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Message 3176
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| Subject: | [socialcredit] Re: The Land Question | | Date: | Thursday, December 1, 2005 08:37:20 (-0800) | | From: | William B. Ryan <w_b_ryan @.....com>
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| In reply to: | Message 3175 (written by W. McGunnigle) |
"...there appears to be a marked degree of state
interference in land transfer responsibilities either
as an owner or a tenant/leassee of property. To many
of us the degree of interference implied by his views
would be totally incompatible with [what] we normally
accept as freedom of choice."
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I would say it is a different way of doing things.
All in all, I would say there is a reduction in "state
interference" and protection for the individual in
overall effect.
1. Property taxes are eliminated, indeed improvements
earn dividend income from the state.
2. The state is not permitted to hold property
transferred to it in perpetual inventory, but is
required to offer it for sale at the very same price
paid to the surrendering landowner.
3. I see no preclusion to the subdivision of property
into smaller parcels.
4. "No public official shall have any right of entry
whatsoever," etc.
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--- "W. McGunnigle" <wmcgunn@maxnet.co.nz> wrote:
The quote concerning Douglas's views of Land
Ownership/Tenure in Scotland is an unusual one. On the
face of it there appears to be a marked degree of
state interference in land transfer responsibilities
either as an owner or a tenant/leassee of property. To
many of us the degree of interference implied by his
views would be totally incompatible with we normally
accept as freedom of choice. His statement has to be
taken with respect to the audience to which it is
addressed namely Scots. Scottish history involves a
very unpleasant period after the Jacobite Rebellion of
1745 during which much Scottish land passed into the
hands of English owners mainly in the Highlands where
the clan support of the Jacoblites lay. The economy of
that area was based around the crofter farmer
cultivating small areas of land in a subsistance
manner. Oats and Potatos were the main staple food
cultivated and, outside the local area of the croft,
the remaining land was treated as "common land" where
each crofter maintained a small herd of cattle and/or
sheep. This small herd provided any "cash" that the
family may have required for purposes of taxation or
aquisition of tools etc. Where sheep were kept there
was a cottage industry processing the wool into home
spun yarn (origin of "Harris Tweed"). This enabled the
Highlands to support a remarkably large population far
greater than that found in the same area today. From
1745 onwards the absentee landlords decided that the
meagre income they were receiving from their crofter
tenant farmers was insufficient compared to their
comparable properties elsewhere in the UK. They looked
for a more profitable means of exploiting the
Highlands and they found it by converting the land
into an area of intensive sheep farming. To do this
efficiently required a land management style that
"enclosed" all the common land and turned it into well
defined large paddocks using dry stone walls. During
this process the tenant crofters were evicted from
their land, and most were forced into the central
lowlands of Scotland where they were exploited in the
developing industrial areas mainly around Glasgow. The
crofters had no recourse to oppose this change because
their original tenure was based on the clan
relationship that had been destroyed on Colluddon Moor
in 1746. The bitterness this created still existed in
the early 20th century, and Scots have never forgiven
the English landlords that destroyed a way of life. It
was the use of the courts and legal system to deprive
Highlanders of their homes and livelihoods that was
the biggest bone of contention. Because the Lowland
Scots supported the changes this led to the ongoing
semihostility between Highland and Lowland Scots. The
evictions also emphasised to both sets of Scots the
tenuous nature of agreements only maintained by
tradition. It made them realise that only agreements
written out and recorded by a government agency were
considered legally binding under either English or
Scottish law (The two legal sytems are seperate and,
in some cases, radically different in practice). It
was against this background that Douglas made his
comments. He was reassuring his audience that there
would be a tightening of regulations concerning land
transfer and use to ensure that the past injustices
would not be repeated. In particular his stipulations
about agreement by six local neighbours about
alterations in land use were intended to avoid any
changes that would adversly affect the ability of
those neighbours to maintain a livelihood. How the
scheme would work in practice may be gauged from the
success of the local authorities in Scotland in their
attempts to manage local developement in their areas
using statuary powers they have been granted under the
various local authorities acts concerning land
management. The effect has been mixed, but cost of
land does not seem to have stablised. It still keeps
increasing. I hope this is assistance to you all to
understand the circumstances surrounding the Douglas
comments.
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