Land reform

“ We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land. ”

“ We speak to our farming communities who had long been disenchanted by slogans promising land and progress and who, at last, under the 1972 program of land reform now have their own lands to till but also need the continuing assistance of their government to attain both advancement in their lives and growth in their communities. ”

“ The holders of agricultural land, at least those who are willing to sell—and many of them are even now most anxious to do so—will welcome the extension of an experiment which promises to place English agriculture once again in a position of prosperity: the holders of city lands will, so far as their merely selfish interests prevail, greatly fear it. In this way, landowners throughout the country will be divided into two opposing factions, and the path of land reform—the foundation on which all other reforms must be built—will be made comparatively easy. ”

“ Having passed successfully through the crucial period of transition from a controlled economy to free enterprise, it is time that decisive action be taken to effect the now long-delayed land reform. Land being our most valuable resources, salutary changes is imperative in the land system. Our agricultural productivity has tended to be static; farm incomes have re­mained below subsistence level. ”

“ Most of the land-reform programs, beginning with those of the extreme conservatives, laissez-faire theorists of various schools, and ending with those of the extreme radicals, anarchists, and socialists of various leanings, are primarily concerned with the question of land ownership. ”

“ The money will be used for land reform operations and to boost agricultural productivity in land reform areas.
As a corollary to the leasehold system and eventual land ownership, we have slopped up our resettlement program. We consider it our prime social responsibility to provide land to those displaced by urban and industrial development. ”

“ A special land reform fund, consisting of 50 per cent of the proceeds from the specific taxes on distilled spirits, wines and fermented liquors, and to be administered by the National Land Reform Council.
This fund shall be used exclusively to hasten the implementation of the land reform program of the government as embodied in the Land Reform Code. Among others, the fund will be utilized for the (a) acquisition and expropriation of private landed estates: (b) survey and subdivision of lands into capability survey; and (c) provision of infrastructure needs of land reform areas. ”

“ Fourth, that a bill be enacted to effect land reform, includ­ing the abolition of tenancy and assistance to farm laborers or wage-earners, the free settlers of public land and farmers owning private land of less than family size. ”

“ This fact not only reflects our intensified efforts in public land distribution but also attests to a significant advance in land reform. It means that we are setting up thousands of small independent farmers on land of their own, with the opportunity to work out a decent living for themselves and their families. ”

“ To fight poverty, agricultural modernization will be socially equitable. We shall redeem in earnest the promise of land reform, a commitment that spans several presidents. Isa pa itong pangakong hindi dapat mapako. ”

“ Whereas, among such objectives is to achieve dignified existence for the small farmers free from the pernicious institutional restrains and practices which have not only retarded the agricultural development of the country but have also produced widespread discontent and unrest among our farmers, one of the causes of the existing national emergency; and
Whereas, it is believed that the lasting objectives of land reform may be sooner realized if the whole country is declared a land reform area ”

“ That reform of the land laws, that abolition of the present system of entail, together with just facilities for the transfer of land, is absolutely necessary in order to do anything like common justice to those who inhabit the rural parts of this country, and whom, instead of seeing them, as we now see the, dwindle from one census to another, I, for my part, and I believe you, along with me, would heartily desire to see maintained, not in their present number only, but in increasing numbers over the whole surface of the land. ”

“ Improve equal access, by men and women, to land and other natural and productive resources, in particular, where necessary, through the effective implementation of land reform and the promotion of efficient utilization of natural and agricultural resources and resettlement on new lands, where feasible ”

“ Land consolidation projects will be undertaken by the Department of Agra­rian Reform on acquired private agricultural landed estates to maximize the utilization of farm lands and to generate increase in productivity at the lowest production cost. Under this scheme, a number of irrigation projects and infra­structure facilities will be constructed. ”

“ Land Reforms — In the implementation of our established policy of giving land to the landless, the Government issued during the last four years more than 162,219 patents as compared to only 25,440 during the administration that ended December 30, 1953. ”

“ Now my theory and belief is, and always has been, that the public lands should be given to those who will cultivate and improve them—actual settlers who will make for themselves and their descendants a home—and not throw this munificent gift of the National domain into the hands of land-sharks and speculators. Every person taking a claim, and those now holding claims under any of the different acts of Congress, should occupy and cultivate such lands according to the spirit and intent of the laws granting them the same. ”

“ What more absurd disposition of our timber land could have been made than the laws under which it has passed to private hands? The Homestead and Preemption acts, framed for prairies, requiring the settler to live on and cultivate the soil, have been extended to our forests, and to comply with their terms, thousands of men have withdrawn from vocations by which they were increasing the wealth of the Nation, and with blankets and provisions strapped on their backs and axe and compass in hand have worked their weary way through the pathless forests to vacant Government lands, on which they filed. ”

“ To revert to the parallel of the disposition of land made by the owner of an estate, who certainly would not place his kitchen - garden in the loveliest part of his park, do not let the Nation surrender forest or hillside, but, preserving them intact, apportion for purposes of cultivation the less beautiful, flatter, and probably more productive ground. Let the public watch how many of the schemes brought forward relate to regulation, not inclosure. ”

“ Giving up the plan of using these lands for ever as a fund either for revenue or distribution—ceasing to hug them as a great treasure—renouncing the idea of administering them with a view to regulate and control the industry and population of the states, or of keeping in subjection and dependence the states, or the people of any portion of the union, the task will be comparatively easy of striking out a plan for the final adjustment of the land question on just and equitable principles. ”

