THE LAND QUESTION. [To THZ EDITOR or TEM "SPECTATOR."] have
read with considerable interest the article on the above topic published in your issue of February 15th. I note with very great satisfaction that in referring to rural housing the Spectator says that it " thinks that the State might lend landowners, great or small, money at a moderate rate of interest to build cheap cottages, that is, cottages to be let at low rents." With a lengthy experience of country life, I am satisfied that this is a reasonable—and the most reasonable—solution before the public at the present time. It is embodied in Mr. Beville Stanier's Rural Cottages Bill, to which the Government paid no heed during the past Session, and which Bill, I am glad to tell you, is meeting with the increased support of the Rural District Councils and the organized agricultural bodies throughout the country. We have lent money lavishly in the past to owners for the improvement of land by means of drainage, &c., schemes ; and it does seem to me preposterous that Liberal or any other politicians who bare supported that policy, should refuse—if they do refuse—to lend money to owners for the housing of human beings, the poorest class of his Majesty's subjects. All the talk about the taxation of land values as a means to cheap cottage-building is sheer nonsense beside a practical proposal such as that which you have adumbrated. The taxation of land values indeed means overcrowding so far as house-building is concerned.—I am, Sir, &c. J. L. GREEN,
110-111 Strand, London, W.C.
Secretary, The Rural League.
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