Commons Chamber

Order for Second Reading read.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

The Bill which I am about to ask the House to read a second time is intended to enable those who manage the affairs of our local districts to acquire land for the present and future use of their inhabitants more readily, and by a less expensive process than is possible at the present time. The Bill gives the larger elected bodies wide powers with regard to land which is at present in an undeveloped condition. It allows these bodies to purchase such land within the confines of their district, or in their neighbourhood, at a price ascertained for the purposes of the Finance Act, 1909-10. The Bill proposes that such land, so acquired, may be used by the authorities for any immediate purpose for which they obtain powers, or may be held by them for such future use as they may determine. The Bill has two limitations. Clause 2 puts a limitation upon the amount of land the authority may acquire, by limiting the amount of money that they may from time to time expend. Clause 3 reserves from the operation of the Bill certain classes of land, such as gardens, parks, and land required for the amenities of a dwelling-house. I venture to place the very greatest importance upon this portion of the Bill, and I am actuated by the belief that it is impossible to produce, from the residents of many of our larger towns a race strong in body and mind, efficient in duty, apt to business, and reasonably contented under the existing conditions. From that principle I go on to the belief that you cannot substantially improve these conditions unless you give to the local authorities—and, by the way, may I say that the action of these local authorities has often much more bearing upon the daily lives of the inhabitants of our districts than the action of Parliament itself—both the power and the means to make a drastic change. There can hardly be one Member in the House who has viewed some of the older and greater of our towns without feeling the deepest sorrow for the condition of the poor, and a feeling of regret that it seems so difficult to rearrange many of the blunders of the past without the application of a very ruthless hand. These things are the result of chance development uncontrolled, and very great evils have arisen amongst us which we should all desire to remove with regard to the health and the decency of life, and may I say, the real economy of our nation. To take in hand these matters, to rearrange the disorder, to arrange the haphazard, will entail enormous expense and gigantic difficulty, and my belief is that it is in an active policy of orderly new extension that the immediate hope for the future lies. This House has done many things by which it hoped to amend and has amended—

Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present. House counted, and forty Members being not found present, Sitting suspended until forty Members were present.

At a quarter before One o'clock Sitting resumed.

I was endeavouring to express my opinion with regard to the extreme importance of providing some drastic remedy for the troubles and for the squalor in our large towns, which we all agree exist, and which we all deplore. I was going to express the opinion that if a policy of this kind could be boldly founded, and, what is more important still, boldly worked out, it would perhaps do as much to improve the condition of the poor as even Old Age Pensions or National Insurance. I think we ought always to remember that these close areas, over-crowded, often insanitary, are not only the indigent homes of busy workers, but too often the sinks and hiding places to which gravitate many casual and worthless people, where inefficiency breeds inefficiency, and degradation breeds degradation. I have often noticed in my own experience that, in times of distress and unemployment, poverty, and misery first show themselves in the larger centres of population. That poverty and misery grow greater and greater, and out of all proportion, as towns become greater and greater in size. In our industrial villages people are well known one to the other, and they nearly all have some occupation of a more or less fixed and steady character. But as towns increase in size there are more and more forgotten and overlooked folk, amongst them people who, in the very best of times, earn only a precarious livelihood, and who fall immediately into hopeless want when lean days arrive. I would like to see tried a remedy by which the growing towns might be enabled to spread out their population so that there might be more intercourse between class and class, between worker and employer, more knowledge one of the other, than is possible under present conditions. I have been told by friends who have seen my Bill that the definition therein of undeveloped land is too narrow for my purpose. If that is so, I would, of course, gladly see it widened. My one desire is to try to do something by which more land and cheaper land can be used for the dwellings of the people.

The Bill would give power in very many cases to the authority of a town to acquire that belt of undeveloped land around its area which might be used, and would, I hope, be used not only to provide homes and houses for the people but to set out, in ordered array, industries and opportunities for recreation and the development of health and comfort. The local authority, which could look into the future and which had secured for the purpose of future development cheap land in its immediate neighbourhood, would certainly, far better than at present, promote its public communications, its roads, and its tramways in a very much more economical fashion than is possible just now. The great point is that as this land, now cheap and giving little return, developed in value, the profits of that development would go to those who are supervising the lives of the people of the town and providing funds for future development and improvement. I maintain that this Bill proposes nothing which is unjust. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Land, of course, is a legalised monopoly, and I do maintain that to buy out for public use a monopoly of this kind at its present value cannot be called oppressive or unjust to those who at present hold it. That Bill was moved by Lord Morley and was supported strongly by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade in this present Government and also by the present Prime Minister. That Bill, supported by those important and weighty statesmen, had provisions similar to those in the Bill I am now placing before the House. I know, of course, that the machinery of that Bill was somewhat different. That Bill proposed that a valuation should be made of the land within the area of the municipalities and that after that valuation for a subsequent period of twenty years the local authority should have the power to compulsorily take over land at the last valuation made. I judge from that that I shall have the sympathetic support of many Members of the present Government. It is said often by a school of political economists, and a school with which I have have much sympathy, that it is a dangerous thing to interfere with natural development. That may be often right, but we do not treat our gardens so. I ask if a development which proceeds through want of thought and lack of organisation is a more natural development than that which proceeds from the care and experience of tried and trusted representatives? I believe that one thing is neither natural nor profitable and that is the poverty which very often finds its abode on the dearest soil, and that that dear soil should become dearer and dearer because poor people are crowding together upon it. We are told the people must live near their work, and therefore it is very risky and dangerous to interfere with developments which have already taken place. Yes, but what sort of work? I am a tradesman. I have some experience of profits and of losses and of balance sheets and the conduct of business, and I maintain, and I will urge this House to agree, that works planted down in an area where land is made artificially dear can neither return a profit nor pay adequate wages to the employes to the same extent as where works and homes have been put on cheaper sites. I urge the House to trust the local authorities with the very widest powers. A long foresight is the only weapon which can be effectively used to get out of the present difficulty. I ask the House to allow the local authorities to purchase land suitable for the various purposes of those they represent while that land is cheap, and before it gets prohibitive and high in price. I am prepared to hear of the mistakes that local authorities make. I am prepared to listen to a long catalogue of error and of failure, but I would submit that no error and no mistake can be so great as to perpetuate errors of poor living, which now seem permanent amongst us under the existing system. I spoke so much about the first part of the Bill, which deals largely and chiefly with undeveloped land, that I need say very few words about the second part, which deals with land which we call developed. That part of the Bill is taken up with an attempt to cheapen the transfer of land when public authorities require it. The power to purchase is limited to purposes already defined, and which the authorities can have by Statute or in one way or another. The Bill provides that there shall be, when land is compulsorily purchased, one arbitrator. The machinery by which the purchase is to be effected is set out in the second Schedule of the Bill. I feel that I need not dwell on this, as the machinery provided in the Schedule is almost lifted bodily out of the Housing and Town Planning Act, which this House passed some time ago by almost general assent. I thank the House most sincerely for the patience and courtesy with which they have heard me. I feel I ought to have apologised for bringing Members down on this beautiful spring day. I thank the House. I claim for no section here a monopoly of desire to help the poor and improve their condition. I know we are all anxious to uplift the people. We may have our different methods and fashions, but I am here only to bespeak for this little measure of mine a close examination, and I hope approval will follow for the measure which makes, at any rate, a serious attempt to deal with some of the difficulties of overcrowding.

I beg to second the Motion. My hon. Friend has dealt so ably and fully with the main provisions of the Bill, and his exposition of its provisions has been so clear, that it is not necessary for me to follow him in any detail through the various Clauses. I do not understand why I have so early in the Debate received the approval of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City (Sir F. Banbury), but I trust I shall continue to receive that approval throughout the rest of my remarks. There is only one respect in which I desire to dissent from the views of the Mover of the Motion, and that is when he refers to this Bill as being "a little measure." The Bill, I think, deals with a very great principle indeed, and I rejoice it does so, because it raises the whole question of the function of civic government. It raises the whole question of what is the proper function for local authorities in the local government of these cases. I desire very briefly to refer to the evolution of our idea of civic government. The system which we enjoy at present is really of modern creation The system of local government we now have was one of the things to which the Reform Act of 1832 was a means. One of the first fruits of the Reform Act of 1832 was an inquiry into the present method of civic government. It was the revelation of the grossest corruption which followed as a result of that inquiry that give us the Municipal Corporations Act, which remains with us today in all its main features. Civic government in 1835, when that Act was passed, had not behind it in all their fulness those ideals of civic local government which are common to all parties to-day. It was the beginning of the attempt to devolve from a central government entirely unable to discharge them the duties of local government to responsible authorities, and ever since the passing of that Act there has been a growing sense of civic responsibility. That is evidenced by the many important additions which this House has made from time to time to the duties of local authorities. If I gave one or two instances out of many that might be named, I should choose those afforded by the subjects of education and public health. The result of every addition to the duties of local authorities has been a great increase, not only in the responsibility of the local authorities, but in the civic responsibility of the entire nation. That leads me to say that I claim that today the nation is ready for a far greater step to be taken towards fuller and better self-government, and that step is afforded by the Bill, the Second Reading of which has just been moved. The work of local authorities in discharging the duties imposed upon them by this House has through all the time they have existed been to a considerable degree nullified in some of its most vital aspects by the fact that they could not deal in any adequate manner with the land question. I do not think the Chancellor of the Exchequer would disagree with me in saying that whenever any Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces any measure of social reform he is brought up against this land question, particularly as it affects life in our great cities.

This Bill does not alter it.

I hope to show that it does affect it in a very vital degree. What is the new fact that we have to face in these recent years which had not arisen when the Municipal Corporations Act was passed in 1835? Surely it is the enormous growth of the cities of the country, and the calling together of those great masses of people who are ever increasing the size of our cities. With this great increase in our cities we have seen how entirely ineffective is our present system of dealing with the land. It has given us the spectacles offered by every city, spectacles of which a great and civilised people ought to be ashamed. I am not one of those who, when looking at the conditions of life for a great number of the poor of the country, believe that those conditions are either necessary or should be regarded as eternal. I believe that this Bill, by giving the proposed power to the local authorities to acquire land for civic purposes, shows us a way in which we can begin to put an end of what has become an intolerable state of affairs The hon. Baronet opposite will no doubt protest.

Certainly.

The hon. Baronet represents a constituency which in all these great reform movements has been expressly excepted. Even when the Act of 1835 attempted to put an end to the intolerable corruption of municipal government, the City of London was expressly exempted from the beneficent operations of the Act.

There was no corruption in the City.

I will leave that question to the judgment of the House. I think I should carry some portion of the House with me in saying that some healthy reform is to-day necessary for the City of London, and that it should not stand almost outside the progressive movement making for better civic government. My hon. Friend has referred to possible objections to investing local authorities with these new powers. Why should they not be given? Why should we give the form of local government and so many important duties to local authorities, and yet hesitate to give them the full powers which alone will enable them to carry out their duties successfully and adequately? Our ideal of civic government was never higher than it is to-day. There have been mistakes in the past, but they are mistakes common to every democracy struggling towards a better form of government. Both in the character of the members of local authorities and in the public spirit which is behind them in the electors, we have never had a higher standard than we have to-day. Therefore I think that there is no reason whatever why we should hesitate to give them these further powers. If the hon. Baronet asks for a justification of this Bill I say that he can see it any time he cares to walk through one of the industrial or crowded portions of any of our great cities, or of the City of London. Private enterprise in housing, for instance, has entirely failed to give us healthy conditions of life for the poor and the working classes of the nation. It is because of the failure of the present system, because of the conditions of unhealthiness and overcrowding, and of the general ugliness that are the result of our present system, that I claim that we should seek a better way and give to local authorities the powers that are conferred by this Act. Let me take one other example of the way communities suffer to-day from the present restrictions upon the powers of the local authorities in regard to land. Let me take the subject of education, and remind the House how inadequate is the provision that we can now make for schools for the poor of our large towns. Speaking in the presence of the Noble Lord who is a member of the London County Council, and therefore speaking something that will or should appeal to him—and that is doubtless within his own knowledge—let me refer to the inadequate accommodation which under our present system we are enabled to arrange for one of the most important services of the State—the service of education. The Noble Lord may tell me that the local authorities can get whatever sites they require for school purposes?

assented.

The Noble Lord Assents. How do they get them? They have frequently to pay a wholly extravagant price for entirely inadequate accommodation. Does the Noble Lord dissent? It means, too, that for this, one of the greatest services of the State, very frequently there is provided unhealthy and improper conditions.

I do not want to interrupt the hon. Member, but so far as the acquisition of sites by the Education Department of the London County Council is concerned, I do not think he quite appreciates the position. We buy land in the open market, and the only time when it is possible for vendors to extort money from us is if they find that we, a big public authority, are obliged to buy a particular site. We have circumvented that difficulty by means of elaborate arrangements for secret purchase, which enables us to buy our sites at the current market rates.

I entirely appreciate the position of the Noble Lord. He has clearly explained it in his last sentence, when he says that his authority buys sites at the current market price. Those current market prices are so excessive.

How would they be reduced under the Bill?

So excessive that the local authorities have to buy the cheapest possible site, without always considering its position. They buy a site as small as possible. It means that the physique of the children suffers, that the whole well-being of the children suffers, that they are being reared educationally under cramped, narrowing, and unhealthy conditions. I am sure those facts are as clear to the Noble Lord as they are to myself. Indeed, I could take him at this moment to schools in the East End of London which, owing to the fact that they were built on land where they are—owing to the limited choice of sites—have been built without any ground whatever for playground, and the school is therefore bounded perhaps on one side by a very narrow and noisy street, and on the other side perhaps by a railway line. Here the teachers and the children spend the whole of the school day. Why do I mention that? Because I do not think the Noble Lord has really appreciated the gravity of the case. I support the Bill for this reason, that our education service is one of the most, if not the most, important service of the State, and that the Bill will not only give us a better general level of housing conditions but will also enable us to see to it that the children of our industrial centres are reared under healthier conditions. My Noble Friend asked a few moments ago how does this Bill alter those conditions? It alters them because it will enable the local authorities to attend not merely to the immediate needs of the community but to look ahead and legislate for future needs. It will enable them to secure, at a reasonable price, land adequate for the purpose without waiting until it is immediately necessary to provide school accommodation, when they obtain only a crowded site at a very high, not to say excessive, price. Because therefore, it means so much for the health and happiness of the nation, I venture, with all earnestness and sincerity, to support the Motion made by my hon. Friend.

