The Ministry of Land ‐ 1914 Version
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1965.tb01611.x |
| Author | J.A. CROSS |
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
The
Ministry
of
land
-
1914
Version
J
.A
.<:>
R
OSS
Ds.Cro.ss
is
Lecturer in Government in the University College
of
South
I
17aale.r
and
Monmouthshire, Cardiff.
On
19
October
1964,
a
Minister
of
Land and Natural Resources was
appointed in the new Labour Government, to take over governmental
responsibilities for land use and access to the countryside from the Minister
of
Housing and Local Government, and for forestry from the Minister of
Agriculture, and be generally responsible for the availability, use and
development of natural resources.’ The appointment of such
a
Minister
was long overdue, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Mr.Houghton,
subsequently told the House of Commons. ‘If there had been a Minister
of
Land and Natural Resources years ago’, he said, ‘the nation would have
been spared some of the hideous things that have happened to land in the
intervening years.’2
It
is not proposed to argue here the merits of that
judgement but it
is
perhaps worth recollecting in this context that
a
Ministry of Land had in fact been proposed by the Liberal Government
some fifty years before. If the First World War had not supervened, and
assuming that the Liberal Government had remained in power (an election
was due in
1914
or
1915)
the new department
-
which would have been
the
first to bear the title of ‘Ministry’
-
would
almost certainly have been
established.
‘The Land Ministry proposal was the administrative centre-piece of the
Liberal Land Campaign which had been foreshadowed by the Chancellor
of
the Exchequer, Lloyd George, in
a
speech at the end of June
1912
and
was,
after some delay,s definitively launched by him in speeches on the
I
I
and
22
October
1913.
In
1912
Lloyd George had appointed
a
Liberal
Party Land Enquiry Committee under the chairmanship of a former
Liberal Minister, A.H.Dyke Acland, and with B.Seebohm Rowntree and
five
Liberal
R4.P.s
among its members. Although the Committee’s first
report (on rural land problems) was not published until
14
October
‘H.C.
Deb.
(I&), 702, c. 214-15.
*Ibid,
703,
c.
1567.
3Malcolm Thornson,
David
Lloyd
George:
The Oficial Biograbhy,
pp.
213,
218.
The
dclay
wa
thc
rrsult
of
the
‘Marconi Scandal’, in which Lloyd
George
was implicated.
215
I’
IJ
11 1.
I
C
A
I)M
IN
I
S’l’R
AT
I
ON
I
yr
3,’
its contents were made known to Ministers in
August,2
and clearll.
provided the factual basis for the Government’s policy. The Committw
did not, however, include
a
Ministry of Land
among
its many recom-
mendations. This proposal emerged in the course of a (hbinet meeting
011
16
October, the latter part
of
which,
as
Ascpith informed the King
in
his
Cabinet letter of
18
October,
‘was
occupied by
a
detsilecl considcration
ol’
various aspects of the land question
-
particularly, thc rcmuneration
an<
I
housing
of
the labourer; the protection
of
a
tenant farmer
;igainst
capri-
cious
eviction (especially on change of ownership)
;
thc increase
of
gardcns,
allotments
arid
small lioldings; and the rating
of
agricultural land’.
‘I’h
general conclusion of the Cabinet, Asquith’s letter
wcnt
on, ‘was
tht
all
these
matters (except the last) could only be effectually
dealt
with by
th
appointment
of
a
central Commission under the Board
of
Agriculturc
oI
;L
land Ministry.
A
paper outlining the functions antl duties
of
thc
Corn-
mission in rcgard
to
particular mattcrs was to be drawn up for circulatio~i
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and as
soon
;is
it
is
rewly
it
kvill
I)I.
