LET us now consider the area of the United Kingdom. I use the word area with intention, for it is its area which differentiates land from all other commodities. Man can make soil by disintegrating rock. He can entirely strip the soil from a given superficies. He can change a fen into a farm. He can rob land of its fertility by careless cultivation. He can rear floors above land or sink shafts below it. Upon the base afforded by a small piece of land he can manufacture enough cloth to clothe a multitude. There is one thing, however, which he cannot do. He cannot change the geographical position of land. The element of area, of extension, is inherent and immobile, unchangeable and indestructible.[21]
It follows that the manner of the control of land is an exceedingly important matter to a community. The immobile area is the base of all human activities. Upon it we needs must live, and the manner of our distribution upon it largely determines our happiness.
In the United Kingdom, as we have already seen, the people collectively own but little property, and of the entire area of the country, the control of which so largely determines their relations with each other, but the roads, rivers, and a few insignificant commons and parks are public property. The whole area measures 77,000,000 acres and nearly 77,000,000 acres are private property.
As we might expect from the facts we have already examined, the greater part of the area is in a comparatively small number of hands. There are a large number of landowners, but great landowners are few.
As in many other parts of these enquiries, we are faced with a plentiful lack of precise information as to the ownership of the soil. The more important the subject, the less trouble we take, as a people, to keep record of it. In 1910 it is impossible for any man to say precisely how many persons own British land. No Bluebook on the subject has been published for thirty-five years. The last return of landowners, known as the "New Domesday Book," was made in 1873, and is forgotten by the present generation, although it created much interest and controversy upon its publication.
The contents of the New Domesday Book were carefully corrected and analysed by Mr John Bateman.[22] For England and Wales alone his summary of the figures, revised as to the great estates down to 1883, is as follows:—