If the Land Reformers want all their schemes to fail,
they will go on preparing Bills like the monstrous scheme called the "Land Cultivation Bill," proposed by Messrs. Arch, Burt, Bradlaugh, and Labouchere. Under this Bill, any person who shall, in an agricultural district, hold more than one hundred acres in an uncultivated state, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and on conviction Commissioners shall eject him, and let the land in parcels to tenants, whose holdings shall not exceed forty acres. The only compensation is to be twenty-five years of the average previous rental,—that is, usually, nothing. The Tiaies believes this Bill to apply to parks, in which case England would be deprived of its greatest beauties ; but in any case it is worse than the worst enclosure Bill ever proposed. Half the Lake District, and a whole section of Devon and Somerset, would be spoiled at once without benefit to anybody, for the settlers would starve ; while great properties in the Home Counties, kept waste in the hope that London will build on them, would be confiscated. The " nationalisation " of the land would be just compared with such a project, to which we are deeply grieved to see that Mr. Burt has attached his name. He, at least, believes in the Eighth Com- mandment. If some of these men do not take care, they will produce a reaction amid which the Liberal Party will disappear.
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