268 LAND
not have been started had it not been for the spectacle of the enormous fortunes accruing to those who have had the good luck to inherit or to purchase land useful for building purposes. If limited to such cases, the principle of the right of the community to resume the benefit arising from its own concentration in particular spots may be supported by different and very good reasons, due regard being had to the reimbursement to the private owner of all sums actually expended by him in purchase or building.
Mineral wealth.
The right of the public to mineral wealth under the soil stands on as clear a footing. By the common law gold and silver mines belong to the crown, no matter who is the owner of the soil. The principle obviously applies equally to all minerals. They are a part of the co intry itself, not merely material from which profit can be extracted, and when they are gone they cannot be replaced. As the law forbids the selling of land to foreigners, it might with equal justice forbid the selling of coal for foreign exporta tion. The discovery of valuable minerals is often due to mere accident, and they resemble treasure-trove, which by law belongs to the crown. Nor would difficulty arise in working mines by crown lessees or under crown superin tendence. Where they already are worked it would be right to pay the estimated value to the private owner, since hitherto they have been deemed subject of private property, but all future increase or all new discoveries might justly be held to belong to the nation, without compensation to the owner of the surface who had no knowledge of their existence.
Regulation of distribution of land.
Approaching now the question how the state without actual resumption of the land may so regulate its possession as to encourage the maximum production from it, we are in the beginning met with the dispute between the advocates of large and small estates, the former cultivated by tenants, the latter by the owners. But we may first disembarrass this question from one source of confusion. Large estates are never cultivated in a block. They are invariably broken up into farms, sometimes indeed extend ing to several thousand acres, but far more generally ranging between the limits of 500 and 50 acres. Below 100 acres the tenant is usually himself the cultivator, with more or less assistance, and below 50 acres lie will seldom require any assistance outside his own family. Now, as there is no advantage accruing from one landlord holding a number of such farms, we may state the question as regards cultivation as not being between large and small estates, but as being between farms of which the tenant does the work and those in which he only superintends the work of others.
Advantages of small farms.
Thus stated, the answer admits of no dispute. It has been already discussed in the article AGRICULTURE; but it may suffice to advert here to the conclusive argument derived from the superior efficacy and therefore cheapness and productiveness of the labour given by a man in working entirely for his own behoof, as compared with that which he pays others to do for him. It would scarcely be too much to say that capital in the form of personal labour will yield twice the return of capital employed in hired labour. It applies not merely to the man but to his wife, sons, and daughters, and not only to the actual amount of work done, but to the zeal and care with which it is directed.
Against this advantage on the part of the small cultivator there is only to be set in favour of the large that he can better employ machinery. But, though he may be the first, he is not necessarily the only one to employ machinery. Reaping and mowing machines may be (and often are) employed on the smallest holdings; threshing machines are now made to be worked by hand or by one or two horses; even steam-engines are made with power down to one horse
or half a horse. These very small machines are slightly more wasteful of coal for the power they give out; but on a small scale this is quite inappreciable, and is far more than balanced by the greater economy induced by their being driven by the owner himself. A very elementary resort to combination among small cultivators affords them in any case the same advantages as the large cultivator. Their energy and aptitude are not less, and with the advance of education may be directed with the same knowledge. Most persons connected with land know of many instances in which even at present the small cultivator is as advanced in his scientific practice as the larger. It is generally admitted that daring the recent disastrous seasons the smaller farmers have been better able to meet their engagements than the larger. The reason is, not merely that their outlay is smaller in cost of labour, but that by close attention and the power of availing themselves of every opportunity they have suffered less actual loss than the farmer on a more extensive scale.
It is of course understood that, to enable a farmer of a small acreage to produce the same result as a larger holder, he must have the same advantages provided to him by investment of owner's capital. He needs the same buildings for farm purposes, the same drains and fences, in proportion to his extent of farm. But he does not need more; and, as his own house is only an equivalent for the labourer's cottage, which must in any case be provided, there is the saving of the more expensive residence which a farmer cultivating several hundred acres thinks himself entitled to. Again, the tenant's capital invested must also be as much in the one case as in the other. The small tenant ought to have as much and as good stock on the farm in proportion to its extent as the large. But he saves much capital in the item of wages, because, till profits come in, his own labour costs him only his own food, and even the rent of his house is postponed, so that it is probable that he will be able to spend on the land a capital larger in proportion than the extensive farmer at a greatly less actual outlay of money Those who argue that the capital invested by the larger tenants is greater than that invested by the small cultivator forget that capital in agriculture must be measure! not solely by expenditure of money but in a great measure by expenditure of labour to which a whole family may cheaply but effectively contribute.
Joint interest of landlord and tenant.
The importance of encouraging investment of capital forms perhaps the main argument in favour of the system of cultivation by the joint interests of landlord and tenant. In this combination the landlord furnishes the land and (in Scotland always, in England frequently) the buildings, &c. The tenant's capital is therefore limited in its applica tion to operations of tillage and manuring. The landlord's contribution is commonly estimated at five-sixths, the tenant's at one-sixth of the total capital employed, and while the landlord's yields less than 3 per cent. interest, the tenant's has, by Mr Caird, been estimated as bringing in 10 per cent. per annum. This, however, on an average of years and of farmers is probably too high an estimate. The conclu sion, however, is drawn that the system is beneficial to the farmer because the capital required for permanent invest ment is advanced by the landlord at a low rate of interest, while the whole of the tenant's capital is invested at a high rate of interest. But in this argument it seems to be for gotten that the tenant's 10 per cent. includes not merely interest on capital subject to risk, but salary for time and skill, and is, therefore, not really 10 per cent. on capital. Now, undoubtedly, if any one desires to risk his whole capital in trade, he is entitled to at least 10 per cent. on it, and he makes, while prosperous, a large income. But if ha prefers to invest five-sixths of it in a secure invest ment, yielding only 3 per cent., and to risk only one-sixth,