I beg to move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add the words " upon this day six months."

There does not seem much enthusiasm opposite for the great civic and social objects referred to by the Mover or the Seconder. I noticed, too, that in both of their speeches we had an entire absence of any explanation of what the Bill really means or is. What I hope to point out is that, without differing from those great ideals which both hon. Members have stated, and which will be assented to by everyone in this House irrespective of party, that the proposals of this Bill are grotesquely absurd and unjust, I do not only say that from the point of view of the landowner. I say it equally from the point of view of the local authority, because whatever our views may be—and I want to say one or two words of a general character—as regards the land it is a monstrous thing to attempt to stereotype a price which under certain circumstances at least might be an entirely unfair burden upon the local authorities and the ratepayers. I will develop what I mean by that at a later stage when I come to the terms of the Bill itself, because it is quite impossible to deal properly with a subject of this kind without you deal with the concrete form in which the proposal is made.

Just one or two questions of a general kind. I think the hon. Member who proposed, or at any rate the hon. Member who seconded, referred to what he called the artificially dear price of the land for social development, either inside or in the neighbourhood of large towns. I want to join issue on that statement in this sense. I have lately been connected with a scheme which involves the expenditure of nearly one million of money to provide for this form of artisans' dwellings in the Metropolitan area. We have most carefully to consider the question of the price of land in connection with the cost of building, and so far from the land being artificially dear, so far from the price of land interfering in any way with the provision of artisans' dwellings, the amount paid, whether a little less or a little more, was practically wholly immaterial in fixing the rental which had to be paid, having regard to the cost of building in the Metropolis at the present time. What we are really doing in matters of this kind is put out of sight, that is the great difficulty. The hon. Member complained of the cost of building and matters of that kind, and diverted our attention to another matter which, as regards these questions, at any rate, is of second great importance: namely, the question of ground rent or ground value on which the particular cottages for the artisan dwellings may be built. I may say that I am speaking from full knowledge of particular cases. We were extremely anxious, if possible, to build cottages in which artisans could live not paying more than 10s.a week. I am coming down to terms, and I quote that figure as the figure at which everybody wanted to keep it. That 10s. a week was wholly dependent upon the cost of the building. It would not have been altered a penny or a halfpenny one way or the other if you had a moderate or a high price for the land. The land in this case belonged to the people who did the building They were carrying a great philanthropic work, and it really did not matter hardly at all whether the value of the land was put high or low. The question depended upon a different consideration altogether. What we are dealing with here, and I think neither the Proposer or the Seconder of the Second Heading of the Bill appreciated it, is what is called the expropriation of land. I quite agree it is enormously important as between the owner and the local authority that you should have as far as possible a cheap method and an easy method, and a method which, if it works, would be equitable and not prejudice the result.and which would secure that the owner gets the market value and no more; and, what is of importance, that the local authority pay at the market value and no more. When we come to the proposals here, we find they are so grotesquely unjust, that to anyone who has to deal with the question of land values, would see they are perfectly unworkable and would produce almost impossible conditions. Is there really any difference, when dealing with what is called market value or fair value, which both the Proposer and Seconder desired—is there any difference when you are dealing with land from any other commodity, because all commodities only have what is called a value if there is monopoly or scarcity? It does not matter whether in land or anything else; it makes no difference whether you are dealing with land or any other commodity. You cannot have any value without there being scarcity in proportion to the demand.

The cost of production has nothing to do with the value of a commodity.

I am not going into a discussion of the economic problem, but how, after all, can you have any worth in anything unless there is a scarcity of production. It is not the slightest good if we spend ½120 in producing something which nobody wants because we can get it for nothing. You would be simply throwing money away. If you take the land in this country I really do not think you can say that in a very large proportion of cases its value is beyond what hon. Members opposite imply that is when it points to the cost of production; that is to say, the money spent upon the land is above the ordinary land values in force at the present time, and considerably above them in a number of cases. When we come to the terms of this Bill we see how absolutely grotesque and unjust the condition is. What we are dealing with here is the question of undeveloped land. This Bill does not deal with any other land except undeveloped land.

The second part does.

I thank the hon. Member for his interruption, but I am only dealing for the moment with Part I. which depends on entirely different considerations from Part II. Part I. in all its provisions is intended to give an easier machinery when local authorities want to purchase land. Therefore Part I. deals with undeveloped land, but there is no property of any kind in this country so difficult to deal with as undeveloped land. There is no property whose valuation is of a more speculative character. It is a most difficult matter, and if there is one business direction in which more money has been lost than another it is by the over-valuing or the under-valuing, as the case may be, of undeveloped land. So you are dealing in the first instance with a matter which it must be admitted on all hands is of the greatest complexity and difficulty. Now what do you do as regards this matter of great complexity and difficulty? You say that the price is one as between the owner and the local authority which must be ascertained under the provisions of the Finance Act. That I think I am right in saying is the proposal as regards Part I. and that is to be the actual figure.

There are several answers which make that proposal wholly unjust and wholly impossible as regards any fair arrangement between the parties. To begin with you do not get the valuation under the Finance Act which has the necessary definiteness and the necessary care for the transfer of huge quantities of property of this kind. It is quite impossible, and you must remember it is all the more impossible as regards poor people. I want to explain by illustration what I mean. A poor man who has undeveloped land cannot possibly afford to get experts and persons of this kind necessary in order that he may be sure that his land is really valued fairly under the Finance Act at all. I may give an illustration from my own experience. The other day I was sent a valuation of a small property in one of the northern counties. Having forgotten that I had any connection with this property I sent it back and said there must have been some mistake made. It was returned to me with the intimation that my name was the first of two or three trustees of a certain small charity. The whole thing was about £5 a year. If I had gone into the question in order to ascertain whether the valuation was fair or not, I should have had to instruct solicitors and consult experts, and I am quite certain in the end the whole fee simple value of that small charity would have been entirely eaten up by going into all the considerations of that kind. I only give that as one illustration. People imagine, or seem to imagine, that land owners in this country are a wealthy body. Of course there are some well-to-do landlords and there are some well-to-do manufacturers and men in other walks of life, but the enormous majority of land owners in this country are poor men holding small properties, and when you come to these conditions as to this valuation under the Finance Act it would mean absolute ruin and bankruptcy to them to suppose they could go to the expense of ascertaining what may be a fair and proper value.

There is another consideration as to which I heard nothing from the proposer and seconder of this Bill. In many cases these transactions would take place upon a stale valuation. Revaluation for the purposes of Undeveloped Land Duties only takes place once in five years. Take the position in the fourth year. Can any hon. Member suggest it is fair to one party or the other to make an absolute transfer of property under the conditions of a stale valuation? I am not speaking now only on behalf of the land owners. I understand that both hon. Members opposite are anxious to give what they called civic liberty—I think I use the right expression —as regards the purchase of land. What greater fraud is there than to give a so-called civic advantage only allowing land to be purchased on terms which owing to changed conditions would be wholly exorbitant and unfair. Is this really intended by the Proposer and Seconder of this measure? I think the whole essence of fairness as regards these land transactions is that you should give proper protection or consideration to both sides, whereas in this case you do not give it to either. You take a fictitious valuation which may be wholly unsuitable to the changed conditions and you compel people, to the detriment of one party or the other, to have a transfer upon those terms. That is grotesquely unjust and absurd, and in fact it is just the way to stop any real reform in regard to the acquisition of land and this absurd proposal is seriously brought forward in this House and is not explained by a single sentence, and it is sought to be exploited in one of those general dissertations on general philanthropy which is so dear to hon. Members opposite in this House and on the public platform.

Let me go a step further. We are now dealing with undeveloped land. Nothing is more certain than that if you have got a plot of undeveloped land suitable or ripe, for building or manufacturing purposes, you may do the grossest possible damage by utilising a portion of that land for some particular purpose. It is well known as regards land near towns that one of the largest items which affects the value to the owner is what is called the back land, because the other land is often injuriously affected. What does this Bill propose? It suggests a method which is necessarily and essentially wholly unjust. You have to consider not only what is suggested in the scheme of the Bill but also the damage which may be done to the surrounding land, and to the owners of the surrounding land, having regard to the purpose for which the land may be used. That is one of the essential and vital principles in all questions of valuation. If the hon. Member opposite had his own Bill before him he would see that this land, once purchased by the local authority, may be used for any purpose whatever. You might use it for sewage disposal works, for a dust destructor, or to put up gas works which under other conditions are only put up under carefully protected provisions. In that away you might ruin all the surrounding acres of property having regard to the natural development, and you might take those particular acres without having any regard to those considerations which ought to be considered in any fair method of valuation.

What answer is there to this argument? I will take a certain number of acres, and perhaps the hon. Member for Newcastle will agree with this argument. Take a large number of acres valued at £250 per acre, and the local authority wishes to have the back land portion. The price is £250 per acre all round, and, according to ordinary valuation, the back land would be £100 per acre and perhaps less, because there is often a difference of two or three times the amount between the value of the back land and the front land. Under these conditions the civic authorities, in order to acquire that land, might have to pay three or four times its value. Is that encouraging the civic authorities and getting rid of the artificial value of land? On the contrary, that is creating it. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of dealing with land can come to no other conclusion. Whether you look at this procedure from.one side or the other, you must get what is necessarily gross injustice except by accident. In connection with this point let me take up the Bill itself for a moment. Now I am going to speak on behalf of the ratepayers. The first Clause proposes that a local authority, a county council, or a borough council, or the County Council of London may, without any limitation, purchase compulsorily any land within or in the neighbourhood of their area which is undeveloped land and is not vested in any other local authority. Take, for example, the county of London. This Bill enables the County Council of London to purchase every acre of undeveloped land within the county, a transaction which, I am sure I do not exaggerate when I say, involves a far greater sum than the amount of the National Debt. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] That is quite true, and I will deal with the limitations when I come to them.

The prima facie effect of this proposal is to enable the London County Council to expend upon the most speculative purpose of acquiring undeveloped land a sum which might be two or three times the amount of the National Debt of this country. I will deal with the only suggested limitation in the Bill. What is it? The only suggested limitation is found in Clause 3, Sub-section (2), and really the comedy of this is worth following. It provides that they shall not expend a sum greater than the amount of the rateable value of all the land within their area, or expend in any one year for that purpose a sum greater than one-fourth of that rateable value without having a resolution in favour of the purchase. If they get that resolution they can do all that I have said, because their power is absolutely unlimited. Let me refer for a moment to the poll to be taken with regard to this resolution. This is the ludicrous side of the Bill, and I want any hon. Members who have got this measure to look at Part II. Can anyone believe that any sane persons can make such a suggestion who have any knowledge of local government? Take the county council area of London. You will have to have a meeting of the electors, and there are about one million of them. Before you can have the thing finally decided it is to be decided by a show of hands after a reasonable interval, that being determined by the chairman. Just conceive what that means. Where are you going to have this meeting of one million electors of London.

With Mr. White-house as chairman.

I want to show how absurd this Bill is. Here you have a proposal that you are to have a meeting of one million electors in one place, and the final decision is to be given by a vote and no possible arrangements for a poll.I will take for example the case of my own county of Buckingham, which is seventy miles from one end to the other. The purchasing authority there is the Buckingham County Council, and they wish to call a meeting of the electors. These electors are spread over an area approximately seventy miles long and twenty miles broad. Where are they to meet? How is a meeting to be called? What sort of tumultuous gathering would it be by which, after a reasonable time, the final decision is to be given? It reminds us of our old Teutonic ancestor. Although there is this difference in that case, that he had two opportunities—one when he was drunk and one when sober. Is it not ludicrous to introduce a Bill of this kind which, when you come to examine it, you can only look upon it as an absurdity? Apart from that, I do not know exactly what the Proposer and Seconder mean. In my own poor agricultural country, now struggling with the educational rate, is it possible that it should be authorised to spend a million and a quarter of money on the most speculative business which this world has, namely, the development of undeveloped land for building purposes? More money has been lost by bad speculations in that matter than in any other, and am I, as a ratepayer of the county of Bucks, to sit still and allow general philanthrophy to put a burden of this kind upon me, seeing it would render us in the county unable to carry out those social and civic duties which we are sincerely desirous of carrying out in the best possible manner?

Then I come to another point, in connection with Sub-section (2) of Clause 1. It is an old and stale provision that the price shall be that fixed under the Finance Act, which may be grossly unjust either on one side or the other, and does not bring into consideration what is one of the main difficulties in these cases—the damage to adjoining land. I may put it in this way. No doubt the Proposer and Seconder have studied the matter. Perhaps they may know something about a process which is called in the Colony of Australia of "taking the eye out of the land" You can take the eye out of the land here if you want it. You take the best bit, and you cheat the owner; or, on the other hand, if your civic necessities require it. you take the worst bit, and cheat yourselves. A more delightful system of inequality and unfairness, according to local conditions, it is impossible to conceive What is there to be said for Part I. of the Bill? We have not heard anything said yet, and I doubt very much whether We shall hear anything in the course of the discussion this afternoon. There is one other matter in the first Schedule which might perhaps be dealt with rather as a Committee point, but I should like to mention it because it shows the unfair basis upon which the Bill is founded. In order to get along as cheaply and as happily as possible the land is to be vested absolutely in the local authority when they have taken certain steps. But suppose they have taken no steps against someone who is not the owner? I want to ask the Mover and Seconder, do they suggest that, where the owner has been disregarded altogether—it may have been by mistake, but at any rate he has been deprived of any voice in the transaction whatever—do they intend that by a mere order of the local authority the owner shall be deprived of his rights in the matter? I suggest that that is wholly inconsistent with fair dealing in land. The matter after all may possibly be considered not as one of principle but of detail. But I think the Bill as regards Part I. from top to bottom is so absurd that it cannot possibly be received by this House except with ridicule. There is one other point on the first Part upon which perhaps the Attorney-General may say a few words. There is a provision in the first Schedule that if objection is taken and the matter is considered by the local authority who have determined that they want to take the land, then the only appeal will be to the very people who want to take the land. It seems really impossible that such a proposer can be seriously made. Again, I have not heard what either the proposer or the seconder have to say in favour of it. Here you have the appeal to the very local authority who have made up their mind to take the land.

