WHAT MIGHT BE AND WHAT IS 267 



announced his intention of selling the Great Glemham 

 property in Suffolk. The reason given by the Marquis 

 for this contemplated sale, which is almost the first of 

 the sort that I have heard of in this part of East 

 Anglia, is 



"That the tendency of . . . all the present day legis- 

 lation was to increase the financial burdens on land, and, 

 moreover, to increase these burdens out of all proportion 

 to those levied on other forms of property. The Chan- 

 cellor of the Exchequer had said that his ambition was 

 to break up large landed estates, and the Solicitor-General 

 that they would not rest content until the present indirect 

 taxes were abolished and all the necessary revenue raised by 

 taxes upon land. Under these circumstances it was quite 

 evident that land was to be heavily taxed in the future, and 

 that the present valuation and Form IV. were instruments 

 to this end." 



I can only trust that Lord Graham is mistaken 

 in these views. Personally, I hold that no British 

 Government, whatever its political complexion, would 

 be so mad as to place further burdens upon agricul- 

 tural land such as that which is comprised in the 

 Glemham Hall estate, with which I happen to be 

 acquainted, having stayed there with a gentleman 

 who hired it for the shooting. 



Indeed, to do so under present conditions would 

 be to strike a deadly blow, not only at agriculture, 

 but at the welfare of the nation as a whole, seeing 

 that this welfare is in various ways dependent upon 

 the prosperity of the land. If the land is not pros- 

 perous it cannot rear a sufficient rural population, 

 and without such a population our greatness will 

 dwindle and in the end our country must fall. 



In fact, the argument might be extended from 

 the instance of Great Britain to that of her overseas 

 Empire. I am informed, I can only hope wrongly, 



