Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2497

Exchange between Heath and James Dandy, c/o Derby Evening Telegraph, Derby, England, occasioned by an item in Land & Liberty reproduced here, followed by Mr. Dandy’s response together with Dandy’s newspaper article referred to in Land & Liberty, and finally Heath’s response to Dandy of August 23, 1953.

 

Land and Liberty

September-October 1953

page 96

 

A Left-Handed Compliment

 

In our March issue we reported an extraordinary article by a writer, James Dandy, which had appeared in the Derby Daily Telegraph on “the nonsense that is often talked about ground rents” and how it had led to answering letters by Mr. F. H. Brookes and Mr. George Musson. We had wanted to send a marked copy to Mr. Dandy but his address was unknown to us. It was remarkable that one of our subscribers in America, seeing that interchange and knowing Mr. Dandy personally, told him “he ought to see what Land & Liberty has to say of him,” which led to Mr. Dandy writing to us. The outcome is the following testimony by Mr. Dandy in a letter to Land & Liberty which in justice to him we do not hesitate to print: “Thank you for your copy of Land & Liberty which is very interesting. Actually, the taxation of land values is something which I do not agree with and I fear the paper might be bad for my blood pressure if I saw it regularly … I normally work on financial and economic matters and am, in fact, shortly publishing a book on money and banking.” We are sorry to be stopped from raising a temperature, but if Mr. Dandy will be good enough to send us a copy of his book for review, we may try again.

         ______________________________  

 

 

Dear Sir:                        June 15, 1953

 

     Through “Land and Liberty” I learn of your article, “Nonsense is Often Talked About Ground Rent,” appearing in the Derby Evening Telegraph February 6, 1953.

     Thinking to interest you, I’m sending copy of a similar document of mine entitled, “Progress and Poverty Reviewed and its Fallacies Exposed.” If your article is available in reprint I shall be pleased to peruse it.

     The land communists are influential in many places. The Freeman magazine, after undertaking to publish my review, has now, under change of editorship from John Chamberlain to Henry Hazlitt, yielded to the violent reactions of the land communists, particularly as appearing in the leading article entitled, “Vituperation Well Answered,” in “Land and Liberty” for December, 1952 (Land and Liberty, 4 Great Smith Street, London S.W. 1). In consequence the Freeman magazine, through its present editor, refuses to further publish or distribute my review. I shall be happy if this Land and Liberty article is available to you for the sake of the extreme contrast between it and the spirit and content of my review.

     I’ll greatly appreciate it if you can make any suggestion to me as to a suitable avenue in England through which to publish and distribute my review entirely at my own expense.

Very truly yours,

    Spencer Heath

________________________________

 

 

 

 

19 Woodside Road

Woodford Wells

Essex, England

26^th June 1953

 

Dear Sir,

 

The Editor of the Derby Evening Telegraph has sent to me your letter of 15th June, and the booklet which you sent with it. Henry George does not excite England much, though you will have seen from “land & liberty” that we have some curious cranks who keep his memory green. The dangerous thing is, of course, that they promulgate his fallacies under a smoke-screen of humanitarianism. The attack made in their strange periodical on my article, which also appeared in other papers under a syndication arrangement, was in my view quite illogical, and failed to note the irony with which I quoted their own arguments at the outset. I am afraid that this is only a short newspaper article, and I am sending you a copy herewith in case it is of interest to you.

 

 I should explain that this article was written on a subject which was topical at the time, as our own Socialists — and some so-called Liberals — are agitating for the reform of leaseholds. The “labour” Government made the first move towards it, but was fortunately defeated before it could add one more to its list of unsuccessful experiments. The degree of ignorance on this matter is so astounding in all walks of life that the cranks might easily be able to push their views if another Socialist Government was returned.

 

 The only point of criticism which I have in respect of your booklet is that it answers Henry George, but that the man-in-the-street has never heard of him. He is familiar only with the views of the land nationalizers. Nevertheless, it should be useful and stimulating to the better informed opponents of such people if it could be circulated and I am making enquiries in some appropriate quarters, to see whether your booklet could be distributed through the Society for Individual Freedom. It would help me in my enquiries on your behalf if you could inform me how far you would carry your proposal to publish and distribute your review at your own expense. In particular, I should be interested to know:

 

1. How many copies you would wish to distribute.
2. Whether you would send them from U.S.A., or would wish to have them printed here.
3. Whether you would include postage in the expenses which you would wish to bear.

 

 May I say that I welcome this correspondence, as I feel that we must have much in common, and the threat to American liberty is no less than that to our own. The difference between us is that I am a banker writing in my spare time as a hobby, and with limited spare time at that. I will inform you as soon as I have any information which might assist you. Meanwhile, I should be pleased to receive any further views which you might wish to express.

 

With best wishes,

 

        Yours faithfully,

 

/s/ James Dandy

 

 

_______________________________

 

 

 

                             Derby Evening Telegraph                                    February 6, 1953

 

Nonsense is often talked

about ground rents

 

by James Dandy

 

A lot of thought can be avoided if we start with a conviction that a certain conclusion is right or wrong. It simplifies the arguments leading up to the conclusion. If we believe that the private ownership of land is wrong, we can work up an emotional case in favour of nationalizing it — or, for that matter, almost anything — and when economics is in competition with emotion it runs a bad second.

The land, for example, was here before any of us. Therefore we should all have an equal share of it. The more the population grows, the smaller the individual share and the less the likelihood that it will be properly used. Nevertheless, first principles must be served so it follows that it is morally wrong and against the interests of the State for one person to own land and rent it to another. The shades of the Kremlin creep around such thoughts, but even the Kremlin finds the kulaks intractable.

