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 Agrarian tenures a survey of the laws a 
 
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AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
AGEARIAF TENURES 
 
 A SURVEY 
 
 OF THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS RELATING TO THE HOLDING OF LAND 
 
 IN ENGLAND IRELAND AND SCOTLAND 
 
 AND OF 
 
 THE REFORMS THEREIN DURING RECENT YEARS 
 
 THE RT. HOK G. SHAW LEFEVRE M.P 
 
 1) 
 
 fl/jL'r'S f^H, (^<''' • '^'-' ky) '-li*. >»' -L-2 f-*'''^-^^ { si-'OA-ro^^ 
 
 OASSELL & COMPANY Limited 
 
 LONDON FARI8 ^ MELBOURNE 
 
 1893 
 
 [all eights eeserted] 
 
A 
 
 ^H-ICi 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In view of the agrarian questions which have been 
 raised in various parts of the United Kingdom, I have 
 thought it may conduce to their discussion and solution 
 to review the existing conditions of landownership and 
 land tenancy, and of the relations to one another of the 
 various classes of the agricultural communities in the 
 three countries, and to describe the efforts made by 
 Parliament during the last twenty-five years to reform 
 or reconstitute them. 
 
 These legislative enactments have been numerous 
 and varied, and have accentuated greatly the differences 
 between the agrarian condition of Great Britain and 
 Ireland. Many of them have been tentative and 
 halting. Some have totally failed to produce the effect 
 intended. Looked at as a whole, however, they include 
 almost every method which the most ingenious political 
 draughtsman or the most extreme reformer could sug- 
 gest, and it would be difficult to invent any new method. 
 They have been the handiwork, not of one political 
 party, but of all parties in turns. They bear the mark 
 of many conflicting currents of opinion, and of many 
 schools of land reformers, aiming at very different 
 ultimate objects. 
 
 The multiplication of individual ownerships, the 
 creation of systems of dual ownership between landlord- 
 owners and occupiers of land, the restriction of freedom 
 of contract between landlords and tenants, and the con- 
 ferring of inalienable rights on the latter, the giving 
 power to local authorities to purchase land by agree- 
 ment, or by compulsion, with a view to the creation of 
 new classes of tenants, with more or less fixity of tenure, 
 and to the erection of labourers' cottages, the use of 
 
vi FEEFAGE. 
 
 State credit for turning tenants into owners, and the 
 reform of the laws of inheritance and transfer of land, 
 have been some of the methods adopted of a more or 
 less tentative character. Any fresh legislative efforts 
 must almost necessarily be in the direction of expanding, 
 or making effective some of these measures. 
 
 I have thought it might not be without value to 
 compare the methods adopted, the objects aimed at, and 
 the results achieved by such legislation. I had almost 
 completed this work before the passing of the Small 
 Agricultural Holdings Act in 1892. I have since, in 
 the intervals of other work, added a description of that 
 Act, and a study of its probable effect. 
 
 Some few of the passages describing the changes in 
 landownership in England during the last two centuries 
 are taken from a pamphlet which I published a few 
 years ago, entitled, "Freedom of Land;" and the descrip- 
 tion of the system of landownership in the Channel 
 Islands is a resum^oi an article I wrote in the Fortnightly 
 Review on this subject. 
 
 If in the course of my description I have not un- 
 frequently quoted from Lord Salisbury's speeches, it is 
 because I have found that he has always stated in the 
 most able and complete manner the views or objections 
 of the political party of which he is the head. 
 
 I have only to add that I have not written with a 
 view to the existing agricultural depression. No reform 
 of tenure, however desirable, or however beneficial in 
 the long run, could, in my opinion, have any immediate 
 effect on the condition of the agricultural classes, or 
 prove a remedy for a bad harvest or for low prices of 
 produce. 
 
 G. S. L. 
 
 Ightham, Kent. 
 
 February 1, 1893. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Landowneeship and Tenancy in England. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Changes in System of Landownership — Three Classes of Landowners — 
 Extinction of Two out of the Three — Causes tending towards Accumu- 
 lation of Land in a Few Hands — Number of Landowners — Consolida- 
 tion of Farms — Results of System — Effect on Labourers ... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Recent Land Refoums in England. 
 
 Legislation for Landowners — Land Improvement Acts — The Settled Land 
 Act — Land Transfer — Legislation for Tenants — The Agricultural 
 Holdings Acts — The Ground Game Act — Purchase of Holdings hy 
 Tenants— The Tithe Act 35 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Legislation tor Labourers. 
 
 The Commons Act of 1876 — Charity Lands — The Allotments Acts — ^The 
 Sale of Glebes — The Small Agricultural Holdings Act — Labourers' 
 Cottages — Summary of Legislation 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Landownership in Ireland. 
 
 System of Landownership — Custom of Ulster — The Encumbered Estates 
 
 Act — Classes of Cultivators 90 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Recent Agrarian Reforms in Ireland. 
 
 The Land Act of 1870— The Land Act of 1881— The Arrears Act of 1882 
 ^The Land Commission — The Land Purchase Scheme of 1886— The 
 Agricultural Crisis of 1886— The Land Act of 1887 . . . .103 
 
Tiii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 Land Purchase in Ireland. 
 
 PASE 
 
 The Land Purchase Act of 1891— ProhaWe Eesults of the Aqt . . . 141 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Further Eemedial Measures in Ireland. 
 
 Legislation for Landlords — Extinction of Tithe Eent-charge — Local Eegis- 
 tration of Titles — Legislation for Tenants — Advances to Tenants — 
 Cottier Tenants — Legislation for Lahourers — Conclusions as to Irish 
 Agrarian Legislation 166 
 
 CHAPTEE VIIL 
 
 Agrarian Questions in Scotland. 
 The Crofters— The Crofters' Act, 1886— Eesult of the Crofters' Act . . 181 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Agrarian Condition of the Channel Islands and the 
 Isle of Man. 
 
 The Channel Islands— The Isle of Man 217 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 The Future of Agrarian Reforms. 
 
 Judicial Rents — Land Purchase for England — The Small Holdings Act — 
 
 SmaU Ownerships — Small Tenancies — Compulsory Purchase . .229 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 Reform of Land Laws. 
 
 Land in Mortmain — Land Transfer Reform — Primogeniture and Entail 
 — Compulsory Heritage — Reversal of State Influences in favour of 
 Aggregation 274 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 Nationalisation versus Individualism. 
 
 Mr. Henry George's Scheme— Mr. Alfred Wallace's Scheme — Land 
 
 Restoration — Conclusions 294 
 
AGRAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LANDOWNERSHIP AND TENANCY IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Most people are accustomed to regard the system of 
 landownership in England and Wales as the most per- 
 manent and unchangeable of any of their institutions. 
 A careful review, however, of the facts will show that 
 under the influence of laws, of political, social, and 
 economic causes,. and of public opinion, great changes 
 have taken place in this, as in other institutions, in past 
 times, and indeed in comparatively recent years. It is his- 
 torically demonstrable that two hundred years ago — not 
 a long period in the records of a country — the greater 
 part of the land in the rural -districts of England and 
 Wales was cultivated by its owners — a class of hard- 
 working, thrifty, and independent yeomen farmers. 
 These men either owned the land in fee, or held it as 
 copyholders under Lords of Manors, subject to fixed 
 annual payments, or to fines of varying amounts pay- 
 able on death or transfer, but with the right of per- 
 petual renewal, a tenure nearly as certain as that of 
 freehold. There were also in those days great land- 
 owners, but they were comparatively few in number. 
 
2 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 They were the owners of manorial rights over wide 
 ranges of common land, and of woods and forests. 
 They had also extensive demesne lands, which were 
 let out as farms to tenants, a class which has now 
 become almost universal. Round these great land- 
 owners were clustered large numbers of small free- 
 holders and copyholders, who on their part enjoyed 
 valuable rights of turning out cattle, and of cutting 
 turf, bracken, or gorse on the great manorial wastes 
 and commons, which then constituted one-third at least 
 of the area of rural England. These freeholders and 
 copyholders consisted of two classes : the one of yeomen 
 farmers owning and cultivating, themselves, farms of a 
 fairly large size, of from 60 to 200 acres, and employ- 
 ing labourers under them on the farm work ; the other 
 and larger class, of small yeomen, or peasant owners, 
 holding land of 50 acres and under, cultivating it with 
 their own hands, or with the aid of their families, and 
 not employing labourers. To this latter class especially 
 the common rights were of the utmost value. Without 
 them, their farms could not be cultivated to advantage. 
 The labourers of the district, whether employed by the 
 landowners, the tenant farmers, or the larger yeomen, 
 formed a much smaller proportion of the rural popula- 
 tion than at present. Large numbers of them held 
 their cottages and gardens by a fixed tenure, as copy- 
 holders of manors, or on leases for two or three lives 
 renewable on payment of fines. They also enjoyed 
 rights over the common lands. They were dependent 
 on them for fuel, for litter for their pigs, for thatching 
 
AOUAEIAN TENURES. 3 
 
 for their cottages. They could turn out their cows or 
 donkeys. These common rights were practically inalien- 
 able ; they were part of the condition of existence of 
 raral life. They eked out the wages in money. They 
 gave a sense of independence and of property to the 
 labouring people. 
 
 Great changes have taken place in the condi- 
 tion of rural England in the course of the last 
 two hundred years. The two classes of yeomen 
 farmers and peasant proprietors have all but com- 
 pletely disappeared in every part of the country. 
 A few yeomen farmers, indeed, still exist in the 
 mountainous parts of Wales, and in Cumberland, 
 Westmoreland, and Devonshire. A few peasant owners, 
 or smaller yeomen, are to be found in districts, where 
 there still remain large areas of common lands, as in the 
 neighbourhood of the New Forest, Ashdown Forest, 
 Dartmoor, and the Welsh and Cumberland Moors. 
 There are also a few communities of small peasant 
 •owners in Lincolnshire, especially in the district known 
 as the Island of Axholme, where a colony of Dutch- 
 men, many years ago, introduced the system of small 
 ownerships. But these cases are exceptional. The 
 number of agricultural labourers, also, now owning their 
 cottages and gardens, whether as freeholders or copy- 
 holders, or under leases for lives, is extremely small. 
 Practically it may be said of rural England, as a whole, 
 that the yeomen farmers, the peasant proprietors, and 
 the cottage freeholders and copyholders have ceased to 
 exist ; their lands and houses have been bought up and 
 
4 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 merged in adjoining large estates, whicli are now culti- 
 vated wholly by tenant farmers, holding generally on 
 yearly tenancies, and by labourers, who have no perma- 
 nent interest in the soil or in their homes. The 
 complete separation of the, three classes of landowners, 
 farm tenants, and labourers, has become the distinctive 
 characteristic of the English rural system ; differing in 
 this respect from that of almost every other country in 
 the world. Under this system the landowners supply the 
 land and the capital required for all permanent improve- 
 ments, for draining and fencing it, for planting, for the 
 erection of houses and buildings of all kinds necessary 
 for the farm operations, and for the labourers' cottages. 
 The tenants have no permanent interest in the land ; 
 they hire their farms generally on yearly tenancies, not 
 under leases for years ; they expend nothing on perma- 
 nent improvements ; they supply only such capital as is 
 necessary for the ordinary cultivation of the land, for 
 the growing crops and for manure, for stocking it with 
 cattle and sheep, and for supplying farm horses and im- 
 plements. Their capital can be transferred to other farms, 
 except so much of it as is sunk in the growing crops 
 and in unexhausted manures. The labourers, on their 
 part, supply only their labour. They have no permanent 
 interest in the land. . They are engaged by the week or 
 the year. They hire their cottages by the same tenure 
 from the landowners or the farmers. They have lost in 
 most districts, by the enclosure of commons, the rights 
 which they formerly enjoyed. In some parts of Eng- 
 land, as in Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, large numbers of 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 5 
 
 labourers change their employers every year, and move 
 with their furniture and household goods to other 
 districts, and are seldom permanently resident in any 
 parish or district. 
 
 This complete separation of the three classes of 
 landowners, farmers, and labourers, and the all but 
 complete extinction of yeomen farmers and peasant pro- 
 prietors, have been due to a number of causes political 
 and economic, all operating in the same direction 
 during the last two hundred years. Chief among 
 these have been the legal methods devised by 
 the lawyers during the period of the great Civil 
 War for tying* up estates under a system of 
 family settlements or entails, and preventing their 
 being broken up and dispersed, either by sale or 
 bequest of their owners. There was in this, as 
 in other countries in Europe, from the earliest times 
 a strong desire, under the influence of the feudal 
 system, to connect powerful families with large posses- 
 sions in land, and with. this object to afford the means 
 of transmitting these estates from generation to genera- 
 tion intact, and with every motive for adding to them, 
 with a view to social and political influence, in days 
 when landed property was the main, if not the only, 
 material wealth. There had grown out of this a 
 system of perpetual entail of land ; but in the time of 
 Edward IV. the evils of such entails had come to be 
 fully recognised, and the lawyers of that time devised 
 the means of breaking them,* and thenceforward, 
 
 * Taltarum's Case, 12 Edward IV., 1472. 
 
6 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 for nearly two hundred years, till the period of the 
 great Eebellion, the Courts of Law and Parliament 
 resisted or counteracted every effort to re-establish the 
 system, and to prevent the free transfer of land. 
 During this period, then, there was great freedom in 
 the sale and bequest of land. The owners of land were 
 multiplied in numbers. It became one of the boasts of 
 England that it had so large a body of substantial 
 yeomen owning the land which they farmed. It is 
 well known that the armies of Cromwell were mainly 
 recruited from this class. 
 
 During the troubles, however, of the CivQ War, it 
 became of paramount interest to landowners to find 
 protection for their properties, so far as the interests 
 of their children and descendants were concerned, 
 from forfeiture for treason, as one or other side in 
 the war prevailed. The judges who had previously 
 resisted the system of entails now lent their aid in 
 favour of such arrangements. A system was invented, 
 and was recognised by the Courts of Law, under which 
 land could be settled by its owner on an unborn eldest 
 sonj with successive limitations over, in such a manner 
 as to elude the statute against entails, and the common 
 law against perpetuities, and to lay the foundation of 
 family settlements. Although perpetual entails were 
 still held to be illegal, yet under the system then devised 
 there was every inducement, when the heir to a settled 
 estate came of age, for him to make a fresh arrange- 
 ment with his father, thus continuing the settlement for 
 the benefit of another unborn eldest son in the next 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 7 
 
 generation. The essential feature of the system was 
 the power to settle property upon unborn persons, against 
 which the judges had previously struggled. It is not 
 necessary to enter into a description of the technical 
 method by which this was effected, or to discuss the 
 legal subtleties and difficulties which have grown out 
 of it. It is sufficient to say that it led directly to the 
 system of family entails, under which the great bulk 
 of land in this country is now held. The object of these 
 settlements is to perpetuate the ownership of an estate 
 undivided in the eldest representative of each gene- 
 ration of the family; to restrain any owner for the 
 time being from alienating it or dividing it among his 
 children in such proportions as he may think fit ; and 
 to prevent the land being subject to the personal debts 
 of the owner for the time being, for a longer period 
 than his own lifetime. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the system thus devised 
 tended very materially to favour the accumulation of 
 land in few hands, and the aggregation of large landed 
 estates. The movement was promoted by other influences. 
 From the revolution of 1688 to recent times, almost all 
 political power was vested in the landowning class, and 
 chiefly in the hands of the owners of large estates. The 
 Upper House of Parliament was, and still is, composed 
 almost wholly of men of this class, and has been re-, 
 cruited — with rare exceptions — from the possessors of. 
 broad acres. A large majority of members of the 
 House of Commons was, till the Eeform Act of 1832, 
 composed of or returned by the landed aristocracy ; and 
 
8 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 even since that Act, until quite recent years, the same 
 class has formed by far the most important section of 
 members. The magistracy in rural districts was, and 
 still is, almost exclusively chosen from this class ; and 
 the whole of the local government in such districts was, 
 till four years ago, vested in the same body. 
 
