This Land is Our Land -The Struggle for Britain's Countryside, published by Gaia Books Ltd., 1997, £10.99. Reviewed by Adam Hartman. RUNNING to 483 pages, this book, an updated edition of Marion Shoard's This Land is Our Land - The Struggle for Britain's Countryside, first published in 1987, is a treasure trove of facts about Britain's landowners -who they are, their history, how they monopolise land for their own enrichment and sport, and how they operate in the political sphere to stifle change.
It sketches the struggles between the classes in, and over, the countryside over the past millennium. It catalogues the damage done to landscape, wildlife and recreation by modern farming and forestry practices. It investigates why legislation brought in by the post-war Labour governments to open up and protect the countryside has failed, and puts forward proposals for reform.
The book begins by setting land ownership in Britain in it international and historical context.
The Norman Conquest of 1066 was of crucial importance in redefining the relationship between landowners and society in England. The king seized all land from the Anglo-Saxon population, keeping some for hunting and allocating the rest to his retinue of barons and knights, the ancestors of many of today's titled landowners, whilst retaining ultimate title over all land. IT IS with great sadness that we report the death of Hans-Jürgen Schulz (also known as Karl Karew and Fred Sommer), militant of the Fourth International in Germany who died on July 15, Hans-Jürgen was well known for his close work with the revolutionary soctalists of Sit Lanka and his Involvement in Kurdistan solfdarity work at a time of severe repression of the Kurds In Germany.
He was known for always debating political differences, however big, fairly and objectively and not treating political differences as personal ones.
Below we print an obituary written by Gord Kersten and Thies Gleiss for the editorial board and the entire team of inprekorr, the German language magazine of the Fourth International. "Hans-fürgen had been a comrade of the Fourth International for over 30 years, and was a longstanding member of the German and International leaderships.
He contributed significantly to building the Fourth International in West Germany and to building and •THE OLD B Landowners turned out thousands to help deter any attack on their privileges Several features of the feudal order which he established - the landowners' passion for hunting, their prominence within national politics and local administration, and attitudes of paternalism and deference - have survived.
Key changes have taken place over the centuries. Under feudalism the crown set limits on the power of landowners and made several concessions to head off rebellion by the population. It relaxed the enforcement of laws governing royal hunting grounds, obliged lords of the manor to allow passage over their land, and safeguarded the right of free tenants (but not serfs) to graze livestock on common land attached to the manor.
But as feudalism gave way to capitalism from the fifteenth century onwards, landowners, viewing land solely as a source of wealth, set about enclosing commons and evicting tenants to make way for sheep and other investments. In 1646 Cromwell's Parliament abolished the landlords' ties to the crown, making them sole owners of the land.
(7 June 1933 - 15 July 1998)
"Wende" (turn) in 1989, ism, will be carried on. rade In the following centuries landowners dominated parliament, authorising the enclosure of seven million acres in England and Wales between 1700 and 1900, monopolising the right to take game, and making poaching a capital offence. These measures destroyed the subsistence economy of the rural poor, forcing them to seek wage labour on the land or in the factories of the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to landowners' representations of the past which emphasise social harmony, relations between landowners and the rural poor were characterised by intense conflict. Riots occurred frequently against enclosure, anti-poaching laws, food price hikes and the introduction of job-cutting machinActing through the Tory party, landowners have used key positions within Parliament and government to hold up or undermine reforms which threaten their position, and to delay the extension of democracy into the countryside. Male farm workers received the vote sevensupporting the International in Stalinist Eastern Europe and East Germany, before and after the His parucipation in the peace and and-miliarist movernent, beginning with the earty "Ostermärsche (Easter marches in the sixties) in West Germany, In union actvity at his workplace, the "Neue Heimat" (union-owned building company), In the anti-nuclear movement and the (anti-nuke) "Aktionskreis Leben" within the trade unions, and his restless fournalistie and theoretical work were Immensely Important for all of us. Countless books and pleces, reports, artcles, and fiyers were written by Hans-jürgen. Up to the very last moment he contributed to the activities of the "European Marches against Unemployment, Job Insecuricy, and Exclusion". For more than ten years Hans-fürgen fought against an Insidious cancer. He has now lost this struegle. His life's struggle for just and decent living conditions for all, for democracy and socialism, for world-wide elimination of exploitation and, vitally, international. We mourn together with his wife and comrade Barbara and his son Joern. We have lost a warm-hearted and ever-optimistic friend and militant comteen years after urban workers, and elected local authorities only appeared in the countryside fifty years after town councils. Powerful lobbies such as the Country Landowners Association and the National Farmers' Union operate to strengthen the financial position of landowners by influencing taxation and agricultural policy. So who are Britain's landowners? Contrary to popular opinion, the aristocracy is still a major force, with just over 300 titled families owning 31.6% of land in the UK according to a 1978 study. A group of untitled "barons", comprising perhaps 1,500 families, carries similar weight to the aristocrats.
