|
Scheme of land reform by "Capricornus"—Commutation
of existing rights—Survey before settlement—Demarcation of agricultural and
pastoral areas—Land operations in New Zealand—Railways and public
works—Imported labour—Fixity of tenure—Employment of capital—Rents and
cesses—Title direct from the State— Local Land Boards—A model land
tax—Objections—The right of the State to a moiety of the unearned
increment—Centralization—A nomadic race the result of the present
system—Tenant-right—Low-cost railways—Foreign capital—Inducements to
capitalists—Results of a wise and liberal land reform—Conclusion—"Advance,
Australia."
The most practical and
comprehensive scheme of land reform I have yet seen submitted is that
proposed by the writer ("Capricornus") from whose works I have already
quoted. The chief features of his plan I now briefly lay before the reader,
whom I would refer to Mr. Ranken's published works' for fuller details, and
I can promise any one interested in settlement-work and the question of land
legislation much valuable information and wise reasoning on the subject. I
can only very briefly epitomize the salient features of his proposed reform.
The first great feature would
be a commutation of present existing rights of squatter and selector, on an
equitable basis which he fully elaborates in his able pamphlet "The Land Law
of the Future." The effect of this would be to define rights and bring back
under the direct jurisdiction of the state large tracts of country on which
future settlement has been made impossible, by reason of the destructive
feuds which have arisen under the operation of the Robertsonian system. The
disorder and the process of cure are both fully gone into by our 'author.
The future allocation of land is provided for by a system of preliminary
survey, under which grazing and agricultural farms, with villages and
commonages, public reserves, forests and mineral tracts are defined and
placed under local land boards. The unalienated grazing land remains in the
hands of the land board, but is rented only under a half-yearly licence, and
is brought into the market as population spreads. The fiscal results, as
shown by "Capricornus," would produce a permanent land revenue, immensely
greater than the present squatting land revenue, and nearly equal to that
which is now being produced by the irrational and reckless sacrifice of the
public estate pursued under the present suicidal plan.
The general result would be
that both squatter and selector would be better off than they were before,
while three-fourths of the squatting country, being liberated from the
action of the present destructive law, would be open for future settlement,
and held in trust in the interest of colonization.
Making allowance for
reassessment, at stated periods, Mr. Ranken's plan is on the whole one that
commends itself to my judgment. Mr. Ranken's commutation scheme would in
fact amount to something very nearly approaching the best features of the
permanent settlement of Cornwallis.
Some such scheme as this, to
my mind, presents the only fair and equitable method of reconciling the
present ruinously conflicting interests, and bringing peace and progress to
the distracted country.
The country intended for
settlement should first of all be accurately surveyed and its capabilities
intelligently ascertained. Agricultural and pastoral areas should be marked
out, and capital should be invited to take up land and aid in the work of
settlement. Extensive reserves should be set apart for forests, for
commonages, public grazing-grounds, public works, and mineral industries.
The management of a private estate should in fact be applied in the
disposition of the public estate.
Let us suppose, for instance,
the American plan of railway grants to be in vogue here. There would be no
difficulty in getting the necessary capital. The British investor would
rather lend money to his own kith and kin than to repudiating Turks and
Pagans. Twenty millions could be raised without difficulty to work such a
company as the Indo-Austral trading company, I imagine, or a guaranteed land
and railway company, such as we see in New Zealand and elsewhere. Already in
Queensland an enterprising junto of far-seeing and energetic men have
accomplished by private effort what the government might have only begun to
think about some generations hence. They have completed a private survey for
a line of railway from the Pacific to Port Darwin. If the right of
construction with grants of land along the proposed route were given them,
who can doubt but that this enterprise would do more to develope Queensland
than all the money spent in immigration and public works have done since
Captain Cook landed at Botany Bay?
