Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day Part 7

And this is not always the worst, for in many cases landlords for various reasons will not renew at any price, and the tenant has perforce to go the moment his lease expires. A certain Whig duke--and, of course, a zealous defender of "the rights of property"--conceived the idea, upon coming into his estates some years ago, that a village stood too near his park gates. Not brooking that herdsmen and traders should stand between the wind and his n.o.bility, he directed that, as leases fell in, the tenants should be cleared out, graciously, however, offering them other plots some three miles away. And the tenants had to leave the homes in which they had been born and where their parents had lived before them, and to see them tumble down in utter ruin, in order that so mighty a person as a duke should not be shocked by the sight of the common herd. It was one of the thousand cases in life where a man had a right to do that which it was not right for him to perform.

Another fashion in which grievous injustice to the leaseholder can be done is frequently ill.u.s.trated. It has happened, and happened very recently, that a ground landlord has granted leases for a term of years; that, upon the strength of these agreements, houses have been built; and that upon the landlord's decease it has been discovered by some skilful lawyer that the dead man had had no power, under an entail or settlement, to grant such leases; whereupon the heir has invoked the law to cancel the whole, and has seized everything upon the land. This is legal, but is it commonly honest?

In other ways the leasehold system is an injury not only to individuals but to the community. A west country town, where all the land is held by one man, has been crippled in every attempt to expand and improve by the impossibility of obtaining a freehold plot. What person in his senses would erect a substantial factory or a large concern of any kind upon a comparatively short lease? Men embark upon such enterprises in order that, as year follows year, their property may become more valuable, not that year by year it may become less so by the growing nearness of the time when it will pa.s.s to the landlord, who has never contributed a penny or a thought to the success of the concern, the building containing which, at the expiration of the lease, he can call his own.

For all these unfairnesses to individuals, hindrances to trade, and injuries to the community, is proposed the remedy stated--that a leaseholder who has twenty (or, as some suggest, ten or fifteen) years to run, shall be empowered to demand that his land be made freehold upon the payment of its value, as a.s.sessed by some specified tribunal.

The first objection is that this would be an undue interference with "the rights of property." But it has already been laid down by Parliament that such "rights" can be set aside in the public interest upon the payment of fair compensation; and what has been done in regard to the making of railways can be done respecting the building or the preserving of houses. The existing system is an injury to the community; and as the price to be paid for its abolition, whether wholly or in part, would be a.s.sessed by a tribunal const.i.tuted by Parliament, the landlords would have no more reason to complain than they now have when compelled to sell a portion of their property to a railway company.

The next plea is that it would interfere with "freedom of contract."

Upon the general question of what that freedom is, how far it now exists, and in how large a degree the State has a right to interfere with it, one need not speak, for in this matter of leases Parliament has already stepped in to "interfere with freedom of contract." It having been found that some landlords were accustomed to insert in leases oppressive provisions for forfeiture in certain conditions, the Legislature empowered the courts to lift from the leaseholders covenants which unduly burdened them. And if a precedent is asked for the particular remedy proposed, the Acts enabling any copyholder to enfranchise his holding should be consulted.

If it be said that, should such a power be granted by law, no one possessing land would let on a long lease, it may be answered that this would be no great evil, seeing how the leasehold system has worked. But as landowners will want in the future as in the past to let or to sell, and as it is not to be supposed that any man will take a lease of less than twenty years and build upon the land, the owners will accommodate themselves to circ.u.mstances, and dispose of their property as best they can.

Owners in other countries do so, and why not here? Such a leasehold system as that of England is practically unknown elsewhere. In France, it is true, something of the kind exists, but we seek for it in vain in Germany and Austria, in Russia and Switzerland, or in Spain and Portugal; while in Italy, where no leases for over thirty years are permitted, a tenant can convert his property into freehold by redeeming the rent.

The supporters of leasehold enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, therefore, have on their side not only the practical evils of the present system, but parliamentary precedent and continental custom. These should suffice to persuade all who study the matter that the time for a change has come, and that the way in which that change is proposed to be effected is just and equitable.

XX.--WHOSE SHOULD BE THE UNEARNED INCREMENT?

