ALLOTMENTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
SIR,—IS not your comparison of the action of King Ahab with the compulsory power of the representatives of the community to acquire land, faulty in the very important point that Ahab took the property of ,au "occupying owner," which no one is asking Parliament to allow?* And is not the favour you accord to the argument of Lord Salisbury and of Lord R. Churchill on this subject based on a misunderstanding of what it is pro- posed to do ?
Lord -Salisbury justly derided the idea, which existed solely in his own imagination, of the local authority buying farms at 4 per cent. in order to let them at 2 per cent. By the Bill of Mr. Collings, land could only be let for labourers' allotments of one acre arable or three acres pasture. Larger holdings could only be acquired by payment of half the purchase-money, the balance remaining a charge on the property at 1 per cent, over the rate at which it was borrowed.
Lord R. Churchill's argument_ is: based on fallacies through-
out, and would be unworthy of reply but for the notice it receives from the Spectator. Lord R. Churchill finds out the number of labourers in Norfolk, assumes that they all want to hire three acres of land each, and that the rent is to be 21 per acre, and then points out what an enormous burden this would be on the rates. Land in Norfolk is almost universally arable. The provision cited above shows that no one could hire more than one, acre, and experience does not show that above half the men would desire an allotment. There is no reason to think that those who did would object to pay sofficient rent to cover interest on the entire outlay. Of the vast number of allotments which come under the notice of the Allotments-Association, it would be diffi- cult to find instances of a rent so low as Li per acre. Only this week a correspondent in Rutland proposes starting some allot- ments at 23 per acre, and another, writing from Oxfordshire, says, "Men hereabouts never complain of getting convenient
[. That is not so. If the Duke of Sutherland forms his whole estate as Spanish allotments at 22 10s. per acre, though they may complain when they pay (as in a neighbouring village) from 25 to 27 per acre."
This brings us to the heart of the question. Unless the com- munity acquires land, how is the poor man to help being ground down by rack-renting, such as the State has been driven to pre- vent in Ireland P Does any one suppose that the rural voters, smarting under this injustice, will not require powers to esta- blish an equitable system ; and where are the candidates to be found who will resist them P In Suffolk recently I visited nearly two hundred allotments adjoining the houses of the occupiers, the land being let at the rate of 38s. per acre, including all payments. At such a rent, of which the people made no complaint, the calculation of Lord R. Churchill would assume an aspect which would satisfy the most exacting financier.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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