Mr. Bradlaugh on Tuesday made:a motion in the House of
Commons that where land was left uncultivated, the local authorities should have a right to expropriate it at a price, and let it among the cultivatingclass. In a thorough-going speech, he maintained that there were 5,600,000 acres of such land, instancing particularly Ashdown Forest in Sussex, and denied the right of an owner to refuse permission to utilise his land, more especially if it contained mines. He was supported by Mr. Munro Ferguson, who contended that land which the land- lord could not use, might be made valuable by occupying owners, and answered by Mr. Seton-Karr, who brought forward the old but final argument that reclaiming land was not now a• paying operation, and that the expropriated areas would be left a burden upon the hands of the local authorities. The subject was not fully discussed, for the House was counted out after Mr. Seton-Karr's speech ; but no practical agricul- turist doubts that Mr. Bradlaugh's attractive dream is, as regards all but a small area, a dream merely. The land can- not be given to the people for nothing, and unreclaimed land cannot bear rent. If it could, the landlords would very soon let it. As to mines and tree-bearing land, it is very doubtful whether, in view of the rapid exhaustion of our resources in coal, metals, and wood, the landlord who refuses to consume is not a public benefactor. He is keeping a bank for the next generation.
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