There is a school of politicians which reply to all such proposals as have been sketched for practical land reform: "They do not go far enough, for they would merely transfer the unearned increment from the present freeholders to the present leaseholders, and we want it transferred to the community." This "unearned increment" is a matter of which we are likely to hear a deal in the immediate future, for since John Mill stated the theory it has been much talked of, and to-day more than ever. It is sometimes contended, in fact, that, supposing all the projected reforms carried and in full and untrammeled action, "the absorption of the unearned increment by private individuals would perpetuate an evil which would swallow up whatever good those reforms might have a tendency to bring about."

What then is the theory upon which so much may depend? It cannot be better stated than in the words of Mill:--"Suppose that there is a kind of income which constantly tends to increase, without any exertion or sacrifice on the part of the owners: those owners const.i.tuting a cla.s.s in the community, whom the natural course of things progressively enriches, consistently with complete pa.s.siveness on their own part. In such a case it would be no violation of the principles on which private property is grounded, if the State should appropriate this increase of wealth, or part of it, as it arises. This would not properly be taking anything from anybody; it would merely be applying an accession of wealth, created by circ.u.mstances, to the benefit of society, instead of allowing it to become an unearned appendage to the riches of a particular cla.s.s. Now this is actually the case with rent."

When Mill's "Principles of Political Economy" was published, this theory of the State absorbing, in whole or in part, the "unearned increment" of the land, was regarded by many as so utopian that it was put aside with a scoff, and was thought to have been settled with a sneer. But it has struck deep root into many a Radical mind, and those who believe in it ask it to be shown how it is either dishonest as a theory or would be impossible in practice.

There need be no attempt to do either, for Mill himself made an important restriction in his definition of what should be done which relieves it from the stigma of dishonesty or impracticability. He believed that "it would be no violation of the principles on which private property is grounded, if the State should appropriate this increase of wealth, _or part of it_, as it arises." It may be agreed that the State could fairly appropriate a part of this increment, and this might be done by means of taxation. But that is a very different matter from taking the whole.

One who argues in favour of the latter plan, submits this contention:--"The area of a county, for purposes of ill.u.s.tration, may be taken as a fixed quant.i.ty. Now, the demand for land will increase, and as a corollary the price of land will rise, exactly in proportion to the increase of population. This additional value is not brought about by either independent industry, ingenuity, or the outlay of capital on the part of any private individual: it is a growth entirely due to the increase of the community: it is of enormous value, is extracted from the dire necessities of the whole population, and goes into the pockets of private individuals who have never done anything to create it."

But does the ill.u.s.tration hold good whether applied to such a limited area as a county or to the country at large? It is not the case that the demand for land increases and its price rises exactly in proportion to population; and it is as little the case that its increased value, if any, is "extracted from the dire necessities of the whole population."

For while the number of our inhabitants is increasing, the value of such land as ministers directly to their wants in the provision of food and clothing is decreasing. If all the bread that is eaten, beef that is killed, and wool that is worn, were raised within these sh.o.r.es, there would be a semblance of truth in the ill.u.s.tration; but we have left the days when we lived on our own produce far behind, and the British farmer would only be too happy if the picture thus presented were even approximately like reality.

It may be replied that bread and beef and wool do not exhaust the catalogue of men's requirements from the land; and they do not, for we require plots upon which to build, and good houses are just as necessary as cheap food. But even where land is made more valuable by its becoming used for building purposes, is there any justice in either the State or a munic.i.p.ality taking the whole increased value? Let the case be that of a man who thinks that he sees a chance of a town expanding, and who purchases a piece of land which will be of little use to anybody unless his idea proves correct, but which will bring him a good profit if he has skilfully foreseen. Why should he not be as fairly paid for his skill and foresight as if he had bought a house on a similar belief? The reply is, "The quant.i.ty of land is limited; that of houses is not;" but that is only true up to a certain and very definite point; and with the reforms which have already been suggested, and with a fairer system of taxing the land, the community would gain all it could fairly ask.

