General Summary of Holdings and Rentals.

Hence it would seem that instead of the 30,000 persons or less who were proprietors of the soil of the United Kingdom, as estimated by Mr. John Stuart Mill and Mr. Bright, and instead of the "ten times as many" guessed at by the Earl of Derby, on whose suggestion the Land Returns were ordered, chiefly, if not entirely, to settle the point in dispute, we have no fewer than 1,173,724 "owners of land" in the Three Kingdoms, holding 72,119,961 acres, and having a gross estimated rental of £131,470,360, exclusive of such parts of the counties of Kent, Middlesex, and Surrey as are included in the "Metropolis," an exclusion which very much resembles that of "Hamlet" from the play, and is the more anomalous, seeing that, whilst we have no information as to the holdings and rentals of Dukes, Earls, Viscounts, and other magnates, who have become virtually the owners of a great part of the "Metropolis," such diligence has been shown in raking together the holders of minute portions of land in all other parts of the Three Kingdoms. For how is the list made up? Leaseholders are reckoned as owners, if their leases are reputed to be for 99 years, which (as Mr. Kay, Q.C., remarked) was very like calling hired horses the same as owned horses. Ecclesiastical Commissioners, Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, who and which hold land in almost every county, are counted as so many single owners; "Crown Property " also swells the list; War Office and other Departments figure for many separate counties; each Railway Company (the sums set opposite to which represent not "rental " but rated traffic) is counted according to the number of counties through which its lines may pass; and hosts of Almshouse, Asylum, Charity, Poor, and other Trustees, Churchwardens, parish and police officers, &c., none of whom come under the description of "owners of land" as officially defined.

The extent of Commons and Waste Lands is so untruthfully stated in the Return as of itself to form an impeachment of the whole of the figures (see next page but one). Also the vast area of woods, plantations, wastes, and unenclosed commons over which Manorial rights extend, is not added to the estates of the great owners, or at all noticed in the Return.

Results still more extraordinary than the multiplication of "owners" may be extracted from the foregoing General Summary. For example, of the reputed 1,173,724 "owners of land" (including, by the way, 6,459 who have no acres, and 124 who have no rental) 852,438 have less than an acre each, and only 188,413 acres in the aggregate; but their "gross rental" is estimated at £36,294,173, which is £14,936,517 more than 252,725 persons with 4,910,723 acres receive; £10,198,891 more than 51,090 with 15,133,057 acres page 126 receive; and only £8,586,880 less than 10,888 holders of 51,885,118 acres receive. Of course the explanation as to the enormous sum set down for the fractional acre people must be that it is not rental, but the rated value of factories, workshops, houses, and other buildings which have little or no land beyond that on which they stand. Of the 6,459 "owners of land" who are not credited with any land, but who are said to have a "gross rental" of £2,842,191, there are 59 in Lancashire, whose "gross estimated rental" amounts to £214,878. On the other hand there are great numbers of persons who must be very clever managers indeed, seeing that they contrive to extract very large rentals from very small fractions of land. In the Financial Reformer for May, 1876, we published a list of 222 of them in Lancashire, holding altogether 534 acres, and credited with "gross rental" of £283,130-an average of about 2¼ acres, and "rental" of £1,050 for each, which would be an average of £466 13s. 4d. per acre!

A question of great importance, which has attracted but little attention, if any at all worth mentioning, is the necessity for a re-valuation of the landed and other real property of the country, conducted on a system widely different from that on which this modern "Domesday Book" was concocted; and again, in reference to assessments to the House Duty. The list of holders of 5,000 acres and upwards, in one or more lots, having been enlarged by the late Mr. Macqueen so as to show, in each instance, extent and rental separately, the vast disparity between them suggested to him the probability that fraud on the revenue might thus have been perpetrated, and wrong inflicted on millions of the landless people. Accordingly, with great labour, he set about a thorough analysis of the list, including the whole United Kingdom, and the result is here presented.

The totals do not exactly correspond with those in the other summary, but they come sufficiently near for the purpose. To arrive at this classification every holding, large and small, was taken out separately, and calculated, according to the rate of letting, to produce the rental specified. Of the items constituting Class 1, 1,534,377 acres thus appear to be let for less than sixpence an acre, the average being only twopence and about the thousandth part of a farthing per acre; 1,534,880 acres more to be between sixpence and a shilling, average 10¼d.; 3,087,474 acres more at between one and two shillings per acre, average 1s. 5¾d.; 3,407,108 acres, average 2s. 4¼d.; 1,901,690 acres, average 3s. 4¾d.; and 1,524,156 acres with average of 4s. 7½d. per acre,—the whole making up the totals stated in the first line of the above classification. Making every allowance for mountain, flood, forest, and bog and waste land of every kind, it is quite impossible to believe that more than a third part of the 38,675,977 acres at the foot of the first column is let at rates under five shillings, and more than half under ten shillings an acre. The fact that it appears to be so suffices to show the necessity for such a thorough revision of the "Domesday Book" as is above recommended.

Nevertheless these "Domesday" returns, although of "no authority," and "a mere compilation from the ratebooks" (as Mr. Sclater-Booth, President of the Local Government Board, under whose auspices they were compiled, told the House of Commons), serve to demonstrate two very striking, if not startling, facts,— 1st. That landed and other real property must be most grossly under valued in the ratebooks, especially in the case of great and rich owners in the country districts, who have persons anxious to please them on the assessment boards.^* 2ndly, that 2s. in the pound on the income attributed to 955 individuals, who hold over 10,000 acres each, would produce £1,789,933, which is £727,000 more than the yield of the Land Tax of four shillings in the pound on what is still called in the statute-book "the full annual rack-rent value" of the whole land of the kingdom, in the financial year 1883-4. This, too, "exclusive of the metropolis," from large possessions in which the Dukes of Bedford, Norfolk, and Westminster; the Marquises of Camden, Northampton, and Salisbury; Earls Cadogan, Craven, Dartmouth, and Somers; Lords Kensington and Portman, many commoners, the City Corporation, and the City Companies, derive princely revenues. Nevertheless, the landed nobility and gentry, who, according to Richard Cobden and according to fact, have "robbed and bamboozled the people for ages," still complain of being heavily and unfairly burdened in the matter of taxation; and, having succeeded in throwing many charges to which they themselves were properly liable on the public generally, i.e., on the Imperial Exchequer, are now clamouring to do the like with other and heavier items.

It is to be hoped that exposure may serve to check this leech-like disposition of theirs, or, at all events, to prevent its further gratification; to call public attention efficiently to the need there is for a reform of laws relating to land, eminently calculated, as they were obviously intended, to make and perpetuate its possession a monopoly in the hands of as few individuals as possible; and also to the necessity of a thorough revision of the Land Tax.