 Till the year 1831, the Grame Laws conferred the 
 enjoyment of sporting rights exclusively on the owners 
 of land of a certain value ; and to this day the pleasures 
 of sport can only be fully enjoyed where properties are 
 of such an extent as to make the preservation of game 
 possible and profitable. It followed, from these and 
 other privileges that the social prestige and importance 
 attaching to persons in the position of owners of land, 
 of an extent sufficient to qualify them for the status of 
 landed gentry, were very great. It became the object of 
 ambition to men, who had made their fortunes in trades 
 or professions, to be enroUed in this class. Their highest 
 aim was to become the owners of landed properties, to 
 create families in the hierarchy of county landowners, 
 to hand down their estates to successive generations, 
 to prevent the dispersion of their land, so as to 
 perpetuate their families in this privileged class, and to 
 afford means and opportunities for further aggregation. 
 Such motives appeal to some of the strongest instincts 
 of the propertied classes in a social organisation. All 
 these incidents and privileges of landownership tended 
 also to raise the price of land in the market, to give it 
 an artificial value, especially when held in large blocks, 
 or when bought for the purpose of adding to a growing 
 
AQBARIAN TENURES. 9 
 
 estate, and consequently to make it more and more the 
 luxury of the rich, and to put it beyond the reach of 
 those who look upon it as a mere investment. The 
 complications caused to the titles to land by the system 
 of entail and the power o£ carving various interests out 
 of the freehold, made the transfer of land exceedingly 
 difficult and costly, and tended to keep it out of the 
 current run of commercial transactions. 
 
 Another cause operating in the same direction 
 during the last two hundred years has been the exten- 
 sive enclosure of commons. It has already been pointed 
 out that at the commencement of this period nearly 
 one-third of England and Wales consisted of common 
 land. A very large proportion of this — amounting to 
 not less than seven millions of acres — has been enclosed 
 under special Acts of Parliaments, or under the 
 General Enclosure Act of 1845, and converted into 
 private property, free from the burthen of common 
 rights. It might appear that these enclosures, involv- 
 ing as they did the allotment to various classes of 
 commoners of portions of the commons, in compensa- 
 tion for their rights, would tend to multiply small 
 ownerships. The very reverse has been the result. 
 The rights of common were a necessary adjunct to 
 the numerous small ownerships which at one time 
 existed. The whole economy of the small holdings was 
 based 6h~tirc-<!ODnnon rights attaching to them ; when 
 the commons were enclosed, allotments of land were 
 made in respect of such rights, but in no way answered 
 the same purpose as the common rights. The allotments 
 
10 AGRARIAN TENUBES. 
 
 were often at a distance from the land in respect of 
 which they were awarded. The small farms there- 
 fore ceased to be profitable wben the common rights no 
 longer attached to them. The allotments were sold; 
 the small owners of land fell into difficulties and were 
 compelled to sell ; and tbe land was bought up by tbe 
 owners of larger estates adjoining ; and thus tbe aggre- 
 gation of lands in few hands was facilitated and 
 promoted by tbe enclosure of commons, rather tban 
 tbe reverse. This is illustrated by the fact that the 
 only districts, wbere small ownerships still exist, are 
 tbose where common lands remain unenclosed, and 
 where it is fully recognised that the right of turning 
 out cattle on the common is an indispensable adjunct to- 
 the small holdings. 
 
 It must be admitted also that economic causes have 
 assisted the process of aggregation of land in few hands. 
 The commercial and manufacturing prosperity of the- 
 country offered temptations to the class of yeomen 
 farmers to sell, and to invest the proceeds of their land 
 at a high rate of interest ; they were tempted the more 
 by the artificial price of the land, due to the causes 
 already alluded to ; they often remained as tenants of 
 their former properties at rents below the interest on 
 their investments of the proceeds of the sales. 
 
 As small holdings of land fell into the market from 
 such causes, or owing to the death or embarrassment of 
 their owners, they were generally bought up by the 
 adjoining larger owners, or by fresh aspirants to the- 
 rank of landed gentry, who were bent on gathering- 
 
AQRABIAN TENURES. ]1 
 
 together large properties, such as to qualify them for 
 the status ; and there was no corresponding dispersion 
 or breaking up o£ large estates, on the death or embar- 
 rassment of the larger owners, such as would naturally 
 occur under a system, where there are no artificial 
 encouragements or facilities by legislation or otherwise 
 for the perpetuation of large properties. 
 
 These causes, operating slowly but surely for many 
 generations, and during two hundred years, have most 
 powerfully affected the condition of landownership in 
 England and "Wales, and account for the fact that the 
 classes of yeomen and /small peasant owners of land 
 have all but disappeared. This was fully recognised by 
 the Select Committee of the House of Commons on 
 Small Holdings, which, after two years of inquiry, 
 reported in 1890. Its members unanimously agreed to 
 the following paragraph : — 
 
 " It appears to your Committee that to whatever 
 extent legislation has tended to keep land out of the 
 market, it must have been unfavourable to the creation 
 of new small holdings, and must, therefore, have pre- 
 vented the repair of the inevitable waste in this class of 
 ownerships due to natural causes. They cannot doubt 
 that the distinct object of legislation, down to a very 
 recent period, was to prevent the dispersion of large 
 estates, and they believe that owing to this policy the 
 small ownerships, which have been absorbed from time 
 to time by large estates, have remained attached to 
 them, and have been thereafter and generally only 
 purchasable in large masses." 
 
12 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 An illustration is supplied, in the evidence given 
 before the Select Committee, of this accumulation o£ a 
 great estate, at the expense of a large number of small 
 ownerships, in the case of a single property in the county 
 of Westmoreland, a district where a large class of small 
 yeomen survived till comparatively recent times. This 
 great property consists of 25,000 acres. It was gradu- 
 ally accumulated and purchased under the express direc- 
 tion of the will of a man who, two generations ago, 
 madp a large fortune in trade, and whose only daughter 
 married a nobleman. The estate was made up of 226 
 different purchases, nearly all of them cases where the 
 vendors belonged to the class of yeomen farmers, or 
 statesmen, as they are called in that district, who, 
 themselves and their ancestors, had cultivated their 
 own lands for many generations. Instead then of 
 226 distinct owners of land, there is now a single 
 owner. 
 
 It may safely be assumed, in respect of this great 
 property, that, under the existing system of family entail 
 permissible by law, it will for generations to come remain 
 intact in a single ownership ; that it will be the subject 
 of successive family settlements aiming at its perpetua- 
 tion in the same family ; and that, if at any future time it 
 should be necessary to sell it, it will probably be found 
 that, with the prestige and influence it confers on its owner 
 as a landed magnate, with the amenities it offers, and 
 the enjoyment it affords of game preserving on a large 
 scale, it will command a higher price in the market if 
 sold as a great estate in a single lot, than if hroken up 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 13 
 
 into many lots, so as to tempt a number of small owners, 
 and to recreate the community of small yeomen who 
 formerly existed here. . This was well illustrated by the 
 case of a recent sale of a great family estate — ^that ot 
 Savernake in Wiltshire, consisting of 35,000 acres. 
 It was sold by the tenant for life, and against the wish 
 of the next in the reversion to it under the settlement, 
 who was anxious that the property should be retained 
 in the family. The tenant for life had full power to 
 sell the greater part of the estate under the provisions 
 of Lord Cairns' Settled Estates Act, but he could not sell 
 the family residence or the demesne lands, without the 
 consent of the next in succession in the entail, or of the 
 High Court of Justice. It was represented in court that 
 the farms could not be sold separately from the residence 
 and demesne lands, and that the property would com- 
 mand the best price if sold as a whole. The judges 
 authorised the sale of this great estate in a single lot, 
 for the sum of £750,000, on the ground that it was to the 
 interest of all the persons living upon it, whether tenant 
 farmers or labourers, that it should be transferred to a 
 man of large means, able to do justice to the property, 
 rather than remain for some years in the possession of 
 "the tenant for life, who was in embarrassed circumstances 
 and unable to maintain it in the manner which was 
 desirable in the interest of all concerned. The case 
 shows that, even with full freedom of sale, there are 
 many diflBculties in the way of the dispersion of great 
 estates, and that, when once aggregated, it is more 
 probable that they will be sold en Hoc, if necessity for sale 
 
14 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 arises, than cut up into small holdings for sale in 
 detail. 
 
 As a matter of common experience, it may be stated 
 that while the process of aggregation into large estates 
 has been going on continuously in every part of the 
 country for generations, the process of breaking up a 
 great estate and its dispersion among numerous holders 
 has been comparatively rare, except where the land 
 has become suitable for building purposes ; and even 
 in such cases the land is generally let on long building 
 leases rather than sold outright. Purely agricultural 
 estates, lying in a ring fence, are very rarely broken 
 up into lots. It is probably considered that the 
 process would detract from the value of the whole 
 estate, and that, having regard to the conditions of 
 rural life and to the amenities, privilesges, and influence 
 attaching to large properties, a better price is obtainable 
 for the estate when sold as a whole than when cut up 
 into many lots. 
 
 NUMBER OF LANDOWNERS. 
 
 The actual condition of the ownerships of agricultural 
 land in England and Wales is this — Their total area 
 is 37,320,000 acres, of which 33,013,000 only are 
 accounted for in the Eeturn of Landowners issued in 
 1870. A careful examination of this return has shown 
 that about one-half of this area is owned by 2,250 persons, 
 each with estates of over 2,000 acres, and averaging 
 7,300 acres each ; 1,750 other persons own between 
 1,000 and 2,000 acres each, with an aggregate of 
 
AGBAEIA^' TEXURE.-y. 15 
 
 2,500,000 acres; 34,000 persons own between 100 acres 
 and 1,000 acres, with, an aggregate of 5,926,000 acres; 
 and 217,000 persons own from 1 acre to 100 acres, with, 
 an aggregate of 3,931,000. The difference between the 
 aggregate of these ownerships and the total acreage ot 
 England and Wales represents land held in mortmain 
 bj the Crown, the Church, Charities, XTniversities, 
 Colleges, and Schools (believed to amount to about 
 2,000,000 acres), waste and common land, woods and 
 plantations, land devoted to public purposes — sucli as 
 roads, railways, etc. — and land occupied by towns. 
 
 There are about 12,000 rural parishes in England 
 and Wales, averaging about 2, .500 acres each. It 
 foUows, then, that 2,250 persons own between them 
 an average of about 2^ rural parishes. It would be 
 interesting to know how many of the 34,000 persons 
 owning between 100 and 1,000 acres are of the yeoman 
 farmer class and make their living by cultivating their 
 OAvn land; and how many, also, of the 217,000 owning 
 between 1 acre and 100 acres may be classed as peasant 
 proprietors, cultivating their own land and living wholly 
 by it. The agricultural statistics throw no light on 
 this subject. Of the class of owners between 100 acres 
 and 1,000 acres, it may be confidently stated that 
 a very small percentage make their living by culti- 
 vating their own land. In the larger class of 217,000 
 persons owning from 1 acre to 100 acres are included a 
 vast number of persons owning villas with land attached, 
 which they cultivate themselves, not with the object 
 of making a living from it ; it includes also a very large 
 
16 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 class of small proprietors, village tradesmen and others, 
 not making a living out of the land, but employing 
 it as an adjunct to their other business. It may be 
 assumed here, also, that the number of peasant farmers 
 living wholly by their land is extremely limited. 
 
 In the Kentish parish where the writer lives, con- 
 sisting of about 2,400 acres, where the land is fairly 
 distributed and is purely rural, and where from the 
 growth of fruit it might be expected that small owner- 
 ships would, be cultivated to advantage, there is not 
 a single case of a peasant owner making a living out of 
 his land. There is but one case of a yeoman making a 
 living out of his land. There are eight or ten cases of 
 village tradesmen owning small holdings of land of 
 from one acre to ten acres, and cultivating them for profit, 
 but not making a living out of them. There are a few 
 cases of retired tradesmen who have bought land of from 
 two acres up to twenty in the parish, and who cultivate it 
 partly for profit, partly for amusement, but who do not 
 make their living out of it. These two last classes are 
 of great value in the social and economic condition of the 
 parish, but they are not yeomen or peasant owners in 
 the true sense of the terms. If this be the condition of 
 a rural parish in Kent, a county once renowned for the 
 number and wealth of its yeomen, what must it be in 
 other parts of the country where large properties prevail ? 
 
 The writer had a recent opportunity of making, in- 
 quiries into the condition of landownership in a purely 
 rural district where large properties prevail — namely, 
 in the Parliamentary division of North Dorsetshire. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 17 
 
 The division consists of 92 parishes, containing 166,200 
 acres, with a rateable value of £319,700. Of these, 
 62 parishes belong, substantially, each to a single 
 owner, or are divided between two adjoining owners. In 
 23 others, more than three-fourths of the land belongs 
 to great owners. In the remaining 7, a great portion of 
 the land belongs to two landowners. There are only 2 
 parishes out of the 92 where the land can be said to be 
 owned by many persons ; four-fifths of the land in the 
 whole division belongs to thirty persons. One landowner 
 owns substantially the whole of nine parishes and the half 
 of six others. Another owns the whole of three parishes 
 and the half of two others. Four others own the whole 
 of two or three parishes and the greater part of two 
 or three others. "With the rare exception of a house 
 here and there, the villages belong to the great owner 
 of the district equally with all the land. It is a district 
 where the English system prevails exclusively. The 
 landowners are men of large means ; they are mostly 
 resident. They are in good relations with their tenants. 
 There is no complaint of bad management or neglect 
 of duties. The district is conspicuous for the almost 
 complete extinction of small ownerships, whether of 
 land or houses. 
 
 The ideal, then, of the English land system in a 
 rural district is that which has been attained in the 
 district of North Dorset, just referred to, and in many 
 other parts of the country. It is that of a large estate 
 where the whole of one and often of several adjoining 
 parishes are included in it ; where there is no other 
 c 
 
18 , AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 landowner within the ring fence; where the village 
 itself belongs to the same owner as the agricultural 
 land; where all the people of the district — farmers, 
 tradesmen, labourers — are dependent, directly or in- 
 directly, on the one landowner, the farmers holding their 
 land from him, generally on a yearly tenancy, the 
 labourers hiring their cottages weekly or yearly either 
 from the landowner or from the farmer ; and where the 
 village tradespeople are also dependent largely for their 
 custom on the squire of the district, and hold their 
 houses from him. It is believed that this ideal has 
 practically been attained in more than half the rural 
 parishes of England and Wales, in the sense that all 
 the land and houses within them substantially belong in 
 each to a single owner. In very large numbers of cases 
 a single landowner possesses the whole of several adjoin- 
 ing parishes, or of several parishes in different parts of 
 the country. 
 
 CONSOLIDATION OF FARMS. 
 
 The same causes which have thus powerfully affected 
 the condition of ownership of land in rural districts have 
 also produced corresponding changes in tenancies — as 
 regards the size of the farms. The aggregation of large 
 estates has led to the consolidation of small holdings 
 into large farms, and to the general disappearance of 
 small tenancies. The practice grew up at an early time 
 in England, for the landlords to effect all substantial 
 and permanent improvements on the farms in their 
 possession, to erect and maintain the farm buildings 
 
AGBIBIAX TEXUSES. 19 
 
 and cottages, and to drain and fence the land. The 
 erection and maintenance of houses and farm buildings 
 for a large number of small holdings was found to be a 
 very costly operation, involving a constant drain upon 
 the resources of the landowner. It was far better for 
 him to consolidate the holdings into large farms requir- 
 ing each a single house and farmstead. Here, again, 
 economic causes assisted in the general movement 
 towards larger farms. It was also believed that farms 
 of such a size as to enable machinery to be used in 
 substitution for hand labour could be more profitabl}- 
 worked than small farms depending upon manual work. 
 The enclosure of commons also affected small tenancies 
 equally with small ownerships, and made great numbers 
 of them unprofitable. 
 
