§ Postponed Proceeding resumed on Amendment proposed on consideration of Bill, as amended.
§ Amendment proposed: In paragraph (c) to leave out the words, "Section one shall be read and construed as if two thousand acres were substituted for six thousand acres, provided that the two thousand acres so acquired shall, to the extent of three-fourths thereof," and to insert instead thereof the words, "The total area of the land for the time being acquired by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland for the purpose of Section one of this Act shall not at any time exceed two thousand acres, of which three-fourths shall."
§ Question again proposed.
§ Mr. MORTONI should like to ask, as a point of Order, whether I can move to strike out "two thousand" and substitute "seven thousand"? A manuscript Amendment has been handed in without notice, and I understood you to say, though I could hardly hear owing to the movement of hon. Members, that the terms of it cut me out from moving my 1999 Amendment. I must say that it is an extraordinary thing that we should have this manuscript Amendment at all. I was very careful last night to get a copy of the Amendments, which, of course, is the fair way of dealing with one another, and I should like to know if I can move to amend this Amendment?
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe best way will be to strike the words out of the Bill, and then when the Amendment comes on it will be open to amendment by the hon. Member.
§ Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
§ Mr. MORTONI understand that the words to be inserted are those as you read them out. Mr. Speaker, but I do not know whether I can move my Amendment to strike out the word "two" in order to insert the word "seven."
§ Mr. SPEAKERYes, I have just told the hon. Member so.
§ Mr. MORTONThat is exactly what I want to do. I do want to bring before the House the condition of Scotland in regard to this Bill. It has been made worse by the fact, though I do not object to that, of there having been given out of the 6,000 acres 2,000 acres to Wales. I always consider Monmouthshire a part of Wales. It has been made worse by this fact, that you give 2,000 acres to Wales and only 2,000 acres to Scotland, a place two or three times as largo. As I say, I do not object at all to Wales getting their 2,000 acres in any shape or form, and I should have been glad to vote for giving them more if necessary. Nevertheless, I do think Scotland ought to be treated according to the size of its population in dealing with a matter of this sort. What I want to do is to get 7,000 acres instead of 2,000 acres. I do think we are entitled to ask for that for Scotland. This land question in Scotland is a most serious question, and it will be more serious still when the War is over, and the crofters come back— and I hope a great many may come back safely—and want something to do. We are indebted to the crofters very much for the way in which they have turned out to protect the country, and the least we can do is to give them a chance of taking the land. They are quite willing to give a fair rent, although they may not always be so, for security of tenure, but they do ask that 2000 they shall be treated well. I understand that there is a larger proportion of men who have gone out to join the forces and to fight for this country from Scotland than from any other part of the United Kingdom. At any rate, there is a larger proportion in Sutherland than in any other county in Scotland, so far as that goes— so I am informed. We ought to make a suitable answer to these men, because I know a good many families where seven sons are out fighting for this country, and others of six, and five, and so on, and it is a poor answer to them to say, "Although we are dealing with the land question, we will not deal with you better than with Wales. We will give you the same only. We refuse to make any concession whatever to Scotland." That is a shabby way, of course, of treating Scotland, and it is not fair treatment either. There are other ways in which I should like the Government to take notice of better treatment for Scotland. They have taken off the Post Office carts which have been of the greatest use, and instead of helping the people they have done as much as they can, apparently, to injure a great part of Scotland. Now they say, "Notwithstanding that, you go and fight for us; you shall not have a fair share of land."
Then there is this provision: that of the 2,000 acres that shall be acquired three-fourths shall consist of land suitable to be cultivated as arable land. This new addition to the Section which was put in in the Committee stage of this Bill would, if carried and worked, be of no use to Lowland Scotsmen, because they can get their share of it in any case; but it would practically cut out the crofters of the Highland counties in Scotland altogether. That, of course, I hope the House would be loth to do. It was proposed the other night with the object, apparently, of securing that the 2,000 acres, or the best part of it, should be good arable land, and not merely hill pasture. Hill pasture, although it does not bear much rent, is very good in itself. The crofting counties should not be cut out of the benefits of this Bill. It is a very little, shabby Bill, which is not going to do much good, and the proposed treatment of Scotland is very shabby indeed. I trust the time will come when we shall treat the Scottish people, and especially the crofters, who have done so much for the country, in a fair and decent way and give them a fair share of what is going. They 2001 are willing to pay a fair rent for security of tenure. When they come back from fighting our battles they will want an opportunity of obtaining a better living in their own country and among their own people. The result of not giving them a fair share of the land or an opportunity of working it is that they have been compelled to leave the places where their families are and work elsewhere. On account of that the population of Sutherland is now no more than it was 100 years ago. I would like to see you give them an opportunity, by colonising their own country as was promised to them, of living and working in their own country and among their own people. If you gave a fair share of the land to the people in the Highland counties you could easily double the population, provide nice places in which the people could live, and you could produce more cattle and sheep intead of having to go to foreign countries to purchase them. By looking after your own country you will do good to everybody concerned.
Even at this, nearly the last moment, I hope the Government will give Scotland something fair and reasonable in connection with this Bill. I do not expect that they are going to do much. I do not like the way in which they have introduced this manuscript Amendment. I told the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that I was going to move my Amendments, and that others were going to do the same. I took particular care last night, at the last hour, to hand in the Amendments and get them on the Order Paper, so that no one could say I had sprung anything upon them. This Amendment is now sprung upon us. I have not had an opportunity of studying it to find out what it means. It is a bad way of doing business to spring these things upon us. The Government, which has more opportunities than I have to get things printed, should take care to give us fair notice of manuscript Amendments of this sort. The right hon. Gentleman really ought to be ashamed of himself for not having treated us in a better and more reasonable way. I hope he is sorry for it, and will not do it again. I object to the words I have mentioned, and trust that something will be done in the way of fair and reasonable conduct towards Scotland.
