124 GREAT BRITAIN A!«> IRELAND - MISCELLANEOUS 



Co-operation (including co-operative credit) is advocated and the mem- 

 orandum touches (somewhat Ughtly) upon the question of land purchase. 

 It urges that the facilities for the acquisition of land should not be confined 

 to small holders and suggests that the State should be empowered to ad- 

 vance the whole purchase money to tenants wishing to buy their land, such 

 advances being repayable by annual instalments of principal and interest. 



With a view to lessening the pressure of local taxation upon land, 

 it is recommended that the cost of public services, such as main roads, 

 asylums and police, and a larger proportion of the cost of education, should 

 be defrayed out of the Imperial taxes. 



Further recommendations are that the Board of Agriculture should 

 be greatly strengthened, its income being largely increased ; that facil- 

 ities for the transport of agricultural produce should be improved ; 

 that the markets should be more efficiently organised and that the in- 

 dustries subsidiary to agriculture should be encouraged. 



§ 5 Other land policies. 



An investigation into the rural problem has also been undertaken by 

 the ParUamentary Labour Party, which in the autumn of 1912 appointed 

 a committee of its members to draft a rural programme. The committee 

 not only conducted inquiries in England but also visited Ireland and Den- 

 mark. The main object of their visit to Ireland was to investigate the meth- 

 ods of nu-al housing under the Labourers Acts 1883 to 1911. In Denmark 

 they noted the important part played by co-operation in the rural economy 

 of the country. The recommendations of the Committee are embodied in 

 a Prehminary Report, issued in June 1913 and in a final Report, subse- 

 quently pubHshed. 



The cardinal point of the poUcy recommended is the pubhc ownership 

 of land. " We strongly hold, " says the Report ", that only public ownership 

 and control will secure for the community the best possible use of land and 

 the social values attaching to it. " It, therefore, recommends that both cen- 

 tral and local authorities should be invested with the widest possible powers 

 of bringing land into public ownership by purchase on the basis of the Na- 

 tional Land Valuation, the purchase price to be paid either in redeemable 

 land bonds or in terminable annuities. 



In addition to this proposal, the Committee recommend a minimum 

 wage for agricultural labourers ; fair rent courts ; the provision of cottages 

 with the aid of vState grants until such time as the wages of labourers reach 

 a standard at which the payment of an economic rent becomes possible ; 

 the amendment and extension of the Small Holdings Act ; the estabUshment 

 of credit banks under State authority, and the encouragement of agricultural 

 co-operation. 



Yet another investigation has been made by the Fabian Society, the 

 results of which are embodied in " The Rural Problem " by Mr. Henry 

 D. Harben, the Chairman of the Committee appointed by the Society. 