 This process of consolidation is well described in the 
 Eeport of the Committee on Small Holdings, already 
 referred to : — " As regards small tenancies, the diminu- 
 tion has been chiefly due to the practice of consolidating 
 farms, which prevailed almost universally for a generation 
 previous to the recent agricultural depression. This 
 policy was formerly enjoined on the landowners on 
 economic grounds. It was pointed out that the expense 
 of keeping buildings in repair is much greater in pro- 
 portion on small than on large farms ; and that the 
 employment by machinery of the best agricultural 
 methods is facilitated by the single management and 
 cultivation of a large area. The contention was that 
 small husbandry was barbarous and antiquated, like the 
 process of hand-loom weaving ; and that agriculture, like 
 c .2 
 
20 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 manufactures, should be carried out on a large scale and 
 under the most scientific conditions. These views have 
 been partly modified by recent experience, and many 
 landowners and agents would gladly revert to the sys- 
 tem of smaller farms, and they are doing so where prac- 
 ticable. The great obstacle, however, is the want of 
 buildings and the necessity of expending a large capital, 
 which few landowners are in a position to provide, and 
 which would not afford a sufficiently remunerative return.'' 
 In speaking of small farms the Committee probably 
 intended to refer to holdings of from 40 or 50 acres to 
 100 acres, and not to smaller holdings of from 5 to 40 
 acres, where the tenant is rather a labourer working the 
 land himself, than a farmer in the common sense of the 
 term. Except in the neighbourhood of large towns, or 
 large wastes, the class of very small tenants making a 
 living wholly by the land has all but disappeared. What 
 small tenancies still exist are generally in connection with 
 some other rural industry, to which the land is an 
 adjunct rather than the main source of profit. The 
 village blacksmiths, carriers, butchers, and other trades- 
 men, often hire a few acres of land near the vil- 
 lages in which they reside, finding it useful for their 
 business and an occupation for their spare time. If 
 arable or fruit land, they generally employ labourers to 
 do the manual work required. In the Kentish parish 
 already referred to there are several cases of small 
 tenancies of this kind. There are very rare cases of men 
 living wholly by their labour upon small holdings of 
 from 5 to 40 or 50 acres, certainly not more than four 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 21 
 
 or five, and it cannot be said tliat these men are working 
 to any profit or advantage. Several cases have occurred 
 in the same parish, in which men attempting to make 
 a living out of small holdings have failed and have 
 been compelled to fall back into the ranks of labourers. 
 In the parts of Lincolnshire already referred to, there 
 are many cases of small tenancies mixed up with small 
 ownerships ; but speaking generally of the whole country, 
 it may be said that the class is all but extinct.* 
 
 The Agricultural Statistics throw little light upon the 
 number of small tenancies of this kind still existing. They 
 state the number of persons occupying agricultural land 
 and making returns in England and Wales at 415,000, 
 of whom 236,000 hold under 20 acres and above ^ acre. 
 They do not, however, state how many of these are the 
 owners or tenants of villas, or are village tradesmen 
 hiring land as an adjunct to their other occupations ; 
 nor do they indicate how many of these holdings are 
 allotments of above j- acre. It appears, however, from 
 the census of 1881 that there are 225,000 persons who 
 return themselves as farmers. Deducting this number 
 from the 415,000 persons who make agricultural returns, 
 it would appear that there are 190,000 persons who 
 make returns, but have some other occupation than that 
 of farmers. Deducting from the 225,000 persons return- 
 ing themselves as farmers the 179,000 persons holding 
 land above 20 acres in area, we arrive approximately at 
 
 * Sir Jolm B. Lawes has informed the writer that in his parish in 
 Hertfordshire there is not a single case of a tenant of under 50 acres 
 making his li-ving wholly out of the land, and that an experienced land 
 agent has told him there are not ten such cases in the whole county. 
 
22 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 46,000 tenants and owners of land of from j acre to 50 
 acres, who return themselves as farmers. It is probable 
 that these include large numbers of persons who have 
 other means of living, and who do not depend upon the 
 land which they cultivate. 
 
 Of tenancies from 40 to 100 acres, there are still some 
 parts of the country — notably in the Dales of Yorkshire, 
 and in parts of Lancashire, Devonshire, and Wales — 
 where there are large numbers. These tenants form a 
 class intermediate between the large farmer employing 
 laboui'ers, and the agricultural labourer. Where such 
 men are dairy farmers, they perform the main portion 
 of the work on the farm themselves, with the aid of 
 their sons and daughters. There are districts in which 
 these small farms prevail, and where there are very few 
 agricultural labourers in the ordinary sense of the term. 
 The process of consolidation has not proceeded so far as 
 to have caused the extinction of this class ; and with 
 the altered views of landowners, since the agricultural 
 depression of recent years, it appears probable that this 
 class will rather increase in the future than diminish. 
 Throughout the chief agricultural districts, however, and 
 especially in the arable districts, the small farms have 
 been largely reduced in numbers during the last fifty or 
 sixty years, and in many parts have almost ceased to 
 exist. In such districts the distinction between the 
 three classes of landowners, farmers, and labourers is 
 complete and absolute, and there is little prospect of the 
 farmer becoming landowner, or the labourer becoming 
 farmer. 
 
AGUABIAN TENURES . 23 
 
 RESULTS OF SYSTEM. 
 
 When illustrated by its best examples, the ideal of 
 the English system of large ownerships and large farms, 
 and of complete separation between the three classes of 
 owners, farmers, and labourers, exhibits many excellent 
 results, which certainly must not be overlooked in any 
 impartial review of the results of the system as a whole. 
 The landowner, in such a case, is a man of ample means, 
 owning a great extent of land extending over the whole 
 of two or three or more parishes, including the villages 
 within them. He resides on the property during the 
 greater part of the year. He is not dependent whoUy on 
 his income from the land ; he has other property from 
 which he can support the necessary outlay on a large 
 estate ; he is well able to afford the capital expenditure 
 for improvements of all kinds, for the building of houses 
 and farmsteads, for draining and planting the land, and 
 thus to relieve his tenants from any expenditure of a 
 permanent character. The farms are let at moderate rents 
 — not rack rents, but such as, taking a long range 
 of good and bad years together, the tenants can reason- 
 ably be expected to pay. He is also in the habit of 
 making large abatements of rent in years of exceptional 
 loss. The tenants in such a case reserve their capital 
 for the ordinary farm cultivation ; they feel-that they can 
 rely on the landlord for any capital expenditure for new 
 buildings or other improvements ; they hold as a rule on 
 yearly tenancies, but they have confidence in the long- 
 established practice and traditions of the estate, and in 
 
24 AQRAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 the honour and good faith of the owner. They know that 
 they will be allowed to remain as tenants as long as they 
 do justice to the land, and that on quitting their farms 
 they will be treated with every consideration. 
 
 Such a landowner undertakes himself the charge of all 
 the labourers' cottages on the estate, whether for building 
 or maintaining them. These cottages are often very 
 decidedly superior in accommodation and comfort to the 
 dwellings in which labourers of the same class reside in 
 towns, or which they would be content to provide for 
 themselves, if they had the means of doing so ; they are 
 also far better than the cottages which some speculator has 
 probably built on a small freehold, which he has acquired 
 in some neighbouring parish. The rent charged for these 
 cottages to the labourers is extremely small, not more 
 than Is. or Is. 6d. per week, a rate which pays less than 
 two per cent, on the capital expended on them. The 
 cottages have gardens attached to them of from \ to 
 ^ acre each ; in addition, the cottagers may have allot- 
 ments of land near to the village, if they desire them, 
 at farm rents, to the extent often of three acres a-piece. 
 In return for such good cottages the landowner puts the 
 tenants under some restriction as to sub-letting them. 
 The landowner sets an example of liberality by paying 
 wages to the men in his own employment somewhat 
 above the market rate. By keeping in his own hands 
 the cottages, he prevents the labourers being too much 
 under the subjection of the farmers. This model landlord 
 often farms himself a part of his demesne, gives an 
 example of high cultivation, and encourages the breeding 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 25 
 
 of good stock. He keeps in hand all the woods and 
 plantations ; he preserves game on a moderate scale, and 
 directs his keepers to keep down the rahhits and hares 
 to the utmost, not interfering also with the concurrent 
 right of the tenants to kill the ground game. 
 
 In such a case, something more than the rents received 
 from the district is often expended in maintaining the 
 mansion and gardens, in supporting the local tradesmen, 
 and in maintaining and improving the land and build- 
 ings ; the family of the landowner are active in their 
 charities among the poor ; they work in concert with 
 the clergy; there is a kind of moral super\'ision 
 maintained over the whole district; bad characters and 
 known poachers are gradually shunted from it ; it is 
 found to be better to deal with such men by quietly 
 getting rid of them, than by prosecuting them at the 
 petty sessions. The landowner maintains the schools at 
 his own cost, and prevents their falling upon the rates. 
 He exercises a considerable control over the public- 
 houses within his domain, which are often his property ; 
 he limits their numbers according to his idea of the 
 wants of the district. 
 
 The government of such a parish or district is 
 practically carried on by the landowner with the aid of 
 the clergyman and the land-agent. It is in the nature 
 of a paternal government, an enlightened despotism on 
 a small scale. As all the inhabitants within the range 
 of the large estate are dependent on the one landowner, 
 whether they be farmers, tradesmen, or labourers, none 
 dare oppose his wishes or question his decisions ; all know 
 
26 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 that their continued residence in the place of their birth is 
 mainly dependent on his goodwill and pleasure. The head 
 centre, on his part, has an hereditary appreciation of the 
 value of local popularity, resulting from just, considerate, 
 and liberal treatment of all dependent on him. It would 
 be easy to enlarge on this idyll of a rural community. A 
 consideration of its details taken at their best will show 
 how necessary for its realisation and perfection is the 
 complete and absolute ownership on the part of the lord 
 and master of all the land and all the houses within 
 the limits of his estate, and accounts for the complete- 
 ness with which all rural freeholds within such range, 
 however small, have been bought up and merged in the 
 principal estate. A very few freehold houses vested in 
 some independent hands, would interfere with the 
 chain, which binds the whole of the district into one 
 harmonious whole, with the landlord as its centre. 
 
 There cannot be a doubt that there are very 
 numerous cases in all parts of England, where this ideal 
 of the English system of landownership is attained, and 
 where the landlords, who form the local centres of their 
 system, and preside over the paternal government of 
 all around them, perform their part according to the 
 high standard thus indicated. When treated in this 
 manner, it cannot be said that the position is a profit- 
 able one to the landlord from a pecuniary point of view. 
 The outgoings are very heavy, the expenditure on im- 
 provements and on maintenance of the estate bearing a 
 very large proportion to the gross rent received. There are 
 very many large estates where the rents, reduced as they 
 
AOEABIAN TENURES. 27 
 
 have been in consequence of tlie agricultural depression 
 of the last twelve years, are little more than a fair rate of 
 interest on the expenditure in improvements effected 
 during the last thirty or forty years, and where the 
 true economic rent, apart from such interest, has wholly 
 disappeared. It is, however, only the very wealthy 
 landlords, those with large and fairly unencumbered 
 estates, or those who derive a part of their income from 
 other sources, who are able to act up to the highest 
 ideal of the system. There are great numbers of land- 
 owners who have not the means to do so, whose estates 
 are mortgaged and encumbered with family charges, 
 and who have but a small margin on which to live, let 
 alone the expenditure on improvements. 
 
 At the opposite end of the scale to this ideal, it must 
 be admitted that there are not a few cases where the great 
 landlord is non-resident; where the estates are so mort- 
 gaged and encumbered with family charges that there is 
 little margin for him to live upon; where he is unable 
 or unwilling to expend money in improving the property 
 or even in maintaining it; where the farmhouses are 
 falling into disrepair; where the cottages are insufBcient 
 in number and accommodation, and are in an unsanitary 
 condition; where either they are much overcrowded, or 
 the labourers employed on the estates have to walk 
 daily several miles to and from their work ; where the 
 rents are gathered from the district and expended in 
 paying interest on debt or family charges, or are spent 
 in London or Paris, or on the racecourse, by the owner; 
 where everything on the estate is left to the arbitrary 
 
28 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 decision of the agent; where rack-rents are screwed 
 out of the tenants, who are also treated harshly and 
 capriciously ; where game is preserved unduly to the 
 damage of the farmer's crop, and the right of sporting 
 is let out to game tenants ; where wages are low, and 
 a large proportion of them or of the farmer's profits is 
 spent at the too numerous public-houses. 
 
 In such cases the district, which is subject to the 
 sway of such an owner, sufiers in the same degree and 
 proportion as in the other extreme case it gains by the 
 wise administration of its chief. The system, however, 
 cannot be judged, and approved or condemned, either 
 by its best or its worst exemplars-. Between the two 
 extremes there is every degree and every possible 
 variety, and it is no easy matter to draw a balance 
 between the advantages and disadvantages, between the 
 good and the evil of the system, with a view to approval 
 or condemnation. 
 
 On the assumption that large farms can be more 
 economically worked than small farms, there is much to 
 be said in favour of large ownerships. The farmers in 
 this country have not, as a rule, sufficient means to 
 enable them to purchase the freeholds of their farms, 
 and at the same time find working capital for their 
 farms. The purchase value of an average farm of 
 400 acres is certainly not less than £10,000. £6,000 of 
 this might be left on mortgage, but the purchaser 
 would have to find £4,000 besides the working capital 
 of £3,000— a total of £7,000— which very few farmers 
 could do. Those who have the money, as a rule, prefer 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 29 
 
 to hire a larger farm, and to use the whole of their 
 capital iu working it, rather than to purchase the 
 fee of a smaller farm. Similarly, a farm of 100 acres 
 would cost not less than £2,500, of which £1,500 might 
 he borrowed; the working capital should be £800, 
 making a total required of £2,300. A farmer having 
 this amount of capital will generally prefer to hire a 
 farm of 300 acres, which will give him a wider scope 
 for his energies and a larger profit. It would appear 
 that the farmers in England, as a class, are content 
 to remain as tenants, and prefer to hire farms on a 
 large estate, with a well-settled practice, under which 
 they may rely on equitable treatment, and where they 
 are supported by the common interests and feelings 
 of their fellow-tenants, rather than hold a single farm 
 under a small owner of land, where there are no tradi- 
 tions on the property, and there is no public opinion 
 to control the action of the landlord, and where the 
 treatment may be arbitrary and capricious. 
 
 Under this system of comparatively large farms and 
 large ownerships, English agriculture has undoubtedly 
 attained a high excellence, and has developed an industry 
 of farming on a large scale of great economic importance. 
 A few years ago it undoubtedly stood in the front 
 rank in the agriculture of Europe, and probably pro- 
 duced more per acre, in the case of large farms, than 
 was the case in any other country. It has suffered 
 severely during the last twelve years of agricultural 
 depression ; but under any other system of landholding, 
 the agricultural producers would probably have suffered. 
 
30 AGBABIAN TENURE 8. 
 
 « 
 
 The English landowners have bravely borne their share in 
 these bad times, and, as a rule, have not stood upon their 
 legal rights, but have made great remissions of rent in 
 the hope of enabling their tenants to tide over the crisis. 
 The large farmers have undoubtedly suffered most in 
 this crisis ; the small farmers, who work themselves on 
 their farms, and who live on their produce, have paissed 
 through it with far less difficulty, as a rule ; and many 
 landlords have had reason to regret that they were 
 induced in preceding years to consolidate their small 
 farms into larger holdings, and would gladly revert to 
 times when a much greater proportion of small holdings 
 existed. The nearly universal system of large farms, with 
 their strict covenants between landlord and tenant, en- 
 forcing a particular course of husbandry, has also, it 
 seems, had the effect of limiting enterprise and prevent- 
 ing the cultivators striking out new lines and adapting 
 themselves to new conditions. It has been said by Lord 
 Wantage, one of the largest landowners in England, 
 who himself farms on a great scale, that — 
 
 " more varied enterprise can alone enable the agriculturalist of 
 to-day to hold his own against the difficulties and discourage- 
 ments that beset him. Too great reliance upon one branch o£ 
 farming, and the neglect with which the British farmer has 
 hitherto treated such minor industries as dairy farming, poultry 
 breeding, fruit growing, etc., have contributed largely towards 
 bringing about the present unsatisfactory state of things.'' * 
 
 EFFECT ON LABOTIRERS. 
 
