Daily Arizona silver belt., 1909-04-16
SHALL NATIONS SELL LANDs7

2
 The British government proposes to lend to Irish farmers s915,Ooo,ooo to buy their lands from the landlord.
 Mir. girrell, secretary of state for Ire land, introduced bill for it on the last day of March.
 Suppose this bill goes through, and all this land purchasing is added to that of the past, what has been done? A glance at the peasant proprietorship of France will show. The government will merely have set up sub-aristocracy of little landlords.
 The small land owners of France and other European countries are the most merciless rack-renters. when they are landlords, in the world.
 Scattering land ownership out over a larger proportion of the people will not cure the evil of an impoverished psasantry. It does not give equal oppor- tlnity for the use of the lands. It makes petty landlords of a part of the peasants, and leaves those still landless as badly of as before.
 Great Britain may profit by the ex- perience of the United States. Ws had a great domain of matchless lands. We sold them to spectators and gave them away to railways, to states, to oduca- tion-but most lavishly of all to small landholders.
 But the evils of tenant farming are upon US everywhere. The rich buy out the poor. Men move to the towns, rent their lands to tenants and the farms ara ''skinned" of their fertility by the short-sighted policy of "rack-renting" until the loss of soil fertility has be- come national problem.
 Think what would have been the con ditions now if the government had nev- CT sold or given away any of it's land, but had leased it to actual workers, on leases subject to periodical adjust ment, at rates which would have just covered the economic rent of the bare land, leaving to the farmer all of his improvements, all the increased value from manuring, fertilization and good husbandry, with absolute security of possession for himself and his heirs.
 Under such condition there never would have been any profit in holding land for any other purpose except the actual working of it. The farmer would have found it more profitable to farm intensively small farm than to skim over large one. This would have made population denser and social conditions better.
 No farmer would ever have got rich from the increase in the value of his land-for there would have been no in crease except slow and moderate risa in his rent.
 All farmers would have been com fortable, however, for rents would have been based on the economic rent and not the speculative values that prevail where the owner expects his farm to risa in value. We should have had densely populated states of comfortable peopli moderately well of, holding their homes in perpetuity, loving them as much as they love them now--and we should have had no people living ill towns or rents derived from rented farms worked by others.
 And the government would have be- come possessed of enormous revenues from its lands, growing year by year with the growth of population. We should never havo needed tariff, per haps. All taxation would have been rendered unnecessary; and the taxe: of the citizen would have been paid when he paid his rent. Wouldn't it be better for the British government tc keep the land when 1t buys it, and get the rise in value itself?
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