7 OCTOBER 1925
The Liberal Land Report puts forward a suggestion for a revolution in the tenure of agricultural land. It is proposed to transfer the land from the present landlords to the tenants. The landlords would be compensated by means of annuities, and the new tenants would pay a fixed rent to the tax collector. Land would be held subject to the condition that it was well-farmed, and of this representative County Agricultural Authorities would be judges. The report also contains proposals for the extension of State credits to agriculture, and touches on the problems of marketing and transport.
Edinburgh Presbytery of the United Free Church decided by 88 to 22 votes that the main causes of separation between the Churches have been removed, and that the time has come for entering on negotiations with the Church of Scotland with a view to the framing of a basis of union. The same decision was reached by the Glasgow U.F. Presbytery, the voting being 273 for and 116 against.
Study of the draft Security Pact was continued at Locarno. Nine of the articles have been virtually agreed upon, but the remaining two—those concerning Germany’s entrance to the League and her Eastern frontiers—furnish the main difficulties with which the Conference is faced.
According to Sokolnikov, Soviet Commissary of Finance, an agreement has been concluded by the Russian State Bank with a group of the largest banks, by which the latter grant the State Bank a credit of seventy-five million German marks, which, combined with trade credit, will render possible the purchase in Germany of goods on credit to the value of one hundred million gold marks. The shortcoming of the agreement, he admits, is its short term.