 It is from the labourers' point of view, however, that 
 
 * " Small Farms ; " The Fortnightly Review, Feb., 1887. 
 
AGBAEIAN TENURES. 31 
 
 the gravest doubts arise as to tTie merits of an exclusive ' 
 system of large ownerships of land and large tenancies. 
 It has already been shown that the system has tended 
 very greatly to the consolidation of farms, and to the 
 disappearance of small holdings. The labourers, there- 
 fore, have lost, to a large extent, the opportunities which 
 they formerly had of rising from their position to that of 
 tenants, and thus of mounting the ladder of the social 
 system in rural districts. There has arisen, consequently, 
 in many wide districts, a gulf between the class of 
 labourers and that of farmers. The labourers feel that, 
 no matter what their industry and intelligence may be, 
 they have little or no hope of raising themselves, so 
 long as they remain in their native villages. They 
 are conscious that they live under a system of paternal 
 government, where there is no possibility of arriving 
 at a position of independence ; where their very exist- 
 ence in the place of their birth depends on the will 
 of the ruling power of this district ; and where, if they 
 offend, they may be driven from then- homes by the 
 impossibility of obtaining employment. This does not 
 satisfy the hopes and ambitions of the new generation, 
 who are growing up in rural districts under the influ- 
 ence of popular education and of a cheap press. The 
 system, in fact, is one of dependence from which there 
 is no escape, except by leaving the district. It is 
 antagonistic to the democratic principles of modern" 
 times, which demand a greater approach to independence 
 and equality, and the opportunity of rising in the social 
 scale. It is in part due to this that there is discontent. 
 
32 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 even in those districts where the system is carried 
 out in the best possible manner, and where there is the 
 utmost desire to do his best on the part of the great 
 owner of the district. It is one of the causes which 
 induce the most active, ambitious, and independent of 
 the young men in such a rural district to leave it, and 
 to seek their fortunes elsewhere, where there is greater 
 freedom of action and thought, where they can hope to 
 find in the battle of life greater scope for their energies, 
 and better openings for their ambition. It is for the 
 same reason that there is a tendency in such districts 
 to a deterioration in the working population, and that 
 complaint is often made that the residue, who are left 
 behind, are composed of the listless, the unambitious, 
 the least able-bodied, and of the older and worn-out 
 labourers. If this be the case on the best-managed 
 estates, how far more so must it be on the badly- 
 managed properties, where the central figure of an 
 enlightened, philanthropic, and sympathetic landowner 
 is wanting, and where there is no one with a clear per- 
 ception of his duty to the people of the district, or with 
 the means of properly carrying it out. 
 
 It must not, indeed, be supposed that the conditions 
 of land tenure and the absence of opportunities of better- 
 ing themselves are the only motives for the exodus of the 
 most active among the labourers of our rural districts. 
 We find in most other countries in Europe, in the 
 United States, and in the Colonies, that there is a grow- 
 ing tendency on the part of the population to aggre- 
 gate in towns and to abandon the purely rural districts. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 33 
 
 Iq England the movement has heen aggravated also by 
 the recent depression of agriculture, by the laying down in 
 grass of a large proportion of arable land, with the con- 
 sequent diminished work for labourers, by the decay 
 of rural industries, due to the concentration of manu- 
 factures in large towjis, and generally by the low rate 
 of wages in agricultural districts; there is also a 
 constant demand, at high wages in the larger towns, 
 for strong and healthy men, which the rural districts 
 can best supply. The railways and the police force 
 also ofEer the attractions of high pay and pensions to 
 the best of the younger men in our villages. 
 
 Making, however, every allowance for such other 
 inducements, it cannot be denied that the conditions of 
 land tenure, and the absence of sufficient opportunities of 
 rising into the class of small farmers, are among the most 
 important causes of the exodus of the better class of 
 labouring men from the rural districts, and are such as 
 must be considered and dealt with by the Legislature. 
 The monopoly of landownership over such wide parts 
 of England and Wales, the complete separation of 
 the three classes of owners, farmers, and labourers, the 
 disappearance of small farms by which the labourers 
 can rise from their position, the absence of the class of 
 yeomen and of small owners of land, form a condition 
 of things now generally admitted to be abnormal and 
 regrettable. It is not one which is likely to develop 
 the best energies of individuals, nor is it one which can 
 be regarded with satisfaction by those who believe in 
 the general expediency and utility of individual property 
 
 D 
 
34 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 in land. Such a system also cannot be safe where the 
 owners are so few in proportion to the numbers of 
 other classes ; and it might be well worth while to 
 sacrifice even something of economic perfection, in 
 order to multiply the owners of property, and to give 
 greater play to individual energy. 
 
 It may well be questioned, then, whether a more 
 mixed system would not be preferable in the general 
 interest of the community, one where property in land 
 would be distributed among a greater number of owners, 
 where intermixed with large properties there would be 
 many small ownerships of all sizes, and many tenancies 
 of varying extents, by which the labouring men of the 
 district might hope to rise from their status to higher 
 positions in life. Such a condition of things would not 
 necessarily be inconsistent with the retention of the 
 best features of the present system. There might be 
 many cases of large estates the owners of which would 
 maintain relations with their tenantry on the en- 
 lightened principles referred to, and at the same time 
 there might be clustered round such larger properties 
 many small properties of varying sizes. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 RECENT LAND REFORMS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Parliament has made many efforts during the last thirty 
 or forty years to reform and improve the system of land 
 tenure which has been thus described. It has recognised 
 the defects which have been pointed out, and has endea- 
 voured to apply remedies. It has passed measures having 
 for their object the application of capital to entailed and 
 encumbered properties ; the facilitating of the sale of 
 such properties, so that they may pass into the hands of 
 persons better able to improve them; the giving of greater 
 security to tenants for outlay on their farms ; the pro- 
 tection against game ; the improvement of the condition 
 of labourers by providing allotments ; and lastly, the 
 artificial creation or re-creation of a class of small owners 
 of land, by the aid of State loans, and through the agency 
 of County Councils. It wiU be well to pass under review 
 these various efforts of Parliament, and to describe their 
 results, so far as ascertained. They may be considered 
 under three heads : (a) Those affecting mainly the 
 interests of landowners, and aiming especially at the 
 application of capital to the land for its improvement in 
 respect of those matters which are generally effected by 
 D 2 
 
36 agrahian rwyc/i'/w. 
 
 landlords, the iVooIng land from tlio fott(M\s of ontail, 
 and making it more easily and more cheaply saloabli" ; 
 (b) those affecting specially the intorosts ol" the Carmovs 
 by giving thorn greater security I'or their capital invested 
 in the land in larm operations ; (c) those having regard 
 mainly to the interests of the labouring people by 
 securing to them the benefits of allotments and suuill 
 holdings, and of better cottages. 
 
 A. LKGISIiATlON FOR LANDOWNKHS. 
 (1) LAND IMPROVEMENT AC'I'S. 
 
 (1) The first of these efforts was made in the 
 Improvement of Land Act, ISGI.,* by whieli the 
 tenants for life of entailed estates wore enabled to charge 
 their estates with money raised Cor the purpose of elVeot- 
 ing certain definite improvements — such as the draiiiag(> 
 of land, the erection of farm buildings, the making of 
 roads, the planting of trees, and the building of cottages. 
 There were two main obstacles, arising out of the systcMu 
 of entailing estates, to the outlay of capital on the land, 
 the one, that these entailed estates were, in very large 
 numbers of cases, burthencnl by charges and annuities 
 in favour of other monibers of the family, and by debts 
 accumulated by previous owners, from which it resulted 
 that the ostensible owners of estates with large incomes 
 frequently found themselves with litth; more than half 
 the income for their expenditure ; and in such cases 
 there was no capital available for improvements and 
 # 27 1111(1 28 Viot. o; 114. 
 
AOBABIAN TENUBEB. 37 
 
 no means of raising it by charges on the land. The 
 other was that tenants for life, having only a life interest 
 in their property, would, by laying out capital on 
 the land, improve it for the benefit of their successors, 
 and would lose the disposition, on their deaths, of the 
 capital sum expended on such improvements. 
 
 To meet these difficulties it was provided that, 
 subject to the approval of the Enclosure Commissioners 
 (now the Agricultural Department), the tenant for life 
 might, without the consent of the reversioner, charge 
 the fee of . the land, and therefore the interest of his 
 successor, with the capital sum expended on improve- 
 ments, subject to the charge being paid off by equal annual 
 instalments within a certain number of years, varying 
 according to the nature and duration of the improve- 
 ments. Certain Land Improvement Companies obtained 
 special powers from Parliament for advancing money for 
 such purposes, and for charging settled estates with 
 annuities for terms of years for repayment of the same 
 in priority of all other charges. There is no doubt that, 
 so far as it has been availed of by landowners, much 
 good has been effected under this Act ; but the system 
 is applicable rather to the larger estates which can bear 
 the cost of obtaining the approval of the Land Depart- 
 ment, a process involving the employment of lawyers 
 and agents. 
 
 A difficulty incidental to the system is that a 
 Government Inspector, rather than the owner of the land, 
 determines the nature and extent of the improvement 
 of the estate. All the plans of buildings, cottages. 
 
38 AQBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 drainage, and fencing must be submitted to him and 
 approved. This tends to cause delay, friction, and diffi- 
 culty, and many owners are deterred thereby from avail- 
 ing themselves of the powers of the Act. The excuse for 
 thus interpolating the consent of the Land Department 
 is that, otherwise, the interests of the successors in the 
 entail might be prejudiced. The annual charge for 
 repayment of the capital sum, on the terms prescribed 
 by the Act, or by the Land Department, added to the 
 interest on the capital, is generally heavy, and disinclines 
 many people from taking action under the Act. For these 
 reasons the Act, though beneficial, has not succeeded in 
 making any great impression on the amount of improve- 
 ment which might be effected on entailed estates. The 
 scheme may be considered as an attempt to bolster up 
 the system of entails by an artificial method of bringing 
 capital to the land. The failure of these Acts cannot be 
 better described than in the language of the Report of 
 a Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1873, 
 drawn up by its chairman. Lord Salisbury : — 
 
 " The general result,^' it said, " of the evidence is to show 
 that, although considerable use has been made of Imiirovement 
 Acts, and extensive improvements have been effected tinder them, 
 the progress has not been so rapid as was desirable, and that 
 what has been accomplished is only a small portion of what still 
 remains to be done. Mr. Bailey Denton states, as the result of 
 his calculations, that out of 20,000,000 acres of land requiring 
 drainage in England and Wales, only 3,000,000 have as yet 
 been drained. Mr. Caird, the Enclosure Commissioner, speaking 
 not only of drainage but of all kinds of improvements, estimates 
 that we have only accomplished one-fifth of what requires to be 
 
AGBATIIAN TENURES. 39 
 
 done. The case for Parliamentary consideration lies in this — 
 that the improvement of land, in its effect upon the price of 
 food and upon the dwellings of the poor, is a matter of public 
 interest ; but that, as an investment, it is not sufficiently- 
 lucrative to offer much attraction to capital, and that, there- 
 fore, even slight difficulties have a pow^erful influence in 
 arresting it. 
 
 " The interest at which the land companies lend is usually 4J 
 per cent. The sinking fund, to repay the loan in twenty-five 
 years, together with the interest, bring up the average payment 
 upon the effective outlay to a little more than 7 per cent. It 
 will appear that sometimes, though not in all cases, the tenants 
 will pay to the landowner, in the form of rent, the full 7 per 
 cent., which he pays to the company. In that ease the land- 
 owner is for twenty-five years neither the gainer nor the loser 
 upon the transaction. At the end of that time, if the drains 
 are effective, he gains the whole 7 per cent. ; but this con- 
 sideration is by no means a certainty. 
 
 " On the balance-sheet of cottages it is unnecessary to dwell- 
 All witnesses agree that, apart from any land that may be 
 attached to cottages, no pecuniary profit is to be obtained from 
 building them. 
 
 " The average rent which they will bear after provision for 
 maintenance appears not to exceed &| per cent. The replace- 
 ment of bad cottages by good is an even less remunerative 
 operation. 
 
 " A complaint against the existing system is directed to the 
 functions of the Enclosure Commissioners. A needless minute- 
 ness, and a rigour which refuses to bend to local requirements, 
 are imputed to it. It is manifest, indeed, from the desire of the 
 Commissioners and their inspectors, that the latter claim a con- 
 trol so complete over the execution of the works as to leave little 
 discretion to the landowner or his agent. In the selection of 
 sites, in the arrangement of plans, in the choice of materials, in 
 the drawing-up of specifications, it is no unusual thing for the 
 inspector to take a view opposed to that of the landowner and 
 
40 AGBARIAN TENURES. 
 
 his agent ; and whenever this emergency arises the landowner 
 must give way. Mr. Parkin, an experienced solicitor, says : — 
 ' I find from my experience that landowners do not like the 
 interference of surveyors and inspectors sent down from public 
 bodies, Control of any kind, however wise the controlling 
 power may be, especially when it comes from a public official, is 
 distasteful to men in the management of private affairs ; and 
 where the profit of an operation is small, the necessity of sub- 
 mitting to such control may be sufficient to deter men from 
 undertaking it.' " 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, then, that the trans- 
 actions under these Land Improvement Acts have been 
 small in proportion to the wort on improvements of 
 all kinds which remain to be undertaken ; and that few 
 landowners, except those with very large estates, care to 
 avail themselves of them, and to submit themselves 
 to the control of the inspectors of the Agricultural 
 Department. 
 
 During the twenty-eight years which have elapsed 
 since the Land Improvement Act of 1864, the sum of 
 £12,115,000 has been expended, with the approval of 
 the Land Commissioners, on drainage, farm buildings, 
 labourers' cottages, and other agricultural improve- 
 ments, and has been charged under the Act upon the fee 
 of the land, in priority to other charges and mortgages, 
 the money being provided for either by the several 
 improvement companies under their special Acts, or by 
 the landowners themselves under the Act of 1864. 
 This is at the rate of about £432,000 a year. During 
 the last ten years the average has been £251,000 a 
 year, and in 1891 the amount was £124,000, figures 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 41 
 
 showing tliat the tendency is towards a diminished 
 expenditure. Of the £12,115,000, £4,920,000 has 
 been expended in drainage, £4,490,000 on farm build- 
 ings, £1,017,000 on labourers' cottages, £498,000 on 
 owners' residences, and £425,000 on fences and embank- 
 ments; the residue in minor agricultural improvements. 
 Since the Settled Land Act of 1882 there have been 1,065 
 cases in which trust moneys have been expended on 
 the improvement of entailed estates, under the certifi- 
 cate of inspectors appointed by trustees, with the 
 approval of the Board of Agriculture, the amount of 
 such expenditure not being stated. 
 
 (2) THE SETTLED LAND ACT. 
 