§ Mr. AINSWORTHLooking at the time of night and the period of the Session and the business which has to be done in the 2002 next few days, we may all agree that what we have to do is to make this an Act of Parliament as early as we can, but I should like an assurance. If we are to understand that the Bill stands as an experiment, I should like to be assured that the experiment shall take place at once. It is only a small thing. The amount of land is only the size of a very ordinary farm in Scotland. My hon. Friend (Mr. Morton) suggests that a certain proportion of the land should be arable, but I think he is wrong. It would be much wiser to leave the whole matter in the power of the Board of Agriculture, and give them as large powers as we can. There will be no difficulty whatever if 2,000 acres is to be the limit of the experiment, in finding suitable land at a reasonable price in any part of Scotland. Remembering the gift which has just been made by the Duke of Sutherland I really think if the Board of Agriculture feels it desirable to apply to every landowner in Scotland whether he is prepared to find suitable land for this purpose the answer in every case will be Yes. I think the Board of Agriculture should be prepared to consider from every point of view the question of afforestation. Forestry is going to be one of the great industries of Scotland in the future, and it will be of enormous importance in the development of small holdings. The whole difficulty about small holdings is that a man often cannot make a living for himself and his family off the small holding only, and in that case he wants a larger industry to fall back upon in his spare time, and what could be more advisable for that purpose than the industry of forestry? A friend of mine has had a great deal to do with land questions, and his solution of the land question in Scotland, and no doubt in a good many other countries, is forestry as a permanent industry' and small holdings with which to fill up their spare time. Scotland has supplied the flower of our Armies, and you should do all you can to increase the population by developing industry, afforestation, and small holdings in every part of Scotland. By that means you will not only be increasing the production of the country but the population from whom you may draw in the future as you have in the past for the best recruits for your Armies. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will proceed at once with his Bill for carrying out this experiment. We all hope it will be a success.
§ Mr. MORTONOn a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned when I commenced my speech just now that I wanted to move to substitute 7,000 acres for the 2,000 in the Bill. I forgot to move at the end of my speech.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI thought the hon. Member had thought better of it, and he sat down without moving it.
§ Mr. MUNROI want to make it quite clear to the House, if I may, that the Amendment which I propose has not by any means been sprung upon the House. My Amendment is a purely drafting one. Some criticisms were made on the Committee stage with regard to Sub-section (c). In order to make it quite clear that in Scotland we shall have 2,000 acres without any doubt at all it was thought proper to remodel Sub-section (c), and accordingly I am moving that instead of the words which appear in the Bill in that Subsection we should substitute the words, "The total area of the land for the time being acquired by the Board of Agriculture for Scotland for the purpose of Section 1 of this Act should not at any time exceed 2,000 acres, of which three-quarters shall consist of land suitable to be cultivated as arable land." That was in no sense sprung upon the House of Commons: it is merely a drafting Amendment to make it quite clear that we shall be entitled in Scotland to 2,000 acres. It is nothing new; it simply makes quite clear what is in the Bill already. Therefore I must protest at once against the suggestion of the hon. Member for Sutherlandshire that this Amendment was sprung upon this House.
§ Mr. MORTONI have not spoken about it.
§ Mr. MUNROThen I must have misunderstood my hon. Friend. As to his suggestion that 7,000 acres should be inserted instead of 2,000, I dealt with that during the Committee stage, and I do not want to repeat myself. I will only say that we cannot accept the proposal, and therefore I hope the hon. Member will not press his point. He has made a very good fight for it. My Amendment being of a purely drafting nature, and designed to make it even more clear than the Bill makes it that we shall have 2,000 acres and no less in Scotland for the purpose of this Bill, I hope, in the circumstances, my hon. Friend will see his way not to press his point.
§ Mr. MORTONWill the Lord Advocate be good enough to give his opinion upon the point as to three-quarters being arable land?
§ Mr. MUNROSo far as that is concerned, my information is that the Board of Agriculture has been consulted with regard to it, and I have no objection at all to my hon. Friend's suggestion being embodied in the Bill. More than that I do not think he will ask.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
§ The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Acland)I have to inform the House that His Majesty, having been informed of this Bill, has consented, as fur as His Majesty's interests are concerned, that the House may do therein as they shall think fit.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall, having been informed of the Bill, has consented, as far as His Royal Highness is concerned, that the House may do therein as they shall think fit.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThe House will remember that on the Second Reading of this Bill, when I made a statement as to the "Daily Mail" holding, I was contradicted by certain hon. Members. The hon. Member for Wiltshire (Captain Bathurst) contradicted a statement which I made, or rather the inference which I made, from the fact that we had not seen for some years any reference to Lie "Daily Mail" holding. I am not misrepresenting my hon. Friend when I say that he said that the "Daily Mail" holding was the most prosperous holding in England.
Captain BATHURSTI said the holding to which the hon. Baronet referred, and I hold to that statement.
§ Sir F. BANBURYI am glad that my recollection of what took place has been confirmed. The holding to which I referred was the "Daily Mail" holding. My few remarks had the rather extraordinary effect of attracting the attention of one or two people in the country. They communicated with me and I find that everything I said was absolutely correct. The "Daily Mail" holding was a failure, a dead failure. The owner of it could only obtain a living by erecting a sort of out-building in which he housed certain workmen from 2005 the engineering works at Grantham. And his son, having learned by experience what a small holding was, instead of succeeding his father when his father died, went into the engineering works at Grantham, and the success of the small holding, if there is a success, has been arrived at by pitting in a foreigner, a Dane, and by enlarging the holding—I think doubling it.
§ Sir F. BANBURYThat is my information. I have here a letter written to me from the University of Oxford which will appeal to my hon. Friend. It is from the Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics. It says:
With reference to your remarks in the House on Monday—I will not read it all, but I shall be happy to show it to any Member who desires to see it—I am able to give you full information, having been the agent of the estate on which the small holding was created. It comprised a fifteen-acre field of land in good condition, on which I built house and buildings on behalf of the 'Daily Mail.' The place was run entirely by the sale, retail, of the milk, eggs and vegetables in the town of Grantham, about half a mile away. In spite of the fact that the tenant, who was a booking clerk from Grimsby Station, was thus able to secure the profits of distribution as well as those of production, he could not make the place pay, although he tried his best. By building a large addition to his house he was able to eke out an existence by boarding a number of men employed at engineering works near by. After three years the man died of tumour on the brain and the whole was taken over by the landlord and enlarged. I should imagine that the balance sheet to which Mr. Bathurst referred related to the large profits of a large holding; otherwise I cannot explain his statement.I have since ascertained that the next holder was a foreigner—a Dane. Under those circumstances I venture to say that the statement which I made on the Second Reading were quite correct, and that the small holding in the hands of the Englishman was a failure, though he had the advantage of a special building being erected for him at the expense of the "Daily Mail," and though he had the advantage of being close to a large town, where, at any rate, he could obtain the advantages both of producer and retailer. With regard to the Bill itself, we are wasting so much money that I do not think it very much matters whether we waste a little more on this absurd proposal. Nobody, I do not think even the right hon. Gentleman himself, thinks that these proposals are going to be successful. If they are to be placed on an economic basis, if the buildings on the land are to be let at a price which does not coincide with the cost, and if the value 2006 of money is to be taken, not at what it is at the present time, but at what it was at some other time when it was particularly low, it may be that, under those circumstances, a more or less prosperous result may be obtained. But if this is to be a genuine experiment to solve a very important question, the proposal and the experiment should be made upon an economic and proper grounds. If it is made on these grounds, even though at the present moment the opportunities for making a living by agriculture are very different from what they were a year or two ago, and even though it is to be carried out on economic grounds, yet I doubt very much whether it will be a success. I am perfectly certain that it will not be a success when we revert to the ordinary prices. The hour is getting late, or I have several figures and statistics relating to small holdings which I could give; but I rose more especially in order to confirm the statement which I made on the Second Reading, and which had been challenged.
