MORE CHEAP LAND. -
In a curious duel between Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Waite Guinness about the purchase price of land in England, bot contestants omit reference to the most surprising and disturb ing fact. Immense areas have been sold and are to be sold, not at twenty years' purchase, much less thirty-five, but at tw
or three, or less. The pitiable fact is not the dearness but the cheapness of rural acres. Huge tracts in Berkshire and Wiltshire were sold a few years ago for £10 an acre and less , and as some of us have been lamenting for years, much good land is being given away for no more than the price of the buildings upon it. The common rent on excellent farms not 25 miles north of London is 15s. to 18s. an acre, and in some cases the tithe is more than the half of this rent. A foreign visitor, with a wide experience of Scandinavia, was so much struck by such figures that he picked out low rents as the worst sign of the neglect of the land. Low rents, he argued, make low farming. Rents, of course, are considerably lower in England than in Denmark.
Previous page