"What has been done in New
Zealand, in America, in Canada, in Belgium, in India, in Egypt, could surely
be done here. From the chairman's speech at the first meeting of
shareholders of the New Zealand Agricultural Company I extract the following
passage, which foreshadows what might be done under liberal land legislation
here:—
"The company had nearly 200
shareholders. The number of shares disposed of, including the fully-paid
shares, transferable only in the colony, allotted to the vendors as part
payment, was 27,233, amounting to 544,660Z. Of this amount 398,665Z. was
paid up. It followed that more than half of the share capital was
subscribed, and the debenture holders had a security over the property of
more than 2½. to 11. It had been resolved to offer 3000 shares for sale in
India, it having been represented to the directors that there was a great
desire amongst Indian officers and planters to become connected with New
Zealand with the view of ultimately settling there. The lands of the company
would command so ready a sale, so far as they could be subdivided and put
into the market, that debenture money would stand in the place of share
capital, as far as it might be considered desirable. He need scarcely tell
them they would not sell any land without a large profit, and many and vast
had been the fortunes made in the colonies by "cutting up." The man with
small means tyied it with small pieces of land, the man of large means with
large estates; and in each case the profits were enormous. "Cutting up"
meant acquiring land wholesale and selling it retail. As settlements
extended, as towns grew up, the increase in the value of land was very
large. He might give them an example. A few days since they had information
of the sale of the Totara block in the Oamaru district. Unimproved land in
this district realized from 201, to 30Z. an acre. A few years since it was
sold by the government at 11. or 21. an acre. Their land was as good as this
land, and was as near to the capital town, Dunedin. And they had a further
advantage in position, as this company's lands were so situated as to
command with equal facility the markets of Dunedin and Invercargill, the
capital towns of Otago and Southland, as well as the goldfields districts.
They proposed to give to purchasers easy terms of payment, and they should
assist settlers in various ways. Skilled advice would be at,their command;
they would be able to obtain advances on their crops; the company would act
as their agents for the sale of produce, and might allow ^them on terms to
run cattle on the leasehold lands of the company. He should like to call
special notice to their intention to offer some of their lands for sale in
this country. They proposed to reserve special blocks for that purpose,
which would be offered upon terms exceptionally favourable to the settler.
They thought it of the first importance to induce the settlement of
practical farmers from this country upon the company's lands. They had
reason to believe that, owing to the present condition of the agricultural
interests at home, many men possessed of experience and moderate capital
would be found to prefer freehold lands in the colonies to leaseholds at
home, more particularly when thej found even much less capital was required
in the former than in the latter position. The company would cultivate as
much of its land as might be found desirable on its own account, and carry
on also the business of sheep farming. The breeding of high-class stock
would also be a branch of the company's operations. The proposal to take
cadets seemed a very popular feature. They had already arranged with several
cadets at premiums of 300 guineas, and were in negotiation with others; and
the company would also act as agents for the sale of properties, as also
agents for absentees. When their land became covered with settlements,
farms, and towns, it would be difficult to be too sanguine as to the value
of their shares in years to come."
What a private company is
doing in New Zealand government could easily do here. Capitalists, under a
system of grants, could be induced to employ their energies in the same
direction in Australia.
Under a system assimilating
in character to that at work in the northern parts of India, the waste land
could be given out on an improving tenure. The government lease would convey
an indisputable right to the soil, negotiable, vendible, and transferable,
burdened only with the contribution to the state of the land revenue cess,
which at first infinitesimal, or even dormant, would be elastic and expand
as value increased. Under a proper classification lands would be assessed in
proportion to their productiveness.
Pastoral lands would contribute a merely nominal rent at first, determined
by demand for pasture, price of stock, contiguity to market, water, and
other modifying circumstances. The first settlement should err rather on the
side of leniency. Yet under a fixed tenure, the improvement of runs, such as
the laying down of foreign grasses, fencing, conservation of water,
road-making and clearing, would proceed with such vigour that the nominal
rent of even, say, one penny to sixpence per acre, while it would bring in a
much larger revenue than even the forced sale of lands now brings in, would
never be felt by the pastoral tenants. Along the lines of railways which, by
the guaranteed employment of capital, would reticulate the country as with a
vast net, manufacturing villages and mining towns would spring up as swiftly
and vigorously as ever they did in America's palmiest days. Along the
coasts, as the timber-getters retired deeper and deeper into the forests,
the sturdy ploughman would furrow up the soil, as is even now being done in
Canada, and fishing and agricultural villages would nestle beneath every
sheltering bluff and headland.