Mr. DUNDAS WHITEBefore the Bill leaves this House I should like to enter my protest against attempting to deal with a great and pressing question, which will become more important every day, in such a way as has been done, because the way in which it has been done is futile, and will be entirely ineffective, I believe, in practice. We certainly will have a good deal of administration, a very considerable amount of detail, an annual report, and a good deal of expenditure on management, but what we should aim at is the promotion of production in this country, and opening up the land to soldiers and sailors returning from the War or, in so far as we take it, it will be quite inadequate to the amount of time and trouble and money which will be expended on it. The fundamental difficulty is that the Government in producing this Bill have not faced the questions which lie at the very root of things. We have had all over the country advertisements, picturesque and effective advertisements, asking that men should go and fight for their land. Then the question comes up what do we mean by their land, and have they any right to the land at all. The question of the rights of the gallant men and of the people as a whole to the land is a question which the Government have never yet faced. This measure, like most governmental measures dealing with 2007 this subject, seems to assume the landlords' right to the land is as absolute as his right to his watch. That is the view of some hon. and right hon. Gentlemen.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERI suppose he paid for both land and watch?
Mr. WHITEI would like to point out the distinction that the watch is the result of industry and the land is the gift of Nature, and I maintain that the people of the country have some rights to it. If the landlord likes, shall we say, to lock his watch up and not to use it and not to let anyone use it that is a matter for himself, but we are not prepared to allow him to pursue that policy with the natural resources of the country. That is one of the difficulties we find ourselves up against whenever we try to seek reform. Here we are in this measure, as in various other measures, trying to set up people in outlying districts on a basis which is practically uneconomic, and when we try to get better land we find ourselves faced with the difficulty of being held up against us. You could not have a better place for small holdings than some of the land round about the towns that is being kept back for building, and that so far as agriculture is concerned is hardly being cultivated at all. If that were let out in small holdings that land would produce infinitely more than it does now, but you cannot get it for that purpose on fair terms or on satisfactory tenure. I know that my right hon. Friend is much interested in the question of education. Agricultural education is a very good thing, but the education is very little use unless you get the land to work upon. If we look over the country we rind that no land is so productive, acre for acre, or quality for quality, as the land which is held in allotments and small holdings by men who have had no special agricultural education at all. They soon get into the way of developing the land. Even along the sides of railways, where there is a little spare ground and the railwaymen have a chance of working it on fair terms, you see production springing up on all sides. You might have the same thing on a great deal of land near the towns, where the small holder would have an easy market. You cannot have it, because when you try to get that land you have to pay so much for it above the agricultural rent that the landlord is receiving now that the attempt to set up small holdings is strangled at the outset.
2008 My hon. and gallant Friend (Commander Wedgwood) proposed a new Clause to the effect that in some degree the price of land secured under this Bill should be limited by the valuation. My right hon. Friend would not consider that Clause, even with all the concessions my my hon. and gallant Friend proposed, because apparently he held the view— the correct view—that there is nothing like a parity between the valuation on which the landowner pays to the State and the valuation on which the people have to buy the land from him. So long as those who are holding up land which might be made useful are exempted from taxation that they ought to pay, so long will land be held up against us. In fact, whenever we seek to solve this problem we find ourselves up against the problem of land monopoly, and the holding up of the resources of the country against the people. If my right hon. Friend desires a true solution of this difficulty—and I believe that no Member of this House more earnestly desires a satisfactory solution—he will have to face this fundamental problem. Hitherto it has not been faced, and the Government will not face it. Hence they land themselves in all sorts of difficulties when so-called practical proposals are put forward Instead of trying to reform the fundamental conditions which prevent the development of the country, they try to make experiments of one kind and another, and the result is failure after failure. The hon. and gallant Member for the Wilton Division (Captain Bathurst) referred to the success of various small holdings. I want to see some sort of balance sheet showing how that success is worked out. Until I see something of that sort, I am afraid I must admit the efficacy of the argument and of the quotations made by the right hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury). However that may be, the point is that the Government will not face this fundamental problem. Instead of tackling this land monopoly they try to get round it, and always with the same result. I would remind my right hon. Friend of the lines
Tender handed stroke a nettle.And it stints yon for your pains:Grasp it like a man of metal,And it soft as silk remains.I believe that when the Government have the courage to grasp this nettle of the land question in the way in which it should be grasped, the difficulties will be found to disappear. If only they will adopt the 2009 solution which my friends and I have advocated again and again they will find that those who are holding up their land will let go of it, and under the pressure of having to pay whether they use the land or not they will—
§ Mr. SPEAKERThis Bill does not deal with that subject. The hon. Member must confine himself to what is within the four corners of the Bill.
Mr. WHITEI thought I was in order on the Third Reading in discussing the basis of the Bill, but of course I bow to your ruling. One of the results of the Government having acted as they have is that we have never been quite certain on what basis this Bill is framed. We have had it put forward as an experiment, and from the success of that experiment we were to see whether we should carry it further and how far. If the experiment is to be of any value, it must be more or less on a business basis. But from what the right hon. Gentleman has said it appears perfectly clear that the Board in administering the measure are not to take into account the rate of interest, the actual cost of materials, or anything else. They are to expend the taxpayers' money, and then and there the land' and the property is improved, and subsequently let at any rent they think fit. I am not saying that may not be done in individual cases. It may be well to do it in individual cases, but these should promote production at the best interest and profit. So far as the experiment is concerned, the more you extend the experiment that heavier will be the burden on the taxpayer, and so will the ultimate burden on the workers of the country, who after all are the producers of this wealth. You have in effect to choose between one of two plans—the one, broadly speaking, is a business basis, and the other is a subsidiary basis. The latter is very interesting not only for its immediate and direct effect, but for its rather more remote and indirect effect. Those of us who have had experience in attempts at municipal housing, and in particular subsidised housing, know how it works out You narrow the sphere of private enterprise and narrow the housing accommodation. I am very much afraid that this plan of subsidising particular holdings will have a similar effect. Throughout the country I believe there are many landlords who would be very pleased to do what they could towards the promotion of small hold- 2010 ings on something like a business basis, but a business basis may be made impossible if the State comes in and subsidises particular cases. That is one of the great dangers of subsidies. There is, of course, the question of purchasing the land, and particularly of purchasing it at present. I am one of those who believe that if people have certain rights in the land that those rights should be asserted, and that whenever the Government, without recognising these rights, goes into the market to purchase land, that the result is to strengthen rather than to weaken the land monopoly. That is particularly the case just now. Owing to the greatly increased prices of agricultural produce we have had a great rise in the price of agricultural land. When the war time and prices are considered, too, I think it is not wise for the Government to purchase. Indeed, on that point alone, I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that in the administration of the Bill he should, so far as possible, try to avail himself of the provisions which I, for one, have always welcomed in Clause 6. I think it is dealing with the powers of leasing and that he should try, until the War rates and prices are over, to deal as much as possible by lease, and as little as possible by purchase.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERI am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but will he kindly tell the House on what grounds he finds that agricultural land in Scotland has gone up? The value has gone down steadily.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERGive us facts; let the House have facts?
