THE TORIES AND THE LAND.
rEMinistry have held their first Cabinet Council, and politicians would like to know on what they have de- sided,—whether the Session is to be one of effort, or one, as Mr. Disraeli hinted at Guildhall, of political " disappointment" The measures to be mentioned in the Queen's Speech are seldom the measures suggested by irresponsible people in the Recess, and this year, from many causes, they are less likely to be so than ever. The Cabinet have certainly not discussed ecclesiastical Bills, for they are too divided to agree with each -other, even as to the ends to be attained. They have certainly also avoided any proposals for the redistribution of power, for -the House of Commons is only in its second Session ; and even if the Tories were ready for education, the Ministry see no necessity for trying that disagreeable drag. No Parlia- ment that the Kingdom would ever send up would be more tolerant of them than the present. They have no idea, as we gather from the sudden access of valour observable in City speeches, of touching the government of London, and they seem to have learned in good time that the assault on pro- prietors involved in great sanitary laws is not precisely their cue. The idea of making Sanitas sanitatum a Cabinet question is one which approves itself to Mr. Disraeli or Lord Cairns much more than it does to a Marquis of Salisbury or a Duke of Rich- Mond. Mr. Clare Read is, as an official, an eccentric whose speeches make the Goverment popular, but whose plans involve sacrifices which the Squires are hardly prepared to make ; and as for Army reform, that, as usual, is a matter for Commis- sions. The only subject the Ministry can approach just yet with full- certainty of support on all hands is the tenure of land, which is certain to be attacked, if they neglect it, from the other side ; and one is a little curious to know if they see their great opportunity. They could pass the Bills they agree on through the Lords without a dissolution. They could carry
the Farmers with them without the violent wrench which would follow a Liberal appeal to the strongest instincts of the county electors, and they know, what Liberals forget, where the shoe pinches the nominal proprietors as well as the occupiers of the soil. That they will do anything we doubt, for the Tory cue just now is content,—content even for Conservative workmen, who cannot, Mr. Disraeli reminded them, be arrested as Count Arnim was, unless, indeed, a Police Inspector happens to dislike them ; but the fact that they could do so much is a good reason for examining the land reforms de- manded at their hands.
These are, we believe, just two, neither of them very revo- lutionary, though both are described by big names, and either would contribute greatly to the welfare of the country. It is in the power of the Tories to grant security of tenure and ihe enfranchisement of the soil, as those wide phrases are under- stood by ordinary, average, fairly well-to-do, sensible English people ; and in granting them, to rivet their hold for many years upon the county electors. With regard to the first of these reforms, it is astonishing, when one considers how wild the surface-talk has been, to consider how little either the philosophers or the farmers ask to make a fair beginning. Of course,. all who have thought the matter out, wish that the principle of law should be to forbid eviction, ex- cept for non-payment of rent ; the rent to rise only when a jury of arbitration decides that, what with the price of pro- duee, the demand for occupation, and the increase in the selling value of land, the hiring-value of a farm has obviously in- creased. That system, already admitted in practice, though not in theory, on many great estates—as, for example, the estates of corporations, of colleges, of the Church, of minors, of lunatics, and of wise proprietors, on all which rent is settled by the " valuation " of experts—would, if it were made uni- versal, give us back the old yeomanry in a different form, a class of independent men owning and working the laud, and able to apply capital to 'it in full security, though paying, as the old yeomanry did not pay, a yearly quit- rent. That, we say, is the ideal, but a great deal less than that would satisfy men who have learned that, in practical life as well as polities, the silliest conceivable waste of power is to cry for the moon. If the presumption of law, apart from con- tract, were a seven years' lease, and if, contracts notwithstand- ing, three years' notice of eviction were indispensable, and unexhausted improvements were fairly paid for—not by the landlord necessarily, but by the next incomer—the majority of English farmers would acknowledge an almost satisfied con- tent. They would not, in their own estimation, be very gener- ously treated—for the man who "has stubbed Thornaby waliste," in his heart thinks that " Thonraby waaste " is at least -half his—but they would feel safe to put their utmost strength, pecuniary and personal, into the land. No landlord would disturb them except for grave reasons, and if he did, they would depart, with all the money they had invested in the soil. That the tenantry desire such a reform is admitted on all hands, by Mr. Disraeli as much as by Mr. Clare Read, and we cannot see that the land- lords would lose anything except a certain social influence which they ought not to possess, an influence derived only from their legal right of being capricious. A landlord has just as much deference from his lessees as from his tenants-at- will, and would, in the event of the reform being carried, have a much larger rent-roll. It is security which tempts rich agri- culturists towards dear farms, and experts affirm that Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Law has increased the selling value of Irish property from 12 to 20 per cent. English landlords are supposed to be rich, but they have heavy burdens, and an in- creased revenue of that kind would be to most of them a most tempting compensation for the reduction of an authority which the Ballot sooner or later is certain to destroy.
