Token radical
Sir: The capacity for self-delusion in the human race was well illustrated in the Duke of Buccleuch's letter to The Spectator (Let- ters, 24 July). All wealth is derived from the land and to claim that by his owning so many square miles of our country he is doing us all a favour is absurd.
In the past landowners had a liability to provide soldiers for the King, but now the situation is completely reversed. We have to give them billions in respect of payments from tenants, access, shooting and fishing rights, planning permits, mineral extrac- tions and Common Agricultural Policy hand-outs, for example, for not growing cereals and for growing trees to improve their private shooting estates to which we have no legal right of access or to roam. Most payments are on a per acre, per annum basis, so the more acres they have the more we have to give them. And the unelected land-owning lords initiate and vote for these nest-feathering bonanzas.
Recently a Mr McNaughton, a Scottish sheep farmer, got £250,000 of taxpayers' money for promising not to plant trees! Earl Bathurst got £8 million for selling 36 acres 'with planning permission'.
No man ever made a square inch of land. Landowners should pay a land tax or rent as advocated by Adam Smith and Henry George. They would have to sell some of their land, which would bring down the price. More farmers could then afford to buy land; at present many are forced to exploit the soil to make any profit after paying the landlord.
The main cause of our wild economic booms and depressions is the high price of land. It is this, not the value of the buildings on the land, which fuels our disastrous property booms. In fact the malfunction of our economy is caused mainly by our hav- ing to pay taxes to keep the country solvent while at the same time having to pay land- owners for permission to use the land. (The private banks are the other main cause!) Does the Duke's heart-rending plea of poverty mean we will shortly be seeing him begging at Paddington station along with Lloyd's names?
Philip Greig
Bridge Farm, Hannington Wick, Swindon, Wiltshire
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