The second part of the Bill is open to less objection than the first. I object to many of the special provisions in Part II., but with its general idea I agree. That general idea is to make the machinery more easy than at the present time where civic authorities want to purchase land. I want to point this out as a contrast between Part I. and Part II. Part II. presupposes you have either statutory power or the authority of the Local Government Board. You can substitute the authority of the Local Government Board for statutory authority. What do I find? Where the local authority is purchasing land under these conditions you get a code which, although I do not agree with it, is possible of application, whereas in Part I. you are purchasing without any authority at all; and under the doctrine of the free hand you practically do what you like without reference to law, procedure, or custom as regards either valuation of the taking of the land. Part II.by itself might, in my opinion, be a matter open for discussion, as regards a portion of it at any rate, at the Committee stage. But there are just one or two points I should like to call the attention of the Attorney-General to, and I hope he will deal with them when he comes to speak by and by. What is really done is this: You are substituting an official arbitrator for an arbitrator chosen by the parties. I think it is better to have an arbitrator chosen by the parties. That is the fairer system. When you have got your official arbitrator, however difficult the case may be, and however complicated, you are not going to allow either counsel or expert witnesses to be employed. A certain diffidence prevents me talking of the advantages of counsel, but I want to say this, how possibly could any Tribunal ascertain the true value of land in difficult and complicated cases without the assistance of those who spend their lives in gaining the information and experience which are necessary to guide any Tribunal which is seeking to hold the balance fairly. I believe that this provision is taken from the Small Holdings Act, but the reason why it was inserted in that Bill was that a very different class of land was being dealt with—land not at all like undeveloped land which is being made the subject of this proposed legislation, and you also undoubtedly wanted, if possible, to avoid any charge upon the smallholder.

We do not refer to undeveloped land.

No, but it includes it. I think the hon. Gentleman has forgotten that. I am dealing now with land of all qualities. It may be undeveloped land, or any other land. In fact, under the second part you might have one of the most complicated and difficult cases what are known as compensation cases you could possibly have. It might really be essential the tribunal should be properly informed and instructed, and yet you deliberately set to work to deprive the tribunal of the only evidence which is of real value in order to come to a fair determination. It is equally unfair to both sides. Why should the local authority give a price which has not been properly ascertained, but which is merely ascertained by a process of guesswork? I have stood up in this House, and I stand up now, as an advocate of the ratepayer. I think it is a monstrous thing to say a charge may be put upon the ratepayer which may make him pay three or four times the sum he would have to pay if the price were properly ascertained. I think it is a great mistake to start with an unjust Bill of this kind, and I say it is grossly unjust. I am not talking for the moment of one party or the other; I am talking in the interests of a fair valuation when you are dealing with certain classes of property. I did not hear one word in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder either dealing with these difficulties or suggesting any possible solution to the criticisms I have applied to the Bill. The fact is, when the Bill is properly considered, it is seen to be quite impossible. It is impossible to all parties who desire fair dealing with a great subject matter of this sort. I may disagree profoundly with various Member on the other side of the House, and possibly with some Members on this side as to the way of dealing with land and as regards the question of price between the owner and the local authority, but I do not believe any Member on either side of the House really denies, if you have to ascertain a figure of that kind, it ought to be ascertained on fair terms, and that fair opportunities ought to be given to both parties to the bargain. I know the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme takes a different view altogether on this land question.

I do not take a view different from that.

I do not know, but I think it is extremely unlikely the hon. Member will support this Bill. While you have property, and while it exists, and you are going to transfer it from one party to another, do maintain the principle that it should be done on a fair basis. It is too late to go back to the old-fashioned doctrine of Bentham, but he points out more forcibly and clearly than anyone else that if you are to have these compulsory transfers you must have them fair, because it is only then you have equality of contribution, and any sacrifice of that principle must inure to the disadvantage of all the industrial and other interests in a great community like ours. I do not wish to dwell longer on a Bill which appears to me incomprehensible, unjust; and grotesque.

I rise to second the Amendment, and, in so doing, I should like to say I share the view my hon. Friend has expressed that neither the Mover nor the Seconder has given us any explanation of the details of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman who moved, founded his argument on a statement that there is misery in towns which would be alleviated by building more houses, and that in order to do that cheap land is necessary.

I never mentioned the building of houses.

It was the Seconder.

I took down the words of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion, and, if he says they are not to build more houses, what are they to do with the land?

They are to be spread out more.

Then what is to happen to the houses already unoccupied? I suppose there would be more unoccupied houses but spread out more, and in order to spread them out you must pull them down and rebuild them in another place. That, therefore, was the argument of the hon. Gentleman. My hon. Friend said land had very little to do with the cost of a house. One of the reasons why the cost of houses has increased is that the wages of the men employed in building the houses have been largely increased. Within the last fifteen or twenty years the price of building has increased by about 30 per cent, at least, and nearly all of that increased cost is due to a rise in wages. If you are going to increase wages to a very large extent, you must increase the cost of the article produced by those wages. That is what has occurred with regard to houses. The hon. Gentleman said that under the Bill they were going to buy land at its present value. They are going to do nothing of the sort. They are going to buy land at its value in 1909, which may be very different from its value at the present day. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion chiefly devoted his speech to a panegyric of the local authorities. There was very little in his speech but statements that the local authorities had done their duty in a very excellent manner and were deserving to be trusted. It is true he also alluded to crowding in great cities, but, if it is necessary to build houses, land could be obtained at proper prices, but it is not necessary. Everybody on both sides of the House would be only too glad to see a very different state of things, not only in this country, but all over the world, but is this going to be achieved by Bills of this sort? I venture to say it is not. If Bills of this sort are passed capital will leave the country and corruption will ensue on the part of the local authorities.

The Bill is divided into two parts. The first part gives new powers to local authorities for acquiring undeveloped land, and the second part alters the existing powers for acquiring other descriptions of land. My hon. and learned Friend said that he did not see much objection to the second part. I am afraid I disagree with him there, because I object to the second part nearly as much, although not quite as much, as to the first part. Part I. enables local authorities to purchase land compulsorily at the total value ascertained under the Finance Act. 1910. The valuation of undeveloped land, under the Finance Act, 1910, is still proceeding; in fact, my information is that that part of the valuation is the valuation which is proceeding with the least possible rapidity. That, I presume, is on account of the great difficulties which have arisen, and must arise, in valuing this particular class of land. My hon. and learned Friend has observed that of all the land which is dealt with in this country, undeveloped land is the most speculative. It must be remembered that the valuation of undeveloped land under the Finance Act, 1910, was established for the purposes of taxation. What we urged on this side of the House in the objections to the Finance Act, 1910, was that it might be twisted into an instrument for confiscating land. That is exactly what has taken place under this particular Bill. The Bill says that the local authorities shall have power to take the land at a sum equal to the total value of the land as ascertained for the purposes of the Finance Act, 1910. I look at the Finance Act, 1910, at the Sections dealing with "Valuation for purposes of duties on land values." I find that there are three "kinds of valuation. I heard no explanation from either the Mover or the Seconder of the Bill why they take the particular valuation which is mentioned in this Bill. Not being a lawyer, I must preface the remarks I am going to make by the statement that I may possibly have misunderstood the provisions of the Section, for they are very complicated. As my hon. and learned Friend observed, they were never explained on the other side, and if I have made a mistake no doubt the Attorney-General, in speaking later, will correct me. Under Section 25 of the Finance Act, 1910, the first valuation is this:—

"The gross value of land means the amount which the fee simple of the land, if sold at the time in the open market by a willing seller in its then condition, free from incumbrances, and from any burden, charge, or restriction (other than rates or taxes) might be expected to realise."

Why was not that valuation taken? That seems to me to be the nearest approach to a fair valuation contained in this particular Section. But that was not taken. What was taken was Sub-section (3) of Clause 25, which says:—

"The total value of land means the gross value after deducting the amount by which the gross value would be diminished if the land were sold subject to any fixed charges and to any public rights of way or any public rights of user, and to any right of common and to any easements affecting the land, and to any covenant or agreement restricting the use of the land entered into or made before the thirtieth day of April nineteen hundred and nine, and to any covenant or agreement restricting the use of the land entered into or made on or after that date, if, in the opinion of the Commissioners, the restraint imposed by the covenant or agreement so entered into or made on or after that date was when imposed—"

I desire to call the attention of the House particularly to this phrase: "was when imposed desirable in the interest of the public."

As I understand it, what that means is this: if an owner of undeveloped land, when the land was assessed under this Sub-section for the purposes of Undeveloped Land Duty, could prove that, either before or after the Act, he had made certain improvements to that land, or spent certain money in improving it, and those improvements were to the interest of the public, those improvements were to be deducted from the proper value of the land. That, of course, is very reasonable, because it was on the value as so ascertained that a certain annual charge was to be made, and it would seem to be rather hard to place a tax upon that sum of money which the owner has spent on the land when that sum of money had been expended with a view to benefiting the neighbourhood. That is the Sub-section which the promoters of the Bill have taken as the basis of valuation, in other words, that where an unfortunate land owner has spent money for the good of the neighbourhood, as is shown by the opinion of the Commissioners, that money is to be deducted, and by the deduction of that money the value is to be decreased, then the local authority is to come forward and, at the lower price, is to take possession of the land. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Alexander Harvey) told us that he is connected with the cotton trade. Does he sell his cotton on that basis, or would he support a Bill which dealt with cotton in that manner? I may be wrong in my interpretation, but if I am not wrong, I say that a more disgraceful Clause was never put into any Act of Parliament. My hon and learned Friend alluded to the fact that the local authority might buy the whole of the land in their area. Actuated, no doubt, by the desire to leave something for me, he left out a further very important point. Not only may the local authority buy the whole of the land in their area, but they may buy land in the neighbourhood of their area. There is no definition of what "neighbourhood of their area" is. The neighbourhood of the area is, I suppose, the whole of England.

expressed dissent.

Does the right hon. Gentleman disagree?

Yes.

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain?

I only dissented from what I thought was the rather wild proposition that the whole of England was the neighbourhood of the area. You would scarcely say, for instance, that land in Carlisle was in the neighbourhood of London.

That may be so, but really I live in such times that I do not know what to think. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that in ordinary times, and in ordinary circumstances, that neighbourhood would mean within a reasonable limit, but when one is confronted with Bills of this sort I say I do not in the least know what neighbourhood means, and I take the worst construction for the moment in order to safeguard the unfortunate ratepayer, because, after all, the ratepayer is going to suffer as much as anybody else, and I say that "neighbourhood of their area" might possibly be held to cover a very large expanse of land. There is a very peculiar word in Clause 2—

"Any undeveloped land acquired by a local authority under this part of this Act may be appropriated by the authority for any purpose for which the authority have power to acquire land, or may be leased by the local authority or used by them for such other purposes as the authority may determine."

"Appropriate" is a beautiful word to put into an Act of Parliament. This Bill does appropriate property, and I am very glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman has shown his hand by putting in a word of this sort. There is a Clause later on which deals with the manner in which they may appropriate land. That is beautifully worded too. I am not in the least surprised that neither the Mover nor the Seconder dealt at all with the Bill. First of all, the Schedule says that the land is to be vested in the authority whenever the authority chooses to say it shall be vested in it. That has never occurred before in any Act of Parliament in any country unless it were during the French Revolution. It goes on to say that if within the prescribed period no objection has been delivered to the local authority then the land is vested. I do not know who is going to say what the prescribed period is going to be. I am obliged to the hon. Member for his extreme kindness and courtesy to the owners of land who, in many instances, are people of moderate means who have invested the savings of a lifetime, earned by hard work in an honest and proper manner, in the purchase of land. I am a director of a bank and I am surprised at the number of people who invest their savings in houses and land. What will the hon. Member allow people who have done that to do? They shall be permitted to appear when their land is going to be appropriated if they make an objection—

"They shall be permitted to appear and state their objections to the local authority, and the authority before determining to make a vesting order shall give full consideration to every such objection."

One would think that these people were conferring some great calamity upon the nation, and were owning something which they had no business to own, and had done something nearly as bad as the Suffragettes who were put in prison for breaking windows. Under Clause 3,

"Any moneys so borrowed shall not be taken into account for the purpose of any limitation contained in any enactment on the power of the authority to borrow."

That is to say, they may be led into enormous obligations to borrow large sums of money, and that is not to appear as part of the debt or to interfere with the powers which Parliament has given them to borrow certain sums of money. Subsection (2) of Part II. of the first Schedule is supposed to put some sort of limitation upon the amount of land which may be acquired. No more absurd limitation was ever introduced into any Act of Parliament:—

"A public meeting of electors shall be held in accordance with this notice, and the mayor or chairman, or, in the event of his being unable or unwilling to preside, any person appointed by the council to perform that duty, shall be president of the meeting, but if neither the mayor or chairman, nor the person so appointed is present within ten minutes after the time appointed for the meeting, the meeting shall choose an elector present at the meeting to be president of the meeting."

