The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-27 00:00:00

are better acquainted with such transacticn3 and
have all the appliances?
How easy would it be to get together a corpora-
tion for the purchase and sale of lands in Ireland,
not a Waste Land Improvement Company, but a
buying and selling corporation. Companies for the
improvement of waste land in Ireland do not so
readily invite capital, because the operation of re-
covering waste land requires many years, whereas
dealing in land gives a quicker return, is more
suitable to the capitalists, and has the advantage of
being more easily kept under control by the Legisla-
ture. Corporations for the improvement of waste
land must be perpetual, but a land-selling corporation
may be limited at the discretion of the Legislature,
as are the Banks of England and Ireland, and the
East India Company.
This Irish Lund Corporation should have power to
purchase lands sold by Chancery, or sold for rates,
&c., and to purchase by consent waste lands, or lands
requiring heavy drainage, &c. The Corporation to
provide the lands with buildings, drains, fences,
&c. ; to let them and to sell them.

The mode of carrying this out shall be shown in
another letter; meanwhile it may be said that this
measure would give the best direction to the resources
of Ireland, and would be a great boon to resident Irish
landlords, as well as to the working classes, for the
new farms would want bricks, stone, lime, sand,
manure, stock, machines, &c. The amount of food
would be increased, the national wealth placed on a
sounder basis, the rich and the poor of both islands
would benefit, while the common revenues would be
improved. To do this, however, the operations must
be directed, first, to meet the wants of the present
generation, and then to provide resources for after
ages

HUMPHREY BROWN.
Tewkesbury, April 20, 1849.

No. 11.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
another letter I suggested the establish-
ment for Ireland of a great land corporation, the
details of which I now propose to lay before the public.
The corporation may be called the Irish Land
Corporation, and as it is intended to carry out public
objects, and to be amenable to the Legislature for
their right performance, its charter may be limited—
say for fourteen years. This would be unobjection-
able to capitalists, as the operations would be for
short terms, and the capital could always be kept
within control. This limitation of the charter would

.... _ _
have a powerful influence in ensuring responsibility,
the great difficulty in all schemes for laying out

capital in Ireland. -
The Corporation to have the power of purchasing
lands with a Chancery title, or sold for non-payment
of rates and taxes ; or of purchasing by private
contract lands heavily incumbered, or requiring
expensive operations for drainage and clearing ; or
fur purchasing waste or bog land, or reclaimable lakes
or waters. _ _ .

Such lands the Corporation will bring into a proper
state for high cultivation by erecting the necessary farm
buildings, and by proper draining, fencing, and liming ;
likewise by carrying out the proper engineering works
where lands are to be reclaimed. This is a necessary

sequel to the first step, which is to get rid of helpless
landlords and incumbrancers. It is true, the title to

the lands having been cleared, the lands might at
once be disposed of to capitalists, who it may be sup-
posed, would be able and willing to bring the lands
into a proper state, as is done by improving landlords
in Ireland. This, however, is a contingency, and
it must be made obligatory on the Corporation
to bring all lands into a proper condition before sale ;
therefore if the operations of the Corporation are
carried out largely a considerable part of the acre-

age of Ireland will be placed under the most fa-
vourable conditions. The Corporation should be
obliged to make a yearly repirt to Parlia-
ment of their operations, and the Woods
and Forests or Board of Works should like-

wise be called upon to report on the operations,
of the Corporation. A direct Government interference
or inspection would be unadvisable, as it would tend
only to impede the proceedings of the Corporation,
who can be made immediately responsible.
A further reason for the Corporation carrying out
works of improvement is that thereby they will have
a wider market for their land sales. There are many
willing to buy land having an assured income,
who are unwilling to undertake advances of the ex-
tent of which they do not feel certain, and the nature
of which they do not understand, for it is to be ob-
served that purchasers of land often know more of
dividends on consols, and calls on railway shares, than
of the best modes of draining, subsoiling, irrigating,
or erecting manure tanks. Therefore, by bringing
the land to market with the improvements carried,
out a greater number of purchasers will be accom-
modated.