Under proper restrictions,
such as have been found to work well elsewhere, the millions of India, if
the Chinese are objected to, might send their quota of busy pioneers to
construct railways, reservoirs, embankments, and roads. Everywhere in their
wake would flock the struggling yeomen and toiling hinds of England, panting
for a free and plenteous land, where they would enjoy the fruits of their
labours, still under the welcome shadow of the British flag, surrounded by
brethren, akin in blood, religion, speech, and laws, with patient and
intelligent fellow-subjects doing all the preliminary rough work for them.
They would still preserve their heritage in the glorious annals of our tight
little island, and though dwelling in the Antipodes, would retain the
traditions, the historical associations, the Constitution of the older
England.
Under the new regime let us
imagine a district surveyed in course of such a settlement as has been
indicated. Existing interests have been commuted and consolidated, and the
exact title of each settler to the land he occupies is finally determined.
The rent he is to pay to government has been equitably ascertained, and
reasonably apportioned; and its incidence is felt as no more than a spur to
the settler to make the most of his land, and apply his labour and capital
as efficiently as he can to its development. "Whatever outlay he now incurs
is to be for his own future benefit, and for those who succeed him, and is
not hanging in the precarious balance of party favour, or at the mercy of
every ragged selector who may levy black mail, under threat of an
application to the Lands Department for a conditional purchase right. A road
cess of perhaps a farthing an acre is being raised, and all the local funds
are spent in the district in which they are collected, under the
administration of the Local Land Board, or County Roads Trust. This is
composed of men who know the wants of the district, and who look on their
position as the highest award they can get from their fellows for their
public spirit and the coveted recompense for independence, integrity, and
zeal for the public service. Not merely the guerdon for unlimited
brass—lavish promise, and reckless bidding for popularity, as is too often
the case now.
An education cess would be
likewise levied and administered, and beyond these no further taxes of any
sort would be necessary, unless, maybe, a moderate customs tariff, to reach
the mercantile and purely commercial classes. All else would easily and
naturally spring from an elastic, ever-increasing, perpetual land revenue.
An equitable system of
settlement, under which each title would be granted direct from the state,
subject to a periodic rearrangement of the tribute, derivable from the
unearned increment of the land, would tend to reconcile all the present
conflicting interests, and make it the object of the land-holder to improve
his holding to the utmost limit. Having fixity of tenure, the small farmer
knows what he is doing. His little capital is not dissipated or absorbed in
the payment of a lump sum of purchase-money, half of which may possibly be
raised under a ruinous mortgage. On an improving lease he might be allowed,
as, say, waste lands tenants in Oudh were allowed, to cultivate rent free
for the first two or three years. His improvements would be sufficient
security to the state, and a guarantee for his perseverance .Rules could
easily be formulated, under which he would have to bring so much land under
reclamation within a certain time, the penalty to be resumption. The Local
Land Board would act in much the same way as the collector or
deputy-commissioner in India. Local government would see that rules were
kept. There would be a constant, intelligent, yet kindly supervision—culture
would be applied as best suited the requirements of the country. When a
tenant had worked up to the terms of his grant or contract, he might be
allowed an area equal to that he had reclaimed, or more if necessary, to be
held on a small grazing rental, and in this way pastoral and agricultural
settlement might go hand in hand where the country was suitable.
