Landholder

“ In our metropolis, again, and every town which has been very rapidly extending, there are landholders whose property has been augmenting in value fourfold, twentyfold, in some cases an hundredfold, by the influx of population, which has caused land to be measured, and let, and sold by the inch instead of the acre. ”

“ The landholders to have the use and profits of all the grounds until the city is laid off into lots, and sale is made of those lots, which, by this agreement, become public property. Nothing is to be allowed for the ground which may be occupied as streets or alleys.'
Subsequently, in order to carry out the agreement, the lot owners conveyed their lands to trustees. ”

“ The notice is clearly given to allow a re-valuation to be made; and when the new rents are arranged, it is expected that leases will then be granted, though it is plain to be seen that all the increased prosperity that the prosperity of recent years of the coal and iron industries have caused to farming, may thus be secured to the landholder; and the farmers, with or without leases, but with higher rents, may be left to bear alone the ebb of the tide that is evidently on the turn ”

“ By the acquisition in full property of the quantity of land fixed the peasants will become free from their obligations toward the proprietors for land thus purchased, and they will enter definitively into the condition of free peasants, or landholders. A transitory state is fixed for the domestics, adapted to their callings, and to the exigencies of their position. ”

“ What is, essentially, a farm-lease? It is a contract by which the proprietor yields to a tenant possession of his land, in consideration of a portion of that which it yields him, the proprietor. If, in consequence of an increase in his household, the tenant becomes ten times as strong as the proprietor, he will produce ten times as much. Would the proprietor in such a case be justified in raising the farm-rent tenfold? His right is not, The more you produce, the more I demand. It is, The more I sacrifice, the more I demand. ”

“ According to this high philosophy, the landowner is taught to look upon his land as a mere article of commerce, and that the great question with him ought to be to discover how, with the least possible outlay, he can raise from it the greatest possible revenue. To examine into the condition of the cottages upon the estate—to build new ones, and to improve the old—to do this personally, or, as that may be impossible, to order it to be done by some competent and responsible party—all this seems out of his department as the owner of the land and the recipient of the rent. ”

“ For what is no one’s property is no one’s pride. The landlord gives the land, and the capital, or cheptel—which comprises the stock and barns, etc.; an inventory of these is taken when a tenant enters into possession, and he is compelled to keep them in repair. On his side, the peasant gives his work. And the harvest is divided, either in kind—grain, wine, olives, cattle, at the time of their maturity—or more often in money, when the peasant brings to his landlord half of the profits after the fair or market at which he has sold the produce. ”

“ The true theory of landholding should be that the State should be the only freeholder, all other tenures being limited in character; and cultivation ought to be a special condition of tenancy.... The holder of land should either cultivate it with his own hands, or, as would be most frequently the case, by the hands of others; but in the latter case, the landed proprietor is bound to allow the agricultural laborer to live by his labor. ”

“ The land agent naturally resides as a rule in the vicinity of the estate. Therefore he knows everybody by name; knows all about the incumbrances, the resources of every tenant, the length and breadth of every field, the price of produce, the probable value of the harvest; all the threads are in his hands; the landlord counts upon him, approves everything he does, upholds his rigours, and submits to his tolerance. Is he not himself at his mercy? The agent keeps all his deeds of property ”

“ It is to give the soil its value every year; it is, by annually renewed creation, to prevent the diminution or destruction of the value of a piece of land. Admitting, then, that property is rational and legitimate,—admitting that rent is equitable and just,—I say that he who cultivates acquires property by as good a title as he who clears, or he who improves; and that every time a tenant pays his rent, he obtains a fraction of property in the land entrusted to his care, the denominator of which is equal to the proportion of rent paid. ”

“ That act provides that an owner of a large estate may sell to his tenants the holdings they occupy, and his untenanted land to any one who desires to buy it, in such tracts and at such prices as may be agreed upon, corresponding to the income now derived from that particular property. No landlord can sell a few acres here and there of good land under this act, although, of course, he is at liberty to dispose of any part of his estate at any time at any price that he may consider proper. ”

“ Landowners frequently cultivated their land themselves but might employ a husbandman or let it. The husbandman was bound to carry out the proper cultivation, raise an average crop and leave the field in good tilth. In case the crop failed the Code fixed a statutory return. Land might be let at a fixed rent when the Code enacted that accidental loss fell on the tenant. If let on share-profit, the landlord and tenant shared the loss proportionately to their stipulated share of profit. ”

“ Tenants, I say, and at long lease, if they behave well: with power eventually to purchase the piece of land they live on for themselves, if they can save the price of it; the rent they pay, meanwhile, being the tithe of the annual produce, to St. George’s fund. The modes of the cultivation of the land are to be under the control of the overseer of the whole estate, appointed by the Trustees of the fund; but the tenants shall build their own houses to their own minds, under certain conditions as to materials and strength ”

“ Most of those found among family papers are of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and refer to small pieces of land or cottages, showing that even then the small owners became involved in debts and difficulties, being obliged to raise money upon their holdings, until finally the land itself had to be sold to satisfy the demands of the creditors, the purchaser usually being the nearest large landed proprietor, who paid a better price for what would join on to and complete the area of his estate. ”

