270 LAND
Mortgages objectionable.
In any view of ownership, however, whether on a large or small scale, it is obviously of prime importance that the owner should be possessed of cash sufficient to make the improvements required. This is a situation in which an owner who is already in debt cannot possibly be. To hold land subject to a mortgage is, therefore, to hold it under conditions disadvantageous to the owner, the tenant, and the nation. The evil is intensified by the fact that an owner so burdened possesses an apparent estate far in excess of his real means, and occupies a social station involving an expenditure that exhausts his resources in every way. It would be greatly for his pecuniary advantage if the law were such as would compel him to sell sufficient land to pay off his debts, for he would thus relieve himself of interest at the rate of 4 to 5 per cent. by selling property which gives only 2 or 2½ per cent. on the price that would be obtained. His net income would then not only be greater, but as his apparent estate would be smaller he would not be tempted to live in so expensive a style, and he would thus have the means of gaining larger returns from his property by improving it. It has, there fore, been proposed to abolish mortgages by prohibiting land from being made security for special debts. It would then form part of the general assets of the owner, liable equally for all his debts; and any one who desired to raise money would practically be obliged to do it by sale instead of by pledge. Land would be confined to its proper purpose as a means of production, instead of being injured for that purpose by being used as a means of credit.
Life interests objectionable.
The same principle forbids that life interests in land should be permitted. The mere tenant for life or holder under settlement or entail has actually in frequent instances a motive against cultivating his estate to the best advantage. If he is not on good terms with the next in succession, or if, as so often happens, the next successor is a distant relative, while the present tenant has only daughters, his motive, and often indeed his duty, must be to impoverish the estate in order to save money for those whom he loves best. In a less degree, if he has a large family, he must save money out of the rents of the estate to provide for his younger children, and he is correspondingly disinclined to lay out money on improvements which must accrue only to the benefit of his eldest son.
All these considerations are equally applicable to small as to large estates in land. It is as injurious to the peasant cultivator as to the extensive landowner to be hampered by a burden of debt, or to be deprived of the power of directing who shall be his successor. In France, in Germany, in Switzerland, in America, and in India, indebtedness is the great curse of the small farmer. The money-lender is a far harder master than the landlord, for he has less mercy and less interest in being merciful.
Devotion of land to purposes of luxury.
It has been assumed throughout these observations that land is to be applied to its natural use, the production of the materials of food and clothing. In the hands of rich persons it is, however, sometimes devoted to purposes of luxury and enjoyment, such as the formation of large parks, game preserves, and deer forests. Within moderate limits such purposes may be defended on the plea that man does not live by bread alone but by all the enjoyments which he is framed for appreciating, and which in moderation contribute to mental health. But they are most defensible when open to the most general enjoyment, and it is peculiarly to the credit of many of the English nobility that they open their parks to the resort of the neighbouring villagers and townspeople, often at some inconvenience to the owners themselves. On the other hand, the conversion of large tracts of ground to the object of preserving game, which implies at the same time exclusion of the public, and diminution of production of food, for the sole recreation of one or two individuals, is a use of national resources which has, since the formation of the New Forest by William the Conqueror, been generally reprobated. The latest phase of its development has been in the conversion of immense areas of the Highlands of Scotland into grouse shootings and deer forests, a process which involves the removal of the small tenantry, and even, in the case of deer forests, the ceasing to graze cattle and sheep. The landowners find that the game rents are much more profitable to them than the farming rents, but it is at the cost of the nation, which suffers a diminution in the employment of labour and in the production of food, and which consequently must see its inhabitants emigrate and pay for imported grain, wool, and meat grown by foreign labour. The ultimate remedy of this abuse will probably be found in measures tending to break up large estates into small ones, for the system requires the reservation of extensive areas free from the presence of man, and the interposition of small cultivated holdings would effectually destroy it.
Grazing.
It may, however, be well to notice here an argument which has been sometimes pushed to excess. It has been urged that even grazing should be prohibited on the ground that from the same area a much larger production of food can be obtained in the shape of corn than of meat. The difference is indeed very striking. An acre of good land will yield 40 bushels of wheat, weighing 2500 lb, while in grass it would yield only 250 lb of meat, and it is still more striking if we deduct the water from each, when we have 2200 lb of dry grain against 188 lb of dry flesh and fat. But man being semi-carnivorous must have a propor tion of flesh, and the value he assigns to meat as compared with corn shows very correctly its relative importance in the human economy. The fact is that the test of market prices, which are now regulated by the production and demand of the whole world, assigns to dry meat and fat a value just about twelve times as great as that of corn, and consequently an acre of grass land gives a profit quite equal to that of an acre of wheat. Nor could the equality be impaired even if we were all to become vegetarians. For the most ardent disciples of that faith admit the necessity of using milk, and about 2 pints of milk is a necessary addition to a daily allowance of 2 lb of grain for health and the performance of work. But to furnish this quantity of milk throughout the year nearly an acre of ordinary land would be required, or as much as would give about half a pound of meat per day, so that there are no means by which we can dispense with the use of a considerable extent of land for the feeding of animals, by which its produce is converted into the proximate products demanded by the human constitution; and the amount to be so used is best determined by the demand of the public.
The conclusion to be drawn from the review of the whole questions relating to tenure of land is that they are best solved by freedom of action of individual owners, guided by self-interest and family affection, and only restrained by law when the special circumstances of a high civilization introduce abnormal conditions. Since these motives operate most fully and healthily when land is held in small estates, it only remains to glance at the methods which in different countries and by different authorities have been suggested to encourage subdivision.
Methods of subdivision.
The most general method is that of equal division of the inheritance among children. It is compulsory in the Channel Islands, in France, and several other European countries, and it forms the rule of intestacy under the law of gavelkind in Kent, in most of the British colonies, and in the United States. To its existence in the latter form no reasonable objection can be taken. To its compulsory enforcement there applies, though in a modified degree, the same objections that apply to a compulsory rule of