Mr. WHITEI am sure that all of us who have followed the reports in the newspapers have seen what I say. I really thought it was common knowledge.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERNothing of the kind. Estates have gone down 30, 40, and 50 per cent, since the War, notwithstanding agricultural prices. I will give the hon. Gentleman mine for 40 per cent, less than what I paid for it if he likes.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERSo would we!
Mr. WHITEI am sure that the hon. Members who have been following the papers have seen the higher prices and profits of agriculture. There has certainly been no tendency for agricultural land generally to come down. I feel perfectly certain that if the hon. Baronet looks into the facts he will find that my statement is absolutely justified.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERWhat has that got to do with the facts of a nineteen years' lease in Scotland? Rents do not change at all.
§ 11.0 P.M.
Mr. WHITENow the hon. Gentleman is on a different point. I feel absolutely certain that if the hon. Gentleman will look into the facts he will see I am justified. I would remind him that this Bill applies to the country generally, and, taking the country generally, I have no doubt whatever he will find that the facts are as stated. If it could be shown, of course, that prices of agricultural land now are no higher than they were before the War and before the days of the high food prices, then, of course, there would not be the grave objection to purchase as in special circumstances. I only call attention to the high prices of food and to the very great profits the agriculturists have been making, and I think my hon. Friend will agree that the profits of agriculturists during the last year or two have been almost unprecedented in recent times.
§ Sir G. YOUNGERThose are the tenant farmers—not the proprietors.
Mr. WHITEYes, but does not my hon. Friend see that where the profits of agriculturists have become far higher, if agricultural land is sold it will command a higher price?
§ Sir G. YOUNGERNo, it does not. It is subject to a nineteen years' lease.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI would respectfully suggest that the hon. Gentleman should approach the Bill. These land questions, which are very wide indeed, might be left for another occasion.
Mr. WHITEI would very respectfully point out that I did refer to special provisions in this Bill. I referred to the powers of acquiring land by purchase and also of leasing land, and the point I made—and it would have been passed long ago if I had not been repeatedly inter- 2012 rupted by my hon. Friend—was that, owing to war prices, I suggested to my right hon. Friend that there was an additional reason for preferring leasing to purchase. I submit respectfully that it is well within the four corners of the Bill. I have no desire to go into further details, but I do express my disappointment that there has been no more adequate attempt than this miserable Bill to meet the great problems we have to face. We shall have millions of men coming back from the front, and a great many munition workers set free. Those problems will become more urgent, and if this House is to perform its functions properly, the difficulties which are bound to arise before very long should be met by intelligent anticipation on wider and sounder lines than the lines adopted by the Government.
§ Captain C. BATHURSTI cannot help thinking that the speech of the hon. Member for the Tradeston Division of Glasgow (Mr. D. White) is somewhat inopportune as well as being somewhat irrelevant as far as this Bill is concerned. His attitude and that of his friends is clearly directed against the land-owning system of this country. I doubt whether there has ever been a period in recent history during which the landowners of Great Britain have demonstrated to a greater extent their liberal intentions and desires and their sympathy with the idea of settling ex-Service men upon the land of the country which by their exertions has been saved from invasion. I will only mention the names of Lord Lucas, the Duke of Sutherland and the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire as instances of extreme generosity, with the view of advancing the purposes of this Bill. I do not want to enter into an academic discussion as to whether or not the present conditions make for high prices of land in this country. I would like to remind the hon. Member that it is an economic axiom that as the interest on Government securities goes up so the capital value of agricultural land goes down. That appears to have operated so far as I am aware—and I have kept my eye very carefully upon the market for agricultural land—generally over England and Wales whatever may have happened in Scotland.
Captain BATHURSTNo, rents do not fall, because the rents of agricultural land keep pace vary much with the interest on Government securities. I rose with two 2013 objects, first of all to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Acland) upon his courageous persistency in carrying this Bill to the stage it has now reached. What with our land-taxing friends on the one side and the Welsh enthusiasts in another quarter of the House, and finally our North British enthusiasts, I think it is marvellous that the right hon. Gentleman has been able to steer this Bill so successfully through the House.
The other reason why I rose was to say a word to my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury). My interruption the other day was evoked by the suggestion that this particular holding belonging to Mr. Christopher Turner, in the County of Lincoln, was a good instance of how unprofitable small holdings were, I was unable to say what had been the fate of this particular holding in the hands of the "Daily Mail," or the tenant for whom the "Daily Mail" may be deemed to have been responsible, but I visited this holding about three weeks before the right hon. Baronet made his speech, and having discovered an extraordinary state of prosperity upon that holding I could not help ejaculating that that particular holding was a practical instance of what a small holding ought to be. It is true that a Danish tenant occupies that holding at the present time, but it is not substantially larger than it used to be in the hands of the previous occupier, but I am able to say that on that comparatively small farm there is being grown to-day a quantity of wheat, oats, and lucerne, and a very large herd of cattle is being raised which is far beyond what has hitherto been deemed to be the reasonable capacity of production of an English farm of that size. A certain hon. and learned colleague of mine, who was present on the occasion when the right hon. Gentleman referred to this holding, was able to tell the House that the profits actually made by the Danish tenant were such as to make most English farmers' mouths water.
§ Sir F. BANBURYHe did not say that he was a Dane.
§ Captain BATHURSTI am glad that it has been stated here to-day that he is a Dane, because the bulk of the holdings in Denmark are just such holdings as we want to constitute under this Bill, and those Danish holdings are an economic success in almost every instance, because 2014 they recognise the fact, which we want to try to persuade English agriculturists to recognise, that it is quite possible to raise and to raise with success on the same holding a large quantity of meat and also a large quantity of bread stuffs. That is just one of our aims in connection with one type, at any rate, of the colonies which are proposed to be constituted under this Bill. I rather regret that the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for the City of London talks about waste of money in connection with this Bill, and I notice that the hon. Member for the Tradeston Division (Mr. Dundas White) was glad enough to echo that complaint. So far from it being a waste—
§ Captain BATHURSTThe hon. Member is interrupting.