 The next, and far the most important, step which 
 has been taken by the Legislature for many generations 
 past, to free land from the fetters of entail, and to make 
 it easily saleable, so as to facilitate the multiphcation 
 of landowners, was that taken in Lord Cairns' great 
 measure — the Settled Land Act of 1882.* This Act 
 is founded on the principle that entails of real 
 property are not to . be regarded as mere family com- 
 pacts, but as matters affecting national interests. "While 
 maintaining the principle of family settlements, it 
 endeavours to make real property and personalty inter- 
 changeable. It gives power to the tenant for life of 
 any entailed or settled estate to sell the land, subject 
 to the entail, without the consent of the reversioner and 
 
 * 45 and 46 Vict. c. 38. 
 
42 AORAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 without even the consent of the trustees o£ the settle- 
 ment, dispensing, also, with the necessity of an applica- 
 tion to the High Court of Justice, which previously was 
 necessary before any such dealing with a settled estate. 
 It directs, moreover, that the proceeds of the sale of the 
 land shall be invested in trust for the same purposes 
 as those directed by the settlement. The money, how- 
 ever, may be devoted to paying off encumbrances of 
 the estate, redeeming the land tax, or satisfying any 
 other charges or legal claims on the land, or to 
 effecting specified improvements on the property (subject 
 to the approval of the Agricultural Department), and 
 finally to investments, such as are permissible by law 
 in the case of trust moneys held by trustees. The 
 power of sale of land is unrestricted, except in the 
 case of the principal family mansion, or any park or 
 demesne land usually occupied with it ; in such case 
 the sale can only be effected with the consent of 
 the trustees of the settlement, or by the order of the 
 High Court. 
 
 This measure is a most valuable one, not merely in its 
 practical working, but also on account of the principle 
 which it recognises and enforces. It affords a practical 
 admission that there is great economic evil in the 
 tying up of landed property under an entail or family 
 settlement, where family charges and mortgages or 
 his own debts impoverish the tenant for life, and 
 prevent the proper application and outlay of capital 
 for the improvement of the estate. It recognises the 
 principle that it is better for all concerned, better for the 
 
AGBARIAX TENURES. 43 
 
 tenants and labourers of the estate, that under such 
 conditions the land should be sold, and should pass into 
 the hands of those who are more likely to do justice 
 to it, by expending money upon its improvement and 
 maintenance. It has struck a heavy blow at the system 
 of entails and settlements, for the main object of these 
 arrangements has been to concentrate land in the 
 successive heads of the family, with a view to the 
 perpetuation of the family in the hierarchy of landed 
 magnates, rather than to enrich the one at the expense 
 of the other members of it ; and when it is found 
 that the tenant for life can in most cases sell the 
 land without the consent of the reversioners, and in all 
 cases with the consent of the Court, and convert it into 
 money, much of the motive of such settlements will 
 be removed. It has already been shown, in the case 
 of the Savemake property of Lord Ailesbury, that the 
 judges are disposed to take a broad view of the public 
 policy of this Act, and will direct the sale of a great 
 family estate, including the mansion and demesne lands, 
 against the strong opposition of the reversioner, where 
 it is clear that the tenant for life is so encumbered that 
 he cannot do justice to the property. 
 
 Eleven years have passed since this great measure 
 passed into law. It cannot be said that it has had at 
 all the effect expected of it. The sales of settled land 
 have not been numerous as yet. Two causes have 
 operated against them : the one, the very limited scope 
 for the investment of the proceeds of the sale of settled 
 land. The inducement to sell land for the purpose of 
 
44 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 investing in consols producing only 2| per cent., or in the 
 few investments at a low rate of interest permissible to 
 trustees, is not great. The other, more potent, cause has 
 been the agricultural depression of the last few years, 
 which began in 1879, and which has not yet, it is to be 
 feared, reached its limit. The result has been a very 
 serious depreciation in the market value of land in 
 England and "Wales. Eents have been greatly reduced ; 
 and as the prices of wheat and some other agricultural 
 products still show a tendency to fall, no one can yet 
 say that rents have reached their lowest point. In the 
 meantime, there is great stagnation in the market for 
 land. Investors are not forthcoming even at the 
 greatly reduced price at which land is now offered, and 
 many landowners, who would gladly avail themselves 
 of the facilities offered by the Settled Land Act to sell 
 portions of their entailed estates, are unwilling to do so 
 at the present prices, and are awaiting a more favourable 
 opportunity. It may be expected that whenever there 
 is a revival of confidence in the stability of rents, and 
 when there is a greater demand for land for residential 
 purposes, there will be far more numerous transactions 
 under Lord Cairns'Act. 
 
 (3) LAND TRANSFER. 
 
 Other efforts have been made to simplify titles to land, 
 and to make its transfer more simple and less costly. In 
 1862 Lord Westbury's Land Transfer Act* was passed 
 for the purpose of registering titles, as distinguished 
 
 * 25 and 26 Vict. c. 53. 
 
■AOBABIAN TENUBES. .45 
 
 from the system existing in some parts o£ the 
 country, such as Middlesex and York, for registering 
 deeds. The Act was merely permissive, and for other 
 reasons was a failure. In 1875 Lord Cairns made 
 another attempt, and carried the Land Transfer Act of 
 that year, establishing a system of Eegistration of 
 Titles — either of an absolute title after examination, and 
 a certificate by the registrar, giving an indefeasible title 
 in the future to all persons deriving through the person 
 first registered, or of a possessory title, where the pro- 
 perty is registered on a prima case, but without exami- 
 nation in detail by the registrar ; in this case the 
 title becomes indefeasible after the lapse of a certain 
 number of years. In both cases all subsequent dealings 
 with the land must be registered. The proceedings are 
 of a very simple and uncostly character. The system 
 closely resembles that known as Sir E. Torrens' scheme, 
 adopted in Australia. Registration under this Act 
 is voluntary, not compulsory. It has resulted that 
 the system has been adopted to a very small extent 
 only. In the seventeen years which have elapsed since 
 the passing of this measure, about 250 titles only have 
 been registered. This failure is due, in part, to the 
 expense of getting an indefeasible title in the first in- 
 stance, where, in addition to the fees of the registration, 
 there are the ordinary expenses involved in the transfer 
 of land by the employment of a solicitor ; and in 
 greater part to the opposition of solicitors, who mostly 
 advise their clients against registering their properties. 
 The experience, however, of those who have availed 
 
46. AQBAllIAN TENURES, 
 
 themselves of the system is that, when property is once 
 upon the register, the future dealings with it, either by 
 way of transfer, mortgage, or lease, become exceedingly 
 simple and uncostly, and that the system has all the 
 merit and advantages expected of it. 
 
 In 1887 Lord Halsbury introduced a most important 
 measure for making registration of Titles, under Lord 
 Cairns' Act, compulsory in all future transactions 
 of land sales. He also proposed to abrogate the law 
 of primogeniture, in the sense of making the distri- 
 bution of land on the death of its owner, without a 
 will, the same as that of personal property. This 
 measure passed through the House of Lords. Unfor- 
 tunately, it came before the House of Commons very 
 late in the Session. Opposition was threatened to 
 the provisions for the compulsory registration of 
 Titles, and the Grovernment was unable to give time 
 for passing it. The writer urged that the measure 
 should be divided, and that the portion of it relating to 
 the descent and distribution of landed property on death 
 of the owner, to which there was no opposition, should 
 be passed at once. This the Grovernment declined to 
 do, and the measure was dropped. Two years later, in 
 1889, the same measure was again introduced in the 
 Lords, but met this time with a different fate. An 
 opposition arose to the measure on account of the clause 
 relating to the abolition of primogeniture, and in spite 
 of the efforts of the Grovernment, it was rejected on its 
 third reading. 
 
 Important reforms were also carried in 1881 affecting 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 47 
 
 tlie sale of land — the one, the Conveyancing and Law of 
 Property Act,* by which a great number of simplifica- 
 tions were made in the law, with a view to facilitating 
 the transfer of land, the other the Solicitors' Eemunera- 
 tion Act,t under which power was given to the Lord 
 Chancellor and other judges to fix the rate of remunera- 
 tion to solicitors, for the sale and purchase of land, 
 according to a scale of rates regulated by the value of 
 the property, and independent of the length of deeds. 
 
 B. LEGISLATION FOR TENANTS. 
 (1) THE AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS. 
 
 The Law of England had invested the owners of 
 land with many privileges and rights inconsistent with 
 the due cultivation of the land by their tenants. In the 
 earliest of times, by the Statute of Gloucester, in the 
 sixth year of Edward I., the principle was laid down in 
 the interest of landlords, Quidquid plantatur solo solo cedit : 
 " That which is affixed to the land belongs to the land." 
 On this principle the tenant had no right to claim com- 
 pensation for his improvements to the land at the expira- 
 tion of his tenancy, or even to remove them, where pos- 
 sible. If, for instance, a tenant at his own cost should 
 during his tenancy erect a barn, he would not by law be 
 allowed to remove it, just before giving up the land to 
 the owner. If, again, he should plant fruit trees during 
 his tenancy, he could not cut down these trees or 
 transplant them to another property ; this would at law 
 
 * 44 and 45 Yict. c. 41, f 44 and 45 Vict. c. 44. 
 
48 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 be considered waste, from which he might be restrained 
 by the landlord. For the ordinary operations of hus- 
 bandry, such as the manuring and liming of land, the 
 use of artificial feeding- stuffs on the land and the like, 
 there was no common law right to the tenant, on qilitting 
 his land, to claim compensation. In certain districts, 
 however, customs had grown up, as between outgoing 
 and incoming tenants, securing to the former, on giving 
 up their farms, compensation in these matters, varying 
 very much according to the course of farming in such 
 districts. In many places these customs were very 
 inadequate. They were recognised as having the validity 
 of law, and were enforceable by the outgoing tenant 
 against the incoming tenant, or the landlord. There was, 
 however, nothing to prevent the landlord contracting 
 himself out of these tenant right customs, and ex- 
 cluding the tenant from any compensation whatever on 
 the conclusion of the tenancy. Where in any district 
 the land belonged to a single owner, he was practically 
 master of the position, and could lay down any con- 
 ditions of tenancy he might think fit, and he was not 
 controlled or kept in order by the competition of other 
 landowners, or by public opinion. 
 
 The position of tenants in England was the more 
 precarious by reason of the almost universal prevalence 
 of yearly tenancies, as distinguished from the leasehold 
 system, which prevails generally in Scotland. This was 
 not always the case in England, for agricultural leases for 
 terms of years were the rule rather than the exception 
 in olden times, and continued to be so till the period of 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 49 
 
 the last great war with France. The extraordinary rise 
 in prices of agricultural produce, and the great fluctua- 
 tions during the twenty years of that war, indisposed both 
 landlords and tenants to tie their hands by long leases, 
 and the custom consequently grew up of yearly tenancies, 
 where the rent could be adjusted from time to time, ac- 
 cording to the change of prices. In 1832 these motives 
 were accentuated on the part of the landlords by the 
 clause in the Eeform Act giving votes, for the first time, 
 in counties to tenants of farms paying rent of £50 and 
 over. Thenceforward the political influence of landlords 
 was measured by the number of farm tenants having 
 votes in respect of their holdings, and such influence was 
 undoubtedly increased when the tenants held merely by 
 yearly tenancies. The extreme importance, also, attach- 
 ing to sporting rights, which, after the Grame Law Act 
 of 1831, were no longer the exclusive privilege of the 
 landowners, but could be enjoyed by persons in other 
 positions, acted as an inducement to landlords to refuse 
 to their tenants longer tenures than yearly leases. It 
 may be also that the increasing practice of settling 
 estates by entails and family settlements operated in the 
 same direction ; for the tenant for life could by law give 
 no lease for a period longer than his own life ; and it 
 was only in the year 1856 that an Act was passed 
 enabling him to make leases, except in oases where the 
 settlement expressly forbade them. 
 
 Whatever the cause or motive, it has undoubtedly 
 been the case that farm tenants of late years have held by 
 no longer tenures than yearly tenancies, and by law they 
 
50 AGBABLA.N TENURES. 
 
 were entitled only to six months' notice to quit then- 
 holdings. It is commonly said that tenants on well- 
 managed large properties, as a rule, prefer these short 
 tenancies to leases for terms of years, considering that 
 the former are renewable yearly without limit, and dread- 
 ing those periodic revisions of rent, which are the neces- 
 sary incidents of leases for nineteen years on the Scotch 
 system. The grave agricultural depression of the last 
 twelve years, and the great uncertainty of prices of 
 agricultural produce, have confirmed this system, and it 
 is now undoubtedly the fact that agricultural leases 
 are very rare in England and Wales, and that yearly 
 tenancies are the rule. 
 
 It was under these conditions that grave complaint 
 arose, on the part of the farming class, of the extreme 
 insecurity which existed for their capital invested in the 
 ordinary course of their farming operations. In 1875 an 
 Act* was passed by the Legislature laying down the 
 conditions for compensation to outgoing tenants. Un- 
 fortunately, it permitted landlords to contract themselves 
 out of its provisions, and in respect of all then exist- 
 ing tenancies, it enabled landlords to avoid the applica- 
 tion of it, by simply giving notice to their tenants witliin 
 six months after the passing of the Act. It followed that 
 immediately after the measure became law, notices fell 
 like flakes of snow all over the country, and landlords, 
 almost without exception, noticed their tenants out of 
 its provisions ; even the author of the Act gave notice 
 to his large body of tenantry that he excepted them 
 
 • 38 & 39 Vict. c. 92. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 61 
 
 from its provisions ; and only those tenants obtained 
 protection whose landlords, per incuriam, had neglected 
 to notice them out of it. 
 
 It became necessary to amend the Act, and in 1883 
 the existing Agricultural Holdings Act was passed.* , It 
 laid down certain scales of compensation to outgoing 
 tenants in respect of ordinary farm improvements — such 
 as the chalking, liming, and marling of land, the appli- 
 cation to the land of purchased manure, and the con- 
 sumption on the land, by cattle, of cake and feeding stuffs 
 not produced on the holding. It provided that, in 
 respect of these improvements, landlords should not 
 contract themselves out of the provisions of the Act, 
 except for the purpose of making more favourable 
 arrangements, and that the Act should override all 
 customs of the country, unless they were more favourable 
 to the tenants. The measure, therefore, made a most 
 important step in interfering with the freedom of con- 
 tract between landlord and tenant. In respect of moi'e 
 permanent improvements, such as are usually, in 
 England, undertaken by landlords — the erection of 
 buildings, the making of fences, the reclamation of 
 waste ground, the planting of fruit trees or fruit bushes 
 — it provides that compensation shall not be paid to the 
 outgoing tenant unless the landlord, previous to the 
 execution of the improvement, has given his consent in 
 writing. In respect of drainage, it enacts that the 
 tenant, before executing the work, shall give notice to 
 the landlord, who may either execute the work himself, 
 * 46 & 47 Yict. c. 61. 
 E 2 
 
52 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 charging interest upon the cost of it, or come to terms 
 with the tenant; and that only in the event of no terms 
 being arrived at, or of the landlord declining to execute 
 the work, shall compensation be payable. 
 
 A scheme of arbitration is laid down for the settle- 
 ment of compensation claimed under the Act. There is an 
 important clause enabling the landlord, who pays com- 
 pensation to a tenant for the more permanent improve- 
 ments, to obtain an order from the County Court charg- 
 ing the estate with the payment, repayable by such 
 instalments as the judge shall direct. The half-yearly 
 notice to quit, in respect of yearly tenancies, was extended 
 to a year's notice, unless the landlord and tenant should 
 otherwise agree. The law of fixtures was also amended 
 in the interest of the tenants, by enabling them to 
 remove any engine, machinery, fencing, or building 
 which they may have erected on the farm. The power 
 of distraining for rent was limited to one year's 
 rent. 
 
