The Acquisition and Valuation of Land for the purpose of public
improvements is a branch of the question to which a great deal of
attention was drawn during and immediately after the war. The Government
appointed a Committee, of which the present Solicitor-General was
chairman, and which, in spite of a marked scarcity of advanced land
reformers amongst its members, produced a series of remarkably unanimous
and far-reaching recommendations. These recommendations dealt with four
main topics:--
(_a_) Improvements in the machinery by which powers may be obtained by
public and private bodies for the acquisition of land for improvements
of a public character;
(_b_) Valuation of land which it is proposed to acquire;
(_c_) Fair adjustment as between these bodies and the owners of other
land, both of claims by owners for damage done by the undertaking to
other lands, and of claims by the promoting bodies for increased value
given by their undertaking to other lands; and
(_d_) The application of these principles to the special subject of
mining.
The Government in the Acquisition of Land Act, 1919, has adopted a great
part of the Committee's recommendations under the second head, and this
Act has undoubtedly effected an enormous improvement in the prices paid
by public bodies for land which they require, although, most
unfortunately, the same immunity from the extortion of the land-owner
and the land speculator has not been extended to private bodies such as
railway companies who need land for the improvement of public services.
Moreover, it has not attempted to bring the purchase price of land into
any relation with its taxing valuation.
The whole of the rest of the Committee's recommendations dealing with
the other three points which I have mentioned, the Government has wholly
ignored. Powers for public development can still only be obtained by the
slow, costly and antiquated processes in vogue before the war; private
owners of lands adjoining works of a public character are still in a
position to put into their own pockets large increases in value due to
public improvements to which they have contributed nothing, and which
they may even have impeded; the development of minerals is still
hampered by the veto of unreasonable owners, by the necessity of leaving
unnecessary barriers between different properties, and by other
obstacles which were dealt with in detail in the Committee's report. An
illustration of the importance of this aspect of the question was put
before the Committee and has been emphasised by recent events. It was
stated on behalf of the railway companies that they were prepared with
schemes for the extension of their systems in various parts of the
country, which would not only provide temporary employment for a large
number of men on construction, and permanent employment to a smaller
number on the working of the lines, but would also open up new
residential and industrial districts, but that it was impossible for
them to find the necessary funds unless they could have some guarantee
that at least any loss upon the cost of construction would be charged
upon the increased value of land in the new districts which would be
created by the railway extensions. Remarkable instances were given of
the way in which the value of land had been multiplied many-fold by the
promotion of new railways, which, nevertheless, had never succeeded in
paying a dividend to their shareholders, and the capital cost of which
had been practically lost.
On the other hand, the Committee were assured that, given a charge on
the increased value of land likely to be created, there would be no
difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds without Government
assistance. When the pressure of the unemployment problem became acute,
and not before--and then it was, of course, too late--the Government
turned their attention to this problem, and have guaranteed the interest
upon new capital to be expended on a few of these railway extensions,
but instead of charging the guarantee upon the increased value of land,
they have charged it upon the pocket of the tax-payer. The most striking
instance is that of the tube railway from Charing Cross to Golders
Green, now being extended under Government guarantee to Edgware. Those
who provided the original capital have never received any return upon
their money, yet millions have been put into the pockets of the owners
of what was undeveloped land now served by the line, and now that the
extension is being carried out with the tax-payers' guarantee, the
land-owners will again reap the benefit untaxed.
The development of the natural resources of our country was one of the
promises held out by Mr. Lloyd George to the electors in 1918. Schemes
were ready, and are still in the official pigeon-holes, for the
production of electricity on a very large scale both from water power
and from coal, which would not only provide employment, but cheapen the
cost of production in all our industries. France, Italy, and other
countries are at this moment carrying out similar schemes whereby they
will relieve themselves to a large extent from dependence on British
coal. But here, four years of Coalition Government have left us
practically where we were. In France, although in many respects her
social system seems to me less enlightened than our own, the power of
the land-owner to obstruct enterprise and development is by no means so
great. Land Reform in this country is a necessary preliminary to the
fulfilment of Mr. Lloyd George's promises. Development at the public
expense without such reforms will result chiefly in further burdens upon
the tax-payer and further enrichment of the landowner.