§ Captain BATHURSTI think the hon. Member has had his turn this evening.
§ Captain BATHURSTI suggest that this is not, in fact, likely to be a waste of money, but, on the other hand, a very good national investment, because in the first place you are going, I hope, to put a larger number of healthy and enterprising men upon British land to earn their own living and so prevent their being a drain either upon the rates or taxes of this country in the future, and because in the second place every single penny that is going to be applied towards setting up these holdings may be expected to result in a return to the Government of as good a percentage as is being reaped in the case of the best-managed county council holdings in this country. When I hear the hon. Member for the Tradeston Division talk about small holdings as though they were an economic failure in this country, I would recommend him to visit some holdings to be found in Cambridgeshire, or in Norfolk, or in Lincolnshire, or in the Isle of Ely, where small holders, not only during the War, but prior to the War have been making very good returns not out of market-gardening, which it has been suggested is the only possible source of living for a small holder, but out of the ordinary mixed farm of which wheat forms a staple product. I wish all success to this scheme, although I am bound to say that it 2015 is a much smaller scheme than I should have liked to have seen. It has been a great source of disappointment to me that suggestions have been made, not merely in this House, but in another place, that this scheme and other schemes like it will involve a large expenditure of public money which we can ill afford. My answer to it is: See what the Dominions overseas Are doing in this same matter; see what an excellent example they are setting to us, and which we might follow. So far from quibbling as to whether buildings and equipment are going to be provided with money which is advanced at less than the current rate of interest, the Overseas Dominions are wanting to take these men to be settlers in their dominions, and in order to encourage them to go they are not merely offering them a free passage, but they are offering them land at a very low cost, and also offering to equip their holdings at a much lower rate than is being offered here, and they are being offered working capital, provided by the Government, at a considerably lower rate of interest than that at which we are likely to obtain any money for similar purposes in this country. We cannot spare these men after this War is over; we cannot spare the able-bodied manhood of this country to go to other countries, even to our own Overseas Dominions. We shall want them here, and I venture to hope that if this experiment proves a success, and even during the time that the success of this experiment is being demonstrated, the Government will make a much bigger effort to settle a much larger number of men on British soil in order to keep them leading a healthy life in the country where, above all, they will be so valuable. If it is impossible to settle them straight away on holdings because of the difficulty of providing land at such short notice, I venture to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Government that they might do well to keep these men employed upon reclamation and afforestation work, both of which will be urgently necessary when the War is over, and so keep them employed until such time as there will have been found land suitable for the purpose, and upon which they can be settled, either in colonies or by the county councils, on smaller areas in those counties from which they went out to fight the battles of their country. I venture to hope that this is only a small beginning of a very large scheme of land 2016 improvement and land settlement in this country, and in that hope I cordially wish all success to the scheme constituted under this Bill.
§ Mr. OUTHWAITEThe hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just sat down dealt with a particular criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Tradeston (Mr. White) by misrepresenting what he had said. As he was not allowed to make an explanation himself, perhaps I may say a word with regard to it. He did not say, so far as I remember, that this Bill involved necessarily a waste of money. I think his argument was that this Bill was presented to us as an experiment capable of extension, and that as we have heard from the Member in charge of the Bill that it is only going to be made to work by virtually subsidising the holder, the extension of it to any great degree would involve a large expenditure of public money uneconomically, and that therefore it is not a solution in itself of the land problem. That was, so far as I recollect, his line of argument, and I do not think anything the hon. and gallant Member said would controvert that. It is not necessarily a waste of money to subsidise the soldier upon the land, bus it is not a solution of the land question; it does not enable us to secure that a man shall make a living from the soil. It is making a living partly from the soil and partly from the Treasury. My hon. Friend, I am sure, never said that small holdings were uneconomic. They are often a most economic form of holding.
The hon. Member spoke of what is being done in the Overseas Dominions, how they are presenting to the returned soldier land on specially favourable terms, and enabling him to secure capital for his buildings on favourable terms. That is not brought forward as a solution of the land problem in Australia. These farms are to a large extent gifts, an acknowledgment of the people of the obligation due to the soldier. They are virtually much the same thing as if they gave the men a cash bonus, and they are recognised as such. As to the Bill itself, I regard it with rather mixed emotions. In the first place it is futile, but at the same time it is small, and may keep busy those people who think that by all sorts of piffling measures you are going to solve this great problem. There is one good thing of which this Bill gives evidence, 2017 and that is that there is a growing recognition of the difficulty of the problem which has to be solved.
What is that problem, which this Bill proposes not so much to solve as to provide an experiment for its solution? It is one the magnitude of which we are scarcely able to apprehend. We know that one day, when peace is declared, some millions of men will be disbanded from the Army and other millions of men will be disbanded from munition works, and this country will be confronted with a new problem such as neither this nor any other country has had to face before. This Bill shows that in some quarters there is dawning a recognition of the fact that the only way in which these millions of men can be absorbed in employment is by enabling the land to be utilised to the fullest extent. We shall have to break down the present conditions in this country under which certain men—dogs in the manger—prevent other men from utilising the land who desire to do so. That system will have to go. At the same time it is being realised that ahead of us lies an enormous increase of taxation. We are piling up a gigantic debt, and the interest upon that debt will necessitate this: that unless we are to be driven down into poverty an enormous increase in the production from the soil must be provided.
Again, when we come to the necessity of increasing the production of wealth, we see that we are confronted with the fact that production from the soil is limited to-day by the system at present prevailing. This Bill seems to be some earnest of a recognition of the solution of this aspect of the problem that will confront us. But while it recognises the problem ahead of us, and the fact that in larger production lies the solution, we cannot regard this as even a modicum of that solution. It is enough to provide a foothold upon colonies for some 600 men when there are millions for whom provision should be provided; it is no solution of the problem in itself. I should like to say one word in regard to what appears to me to be the field for the solution of this problem. I am very pleased to see the great change that has come over hon. Members on the other side of the House in dealing with the land problem. I remember that when a few years ago I was writing articles with regard to the conditions on the countryside in Scotland and England I used to be met with derision when I said 2018 that the land of this country was under-utilised and might maintain a far greater population. Now we hear that on all sides—from the other side of the House—from which derision came in the past. In particular it was contended that the land in the Highlands of Scotland could not possibly be put to a better use than for the grazing of red deer. Yesterday we found the Secretary for Scotland waxing most indignant because I pointed out the fact from the rating return that the land offered by the Duke of Sutherland was evidently some of the poorest land in Scotland, as it had not a capital value of more than from 15s. to £l an acre at the outside. We are told from the Front Bench that this is a valuable and generous gift, and is a solution in fact of the problem of providing land for the soldiers of Scotland. If that land is capable of providing sustenance for the returned soldiers of Scotland what millions of men could find employment and a livelihood on the valuable land of the lowlands of England, of Scotland and of Wales. As we come to this experiment with the land we find arguments being used to show that our contentions in the past are going to be realised, that an enormous increase of production might be provided from the land of this country and millions of men might find employment upon its soil.
