no GREAT BRITAIN AND IREI^AND - MISCEUvANEOUS 



were considered first in connection with urban conditions, but the turn of 

 the rural dweller has now come and the conditions of the agricultural ia» 

 bourer are attracting attention. Even from the point of view of town 

 workers it is felt by social reformers that something must be done to 

 improve the agricultural labourer's position, since low wages in the country 

 and the migration to the towns tend to depress industrial wages. There has, 

 again, been an awakening to the importance of agriculture in the economy 

 of the country, the failure to recognize which was largely responsible for 

 the fact that so Httle was done to combat the agricultural crisis or to mit- 

 igate its effects. Questions, too, of the national physique, both from the 

 general and the military point of view, and of food-supply in time of war 

 are being actively discussed and these are intimately related with the con- 

 dition of agriculture. Fiscal questions, again, such as the enlargement of the 

 basis of taxation on the one hand and the renewed demands for protection 

 on the other, have helped to bring the land question into prominence. 

 Nor does this by any means exhaust the list of influences which are moving 

 the country in the direction of land reform. 



§ I. The libhrai, i^and enquiry. 



The lyiberal Government, which has already established old-age pen- 

 sions and a national system of insurance against sickness and invalidity 

 is now putting forward proposals for the amendment of the land system. 

 It had, indeed, already to some extent prepared the way for land reform by 

 the great vahiation which is being carried out under the Finance Act of 

 igio, but before deciding upon the form which its proposals should take, 

 the Government asked some of its supporters to conduct a careful enquiry 

 into the land question. Thus was formed the so-called I^and Enqtiiry Com- 

 mittee, the Report of which has been published in two volumes under the 

 title of "The lyand, The Report of the L,and Enquiry Committee. Vol. I: 

 Rural. Vol. II: Urban". It is with the first of these volumes that we are 

 here chiefly concerned, and we shall give, in some detail, the conclusions 

 and recommendations which it contains. 



In considering these, it will be weU to bear in mind the essentially 

 party character of the Enquiry. Although undertaken at the request of 

 the Government it was not, strictly speaking, an official enquiry, since the 

 Committee w^as neither a ParHamentary Commission nor a Departmental 

 Committee. It was unofficially organised wth a view to propounding a 

 Liberal land policy and consisted exclusively of lyiberals. This fact had, 

 doubtless, considerable influence upon the conclusious arrived at and 

 may even have coloured the statements of fact upon which the conclusions 

 were based, although every effort seems to have been made to furnish an 

 impartial account. 



It should also be noted that in conducting the enquiry the social point 

 of view was given precedence over the economic ; that more importance was 