 The object of the Act was to give the tenants the 
 greatest encouragement for the good cultivation of the 
 land, in respect of ordinary farm improvements, while 
 reserving to the landlord the general direction as to 
 the use to which the land shall be put, and as to the 
 erection of buildings and other permanent improvements. 
 Complaints have arisen in many quarters of the in- 
 adequacy of the compensation awarded to outgoing 
 tenants by arbitrators, under this Act, and it may be 
 that inquiry and amendment will be necessary. The 
 (]^uestion of compensation, however, is rather one between 
 
AGBAEIAN TENURES. 53 
 
 outgoing and incoming tenants, than between landlords 
 and tenants, and while it is very important that out- 
 going tenants should be properly compensated for 
 any real outlay on the land, it is also desirable that 
 incoming tenants should not be hampered by large 
 payments for that which does them no real benefit. 
 
 (2) THE GROUND GAME ACT. 
 
 Another most important measure, passed in the 
 interest of tenants, and interfering with contracts be- 
 tween them and their landlords, was the Ground Grame 
 Act, 1880.* Complaint was made of the destruction 
 caused to the crops of tenants by the over-preservation 
 of hares and rabbits, in the interest of the sporting rights, 
 reserved to the owner of the land, or his game tenant. 
 To those who contended that the tenants could protect 
 themselves by refusing to take farms where they had 
 not the right of killing ground game, it was replied that 
 the reservation of game was so universal on the part of 
 landlords that no man could hope to hire a farm who 
 should insist on this right. It was in the interest of 
 the public, of the production of food, and of general 
 good farming, quite as much as in the interest of indi- 
 vidual tenants, that the Legislature thought it right to 
 intervene, and to protect the farmers in the production 
 of their crops, even against their own contracts. The 
 Act accordingly gives to tenant farmers the indefeasible 
 right of killing ground game on their farms, concurrently 
 * 43 & 44 Yict. e. 47. 
 
S4 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 with the landlords. It does not interfere with the right 
 of the landlord to reserve the exclusive privilege of killing 
 other game, or to kill hares and rabbits himself on the 
 tenant's farm, but it provides that " every occupier of 
 land shall have, as incident to and inseparable from his 
 occupation of the land, the right to kill and take ground 
 game thereon, concurrently with any other person who 
 may be entitled to kill and take ground game on the 
 same land." This was undoubtedly a novel form of 
 interference with the right of contract. It was justified 
 and adopted on the ground of public policy, and for 
 the purpose of putting a limit to a practice of over- 
 preservation, which experience had shown the tenant 
 farmers were powerless to provide against by their 
 contracts. It was also contended that, as the Game 
 Laws were, in their essence, trespass laws, in the 
 sense that the offence is not that of stealing the 
 game, but of trespassing in pursuit of it, and as 
 there was great anomaly in allowing persons to pro- 
 secute others for trespassing in pursuit of game on land 
 not in their occupation, it was quite legitimate for the 
 Legislature, irrespective of any interference with con- 
 tracts, to make any limitations it thought fit on 
 the right of prosecuting under the Grame Trespass 
 Acts. 
 
 The Act appears to have been, in the maiu, successful 
 in applying a remedy to a great and growing evil. The 
 best evidence of this is the general complaint of the 
 almost total disappearance of hares over large districts 
 of country. In 1892 Parliament took a step backwards 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 55 
 
 in this respect by enacting a close time for the sale of 
 hares.* There are cases in which landlords still object 
 to their tenants killing hares and rabbits, and by- 
 threat of eviction are able to prevent their doing so ; 
 but, as a rule, they have respected the intentions of 
 Parliament, and have been content to leave to their 
 tenants the power of killing these destructive animals. 
 
 (3) PURCHASE OF HOLDINGS BY TENANTS. 
 
 Some move has been made in the interest of 
 tenant farmers of England and Wales, in the direction 
 of facilitating their conversion into owners of their 
 farms, by means of loans, on the principle of the Land 
 Purchase Acts of Ireland. As in that country, the 
 first step was taken in the case of Church property. 
 The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in whom is vested 
 the greater part of the episcopal and capitular estates, 
 have, of their own accord, and without direction of Par- 
 liament, sold some of their estates to their tenants. In 
 fact, they never sell property without offering it to the 
 tenants. The terms which they offer are the payment, in 
 ready money, of 15 per cent, of the purchase-money, and 
 the payment of the remainder over a term of years. On 
 these terms they have sold 16,700 acres to 257 tenants 
 for a total of £340,000. Of these farms, 76 were over 
 50 acres in extent, and averaged about 200 acres ; and 
 181 were under 50 acres, averaging about 9 acres. 
 The Commissioners report that they have got a 
 
 * 55 Vict. c. 8. 
 
56 AGBABIAN TENTJE.E8. 
 
 better price for their land in this way than they could 
 otherwise have done, and that they have been well 
 satisfied with the payment of the instalments of the 
 purchase-money. 
 
 By the 17th clause of the Small Agricultural Hold- 
 ings Act, this policy is adopted and extended, and County 
 Councils are empowered to advance money to tenants of 
 land of fifty acres and under, or £50 annual value and 
 under, to the extent of four-fifths of the purchase-money, 
 to enable them to purchase their holdings from their 
 landlords. The repayment of this money will be spread 
 over fifty years in equal annual instalments of principal 
 and interest . The money, in such cases, will be advanced 
 by the State, the County Councils being practically the 
 agents for carrying out the transaction. It is too early, 
 as yet, for any results under this clause. 
 
 (4) THE TITHE ACT. 
 
 Another important measure affecting the position 
 of tenant farmers has been the Tithe Act of 1891.* 
 By the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 tithes were 
 made payable by the owners of land in the absence of 
 any contract between them and their tenants. It 
 was evidently expected that, as a rule, the landlords 
 would pay the tithe charge, and adjust it in their rents. 
 The reverse, however, has been the case. The almost 
 universal practice has been for the landlords to provide, 
 in their agreements with their tenants, for the payment 
 
 * 54 Vict. c. 8. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 57 
 
 of tithe by the latter. In ordinary times, and over an 
 average of years, it matters little to the tenants whether 
 they or their landlords pay this charge ; for in the long 
 run it must be a deduction from the rent. But in 
 periods of depression, due to low prices of produce, and 
 where the tithe charge is high, it is found, in practice, 
 that the septennial average prices, on which the rent- 
 charge is calculated, maintain the rate, through two or 
 three bad seasons, and tithe receivers have not generally 
 been willing to make the same abatements as landlords 
 have done in respect of their rents. Hence much com- 
 plaint on the part of tenants ; and in Wales, where the 
 question was aggravated by the fact that a large majority 
 of the small farmers paying the tithes, being Noncon- 
 formists, derived no benefit from the religious services 
 maintained out of the proceeds, there arose a very 
 serious agitation against tithes, and in many districts 
 it was impossible to collect them. 
 
 In 1891 Parliament again interfered with the free- 
 dom of contract between landlords and tenants, and 
 provided that thenceforward the tithe rent-charge should 
 be payable by the owner of the land, in spite of any 
 contract made between him and the occupier of the 
 land ; and that any contract made between the owner 
 and occupier, after the passing of the Act, for the pay- 
 ment of tithe by the occupier, should be void. In the 
 case of contracts made before the passing of the Act, 
 for payment of the tithe by the occupier, it provided 
 that the occupier should pay to the owner any sum 
 which the latter may properly pay on account of the 
 
58 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 tithe rent-charge. Tithes are made recoverable in the 
 County Courts. There is also an important provision 
 to meet the cases where the tithe is exceptionally high 
 in proportion to the rent, to the effect that where the 
 County Court is satisfied that the tithe rent-charge on 
 any land, for the year preceding the day on which it is 
 claimed, exceeds two-thirds of the annual value of the 
 land, as assessed to Income Tax, the Court shall remit 
 so much as is equal to the excess. 
 
 What the effect of this Act has been, and how the 
 adjustments have been made between landlords and 
 tenants, there are no reliable means of ascertaining. 
 It is certain, however, that the tithe has been paid 
 by the landlords since the Act ; and with falling rents, 
 due to the depression of agriculture, it is probable that, 
 in large numbers of cases, they have not been able to 
 add the amount to their rents. The value of £100 of 
 tithe rent-charge was, by the last septennial average, 
 reduced to £75 18s. 3d. In 1878 the value was 
 £112 7s. 6d. There has been a reduction, therefore, in 
 the fourteen years, of 32 per cent. The total amount 
 at which the tithes for the whole of England and Wales 
 were commuted, under the Tithe Commutation Act of 
 1836, was slightly over £4,000,000. The septennial 
 average of prices has, however, reduced this aggregate 
 to £3,043,000, and will certainly reduce it still further. 
 It should be added that the Income Tax returns show 
 that the rent of land in the United Kingdom has been 
 reduced from its highest point, in 1879, of £69,548,000 
 to £57,694,000 in 1890. In England the reduction has 
 
AORA/UAN TENIJUK;-:. r.',i 
 
 W'ti from .fcrj)/;00,000 to £4l,'i78,000 ; in Scotland, 
 from £7,770,000 to £0.^574,000; in Ireland, from 
 £y,!j80,0(jO to .ti), 'Ml, ()()() only. 'Jhf^so figures, how- 
 ever, niake no allowance for tlic abateroents of rcot 
 voluntarily conceded in the latter year, and which, 
 probably, have been large. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LEGISLATION FOE LABOURERS. 
 1. THE COMMONS ACT OP 1876. 
 
 The first important measure in recent years affect- 
 ing the labouring population in rural districts was 
 the Commons Act of 1876,* amending the En- 
 closure Act of 1845. It has already been pointed out 
 how important a part in olden times the common lands 
 of England and Wales formed in the economy of life 
 of the rural labourers. In the first place, they afforded 
 the means to the labourers of turning out their cows 
 and donkeys, or runs for their geese and poultry; they 
 provided turf for their fuel, bracken and gorse for litter 
 and for thatching their cottages. Secondly, the com- 
 mons were an essential condition of the existence of great 
 numbers of small holdings, the tenants of which had 
 largely risen from the class of labourers, and which formed 
 the steps on the ladder by which they could rise from 
 that position to the class of farmers. It is now generally 
 admitted that the vast enclosures of common lands in 
 the last 200 years, though beneficial to the public 
 in affording opportunities for a great increase in the 
 * 39 and 40 Vict. c. 56. 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 61 
 
 production of food, were attended with disadvantages 
 to the rural labourer. The labourers practically losb all 
 the benefits referred to, and received no compensation 
 for them. On enclosure, an allotment of land, or 
 compensation in money, was given only to the owners of 
 land to which common rights attached, and nothing was 
 given to the tenants of cottages, who practically enjoyed 
 these rights. In some cases, allotments of land were 
 made to the parish in lieu of the fuel rights of the 
 labouring people, who were allowed in future to cut turf 
 there. But such allotments were, in general, miserably 
 insufficient, and were in no way a compensation for the 
 loss of the commons. 
 
 These enclosures, till the year 1845, took place 
 under private Acts, many thousands in number, in 
 the discussion of which public interests and the interests 
 of rural labourers were entirely disregarded. In 1845 
 the Greneral Enclosure Act provided machinery for a 
 jnore systematic local inquiry before the enclosure of a 
 common, and dii'ected that certain portions of the com- 
 mon, so enclosed, should be set apart for the use of the 
 labouring people for recreation grounds and garden 
 allotments where required. The schemes were to be laid 
 before Parliament as provisional orders, to be confirmed 
 in each year by a General Act. In spite of this change, 
 the schemes of enclosure were made with very little 
 regard to the interests of the labouring people of the 
 district, and the allotments for recreation grounds and 
 gardens were miserably meagre. Public attention was at 
 length aroused upon the subject. In 1868 the Eoyal 
 
62 AGBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 Commission on the Employment of Women and Children 
 in Agriculture pointed out in its report " that the agri- 
 cultural population had lost opportunities and means of 
 bettering their condition which belonged to their class 
 in former times." The Commission gave two reasons 
 for this deterioration — 
 
 1. The enclosure of waste lands. 
 
 2. The absorption of small farms in large farms. 
 The report added that the "second cause was un- 
 doubtedly dependent to a great extent on the first." 
 
 In 1869 the Annual Enclosure Bill proposed to con- 
 firm schemes for the enclosure of several commons, 
 embracing an aggregate area of 8,900 acres in different 
 parts of the country. Of this extent, three acres only 
 were to be reserved as recreation grounds, and six acres 
 only as allotment gardens for the labouring people. 
 Objection was taken to these enclosures in the House 
 of Commons, and the Bill was stopped, mainly by 
 the exertions of the late Mr. Fawcett ; and no more • 
 enclosures were confirmed until after the passing of the 
 Amending Act. 
 
 By the Commons Act of 1876 it was distinctly laid 
 down that no common was in future to be enclosed 
 unless it could be clearly shown that its enclosure 
 was for the advantage of the public. An alternative 
 method of dealing with commons was provided in the 
 shape of " regulation " schemes, under which they would 
 still remain open, subject to regulations preserving 
 order and providing for the due exercise of rights. 
 Where enclosures should take place, amended provisions 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 03 
 
 were made for securing to the labouring people of tlie 
 district a much, larger extent of land for garden allot- 
 ments and recreation grounds. 
 
 In the case of commons within reach of large towns, 
 local authorities were to be consulted before enclosure, 
 and the policy was laid down that enclosure was not to 
 be authorised where the public had been in the habit 
 of largely using and enjoying them. 
 
 This Amending Act has greatly checked the en- 
 closure of the remaining commons. In the sixteen 
 years which have elapsed since the Act of 1876, only 
 twenty-four commons have been enclosed, with an area 
 of 26,600 acres ; and in these cases 280 acres have been 
 appropriated for allotments and field gardens, and 500 
 acres for recreation grounds. During the same period 
 applications for the enclosure of fifty other commons 
 have been rejected as being opposed to the spirit and in- 
 tention of the Commons Act. In the year 1891 the 
 enclosure of only a single common of 500 acres was 
 confirmed by Parliament. Twenty commons with an 
 area of 30,600 acres have been regulated under the 
 Act. 
 
 Although the Commons Act requires amendment for 
 the purpose of facilitating regulation schemes, and for 
 the prohibition of enclosure otherwise than by the autho- 
 rity of Parliament, it must be admitted that it has 
 secured adequate provisions for labouring men in the 
 few cases where enclosure may be thought desirable in 
 the future. It is believed that the extent of land still 
 remaining subject to common rights in England and 
 
64 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 Wales, and open and unenclosed, is 2,500,000 acres. Of 
 this, by far the largest proportion consists of mountains 
 in Wales, Cumberland, Yorkshire, and elsewhere. The 
 extent of commons in the purely rural and cultivated parts 
 of the country is not large. It is not probable that any 
 enclosures will take place in the future in these districts, 
 while in the purely mountainous districts the commons 
 will be sufficiently dealt with by regulation schemes. 
 Their maintenance as commons is of importance to the 
 small farmers of the districts and to the labourers. The 
 small holdings there, as in former times in most parts 
 of the country, depend on the existence of the rights of 
 common, and if the commons should be enclosed, the 
 small farms would cease to be profitable, and would be 
 consolidated into large farms, to the disadvantage of 
 the labouring population. 
 
 By the Copyhold Act of 1887* another important 
 step was taken by the Legislature to prevent the en- 
 closure of commons without regard to the interest of 
 the public or of the labouring people. Customs had 
 grown up on many manors, and had been recognised by 
 law, under which lords of manors, with the consent of 
 the Homage, could enclose portions of the wastes of 
 their manors. The Homage might consist of copy- 
 holders nominated by the steward of the manor, in the in- 
 terest of the lord. In this way parts of rural commons 
 were often filched, without even the cognisance of the 
 persons having rights over them. To stop this abuse, 
 the House of Lords inserted a clause in the Copyhold 
 * 50 & 51 Yict, c. 73, sec. 7. 
 
AQBAEIAN TENURES. 65 
 
 Act providing that no such enclosures should thenceforth 
 be lawful unless approved by the Land Commissioners, 
 who are directed, before giving their consent, to have 
 regard to the same considerations as are required of 
 them by the Commons Act of 1876, before consenting 
 to any enclosure scheme. It only remains to apply the 
 principle of this clause to enclosures under the Statute 
 of Merton, or under the Common Law. 
 