The ensuing proceeding is to let the lands to a
suitable and solvent tenantry, and to bring them
under crop and proper cultivation.
The last stage is to sell the lands in the market, or
by private contract. The class of purchasers may be
considered a little later.
To give the highest selling price to the land, and to
give the Corporation the greatest profit, other sub-
sidiary measures are necessary.
All lands of the Corporation must be surveyed, and
numbered, and registered, as lands are in the colonies,
in a General Land Register Office, the records of
which shall be in duplicate in Dublin and London.
All conveyances, mortgages, and leases of such
lands must be registered in all time hereafter in the

General Land Register Office.
A conveyance of the register lands will limit itse
to a single certificate, and a few words and numbers
as in a land sale in America or Australia, instead of
the sheets of parchment and scrawls of verbiage now
rc quired for a conveyance.
The assurance of title increases the value of the
land, and facilitates its sale, or the raising of
money on it. Land may be put up to auc-
tion and sold forthwith, instead of months
being lost in perfecting a title. A bank or
capitalists may at once advance money on mortgage,
as on stock or railway share 4, without going through
the tedious and expensive stage of a verification of
titles. We shall not hear of lands being put up to
sale several times, or of suits to enforce a purchase.
The Corporation should be allowed to commute
th it stamp duties for a small yearly fixed sum, be-
cause their purchase is really officious and not bene-
ficial to themselves, because it would be a forced
transaction, and because they would render
great services to the country. The Bank of England
are allowed to commute for a fi.ied sum the stamp
duties on their circulation. It mig'it perhaps be
beneficial to allow the stamp duties on register
lands to be arranged on a per centage scale,
instead of being as now graduated. This
would favour the sale and purchase of
small allotments, and render very essential
services to the landowner. It does not fol-
low this would have any great tendency to produce
a cottier tenantry, but it would facilitate gradual and
yearly investments in land by the accumulation of
small purchases.
Having shown the nature of the operations, the
next step is to consider how the capital should be
provided.
It is necessary to premise that the capital required
would be only in the nature of floating capital, and
the operation is the more beneficial, because one sum
will, by its re-application, produce great results.
There can, therefore, be little objection to the nature
of the advance required.
The groundwork of the operations should be the
stock of the Corporation, to be subscribed by indivi-
dual capitalists, or in the manner next provided. Five
millions may be taken as sufficient for the first sub-
scription of such stock, but there might be power to
increase it.
The Banks of England and Ireland, and the three
great Banks of Scotland, should have the power of
subscribing for stock, and of naming jointly or
severally one director for each 100,00/. of stock sub-
scribed and held.
The Government to advance a proportion of three-
fourths of the purchase money on estates bought by
the Corporation," charging 3.1 per cent. per annum.
Such advances not to exceed ten millions in the whole
at any one time.
This advance is necessary to give encouragement
to the operations of the Corporation, and place it in
activity, and it is justifiable on the same grounds
that advances have heretofore been made for the
drainage and improvement of Ireland. As too
such advance would entail no real call on the Money
Market, because it is taking money out of one pocket
and putting it into the other, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer can urge no objection to the adoption of
a measure which, contradistinguished from most
Irish loans, is unattended by the contingency of loss,
and is limited in the time of its operation.
The Corporation to have power of issuing deben-
tures, at such rate of interest as they shall think fit,
for sums not less than 201., and free from stamp duty.
The Banks of England and Ireland, and the char-
tered banks of Scotland, to have the power of taking
debentures. Savings' banks and benefit societies in
Ireland to have the power of taking debentures.
Trustees in Ireland to have such power. Joint-stock
banks in Ireland to have the power of taking shares
and debentures ; and joint-stock banks in England
and Scotland to have the power of taking debentures
i
For all the operations of the Corporation, the
dtthoepulabTilshhewledekbylyi,
tn
the
seTuhrietylriNsVhillLbaendits
Corporation
and the land held by it.
The Irish Land Corporat
Dublin and London Gazettes, accounts of Government
Further, to
loans, loans on debentures, land in hand, and other
assets, likewise of purchases and sales.
make a yearly return or report to Parliament of all
transactions.
The direction would be in the holders of stock,
being chosen either by the holders generally, or by
the banks in their respective properties.
Such direction it is presumed would include leading
capitalists and agriculturists, and would give the