Here is a meeting called to deal with most important subjects, and if the mayor is ten minutes late the hon. Member who moved the Bill, if he happens to be present naturally, having pulled the strings and convened the meeting, is put into the chair and is going to decide when to move the closure after a reasonable interval for discussion. I feel sure the hon. Member will think that two minutes is quite a reasonable time for discussion, and after a lapse of two minutes he puts the question, and it is to be decided by show of hands. There will be possibly twenty or thirty people at the meeting, and there is to be no appeal from that decision. I do not think I need express my opinion upon that. I do not think even the hon. Member (Mr. Barnes), whose name is on the Bill, and who is studying it now, probably for the first time, would defend such a proposition. Now we come to Clause 2, which introduces the principle of betterment without introducing the principle of "worsement." When I first came into the House the question of betterment was rather a burning question with a certain class of people, and the county council attempted on more than one occasion to introduce the principle. I think it was tried somewhere in the East End and it proved to be a total failure. Even then the more moderate of the supporters of betterment were of opinion that "worsement" also should be introduced. Everyone knows it is reasonable that where a man's land is taken away the cost of reinvestment should be provided and that is what is not done under this Bill. Subsection (4) of Clause 6 says:—

"The arbitrator may, if he is of opinion that that part can be severed without material detriment to the property, order that the claimant shall be required to sell to the local authority a part only of any house, building, or manufactory without selling the whole."

How can you sell a part of a house, building, or manufactory without selling the whole? That seems to me to be a rather extraordinary provision. Now we come to the arbitrator who is to be appointed to settle the price under the second part of the Bill. This Gentleman appears to me to be of a very extraordinary description. He is to be an impartial person who is not in the employ of any Government Department and yet you find that his remuneration is to be fixed by the Board. If he is to be paid by the Board he becomes to a certain extent a servant of the Board.

"Any person so appointed shall in England have for the purpose of the inquiry all the powers of an inspector of the Board … The arbitrator shall, so far as practicable, in assessing compensation act on his own knowledge and experience."

But he is not to allow witnesses or counsel. Therefore there is to be an arbitrator—no arbitrator can know the value of every kind of property all over the country—and though I gather there is no appeal, he is not to hear evidence, not to have expert witnesses, not to allow counsel to appear, but is on his own knowledge and experience to say what is to be fair in settling the price to be paid for this property. I venture to say that nobody out of Bedlam could have devised such a scheme, and I should think it would be very doubtful if you would find a Gentleman of standing and position who would care to take up such a position. In conclusion, may I point out to the House that what this Bill is going to do, provided that it is workable—I think my hon. and learned Friend and myself in a more feeble way have shown that the provisions of the Bill are absolutely unworkable—is that it is going to put the property of a very large number of people in this country entirely at the mercy and disposal of local authorities. Who are the local authorities? We have heard of the wonderful way they have carried out their work. I venture to say that in the case of a great number of local authorities there are very few people who have been successful in business, or know anything whatever about the purchase of land, or would be able to carry out provisions of this sort. I see my Noble Friend (Viscount Castlereagh) rises a little at that fly. Though I quite admit that there are some very competent and honourable men members of local authorities, it cannot be denied that a very large number of people become members of these bodies because they are desirous to become politicians, and because they are desirous to become professional politicians. With a salary of £400 a year now paid to Members of this House, the temptation to people to obtain their first experience in local authorities and then to come to this House is very great. Remember the temptation to become a member of a local authority when you have all this great power confided to you will be very great. When you get, as unfortunately you do get, unscrupulous owners of property to become members of local authorities, or to put their nominees on local authorities, the temptation would be very great. Therefore, leaving out any question of the righteousness of the case, or as to the probability of this measure being worked in a proper manner, you are providing a trap into which local authorities may easily fall, and which may lead to the corruption of what hitherto has been a more or less incorruptible body. There were only five Members in the House besides the Proposer and Seconder of the Bill during a great part of this discussion, and two of these hon. Members on the other side of the House are, to my certain knowledge, opposed to the Bill. I have been glad of the opportunity of protesting against such an iniquitous measure as this, and I now second the Amendment.

I understand that the Bill now under discussion raises the question whether it is desirable or not to give local authorities further power to acquire land. The hon. Member for South Bucks (Sir A. Cripps) touched the kernel of the problem we have to deal with when he spoke of rents in London being as high as 10s. per week for workmen's houses, and the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) confirmed what the Mover of the Amendment said when he stated that the price of land had very little to do with the rent of a house. In the North of England land can be bought for—taking 120 yards on which to build a cottage—a penny per yard per annum. That is 10s. per annum. But I understand that in London the price is as high as Is. per yard, or perhaps higher.

The rental of the house does not depend on the cost of the land.

As to the cost of the land having no bearing on the rent of the house, I would point out that we can buy land at 10s. per annum in the North of England, but in London the price would be £6. The hon. Member says that makes no difference in the rent of a cottage. Both the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment spoke of this being a grotesque discussion—a comic discussion. I do not think the people of this country who are suffering under the pressure of the Land Laws will thank them for an expression of that kind when their interests and troubles are being discussed in this House. I rather thought that both speakers ran away on questions of detail, and I return to my intention to discuss, in the first place, the great principle of the Bill. Many of the points mentioned by the hon. and learned Member —I think he said so himself—were Committee points. Others are legal points, which I think are suitable to be dealt with by the learned Attorney-General. When one reads that a workman in London with 20s. a week may have to pay 6s. or 8s. a week for the rent of two rooms, one realises how heavily our land system presses on a large number of our people. The object of this Bill is to take a step in advance, and to do something to remedy that state of affairs. If the local authorities acquire land, they will be able to control it for town planning and other objects. If they lease land—and that is no doubt what they will do—they will realise the increment value, and thus consequently reduce rates and rents. This process will be naturally slow. We cannot make changes in this world very quickly. The present organisation of society is the result of the developments which have been going on for a thousand years, or thousands of years, and we can only change it by degrees. That is what land reformers are content to try to do.

The idea is not for a moment confiscation, but purchase on fair terms. Those are the principles on which societies such as the Land Nationalisation Society proceed. For the information of hon. Members, I may mention that nearly a hundred vice-presidents of that society are Members of this House. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. A. Harvey) referred to a Bill for this purpose introduced by Lord Haldane in 1892. In introducing that Bill the Noble Lord stated that in the twenty two years prior to that date the value of land in London had increased by £7,000,000. I do not wish to enlarge on what could have been done with this money if some such provisions as are contained in this Bill had been then in operation. A study of the great increase of prosperity in Germany leads me to the conclusion that public ownership of monopolies has been a very great factor in that development. Not only is there extensive ownership of land in Germany, but also of railways and mineral royalties; and forests are cultivated by the various States. From all these sources incomes are derived for public use, and it would be well if hon. Members opposite would reflect on what a great advantage all these things have been to Germany in enabling her to overcome the handicap which she has been under in consequence of the existence of Protection. If we had these advantages in England which they have in Germany, some of which I have mentioned, while others I could give, our prosperity would be increased and made much greater than it has been up to the present.

Writing at Heilbronn on 28th August, 1797, Goethe, the great German poet, said:— land in the free port leased to the Warehouse Company, and has a sinking fund, to buy shares, which will ultimately give them possession of the whole income and which will enable the city to abolish rates now burdening trade and industry. In Baden, in 1899, the net rent received for the yearly use of public land was £345,690.. There were 121 districts absolutely free of rates and taxes owing to the income from land. In Bavaria, in 1898, the number of districts which did not need to levy local rates was 526, and in some towns they not only did this, but provided a surplus for division among the burghers. This; is an old institution in Germany and is due partly to the retaining of the common land and partly to the acquiring of land. The German Government at the present time is planning to construct a great midland canal and has. taken powers to buy all the frontage on each side. In England we have plans which have been almost forgotten and which were suggested by the Canal Committee for constructing a great waterway through the centre of England. My recollection is they were to have connections from the Mersey and the Humber.coming down south to the Severn. This is a suggestion of value to this country. In the same way with regard to the new roads that have been planned. Of course,. all this is a little aside from the particular subject we are dealing with, but I only use it as an example of what has been done in other countries and what may be done in this country; it bears on the general principle. And when I recall the foresight of which I have been witness and the enterprise of German towns in planning out for the future, I feel that we have lacked enterprise and courage in this matter, and that we ought to have more faith in the future of our own country. I have encountered a sort of feeling all my life that the prosperity of England will not go any further. When I was a boy there were discussions as to whether we had reached the acme of our greatness. I believe in the future of my country, and I believe that this Bill will do something to encourage it. The Noble Lord opposite (Lord A. Thynne) laughs at the idea, but my belief is that in planning for success we shall compel success.

I was glad to hear the hon. Member who has just sat down say that it is the desire and intention of the supporters of the Bill to acquire the land under it on fair terms. I take it for granted that by fair terms he means that the market price is to be paid for the land .at the time it is bought.

I mean fair terms according to the law of the land at the time and according to the provisions of this Bill.

There is no law of the land which fixes the purchase price of land or of any property in this country. That is exactly what I want to get at. I believe that the purchase price proposed to be fixed for any land acquired under this Bill is a price that has nothing whatever to do with its value at all. The assistance of the Finance Act of 1909–10, and for its valuation and taxation provisions, is invoked for the first time for the purpose of this scheme. Under no circumstances for land acquired under this Bill would the fair market value ever be paid. In some cases no purchase price would be payable at all. In many cases there would be a most inadequate price paid and in no case would the fair price be paid. The hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) maintained that the valuation of the land in this country had not made very much progress up to the present, and it is therefore rather premature to invoke the aid of the provisions of the Finance Act.

Attention called to the fact that forty Members were not present; House counted, and forty Members being found present—

I am sorry to forestall the hon. Member opposite, but I desire to say a few words upon this Bill. This Debate has convinced me of the power of certain Members of this House to utter a multitude of words when they deem it advisable to avoid the issue which is presented. The issue of this Bill is very simple. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) made some play with the second part of the Schedule of this measure, and endeavoured to make it appear, and no doubt satisfied himself, that on the occasion of a meeting of the electors of a borough or county, that meeting could determine to dispossess or, as he says, to appropriate, the land of any landowner in its respective area. That is an entire travesty of the Bill. The second part of the Schedule, as a matter of fact, is an additional safeguard of the landlord's interests, but, altogether apart from the second part of the Schedule, the Bill provides that a local authority having certain powers to acquire land compulsorily, can acquire that land within their area or adjacent to their area. The second part of the Schedule does not come into operation at all, and is not intended to come into operation at all, until the local authority desires to buy land over and above a certain area, or a certain value; that is to say, the local authority can buy land, paying an amount equal to the whole total of its assessable value inside the area. And it can do that without any meeting at all. It is only after getting outside those powers that it is necessary to call a meeting, and, as I said, it seems to me that the meeting will be a safeguard to the landlord. The meeting is to consist of the electors of the area, and, as we all know, electors are very frequently people who own land or own property in the area; and. as a matter of fact landlords would have more to do, I venture to say, in manning that meeting than any other class of the electors. I am in favour of this Bill, because it is a weapon by which we can arm local authorities to protect themselves against exploitation by landowners, and to meet the needs of the community by anticipating its growth. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last thought he had an argument against the Bill and against the preceding speaker when he asked whether the people who sought to buy the land would ever pay the current or market price. So far as I understand the Bill those who are to put it in operation are to be authorised to buy land on the valuation of 1909, and thereby to make provision of land, if they are going to lay down tramways on a particular part outside the boundary, or on the boundary, or just outside of it.

They will know perfectly well that the effect of their action in regard to tramways would be to increase the value of the land in the particular area affected; but, by this measure, the authority will be able to anticipate their needs, and buy up the necessary land, not at the price it would command after the value of land and property had been increased by reason of public expenditure and the growth of population, but on the value laid down in 1909; and, therefore, a Bill which would enable local authorities to prevent landlords from exacting a price for the land which has accrued, not by virtue of anything they themselves have done, but by virtue of something the public authority has done, is an obviously fair and just one. As to the need of it, I think that every single Member of this House has knowledge, as the result of observation, of what has been going on. I remember I went to live in the south-west of London some thirty years ago, and the neighbourhood of my dwelling was then a small rural area, with market gardens from which daily vegetables were sent to London. Soon after I went there, first of all the District Railway extended their line, and then various public improvements were effected, very largely as the result of public expenditure. The place became more attractive, and the centre of a very large population. In consequence of all these things, instead of that land having a value little above agricultural value as it had then, it has now become of immense value, and the landowners there have simply become rich while they slept. This Bill is to prevent a repetition of that sort of thing, and to enable the local authority, by intelligent anticipation of the growth of its neighbourhood to acquire land at a cheap rate in order that they may spend public money to better advantage in granting facilities to the ratepayers, than if they had to go into the market to acquire the land after its value had been increased by reason of public improvements made with public money, and also by reason of the growth of population.

I know the argument of my hon. Friend behind me, and I can quite appreciate that argument, which is that the local authority may buy up immense areas of land. I heard one speaker in fact say that the municipality might buy up all the land around its immediate neighbourhood, and that in that event the landlord would go off with the spoil, the price of the land, and without being subject to the taxes laid down in the new Budget, or future taxes. In the first place there are two arguments against that statement. No "local authority is going to be foolish enough to buy up all the land around its area. It will buy the land only in such directions as are going to be developed because of the town growing in a particular direction, or because of some public expenditure in that particular direction. In the second place I think it is fairly obvious that even if the local authority were foolish enough to buy up all the land in that way, and at the 1909 price, that though the landlords might go off with that price without paying taxes upon it, yet that they would not go off with the price which would accrue to that land, if the town were a growing town, in the course of ten or twelve years time afterwards. Something has been said about Germany, and I know from actual observation that the local authorities of Germany, many of them, have the powers that are sought for local authorities under this Bill, and, as a result of that, they have been able to buy up land in certain districts where towns have been growing, and have thereby materially lightened their own local burden. During the Easter Recess I spent a week in Dusseldorf, a town of about 300,000 population, which has grown very rapidly during the last twenty years. What has happened there? The city council of Dusseldorf have the powers that are sought for by this Bill, and as a result have through their Burgomaster bought up land round Dusseldorf, knowing where they were going to spend money in laying down tram-cars they have bought the land in that particular area. The result is that that land is now ready for covering with houses, streets are laid out and everything is in readinesss, so that when that land increases in value, and it is already beginning to increase, the local authority is going to take that increased value instead of leaving it in the hands of private landlords.

