The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-07-18 00:00:00

LAND LAW REFORM.

The following correspondence has been published:
Kensington-park-gardens, W., July 6, 1885.
Dear Mr. Bright,—The time is ripe for promoting
practical measures of land law reform, and for urging
such measures upon the attention of those who will
have to elect the next House of Commons. For the
interested consideration of such proposals, the present
circumstances of agriculture are extremely favourable.
With the intention of renewing such efforts as I have
made in that direction, I wish to ask your opinion of
the following programme. I believe it would estab-
lish that policy of "Free land" of which you were
one of the earliest advocates : (1.) Abolition of the
law of primogeniture; (2.) abolition of copyhold and
customary tenure; (3.) prohibition of settlement of
land upon unborn persons, and of the general power
of creating life estates in land; (4.) conveyance by
registration of title. All interests in the property
registered to be recorded; (5.) provision for
the sale of encumbered cettled property. Our
present laws encourage separation of ownership
from occupation of land. That tendency is not in
harmony with the general interests of the people.
The position of the occupier demands fuller security
—such at least as Sir James Caird suggested by way
of amendment of the Agricultural Holdings Act, in
order to secure the sitting tenant against liability to
lose his share of increased letting value consequent
upon his improvements by a rise of rent or by exaction
of an unfair rent, to which he can offer no resistance
except by notice to quit, involving serious depreciation
of his stock-in-trade. The extension in principle, and
under proper safeguards, of the purchase clauses of
Irish Land Acts to Great Britain, and the enfran-
chisement of leaseholds, are practical matters which
should be admitted to full and fair consideration.
More than 2,000,000 acres of the best land are held
by corporations in mortmain.. This tenure involves
serious evils, including absentee ownership in per-
petuity, and a most unfair exemption from taxation.
I have met with no exposition of this policy more
concise and acceptable than is contained in your own
words: "We would so change our laws as to give to
every present generation an absolute control over the
soil, free from the paralysing influences which afflict
it now, from the ignorance, the folly, the obstinacy,
or the pride of generations which have passed away."
—Yours very sincerely, ARTHUR ARNOLD.
Right Hon. John Bright, M.P.
132, Piccadilly, W., July 9.
Dear Mr. Arnold,—l have received with much plea-
sure your letter of the 6th inst., and have read with
much interest your suggestions on the reform of
our land laws, the great question which will demand,
and I hope receive, the attention of the Parliament
which will be elected in November next. I look pack
with intense satisfaction on the reform of our tariff,
begun by Sir Robert Peel in the year 1842 carried
forward by him to the year 1846, when the odious
Corn Law was condemned and abolished, and com-
pleted in after years by the great measures carried
through Parliament by Mr. Gladstone. In connection
with the changes in our commercial policy, the names
of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone will for
ever stand foremost and highest in the list of the
Ministers and statesmen of our country. They have
lifted to a higher scale of independence and comfort
the industrious millions of our people. My lamented
friend Mr. Cobden, who did not underrn• the result
of the struggle in which he had taken sa eminent a
part, on more than one occasion expressed the
belief that the men or the Minister who should
hereafter free the land of the United I:ingdom from
the fetters which have hitherto bound it would confer
as great a blessing on our people as that bestowed
upon them by the freedom of the produce of the soil.
The time has now come when this new great land
question must be discussed and settled. It is well
that some plans, just to the nation and not less just
to the possessors of the land, should be brought before
the attention of our people. In the suggestions
which you have submitted to me, you offer such a
plan, and I cannot but hope that it will receive, as I
believe it will deserve, a very large measure of
support throughout the country. There have been
wild schemes brought before some portions of our
people—schemes not based on any just principle;
your suggistions seem to me just and calculated to
do good ti landowners, to tenant farmers, to the
industrious labourers on the soil, and to the millions
whose families subsist upon its produce. I cannot
enter into anything like a great movement in connec-
tion with this question; but I hope we may soon see
a movement in the constituencies and in Parlia-
ment, and that another great measure of reform may
soon be added to those by which our time and our
generation are already distinguished.—Believe me,
very sincerely yours, JOHN BRIGHT.
Arthur Arnold, Esq., M.P.

"I have a tinder affection for ye," said an Irishman
to his girl. "Ye have, have ye? Thin why don't ye
strike the match r
A man said lately, in answer to a question, "That
he never studied theology or botany, having devoted
all his time to re)igion and flowers.