AGRARIAN TENURES.* SHAW-LNFEVRE has produced a sober'and statesmanlike account of
the existing land-systems of England, Ireland, and the Highlands of Scotland, and the reforms he advocates are in a high degree reasonable and practical. Of the English portion of the book it is not too much to say that a better account of what has been already done to improve the tenure of land in England, and of what further steps may be taken to produce a healthy condition of things, could not be desired. Though we have no desire to minimise the importance of the Irish and " Crofter" sections of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's book, it is with the English chapters that we desire to deal on the present occasion. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre begins by dwelling on the absorption of the lands of the yeomen into the great estates, which has marked the present century. He notices that evidence was given before the Select Committee on Small Holdings which showed how an. estate of 25,000 acres in Westmoreland was built up of 226 different purchases— purchases made under the will of a wealthy manufacturer--- "nearly all of them cases where the vendors belonged to the class of yeoman-farmers." Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, though re- gretting this fact, as must every reasonable man, does not attribute it to the innate wickedness of the classes, but gives full allowance for the operation of those economic laws which tend to make it profitable for the yeoman to sell his land to the capitalist, to invest his money, and then to take his farm as a yearly tenant. This process cannot be stopped. It has, how- ever, been the misfortune of the English land system that the parallel tendency towards the disintegration of big estates has been checked by the system of family settlements. When once land gets into big blocks, it tends to stop there. Mr. Shaw- Lefevre further points out that, even now that all land is sale- able under the Settled Land Act, it is generally found better - business to sell in large than in small lots. He instances the sale of the Savernake Estate in one lot at £750,000, as an example of this. We doubt, however, the truth of this general state- ment. We have known of plenty of instances whore selling in sections has proved the more profitable way of getting rid of an estate. Perhaps, however, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre would admit this for cases of two thousand acres and under, and only in- tends his remarks to apply to the great estates. In regard to what has already been done in the way of legislation to im- prove our land-system, we may quote the following :- " It will be seen from this brief survey of agrarian legislation, how fully Parliament has recognised the defects of the present system of land tenure in England and Wales and of the distribu- tion of property in land, and how manifold and varied have been the efforts to mitigate them. There is scarcely any point where an attempt has not been made to deal with the subject. Efforts have been made to promote the expenditure of capital on entailed estates, to free land from the trammels of entail so as to make it easily saleable, to simplify titles, and to cheapen and facilitate the transfer of land. In two notable instances Parliament has interfered with tilt) freedom of contracts between landlords and tenants for the protection of the property of the latter, It has adopted the same method in the case of Tithes. It has accepted the principle of the compulsory purchase of land by local authori- ties for two purposes—for allotments, and for the erection of labourers' cottages ; it has recognised the principle of the sale of quasi-public lands for the purpose of promoting the multiplica- tion of small ownerships. Lastly, by the more recent Act of last year it has made a further great step towards increasing the number of small ownerships and small tenancies, by giving power to local authorities to purchase land, and to break it up into small lots for reselling or letting. It has admitted the principle of the loan of public money for this purpose, and also for the conversion of tenancies into ownerships on the method of the Irish Land Purchase Acts. It has been shown that the success attending these efforts has not been considerable. The land system prac- tically remains unaltered, though something has been done, here and there, to mitigate its defects. So far as the labourers are concerned, the indirect effects of the Allotments Acts, in inducing landlords voluntarily to let allotments to their labourers, in order to avoid the purchase, of land for that purpose by local authori- ties, have been important; but the direct object aimed at—of vesting the ownership and management of allotments in the hands of local authoritied—has not been realised."
Scattered about Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's book are many interest- ing detached facts. One or two of these may be given. For example, he states that the Income-tax returns for England * Agrarian Tenures a Survey of the Laws and Customs relating to the Holding of Land in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and of the Reforms therein during recent years, By tho Right Hou. G. Shaw-Leforre, M.P. Landon, Paris, and Melbourno ; Omen and 0o. show that the rent of England, which was £51,600,000 in 1879, was in 1890 only £41,378,000. This, however, does not by any means show the total loss sustained by the landlords, for the temporary abatements and the " giving back " of so much per cent., so general a feature of recent " audits," are not included. Another interesting fact is that since 1864, £12,115,000 have been borrowed for the improvement of landed estates, under the Land Improvement Act of 1864. This borrowing was, of course, not from Government, but from Joint-Stock Com- panies and other sources. The figures as to allotments, though well known, are worth quoting again. In 1873, there were 246,000. In 1890, there were 453,000—or nearly double the number. Considering that the rural population has greatly decreased in these seventeen years, the figures are a remark- able proof of the eagerness of the labourer "to get a bit of land."
Mr. Shaw-Lefevre in his recommendations for new reforms is not specially drastic. Generally, he would endeavour to get more small holdings from about five acres. His ideal—and it is, we believe, a true one—is to see as much variety as pos- sible in the English country districts :— " It may well be questioned, then, whether a more mixed system would not be preferable in the general interest of the community, one where property in land would be distributed among a greater number of owners, where intermixed with large properties there would be many small ownerships of all sizes, and many tenancies of varying extents, by which the labouring men of the district might hope to rise from their status to higher positions in life. Such a condition of things would not necessarily be inconsistent with the retention of the best features of the present system. There might be many cases of large estates the owners of which would maintain relations with their tenantry on the enlightened principles referred to, and at the same time there might be clustered round such larger properties many small properties of varying sizes."
For bringing this about rapidly, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre has evidently not much belief in State action. He would, how- ever—and here again we are in entire agreement with him— use the lands held in mortmain, lands amounting to two million acres, for the purpose of creating small holdings. On land-transfer reform Mr. Shaw-Lefevre is, of course, sound. We may supply him with a text for this chapter of his book in his next edition. When, in 1850, Mr. Nassau Senior explained to Cavour that in England there was no register to authenticate land-transfers, and that the only evidence of title was the possession of a bundle of parch- ment, the Italian statesman curtly remarked that the English were "the only civilised nation which endures so barbarous a system of conveyancing." We must not leave Mr. Shaw- Lefevre's interesting book without one more quotation,—that which gives his scheme for dealing with the system of family settlement. There is a good deal to be said for it, and it is probably better than any attempt to introduce the compulsory sub-division of the Code Napoleon, which would awaken great hostility :- " The better course would seem to be to prohibit all entails and family settlements, whether of land or personal property, other wise than in the form of the ordinary marriage settlement—that is, to the husband and wife for life in succession, with remainder to the children, in such proportion, as he or they may appoint, and, when there is no appointment, then equally among the children. This limitation would exclude the settlement of any property on the eldest unborn son of, a living person ; it would destroy the main object of the family entails of land. It would also be in full harmony with such a proposal, to apply the principle to the cases of all existing family settlements, where the eldest son has not reached an age, when he has fully realised his ex- pectation—say the age of fifteen—and to provide that, notwith- standing the terms of the settlement, the parent, who is in pos- session, should have power to dispose of the property, as he may think fit, among his children. This proposal would be in strict accord with that for abolishing the law of primogeniture. It would seem to be a logical conclusion from the withdrawal of the State sanction to the preference of the eldest son, that there should no longer be allowed a family law of succession, in favour of successive eldest sons, and of unborn eldest sons, through the medium of family settlements. The joint operation of the two changes in respect of primogeniture and settlements would, it is believed, have a very important effect in the ultimate distribution and dispersion of landed properties."
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