The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-02-12 00:00:00

THE OWNERS OF ENGLISH LAND.

The Times, in a leader on the ownership of English Land,
remarks :

If Mr. Bright and other leaders of "advanced
,Liberalism " are convinced that there is a grievance
Iwhich calls loudly for a remedy in the ownership of
!English Land, they ought to begin their warfare upon
the basis of ascertained and accessible knowledge
In 1872, Lord Halifax, then Lord Privy Seal, as-
sented to a suggestion pressed by Lord Derby, the
Duke of Richmond, and others, that there should be
a special Return of the landowners of the United
Kingdom, and this work, undertaken by the Local
Government Board, has now, after unavoidable
delays, been completed, and is ready for presenta-
tion to Parliament. We trust Mr. Bright, when
he makes himself master of the results of this
inquiry, will see that it is the part of prudence as
well as of candour to confess that his favourite and
well-worn argument against the supposed accumula-
tion of landed property in a few hands was dependent
upon an elementary blunder as to the facts. The reply
to Lord Derby's cautious statements on this subject at
Edinburgh
swhich Mr. Bright attempted in his Bir-
mingham speech will not adequately meet the conclu-
sions of this return. A candid acknowledgment that
the legend of the 30,000 landowners has been proved
to be as mythical as that of St. UrAula and her com-
pany of 10,000 virgins will set the question on a
proper footing, and will enable Mr. Bright to wage
war against the Land Laws, if he pleases, without
being betrayed at every stop into the quagmires of
misstatement. -

In the House of Lords, four years ago, Lord Derby
conjectured that instead of 30,000 landowners there
were nearer 300,000 in the United Kingdom. At
Edinburgh, the other day, Lord Derby, with some in- i
complete knowledge of the actual returns, was able to
say that "one way or other the persons permanently
interested in the soil would be found to be not 30,000,"
nor even 300,000, "but 600,000." The "Domesday
Book " . . . . goes far beyond either computation. In Eng-
land and Wales alone, it shows, there are 972,836 persons
who may be described as landowners, or about one in
twenty of the population. Among these proprietors
is divided—in very various proportions, no doubt—
an area of more than 33,000,000 acres, with an esti-
mated rental of close upon 100 millions sterling per
annum. The entire extent of waste and common land
is estimated at 1,500,000 acres. Thus it appears that a
twentieth part of the population—men, women, and
children included— have proprietary interests in the
land. But Mr. Bright may say, as he said, in substance,
at Birmingham,—" You get this grand totril by an illu-
sory reckoning, you count all the small holdings of
garden ground, the patches of a few yards or a few roods,
or of a quarter of an acre apiece, that are attached to
house property, but these do not represent a proprie-
tary that lives by possession." Such an exclusion is
scarcely fair, for we had been accustomed to hear
from the advocates of the division of land that
French and Flemish peasants work economical wonders
with holdings not much larger than those which Mr.
Bright contemptuously compares with our common
heritage of six feet of earth. But let this pass. This
aeturn enables UB to waive the point by setting aside
all the holdings under one acre in extent. Of land-
owners holding one acre and upwards there are no less
than 209,547; more than a quarter of a million of
Englishmen in possession of pieces of land large enough.
to support, according to the doctrines of those who ad-
vocate Si petite culture, a peasant family. This is an
extraordinary expansion of the 30,000 landowners of
Mr. Bright's repeated declamations; yet it is the
simple fact. The original evil of which Mr. Bright
complains--the exclusive ownership of a few great
proprietors—is shown to be imaginary.
When the new "Domesday Book" has been laid
before Parliament, it will be the duty of every politi-
cian to master its results; and no public man will have
a right henceforward to appeal to popular opinion on
the tenure of land who does not frankly admit, or im-
peach with forcible proofs and reasons, the conclusions
immediately deducible from the Returns. We trust
that Mr. Bright will profit by his studies. In the
meantime we may direct attention to an easy means of
testing the political significance of the information
here collected. It would obviously be impossible to
examine the whole of these 1,800 quarto pages, ranging
over all the counties of England and Wales, and including
the names of a quarter of a million proprietors. But
let us take a single county, and pick out a few salient
facts. The West Riding of Yorkshire had in 1871 a
population of 1,874,611; the return shows that it has
more than 1,500,000 acres of assessable land, in the
ownership of nearly 80,000 persons, Of these 17,417