There is no need to go to Germany Ion an example, because where the power has been given or has been in the hands of local authorities in this country exactly the same thing has been done. This Bill does not apply to Scotland, but it so happens that in Scotland there are certain municipal authorities that can buy up land land out of the fund which is there called the Common Good, and a good deal has been done already out of this Common Good towards applying the principles of this Bill. An hon. Member last night twitted me with supporting this Bill because he thought it was inconsistent with the principle of land value taxation. He went on to say that it was a thing that would not be done by the Glasgow Corporation, which had a great deal to do with popularising the principle of land value taxation. It so happened that the Lord Provost of Glasgow was here last night, and after the Adjournment I got him to make some inquiry as to what had been done in Glasgow. He was able at the moment to give me the assurance, so far as his memory went, that the principle of this Bill had been applied by the Glasgow Corporation. He went by the midnight train, and in a wire to me to-day" from Glasgow tells me that the principle embodied in Part I. of the Acquisition of Land Bill has frequently been acted on by the Corporation of Glasgow. A second telegram from him says that within the last ten years the Glasgow Corporation, out of Common Good, has acquired 329 acres. Thus you see that the Glasgow Corporation has not bought up all the land around Glasgow. I do not know where those 329 acres are, but knowing as I do the Glasgow Corporation, and knowing them to be business men, I think it is fairly certain that the corporation have bought this land in certain areas where they were going to run tramcars, and where, perhaps, they desired to build houses for the better housing of the working people.

3.0 p.m.

Here let me say I rather regret the patronising way in which some hon. Members speak about working men or the working classes. As a matter of fact, I support this Bill, not as an alternative to the taxation of land values which, if ultimately and fully applied, would, I believe, have the effect of enabling the working classes, as they are called, to house themselves without any detailed or grandmotherly attention on the part of this House or anybody else. But we are a long way from that. I do not suppose I shall live to see the full and final application of the principle of the taxation of land values, and as I am a Scotchman and a practical level-headed man, I hope, I want to see something done in my own time and generation to relieve the congestion of the large towns, where I know people are housed under conditions which altogether preclude the possibility of decent, let alone dignified, family life. I want to see something done in my own day and generation to enable factories to be placed not in the centres of the towns where they are now, but out in the country amid green fields where the people can have the breath of heaven playing about them. Therefore, until we have the full realisation of the ideals of my hon. Friend behind me, I want this Bill, which seems to me a moderate proposal to arm the local authorities of this country with such powers as to prevent landlords scooping the pool, and taking the advantages which have been honestly earned by the local authorities acting on behalf of the people within their municipal areas. I gladly support the Bill, and, although there seems to be little indication of it becoming law, yet I am glad it has been brought forward, and I hope it may have more effect upon outside public opinion than it seems to have had on Members of this House.

It has been rather curious to watch the course of this Debate. The Mover and Seconder of this Bill recommended it to the House as a harmless little measure designed to cure certain generally acknowledged evils in the municipal life of the country. The Mover of the Bill drew a very harrowing picture of the condition in which people live in some of the slum quarters of the great cities. The Seconder of the Bill treated the House to a very interesting and learned disposition as to what happened in England after the passing of the first Reform Bill, but it was not until the Member for the Stretford Division of Lancashire (Mr. Nuttall), and the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) spoke that we realised what was really at the back of this Bill. The hon. Member for the Stretford Division (Mr. Nuttall) told the House that this Bill had the support of 100 vice-presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society, and the whole tenour of the speech of the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division (Mr. Barnes) was a frank acknowledgment that he thought it beneficial to place in the hands of local authorities the power to speculate in such land on their borders as they, from their knowledge and shrewd aptitude for business, consider-likely to enhance in value. I think the House has reason to be very grateful indeed to those two Members: they have cleared the atmosphere to a large extent.

I should like the House to consider whether it is wise and in the interests of the local authorities to give them the power to speculate on a very large scale in the purchase of land. It is always a matter of profound regret to me to find myself, as I not infrequently do, in disagreement with the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. I do not take the pessimistic view that he holds with regard to the composition of local authorities. I do not believe that many members who are at present doing very arduous and important service on the local bodies of the country go on to those bodies either with political aims or with any ulterior-motive whatsoever. Any misguided person who hoped to advance his political career by service on a municipal body would not be long before he found, first of all, that he was mistaken in that idea, and, secondly, that there is probably no more arduous road by which to achieve political success than that of ungrateful service on some of these great bodies. I oppose this Bill not because I am afraid that the local bodies of this country would not exercise any powers in regard to land purchase that might be entrusted to them under this Bill with just the same integrity, honesty, and singleness of purpose that they have displayed in the exercise of those powers for acquiring land which they already enjoy, but because I believe that if you confer on local authorities such powers as are proposed under this Bill you will knock sideways the whole of that sound basis on which municipal finance at present rests. It has not been sufficiently impressed upon the House what a very striking and novel departure in principle is involved in this Bill. The Bill proposes to confer upon local authorities the power to acquire an unlimited amount of land, not necessarily land situated within their own area, but land which in many instances, in the case of great towns, would be to a large extent situated within the area of other local authorities. They are to be allowed to acquire this land, not for any special defined purpose, not to enable them to carry out any of those statutory obligations placed upon them by Parliament, but with the same motive and for the same purpose as those which animate the ordinary land speculator in acquiring land with a view to making a profit.

This idea of converting the great corporations and local authorities in England into land speculators on a large scale rests on a profound fallacy—a fallacy which lies at the root of many of those specifics for dealing with the land question that find so much favour with some hon. Members opposite, such as the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Wedgwood) and the hundred vice-presidents of the Land Nationalisation League. The hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division instanced the case of a municipality such as Glasgow, which knows that it is going to enhance the value of a particular district or a particular area of land by constructing a tramway. Owing to the construction of such a tramway, the hon. Member argues, the land will enhance in value while the landlord sleeps comfortably in bed. He contends that the whole of the increment is due to the action of the municipality, and that therefore the municipality is entitled to the profit. Hon. Members who use such arguments always choose these extremely simple and obvious illustrations. They simplify their arguments from all those complexities which really constitute the difficulties of the case. Take those numerous cases in which land on the outskirts of a great town is enhanced in value, not by the action of the local authority, but by the construction of a railway by a private company. Take a case which recently happened near London, where the construction of a golf course at Coombe Hill by a few private individuals has enhanced the building value of all the land adjacent. What is the position? Under this Bill it would be possible for the London County Council to embark on a large land speculation and to buy for purposes of possible future profit building sites all round Coombe Hill. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not while you are on the county council."] The hon. Member is certainly correct. I should use what little influence I have with any municipality to prevent their embarking on a large speculation of that sort, and to concentrate their attention on the statutory public health functions for which they primarily exist. I suggest to hon. Members opposite that when they choose the local authorities as suitable bodies to embark on these far-reaching schemes of land speculation, which are by no means always attended with profit, they are ignoring the fact that these bodies exist primarily for the purpose of discharging certain public health functions, and that they ought not to be burdened with any extra duties which do not increase their efficiency in the discharge of those functions.

I think it was really that consideration, that was at the back of the mind of the Mover of the Second Beading when he devoted practically the whole of his speech to the bad condition of housing in this country at the present time. Is this Bill, or is it not, going to secure the object the hon. Member has in view? Is it going to facilitate the operations of local authorities in discharging the duties already entrusted to them? If the House looks at the question from the point of view recommended by the hon. Member for the Black-friars Division, I do not believe that it will for one moment dream of making the municipal authorities of this country speculators in land on a large scale. On the other hand, I feel that if the hon. Member opposite had made out a case and had shown that it would enable local authorities to acquire land on better terms for the great public services for which they exist, the House would look with a more kindly eye upon the Bill. I should be the very last Member in this House to deny that local authorities have in the past and are still being confronted with very real difficulties in acquiring land for public purposes. In all those instances which were cited by the Seconder of this Bill of acquiring sites for the building of schools, for fire brigade stations, for street improvement, and for carrying out the functions of the authorities under the Housing Act, we are confronted with very great difficulties indeed.

In the first place, I would remind the House that, as has already been suggested there are times when the municipalities are called upon to pay something more than the market rate. It is only natural when there are only one or two sites suitable for a given purpose, such as the building of a fire brigade station or a school, that those sites acquire a monopoly value. We have so far as London is concerned done a great deal to circumvent that. I think if we take our purchases, whether for sites for fire brigade stations or schools, for street improvements or for the carrying out of our duties under the working of the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, we may congratulate ourselves that since 1888 we have not paid an excessive price for any land which we have purchased, and that we have got fair value for our money. Our difficulty has been quite of another sort, and one which this Bill does not meet. It is quite possible for this House to meet it whenever it directs its attention to it. Our difficulty at the present moment is the enormous sums we have to pay on account of trade interests and compensation for disturbance. During the last three years I have had a good deal to do in connection with the acquisition of property for the widening of London streets, and I have no reason to complain of the price the council has had to pay for the actual land. Where we have had to pay exorbitant, in some cases I might say almost extortionate sums, has been in regard to trade interests and disturbance compensation. At the present moment the machinery which exists for the assessment of prices for both of these objects operates against the local authorities. We have at the present moment, as the House will remember, two alternatives. We can either go before an arbitrator or go to Red Lion Court before a special jury. In one case there is the natural professional prejudice against the local authority— [An HON. MEMBER: "No."]—well, I will not say prejudice, but slight professional bias, perhaps, against the local authority, and in the other case, when you go before the special jury, I think hon. Members will agree that there is a very strong prejudice indeed against the local authority.

What I should like to see the Government do, if they are really sincere in their desire to enable local authorities to acquire land on fair and easy terms, is not to encourage any of this sort of specific, of these sort of patent remedies, in regard to the land such as are put forward by the hundred vice-presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society, but to direct their attention in the direction of certain practical difficulties which are known to exist and which are acknowledged by all parties to these transactions. They should substitute for the elaborate and somewhat costly machinery of Red Lion Court another tribunal, similar to the Commercial Court that was instituted some years ago, to which the great questions of compensation for land should go, and, if necessary, later, before the jury, but certainly before a jury presided over by either a judge of the High Court or somebody of the same standing. Being a permanent official of a Court of that sort, the judge would acquire a mass of experience which would enable him to deal with equity and Justice, not merely with the vendors of property, but also the purchasing local authorities. Taking the case of the municipalities as a whole in regard to the purchase of land, they have not paid in the past exorbitant sums. We have got fair value for our money. Our difficulties lie in a wholly different direction, one entirely outside the scope of this Bill.

One or two words with regard to the financial aspect of this question. The whole success of municipal endeavour in this country at the present moment depends upon our being able to raise such money as we want for public purposes on easy and equitable terms. We are able to do that at present, to raise money, on more favourable terms even than is possible to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because we have in the past—certainly during the last six years—been extremely careful of what I may call our municipal credit. Our stocks stand well in the market. If this Bill is passed I believe our credit and the credit of all municipal stock will be very severely shaken. It will be sufficient for the investing public to feel that municipalities have the power entrusted to them by Parliament to speculate without limit in land, to embark on the rashest experiments, and I believe that that mere fact, when it is known to the investing public that such a power is entrusted to municipalities, will in itself be sufficient to shake their confidence in our stocks. It is really for this reason that I am strongly opposed to this measure.

I believe that the very sound and satisfactory condition of municipal credit at this moment is due to a very large extent to the limitations under which we have been obliged to work. One of the most striking things of the Money Market, at the present market, is the fact that you have this enormous municipal debt in it under the control of a number of small municipalities. Yet, in spite of that it stands at a very high figure indeed, and it stands in better favour even than Consols themselves. I believe that that fact is due to the great caution with which we have proceeded, a caution which has not always been voluntary on our part, but has been due partly to the reluctance of Parliament to allow us to operate in too wide a field, and partly from the severe scrutiny to which our operations are subjected by right hon. Gentlemen, men like the President of the Local Government Board. This Bill makes a very serious departure in two respects. In the first place it removes the limitation as to the amount of municipal debt. We are at the present moment limited to one-tenth of our annual rateable value for the ordinary purposes for which we exist: the functions of public health. That limit is removed by this Bill. It is quite true that that limit has not always been adhered to in a hard and fast manner. There are instances in which it is possible for municipalities to exceed it, but only by Provisional Order, and only after we have satisfied the Local Government Board, and the Local Government Board in their turn have satisfied this House, that there is a sufficient and proper reason for departing from that rule. This Bill removes the limit without any of those precautions and safeguards. Another very important modification introduced into municipal finance is the removal of the time limit for municipal debts. As hon. Members recollect, municipalities in this country are not allowed to incur a great floating debt. All our debts are subject to sinking fund conditions. Most of them have to be repaid in thirty years. Under this Bill it is possible for a municipality, not for the purposes of public health, but for the purposes of land speculation, to incur an immense floating debt. I ask the House to consider whether these three facts, taken together, will not be sufficient to shake municipal credit, to depreciate our stocks which are the present ruling prices, and to increase our difficulties of borrowing in the future. I do not want to confine this question in its municipal aspects merely to the great county of London, but I should like to point out to the House the very serious effect to London if this Bill is passed into law, and that is the effect it would have upon our credit. We have a gross debt in London of £111,000,000, against an annual rateable value of £45,000,000.

Will the Noble Lord tell us the assets as against municipal debts so called?