submitted
to
Your Maje~ty.’~
The
Cabinet paper was prepared shortly afterwards’ and its contcnls
\rere publicly announced
as
government policy by Lloyd George in
;I
speech at Swindon on
22
Octob~r.~ It
was
proposed, the Cabinet
papcr
s;kl, to establish
it
Ministry
of
Land and Forests (rather than
ii
Comxnission
of
the Board of Agriculture)
to
‘have cognizance and supervision
of
all
questions alrecting the user of land in town and country’
outsiclc
Scotlantl
and Ireland (where the Scottish
and
Irish Secretaries would ham
COITP,-
ponding powers). The powers
of
the
new
Ministry would include
:
(I)
thosc
at
present discharged by the Board
of
Agriculturc, including
(2)
land transfer and the whole existing machinery
li)r
tlw
rc:gistratitrii
(3)
the administration
of
the law
affecting
settled
cstaivs
(1i.orn
thci
(
:o~r.t
(‘+)
land valuation under the Finance Act
of’
1
p)
(fi.oin
ttic
Board
I
11‘
(5)
iicw
powen
for dealing
with
wastc and untlcr-cultivateclitecl
land,
‘Report
of
the
1.and
Enqui9y
Committee,
Vol.
I
:
Rural,
Modder antl Stoughton,
1915.
‘Ih
the Ordnance Survey;e
of
title (from the Land Registry)
;
of
Chancery)
;
Inland Revenue)
;
‘I
imts,
15
Oct. 1913,
1).
I:$,
carried
a
very
full
summary
of
the rcporl.
lJ.A.Sprndrr and Cyril.
Asquith,
Lge
of
Htibert
Iieenry
Asquitli,
lord
Oifiird
awl
,lrqudl,
Vol.
I,
1932,
p.
398.
3Asq~ith’s Cabinet letter
of
18
Oct.
1913,
in the Royal Archives
;ind
now
copicd in
tlrl.
Public
Record
Ofice.
(I
mve
this referenct
to
Mr.A.W.Mahbs, Assistant Keeprr
in
1111.
P.R.0.).
‘Cab.37/118,
No.
5,
pp.
22-3,
Cabinet
Note on Ministry
of
I,amI,
OrtoIwr
i!)rj
(in
ilw
P.R.O.).
&The
Tinus,
23
Oct.
1913,
p.
ioa.
“Nothing
wils
said hcrc or
sulwqurntly
nl)out
thc
fishcries
branc.11
01
ihc
Itoarcl.
‘I
/I,,
‘I
iinrs
reported on 24 Oct.
1913
(p.
lor)
that “l‘htre
is
rcason
to
bclitvc that the
quibstiol)
ivtrether
the
fisherirs branch
shoultl
tz
transkrretl
to
thc klinistr!
I)[
I
.ands
or
sl~or~ltl
transferred to thc
Iioarcl
of
‘l‘radc
is
still
iintlwitletl’.
216
TIILI
MINISI’KY
(IF LAND-1914
VEKSION
reclamation, afforestation, land purchase, working conditions of
agricultural labourers and disputes between landlord and tenant
‘that interfere with the effective development and cultivation of the
soil’;
(6)
the provision
of
housing in rural areas, to be let, as far
its
possible, at
economic rents.
‘The Ministry would act through judicial commissioners who, among other
things, would determine the price when land was to
be
acquired for public
purposes (local authorities were to have an extension
of
their power to
acquire land in town and country for present or prospective uses), award
compensation for capricious eviction, and determine the wages and hours
ol‘
agricultural workers (unless this function was to be given
to
Wages
lloards
-
the
Cabinet paper kept the alternative open).
Although Lloyd George was the principal government proponent of
a
Ministry of Land, other Ministers supported his advocacy from public
platfornis. Sir Edward Grey, despite his preoccupation with foreign affairs,
Ibund time
in
speeches on
27
October and
4
December to extol the virtues
of ‘one grcat Ministry whose business it shall
be
to
deal with the land ques-
tion
a$
a
whole, and which shall be equipped with sufficient powers to deal
with
it
efrcctively’.’ Asquith spoke on
9
December
of
the need for a new
Ministry,
‘a
Ministry of Lands, which will absorb and consolidate functions
at
present scattered and unorganized
.
.
.’,
and emphasized that the
proposed commissioners ’will be
a
judicial body, and will exercise their
powers in complete independence of the
The Consewativc Opposition was critical of the Government’s proposals.
