As Soon As
Men Have Realized Fortunes In Trade They Hasten To Invest In Land.
That
is the door by which they hope to enter into the privileged classes.
Men
accustomed to "cut things fine," in a mercantile way, are not likely to
except a land purchase from the list of things which are to pay cent.
per cent. The tenant has created a certain amount of prosperity, the new
landlord looks at the present letting value of the land and raises the
rent. This proceeding extinguishes or rather appropriates the Tenant
Right. The landlord thinks he is doing no wrong, for, is he not actually
charging less than Lord So-and-so, or Sir Somebody or other? which is
perhaps very true. All this time the tenant knows he has been robbed of
the result of years, perhaps of generations of hard and continuous
labor. It is impossible to make such a landlord and such a tenant see
eye to eye.
A gentleman asked a lady of Donegal if she would shut out the landlord
from all participation in profits arising from improvements and
consequent increase in the value of the land. I listened for the answer.
"I would give the landlord the profits of all improvements he actually
made by his own outlay; I would not give him the profits arising from
the tenant's labor and means." Now I thought this fair, but the
gentleman did not. He thought that all profit arising from improvements
made by the tenant, should revert to the landlord after a certain time.
I could not think that just.
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