My contention, shortly put, is this--That the State has a right to share in the increased value of all property, landed or otherwise; and that, in the case of land, it has an additional, though limited, claim, because of the conditions upon which that commodity pa.s.sed into private ownership. Those who work for wages have to pay income tax immediately those wages touch a certain point; as they rise, so does the payment increase; and, after a given amount, the tax is proportionately much heavier. Why should not the same principle be applied to income of every sort from land as to income of every sort from wages, profits, or invested capital?

It is not so at present, as a study of the land tax will show.

Nominally that tax is four shillings in the pound on the full annual value, but actually what does it stand at? It was fixed by Parliament in the seventeenth century, the semi-owners of the land, who had held their property under certain weighty conditions of contributing military strength to the King, and who had managed by degrees to slip through their obligations, agreeing thus to tax themselves as a compensation for the burden that had been lifted from them. But in 1798 it was enacted--by a Parliament in which practically only landowners were represented--that the valuation upon which the tax was to be paid should be that of 1692, when on its then conditions it was first levied. And the consequence is that, although this later Act directed that it should be a.s.sessed and collected with impartiality, in parts of the country which have stood still the tax now is not far from the original sum, while it amounts in the immediate neighbourhood of such a city as Liverpool to about a fifth of a farthing in the pound. It may not be feasible, because of the manner in which much of the impost has been "redeemed," and it might in some cases be unjust, to raise the land tax at once to four shillings in the pound on the valuation of 1888 instead of 1692; but the same Parliament which put the clock back has the power to bring it up to the proper time; and, at least, something could be done to lessen the loss the State is now made to suffer.

There is another way in which landowners could justly be called upon to pay a portion of the unearned increment to the State, and that is through the taxation of ground-rents. This is a point which keenly touches the towns, and deserves the early attention of Parliament. At present the great ground landlords escape their fair share of the burdens which fall heavily upon those who take their leases. And, so certain are some of them that the taxing time will soon come, that they are already selling a portion of their town estates, so as to "get out from under" before that period arrives.

It may therefore be submitted that, with a fairer land tax and the taxation of ground rents, we should secure to the State the proportion of the "unearned increment" to which she is justly ent.i.tled. Those who would go further must be prepared to prove that property in land is so different in every essential from all other kinds that it would be honest for the State to absorb the whole unearned increment of the one, and to levy only an income and property tax on the other.

XXI.--HOW SHOULD LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT BE EXTENDED?

It is always consolatory to find amid the welter of party politics some topic upon which all say they agree, and such a topic certainly is that of the reform of local government. Politicians of every shade have long professed their desire for such a reform, and it ought now to be within measurable distance of accomplishment.

Upon the great question of the extension of self-government to Ireland I have already spoken; and in regard to the purely domestic affairs of all the four divisions of the kingdom--England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as Ireland--it need only here be added that the solution of much of the difficulty which springs from an overburdened Parliament will be found in devolving upon a special authority for each the right of dealing with its own local concerns. But, as to three of the four divisions, it is not so pressing a question as that which is commonly known as the reform of local government, and the main proposition touching which is summed up in the demand for county councils.

This is a matter which more intimately touches the country districts than the towns, for in all the latter of any size there are popularly elected munic.i.p.al councils, which exercise much power over local affairs. The only exception is the greatest town of all, for London was specifically exempted (by the action of the House of Lords) from the reform effected in all other cities and boroughs by the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Act of 1835. There is a Corporation of the City of London; but this body, against which a very great deal can be said, has authority only over one square mile of ground, the remaining 119 square miles upon which the metropolis stands being governed by vestries, trustee boards, and district boards of works, all connected with and subject to the Metropolitan Board of Works--or Board of Words, as it was once irreverently but truly called--which is not chosen directly by the ratepayers, but is selected by the vestries, who themselves are elected by handfuls of people, the general public paying them no heed. And thus it comes to pa.s.s that the greatest and wealthiest city in the world is worse governed than the smallest of our munic.i.p.al boroughs, for nine out of ten ratepayers take not the least interest in electing the vestries, and not one ratepayer in a hundred could tell the name of his district representative on the Metropolitan Board of Works, now proposed, by even a Conservative Administration, to be abolished.