Walter Long,
a
former President of the Board of Agriculture, regretted the
disappearance of the Board and doubted whether any Minister would be
able to perform ‘duties of
so
extremely difficult a ~haracter’.~ For Lord
Lansdownc, all Lloyd George’s land proposals spelt bureaucracy
-
‘a
little army of commissioners and sub-coinniissioners’
-
and were
thoroughly undemocratic. Moreover, the new Ministry was going to
replace
the
Courts within its field, and nothing was more dangerous than
‘the tendency to supersede properly constituted Courts of
law
by amateur
tribunals’.’
Meanivhile more detailed plans of the organization and functions of the
new Ministry were being prepared, and
a
memorandum was printed for
the consideration of the Cabinet in January
1914.~
Under
a
Minister,
Parliamentary Secretary and Permanent Secretary, the Ministry was to
be
divided into five sections: the Land Division (under an Assistant
”71~
‘ri7/1(.i,
18
Oct.
1913,
p.
iod.
ZIbicl,
10
Dee.
1913,
p.
[la.
:lIl)i(l,
26
Nov.
1913,
p.
5a
“bid,
4
Dcr.
1913,
p.
rye.
W2ab.g7/118, No.
5,
pp.
1-21,
Ministry
of
Land: The Proposals
for
the
New Department
Worked into Practical
Icorm.
There is no indication
of
where this memorandum originated,
Iwt
it may have bren the
work
of
officials
OF
the Board
of
Agriculturc.
2‘7
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Secretaryl)
;
the Judicial Division; and valuation, legal, and Land Registry
branches. The Administrative Division would be further sub-divided into
Land and Housing, Technical (Building and Engineering)
,
Development,
and Wages branches, and its functions were to be decentralized in England
and
Wales through four principal commissioners [three for England and
one for Wales) and twenty district commissioners, assisted by inspectors,
clerks of works and office staff. Subject to any powers which might be
conferred on the Judicial Division
or
Wages Boards, the Administrative
Division was envisaged
as
being responsible for investigating, initiating and
implementing ‘the land policy in regard to the extension of small holdings,
allotments, etc., provision of cottages, development and reclamation
of
under-cultivated and waste land, raising of [agricultural] labourers’
wages, revision of hours
of
labour, the arranging of settlement by ape-
ment
of
disputes between landlord and tenant, and carrying out the
existing duties of the Board [of Agriculture]
in
regard to land’.
‘The
other main section of the Ministry
-
the Judicial Division
-
would
be
charged with ‘the duty of deciding all questions
as
to price or rent
or
other
compensation paid for land acquired compulsorily for public purposes,
adjustment of fair rents, and settlement of differences between landlord
and tenant’; but it would act
in
these cases only when the Administrative
Division had failed to secure agreement. The other proposed branches
-
land valuation (for inland revenue purposes), the Land Registry, arid the
legal branch (for examining the titles
of
land acquired, conveyancing
ant1
the like)
-
were mainly subsidiary to the Administrative Division.
The most contentious aspect of these proposals-at any rate in
t,hc
circumstances of
1914-
was the role of the judicial officers or corrmis-
sioners, since it could clearly be charged that the department acquiring
land was also responsible for fixing the price. To indicate the impartiality
of the judicial staff the authors of the January memorandum suggested
that they be called ‘official arbitrators’ and be entirely separate
from
the
Administrative Division. But the possibility that they might be rccruilccl
from professional valuers in private practice was rejected in the memoran-
dum in favour of full-time officials appointed by the Land Minister,
who
would not, however, be responsible for their awards, which
\vnultl
lw
made in their discretion.
It was apparently not until June or July that the question of the
cstal)-
lishment
of
a
Ministry of Land once again-and probably
for
the last
time
-
came
up
for Cabinet consideration. On this occasion the Cabinet
paper of October
1913
was reprinted (under the date June
1914)
for
circulation
to
the Cabinet: together with extracts from Ministers’ specclies
on land policy since October
1913~
and
a
chapter
of
observations
on
the
‘The equivalent
of
the present-day Under-Secretary.
2Cab.37/r2~,
No.
71. The only change made in the October
1913
vcrsion
was
that
111~
‘Land’ in the Ministry’s title became plural
-
the Ministry
of
Lands and
Forest¶.
But
th(.
1
erms had been used inter-changeably in public discussion.
218
%Ibid,
No.
78.
