 possibly without due thought, he has occasioned. 
 
 Let him hasten to make amends, and there will be joy in Heaven 
 and on earth. 
 
 I do not think he will remain obdurate to this appeal, but if, 
 unhappily, such should he the case, then let some of the rest of us try what 
 can he done to supply the pressing needs of one who is sadly suffering from 
 a double bereavement. 
 
 I had no intention of referring to political considerations in 
 connection with this case, hut it is essentially a political matter. Land- 
 lords know well that their priviliges rest solely upon political supremacy, 
 and they take care that land shall be occupied only by voters. For this 
 reason widows are evicted, and from a landlords point of view they are 
 wisely evicted. But how long will the nation submit to a condition of 
 things which is so intolerably unjust? As it has been brought about by 
 leaving political power in the hands of a class, so it must be corrected by 
 extending that -power to the people. — Yours, 
 
 WILLIAM SAUNDERS. ' 
 
 Mount View, Streatham, S.W., July 22, 1884. 
 
 MRS. GARLICK v. MR. SOTHERON-ESTCOURT. 
 
 Sir, — My agent, Mr. Grant-Meek, has, as I know, written to you in 
 reply to the letter of Mr. William Saunders, published in your issue of 
 July 2oth, with reference to me and the management of my property in 
 Yorkshire. I need only therefore deal personally with the last paragraph 
 of that letter, and at the same time with an editorial comment of your 
 own in your paper of July 18th, attributing to my predecessor and 
 myself incorrect motives for the non-continuance of widows as tenants in 
 farms. 
 
 The late Mr. Sotlieron-Estcourt was about the last man on earth to 
 be actuated by the motive of retaining only tenants who could exercise 
 the power of voting ; neither has any such motive actuated me. I do not 
 even know the political views of most of my tenants in Yorkshire, and, 
 not residing permanently among them, I have never asked for their votes 
 for or against any candidate at any election. 
 
 T am, Sir, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 GEORGE SOTHERON-ESTCOURT. 
 
 Estcourt, Tetbury, August 5tli, 1884. 
 
THE EVICTION OF WIDOWS AT GOOLE. 
 
 55 
 
 “Sir, — I have no desire to engage in any controversy as to the pro- 
 priety of the comments made by your correspondent, Mr. William 
 Saunders, in your issue of J uly 25th, 1884, upon my management of the 
 Estcourt estates, nor to deal with the various topics introduced into his 
 letter. I ask your leave, however, to state as shortly as possible the facts 
 connected with the two cases specifically mentioned by him in order to 
 correct the serious misrepresentations contained in his letter. 
 
 Mr. Lee was the tenant of the “ Sotheron Arms,” at Hook, and also 
 of some eight acres of land, at a rental of £28 10s. per annum — of which 
 about one-fourth may be taken as representing the rent of the house. In 
 the year 1874 the expenditure referred to by your correspondent was 
 incurred by the landlord, the exact amount being £65 Is. 3d. I have no 
 means of judging of the tenant’s expenditure as I was not at that time the 
 agent of the estate. My father, then the agent of the estate, has, however, 
 no recollection of having used any language or done anything which could 
 lead the tenant to the conclusion that in consideration of his expenditure 
 the tenancy might be a permanent one. The smallness of the holding, 
 having regard more especially to the house, renders it difficult to see how 
 £170 could have been fairly, and, from a landlord’s point of view, advan- 
 tageously expended upon “repairs and additions,” in addition to the 
 landlord’s expenditure before referred to. Mr. Lee continued the tenant 
 till his death in, I believe, the year 1880, and it is true that a notice to 
 quit was given to Mrs. Lee which expired at Lady Day, 1881. As to this, 
 it was considered that the close proximity of the Inn to Goole, where a 
 large sea-faring population is resident, placed difficulties in the way of a 
 woman’s maintaining order when unassisted by a husband, and afforded an 
 additional reason for the course which was adopted. Upon a representation, 
 however, from Mrs. Lee that the postponement of the expiration of the 
 notice to quit for one year would be specially advantageous, Mrs. Lee was 
 continued in the occupation for an additional year, so that it was not until 
 Lady Day, 1882, that she gave up possession of the premises. On her 
 quitting possession these premises were let by the landlord to 
 Mark Lee, the eldest son of the late tenant, George Lee. and 
 the said Mark Lee now holds as tenant the Inn and also the land, 
 with the exception of about 2^ acres of pasture which has been withdrawn 
 from the holding for the purpose of being annexed to a farm, at a rent 
 practically the same, after making a deduction in respect of the land 
 withdrawn, as that paid by the late Mr. Lee. The landlord has derived 
 no tangible advantage by way of increased rent from Mr. Lee’s expenditure 
 whether large or small. 
 