We are undoubtedly going to be confronted with changes in many ways which will bring about drastic reforms. I think a change is coming in a solution of this land problem very largely from the attitude of mind of men who return from the trenches. They were told they were going to fight for their country, and I remember one of the recruiting posters of a Highlander overlooking a beautiful valley and smiling homesteads, and underneath were the words: "Is not this worth fighting for? He was not overlooking a barren deer forest of the Duke of Sutherland, and saying: "Is this worth fighting for?" He was overlooking the rich valleys of Scotland. I think when these men come back, having been told to fight for their country, they will have a claim upon it, and will establish that claim, and I do not think they will be prepared to pay great sums in compensation to the landlords when they have saved this land of England and Scotland and Wales from foreign possession as they have been told. 2019 It will be theirs, not by right of conquest, but by right of having saved it from conquest, and consequently they will regard it with an entirely different aspect, and it is for that reason that they will be prepared to go on far different lines from those proposed in this measure. It has been suggested that they will establish their right, and the right of all the people to the land by methods which we must not discuss in connection with the taxation of land values. This Bill realises that the problem that confronts us after this War can only be solved by way of the land. I remember when the Australian Premier was here he delivered a speech in which he pointed to the problems which would arise after the War, and the necessity of their solution, and he told his audience of the fate of Rome, because it did not pay attention to the problems created by war. I wish to point to the conditions that arose in Rome after the days of its great conquests, and how the suggested measures to solve them are extraordinarily appropriate to the days which are upon us. I desire to quote a speech of Tiberius Gracchus as to the conditions prevailing after the great wars. Hon. Members will probably be interested, not only in the statement as to the conditions, but as to the reception that his words got from the crowds of Rome and the views we are expressing to-night will get-from the unemployed crowds of this country in a year or two. He said:
The wild beasts of Italy have their caves and dens to retire to for repose while the brave men who spill their blood in their cause have nothing left except light and air. Without houses, without any lands or habitations they wander from place to place with their wives and children, and their generals are but mocking when on the eve of battle they exhort their soldiers to fight for their sepulchres and their domestic gods. There is not. perhaps, a single Roman who has an altar that has belonged to his ancestors or a sepulchre in which their ashes rest. They fight and die in order to advance the wealth and luxury of the great, and they are called the masters of the world though they have not a foot of ground in their possession.That is the position of the British soldier to-day. They may later on be called the masters of the world, but they have not a foot of land in their possession. They fight for the luxuries of the rich and the great. I say that when they return they will establish themselves in possession of the land of this country, but not on the lines adumbrated in this measure.
§ Sir JOHN SPEARI do not propose to detain the House long at this late hour, but I wish to support the Third Reading of this Bill for two reasons; first, it is 2020 framed in the interest of some of the gallant men who are fighting our battles at the front, and secondly, because it recognises a lesson we have learned from this War, namely, that we must do what, we can to grow more food at home than hitherto. That can only be done, I submit, by securing in our country holdings of different sizes to suit the capability and the capital of each individual toiler on the soil. The small holder produces milk and butter and vegetables; the larger holder produces corn and cattle and affords employment for men on the soil. The two systems are indispensable. We want the small holder or the agricultural labourer to get a lift up, and an opportunity to improve his position and ultimately become a larger owner and so afford an encouragement which has not existed until recently in this country. Therefore I believe the Government are taking a step in the right direction, and I confess that I would rather have seen a movement to provide throughout our country good cottages and three or four acres of land adjoining so that the small holder could, in addition to tilling his holding have the opportunity of increasing his earnings by rendering service to the adjoining farmers. I believe that system-would have been better than this which the Government has decided on.
But this is only an experiment, and I cannot imagine the motive of hon. Members on the other side of the House in opposing this simple experiment—an experiment made in the interests and to meet the wishes of our soldiers returning from the front, and to gain experience as to-whether these colonies conducted on the co-operative principle can be a success. I certainly hope that they will be successful, and if they are successful certainly all will be willing to extend their operations. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for arranging that part of these holdings shall be arable and part grass. I am convinced from my knowledge of agriculture that unless you have a mixed holding there is very little prospect of success. With a mixed holding, if you get a bad harvest and the corn is lost the man can recover his position somewhat from dairy cattle and grass, and if he happens to lose a cow or two he will, on the other hand with his arable land, recover himself by the crop he is growing. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman resisted the appeal of the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. D. White), as to the 2021 system of purchasing the land from the small holder. The hon. Member says that a fair price should be paid for the land. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme urged last night that the payment should be on the basis of the rateable value. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members who say "Hear, hear!" do not realise that rateable value is always eight per cent. in the case of house property, and six per cent, in the case of land below the rent. Do they think it consistent with honesty to buy the land for less than the fair price? Six or eight per cent, less than the rateable value is not honest dealing with the owner of the land. But immediately the hon. Member for Tradeston got up and said "No; we will give twenty-five, thirty, even fifty per cent, more than the rateable value." Why such a preposterous waste of public money? To-night, the hon. Member wanted land taken almost at prairie value. Last night he was urging that from twenty-five to fifty per cent, above the rateable value should be paid.
§ Sir J. SPEARI am within the recollection of the House. The OFFICIAL REPORT will prove that my recollection is correct. Passing from that, I am astonished at the objection to helping these men to acquire their holdings at a little less than the economic cost. It amounts to this. These gallant fellows have gone abroad to fight our battles. It has made labour scarce and consequently dear, and all that is proposed by this Bill is that we shall pay a price that would have been moderate if it had not been for the War, and if these men had not had to go abroad to fight our battles. It is astonishing that hon. Members who are interested in getting people to live on the land are always advocating principles that would drive people from living on the land. It is most inconsistent. I am an enthusiast on the great question—it is a great question—of getting people to live on the land, but the way to accomplish that is to make it worth while for people to live on the land. I cannot conceive any arguments less likely to accomplish that purpose than such arguments as those of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. Unless you have security in the development of the land you will not get people to spend their money on it. [An HON. MEMBEE: "Hear, hear!"] An 2022 hon. Member says "Hear, hear." I ask him if he realises what the present value of agricultural land represents. I make bold to say that the—
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is wandering into a discussion of the general land question, which we are not now considering. The Bill is of a very limited character, and deals with only a small part of the general question, and that is all he is entitled to discuss on the Third Reading.
§ Sir J. SPEARI was following the hon. Member opposite.