possess holding' of one acre and upwards. But, to
come to
,particulars, neither the very great nor the
ve stead proprietors absorb the bulk of the acreage,
as ny one may see who will run down a column or
t of the return at random. We have at the
he d of the great landowners, Mr. Charles Towneley,
w" h 23,000 acres, the Earl of Harewood and Earl
Fi zwilliam with about 20,000 acres each, and several
others with estates that may fairly be called large.
Bet by far the greater part of the county. is owned by
the small holders. Among 80 names taken in a column
at hazard we find one estate of 495 acres, four others
above 200 acres, four, again, above 100 acres, about
one-fourth of the remainder over fifty acres, and three-
foiltrths below that figure. Among the 80 holding. 4
only eight were blow two acres. The majority were
8, 12, 20, 30, and 50 acre holdings. This experience
would be produced, no doubt, -with little variation
—for the arrangement of the names is alphabetical
—in every one of the 228 columns of the Return for
the West Riding. It is, we venture to affirm, a per-
fectly fair test, and it proves, to our minds, beyond con-
troversy that the totals of the new "Domesday Book"
are not the statistical juggles that Mr. Bright pro-
phesied they would be. If onehalf of the 17,000 land-
owners of the West Riding are small proprietors, with
holdings of from five to fifty acres, the country
cannot be so hopelessly in the grasp of a territorial
oligarchy.