It is not a small concern, this of reforming the government of London, for it affects four millions of people--a number not far short of the population of Ireland; but politicians in the ma.s.s, as even the keenest metropolitan munic.i.p.al reformer will admit, are more interested in the general question of local government.

Speaking broadly, the defects of the system proposed to be reformed are that of the popularly elected bodies there are too many, and that the great governing body is not elected at all. In a certain town of 3000 inhabitants, there are at this moment a Town Council, a School Board, a Burial Board, and (because under the Public Health Act an adjoining parish was tacked on) a Local Board of Health; while, notwithstanding that it sends representatives to a Board of Guardians for the whole Union, it had until recently, and in addition to the other bodies, a Local Board of Guardians, chosen under a special Act. And, beyond all these, a Highway Board meets within its borders, which has to be consulted and negotiated with whenever a road leading into the town needs to be re-metalled or an additional brick is required for a neighbouring bridge.

As if all these boards were not sufficient to keep the district in good order, there is the Court of Quarter Sessions, which has jurisdiction in various details that the mult.i.tude of small bodies cannot touch.

These latter have one justification, however, that the former cannot claim, and that is that, despite there being magistrates who are members of the boards of guardians by virtue of their office, and although the more property one possesses the more votes one can give for certain of the local bodies, these in the main are popularly elected, and are, therefore, directly responsible to the ratepayers for the manner in which their trust is used.

It is quite otherwise with the Court of Quarter Sessions. This consists only of magistrates, such magistrates being appointed by the Lords-Lieutenant of counties, and the appointments being made mainly on political grounds. As a rule, the holders of that distinguished position are Tories, and they take good care that the magistrates shall be Tories also. It is not long since it would have been impossible to find a single Liberal on the commission of the peace for Huntingdonshire; and when comparatively recently it was pointed out to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ess.e.x that an almost exactly similar state of things prevailed in that shire, he replied he did not consider there was a Liberal in the whole county who was socially qualified for the magisterial bench. The idea of making a banker or a merchant a justice of the peace was too shocking; and thus the commercial cla.s.ses and a good half of the population (giving the other half to the Tories) were completely unrepresented, not merely on the bench, but in the Court of Quarter Sessions, which governed the affairs and spent the money of the county.

There is no necessity to prove that these courts have spent the county monies wantonly or with conscious impropriety in order to show this condition of things to be wrong. In imperial affairs, the doctrine that taxation without representation is tyranny has been a.s.serted to the full; in munic.i.p.al matters, since the Act of 1835, the same has prevailed; but in county concerns it has been non-existent. The magistrates represent no one but themselves, their party, and their own cla.s.s; they are necessarily swayed by the pa.s.sions and prejudices that party and cla.s.s possess; and, seeing that the English people long ago refused power over the national purse to an unrepresentative body like the House of Lords, it is surprising they have until now allowed power over the local purse to be in the hands of such equally unrepresentative bodies as the courts of quarter sessions.

The line which the immediate reform of local government must take is, therefore, the creation of a directly-elected body to deal with county affairs, and the federation of such of the smaller boards as have to do with the more purely district concerns, both of which points the Cabinet of Lord Salisbury appear disposed to concede. But upon the former point Liberals will claim that the whole--and not merely three-fourths--of the County Councils shall be directly elected, for the system of aldermen, included in the Munic.i.p.al Reform Act by the House of Lords, has been used for partisan purposes, as it was intended to be, and the same effect will follow in the case of the counties if the same cause is provided.

Any system, in fact, which involves "double election" tends to make the body concerned hidebound and cliquish. A county alderman once chosen, especially if he were a squire, as he most likely would be, would have to behave himself in most outrageous fashion ever to lose his post. The ratepayers might grumble, but it would be difficult in the extreme to dislodge him, for he would be removed from their direct control, and the Council would consider it ungracious to get rid of an "old servant." If one wants to know how this double election operates, let him ask some clear-sighted Londoner who is acquainted with the manner in which his own city is ruled. He will be answered that for scandalous and wanton expenditure not many bodies can equal the Metropolitan Asylums Board, the members of which are mainly chosen by the various boards of guardians; while for jobbery and general mismanagement it is even beaten by the Metropolitan Board of Works, which is elected by the several vestries. And he will add that this chiefly arises from the fact that the ratepayers have no direct control over either of these bodies, and that the good result of such direct control was shown by this fact--that when the metropolitan ratepayers considered that the School Board, which is directly elected, was practising extravagance, they placed at the bottom of the poll those responsible for the policy, with the effect that considerable savings were speedily effected.