 With reference to Mrs. Garlick’s case, your correspondent begins his 
 letter with a statement which, so far as Mr Sotheron-Estcourt’s property 
 is concerned, is absolutely the reverse of true, and on this statement he 
 hangs a violent attack on Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt and the management of 
 his property. This statement is that the expense of “ warping” the lands 
 falls wholly upon the tenant, and that to this outlay the landlord does not 
 contribute a farthing, and he implies, and indeed even states, that this 
 was so in the case of the late Mr. William Garlick. For this statement 
 there is no foundation whatever. This expenditure is on the contrary 
 borne on Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt’s property entirely by the landlord, and 
 the tenant does not even contribute to it. The late Mr. Wm. Garlick 
 did not “ warp” the land occupied by him, and did not bear the expense 
 of “ warping.” This “ warping ” took place many years before his tenancy 
 
56 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 commenced, and the cost thereof was borne by the landlord , and I may add 
 that, not only was the expense of the warping- borne by the landlord, but 
 an allowance of the rent of the land warped was made to the tenant fora 
 period of 2| years, the time during which the land was under process of 
 warping, and therefore out of cultivation. The land held by Mr. William 
 Garlick was originally part of a holding of Mr. Robert Garlick, and it 
 was at the request of the latter that in the year 1849 the landlord 
 consented to a severance for the purpose of this portion being taken by 
 Mr. Edward Garlick, the brother of Mr. Robert Garlick. On the decease 
 of Mr. Edward Garlick, in 1857, Mr. Robert Garlick re-entered upon the 
 occupation, and it was reunited to his other holding. In 1865, at Mr. 
 Robert Garlick’s request, the landlord assented again to the severance, and 
 to Mr. William Garlick becoming the tenant. His “farm” consisted of 
 160 acres of land, of which about 25 acres are moorland, ahd wholly 
 cultivated. Your readers will be able to judge of the requirements of a 
 farm of this size, and whether it was “ natural that a considerable portion 
 of their money” (i.e., Mrs. Garlick’s fortune of five or six thousand pounds) 
 should be “ expended in enlarging the house and improving the farm.” It 
 must be remembered that no portion of this alleged expenditure was upon 
 “ warping,” nor upon the building of the farmhouse, and that the culti- 
 vated land was not brought under cultivation by Mr. William Garlick. It 
 is not alleged, and it is not the case, that the landlord’s consent was 
 obtained, or even asked, tQ Mr. William Garlick’s expenditure — or that 
 any expectation was held out to him in consideration of its being incurred. 
 
 The farm having originally been occupied in conjunction with 
 another small farm lying in very close proximity to it, the house which 
 was upon this other farm answered all the purposes of the farmer, and, in 
 truth, a second house was not required, though, as a matter of fact, there 
 was one. In 1854 Mr. Edward Garlick, the then existing house not 
 suiting his requirements, entered into an arrangement with his landlord , 
 by which the latter agreed to contribute, and did contribute, £150 towards 
 a new house, at the same time giving him the materials of the old house 
 for building purposes. Receipts now in my possession show that the pay- 
 ment was made, and that it was made in pursuance of such an arrangement. 
 The enlargements made by Mr. William Garlick, comprising a conser- 
 vatory and bath-room, were, as I contend, beyond the outside of the 
 requirements of a holding of 185 acres of cultivated land, and the landlord 
 could not be expected to pay for them, as they in no way add to the 
 letting value of the farm. Though in 1857 a re-valuation of farms in 
 Goole fields showed that a considerable increase in rent would have been 
 justified, yet after Mr. Robert Garlick’s re-entering upon this holding in 
 the year 1859, the rent was increased by £10 only, being little more than 
 a third of the increased value shown by the valuation, and representing 
 but little more than interest at 5 per cent on the landlord’s expenditure. 
 At this same rent the late Mr. William Garlick held the farm, 
 from the date of his entry in 1865, down to the time of his death, and at 
 this same rent the farm was re-let to his successor. 
 
 With reference to the lamentable death of the incoming tenant, it is 
 true that he met it in the manner stated, but the insinuations based 
 thereon by Mr. Saunders, I have the best of reasons for stating to be 
 wholly unjustifiable, and there is no foundation for the suggestion that 
 the act was in any way occasioned by remorse at having deprived Mrs. 
 Garlick of the farm. 
 