11iE
MINISTRY
OF
1.~~1)-1914 VERSION
Land Ministry proposal in the second and final report of the Land Enquiry
Committee.’
On the question of the judicial staff, the Land Enquiry Committee
rejected the criticism that because these officers would be attached to the
Ministry
of
Land they would therefore act under the orders of, or at least
be influenced by, the political head of the department or its Administrative
Division. ‘Such
a
notion is utterly unfounded’, the Committee’s report
said, ‘and it is essential that this should be clearly recognized and under-
stood. In view of the fact that the State through many existing Departments
and
also,
no doubt, through the new Ministry itself, will be
a
large land-
owner,
it
will
be fatal
if
there were any reason for supposing that the State,
as
landowner, would be exempt from the jurisdiction of the Commissioners,
or that it could in any way influence their decision.’ They would be
analogous to the Inland Revenue Commissioners, of whom
it
had never
heen suggested that, in deciding the liability of particular subjects
to
taxation, ‘they are not able to act with absolute impartiality, or that they
are in any way influenced by the wishes
of
the administrativr branches
of
the
‘I’reasuty, or of its political chiefs’.
On the administrative side too, the Committee felt that there should be
a
clcar distinction, although necessarily not
as
rigid
as
that between the
judicial and administrative functions, between the department as landowner
and the same department
as
administrator, exercising some control over
the land-ownership of others. ‘We consider
it
important, for instance
(the
report said), that lands owned by the State should be subject
to
the rules
enforced upon other landowners under the administrative
as
well
as
the
judicial
powers of the Ministry. Some degree
of
subdivision within the
administrative branch
of
the Department would
be,
in our view, necessary
in order that the management of State lands should
be
in the hands
of
separate
persons from the purely administrative officials, although both
would
be
under the control
of
the political head
of
the Department.’ The
Committee suggested that the Commissioners
of
Crown Lands should be
attached to the new Ministry and brought into much closer relation to it
they were
at
present with the Board of Agriculture, and thus become,
in fact, the land-owning department of the Ministry. And among the
administrative functions
of
the other side
of
the Ministry the Committee
proposed, in
a
much more explicit way than either the Cabinet paper
of
October
1913
or the memorandum
of
January
1914,
that the powers
of
the Local Government Board under the Housing and Town Planning Act
01‘
I
go9
should be transferred to the new Ministry.
A
few
weeks after the circulation
of
this material to the Cabinet in June
1914
the whole matter was overtaken by the outbreak
of
war. A Minister
of
Land, responsible for all matters of ownership and cultivation, appeared
among the suggestions made by E.S.Montagu,
a
former Financial Secretary
to
the
Treasury, in the memorandum of
30
April
1917,
which was the
I(:~I,
37/12o,
No.
75.
The
report
(Vol.
I
I,
Urban)
had been published on
I
April.
219
PlJBI.lC
AI)MINISlHATION
immediate occasion for the establishment
of
the Haldane Committw
nn
the Machinery of G0vernment.l But thereafter the idea seems to have
been
put into cold storage, to be removed from it many years later, in differing
form and circumstances, by a Labour Government.
There are clearly significant differences between
the
proposed
Ministry
of
1914
and the actual Ministry of
1964.
The
1914
Ministry was primarily
a development
of
the Board
of
Agriculture, whereas the 196~1. hlinistry
leaves the Ministry
of
Agriculture unchanged except
for
the transfer
01'
responsibilities for forestry and commons land. Agricultural
land
was
tlit'
main preoccupation
of
the
1914
land policy; urban land, that
of
the
19G.1
policy. But had the
1914
Ministry actually been established it might
iwll
have come progressively to exercise, in addition, the functions
now
Ixing
undertaken
by
the Ministry
of
Land and Natural Rcsources.2
'Hans
Daaldcr,
'lhe Haldane Committcc
and
the
Cabinet',
111
Publu
.Idministrattotr,
Wnpublishrd Crown-copyright material in
the
Public Record
Onice
has
1,ec-n
repro-
Sunitner
1963, Vol.
41,
pp.
1x9,
121.
duced
in
this article
by
permission
of
the Controller
of
IXM.
Stationiy
Oficc
220
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