In a subsequent leader, The Times further remarks :
Whatever the motives that have placed Mr. Bright in the
proud position of first cause of the new Domesday Book,
there cannot be a doubt that he has the hearty thanks of
nearly a million persons. There is not an English land-
owner, from the Duke of Northumberland down to the for-
tunate proprietor of a single acre, who will not be delighted
to find himself immortalized in the rolls of fame before us.
One common regret will invade alike those who appear and
those who are not to be found. The former will wish
that they had stood for more, and had not diminished
the pleasant total by this or that sale ; the latter
will wish that they had made some appearance in
these columns, however small, just to prove to the
world that they stand on the soil. Dear indeed is it to the
heart of the Englishman to have a share in this fair country,
to be a real landlord, and in some palpable though modest
degree what the giants of the earth are around him. It is by
no means improbable that this Return will be repeated at
least once a generation, that being about the period after
which most landed property may be expected to change
hands. But, whether a second Return come soon or late,
the anticipation cannot but quicken the natural and uni-
versal eagerness to have a piece of this earth that a man can
call his own. A competition is proclaimed, and it will be
felt alike by the man who hopes to come in first and
the man who would emerge from the crowd that
comes last. There is hardly a man in the country, so as he
be young and sound in wind and limb, who may not hope at
least to appear side by side with a territorial potentate.
Ilere in the Return for the West Riding, in a column with a
dozen or twenty owners of single acres, comes Lord Fitz-
william, awning 19,184 acres, with an estimated rental of
£73,794. So far from eclipsing the smaller luminaries, the
greater light sheds a radiance on the less, and suggests what
small beginnings may one day grow to. No doubt, in so
numerous and comprehensive a Return there will be found
many figures contrary to expectation; some with less land '
or less rental than was thought, some, possibly, with a good
deal more. This will be taken to mean that some have
lagged in the race of life and some shot ahead.. But every
figure will receive its criticism and its commentary.
Over all hangs the cloud of encumbrances of one kind or
aqother. The knowing world will read between the lines,
most, perhaps, when they come to the largest figures. But
still there remains the honour and glory of earthly possession
a consideration over and above money, and happily indepen-
dent of it. It is, however, the column of estimated rental
that businees men will most look to, for it shows by many a
Mtge illustration that one acre of land means 20s. a year, and
smother an annual rental of £5OO or more. If anybody is
offended with the supposed monopoly of the naked soil, one
may reasonably ask him what he has to say to the monopoly
of space that never comes into,the market at all except to
find ready purchasers at £lO,OOO an acre.
In one respect this Return will be hailed as an opportune
addition to social science, even if that have its drawback as
regards the happy proprietors. A great deal, indeed more
and more, now devolves on social benevolence, and they who
show themselves accessible to charitable appeals are besieged,
—blockaded, we might rather say—with overwhelming im-
portunities. Every post, every visit, every casual meeting,
brings them some call, as often as not quite beyond the range
of strictly personal or local obligation. The extreme pressure
on a few suggests a frequent suspicion that the many escape
it by the simple art of being deaf to all appeals which do not
come properly and with legal authority or established usage.
It will now be a perfectly fair reply to demands wholly
bayou! a one's duty, or one's competency, to refer
thi a/,licant to the list before us, disclosing, as
it does, the existence of many well able to. share the
burdens of philanthropy. The uniformity of the town or
country subscription lists ought to receive a shock from the
extreme want of uniformity to be found in these columns.
We have no wish, indeed, to aggravate the pressure upon
any class, but it certainly might be equalised, or reduced to
a fair proportion. Real estate is not the only wealth of this
country, or, indeed, the chief wealth; but in various social
aspects it stands for much more than its pecuniary worth,
and claims much more. It ought to do its full duty, and
can be more easily got at. It is now published for the bene-
fit of all whom it may concern, and we cannot help thinking
that a published comparison of properties and contributions
to public purposes would present many surprising anoma-
lies, and some serious omissions, with examples of consider-
able landlords giving little or nothing at all, and so throwing
the burdens of society on a willing few.
By far the greater part of these figures represent not
merely land or agricultural value, but also the value for
habitation, manufacture, mineral products, or other sources
of wealth. As soon as the letting value of the land is more
than £2 an acre, and often before it reaches that rental,
all the excess stands for the value created by human enter-
prise or put upon the land in a substantial form. For any
purpose of carving out the country into small agricultural
holdings, or any scheme of that character, it would be neces-
sary to extricate from these Returns and throw aside all
the additional values laid on land. Necessary as that
is it would be absolutely impoasible. Nobody wants
land at a distance from everybody, and beyond the
reach of the market, the town, the railway, or the
employment that would make it worth holding.
There is not a rental in England that does not represent the
social facilities of the spot as well as its natural productive-
ness, and where individuals demand as of right a share in
the soil, they are demanding also a share in the accumulated
results of probably two thousand years of painful industry.
As it has been estimated that this century has added more
to the wealth of the country than the nineteen previous
centuries, while the wealth so created is indissolubly con-
nected with the soil in one way or another, it follows that
such claims as those we refer to attack other forms of
wealth much more than the soil itself. Divested of these
other forms—a process hardly to he imagined—ten
acres of English soil would be worth no more than as
many acres far back in that Canadian interior
which produced so dismal an impression on Mr.
Arch and his friends. But no such ten acres are to be
found in this country, for we think it would be impossible
to find a single acre not worth more to-day than be-
fore the introduction of railways not to speak of other
considerations affecting the value of land. Much as we may
please to lament the impossibility of that peasant proprietor-
ship which probably never existed at all in the form sup-
posed, we may console ourselves with the fact that our
many composite forms of haltagricultural, half-manufactur-
ing value afford a better occupation and larger oppor-
tunities than the rude husbandry of our forefathers. So
far from our being at a loss to find proper employment
for men, all classes and interests are now fighting
for them and bidding high for their serviaes. It is
hard to get a good man, and harder still to keep him. On
public as well as social grounds we cannot be sorry for this,
great as the inconvenience may occasionally be where capital
Is fixed and undertakings have been begun on the supposition
of a regular labour supply. But where this is the case, in-
deed the most startling fact of the day, it is hardly necessary
to be racking our brains with schemes of home colonization.
Any slight study of these returns will serve to show thatour
working classes go on the wiser plan of associating them-
selves with the industry of their country in its readiest avail-
able forms, and, though they love land much, yet love good
service and good employment much more.