THE ENGLISH LAND SYSTEM 85 



On the motion of the late Lord Derby a return — 

 commonly known as the " New Domesday Book " 

 — was ordered by the House of Lords in 1876. This 

 return professes to give the number of landowners in 

 the United Kingdom. It is, however, inaccurate, and 

 greatly overstates the actual number of owners of 

 ag-ricultural land. Men ownino^ land in several districts 

 are counted as separate owners. Leaseholders are 

 included, common land, woods, and wastes which are 

 mostly attached to large estates, and all lands not 

 rated, are left out of account altogether. But the 

 most misleading feature of the return is the inclusion 

 of owners of less than one acre. These small holdings 

 are mainly gardens and plots of land attached to 

 dwelling-houses, and should be discarded in any esti- 

 mate of the numbers of owners of agricultural land. 

 They, however, immensely increase the tale, being 

 more than two-thirds of the whole number given. 

 This report — the New Domesday Book — is con- 

 tained in bulky volumes, but an abstract of its contents 

 will be found in a Return presented to the House of 

 Commons.^ This summary gives a total of 972,836 

 owners of the 33,000,000 acres of land dealt with.' Of 

 this number however no less than 703,289 are owners 

 of less than one acre each. Those who, previous to 

 the return, knew that the landowners in this country 

 were a small number, were surprised to find that the 

 number was so very small. The return shows how 

 thoroughly the land policy of the territorial party had 

 been carried out and that the smaller cultivating 



^ "Summary of Returns of Owners of Land in England and Wales, 

 exclusive of the Metropolis." 4 May, 1876. 



^ The total area (land and water) of England and Wales is 37,327,670 

 acres, but the return deals with only just over 33,000,000. 