All the present objectionable
features of our land system would be done away with. To recapitulate
shortly, the land would be accurately measured, classified according to
quality, productiveness, position, &c. During the settlement the local land
office, or revenue court, would be open to receive all objections. These
would be carefully considered, and the local officers being acquainted
practically with the bearings of each case, any malfeasance or miscarriage
of justice would be impossible under righteous administration. Appeal might
be allowed in certain cases to the head board of revenue in Sydney. The land
would yield, from a rental ranging from a penny to a shilling an acre, a
greater revenue than is now received from all the forced sales and suicidal
alienation that is going on. Here would be indeed a model land tax, moderate
in its incidence, and harmless in its operation. It would be at once the
fairest and most far-reaching system of raising a revenue. It would press
lightly on the poor. It would make the revenue elastic, as the coffers of
the State would participate in the advancing wealth and prosperity of the
country. Under a proper system of registration, well organized and
righteously administered, it would be inoffensive in its operation, and
inexpensive in its collection.
It is constantly objected, to
the advocates of a permanent land tax, that land is so difficult to clear
here. The expense of bringing it under cultivation is so enormous that it is
altogether a different problem to solve from any in India, where the soil is
made productive with little trouble or preparation, and where, moreover,
labour is so plentiful. Men say that if after all our trouble and expense
here, we are still to be saddled with a land tax, we had better not clear
the land at all. Is no return, then, to be made to the State for protection,
laws, and peaceful occupation ? At first tlie tax need only be proportionate
to ths value of the land. At the most it would only bear an infinitesimal
proportion to the real value of the annual produce, but this grand principle
should never be lost sight of in any system of settlement, and should form a
sine qua non in any future legislation on the subject, namely, the
inalienable right of the State to a share of the unearned increment of the
land; and the liability of the land to contribute a just portion thereof in
perpetuity, but liable to preconcerted periodic rearrangements.
Under the present system
every man's hand is against his neighbours. A gambling spirit pervades all
classes. Men trust to succeed by swindling combinations, by lucky ventures,
by audacious speculations and fraudulent insolvencies, rather than by effort
and thrift. There is a great tendency to multiply shops and stores, and to
float bubble companies, and it is the aim of most workmen to leave manual
labour and become petty traders. Hence the multiplication of middle men of
all kinds. One great ambition of the restless tradesman is to become a
publican, or jobbing speculator; and so hard, productive work is neglected,
and the whole community is penetrated by an uneasy desire for swift fortune
and rapid acquisition.
There is, again, a prevalent
tendency, very much to be deplored, to centralize in the towns. There is
even an increasing agglomeration of the masses in the great centres of
population. There is really no rural population worthy the name in the
colony. Men would rather speculate in land than cultivate it, and the mighty
danger of large estates, of the accumulation of the land into few hands,
daily looms nearer and nearer, and becomes more menacing. By our
"tenant-right" tenure we would give to all comers, the proletariate
included, a stake in the country. The workmen in the towns—the merchant, the
trader, the shopkeeper, could each send his son to cultivate his little
farm, and abundant labour would be procurable under a proper system of
imported fellow-subjects to enable him to comply with every condition, with
the certainty of a remunerative result to all concerned.
As it now is, we have a vast,
ever-increasing class springing up with no stake in the country at all; a
nomadic Ishmaelitish race, with no fixed residence, no fixed aim,
thriftless, discontented, ill-educated, self-indulgent. Every man in this
disorganized growing rabble has his vote. Herein lies the germ of future
troubles. A proletariate is growing up, having no stake in the permanent
welfare and progress of the colony—congregating in the large towns—having an
uncertain livelihood. What are we to do with them? They cannot purchase land
under the present Act. They are barred by the residence, improvement, and
purchase clauses, and by the scarcity of labour, from tackling agriculture
with any degree of success. What, then, is to be done?
Would it not be well, side by
side with our settlement, and bestowal of tenant-right titles, on such as
wished them, to try also the American plan of inviting foreign capital in
the prosecution of public works— giving grants of land, subject to the land
cess, in return, and let public companies do for us what they have done, and
are doing, for Russia, England, France, America, Belgium, Egypt, India, and
all the sensible countries that have invited the aid of the capitalist and
engineer.
