The campaign which was inaugurated in 1913 did not deal with the question of taxation only, and for my part, although I am an enthusiast on this branch of the subject, I have never thought that other aspects should be neglected.  We put forward proposals for dealing with leases both in town and country.  The present Government has carried and repealed again a series of statutes dealing with agriculture.  Their original policy was to offer to the farmer guaranteed prices for his produce, if necessary at the expense of the tax-payer, and to the labourer guaranteed wages, to be fixed and enforced by Wages Boards.  Before this policy was fully in operation it was repealed.  The farmer got some cash compensation for his losses; the labourer has got nothing but voluntary Conciliation Boards, with no power to do more than pass pious resolutions.  There has, however, survived this welter of contradictory legislation, a series of clauses which do confer upon the tenant farmer a substantial part of the rights in his dealings with his landlord for which we were agitating in 1914.  The town lease-holder, on the other hand, has got nothing, and it is one of the first duties of the Liberal Party to provide him with security against the confiscation of his improvements and goodwill, to give him reasonable security of tenure, and to put an end once for all to the pestilent system of building leases which extends all over London and to about half the other towns of England.  The evils of this system are especially to be found in those older parts of our great cities where the original leases are drawing to a close.  In such cases a kind of blight appears to settle on whole neighbourhoods, and no improvements can be carried out by either party because the landlord cannot obtain possession, and the tenant has not, and is unable to obtain, a sufficient length of term to make it worth his while to risk his capital upon them.

HOUSING

The branch of the land question to which the Government called the greatest attention in their election promises was Housing.  On this subject the Government have placed many pages of legislation on the Statute Book.  One can only wish that the houses occupied as much space.  They began by informing us, probably accurately, that up to the time of the Armistice there was an accumulated shortage of 500,000 houses; in pre-war days new working-class houses were required, and to a certain extent provided, although the shortage had then already begun, to an average number of 90,000 a year.  According to the official figures in July last, 123,000 houses had been completed by Local Authorities and Public Utility Societies; 37,000 by private builders with Government subsidies; 36,000 were under construction, and as the Government have now limited the total scheme (thereby causing the resignation of Dr. Addison, its sponsor) there remain 17,000 to be built.  This is the record of four years, so clearly the Government have not even succeeded in keeping pace with the normal annual demand, and the shortage has not been attacked, but actually accentuated.