The greatest asset is the increasing health of those who live within its jurisdiction, but when the hon. Gentleman talks of assets I suppose he is referring to revenue - producing undertakings. If you take the revenue-producing undertakings of London—to wit, the tramways—you get £12,000,000 out of a total debt of £111,000,000. I do not say that the balance of £99,000,000 has been in any sense squandered or badly spent. I believe it was absolutely necessary, and the fact that it received the approval not only of the ratepayers but of the investing public shows that that expenditure was properly incurred. It has been incurred in order to enable the county council to carry out its great functions which it was created to carry out, and although the debt of £111,000,000 is great it makes me chary of saying to the House anything which would impair the credit of the county council, and which would make it more difficult to raise money on fair terms at any future time. I do not want to go into the details of this Bill, and I do not want to approach it from what might be described by hon. Gentleman opposite as a Committee point of view. The Bill certainly does contain one or two nostrums, such as "betterment," which has been shown, if not to be impossible of application, at any rate to be extremely difficult of application in large cities. There was a time in London when we thought this principle of "betterment" was going to be our salvation, and that we should be able by the principle of "betterment" to carry out large public improvements at comparatively small cost to the ratepayer. It did not take very long to teach us that the principle of "betterment" was so difficult of application, if we wanted to save the money of the ratepayers, that the principle to adopt was the principle of "recoupment" and not "betterment."

I do not think there is any leading authority upon municipal activity in the country at the present moment which will not endorse the view that the sound economic principle upon which municipalities must work to carry out their great improvements is not the principle of "betterment," which has been exploded by experience, but the great and more scientific principle of "recoupment." Yet we find this Bill, which comes before the House with the sanction of 100 vice-presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society, embodies and endorses this exploded nostrum. I suggest to the House that this Bill will do nothing for facilitating the operations of public authority either in the matter of housing or in any other of those important spheres of activity which they are appointed to discharge; that this Bill is not honestly intended to achieve any such purpose at all; that it is put forward, with the idea at the back of it by the members of the Land Nationalisation Society, in order to make the municipal authorities of this country the largest landowners within their area. I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything about the inadvisability of doing that. This is part and parcel of the scheme of land nationalisation. That may or may not be a sound policy, but I object to this Bill upon far narrower grounds, namely, that if you pass it you are going to shake to its foundations the whole basis upon which our municipal credit at the present moment exists without increasing the efficiency of the municipal bodies to discharge the functions they were originally appointed to discharge.

The Noble Lord who has just addressed the House seems to have come to the conclusion that if the local authorities acquire land as an asset upon the basis of valuation of the Finance Act of 1909–10, their credit is not going to be as good as their credit to-day is established upon the asset mainly of the main drainage system. We consider that land as an asset in the possession of local authorities will be equally as good as the main drainage or a sewerage system. I demur entirely to the views of the Noble Lord that the primary business of a public authority is public health in the narrow sense which he announced. I hold you can make out a good case for a local authority having power for compulsorily buying land on the ground of public health and public health alone. If the Noble Lord lived in some district that it has been, I will not say my pleasure, but my experience, to have lived in since I became a householder, he would possibly have a better idea of what the actual conditions are; he would know what is the condition of the poorer people who live in the poorest parts of our large towns, and he would see how great a bearing this problem of the acquirement of land has upon a situation such as that. What is it that this Bill proposes to do? It proposes to give the local authorities power to acquire land upon the basis of the 1909–10 valuation as laid down in the Finance Act of that year. I submit that the local authorities at the present time are in the position that they are handicapped when they go into the market to buy land.

First of all they are subject to this disadvantage, that the private landowner, knowing that the local authority has neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be saved, endeavours to get the utmost he can out of them. They represent the whole community and the public purse, and therefore the landlord thinks he ought to get all he can, including the extra amount for compulsory purchase as laid down in the Lands Clauses Acts. The result of all this is that to-day the local authority, when it tries to purchase land has always to pay through the nose for it. It pays, not the real price, but the extreme price laid down by this House under conditions when this House was controlled mainly by landowners, and naturally the House then looked after the interests of the landowners. This Bill which is introduced to-day would give to the local authorities better conditions for purchase when it goes into the market to purchase land. I confess that while I am prepared to vote for the Second Reading of this Bill, I am not anxious for local authorities to go forward and buy land wholesale. I want to see the taxation of land values not only from the point of view of valuation, but actually in operation. I want the landowner to pay his legitimate share of taxation before local authorities go along purchasing to any large extent.

My experience in municipal work extends over a considerable number of years, and I have had considerable experience in connection with improvements and a Board of Works Committee, and that experience taught me that there is a necessity for legislation of this character. What are the main facts apart from the main details of this particular Bill? In every improvement which the municipality seeks to carry out it is quite safe to say that half the value of that improvement goes into the pockets of the landowners. Take my own town, where the municipality carried out their tramways for a distance of two or three miles. I know the price at which land was selling in those districts before the tramways were constructed, and what happened? In some cases the land increased in value to as much as four times more than it was originally within twelve months after the running of the trams. Who gets the benefit? Why, the landowner. What has the landowner contributed to that increased value? He has contributed a smaller proportion of rates in proportion to the property he owns and occupies than anybody else engaged in any industrial pursuit, and he gains a greater proportion of the benefit financially than any other person in the community. If the municipality had the power proposed under this Bill to take land where they thought fit they could do so, and there are always enough people to watch them to see that they do not do things too rapidly, just as we do not rush thing's through in this House, in fact, they crawl through like snails. The same thing is true with regard to municipalities, because there are always on every municipal body a sufficient number of people of Conservative tendencies to put the brake on, and prevent municipalities purchasing large tracts of land. But there is another thing which would prevent this danger. The municipal indebtedness of a county is such that they could only in a very few instances, and certainly only where they could make out a very good case, spend large sums of money on this object within the limits of their present powers according to the rateable value of the borough.

Under this Bill there is no limit to the liability they are allowed to incur.

There is no necessity why there should be a limit because they have got to satisfy either this House or the Local Government Board before they can get their money. The ordinary laws which apply to municipal loans will apply to this Bill.

If the hon. Member will read Section 3 there he will find that they can raise additional money for the purposes of this Bill to the extent of the gross rateable value of the whole of their land, and that is an additional debt.

An additional debt is not necessarily a bad thing. You speak of debt in this House in quite a different way to what you would speak of it if you were dealing with a private company. When you are dealing with a private company you take into account its valuable assets, and you should do the same in this case. Even supposing your municipality has unlimited powers, it has got to go into the market to borrow the money, and unless it has an asset which it can present to the capitalists who are going to lend the money, you may rest assured that it will not be able to get the money, unless the security is such that the person who lends the money feels quite safe in advancing it. For the last two Fridays we have been dealing in this House with Bills brought forward by hon. Members opposite dealing with houses and matters of that description. If you really wish to deal effectively with the housing problem you will find at the rock-bottom it is a land question. If you are going to deal effectively with the housing you must deal with it in relation to the land problem. Further, if you are going to deal with the smoke problem, that is essentially a land problem. If you crowd a large number of people into a small area, I care not how beautiful it may be in the first instance, you will find that it very soon becomes a slum. If you spread the population over a large area under more healthy conditions, then you must give the local authorities compulsory power to acquire land somewhat on the lines laid down in this Bill.

I do not commit myself to all the details of a Bill of this kinds and I rather agree with the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes) that there is not much likelihood of this Bill! becoming law this Session. I agree, however, that the municipalities should have more power to deal with the land problem. I believe a Bill somewhat on the lines of this would give them some power. I demur entirely to the attempts made on that side of the House to try and belittle the powers of the local authorities and to keep them down simply to matters appertaining to public health. The local authorities of the country are interested in the whole lives of our people, and they are entitled to propagate ideas for the extension of any public service they render and to enter upon new services. I do not believe we have got to any finality with respect to the work of the municipality. I know something about the acquisition of land in Germany and how it has enabled them to lay out and beautify some of their cities in a way we have not been able to do up to now. We shall never be able to deal effectively with this question until we have tackled the land problem, and until the landlords will agree to the proposition that they have got to pay their legitimate share of taxation, which they do not pay to-day, compared with other industries, and until you have given your local authorities power to deal with this trouble.

I could not help thinking, whilst listening to the thorough enjoyment the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London (Sir F. Banbury) and the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire (Sir A. Cripps) were getting out of this Bill, that it was very similar to the enjoyment we on this side of the House got out of the Bills introduced by hon. Members opposite the two previous Fridays. It was the same criticism of detail, and it was the same ruthless cutting up of the Bill. I am bound to say I think they made this Bill look extremely small. They brought out the bad points of it very effectively, and, if this Bill were the only thing that is really under discussion to-day, I do not think it would be necessary for me to speak on the question or to indicate the views of those people I represent in this House. But this Bill, introduced as it is by the Land Nationalisation Society, does bring forward a great matter of principle far wider than all the details that have been commented on by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, and it is at the present time very important the House should look at it from every point of view. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking on April 2nd of this year, in making his financial statement, said:— know he was throwing out a feeler to see whether this Tax and Buy Bill would not be a possible opening for Liberal legislation in years to come. The people I represent in this House more particularly are the single taxers of the country. They are an energetic body of people, although their numbers may not be very great. They have been the life blood of Liberalism, and they invariably put their principles before party politics. These people made the success of the great election fight of 1909–10. They threw their whole soul into the fight for the Budget, and they secured a victory for the Liberal party. But these people were not satisfied with the Budget, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer knows perfectly well they did not approve of the Increment Duty and they did not approve of the Reversion Duty. They fought for the Budget in order to get the valuation. I do not think, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer brings forward one of these Land Nationalisation Bills and hopes to secure the support of the whole body of the land movement in some future election fight, he can expect to get the support of those single taxers throughout the length and breadth of the country. The land taxers are not the same as the land nationalisers. They have no sympathy with them, and they view reform on these lines as tinkering measures, having no bearing whatever on the vast poverty problem facing the people of this country at the present day. It seems to us that in this matter of the land question, we have offered to us by the Government one thing after another as sops to keep us quiet and to prevent us getting to real business. We have had the Small Holdings Act; we have had the Town Planning Act; we have had the Increment Value Duty, and now we are to have this opportunity for local authorities to purchase land and to go into the speculative land business. Every one of these measures has been offered to us on the same principle that a dog with an unpleasant piece of business in front of his nose tries to turn first to the right and then to the left in order to get something that will satisfy his master.

We want a plain, simple proposition for destroying the power of land monopoly. All these other proposals are mere dodges and sops to evade the issue and to show the Government is dealing with the land question when, as we know, they are not dealing with it in the right way. This Bill, of course, is the Land Nationalisation Society's Bill, and I would like to congratulate Mr. Hyder on having got it debated in this House. There is no single taxer who does not hate this Bill and hate the idea of land nationalisation as being nothing more nor less than a landlord's dodge for getting compensation. Let me indicate to the House what this Bill actually does. The Bill is divided into two parts. I have not much comment to make on the second part which provides possibly better machinery for enabling the local authorities to purchase land required for school sites, fire stations, or something of that sort. It does not, however, improve the existing machinery in the only way Liberalism ought to improve it. It is merely a simplification in the rules of arbitration. You are not taking, when you require land for schools, the Budget of 1909, or any subsequent valuation as the basis of the purchase price. You are going back again, as every scheme for land purchase has gone back for sixty years, to the Land Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845. Part II. merely repeats, perhaps with some slight modification, the principle that in buying land you are buying something for which special compensation is required, and these enormously high prices have always been extracted from either local authorities or railway companies. The second part of the Bill, although not going as far as I should like, is unobjectionable, and has a great deal to recommend it, and, if it were passed into law, I think it would be to the advantage of the whole community.

It is the first part to which my objection is principally taken. The first part of the Bill involves the purchase by local authorities generally of what is called undeveloped land. Nobody has yet touched on the question what undeveloped land is, and if you look back to the Finance Act of 1909–10 you will find it is a rather peculiar feature of that Act, as anyone who has had much acquaintance with operations under it will know, that it is possible for the owner of building land round a town to drive a coach and four through the Act in every direction. He has only to spend a certain sum on putting down roadways, and then it ceases to be undeveloped and no longer liable to taxation. In the same way any land which can be by some fiction let with a cottage a mile or two away is also not undeveloped land, and I have no doubt that the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Mr. Pretyman) knows many other ways in which it is possible to get round this question and to see that land is not classed under the Budget of 1909–10 as undeveloped land. There is really only a small amount of land which is technically undeveloped, and it is possible to reduce that quantity very considerably within the four corners of the Finance Act. In so far as a local authority can purchase undeveloped land it may do so under this Bill. But it does not do anything whatever towards destroying the power of landlordism in the country; it merely sets up a new landlord in place of the old landlord. [An HON. MEMBER: "The State."] It is called the State, but it is generally a committee of people who have all the ideas of the old landlord and a good deal more capacity for interference than the old landlord1 had.

You may say the same of the State.

I do. This land legislation first of all fails to fulfil the essential preliminary of fair legislation. If it is to secure the general approval of public opinion in the country it ought to be universal in its application. It ought not to be possible to apply it to one place and not to another—to one particular landlord and not to another. The first principle of any legislation is that it should be capable of universal application. Here you may, and possibly you will, get cases where the local authority will buy the land of one man and not the land of people adjoining. They will buy the land at the valuation for building land, and that is usually below the actual market value, and that man will have a legitimate cause of complaint because his neighbours have not also had their land bought. I am certain he will think he has a grievance, and he will let the people generally know it. If you are going in for State purchase in any shape or form it ought first of all to be universal, and you should not have typical cases of partial application.

4.0 p.m.

The second objection to this particular form of State ownership of land is that it bolsters up the existing system by creating corporate landlords. It makes corporate authorities partners in the system of getting the best you can out of the tenant. You are putting the local authority in the position of the private speculators. It is not because a person is a land speculator that we on these benches object. It is the land speculation itself that we object to, and whether the process of ripening is carried out by the local authority or by a private landlord, it is equally bad in either case, and it is no satisfaction to us to know that the power of speculation is put into the hands of corporate bodies in addition to being in the hands of private landlords. That is our case against this Bill. In so far as it has gone, the case is merely one for not supporting the Bill. I do not think the local authorities are likely to put the Act into operation very much. Certain merits of the second part perhaps outweigh the demerits of the first part.

