1160 © RErORT-—1885. 
regulating power of the ground landlord, it is capricious and uncertain. In Scot- 
land the system of perpetual feus has great advantages; but even there landlords 
are in many places introducing terminable leases after the English pattern, but 
shortening their duration. More than that, it is the case not only in the High- 
lands, but beyond the Highlands, that houses are built by tenants without any 
tenure at all on mere holdings from year to year. This is especially the case in 
the great and progressive county of Aberdeen. The smaller farms and crofts with 
the buildings on them are usually held on this slender title. And great fishing 
villages all round the coast, inhabited by a very energetic, prosperous, and pro- 
gressive race, are held equally without any security. The houses are entirely built 
by the fishermen. They pay for every stick and every stone, yet they are liable to 
be turned out at the end of every year at the will of the landlord. In and about 
the prosperous sanitorium of Braemar the old houses have no better tenure, and I 
am told that on one of the two great estates there for the building of valuable 
villas no better tenure can be obtained than leases of between thirty and forty 
years. 
The papers presented to Parliament a little time ago regarding the house- 
tenure of foreign countries show that abrcad individual ownership of the occupier 
is far more common than with us, and the sites are altogether held on a better 
tenure. But then everywhere in those countries the municipalities, towns, and 
communes have a much greater control in the common interest, and exercise it 
much more actively and effectively. That, then, is the model to which I would 
look in any municipalisation of land—z.e., to vest the superior right of the ground 
landlord, as it were, in the municipality, with sufficient power of regulation and 
control, and under the municipality to let out plots for buildings and gardens on a 
title not altogether absolute, being subject to certain limitations, conditions, and 
control, but still secure and liable to interference of the public authority only, and 
not to the caprice of any individual. There would be, in fact, a new burgage 
tenure something like Scotch feus, with the municipality as superior landlord, and 
the feu rents would be payable to the municipality. 
On a system such as this, well-managed municipalities might, I think, advan- 
tageously take up a great deal of Jand in their neighbourhood, so as to allow of @ 
large extension and secure the benefit of the growing value as the town extends. 
Some pas a of a central authority may be necessary, but not so much as is 
imposed by the recent Act. The action of local bodies is there hampered by so 
many checks and counter-checks that happily the operation of the provisions which 
I have mentioned may be very limited. Still, the principle of municipalisation is 
very clearly there, and if the law were worked in a very liberal spirit, scarcely 
anything more might be required to attain such a municipalisation as I desire, if 
only the price to be paid for the land could be well settled. There is the rub. 
The fact is, that there are two prices—the price which the land will fetch when 
thrown on the market and the price which is obtained in driblets, in virtue of a 
monopoly, by closing the market and saying you shall have nothing till you pay 
an exorbitant price. The time may come when the divine right of the landlord to 
the urban increment unearned by him may be called in question. But in present 
circumstances, it is enough to claim that the price should be, not the arbitrary 
monopoly price, but the price which a willing seller would get from a willmg 
buyer at the time. Municipalities should be entitled to claim land conveniently 
situated for extension, and not specially appropriated for demesnes on those terms. 
With reasonable good management they should sustain no pecuniary loss on such 
transactions. 
If such a system were well introduced, then we may well believe that our 
crowded and unwholesome towns would expand into pleasant suburbs, with rows 
of cottages and gardens, such as we see in America and elsewhere, served by 
tramways, and the homes of an industrious and healthy people, combining their 
trades with gardens and small crofts, in which, rather than in the public houses, 
they would spend their spare time. Labour would be combined with recreation, 
intelligence, good society, and domestic virtues. We should arrive at the true 
dignity of labour, and avert many evils and many dangers. 
