ULLSWATER AND THE NATIONAL TRUST.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR;'] SIR,—Every one must agree with " Selbornian's " benedictions on the work of the National Trust, and with the desire of your New Zealander correspondent, Mr. F. Larkins (Spectator, July 30th), that all over the United Kingdom something should be done to preserve our " open spaces " from the hand of the spoilers.
But I cannot help a misgiving lest the plan of buying out owners, who threaten, by the exercise of a strict legal right of exclusion, to change the character of places where hitherto the public have enjoyed the amenity of innocent access, may result in accelerating the process we wish to see stopped, or, at all events, retarded till some economic development makes it really necessary. Some few days ago (I have not the reference at hand) the Times, commenting on the recent foreshore-bathing case, observed that such rights against the public as it was held ownership of the foreshore carried with it could hardly have been allowed to grow up had they not, as a rule, been exercised with tenderness and discretion; and should this cease to be the case, Parliament might have to intervene.
With regard to " open spaces" in general (to use the best short phrase that occurs), would any injustice be done if the legal rights of owners were cut down to conformity with the best practice of reasonable owners? At all events, might not any prima-facie injustice be amply compensated by a readjustment of the basis of assessment for rating or taxing purposes ?
The suggestion is that any particular site might be placed, for the time being, at the option of the owner, in either of two categories. In the one category, it would be subject to public amenities, and would be assessed on a percentage of the valuation, or perhaps would pay rates and taxes at so much less in the pound. In the other category, the public might be rigorously excluded ; but the owner, it seems to me, would suffer no wrong if, as against him, for purposes of taxation, the value of the site were taken to be what it would become when " developed" under economic conditions which, if and when they became actual, would be inconsistent with the public amenities, as, for instance, the " development " of a potential building estate.
—I am, Sir, &c., GEO. CARSLAKE THOMPSON. [We cannot agree that it would be politic to raise the opposition of all who want to make money out of land by adopting our correspondent's proposals. We agree, however, that we must not give the impression that all places of natural beauty ought to be bought up by the National Trust, and that individual owners need not feel that they have any duties in the matter. In the Ullswater case we believe that ',he owner has acted generously as regards the price asked, and that no attempt has been made by him to place a fancy
value on the land offered by him to the Trust.—ED. Spectator.]
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