Land Distribution in the United Kingdom

by Letters Editor · May 6, 2018

Martin Lusty, Forres, Scotland – I refer to your front-page article “What Church says on land redistribution”. My grandfather said: “They don’t make land anymore”, and it is inevitable that land tenure is always going to be a political (as well as moral) hot potato, not only in South Africa, but internationally.

As such, notwithstanding South Africa’s history of racism, this should be seen as a moral issue, rather than a racial one.

When I was a university student in Britain back in the 1960s, my then girlfriend and I attended an anti-apartheid meeting to which the South African high commissioner was invited.

My girlfriend stood up and asked him whether it was right that one-sixth of the South African population had five-sixths of the land, to which he asked her if it were right that 1% of the population should have 99% of the land.

When she replied in the negative, he quoted the Bible, saying that Christ told us to look first at the plank in our own eyes, then went on to say that this was the case in Britain.

Britain Was Conquered

He was (unfortunately) quite correct and he had effectively shut us up. It is a sad fact that, to this day, a disproportionate amount of the land here in Britain is owned by descendents of the Normans who invaded us nearly 1000 years ago.

Thus it is clear that the land situation in Southern Africa, as here in the UK, is a question of historical wrongs, and the challenge we now face is how to rectify this.

Actually, looking on the bright side, the situation in South Africa is far simpler, as many of these historical wrongs happened in our lifetime, so are much less entrenched than they are in Europe.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is to be commended on his maturity in not supporting mass invasions of farms as happened in Zimbabwe. The result was mass starvation. Many of the farmers dispossessed of their farms were offered farmland in Zambia, and Zimbabwe now has to use foreign exchange to import the food she formerly exported.

Looking North

As regards white farmers, there is much land further north in Africa looking for competent farmers to cultivate it. Why don’t they look north? The soil is more fertile, and the rainfall much better than in South Africa.

Perhaps a gentleman’s way of handling the situation would be to allow a white farmer to keep his farm till he dies, but then it would go to the state for redistribution. The only caveat should be that he dies a natural death, to discourage murdering of farmers, so they could feel secure in the meantime.

As regards compensation, his heirs do not have to be given a market value for the land, but a sweetener which would allow them to start up elsewhere, and loans at low interest so they can buy farm equipment for wherever they relocate in Africa. This would have the added benefit of helping the manufacturers of agricultural machinery, and create more jobs in that sector.

The whole question of land tenure is indeed a thorny issue but, with a mature approach, one which can be resolved — and much more easily in Africa than elsewhere.