THE EVICTION OF WIDOWS AT GOOLE. 
 
 57 
 
 The award of the arbitrator, just published, shows that I was justified 
 on the part of the landlord, in resisting the claim of the out-going tenant 
 to be paid at market price for the hay, straw, and manure, and I contend, 
 according to the custom on the property, that as incoming tenants receive, 
 without being called upon to make compensation, the straw and manure 
 from the outgoing tenants, there is no hardship involved in the require- 
 ment that when the incoming tenants in turn become outgoing tenants 
 they shall leave the straw and manure for their successors on the same 
 terms; in short, in expecting that as a tenant enters so shall he quit. Nor 
 can there be any injustice in the requirement that outgoing tenants shall 
 leave their hay upon their farms, upon the same terms as those on which 
 they received it from their predecessors, viz., on the terms, in this instance, 
 of being paid for it by the incoming tenant at consuming price. 
 
 The above facts dispose of all the substantial allegations brought 
 forward by Mr. Saunders. 
 
 I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 A. GRANT-MEEK, 
 
 Agent for Mr. Sotheron-Estcourt. 
 
 Devizes, August 5th, 1884. 
 
 Sir, — Mr. Sotlierton-Estcourt, M.P., and his agent, Mr. Alex. Grant 
 Meek, having addressed letters to you on the subject of the evictions at 
 Goole, I ask your permission to reply. 
 
 Mr. Estcourt writes that his father “ was about the last man on earth 
 to be actuated by the motive of retaining only tenants who could exercise 
 the power of voting ; neither has such motive actuated me.” I am not 
 about to dispute the fact that the Estcourt family are model landlords. 
 It gives an additional significance to the cruel circumstances which 
 have aroused public attention, that the rules on the Estcourt estates and 
 the methods of their administration are adopted by landlords who are 
 regarded as the best of their class. Their action in evicting widows 
 would make the hair of a Bulgarian tenant stand on end, and yet the 
 actors are held up as models for our imitation. 
 
 At the close of his letter Mr. Grant Meek claims to have disposed of 
 “ all the substantial allegations brought forward by Mr. Saunders.” On 
 the contrary, he has not even referred to the main allegation, that widows 
 are systematically evicted from the estate, and that since the advent of 
 his father as agent, about 40 years ago, this rule has been exercised 
 without discretion or consideration for the interests of the evicted 
 persons. Mr. Meek’s own letter abundantly proves that such has been 
 the case. He evicts Mrs. Lee, and confiscates the hundred pounds she 
 had spent upon her small holding, without even taking the trouble to 
 ascertain what that expenditure was. He claims to have extended a 
 favour to her by allowing her to remain a year after the first notice had 
 expired. I am assured by a legal gentleman who knows the facts that 
 che first notice was illegal, and Mrs. Lee was sent away at the earliest 
 possible moment. The fact that he let her holding to her stepson is no 
 kind of justification for confiscating her property. Mr. Meek declares 
 
58 
 
 LAND LAWS AND THEIR RESULTS. 
 
 that the landlord derived no tangible advantage from Mrs. Lee’s 
 expenditure.” Are we really to suppose that landlords can confiscate the 
 tenant’s outlay time after time and derive no benefit therefrom ? If so 
 their wantonness in causing so much misery is still more surprising. 
 
 With reference to the case of Mrs. Garlick, Mr. Meek scores a point 
 by stating that the cost of warping was borne by the landlord. So far 
 good ; but this does not dispose of the central fact that the tenants in the 
 locality regard their holdings as permanent, and therefore spend freely 
 upon them. Mr. William Garlick’s predecessor spent £800, and he him- 
 self spent £450 on the house from which his widow has been evicted 
 without compensation. This eviction was made solely on the ground that 
 she was a widow, and because it is “a rule of the estate” that widows 
 shall not remain as tenants. The manner in which this harsh and unjust 
 rule has been carried out is shown by the cases of Mrs. Lee and Mrs. 
 Garlick ; in each instance the whole of their property was confiscated, or 
 attempted to be confiscated, whether it could be legally retained or not. 
 In a letter to Mrs. Garlick on Dec. 22nd, 1880, Mr. Sotlierton-Estcourt 
 writes — “ I could not break the rule of the estate as to widows remaining 
 tenants. It is not a rule which I made, but which I found on the estate, 
 and I have had to act upon it on several occasions .” 
 
