46 THE RURAL PROBLEM 



hi<> feudal privileges are disappearing ; new taxes and threats 

 of taxes are unpleasant. 



A big drop in sentimental value is, in itself, all to the 

 good. It is desirable that economic and selling value should 

 approximate. But unless some care is taken, this process 

 will entail considerable temporary suffering, both to tenant 

 farmer and to labourers, especially where owners have no 

 other resources than those derived from the land. The way 

 this occurs is obvious. The Finance Act of 1909, for instance, 

 not only increased the rates of the Death Duties, but also, 

 which is far more important, changed the method of esti- 

 mating the value on which they are based. The result of 

 this has been, in many cases, to double or more than double 

 the amount to be raised. In order to meet this extra pro- 

 spective burden, a mortgage would probably be raised on the 

 estate, and an attempt made to redeem it in fifteen years, 

 thus involving an annual charge on the estate of a consider- 

 able sum. This annual charge would be met by the owner 

 by a corresponding reduction in expenditure, involving 

 primarily a reduction in the wages bill, and the consequent 

 discharge of a large number of people. 



The moral of this is that some constructive policy for the 

 land must accompany the burden that is at present being 

 placed on landowners, unless this is to involve a decrease 

 in the amount spent on afforestation, buildings, cottages, 

 and other improvements, and a consequent sudden and 

 considerable reduction in the amount of wages paid. 



§2. Land Purchase. 



Without a constructive policy similar undesirable results 

 would also accompany the proposed minimum wage law. 

 Such a law, followed by a corresponding reduction in the 

 rent of agricultural land, would tend to strip such land of 

 sentimental value, and reduce its value to an economic 

 level. The landowner might feel himself obliged, in some 

 cases, to allow land to fall out of cultivation. The time would 

 then be ripe for a scheme of State Land Purchase, which 

 would meet the landlord's complaint that he was forced to 

 keep land on which all the profits had been wiped out, and 