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe hon. Gentleman will recollect that I pulled him up.
§ Sir J. SPEARI certainly will not follow up that part of the subject, save to say that I want to see more people living on our land, and to see them raising a greater volume of native foodstuffs. While I believe that larger holdings are essential, granted certain capital and capabilities, I think that at the same time we want small holdings, and consequently I am of opinion that the Government are taking a step in the right direction. I hope sincerely that the Bill will be a success. I support having more small holdings all over the country, with a better provision of cottages, and, instead of having so many people crowded in various centres, we should have a healthy and bold peasantry being developed all over the land. We must do something to keep our returned soldiers on our own land. The Colonies are making enormous preparations to receive all the soldiers they can get. It is to their economic interest that they should do so. We rejoice at anything which will benefit our Colonies. I love the Colonies, but I love the Home land more, and I think that we should keep men of the old stock on our own land, and by and by our Colonies will be able to receive emigrants from this country, who will develop our Dominions abroad. From the national point of view, in the interest of the soldiers themselves, in the interest of increased native food supplies, which we have been told are most important for us in time of war, I shall vote for the Third Reading of the Bill, which I hope will be a successful experiment, and will be the means of still further increasing the number of people living on the soil, and consequently increasing our food supplies.
§ Mr. PETOI only rise to ask the right hon. Gentleman to make his addition to Clause 4 a really effective part of the experiment which this Bill is to promote. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. Jesse Col-lings) is a very strong advocate of the system of ownership, but he was not able to get inserted in the Bill the whole of the Clause he would have liked to include in it, making the ownership principle an operative part of the measure. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill did put certain words in paragraph (c) of Clause 4 to carry out, as far as he could, what was the wish and intention of the right hon. Member for the Bordesley Division. Therefore, as a matter of fact, the whole Bill is only a small experiment, and I ask, those words having been intentionally put into the Bill, that at least one estate, and not an unfair one, should be tried on the principle of ownership, so that we may be able to see in a practical way whether a colony based upon the ownership principle thrives and prospers better than where the leasehold principle is in force. A great many Members on the other side of the House have shown themselves opposed to this Bill, not for anything that there is in it, but because they have such a rooted objection to anyone holding land at all; they do not like to see the Government purchasing land even for the benefit of our soldiers returned from the War. I am glad to think that the House, as a whole, sees perfectly clearly through their position, and that it will welcome this small measure designed to show the way to something more in future. The House, as a whole, wishes it success, and I believe it is confident that under the Board of Agriculture, which, as I know, is intensely interested in this experiment, it will show itself to be a success, with the result that there will be a demand for a very much larger measure in the very near future.
I think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Acland) is to be congratulated on the efficient way in which he has worn down all opposition, and on the skilful way in which he has conducted a not very easy measure through a certainly rather dangerous course, and brought it safely into port.
Sir HERBERT ROBERTSI should like to associate myself with what the hon. Member has just stated as to the very skil- 2024 ful way in which this Bill has been piloted through the House. We heard a good deal of talk about Scotland and England, and the House will realise that Wales also takes a special interest in this Bill. I should like to say on behalf of my colleagues in the representation of Wales that the arrangement arrived at with regard to the Welsh colonies in the Amendment which was proposed by the Government as the result of an interchange of their views between the Welsh Members and the Government is very satisfactory to them in every way. All we can do in Wales to make the scheme practical and successful will be done.
§ Mr. RAFFANI desire also to associate myself with hon. Members in bearing testimony to the courtesy and fairness with which the right hon. Gentleman has conducted this Bill. It has been suggested that my hon. Friends and myself have been amongst his warmest critics. I do not think so, but if anything we have said seemed to him to be unduly severe I hope he will not object to us bearing our tribute to the manner in which he has conducted the Bill. I rather take exception to the suggestion made in speech after speech that my hon. Friends and myself have been engaged throughout in fighting this Bill. The position on Second Reading was this. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill told us that this was a small measure and that he hoped it would be a self-supporting measure, and that he had promises which enabled him to reassure us on one point which we regarded as specially important, namely, the very high price of land. We understand that he had in some cases offers of land, either practically free, or, at any rate, on extremely favourable terms, and that under those circumstances we might look on the scheme as likely to be a self-supporting scheme. It was a scheme which proposed them to deal with 6,000 acres of land in England, and Wales, and 2,000 acres in Scotland. As we gathered, the right hon. Gentleman, although he was not able to disclose the full plan, had his plans matured with regard to England. That is to say, he had in his mind estates which he could obtain on favourable terms. Under these circumstances our position is what I might call one of benevolent neutrality. If it had been suggested that any measure of this kind was to help to solve the land question or to deal in any way in what was to happen on demobilisation, we should have regarded it as 2025 a perfectly preposterous proposal. But we did not understand that that claim was being put forward. If this was merely a self-supporting experiment to see what could be done where men had the benefit of co-operation, agricultural training, credit banks, and mutual marketing, we had no special objection to the Bill. If hon. Members who have been making attacks upon us will refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT they will find on practically every occasion when we have taken part in the Debates it has been to resist Amendments to the Bill. In some cases, we have supported my right hon. Friends in resisting them. But I regret to say that in our view the Bill emerges on Third Reading in a much more unsatisfactory form than that in which it entered Committee. While I bear my tribute to the courtesy of my right hon. Friend I hope he will forgive me when I say—I am making no personal attack—that I think he has carried his courtesy rather far in meeting practically every claim, however incompatible with the original scheme, made upon him from the other side, while he has turned a deaf ear to proposals from this side of the House which would have helped him to make this experiment what he trusts it to Le—an economic proposal. We were met in regard to valuation, but not in anything else.