 (2) CHARITY LANDS. 
 
 The next notable effort made by Parliament to 
 secure allotments for labouring men in rural districts, 
 was in respect of land in the hands of Trustees for 
 Charitable purposes. 
 
 By the Allotments Extension Act of 1882 the 
 trustees of any charity land, the income of which is 
 devoted to doles, and to distributions among the poor of 
 fuel, clothing, food, an'd other articles of necessity or 
 sustenance, are directed to let the most suitable parts of 
 such lands in allotments to cottagers, labourers, and 
 others, subject to various conditions as to the letting 
 of them and other matters. Where the trustees of such 
 oharity lands omit, neglect, or refuse to comply with 
 the directions of the Act, it is provided that any four 
 •cottagers or labourers may apply to the Charity Com- 
 missioners, who are then directed to inquire into the com- 
 plaint, and, if satisfied that a remedy is required, are 
 .authorised to issue orders for remedying such omission 
 ■or neglect; and in such case these orders may be 
 
66 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 enforced in the same manner as other orders, under 
 the Charitable Trusts Acts. 
 
 It appears then from the terms of the Act that a man- 
 datory direction is given to all trustees of charity land, 
 within the description of the Act, to take steps for letting- 
 the land in allotments to the labouring people. No dis- 
 cretion is left with the trustees as to the individuals to 
 whom they shall let the land, but any cottager or 
 labourer has conferred on him a right to claim an allot- 
 ment. If the trustees are of opinion that the charity 
 land, either on the ground of distance or otherwise, is 
 unsuitable for allotments, and that no part of it can be 
 usefully set apart for that purpose, they are at liberty 
 to apply to the Charity Commissioners for a certificate 
 relieving them from the obligation to let the land in 
 allotments. 
 
 As there are a very large number of cases all over the 
 country, where land has been given or devised for such 
 charitable purposes, and therefore comes within the 
 terms of the Act, the subject is one of considerable im- 
 portance. The working of the Act has been attended 
 with considerable difiiculty — in part, owing to the un- 
 willingness of many of the trustees to carry out duties, 
 very different from those which they undertook in 
 respect of the administration of the charity fund itself; 
 in part, owing to the conflict between the interest of the 
 charities and the objects aimed at by the Act, and from the 
 Act having given no clear direction which is to prevail in 
 the event of any such conflict ; and partly, also, from the 
 difiiculty the Charity Commissioners have in enforcing 
 
AGEABIAN TENURES. 67 
 
 their decisions on unwilling trustees — their only remedy- 
 being an application to the Court for the imprisonment 
 of the delinquents. In some cases the trustees have pre- 
 ferred to resign rather than carry out the directions of 
 the Commissioners, and it has been found impossible to 
 fill their places. 
 
 A difficulty also has often occurred in carrying the Act 
 into effect under the following circumstances. In many 
 cases the charity lands consist of old pastures ; where 
 this is the case, such land, when broken up for allot- 
 ments, would give for two or three years a very large 
 return to the labourers, and would enable them to 
 pay rents, equal to those received by the charity ; but 
 the land would very soon become exhausted, and the 
 labourers would then be unable to pay the same rent, and 
 the charity funds would consequently suffer. The 
 Commissioners in such cases have felt themselves 
 compelled to give their certificate of exemption. 
 
 The working of this Act was the subject of inquiry 
 by a Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1884, 
 which made many recommendations for its improvement, 
 but, so far, no legislation has been passed. Among 
 other important suggestions was this, that where such 
 charity land is unsuitable for allotments, the trustees 
 should be empowered to exchange it for other land of 
 equal annual value, more suitable for such purpose. 
 There is a clause in the Commons Act of 1876' 
 pointing in this direction.* It provides that where land 
 has, under an old Enclosure Act, been vested in trustees, 
 
 * 39 & 40 Vict. c. 56, s. 19. 
 
68 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 for the benefit of the parishioners, as a fuel allotment, 
 it shall be unlawful in the future for the trustees to 
 sell the land, but they may let it out in garden allot- 
 ments to the labourers of the parish, and, where un- 
 suitable for such purpose, they may exchange it for 
 other land which can be utilised for garden allotments — 
 a provision showing the increasing care on the part of 
 the Legislature that such lands as now exist in rural 
 districts, devoted to public purposes, shall not be sold, 
 but shall be used for the benefit of the poor, or ex- 
 changed for other land suitable for such purpose. 
 
 (3) THE ALLOTMENTS ACTS. 
 
 In 1887 a vigorous attempt was made, for the 
 first time, to secure for labourers generally throughout 
 England and Wales the benefit of allotments. There 
 had been fitful efforts in this direction at many previous 
 times, but legislation had been of a permissive character, 
 and had failed to produce any results. The question, 
 however, assumed importance in the Greneral Election 
 in the autumn of 1885 — the first which occurred after 
 the extension of household suffrage in counties, and the 
 first occasion, therefore, on which the agricultural 
 labourers found themselves invested with any political 
 influence. Large numbers of rural constituencies were 
 then won by the Liberal party on an agrarian pro- 
 gramme, specially attractive to the labourers, and 
 including the now historic plank of " Three acres and 
 a cow." 
 
AGRARIAN TENURE 8. 69 
 
 When the new Parliament met, early in the year 
 1886, an amendment was moved by Mr. Jesse CoUings 
 to the Address in answer to the Queen's Speech in the 
 following terms : — " That this House humbly expresses 
 its regret that no measures are announced by Her 
 Majesty for affording facilities to the agricultural 
 labourers and others in the rural districts to obtain 
 allotments and small holdings on equitable terms as 
 regards rent and security of tenure." 
 
 The amendment was opposed by the Government, 
 who announced their intention to deal with the question 
 of Allotments in their Local Grovemment Bill, but 
 objected to any compulsory purchase of lands for the 
 purpose. They also promised at an early date to facilitate 
 the creation of small freeholds by the sale of glebe lands, 
 but they questioned the expediency of giving power to 
 local authorities to buy land for such objects. The 
 amendment was carried by a majority of seventy- 
 nine, and the defeat of the Grovernment led to its 
 immediate resignation. In Mr. Grladstone's new 
 Administration, Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Jesse 
 Collings were placed at the head of the Local Govern- 
 ment Board, with the express object of dealing with the 
 subject of Allotments and Small Holdings ; but before 
 they found time to develop any scheme for the purpose, 
 they resigned oflBce, on account of differences with their 
 colleagues on the Home Eule Bill for Ireland, and 
 the new Government was itself defeated on the same 
 policy, before it was able to redeem its promises to the 
 agricultural labourers. 
 
70 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 In 1887, the result of a bye-election for the Spalding 
 Division of Lincolnshire, in which the issue turned 
 mainly on the condition of the agricultural labourers, 
 and the necessity of measures for improving their 
 status, and for bringing land within their reach, proved to 
 the Government the urgent necessity, if they were to 
 retain any hold of the rural constituencies, of dealing 
 with the question, and accordingly, though already late 
 in the Session, they proposed and carried a measure for 
 promoting allotments. 
 
 By this Act * the Sanitary Authority of any urban 
 or rural district may be set in motion by any six rate- 
 payers resident therein, and if, after inquiry, they are of 
 opinion that there is a demand for allotments for the 
 labouring population, and that such allotments cannot 
 be obtained at a reasonable rent, and on suitable condi- 
 tions, by voluntary arrangements between the owners of 
 land and the applicants, they shall purchase, or hire, 
 any suitable land, and shall let it to persons belonging to 
 the labouring population resident in the district. They 
 are directed not to acquire land for allotments save at 
 such a price or rent that, in their opinion, all expenses may 
 reasonably be expected to be recouped out of the rent. 
 
 " Reasonable rent " is defined as the rent which a 
 person taking an allotment may reasonably be expected 
 to pay to a landlord, taking one year with another, 
 having regard to the value of similar land in the neigh- 
 bourhood, to the extent and situation of the allotment, 
 to the expenses of adapting the land to the purpose, and 
 * 50 & 51 Vict. c. 48. 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 71 
 
 to the cost and risk of collecting the rent, and of 
 otherwise managing the allotments. 
 
 If the Sanitary Authority are unable, by hiring or 
 purchase by agreement, to acquire suitable land suf- 
 ficient for allotments at a reasonable rent or price, they 
 may petition the County Authority, who are then em- 
 powered to make a provisional order, authorising the 
 Sanitary Authority to take land by compulsion, under 
 the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. The provisional 
 •order is then to be confirmed by Parliament. But the 
 County Authority are forbidden to include in such com- 
 pulsory purchase any park, garden, pleasure-ground, or 
 other ground required for the amenity or convenience 
 of any dwelling-house. They are to have regard to the 
 extent of land held in the neighbourhood by any owner, 
 and to the convenience of other property belonging to 
 the same owner, and, so far as is practicable, they are to 
 avoid taking an undue or inconvenient quantity of land 
 from any one owner. 
 
 The Sanitary Authority, having acquired land, may 
 adapt it for the purpose of labourers' allotments ; they 
 may then make regulations for letting them, and for 
 defining the persons eligible to be tenants, the size of 
 allotments, and the conditions under which they are to 
 be cultivated, and the rent to be paid. They are also 
 to appoint allotment managers. The allotments are not 
 to be more than one acre in extent, and are not to be 
 sub-let. The rents charged are to be such as to insure 
 the Local Authority from loss, and are to be reasonable, 
 having regard to the agricultural value of the land ; and 
 
72 AQBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 not more tlian a quarter's rent is to be required to be 
 paid in advance. Power is also given to the Sanitary 
 Authority to acquire land for letting as a common 
 pasture, with the approval of the County Authority. 
 
 The above appear to be the principal points worthy of 
 notice in this important measure. It is to be observed that 
 compulsory powers of purchase are vested in the County 
 Council on application of the Sanitary Authority, which 
 in the case of rural districts is the Board of Guardians, 
 where the guardians are elected by the property vote, 
 and where the magistrates of the district are ex officio 
 members. In introducing the measure, Mr. Eitchie, the 
 President of the Local Government Board, emphasised 
 the opinion of the Government that voluntary agree- 
 ments between landowners and labourers were by far 
 the best methods by which allotments could be pro- 
 vided, and had the best chance of success. The object 
 of the measure, he said, was not to supplant, but to 
 supplement voluntary agreements, and before putting 
 it in force the local authorities would satisfy themselves 
 that allotments could not be obtained at a reasonable 
 rent by voluntary agreements between owners and 
 labourers. 
 
 A short experience of the Act proved that in many 
 cases it failed from want of a superior authority, to 
 whom an appeal could be made against the refusal or 
 neglect of the Boards of Guardians to put it in motion, 
 and to provide allotments, where required by the people 
 of their districts. In 1890 an amending Act* 
 * 53 and 54 Vict. c. 65. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 73 
 
 was passed. It was admitted by tlie Grovernment that 
 cases had occurred, in which the Sanitary Authorities 
 had not met the demands made on them by labourers 
 in particular districts, and that it was necessary to pro- 
 vide a remedy. County Councils had been instituted in 
 the interval. The new Act therefore provided that 
 where six ratepayers should apply to the County Council 
 of their district, representing that the Sanitary Authority 
 had failed to provide allotments under the Act, the 
 Council might appoint a committee for the purpose of 
 inquiry, and if satisfied of the justice of the complaint, 
 might exercise all the powers conferred on the Sanitary 
 Authority by the Act of 1887, and might themselves 
 acquire land for the purpose of allotments. County 
 Councils are further directed to appoint standing com- 
 mittees to deal with the question of allotments, and gener- 
 ally to exercise supervision in this respect. In the discus- 
 sions in the House of Commons on this measure, there 
 were numerous complaints, from members on both sides 
 of the House, of the action of Boards of Gruardians, of the 
 vexatious delays which had occurred in proceedings under 
 the Act of 1887, and of the great cost of land purchased 
 under it. It was generally admitted that the constitu- 
 tion of Boards of Guardians was not satisfactory for the 
 purposes of carrying out this policy, that little was to 
 be expected from them of energy and zeal for the objects 
 of the Act, and that until District Boards or Parochial 
 Councils were constituted, there could be little hope of 
 a full development of the policy of the Act. 
 
 A recent return laid before Parliament shows that 56 
 
74 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 Eural Sanitary Authorities, only, have acquired land for 
 allotments under the Act of 1887, in 12 parishes by 
 the purchase of land by agreement, and in 82 parishes 
 by the hire of land by agreement ; the total extent of land 
 so acquired was 426 acres, and the number of allotments 
 thus let to labourers has been 2,733. 518 Sanitary Autho- 
 rities have not taken any action under the Act, alleging, 
 in the majority of cases, that allotments are already pro- 
 vided voluntarily by landowners, under private arrange- 
 ments, and that no applications or representations, under 
 the Act, have been made to them. Under the more 
 recent Act of 1890, 4 County Councils have acquired land 
 for allotnjents, in six cases by hire under agreement, in one 
 by purchase under agreement, and in a single case only 
 by compulsoiy purchase : the total extent of land thus 
 acquired being 81 acres, and the total number of allot- 
 ments 158. 
 
 It is claimed, however, on behalf of the two Acts, 
 that although their direct effect has been small, and 
 very few transactions of purchase or hire of land for 
 allotments have taken place, yet the indirect effect, by 
 stimulating voluntary action of landlords in the letting 
 of land for this purpose to the labourers, has been very 
 considerable. In a Parliamentary return presented in 
 1890, it is shown that the number of allotments detached 
 from the cottages, occupied by labouring men, have 
 increased from 246,000 in 1873 to 357,000 in 1886, 
 and to 453,000 in 1890. 
 
 If the enumeration was conducted with equal care in 
 the earlier years, these figures show that there has been 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 75 
 
 a considerable movement in this direction, commencins 
 some years before the Act of 1887, and continuing with, 
 accelerated effect in the last three years. It is probable 
 that this has been due even more to the fact, that the 
 attention of landowners has been devoted to the import- 
 ance of providing allotments freely for the labourers on 
 their estates, and to the fact that labourers now have 
 votes in the Parliamentary elections, than to the fear 
 that the Act will be put in operation compulsorily by 
 local authorities. 
 
 Those who have strongly advocated the extension of 
 allotments, in the interest of labourers, have contended that 
 one of the objects chiefly to be aimed at, is the conferring 
 upon them a sense of independence, the feeling of common 
 ownership in the land, and the right of taking part in 
 the management and letting of it. In this view the 
 • extension of allotments by the voluntary action of land- 
 owners is insufficient to meet the case. It is even more 
 important that the allotments should be in the ownership 
 of local authorities, whether parochial councils or district 
 boards, and should be let in such a manner and upon 
 such a tenure as will commend themselves to managers, 
 in the election of whom the labourers have a voice. It is 
 evident that we are still a very long way from any such 
 development of the system. It is to be observed that 
 the vast majority of the allotments consist of no more 
 than one-eighth of an acre. There has been no single 
 ■ case as yet of the purchase of land by a local authority 
 :for the common pasture of the cattle of the labouring 
 people of a district. 
 
76 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 (4) THE SALE OF GLEBES. 
 
 The next step with a view to the improvement of 
 the condition of the labouring people in rural districts, 
 by bringing within their reach the ownership and oc- 
 cupation of small holdings, was that taken in the Glebe 
 Lands Act, 1888.* The idea of utilising glebes, for 
 multiplying small ownerships of land, appears to have 
 originated with Lord Salisbury, who, in 1886, announced 
 this as one of the objects of the policy of his Grovernment. 
 As there are glebe lands of varying sizes belonging to 
 nearly all the incumbents of rural parishes, and consisting 
 generally of good land in the neighbourhood of the 
 villages, for the most part in hand, and not let to 
 tenants, and amounting in the aggregate, throughout 
 England and Wales, to more than 600,000 acres — and 
 as many of the clergy have found it difficult to manage 
 these lands, especially in the late period of agricultural 
 depression — it was thought that their sale might at the 
 same time relieve the clergy of an encumbrance, and 
 afford the opportunity of multiplying small ownerships. 
 