I want the House to consider next what the local authorities are going to do with the land when once they get it. Here you have the difference between land nationalisation and land taxation brought out. What is the local authority to do with undeveloped land when it has purchased it? There are three things it can do with it. It can let it lie idle, it can let it ripen, as they are doing in Germany, and hold it year by year until it will fetch such a price as will satisfy the consciences of those responsible for dealing with it. In that case there is every year a dead loss on the money borrowed. I agree with the Noble Lord opposite that a dead loss of that sort is going to be very bad for the financial credit of the local authority. The second alternative is that it can build upon the land. It can put model houses upon it. That is a practical proposition to put before the local authorities. They may buy the land and immediately set to work to employ clerks of works and builders to put up houses, but the first result, if that is done, is that local enterprise in the building line ceases entirely. You cannot get local enterprise to compete with a county council which is going in for the building business on a large scale. I demur entirely to the idea that the people of this country want to have houses built for them by the State: that they want, from infancy to the grave, to be looked after by the brass button brigade. I nave had some experience on a council which owns a good deal of land. We let it to tenants, and we make the unfortunate tenant, before he can have a small bolding, sign an annual agreement. He bas to promise not to let off the land for beasts to graze upon, not to put any nails into the buildings, not to put up advertisements. I only wonder we do not require him and his wife to go to bed at nine o'clock and to attend church on Sundays. The fact is the tenant probably finds he has exchanged one old woman for a committee of old women. That is the result of State ownership of land. If the local authority takes the second alternative and employs people to put up houses on the land, it will mean the destruction of private enterprise in building, because it cannot hope to compete with a local authority. In the second place, you will have constant interference with the freedom of the individual who inhabits your model dwelling; and, thirdly, you will have pressure brought upon the local authorities to let these model dwellings at charity rents, or uneconomic rents, and thereby assist the employer to get cheaper labour and to pay lower wages than he does at present. The second alternative is, to my mind, worse than the first. I would sooner that they acted like private landowners, and held land up and let it ripen until it reached a decent figure, than that they should go into business as builders and owners of model property. There is another alternative, which they have accepted in Germany, and which might be accepted here—that is to lease the land to private builders, and let them build just as they would if they were leasing land from the ordinary landlord.

Immediately you introduce the question of the State or municipalities leasing land to private persons you are back again in landlordism, just where you were when you started. What sort of lease are you going to give the man who leases the land? If you give him a seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years' lease he will have no incentive to put it to the best possible use, or to put up decent houses, because he knows that at the end of the lease the land will revert to the local authority. If you give him a thirty-three years' lease he will not do it; if you give him a ninety-nine years' lease he may. If you give him a ninety - years' lease, are you not re-establishing the landlord problem just when you are trying to escape from it? I speak on this subject about the country on about four days a week. At the end of one's meetings it is the commonest occurrence for someone to get up at the back of the audience—some well-intentioned person, like the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. J. Parker) or the hon. Member for the Blackfriars Division of Glasgow (Mr. Barnes), who have backed this Bill—and say, "We agree with you, but why not nationalise the land?" I have to say that while the Conservative party are against both nationalisation and the taxation of land values, it is only the taxation of land values that is really opposed by the Whigs of the Liberal Party, therefore it is the taxation of land values that is the right thing for the working classes. The real point one always makes in reply is to say "Nationalise the land! But what are you going to do with it when you have nationalised it? Are you going to let it cut again, or are you not?"

I had the honour to be a member of a Committee which considered the land question in Nigeria. We found that the whole of the land there had been declared public property by Sir Percy Girouard. Therefore, we began with a clean slate and nationalised land. Immediately we were faced with the problem of what we were going to do with the land, what sort of security we were going to give to the people who wanted to use the land, and what incentive to put it to the best possible use. Some said give a ninety-nine years' lease; others said give, as in East Africa, a thirty-six years' lease, while others said give a seven, fourteen or twenty-one years' lease. All sorts of suggestions were made as to what should be done with the land. Finally, we decided to give the people a seven years' lease, with a promise of renewal at a rent based on the unimproved value of the land they occupied, and to give them a renewal at a rent which took no account of the capital they had employed in improving the property, building upon it, draining or manuring. That is a system spoken of by Mr. Morel, on his return from the Congo, as a model system for the British Crown Colonies in Africa. It is land nationalisation, but it is also land nationalisation with the land let out to the tenants at a rent which is exactly the equivalent of the economic rent which we seek to get who are in favour of the taxation of land values. The man who has got absolute security of tenure of that land is paying over to the State all the time the full economic rent and therefore it is a combination of land nationalisation and land taxation. The difficulty of the local authority in this country would be an exactly similar one and even more serious, but if you once get the land into the hands of the local authority that local authority is bound, in order to make good use of it, unless you are going in for pure State Socialism where every house and factory is the property of the local authority, to lease the land out and to give security of tenure to the man who is going to use it. Unless he has security of tenure he cannot make good use of it. If you give him security of tenure without at the same time showing that he is going to pay back to the local authority a rent which would automatically increase as the value of his land increased, you are not going to do anything to put a stop to landlordism but merely to re-establish it on a new foundation.

My objection to this measure is centred on two points. In the first place, it is a measure of land reform which does nothing whatever to cheapen land or to make it easier for those who want to use land to get it. In the second place, it is a measure of land reform, which, unlike our reform, does nothing whatever to stop the exploitation of labour or the growth of poverty in this country. It does nothing whatever to make it easier for a man who wants to get land to use it, who is at present compelled to work for wages for a master, to get that which he wants, but merely transfers the ownership of land from a private landlord, often good, but sometimes bad, to a public authority, and I do not believe it is possible, human nature being what it is, that the public authority will be able to give that man any fairer or better treatment than he gets from a private landlord. I hope, therefore, that the House will not accept the Bill as any sort of measure of genuine land reform. It is a makeshift, a piece of tinkering with the existing system, with which we will have nothing to do. It will do no good in the long run. It will make it easier for some local authority to acquire a school site and so reduce the charge upon the rates, but it has nothing to do with the destruction of poverty, and will not put an end to the exploitation of the working classes.

I am somewhat consoled by the fact that the forty hon. Gentlemen who have with some difficulty been collected to make a House for the Bill have fallen out, and therefore there may be some opportunity for landowners to have a chance. This Bill deals with immense questions of far-reaching importance. There have been two main questions of enormous importance dealing with the public transfer and compulsory purchase of land in this country for one thing, and with the borrowing power and expenditure of municipal authorities as a second matter. Both these matters are the subject of a well thought out series of measures which have given this House immense trouble, and many previous Houses as well, and it surely is an absurdity that in a few hours on a Friday afternoon, with two counts, this House is to be asked to admit totally new principles of immense magnitude which are going to commit future Houses to the principles which are to be accepted now, or which the Mover and Seconder of the Bill ask should be accepted now after the kind of discussions we have had and with the number of Members we have had present. I protest very strongly in the first instance against great novel principles of this character being accepted and being stereotyped upon the Statute Book in principle by the passing of the Second Reading of a Bill of this character under these conditions. The object of this Bill is one which, of course, everybody will sympathise with. The object, as stated by the Mover and Seconder, is to do something to reduce the overcrowding and misery which undoubtedly occur in our large towns, and which, I entirely agree, are mainly confined to the large towns. Did it never occur to the hon. Gentlemen that it is the heavy burdens which this Parliament is putting on all rural land which is driving people into the towns, and did it not occur to them—

There are no taxes on agricultural land beyond local rates.

The hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Sherwell) said the other day that the housing problem was the land problem, and that if land could be more cheaply obtained the main difficulty would be removed. But I would remind the House that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent (Mr. J. Ward), and the hon. Member for Halifax, voted against the Second Reading of a Bill under which land was to be provided for nothing.

If anyone would give it.

At any rate, land was to be obtained for nothing, and the object was the very one which hon. Members opposite state to be the object of this Bill. They voted against that measure which was intended to enable houses to be built for old people, and so prevent them when past work being driven into crowded slums. The Government opposed the Bill, and with one exception hon. Members on the opposite side of the House voted against it. The measure now before the House is very ambitious. It covers an immense area, but in my opinion it would not only do nothing to remove, but it would tend to aggravate the very evil which it is designed to cure. Surely it must be to the advantage of the crowded population of any area that, as far as possible, there should be encouragement to people to undertake the development of land round towns. May I say that in that direction there has been remarkable co-operation—I do not say actual collaboration but incidental cooperation—between those municipalities which have laid out money in the construction of tram lines in order to give facilities of transport and private individuals who desire to do their part in developing land outside the crowded areas of towns, so that people may go where they can see green fields. That is a natural and economic process. What does this Bill propose? It proposes to deprive them of the advantage of that process, because as the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said truly, a local authority is to have the right to pounce down and take land below its market value. I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Bill in his place. He admitted that the object of the Bill was to obtain land below its market value.

Perhaps I did not make my meaning clear. All I meant was that this Bill enables local authorities to acquire a reserve of land for future needs and acquire it at a price far lower than the price they would have to pay if they waited until they could immediately use the land.

The point was not about the future, but at what price they were to get the land. Anybody, municipal or otherwise, is entitled to buy land at its present value, and I, for one, say that if a municipal authority desires to acquire land for public purpose it should have the land at a fair value and should not have to pay additional problematical value because the land might at some future time obtain a higher value than it has to-day-But when land has really an actual prospective value that value ought to be paid —that is, the real market value. The Bill is clearly designed to enable local authorities to purchase land at a price which may be considerably below its actual value at the time. It is perfectly obvious that people who own land, and are liable to be deprived of it at any moment by the municipal authorities for something less than its actual value, will not spend money in developing it. Therefore development will be checked, and local authorities will be driven into the market as land speculators. So far as the policy of municipal authorities becoming the largest speculative land owners in the district is concerned, my remedy would be to let hon. Members obtain a majority on those local authorities and let them carry out that principle, and I think nothing would tend more to cure the electors of their madness in the shortest possible time.

All we ask is that when they do buy any land they should buy it at fair value. The land may be purely agricultural, then let them buy it at a purely agricultural value. Let them embark on the speculations by which they hope to turn that land into something much more valuable. If they only spend their own money, and if they have given the owner of the land a fair price, the owner of the land has no right to complain. But what this Bill says is that they are to have the right to come and take the land, not at its fair value, but at the value which has been fixed on it by a certain valuation enjoined under the Budget of 1909– 10. I am not at all sure that this Bill is in order, because this valuation does not yet exist, and, as far as I can understand, it is impossible, in view of recent decisions in the Courts, to carry it out. It was only yesterday that the highest Court of Justice in Scotland decided that the whole of the minus valuations under this Act are virtually absurd, or, at any rate, illegal. The valuation stands condemned, not only as regards those minus valuations, but as regards the whole basis of valuation, because that is on a regular ascending and descending scale, and once you destroy the bottom section of that scale you have got to invent a new scale, if you are to cover all the land of the country. Therefore the whole basis of the valuation is gone. That and other decisions clearly point to the fact that nothing more hopelessly unreliable or fantastic than this valuation as a basis for the acquisition of land or any other form of property could posisbly be imagined. The total value is fixed, and I have here two instances of total value ascertained under the provisions of the Act. The total value fixed by the Budget of undeveloped land, which includes all agricultural land throughout England, and every bit of land not built upon, is to be compulsorily acquired by the local authority at its total value. In one instance that I give, a piece of land, which was valued on the 31st January, 1911, had its total value fixed at £700. There was a good deal of consideration, and then, on the 21st June, 1911, the total value was altered to £l,000, and on the 6th September, 1911, it was altered to £l,100. In the second instance, in February, 1911, a piece of land had its total value fixed at £450; on the 21st June, at £750; and on 25th .September, at £900. Those are specimens of the kind of valuation on which people are to be expropriated. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman is going to say with regard to this Bill, but may I remind him that the principle of Part I of this measure conflicts absolutely with the whole theory advanced by the right hon. Gentleman and by the Government of that famous land-taxing section of the Budget Act of 1909–10? What is the principle of that Act; what does it say; what is it founded upon? It is founded upon the dictum of the Prime Minister, that the land value of this country is constantly, continuously, and steadily rising, and the whole principle of the measure, advocated perpetually in this House, is that the value of land in this country is altering so rapidly that by taking one-fifth of that alteration an enormous revenue is going to be obtained from the land of the country.

It is upon the variability and value of the land that the whole Budget is based. Now you come to this Bill, and, of course, the Government will naturally be bound, in the interest of consistency, for which I know they are famous, to oppose this Bill, because the whole principle of it is that the value of the land is fixed; that you are to have the value fixed as on the 30th April, 1909, and that, at any rate, for five years afterwards you ought to be able to buy all land in this country at that fixed value, and it is not going to alter in value at all. One is absolutely bewildered in trying to defend the owners of land in this country against unreasonable and unfair spoliation by this House. One really hardly knows which way to look. We have one set of hon. Gentlemen who desire to obtain the land at its lowest value by expropriation, and they are represented by supporters of this Bill. We have another set of hon. Gentlemen who desire to obtain the value of land which at present belongs to private individuals by taxing the owners out of existence. As I began by saying, it is some consolation that those two sections of hon. Gentlemen have fallen out, and that they cannot agree upon the principle of this Bill. To my mind it seems that the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire absolutely disposed of the Bill as a concrete proposition, though I do not say he would have disposed of it had the hon. Gentlemen who proposed and seconded it given us any real explanation of its Clauses. But we did not have a word, as my hon. Friend pointed out. Not a single word was said by the Proposer and Seconder either to explain or justify the actual proposals embodied in the Clauses of the Bill. All they told us was that there are crowded areas in towns, where there is much misery, and the Bill is designed to modify that evil. He did not tell us how the Bill was going to do that. He told us he hoped it was going to do it. He certainly did not explain to the House or attempt to explain, how the Clauses of the Bill were going to do so. The hon. Gentleman who seconded devoted his speech to a panegyric of the local authorities. Nobody in this House desires to belittle the local authorities, but that did not amount to any explanation of the Clauses of the Bill. My hon. Friend behind me proceeded to show how unjust and how absolutely unworkable the Clauses of the Bill are. For instance, he made a point as to compulsory powers. Under the Bill compulsory powers on a large scale are to be exercised by the specific local authorities mentioned. In the case of London, the county council is the authority, and in the case of boroughs the borough councils, and in all other cases the county councils, and the only way in which those powers can be exercised is by calling meetings of the electors in the particular area. Surely even this House of Commons will hardly pass a Bill which provides for a meeting of all the electors within the area of the London County Council or of any rural county council.