And therefore now, when County Councils are being established, all Liberals will have very carefully to watch the points upon which the Tories and Whigs may combine in an attempt to give the country a semblance without the reality of representative local self-government.

What must be insisted upon is--(1) That the Councils shall be entirely elective; (2) that the ratepayers shall directly elect; (3) that there shall be no property qualification for membership; (4) that the voting shall be by household suffrage--one householder one vote; and (5) that women ratepayers shall have the same right of voting for county as for town councils.

With such a Council in each county, or, in the case of Lancashire and Yorkshire, in each great division of a county, we should have a central local organization, to which highway boards, local boards of health, village school boards, and other small bodies could be affiliated; and it is not impossible that, as a development of the system, the various bodies controlling the destinies of our lesser towns could be federated to save friction, trouble, and expense; while, above all, it must be insisted that the representatives of the ratepayers shall have full control over the police.

It is a truism that without good citizens the best of governments must fail; but our experience of the House of Commons and of the many town councils has shown that the improvement of the machinery and the handing over of control to the great body of the people have brought public-spirited men to the front to do the duties required. As it has been at Westminster and in the towns, so will it be in the counties.

England has become greater and freer, our towns have expanded and benefited, owing to the whole of the inhabitants having a direct voice in the rule; and the counties will correspondingly improve when the same is applied.

XXII.--HOW IS LOCAL OPTION TO BE EFFECTED?

Intimately connected with the question of county government is that of local option; and the problem of transferring the licensing power from an irresponsible bench of magistrates to a specially elected body, or to a direct vote of the ratepayers, has ripened towards settlement in a remarkable degree since the day--just twenty years since--when Mr.

Gladstone wrote to the United Kingdom Alliance that his disposition was "to let in the principle of local option wherever it is likely to be found satisfactory," and thus used in relation to this question for the first time, as far as is known, a phrase which has become famous.

No leading politician to-day disputes that some form of local option must speedily be provided; but, as a body, they have been shy of touching a problem that presents a host of difficulties, and the attempt to settle which could not fail to arouse a number of enemies. What those, therefore, who wished for local option have had to do was to show the body of electors that it was reasonable and just, and to trust that their appreciation of these two qualities would lead them to its support.

As to its being reasonable, the very fact that the granting of licences even now is in the hands of the magistrates, and not in those of a Government department, indicates that it is intended that local feeling shall be consulted. This, in fact, was specifically stated in an Act of 1729, which, after reciting that "inconveniences have arisen in consequence of licences being granted to alehouse-keepers by justices living at a distance, and, therefore, not truly informed of the occasion or want of ale-houses in the neighbourhood, or the character of those who apply for licences," enacted that "no licences shall in future be granted but at a general meeting of the magistrates acting in the division in which the applicant dwells."

Just a hundred years later, Parliament thought fit to withdraw from the magistrates--who, at the least, knew something of "the occasion or want of alehouses in the neighbourhood, or the characters of those who apply for licences"--the power over applications for beerhouse licences; and the result showed that even the most modified form of local option was better than none. The Act of 1830, "to permit the general sale of beer and cider by retail in England," provided that "any householder desirous of selling malt liquor by retail in any house" might obtain a licence from the Excise without leave from the magistrates. Within five years another Act had to be pa.s.sed demanding better guarantees for the character of those applying for such licences, the preamble declaring this to be necessary because "much evil had arisen from the management of houses" created by the previous statute. Other amending Acts followed, and in 1882 the magistrates were once more given complete jurisdiction over beer off-licences, with the result that in the borough of Over Darwen alone the renewal was at once refused of 34 out of 72 licences of the kind, a decision which, it is important to note as bearing upon a point yet to be raised, was upheld by the Queen's Bench on appeal.