 The ownership of the present Mr. Estcourt has been of short 
 duration, and yet on “ several occasions” lie has evicted widows ; in each 
 case he has doubtless refused, as with Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Garlick, to give 
 compensation for any outlay made on the estate, or for hay and straw left 
 upon it. In each case probably the poor evicted widow settled down to 
 hopeless misery, knowing how small a chance of success she would have 
 in appealing to the law. Fortunately for Mrs. Garlick she obtained good 
 legal assistance and has been able to recover a small portion of her 
 property. Out of the wreck of her fortune she recovers under the award 
 of the arbitrator £191 4s. 3d., and Mr. Estcourt is ordered to pay her 
 costs and his own. 
 
 Mr. Grant Meek writes, “ the award shows that I was justified on 
 the part of the landlord in resisting the claim of the out-going tenant to 
 be paid at market price for the hay, straw, and manure.” If he was 
 justified in resisting the claim, how is it that he has to pay costs? 
 
 Such cases of heartless injustice cannot be presented to the public 
 without raising a cry of indignation. They demand attention, as showing 
 the conditions under which the greatest of our industries, agriculture, is 
 carried on, through laws made by landlords for their own benefit ; 
 administered by agents living hundreds of miles away ; and applied to 
 helpless, hopeless, and usually silent victims. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 WILLIAM SAUNDERS. 
 
A PROGRAMME. 
 
 59 
 
 LAND AND TAXATION. 
 
 A PROGRAMME. 
 
 1. — As Land is the product of nature, limited in extent, and essential 
 to the operations of industry, its use must be regulated by the State for 
 the benefit of the nation. 
 
 2. — The value of land, as distinguished from improvements upon it, 
 is created by the community ; therefore this value belongs to the nation, 
 and it cannot, without injustice, be personally appropriated. 
 
 3. — Land has been treated as private property, and has been 
 exempted from taxation by unjust legislation, for the benefit of the 
 legislators. 
 
 4. — The exemption of land from taxation has necessitated the 
 taxation of industry, and thus the hardships and privations of the indus- 
 trious classes have been increased, and idleness, luxury, and vice, amongst 
 the privileged classes, have been promoted. 
 
 5. — The personal possession of land gives to individuals undue 
 control over the lives, happiness, and industry of their fellow-men, is 
 inconsistent with the freedom and welfare of mankind, and renders 
 insecure the possession of property created by the employment of capital 
 and the exercise of industry. 
 
 6. — The evils caused by unjust legislation respecting land, should be 
 removed by reversing the legislation which has pioduced them, by 
 relieving industry from taxation and reimposing taxation upon land. 
 
 7. — To secure the results of this industry to those who cultivate, 
 improve, or build upon land, existing and future occupiers should be con- 
 firmed and continued in its perpetual use upon paying to the State, year 
 by year, the permanent annual value of the land they occupy, this value 
 to be estimated periodically. The land to be efficiently used for purposes 
 consistent with the welfare of the State. 
 
 8. — In cases where revenues from land are now appropriated to any 
 purpose of public utility, they may continue to be used for the same 
 purpose, subject to the special approval of Parliament. 
 
 9. — Income obtained by the State from the taxation of land should 
 be appropriated — 
 
 First, to providing restitution for those who have suffered longest 
 from the unjust appropriation of land and taxation of industry; for 
 which puiposes annuities of, say, ten pounds per annum should be 
 paid to all persons above the age of sixty. 
 
 Secondly, to the relief of cases of destitution which may arise from 
 the proposed changes in the taxation and ownership of land. “ 
 
 Thirdly, to expenditure for Government. 
 
 Fourthly, to works of public utility. 
 
The following Publications may be had , Post Free 
 on application , with remittance of the price stated , to 
 the a Eastern Morning News,” Hull . 
 
 FIVE SHILLINGS. 
 
 “THROUGH THE LIGHT CONTINENT,” 
 
 (415 pages, Demy 8vo.) 
 
 By WILLIAM SAUNDERS. 
 
 “ The most interesting and best stocked with information among all 
 the books by travellers in America I have ever read.” 
 
 The Mg lit Hon. W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 SIXPENCE. 
 
 “LAND laws and their results 
 
 AT HOME AND ABROAD.” 
 
 (59 pages, Demy 8vo.) 
 
 By WILLIAM SAUNDERS. 
 
 ONE PENNY, OR 6s. PER 100. 
 
 “ Virtue Rewarded : or True Stories of Life in Wiltshire’ 
 
 AND 
 
 “ The Eviction of Widows at Goole.” 
 
 By WILLIAM SAUNDERS.