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large towns in England, Ireland, and Scotland. It may safely be asserted that in not one case in a thousand is the ground landlord also the tenement lessor. Consequently, it is entirely untrue to assert of ground landlords as a class, that they obtain exorbitant returns from their investment by permitting their property to become a public nuisance and a public danger. Mr. Chamberlain, indeed, tries to make out a case, by insinuating that ground landlords, when overcrowded and dilapidated buildings have been taken up under the Artisans' Dwellings Act, have charged heavy prices for the sites. We give his argument in a note, simply asking in reply, how much of the money he speaks of went into the pockets of ground landlords? how much into the pockets of their lessees? and how comes it that ground "sold with the obligation to build workmen's dwellings" is worth only 3s. 4d. per foot? If, as Mr. Chamberlain's authority states, the land in question was worth 10s. a foot "for commercial purposes," what right has he to take it for workmen's dwellings at 3s. 4d.? Until these questions are answered, Mr. Chamberlain's argument is worth very little.[1]
- ↑ The Report of the Committee of the House of Commons (June, 1882,) presided over by Sir Richard Cross, gives a full account of the operations in the metropolis under the Acts of 1875 and 1879. The Metropolitan Board of Works have dealt in all with forty-two acres of land, inhabited by 20,335 persons. The net loss on the improvement is estimated at £1,211,336, or about £60 per head of the population assumed to be benefited. The cost of the land required has been about 17s. per square foot. The price obtainable for the same land, if sold with the obligation to build workman's dwellings, is 3s. 4d. per foot on the average, but its value for commercial purposes is stated to be 10s. per foot. The inference from these figures is most important; but, strangely enough, the Committee do not seem to have drawn it. Under Sir R. Cross's Acts, which were "intended to guard against any excessive valuation of the property dealt with," it appears that the owners of houses, courts, and alleys which had been declared by the proper authority unfit for human habitation, receive 17s. per foot for land which could not be valued, even after the improvements had been made and new streets laid out, at more than 10s. per foot for commercial purposes, or more than 3s. 4d. per foot for artisans' dwellings. In other words, the effect of expropriation in the case of those owners, whose laches and criminal neglect had brought about the state of things which required State intervention, was that they made a profit of