There is one point which has not been noticed in regard to Part II., and that is that the arbitrator to be appointed under this part is bound to take note of any improved value which may subequently accrue to the land from the action of the local authority. That is what is known as betterment, but there is not a single word which allows him to provide for "worse- ment." A particular piece of land may be taken from the owner, and the taking of that piece may enormously depreciate the value of his surrounding land and of the land of surrounding owners. It is quite obvious there are many municipal purposes which are very offensive in their character to adjoining property. It is well known to anybody who has any knowledge of land development that land is generally perpetually and constantly sold subject to covenants. You may have an area in which inhabited houses exist, and those houses are subject to covenants, created in the interests of the district and of the land and providing that the owner shall prevent nuisances on any part of the land adjacent to those houses. That owner is bound equally with those who have purchased from him to maintain those covenants not only on the land under covenant, but on all the adjoining land when it is sold. The municipal authority may, under this Bill, come down and take a piece of undeveloped land adjoining the land under strict covenants and may erect a refuse destructor. There is nothing in this Bill to prevent that. Surely, where any individuals are subject to a risk of this character, it is the duty of this House to protect them, and the only way, the only sure way, and it is a sure way, in which such safeguards can be inserted is to say that the municipal authority or any purchaser who acquires land compulsorily shall have to pay compensation for any disturbance of that kind which surrounding owners are to suffer. I will only say I oppose this Bill, first of all, on the ground of total impracticability, and, secondly, on the ground of injustice to the owner.

I think one hon. Gentleman said that the safeguards which now existed in the land Clauses were put there and that an undue advantage was given to landowners in those safeguards because the House of Commons then contained a majority of landowners. Then it occurred to the hon. Member that this House now contains only a small minority of landowners. Is it not possible that injustice in the opposite sense may be committed today? It is very indicative of that that in all the speeches advocating this Bill not one single Member, as far as I have heard, has thought it necessary to justify its provisions or to allude to the question whether or not the position of the owners of land who are to be expropriated is a fair one. It is apparently not worth while in this House, when you are proposing to take something away compulsorily, to show that you are not going to do an injustice. That is not worth mentioning. All you have to do is to show that somebody who has been voting for you is uncomfortable, and that you are going to make him happy at the expense of somebody else who did not vote for you. If you can show that, this House of Commons is satisfied. That is not the kind of legislation which makes for the benefit of the nation as a whole. I shall be extremely interested to see whether the Government, who profess to advocate sound national principles in the interests of all, will find it in their hearts to oppose this Bill.

After listening attentively to the whole of this Debate, I cannot help thinking that many of the criticisms of the Bill referred rather to matters which might usefully be raised in Committee than to points of principle. There are undoubtedly important questions of principle involved in the Bill. I am in sympathy, as apparently the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Pretyman) is, with the object of the Bill as expressed in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder. I would add, especially in reference to some comments on those speeches, that it appeared to me that although it might be quite truly said that the Mover did not go into much detail with regard to the Bill, he made a very thoughtful and earnest speech in support of it—a very useful speech in support of the Second Beading of a Bill of this character. It was a speech directed to a definite principle. It may be that the principle does not commend itself to the hon. Member for Chelmsford, but my hon. Friend directed his attention to a broad argument in support of that principle, and not to a detailed examination of the various Clauses which were, of course, before the House. Both he and the Seconder gave very good reasons why we should extend the power of local authorities to purchase land compulsorily. I understand, from what he said, that the hon. Member for Chelmsford does not object really to the principle of the Bill except in one respect. I am dealing with Part I. So far as I could discover, his only objection was as to the price to be paid. His objection did not go to some of the points criticised by other hon. Members. His argument apparently was, "I agree that you may usefully give local authorities power to purchase land in advance of their requirements." What I say is—and I agree with him in this—"that if you give this power the land must be purchased at a fair value." The only substantial point of difference is as to how you are to arrive at the fair value.

To my mind this Bill lays down, and, if carried, would affirm very important principles. The first is that you should give greater powers to the local authorities to purchase land. As the House knows at present the powers of local authorities, though wide are restricted. Any particular local authority would not be entitled to purchase land except to use it for a specific, definite, and statutory purpose. If the local authority has acquired land for a purpose, and does not intend to carry it out immediately it is in a difficulty, for it cannot use it for another statutory purpose, but has to dispose of it to a private owner. These are the difficulties under which the local authorities labour in the exercise of their powers in relation to the purchase of land. This Bill says that the local authority can have power to purchase land in the area or the neighbourhood of the local authority, and it may purchase it—to my mind this is a very important principle—notwithstanding that it does not require it for any immediate or specific purpose. So under this Bill it may get the advantage of purchasing land when it is thought that that land will be required by the local authority within a few years. When it is not immediately required the local authority will be able to step in, give notice of the purchase, acquire the land compulsorily, and then when it has got it, use it for that purpose or for any other purpose that may seem fit to it.

So far as the argument of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chelmsford went—I refer particularly to him because of course he is the protagonist in these questions—he did not advance a single argument against that principle. On the contrary, I followed closely what took place between him and my hon. Friend the Seconder and he agreed with the principle. The only point of difference, as I stated just now, was that he said he wanted the price fixed at a fair value. Once we have got that statement, as we have, and that admission from the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I submit to the House that this Bill ought to have a Second Reading, so that we may at any rate get, by a Resolution of this House, that principle definitely affirmed. We shall really then have advanced very considerably. I am glad that Ave have been able to carry with us, so far, the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Chelmsford.

That, perhaps, is carrying me a little too far. What I said was that nothing would please me more than to see the principles of this Bill, advocating this land speculation, put into force in places represented by hon. Members opposite, as I think it would cure them.

I certainly thought I had his assent to my second proposition, but I am quite ready to accept that perhaps I am pressing the point a little further than the hon. and gallant Member thinks I should. In all these discussions the hon. and gallant Gentleman, very eloquently and in moving tones, said that my hon. Friends on this side, when they talk of overcrowding and of rural depopulation, forget that the reason for this is that the burden of taxation on rural land is driving the people into the towns.

Hear, hear.

Sometimes we have heard that it is the higher wages in the town that attract the working people into the towns! Not so, says the hon. and .gallant Gentleman.

Hear, hear.

The agricultural labourer goes into the town, not because he is going to get higher wages, not because his housing is bad in the agricultural districts, not because he will get better housing in the towns, hot because he is in difficulties in getting land in the country, not because in the slightest way he is attracted by the amenities of the town— that is not what is in the mind of the agricultural labourer—what is swaying him is the imposition of higher burdens upon the landowners. I find it is quite impossible to accept that as an accurate statement of the position. The hon. Gentleman then proceeded to contend they should buy land at a fair value. I do not think I am in the slightest degree unfairly stating the arguments of the hon. Gentleman when I say that is not altogether the ground of opposition in his mind. He says if you fix, as you do, under the Bill the price as to possible value under the Finance Act of 1909–10 you are fixing an unfair value. I want to direct my attention to that; but he says this is one of the main principles of the Bill. I agree it is not a Committee point, but is a very important aspect of principle; but the submission I make is that if you once ascertain the price fairly by independent experts whose duty it is to arrive at what is a fair value, the owner has no right to complain.

What is a fair expert?

I should have thought the hon. Gentleman would have satisfied himself before now on that point. I do not expect for one moment that the hon. Gentleman would agree with me as to what is a fair value. All I know is this, that so far as the present law goes our municipal local authorities do not buy at a fair value when they purchase land. They pay a very unfair value generally and a very much higher price than the actual value. There is not a single Member of the House who will contradict the proposition that no sooner does it become known that a local authority desires to purchase a piece of land than the price immediately rises by an appreciable amount in the mind of the owner.

No. Everyone knows that when someone wants to buy a piece of land, whether it is a municipality or anyone else, the price goes up.

I should like to know whether the hon. Gentleman would say that this is a fair view of the position of local authorities and those who desire to sell land? Let me take a case. A private owner has, say, twenty-five acres of land within the immediate neighbourhood and area of the local authority. He wishes to sell at so much per acre; he is a willing seller and if he could find a private buyer he would sell at so much an acre. But he hears, say in the evening, that the local authority wishes to purchase. Will the hon. Gentleman opposite assert that in that case the willing seller does not immediately, in his own mind, put up his price and demand more.

I distinctly assert that that is not so. It is contrary to what I know of my own knowledge.

All I can say is that in the history of the acquisition of land and the experience I have had, and the experience which other hon. Members have had, even those on the same side of the House, will not, I venture to say, induce one of them to get up and support his statement. These are the very reasons which have led Parliament to an alteration in our system for obtaining the value of land purchased by local authorities. The alteration which Parliament has made recently was originally proposed in the Land Clauses Act.

As regards Part I. this Bill?

I am only dealing with Part I. That is the only part of the Bill that really involves an important principle. The second part is of comparatively no importance for the Second Beading. The first part is because it deals with important principles. The whole question of what is a fair value was dealt with by the hon. Member for Chelmsford and the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London, who upon this subject always has a good deal to say that is worth listening to. The hon. Baronet asked, "Why do you say the total value and why do you not say the gross value," and he referred to it as it appears in this Act. There is good reason for that. The gross value contains a number of other things such as encumbrances and burdens which you could not properly take into account, and which must be borne in mind when you are fixing the price to be paid by the purchaser to the vendor, and the total value represents much better the commercial value than the gross value. I do not think the hon. Baronet will differ from me on this point if he contrasts the two sections, for lie will see that the total value is distinct from the gross value, and I think any lawyer on the opposite side of the House will tell him that I am right when I say that the total value more accurately represents the commercial value than the gross value.

Does the right hon. Gentleman say that the total value is the market value?

I say that the total value represents the market value at the time it is fixed. There must be some means of adjusting the value upon a fair value fixed upon the total value in April, 1909. I am sure my hon. Friend who seconded the Second Beading will agree with me that that is the way in which it should be carried out.

That is not the Bill.

What is the good of saying that. It is often the case in Private Bills that it is pointed out in discussion that the principle laid down in the Bill does not carry out the real intention of the promoters, and that point can be met when the Bill gets in Committee. I would make exactly the same reply to some of the observations directed by the hon. Member for South Buckingham, who referred to the question of total value in the case of the settlement of land and the question of taking the back portion or the front portion. At any rate, you have got one unit of valuation in the total value, although you may require to separate it. I agree with some of the observations which have been made about picking the eyes of the land, but those are matters which may easily be dealt with in Committee. This Bill has not been drawn by expert Government draughtsmen.

Once you go away from the valuation fixed you get back to the present system.

I do not think the hon. and learned Gentleman is quite following the point I am putting. I never suggested you should go away from the valuation as fixed. On the contrary, the whole argument I am addressing to the House is that it is a useful principle to have affirmed by this Bill that your datum line for the valuation of land to be acquired shall be the total value as fixed in 1909. You must not forget that every five years you get a revaluation. You have a revaluation of the site value, and in the same way it must involve your getting at the total value, because unless you do you cannot get at the site value. There may be something to be said about whether it will be recorded in the valuation. I agree it is not quite clear, but there is no difficulty again in doing that. The Bill stands as affirming a principle which is supported by the Government. The observations I made in answer to the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman were really to the effect that I was prepared to introduce Amendments which will meet some of the criticisms directed to the details of the Bill. I am asking the House to support the Second Reading of a Bill that affirms the principle that the local authorities shall have the right to buy land in anticipation of their requirements, and shall not be confined to their immediate and specific requirements, and further that they shall have the right to use that land not only for any particular requirement, but for any other requirement which they may think necessary at the time, and, again, that there shall be fixed some definite figure as the basis upon which the calculation is to be made instead of the very wasteful and extravagant system which applies in many cases now under the Lands Clauses Act, which adds not only to the price but to the cost, and which involves certainly more delay than would be the case if the principle of this Bill were accepted. I am asking the House to accept the principle of the Bill, and to leave it to the Committee, when we get there, to discuss all these various matters which have been raised.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

The hon. and learned Gentleman asks us to give a Second Beading to this Bill in order to affirm the principle that local authorities should have the power of compulsorily acquiring land, not necessarily land in their own area, or for purposes for which they have any immediate necessity, but large areas of land for some absolutely indefinite purpose. I for one entirely decline to give any support to a principle of that kind.

rose in his place, and claimed to move "That the Question be now put," but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

If the local authorities really require a large area of undeveloped land, it would be very easy for them to buy that land now, even though it might be necessary for them to come to this House for power. I object to the proposition that local authorities should be encouraged to become land speculators. I should like the House to realise what is the amount and extent of land which could be taken by local authorities under this Bill. I think the House has very likely forgotten some of the Debates upon the Budget of 1909.

And it being Five o'clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Hansard

Volume 37: debated on Friday 19 April 1912

House of Commons

Private Business

Business of the House

Light Railways [Special Advances]

Loss of Steamship "Titanic."

Message of Sympathy from Ottoman Chamber

Bill Presented

Acquisition of Land Bill

Bombardment of the Dardanelles

Petitions Presented During the Week