     The ingenious Mr. Bevan, looking for something else to expropriate, has written that he would “take over all rented agricultural land so that the State could provide for the cultivator those functions which were formerly provided by the best landlords.

 

 

What harvest?

 

For “take over,” read “confiscate.” Let us sidestep the appeal to the many of taking anything from the few. Apart from saddling us all, as taxpayers, with interest on a new land acquisition loan, and placing the management of the land in the hands of civil servants, what could the result be? One cabbage more, or a cheaper carrot? We doubt it. The land cannot be cultivated with umbrellas and bowler hats.

     Some such thoughts on the wickedness of land ownership must have prompted the last government when it brought in the Leasehold Property (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1951. There was no surprise when the Uthwatt Committee, set up in 1948, was unable to reach unanimous conclusions.

     The Act itself was in effect a declaration that one day someone would do something about leaseholds. If the job could not be shuffled off on to the Tories so much the better, for it is accepted in some quarters that ground landlords must inevitably be Tories.

 

Much nonsense

 

Actually, a great deal of nonsense is talked about ground rents. In its simplest form, the ground rent has much to recommend it, so long as it is recognized that saving and investment are praiseworthy and normal activities.

     If you have #100 in the bank, or in an old sock, it is not yet a crime to use it to buy a plot of land. You may want it to cultivate, or to build on, or as an investment, bringing in more than you were getting from the bank.

     You could let it to a cultivator, or you could allow someone to build a house on it provided that he paid you #5 a year. You would give him a lease for 100 years, or 999 years, and so long as you received the #5 the land would be his. If you later needed your #100 back, you could sell your freehold to someone else who was content with 5 percent interest.

 

 

Sold below cost

 

Before the last war, houses were being built in all parts of the country for sale. A decent house could be bought for #500, or less, freehold but, as there are fewer people with #500 than with #450, the house could be more readily sold if the price could be reduced to #450.

     The builder might, therefore, sell his houses leasehold for #450, with a ground rent of #2 10s. each for 999 years. The difference of #50 is the capital value of #2 10s. a year, spread over 20 years.

     Some builders sold the houses at or below cost, and looked on the ground rent as their profit, keeping their ground rents to provide an income for their old age. Others, needing the money for their business, would sell them to investors.

 

 

The villain

 

The point to remember is that most of the people who are today getting an income from ground rents are not those who originally created them — 999 years is a long time. The incomes are received by people who have bought them, including insurance companies, pension funds, and charities.

Ground rents have been looked on as a sound investment, and with reason, for they have had the security of the land and property behind them. The villain of the piece has been the State itself, which has already reduced the value of the Ground Rent.

     As there was much building development in the second half of the last century a number of properties were sold on 99-year leases, many of which are now coming to an end. In some cases, the owners of the land are claiming the surrender of the lease. In others, they are renewing it at a higher rent on payment of a fine.

 

Sub-leasing

 

There is nothing wicked about that — the leaseholders knew when they bought their property how long the lease had to run and the shorter the lease the lower the price.

     What agitates some people is that often valuable property is leased and sub-leased by different people, each sub-lease being at a higher rent than that for the lease from which it was granted.

     Usually the property is in great demand, and only has a short lease. But the important thing to remember is that anyone who pays a high ground rent for a short lease does so with his eyes open, because he thinks that the property is worth it to him.

Better repealed

 

In London, if some more offices were built to replace those which were blitzed, and were let to the public instead of being monopolized by Government departments, the value of the sub-leases of office buildings would come down. It is largely a matter of supply and demand.

     This is a complicated problem, bound up with man and his money and the ethics of ownership. The agitation against leaseholds springs largely from a conviction that people should not be allowed to make money, and has no sound economic reason behind it. The Government is compelled by pressure of business to call a further standstill on this ill-advised Act. It would be better if it were repealed altogether.

 

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Dear Mr. Dandy,                  August 23, 1953

I greatly appreciate the intelligent interest shown by your letter in my efforts to publicize the true functions of private property in land as against the efforts of land communists and the like to destroy it.

 I am much impressed with your willingness to take this matter up with the Society for Individual Freedom. I presume that they have a mailing list and are employing a considerable amount of publicity for whatever material they are putting out. If the Society upon examination should consider my booklet entirely in line with their present efforts, I shall be very pleased to supply them with a considerable quantity of these without cost and with transportation prepaid. This applies also to the supplemental material which you will observe is now included as part of the original booklet, as well as my analysis of the five basic dogmas of the Land Communist creed as set out in the mimeographed copy of my letter to the Freeman Magazine which I enclose for your examination.

 Probably the Society for Individual Freedom, and possibly some other organizations in England, would be glad to include some or all of the material that I have available for circu­lation with material from other sources. It occurs to me that this might be more feasible than undertaking any separate publicity of my own material entirely at my expense.

 In this country I am running advertisements in the Freeman Magazine and also in Barron’s financial weekly, which is in effect the weekly edition of the Wall Street Journal published by Dow, Jones and Company. In these advertisements I am offering Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, Anniversary Edition, 571 pages, cloth-bound, at #1.50 each with free gift of my booklet and supplemental material to each purchaser. A copy of the current advertisement offering these books is pasted on the inside cover of each volume of Progress and Poverty that is sent out. Perhaps something similar can be done in England.

 Please let me know your views in regard to all this and also how the matter is looked upon by the officers of the Society for Individual Freedom.

 

 Again thanking you for your very kind and helpful interest, I am

 

Very sincerely yours,

 

                                

                            Spencer Heath