THE LAND UNION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sia,—The Land Union has up to the present, in spite of repeated applications, considered it undesirable to define its attitude in regard to the forthcoming land campaigns. As these are now apparently to begin in earnest, it may be an opportune moment to comment on the proposals which appear to hold the field. I hope, therefore, you may kindly be able to use the enclosed statement, for which no doubt many people are waiting.—I am, Sir, &c., Westminster, London, S.W. Secretary.
The Land Union views with considerable uneasiness not only the Chancellor of the Exchequer's land campaign, but party political land campaigns in general. Just now, when agriculture is in need of encouragement, what can the farmer think of these campaign preparations, which threaten him on the one hand with Land Courts and on the other hand with Wages Boards ? Compulsory acquisition of his farm for small holdings is hinted at. Rating on site value is said to be within measurable distance, and, above all, the unrest and insecurity which is causing landowners to sell threatens the destruction of his home. After all, the welfare of agriculture should be the main consideration both from a national and economic standpoint. Everyone agrees that it is desirable to improve its condition and the condition of the agricultural population, but these objects can never be accomplished by political land campaigns. Agricultural problems cannot stand the strain of party politics. A much milder remedy is required if the farmer and the rural population generally are to acquire any benefits.
The first and foremost plank in any scheme of land reform must be to restore that confidence and credit which the operations of the Finance Act (1909-10) have destroyed. It is remarkable that an anonymous pamphlet recently issued by a group of Unionists practically ignores this fundamental truth. Complicated legislation and the continual throat of singling out land for further taxation have made the ownership of land anything but an alluring proposition. It is useless to introduce schemes for attracting men and capital back to the land so long as land is selected for penal taxation, and so long as the land clauses of the Finance Act (1909-10) remain on the Statute Book to provide the machinery for the confiscation of private property. It is idle to suggest that the State should lend with one hand its credit to increase the ownership of land, while with the other it is slowly but surely confiscating the value of the land which is owned by someone else. Nineteen-twentieths of the present trouble is that the security and credit of land has been wrecked, not only by recent legislation, but by constant threats of further taxation. Tenant farmers are continually harassed by thoughts of dispossession, because owners are anxious to get free from what has become a precarious investment. What does this mean in ninety-nine eases out of a hundred P—viz., merely a change of ownership and rents increased to a strictly commercial basis. What is the use of discussing whether the State shall lend publics money to individuals to buy land when it is not only driving the present owners to sell, but making it impossible for present occupiers to enjoy their former security of tenure?
The whole truth is that the one land reform desired by those who are making a living out of the land is that the land question should be left alone. As long as rival political land campaigns hold the field, so long will this feeling of insecurity and unrest continue to create the very evils they intend to remedy. If the Land Taxation Clauses of the Finance Act (1909-10) are repealed, and both parties put their heads together—as Mr. Lloyd George himself suggested they should do (one likes to believe seriously) —there are differences of opinion with regard to the condition of. the farmer and the labourer and the extent and increase of small holdings and cottages which are quite capable of adjustment— then, and only then, will the investment of capital in land and building enterprise become attractive. Tenant farmers will soon cease to be threatened with disturbance due to wholesale breaking up of estates, and in a comparatively short time private enterprise will be able to solve the burning questions of rural housing and agricultural wages, which no political land campaign can ever seriously hope to do. The Land Union's attitude is first to restore credit and confidence, which have been so ruthlessly shaken, with.. out which no foundations exist whereon to build up reforms.
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