236 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



ever unjustifiable may have been the method 

 by which private ownership was originally 

 established it is nowadays a grotesquely 

 unfair thing to draw a sharp line of demarca- 

 tion between landed and other property, and 

 to declare or insinuate that the present owners 

 of land have little moral right to it. No 

 fair analogue exists between the tied-house 

 property of brewers and the land possessed 

 by men whose legal title to it has never been 

 questioned. The Drink Traffic is admittedly 

 one of serious menace to the national welfare 

 which must be controlled in the public 

 interest, nor had the claim of the brewers to a 

 freehold in the State-granted licences ever 

 been legally admitted until the Act of 1904. 



The proposal therefore to grant a com- 

 pensation time-limit of fourteen or twenty-one 

 years to the Trade cannot be regarded as a 

 parallel to a precedent for the cessation of land 

 annuities after a period of 70-100 years. 

 If however the nation saw fit to reject the 

 idea of terminable annuities, the entire land 

 of Great Britain could be secured for the State 

 by the straightforward issue of land bonds 

 bearing interest at 4 per cent, on the selling 

 price of the land acquired. A clear and 

 assured 4 per cent, would be welcome to most 

 landlords, especially those who own rural 



