124 THE AGRICULTURAL CLUB. 



country. In time turf huts were built, and later wooden 

 and slate. Charles II saw an opportunity of making money, 

 and gave notice that he would take possession of the land. 

 As there was a law against assembly the tenants all turned 

 up at church, and one man suggested that a collection of 

 5,000 should be made to gain security. Later the King 

 wanted more, and sold his rights to Sir J. Lowther, who said 

 the woodlands belonged to the Lord. The tenants again 

 met at Plumpton and appointed three men to go to London ; 

 they fought and won a law case and their total expenses 

 were 33 135. 4^. They improved the land, and some of the 

 families who took possession 300 years ago were still there. 

 The State had no right to take away the value of the im- 

 provements done on the property. 



Mr. R. Small, a visitor, was unable to agree with Mr. 

 Rogers that the tendency was not in the direction of public 

 ownership of land. Land near towns became more valuable 

 and the owners benefited, whereas if the State owned it the 

 community would benefit. Mr. Higdon was disappointed 

 that the paper had not concluded with an advocacy of Land 

 Nationalisation. The people were now shut off the land, 

 and the whole system of land tenure was as bad as it could be. 



The reader of these pages who has persevered thus far 

 will long since have realised that the rules of debate at the 

 Club were elastic and that no serious attempt was made to 

 restrict those who joined in the discussions to a rigid adher- 

 ence to the subject-matter of the introductory paper. But 

 the sternest martinet in the Chair would hesitate to define 

 very closely the limits of the subject of Land Tenure. It 

 embraces not only all the various conditions under which 

 land owned by one man may be occupied by another, but 

 also includes other forms from peasant proprietorship to 

 State ownership, as well as joint ownership or occu- 

 pancy, communual farming, profit-sharing, co-partnership, 

 metayage, etc. I can, however, only refer to one other 

 paper, in this connection, read by Mr. George Nicholls in 

 May, 1918, on " The Place of the Small holder in the Problem 

 of Reconstruction." Mr. Nicholls started by avowing his 