I would have low cost
railways made by British capital, extending over the face of the country,
where-ever there was good land. I would in return for the construction of
the lines and public works, make over blocks of land, say, alternate blocks
of ten miles square to the companies, under similar, though perhaps easier,
rules as to settlement and payment of revenue, as the ordinary settlement of
the country. I would, under a proper system of careful immigration
enactments, allow the companies to import abundant coolie or other labour—found
villages and towns. And by opening out and preparing the country, attract
hither the hosts of half-starved, poorly paid artisans, mill workers, and
labouring hinds, from the overcrowded old country. If it be objected that
these are not the men we want in a new land of promise such as ours, 1 would
ask would not the stalwart navvy, the intelligent mill-worker, ay, even the
industrious, tractable, patient Hindoo, be better as a legitimate State
invest-, ment, than the present' nomadic, half-educated, semi-civilized
Ishmaelites, who live by levying black mail from their richer neighbours,
who swell the ranks of the dissolute and criminal.
Give charters to capitalists;
grants of land under condition of the State sharing in the enhanced value of
the estate; a permanent settlement to present owners founded on a wise and
equitable principle of commutation. Map out your country into areas fit for
settlement. Give leases in the pastoral tracts with fixity of tenure, and a
fair assessment of rent. Establish your local Boards ; assist immigration ;
open out public works of all sorts by foreign capital, and with State
guarantees; settle your farmers on the soil, and give them their tenant
right; assist them with advances, if need be, from a national agricultural
bank, advances to be made under sanction of the local Board, resumption of
improvements as security. And then, indeed, Australia might become the
paradise of the willing pioneer; the land of promise to the downtrodden,
struggling, yet hopeful, self-reliant worker. Then, indeed, would a nation
of sturdy yeomen spring to life under the glittering splendour of the
Australian sun, and the place of the dummy, the truculent selector, the
scheming squatter and perjured politician, would know them no more.
After the first ten years of
such a settlement as we have imperfectly tried to suggest, we come back to
look on the results. What a change has come over the once arid wilderness of
grass and scrub and solitary tangled bush! Capital and labour have
metamorphosed the country. Populous towns and smiling villages dot the land.
Fenced fields stretch in unbroken leagues, covered with waving crops; and
ever-fresh experiments in the government and corporate farms are opening out
new industries, and acclimatizing new products every day. The old feud
between squatter and selector has died out, and the herds of the former
browse peacefully on the uplands, or fatten in the well-watered,
well-grassed paddocks, while the curling smoke from countless homesteads
curls peacefully into the crisp, still atmosphere, speaking of prosperity
and rural content. The farmer and the trader cultivate friendly relations,
and commerce and agriculture go hand in hand. Factory chimneys now pierce
the sky in every district, and the towns are resonant with the clang and
rattle of machinery, giving employment to hosts of hardy operatives, and
transforming the raw products of the land into all the countless creations
of ingenuity and skill. Tlie country is covered with a network of roads,
canals, and railways. Coal, iron, copper, and other mines are being
developed. On the slopes of the distant hills young plantations of olives,
cork-trees, teak, mahogany, box, mulberry, and other hard woods,
fruit-trees, and commercially valuable timbers are struggling vigorously
into life. Potteries, tanneries, oil, sugar, and paper mills, tea gardens,
coffee, cinchona, and indigo plantations are springing up in every suitable
locality. The people—educated into a sense of their responsibilities, and
enjoying all the glories and liberty of the British constitution, with an
elastic revenue, laws wisely administered, and represented in the councils
of the nation by the wisest, most unselfish, and patriotic men in the
community, cemented to India and the other parts of the empire by a
community of interests, laws, and loyal fealty to Great Britain—are fast
taking their place in the van of the rising nations of the earth. Over
mountain and sea, from teeming wave and fertile plain, from millions of
contented peasantry, comfortable operatives, prosperous farmers and
settlers, ascends the prayer that is its own answer, by living hope, and the
prophecy that is its own fulfilment, by effort and self-reliance— Advance,
Australia. |