Owner-occupier farmers (as opposed to landowners who manage their farms through land agents or let them to tenants) are the other main group. Insurance companies, pension funds and property unit trusts owned just 1.2% of agricultural land in 1978.
Also important are the Church of England, the National Trust and the Crown Estate, which happens to own the sea-bed around the coast of the UK, 50% of the foreshore, the bed and banks of the tidal rivers, 373,000 acres of farmland and forest, and prime real estate in London and other towns, including Oxford Street and Regent Street.
So public-spirited is the Queen that she agrees to forfeit the profits from the Crown Estate (£26.5 million in 1986. £113.2 million in 1998) to the Treasury in return for support from the taxpayer for the Royal Family (£5 million in 1985). She of course retains her income from the Duchy of Lancaster and her other private estates.
In 1987 13% of land in the UK was owned by the public sector. This figure has declined as a result of the privatisation of the utility and transport companies, and land sales by local authorities, the Forestry Commission and British Coal. The Ministry of Defence however has retained its land, owning 871 square miles in 1997.
Occupation of UK farmland is highly concentrated. In 1983 farm holdings under 50 acres (39.6% of the total) occupied just 4% of farmland, whilst those over 494 acres (6.6% of the total) occupied 47% of farmland. Britain's farmers may be struggling as a result of the BSE crisis, but in recent times they have never had it so good. Farm incomes rose by 65% in real terms between 1991 and 1996.
Farmers are exempt from business rates, VAT, inheritance tax, and fuel excise duty.
Farming and forestry were exempted from the planning controls introduced under the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947. As a result, in pursuit of the high profits made possible by state support and modernisation, landowners have been free to destroy wildlife habitats and beauty spots, reduce species diversity, and reduce access to wild open country by ploughing it up or planting conifers over it.
This is the opposite of what the post-war Labour Government intended when it passed the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act in 1949.
Shoard describes in grim detail how the Act has failed. She cites its reliance on voluntary agreements between landowners and local authorities, the reluctance of officials to use their power to make access orders for fear of upsetting landowners, and the over-representation of landowners on the rural councils charged with implementing the Act on the ground, together with the exclusion of the urban working class from those bodies.
So what is to be done? Shoard outlines three proposals whereby the people can reclaim control of the land after a thousand years of dispossession, based on the principle that the landowners must be made to share the benefits of the land with the rest of the community.
Firstly planning control must be extended to cover farming and forestry.
Secondly the public must have a right to roam over all uncultivated land and highways, such as exists in other European countries, notably Sweden.
Lastly a land tax should be introduced as a means of influencing landowners' behaviour. The tax would penalise landowners who damage the environment, whilst rewarding The conservation through tax rebates. Thus aristocracy is landowners would still a major force, pay for conservawith just over 300 tion, instead of titled families milking compenowning 31.6% of sation payments from the public as land in the UK they do now.
In themselves these proposals, especially the right to roam, are valuable. But from a socialist standpoint the over-all approach falls down because it leaves the position of landowners, a key pillar of Britain's ruling class, intact.
Based on striking a balance between the rights and duties of landowners and the public, this fits neatly into the One Nation "partnership" ideology of New The recent Countryside marches suggest that landowners are not prepared to accept the loss of control which the author's proposals imply.
Although Shoard rejects common ownership of land as politically infeasible, socialists understand that democratic control is not possible without it. However this book is a must for any socialist's bookshelf, and excellent value at £10.99.