Our Stolen Lands

J. W. Graham Peace

[Chapter III from the book The Great Robbery,
published by Commonweal Press, London, 1933]

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"The restitution of the stolen lands to the people necessarily implies that the land of this country was at one time owned by the people," said a defender of Landlordism in an article in the London Times, who continued: "In the earliest Saxon times there is no trace of such ownership; but there is abundant evidence that land was owned by individuals. For more than 13 centuries, therefore, the State has sanctioned private ownership," he triumphantly concluded.

That writer was mistaken and, in seeking to limit the enquiry to the period subsequent to "Saxon times," manifested that discretion which is said to be the better part of valour. We credit him with knowing better than to deny that there was a time in the history of this people when the landless man was unknown. This is not to admit that "private ownership" was the rule; on the contrary, tribal ownership in common was the universal custom: the equal right of every member being secured by well-defined tribal law and practice. He was in error upon another vital point: that "State sanction" of private ownership. This is not the fact. Indeed, it is directly contrary to the truth. Governments have approved, but the State -- the whole community -- never! Of the 29 Acts of Parliament affecting landholding, beginning with the Statute of Merton (1235) and including the General Enclosure Act (1846), not one was submitted to the people for approval. All were passed by Land Lords, sitting as a Parliament in which the common people of the realm had no representation. It is only within the lifetime of this generation that the property qualification for membership of Parliament of ownership of land to the annual value of £100 was abolished, and of the Acts subsequent to that of 1845 which deal with the tenure of land, including Lord Birkenhead's Law of Property (1922) Act, it is the fact that not one was ever put before the electors for their approval or otherwise. The last-named Act was introduced into the House of Lords in the midst of the post-war distractions by Lord Birkenhead as a member of Mr. Lloyd George's Coalition. After perfunctory debate there, it was passed to the Commons, where no one understood it, and, practically without any debate, was sent back to the Lords and passed into law. That it was not understood by the legal element in the Commons is proved by the action of the Law Society in establishing classes to which lawyers of all ages went to be instructed in its provisions. So much, therefore, for the claim that present practice in regard to land holding has the sanction of the community!

"The point which I think you must stress, writes Mr. Ralph E. Taylor, a well-known New Zealand barrister, in a letter to the author," is the impossibility of bartering with the birthright of unborn children whatever perfect or unanimous consent is obtained from the living. Every baby has the right to upset any such arrangement.

"Early New Zealand settlers were faced with a great difficulty regarding the primitive knowledge of the Maori, for, although they considered their 'purchase' of certain land from a tribe was complete, every time a native baby was born the 'owners' were approached and the demand was made for the child's share of the purchase money because the original transaction only affected those of the tribe in existence at the time."

Suppose the State had sanctioned private ownership. The State can change its mind, and when it does, it will be interesting to see what attitude will be adopted by those who now rely on this argument. The State, even in the limited sense of a Land Lord Parliament, has never at any time acknowledged private ownership. That great jurist, Coke (Institutes, p. 488), says: "All lands or tenements in England are holden mediately or immediately of the King. For in the law of England we have not any subjects' land which is not so holden." Many authorities could be quoted to the. same effect. Private possession as tenants of the Crown (typifying the whole people), but subject always to the right of "eminent domain," as the lawyers themselves denote the power of the Crown to resume possession of any land at any time, yes, but not "private ownership"!

While concerning ourselves with Parliamentary Enclosures it must be borne in mind that millions of acres were stolen during the 16th, 16th and 17th centuries without the formality of an Act. The Parliamentary Enclosures completed the theft. John Hales, in his "Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England" (1581), makes the Husbandman say: "Marry, these enclosures undo us all for they make us pay dearer for our land that we occupy; all is taken up for pasture, either for sheep or for grazing cattle insomuch that I have known of late a dozen plows within less compasse than six miles about me, laid down within this seven years and where forty people had their livings now one man and his shepard hath all."

Following the enclosures of the sixteenth century, Parliament, in a vain attempt to deal with effects, passed a series of Acts for the purpose of "controlling" the land. These failed, just as completely as will the measures projected by our present-day " controllers," and for the same reason. The preamble to the Act of 1634 is typical of many, and throws strong- light upon the condition to which the dispossessed had been reduced. It runs as follows : --

"Forasmuch as divers persons, to whom God in his goodness hath disposed great plenty, now of late have daily studied and invented ways how they might accumulate into few hands, as well great multitude of farms as great plenty of cattle, and in especial sheep, putting such land to pasture and not tillage; whereby they have not only pulled down churches and towns, and enhanced the rents and fines of land so that no poor man may meddle with it, but also have raised the prices which hath been accustomed, by reason whereof a marvellous number of the people of this realm be not able to provide for themselves, their wives, and children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty that they fall daily to theft and robbery, or pitifully die of hunger and cold."

Acts of Parliament were passed in 1516, 1516, 1534, 1536, 1661, 1555, 1663, 1593, 1698, and then came the famous Poor Law Act of Elizabeth in 1601. Still the poor increased in numbers, and in poverty, the cause of poverty being untouched.

J. A. R. Marriott, M.A., former Tory M.P. for Oxford, says in " The English Land System ":

"The Tudor Government made valiant, if misguided, efforts to counteract economic tendencies which seemed' to threaten both the security of the country and the well-being of its poorer inhabitants. They attempted by legislation to minimise the results of enclosures; they enacted statutes, of ever-increasing severity, against ' lusty vagabonds,' ' valiant beggars ' and vagrants; by the famous Statute of Apprentices (1663) they endeavoured to fix a scale, of prices, to secure to the labourer a minimum wage and regular employment, and to compensate for the decadence of the gilds by enforcing a uniform system of apprenticeships; they renovated the currency; they did everything in their power to stimulate private charity and encourage voluntary almsgiving; and finally, by the memorable legislation of 1601, they laid upon the State a vast and direct responsibility for all such citizens as could not, or would not, maintain themselves … the 'lusty and able of body' were to be 'set on work'; … By such means did the Tudors endeavour to preserve social order and to mitigate the undeserved sufferings of the victims of an economic revolution."

To the present generation, a "common" signifies an open space reserved for purposes of recreation; what it meant to our grandfathers is shown by the Hammonds in their book, "The Village Labourer."

"The arable fields were divided into strips, with different owners, some of whom owned a few strips, and some many. The various strips that belonged to a particular owner were scattered among the fields. Strips were divided from each other, sometimes by a grass band called a 'balk,' sometimes by a furrow. They were cultivated on a uniform system by agreement, and after harvest they were thrown open to pasturage.

"The common meadow land was divided up by lot, pegged out, and distributed among the owners of the strips; after the hay was carried, these meadows, like the arable fields, were used for pasture.

"The common, or waste, which was used as a common pasture at all times of the year, consisted sometimes of woodland, sometimes of roadside strips, and sometimes of commons in the modern sense."

It is true the open-field method of cultivation was wasteful and uneconomic, but it did at least secure to every villager a share in his native land. This share could have been preserved to him when enclosing of land became necessary, had the full annual rental value of all land been taken for public revenue as proposed by the C.L.P.