This compensation, however, is nothing, compared with that which they would obtain from the enfranchisement of the soil, —from a law, that is, making the registered owner full owner, with power of sale at discretion, whenever he has handed to a State Trustee the value in Consols of the burdens on the land. There never was such a mass of -irrelevant argument as has been poured forth upon this question. The Times, for example, assumes that Free Land means land divided among the peasantry, and strives to show that a man owning from five to ten acres, and working it himself, earns less than the value of his labour in open market. That argument, in itself we believe superficially correct, omits altogether the incidental benefit of ownership, the exemption which it con- fers from the dread of dismissal, an exemption which every-
where out of England has proved an irresistible attraction. A Belgian peasant or a Canadian small freeholder undoubtedly puts too much sweat into the soil for the return he gets, just as the English capitalist who buys land forfeits much interest on his money, and in both instances the temptation is the same' —the satisfaction derivable from the enjoyment of appar- ently perfect security. Enfranchisement does not, however, mean peasant-proprietorship, indeed, the Economist argues steadily and most ably that it means the extinction of petty properties by huge purchases—a mistake, as we conceive, whenever " land " ceases to imply political power —nor does it in any way involve the abolition of entail, settle- ment, or primogeniture. We wish all those things abolished, but " Free Land " does not necessarily imply their abolition. The appointment of a State Trustee would leave the capital settled on a minor, or an eldest son, or a wife, just as safe as it was before, the single difference being that the beneficiary would be secured the value of his corn-fields; instead of the exact corn-fields themselves. [Holding parks and the like to be of the greatest advantage to the community, both for Beni- taay, aesthetic, and social reasons, we see no objection to their exemption from the enfranchising Act.] There would be no- diminution of security and no rearrangement of society, but merely these two results,—that the man- who did not want his land, and did want higher interest, could always sell to the man who wanted land instead of cash, and that the owner would always be free to make improve- ments on his estate. Mr. H. R Brand, no Radical, but Mem- ber for Hertfordshire, and a man who will one day be twenty- f ourth Baron Dacre, puts the matter into a nutshell in the last number' of the Fortnightly Review :—" Let us, for the sake of example, take the case of a limited owner who wishes to make a drainage improvement on his property. In considering this matter, it must' be borne in mind that seventy per cent. of the land in, this country is held by men whose power over, it is limited by modern settlement. We will not take the case of a large owner, but of the proprietor of one of ' those moderate estates which form the bulk of the property in this country.' Indeed, the evil of this system is not felt in the case of the large owners. We will, then, take the case of a man who is tenant for life of an estate yielding £4,000 a year, having nothing besides that which he derives from the land, and not more than enough for . his station in life. Is it not evident that he will save what money he can for his younger children, rather than employ it in improving the land, which must go to his eldest son ? Hirt the Legislature has given him power to borrow the money under the Improvement Acts, and charge the estate. Di he lamely to avail himself of this power He cannot borrow money for this purpose from Companies under the Improvement Acts at a less rate than seven per cent, capital and interest being paid off in -twenty-five years ; and as he cannot obtain from -his tenants- more than five' per cent. interest on the outlay, he will, on the most favourable compu- tation, be a loser for the best part of his life of two per cent. on the capital sum borrowed. Is it wonderful that, under these circumstances, many limited owners find "that the im- provement of their estates as an investment is not sufficiently lucrative,' and leave the land to take care of itself ?" Once converted into a freeholder, the landlord could either raise money by mortgage at four per cent. for works which in- some cases double the rental, or sell off a portion - to increase the value of the remainder, or transfer his estate to a capitalist with means and inclination to drain, build, or plant at leisure, and with a certain careless- ness about pecuniary return. The mere power of doing this, the mere freedom from restrictions, would increase the value of land twenty per cent., and bring capital upon it in the steady flow which every secure and ihrprovable investment sooner or later attracts. The land would be an object of commerce, like Con- sols, would-be better treated, and would belong in the long-ran to those who want it most, whether those be the peasants, or the- capitalists, or, as we should hope, both, under a more secure system of sub-tenure. What there is revolutionary, or " un- English," or " democratic," or " wild." in either of these pro- posals we are totally unable to perceive, while we feel certain that the party which carries them out will ultimately be the ruling party in the English counties. If the Tories will not agree, so much the better for the Liberal future.
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