“ The right of all men to participate in the benefits of the soil by the State ownership thereof can be claimed from the fact that land is a natural agent, and that the value of land arises from, and is maintained by, the aggregation of population and the exercise of industry by a people. (Cheers.) The value thus imparted belongs to the people, and not to an individual or a class. That a national land system would be the best for society and good government is self-evident. ”

“ I particularly direct your attention to the very practical plans which the Secretary of the Interior has developed in his annual report and before your Committees for the reclamation of arid, swamp, and cutover lands which might, if the States were willing and able to cooperate, redeem some three hundred million acres of land for cultivation. There are said to be fifteen or twenty million acres of land in the West, at present arid, for whose reclamation water is available, if properly conserved. ”

“ The arid plains of the Great West have the richest of known soils, if a little human sweat mixed with water in sufficient quantity could be kneaded into it. Government as the lord paramount of its domain, should force the growing of trees and should prevent the destruction of timber wherever the same is necessary to keep up or improve the land. It has parted with the title to the soil, but still retains the power to use it for its own support. ”

“ Considering that the productive properties of the soil are the prime materials of all products, the prime source of all means of production, and of all desirable things that cost no labour;
The Congress thinks that the economical development of modern society will create the social necessity of converting arable land into the common property of society, and of letting the soil on behalf of the state to agricultural companies under conditions analagous to those stated in regard to mines and railways. ”

“ Let our government instead take over all private, state, or federal unproductive lands, whether it is fertile, arid or marsh. Statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Agriculture Economics on federal rural lands, on page 7, shows that the federal lands, swamps and marshes are 3,000,000 acres, barren and brush land 40,000,000 acres, non-forested range land 234,000,000 acres, crop land 4,000,000 acres ”

“ Then would the resumption of land as common property in nowise interfere with the proper use and improvement of land.
What is necessary for the use of land is not its private ownership, but the security of improvements. It is not necessary to say to a man, “this land is yours,” in order to induce him to cultivate or improve it. It is only necessary to say to him, “whatever your labor or capital produces on this land shall be yours.” Give a man security that he may reap, and he will sow; assure him of the possession of the house he wants to build, and he will build it. ”

“ Just as one example, we know that a very hopeful and immediate means of relief, both for the unemployed and for agriculture, will come from a wide plan of the converting of many millions of acres of marginal and unused land into timberland through reforestation. There are tens of millions of acres east of the Mississippi River alone in abandoned farms, in cut-over land, now growing up in worthless brush. Why, every European Nation has a definite land policy, and has had one for generations. ”

“ While it is desirable that desert lands should be reclaimed for agricultural purposes by irrigation, and that proper encouragement be offered to that end, a wise regard for the public interests does not permit, wherever there is public land capable of successful cultivation in small farms, and of thus furnishing homesteads for people of limited means, that extraordinary facilities should be given to the capitalist to acquire such land for the formation of large estates. ”

“ The present system which treats land as private property and prevents free access to it, hampers industry, checks production, crowds the towns by depopulating the countryside, obstructs the provision of good housing, lowers the standard of public health both physical and moral; this Conference strongly urges the Government to bring forward, as early as possible, some scheme for the nationalization of land so as to abolish the present unjust system of land ownership and land leasing. ”

“ While there was plenty of land for every man or woman who wanted a home on the soil, it made little difference if single landlords or companies got possession of millions of acres, if a hundred men in one western river valley owned 17,000,000 acres; but when the good land for small homesteads was all gone, then was raised the real issue. At the opening of the twentieth century the nation, which a hundred years before had land and natural resources apparently without limit, was compelled to enact law after law conserving its forests and minerals. ”

“ The land for the people, first of all. As clear as daylight was the right of the people to the land: let the State assume possession, and manage it—its mines and minerals, its agriculture, its public grounds and parks—for the benefit of all, not for the profit of a pampered few. ”

“ Article 44 For the purpose of securing a rational exploitation of the soil and to establish equity in social relationships, the law imposes obligations and constraints on private ownership of land, fixes limitations to the extension thereof according to region and agricultural zone, encourages and imposes land reclamation, the transformation of large estates and the reorganization of productive units, assists small and medium-sized holdings. The law makes provisions in favour of mountainous areas. ”

“ The best use of the public grazing lands requires the careful examination and classification of these lands in order to give each settler land enough to support his family and no more. While this work is being done, and until the lands are settled, the Government should take control of the open range, under reasonable regulations suited to local needs, following the general policy already in successful operation on the forest reserves. ”

“ Especial attention was called to the prevention of settlement by the passage of great areas of public land into the hands of a few men, and to the enormous waste caused by unrestricted grazing upon the open range. The recommendations of the Public Lands Commission are sound, for they are especially in the interest of the actual homemaker; and where the small home-maker can not at present utilize the land they provide that the Government shall keep control of it so that it may not be monopolized by a few men. ”

“ And since a great number of the Western farmers had simply taken up their lands, before they were thrown open to sale, and made improvements on them without procuring titles, they feared the enforcement of the federal law against them and clamored for a preëmption system which would secure them their land, when the day of sales did come, at the minimum price, $1.25 per acre. A still better plan was already strongly urged, the free gift of small tracts of land to all who would go West and build homes. ”