12.0 M.
I do not propose to divide against the Third Reading, but I say that in its altered form the Bill is open to many and grave objections. The right hon. Gentleman has made concessions under which the schema ceases to be self-supporting. That being so, what is the value of the experiment? If this was an experiment to show that men may live partly on the land and partly on State assistance, I do not think you need have set up this scheme to establish that. If anybody suggested that wounded soldiers ought to receive recompense or reward in that particular way, we would not be among those who opposed that. That is a totally different thing from saying that you are setting up an experiment for the purpose of seeing whether small holdings will pay or not. The hon. and gallant Member for the Wilton Division (Captain Bathurst), to whose practical experience we all bear tribute, however much we may differ from him on points of economics, says that there never was a time when there was justification for the suggestions which we have repeatedly made, that the real bar in the way of the success of a scheme of this 2026 kind is the high price that has to be paid for agricultural land. That, of course, is not the whole of our contentions. We also say that you cannot have success unless you remove the rates for the improvements and put them on the land. But the hon. and gallant Member deals specifically with that part of the case He says: how can we talk in that way when we have generous offers from the Duke of Sutherland and others? Well, you require under this scheme in England—as apart from Wales—4,500 acres. The generous donor's gift sometimes appears in a shadowy way in the speeches of the hon. Gentleman, yet when we try to get down to close quarters and ascertain whether we can get land at a reasonable market price, the reply is that the hon. Member has a tenant on Crown land and that he expects he may be willing to let us have his farm at the same rent as he is now paying! I do not want to detract from the tribute to the donors of land, but men of that kind are so few that not only can you not get donors of 4,500 acres throughout the whole of England, but apparently you cannot get landowners to come forward with the 4,500 acres for this experiment at a fair market price! When we ask for that our request is resisted and we are told that if we insist on it we are wrecking the Bill! If we are able to get the land at a fair reasonable market price, and the scheme succeeds, what does it prove? It proves—if it succeeds!—that you have been able to deal with 450 men in England, 150 in Wales, and 200 in Scotland. Are you able to deal with 6,000 on the same terms? There is one point which may reasonably be put to the right hon. Gentleman before the Third Reading of the Bill is concluded. Here is a very limited experiment—he has admitted it himself. Is it possible for us to have any estimate of the cost? Has any calculation of any kind been made? What is to be the capital expenditure? What is to be the annual expenditure? Is there to be a profit and loss account? Has he any estimate of any kind he can submit to the House? In an experiment of this kind it would be only fair to this House if some estimate of the kind had been made. If the hon. Member is in negotiation with any particular individual, and the negotiations would be prejudiced by giving us details, surely that would not preclude some estimate being formed.
2027 With regard to Scotland, on the Committee stage we elicited that there is neither scheme, nor plan, nor purpose, nor estimate of expenditure whatever, and it is because we know that in Scotland, again and again, when land has been required for public uses, the landowner has found that the nation's need was his opportunity, that we were so anxious to put a limit of expenditure in this Bill. If this scheme is to succeed in Scotland it could succeed no better than outside one of the great towns of Scotland. If you had your colony immediately outside Glasgow, I am quite sure, if land were obtained on favourable terms, with that great market at the door, the scheme would undoubtedly be made a success. Outside Glasgow there are hundreds of acres of land rated as agricultural land. I would ask the owner for no favour of any kind, but I would ask, him simply to hand over to the State 2,000 acres of land at 25, 30, or even 40 or 100 years' purchase at the rateable value of the land as in the rate-book. Does that seem to be an unreasonable thing to ask if this scheme is to succeed? If there cannot be a reasonable provision like this, how can you go on from scheme to scheme if you have to pay these monopoly prices? I know something of the Scottish land question, and if anyone thinks the land hunger in Scotland is to be finally assuaged by crumbs that fall from ducal tables he is very much mistaken. In Scotland, as in England and Wales, we shall only be able to meet the needs of the men who come back if we are able to deal with the whole question of land monopoly, which is not in any way touched by this Bill. Hon. members for Wales have asked for, and secured, 2,000 acres. I know something from practical experience of the working of small holdings in Wales. Before coming to this House I was chairman of the second largest county council in Wales, and I worked very hard on the passing of the Small Holdings Act to make it a success in that area. I put in a good deal of spade work. I knew the difficulties, but endeavoured to do the best I could. We found there, as elsewhere, that immediately the county council comes in as a purchaser of land, not only do they raise the price of land for themselves, but they raise it for everyone who wants to be a purchaser of the land in that particular locality.
2028 Then, of course, the improvements on a small holding are a very much larger proportion of the total value than on a large holding. That is perfectly familiar. The result of paying a monopoly price for the land is to make the rent about twice as high for the small holder than for the large holder. In addition, he has to pay the extra return on his improvements, and the annual increased rate upon these improvements makes his rates four, five, and six times as high as that of surrounding people. If land is to be acquired under these conditions in Wales, it will be fairly difficult to avoid the same difficulties that we have in all small-holding schemes. The scheme will be waterlogged from the start by the excessive rent which the tenant has to pay and the increase in the rates. The right hon. Gentleman would have been well advised if he had not allowed these cuts into his scheme by reason of which this small limited area cannot be all retained for the purpose of the experiment outlined in the Verney Report, He has yielded to pressure from the other side, and now even a portion of this limited acreage may be given up to co-partnership and co-operative societies, who may take over the whole of the colony or bits of it. Then, in addition, he has agreed to the selling of portions of the land to the tenants. If that is done, these two or three smallholding colonies of 4,000 or 5,000 acres will shrink and shrink until the scheme will not get anything like a fair chance at all. We have taken exception to these alterations which have been made, and now the scheme goes forward hopelessly handicapped, as I think, from the very start, and it will be of little use even as an experiment. At any rate, so far as we are concerned, we do not at this stage record any voice or protest against it, but we say that it does not have any chance of proving a settlement of the land question as a whole, or even of the problem of finding an opportunity for the men who are returning from the front to settle upon the land. You may try experiment after experiment, and you may yield to one voice after another advocating one suggestion after another in this House, but unless you are prepared to deal drastically with the whole question of land monopoly, and to see that an opportunity is provided through economic influences of getting access to the land, and unless you lift the rates off improvements and put them upon land values, all your experiments are 2029 bound to fail, and in the long run it will be necessary to grapple with this problem fundamentally.
§ Mr. ACLANDI have to thank hon. Members for their kindness to myself and for their consideration in allowing us to obtain the Third Reading of the Bill, in spite of the consuming interest which they have in questions other than those with which the Bill deals. I am myself going to fall a victim to the temptation of referring to one of these slightly irrelevant questions. I am not going to quote Tiberius Gracchus, but with regard to the offer of the Duke of Sutherland, I should like to quote this week's "Punch," to the effect that now that this Bill is passing he might "bite" some of the other landowners in England and Scotland. We should be very much indebted to them if they would make equally generous offers of land for the purpose of this Bill as that which he has made. With regard to what hon. Members have said as to conducting the Bill, the passage of it in its later stages has been helped by presence of body rather than by presence of mind in dealing with questions which have arisen. I am glad that it is passing, as I honestly believe it will lead to a really useful piece of land settlement work. I have one regret, and that 2030 I is that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. Jesse Collings), whom we were so glad to see here day after day, did not have an opportunity of moving the Amendment which so long stood upon the Order Paper in his name. There is one person whom I should like to congratulate on the Bill passing, and that is the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for North Buckinghamshire (Sir Harry Verney), from the Report of whose Committee—it was an exceedingly fine piece of work—the Bill takes its rise. In the speech which I made on the Second Reading of the Bill my hon. Friend will find the financial estimate for which he asks.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read the third time, and passed.
§ The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.
§ It being after Half-past Eleven of the clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at Twelve minutes after Twelve o'clock.