“ His opinion confirmed my own, nor must I forget to mention that this estate was to be purchased without money as it was offered on its own security in mortgage.
In the enclosure of this immense waste, called forest, there were two allotments purchased by the proprietors, one of 1,638 acres, and another of 1,113, in all 2,751 acres, which were a copyhold tenure, at a small fine certain. In addition to which they hired, at the same time, on a long lease, 1,614 acres more, being an allotment to the King, at a rent of 50l. in money, and 50l. to be laid out on improvements. ”

“ A smallholder rented land of about 30 acres from a landlord, which he paid by doing work on the lord's demesne [land held by the one lowest in the scale of holding who has a general right of doing with it what he pleases] land, paying money rent, or paying a food rent such as in eggs or chickens. Smallholders made up about two fifths of the population. A cottager had one to five acres of land and depended on others for his living. ”

“ The interest accruing from the funded property or the rent of the lands at certain periods was to be employed to purchase other estates, other parks and manors in the neighbourhood or farther off, so that the prospect of the future demesne that was to devolve at some distant time to the unborn lord of acres, swelled and enlarged itself, like a sea, circle without circle, vista beyond vista, till the imagination was staggered, and the mind exhausted. ”

“ It has, accordingly, been solemnly proposed in the Legislature of New York, that the statute of descents should be so far altered, that when a landlord, holding lands subject to certain leasehold tenures, dies, or a descent is cast, that it shall be lawful for the tenants, on application to the chancellor, to convert these leasehold tenures into mortgages, and to obtain the fee-simple of the estates in payment of the debt! In other words, A leases a farm to B forever, reserving a ground-rent, with covenants of re-entry, etc., etc. ”

“ This, however, is as unreasonable as that a tenant should complain that in paying rent he is not on an equality with the proprietor in fee. The sale of crown lands is merely the transference of a beneficial lease. ”

“ General saving of rights.60.—Except as in this Act expressed, nothing in this Act shall take away, abridge, or prejudicially affect any power, right, or remedy of a landlord, tenant, or other person, vested in or exerciseable by him by virtue of any other Act or law, or under any custom of the country, or otherwise, in respect of a contract of tenancy or other contract, or of any improvement, waste, emblements, tillages, away-going crops, fixtures, tax, rate, tithe-rentcharge, rent, or other thing. ”

“ Whether these taluqdars recognize their duties to the com- monwealth and their tenants may be almost doubted. They would seem to spend but little in improving their estates, little in promoting the comfort or happiness of the numerous classes of labourers who till their lands. If a mud well is to be dug, it is the tenant that finds the capital. If seed grain is to be purchased, it is the landlord perhaps will who aupply the money, but at a rate of interest of 25 or 36 per cent. ”

“ In 161some instances the proprietor has himself subdivided his land into small holdings of five, ten, or fifteen acres, with a view of increasing his rent-roll, or adding to his political influence. In other cases the land has been let on lease to a single tenant on lives, or for a term of years, or both conjointly; and he has sublet to others, who have again gone on dividing and subletting, until the original proprietor is almost lost sight of, and the original holding is parcelled out among a host of small occupiers. ”

“ I hereby bind myself, my heirs and successors, to give you the said land free of any quit rent for three years from this date, as also to procure you a patent for the same at your expense, upon your having done the settlement duties and your granting me a [Pg 25] mortgage upon said lands, that you will yearly thereafter pay to me, my heirs and successors for ever one bushel of wheat or Indian corn, or oats of like value, for every cleared acre upon the said Lot of Land in name of Quit Rent for the same, in month of January in each year. ”

“ These buildings are as distinct a thing from the farm as the stock or the timber on it; and what is paid for them can no more be called rent of land, than a payment for cattle would be, if it were the custom that the landlord should stock the farm for the tenant. The buildings, like the cattle, are not land, but capital, regularly consumed and reproduced ”

“ When the owner has gone south, and parties here hold liens on the property and are collecting the rents to satisfy their liens?
Answer. The rent of a house can only be mortgaged to a person in possession. If a loyal tenant be in possession and claim the rent from himself as due to himself on some other debt, allow it; but, if not in actual possession of the property, rents are not good liens for a debt, but must be paid to the quartermaster. ”

“ Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. ”

“ There remain the following alternatives: land may be rented for a fixed sum of 66 money per acre, to be paid when the crops are sold, or for a fixed quantity of produce, so many bushels of corn or so many pounds of cotton being paid for every acre; or, more commonly, land may be rented on some form of share tenancy by which the risk as well as the profit is shared by both tenant and landowner. ”

“ The landlord owns the ground, and puts a considerable amount of capital into it, as a rule erecting the buildings and paying for the material in all improvements; the farmer also puts a large quantity of capital into the land and superintends its cultivation; the labourer does the actual bodily work. ”

“ An inventor or an author has, therefore, a better claim to payment for his work than a landlord has to payment for the use of the land he calls his. Now, how does the law act towards these men?
The landlord may call the land his all the days of his life, and at his death may bequeath it to his heirs. For a thousand years the owners of an estate may charge rent for it, and at the end of the thousand years the estate will still be theirs, and the rent will still be running on and growing ever larger and larger. ”

“ With my own land I can do as I like; if I hire land from the neighbouring proprietor, who knows whether, at the end of the term, he may not raise the rent or refuse to renew the contract at any price? ”

“ These are the reasons which form the justification in an economical point of view, of property in land. It is seen, that they are only valid, in so far as the proprietor of land is its improver. Whenever, in any country, the proprietor, generally speaking, ceases to be the improver, political economy has nothing to say in defence of landed property, as there established. In no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it. ”