El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-07-18

George, on the back of the song book,
| but 1t is possible that even they would
! think more of a certain plan of pro-
| gress if they had been brought face 20
! face with a certain variety of poverty
Burden Affects All Dwellers.
The burden of the land trust in Eng
| land falls heavily upon both city and
country dweller, but for the purpose Of
/ illustration it viii suffice TO consider
! the situation in the rural districts.
England and Wales. with a total pOpG
lation of about thirty-two million. have
eight million people living in the com
try. The land cultivated by these eignt
million people produces conSiderab, >
more than does any similar acreage in
the United States, showing thar the
farmers are thrifty and industr oI's
husbandmen. OF the eight million,
about sixty-one thousand own the FARMS
which they till. All of the rest Of the
| land. approximately twenty-five million
acres. is owned By about forty thous-
and landlords. and the greater part is
owned by fewer than five THOUSAND
landlords, many of them being p".rs
and members of the house of lords. In
other words, 99.2 per cent of the farm
ers OF England are tenants. If that
condition prevailed in the United States
there might be songbooks there with
Henry Georges picture on the back.
W 1i-lA the IuI llltI ldCl lIldl lIlSSt ten
ants pay all of the taxes on this land
and that the owners pay none what
ever, is taken into consideration, then
one can form some idea of how onerods
Is the burden of rents which these ten
ant farmers must pay TO support the
idle Landlords in the particular style
of luxury attaching TO English coun-
try life"
Many Small Land Holders.
In the time OF Queen Elizabeth cot
tagers were compelled to own at least
four acres of land to support each
house. At the end of the seventeenth
century there were 1905 900 land holding
peasants in England At the beginning
of the nineteenth century there were
more than twice as many land-Owning
farmers as there are today. and there
was a vast amount of common land
which was used and enjoyed by the
community in general In the first
half of the nineteenth century, when
$50 land owners returned from rotten
bOroughs a majority of the house of
commons. this land was enclosed" and
became private property, the most of
ii going to enlarge the estates of the
peers and other gentry.
In the last half century there has
been no disposition TO subdivide estates.
On the contrary. most of the changes
made have been in the direction of fur
Their increasing individual holdings and
of retiring agricultural land from cul-
tivation. The situation has been grow
ing worse steadily from year to year,
and is, of course, responsible for that
agricultural depression" so much de-
plored by British statesmen and pub
liciStS
All Land to Oldest Son.
The bulwark of the land trust is the
law of entail with the principle of pri-
mogeniture. The law of entail makes
1t possible to settle land upon a child
unborn, and operates to enable owners
to transmit landed estates unbrOken
and undivided TO future generations. AS
the land descendS to the oldest son, the
division and dispersion of the land is
prevented. This law has succeeded in
establishing the land trust almost i'm
pregna bly,, since nearly all of the best
land of England is thus entailed and
those who own it have for generations
imposed themselves upon the people as
the governing class"
To interfere with or TO abrogate the
right thus to transmit landed property
undivided from generation TO genera
ton yet unborn, is construed as an at
tack upon the institution of private
property. Just such an attack was
made, however, in the British colony of
Virginia and ii was eminentlY success
full Even if it did destroy to a certain
extent the rights of private property, it
prevented in the United States the form
alton of a land trust such as now feeds
upon the heart of England
II in England land was divided on the
death of the owner among his children,