The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1897-10-23
LANDLORDISM
in ENGLAND.
BY JOSEPH LEaaErr.

VIII. It came into existenee az q
logical result of the sale of the church
lands by that monarch. Prof. Rogers
says; From the earliest period Of
recorded agriculture, by which mean
OF such accounts as give us an insight
into the occupation of land, till some
time after the middle of the sixteenth
century, i. g., for fully three CEN
turtles, the rent of agricultural lands
remains unaltered at from pence to
9 pence per acre. - (Econ. Int. of
Hist, p. 1879 The mere statement of
this fact is sufficient to convince any
one that there was no landlord Of
agricultural land, in any modern
sense, during those three centuries.
A rent Of pence to pence per acre
was not rent in any sense of the term
with which we are familiar. And
Prof. Rogers says: ''No one who
knows anything Of economical history
can doubt that rent was originally.
and for centuries, tax imposed by
the strong on the weak, in considera.
ton of real or pretended protection
of the tenant. The invariable and
fixed character of the tax seems to me
to prove this and the fact that no
attempt was made to alter the fixed
rent, save by open or disguised
violence or fraud, is to me con-
elusive. " (E. l. OF H., p. 172.) And
again he says: ''And it is a proof
of Adam Smith s sagacity that without
the materials before him from which
the facts could be demonstrated, he
saw that rent was originally tax,
and that a long interval must have
occurred before farmers rents became
real and oppressive. " (W. and W.,
p. So And on pages 235G of the
Economic Interpretation of History, he
says: Undoubtedly in the earlier
stages of this and other societies, rent
was tax, levied by downright force,
either with or without the pretense
of an equivalent, or as the represent
alive of reciprocal advantage, as
defense and payment of administration,
or as mere blackmail, the rent re-
ceiver, in consideration, refraining
from plumber. - OF the thirteenth
century, he says: ''In the thirteenth
century there was no rent paid, in the
ordinary sense of the word. wv.
and W., p. 56.) In lecture delivered
in 1883 at Oxford, and printed after lis
death, he says of the fourteenth cen
fury: Good arabic land was let in
the fourteenth century at pence an
acre. I have never found a higher
price" Industrial and Commercial
History of England, p. 2O9 In
Work and Wages, p. 293, he says:
lit is certain that during the fifteenth
century the landowner was unable to
screw them (his tenants), and that
the rack rent is product of the early
part of the sixteenth century" And
at page 296 of the same work. he says:
1T was not till the sixteenth century
that rack renting began.
Now, as the rack-rent is a "rent
nearly equal to the annual value of the
property rented" it is clear that its
first appearance marks the advent of
the modern landlord When the mer-
chants of Henry Wits time ''began
to invest largely in land they carried
into their speculations in land the same
business methods that they acted upon
in their commercial dealings. They
figured out the cost of an acre of land
and fixed it's rent at interest on that
amount, and as competition raised the
price they raised the rent to cores
pond. 1t is safe to assume that when
the first purchaser of abbey lands thus
set the pace of rack-renting, all the
other landowners of England were not
slow to follow his example. But we
are not left to mere assumption on this
point. We have indubitable historical
proof. In Vol. II, p. 465, of Knight s
History of England, it is said, speak
ing of this period "Rents were
everywhere rising" And in Cunning
ham and McArthur's Outlines of
English Industrial History, at page
1S1, it is said; Rent comes to have
the clear and obvious character of
payment for the use of the soil. -
Prof. Rogers says; From the mid
die of the sixteenth to the middle of the
seventeenth, rack renting of very
harsh kind occurred, and with very
disastrous effects. - lind. and Com.
Hist. of Eng, p. 20S.) And in the
EcODoTnic TntarDTeta tion of History n