 The Act of 1888 therefore authorised the sale of 
 glebe lands, with the consent of the Bishop of the diocese 
 and of the Board of Agriculture. It provided, however, 
 that for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of 
 land by cottagers, labourers, and others, it should be the 
 duty of the Land Commissioners, in giving their approval 
 of a sale under the Act, either to require as a condition 
 thereof that the land should be offered for sale either in 
 
 * 51 and 52 Yict. e. 20. 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 77 
 
 small parcels to labourers, or to the Sanitary Authority 
 of the district, for the purpose of the Allotments Act, 
 1887, or to satisfy themselves that such oflFer is not 
 practicable, without diminishing the price, which may 
 be obtained for the glebe land on a sale. 
 
 It was pointed out by the writer, in the discussion on 
 this measure in the House ot Commons, that it would 
 almost certainly fail in its objects, so far as the sales of 
 plots to labourers were concerned ; in part, because there 
 was no sufficient provision in the Act for publicity, and for 
 informing the labouring people of the benefits contem- 
 plated for them by it ; and in part, because there was no 
 power to enable the purchasers to leave a portion of the 
 purchase money on mortgage, and because as a rule it 
 would be impossible for persons in the position of 
 labourers, to pay the whole of the purchase money. It 
 was predicted that the result of the Act would be that 
 the glebes would, as a rule, be bought up by the great 
 landowners of their districts, and that the monopoly of 
 land in such parishes would be increased, rather than 
 diminished. 
 
 The results of the Act, so far, have completely verified 
 these predictions. Up to the end of 1891 seventy-five 
 glebes were sold. Of these, sixty-six were sold in single 
 lots, and the purchasers were, in the great proportion 
 of cases, the owners of the adjoining lands. In only 
 four cases were the glebes sold in more than three lots. 
 It does not appear that in any single case has a labourer 
 become a purchaser of a plot of land. In the Eeport of 
 the Board of Agriculture, it is alleged that every care 
 
78 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 has been taken that due notice of intended sales was 
 given to the parishioners, and that in all cases, where 
 it did not appear that the price was likely to be diminished, 
 by offering the land, or some part of it, for sale in small 
 parcels, such offer was made. On the other hand, com- 
 plaints have been made of the want of publicity of such 
 sales, and of the want of facilities to labouring people to 
 become purchasers. It is now certain that the Act has 
 totally failed in one of the two main objects it had in 
 view. The sale of glebes has resulted in increasing the 
 monopoly of land in rural parishes, rather than in 
 multiplying small ownerships. 
 
 (5) THE SMALL AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACT. 
 
 The last, and by far the most important and ambi- 
 tious effort in the same direction, of creating a class of 
 small owners of land, and of enabling the agricultural 
 labourers to rise from their position, was that embodied 
 in the Small Agricultural Holdings Act of 1892.* It is 
 proposed by this measure, with the aid of loans from the 
 State at low rates of interest, repayable by instalments, 
 spread over terms of years, on the principle of the Land 
 Purchase Acts of Ireland, and through the medium of 
 Local Authorities, by the purchase, breaking up, and 
 re-sale of land, to re-create classes of small owners and 
 occupiers of land. The measure was based on the recom- 
 mendations of the Committee on Small Holdings, pre- 
 sided over by Mr. Chamberlain, and on the model of a Bill 
 
 *o5 and 56 Vict. c. 31. 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 79 
 
 introduced in three or four successive years by Mr. 
 CoUings, Mr. E. T. Eeid, Q.C., and others. 
 
 On presenting the Bill, Mr. Chaplin, then President 
 of the Board. of Agriculture, made, on behalf of the 
 Government, an important declaration of policy — one 
 which will remain on record even if his measure should 
 fail in its objects. 
 
 " One of the chief objects/^ he said, " the Government has 
 in view is a wider distribution of land among the people of this 
 country } to bring back to the soil, if it be possible, by legislation 
 — I had almost said to re-create — a class of the community, which 
 has been gradually dwindling for many years, and which is now 
 rapidly becoming extinct, but which, at the same time, we must 
 remember existed and flourished in former years in far greater 
 numbers than at present. I am speaking of the class, which 
 used to be described as yeomen, or, in other words, the owners of 
 small properties in land. No one, who is well acquainted with 
 the agricultural districts, can fail to be aware of the constant 
 immigration of the rural population from the country to the 
 towns, which has become so prominent and so unwelcome a fea- 
 ture of the rural situation during the last few years, and which I 
 am afraid is still progressing, and perhaps at an ever-accelerated 
 pace to-day.^' * 
 
 After discussing the causes which had led to this, 
 among which he enumerated the spread of education, 
 resulting in the growing distaste for manual labour on 
 the soil, the higher rate of wages which can be obtained 
 in towns, the greater attractions of town life, and 
 lastly, the greatly increasing demand for active and 
 intelligent labour on railways and in the police force, 
 he said that the Government thought that something 
 * Parliainentary Debates, 1892. Vol. 1, p. 911. ; 
 
80 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 could be done to arrest the evil by a measure affording 
 to the rural population greater facilities tban they now 
 enjoy, for working on the land in their own interest, 
 and for the profit of themselves. He alleged that the 
 greatest danger for farmers, at the present time, was not 
 foreign competition, or low prices for their produce, but 
 the diflSculty of finding sufficient labour for the effective 
 cultivation of the land. It did not follow, he said, that 
 the small owners to be created by the Bill would be 
 employed the whole of their time on their land; there 
 would be times and seasons, when part of their labour 
 would be available for service on the larger farms ; and 
 the mere possibility of being able to obtain for them- 
 selves, by their own industry, small holdings, would be 
 no small inducement to the younger labourers to remain 
 in the country in greater numbers. At all events, he 
 said, the Government desired that the experiment should 
 be tried. 
 
 Under the measure, as it finally passed into law. 
 County Councils are invested mth the duty of carrying 
 it into effect. On the petition of any one or more persons 
 alleging that there is a demand for small holdings in 
 the county, the County Council are directed to cause 
 inquiry to be made, and, if satisfied that there is such a 
 demand for small holdings as to justify them in putting 
 the Act in force, are empowered to purchase land by 
 agreement suitable for the purpose ; they may then, 
 before sale or letting, adapt the land for small holdings 
 by dividing and fencing it, by making roads, draining, 
 and doing any other works on it, which may be more 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 81 
 
 economically and efficiently executed for the land, as a 
 wliole. They may also erect houses and farm buildings 
 suitable for such holdings. Having then apportioned the 
 total cost of the acquisition of the land, and its adaptation, 
 among the several holdings, in such manner as may 
 seem just, they are to offer the holdings for sale, at 
 a price, which is to include all costs of purchase and 
 registration of title. 
 
 The purchaser is to pay in ready money one-fifth at 
 least of the purchase money. Of the residue, one-fourth 
 may be secured, if the County Council think fit, by a per- 
 petual rent-charge on the small holding, to be redeemable, 
 however, as other rent-charges are by law. The residue 
 of the purchase money is to be secured by a charge in 
 favour of the County Council, repayable by half-yearly 
 instalments of capital and interest, spread over a term, 
 not exceeding 50 years, with power to pay off the whole 
 at any time. Such holdings are, for 20 years from the 
 date of the sale, and thereafter, so long as the purchase 
 money is unpaid, placed under certain legal conditions 
 or disabilities. They may not be divided,- assigned, let, 
 • or sub-let without the consent of the County Council ; 
 they must be cultivated by the owner or occupier, and 
 must not be used for any other purpose than agricul- 
 ture ; there must not be more than one house erected 
 on any one of them ; the houses to be constructed are to 
 comply with the requirements of the Council ; and on 
 holdings where the Council are of opinion that no 
 dwelling-house is wanted for the holding, no such building 
 can be erected, without their consent. If any of these 
 
82 AGBABIAN TENUBES. 
 
 conditions are broken, tlie Council may cause the holding 
 to be sold. On the death of an owner, the holding must 
 not be diAdded, and the County Council have power to 
 direct the sale of it, to avoid sub-division. Where the 
 Council are of opinion that any persons desirous of them- 
 selves cultivating small holdings, are unable to buy on 
 the terms fixed by the Act, they may let holdings not ex- 
 ceeding 1 5 acres in extent, or £1 5 of annual value. They 
 may also hire land for such purpose in lieu of purchasing 
 it, in cases where, from its proximity to a town, or suit- 
 ability for building purposes, or some other special reason, 
 the land has a prospective value, which id. the opinion 
 of the Council is too high to make its purchase for 
 agricultural purposes desirable. The Council may, 
 ander special circumstances, to be recorded in a minute, 
 consent to the sale of a small holding, free from all or 
 any of the conditions imposed by the Act. They are 
 further directed to sell any superfluous land after pro- 
 viding for small holdings. The Eegistration of Titles 
 of all land to be sold or let under the Act is also 
 provided for. 
 
 The Council are empowered, where they have bought 
 property for the purposes of this Act, to delegate to a 
 committee, on which the parish, in which the holdings 
 are situate, is to be represented, the powers of adapting 
 the land, and the sale, letting, and management of it. 
 The Public Works Loan Commissioners are authorised 
 to lend money to the County Council for the purposes 
 of the Act at the rate of not less than £3 2s. 6d. 
 per cent. The Council are further limited in their 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 83 
 
 transactions under the Act to sncli a principal sum 
 as is represented, in interest, by a rate of one penny in 
 the pound, on the rateable value of the property in the 
 county, exclusive of that of county boroughs within it. 
 It is estimated that this may involve loans to the 
 amount of £10,000,000. 
 
 On the motion of a Conservative member, a clause 
 was added in the House of Commons providing that 
 the small holdings created by the measure should cease 
 to be real property in the legal sense, and should, for 
 the purpose of inheritance and other matters, be con- 
 sidered as personalty, and, on the death of the owner 
 without a will, should be divisible equally among the 
 children. This clause, however, was rejected by the 
 House of Lords, and as the measure now stands, the 
 small holdings will be subject to the rule of primo- 
 geniture. The Act applies equally to Scotland as to 
 England and Wales. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter further into details of 
 this measure. In the course of its passing through the 
 House of Commons it was greatly strengthened in those 
 of its clauses which contemplated the letting of small 
 holdings by the County Councils, as distinguished from 
 their sale, in spite of the general declaration of the 
 Government that the main object they had in view was 
 the multiplication of small ownerships of land. It 
 appeared to be generally considered by those who repre- 
 sented specially the interests of the agricultural labourers, 
 that it is in the direction of letting, rather than of 
 sale, any benefit to them can be looked for. 
 G 2 
 
84 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 The measure, indeed, as it has been moulded by 
 Parliament, is a curious compound of various contending 
 influences and political ideas. It aims, in the main, 
 at individualism, by the multiplication of small owner- 
 ships, but combined with this there is a distinct leaning 
 towards the nationalisation of land, by putting them 
 under conditions and disabilities for twenty years, and 
 by subjecting them to perpetual rent-charges equal to 
 one-fifth of the interest on the purchase money. In 
 another part it contains the germs of a policy of 
 municipalisation of land, by providing for the letting 
 of small holdings by the County Councils to the extent 
 of fifteen acres ; and, as the Councils are to be em- 
 powered to erect houses and farm buildings, they will 
 practically be in the position of landlords towards a 
 tenantry of small occupiers of land. Then, again, the 
 provision, already described, for enabling advances of 
 money to be made to tenants to purchase their small 
 holdings, aims at promoting individual property of land. 
 
 Too short a time has elapsed, since the passing of the 
 measure, for any operations under it. The President of 
 the Agricultural Department has issued a circular to 
 County Councils explaining the machinery and objects 
 of the measure, and concluding with the "earnest 
 hope that experience of the practical working of the Act 
 may show that it will be successful in accomplishing the 
 object, with which it has been sanctioned by Parliament, 
 and that by its means the acquisition of land in small 
 holdings by those, who are able to cultivate them with 
 advantage, may be facilitated." Whether this will be 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 85 
 
 realised may be doubted, but in any case there will remain 
 on record the recognition by a Conservative Government, 
 in the strongest possible form, of the evils of the present 
 condition of land tenure in England, especially in its bear- 
 ing upon the agricultural labourer, and of the necessity 
 for a remedy ; and if the Act should fail, within a reason- 
 able period, to effect a change, the arguments in favour 
 of other and more stringent measures will be greatly 
 strengthened. 
 
 It may be interesting here to recall the opinion on 
 this measure of the head of the late Government — Lord 
 Salisbury. Speaking at Exeter on the 3rd of February, 
 1892, before the introduction of the BiU, he referred at 
 length to the policy of artificially creating small holdings. 
 
 " I am very anxious," he said, " to multiply small holdings 
 and small properties in the country. . . . But understand 
 what the advantage will be. I do not think it will operate — 
 at least, to any great extent — in relieving the particular suffer- 
 ings of the- poorer classes. On the contrary, it presupposes the 
 possession of a certain amount of money for a man to undertake 
 a small holding. The advantage which I believe it will confer 
 is of a totally different kind, it being a political advantage. I 
 do not think that small holdings are the most economical way 
 of cultivating the land. But there are things more important 
 than economy. I believe that a small proprietary constitutes 
 the strongest bulwark against revolutionary change, and affords 
 the soundest support for the Conservative feeling and insti- 
 tutions of the country. It is no mere theory; it has been tried 
 under the most exacting circumstances. In France — ^which has 
 been racked and racked again by the paroxysms of . revolution — 
 the administrative machine has been held together, law has been 
 supported, and the whole society has been able, in spite of 
 
86 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 revolutions, to go on, because it was founded on the broad basis 
 of wbat Lord Beaconsfield well called a territorial democracy. 
 How far it will be possible for us to carry out its principle in 
 this country is a very serious question. There is no doubt there 
 has been a constant tendency of the holders of small properties, 
 where they exist, to sell them, and to invest the price in more 
 lucrative concerns; and until we try, I do not know whether any 
 action of the State will be able to create a peasant proprietary 
 on a large scale. But it seems to me very desirable that the 
 , experiment should be tried ; that it should be seen that, so far as 
 the Government and so far as the other classes of society are 
 concerned, we earnestly desire that the yeOmen and labourers 
 shall remain upon the land, and shall contribute their strength 
 to the support of the institutions of the country. There is no 
 difficulty about the experiment ; there is plenty of land to be 
 had. I myself am strongly against compulsion — at all events, at 
 this stage — because I do not believe it to be needed, and because 
 T am sure that compulsion will create ill-will, ill-will will create 
 litigation, and litigation will create rates, which is the evil to 
 which all other rural evils tend to converge. But if we should 
 succeed in creating a much larger number of proprietors than 
 exist in the country, you must not imagine it will make no 
 difference in the position of the landowners. It is rather the 
 fashion to look upon landowners as a semi-criminal class, upon 
 which it is quite reasonable to heap any burthen you like in the 
 shape of rates. But when we have the alliance of those sturdy 
 yeomen whom we hope to create, we may expect to be treated 
 in a very different manner. We may be quite certain this 
 question of rates will be thoroughly overhauled. 
 I have a strong feeling that if I had the number of yeomen 
 whom I would like to create in this country, we should 
 very soon see the system of rates put upon an equitable 
 footing." 
 
AGUABiAN Tenures. 87 
 
 (6) labourers' cottages. 
 
 Tlie Legislature, of late years, has passed several 
 measures with the object of improving and providing 
 cottages and gardens for labourers in rural districts. 
 Under the Sanitary Acts the rural sanitary authorities 
 have ample powers to compel the owners of cottages to 
 put them in proper order and repair, and to secure that 
 there is a supply of water. On the application of the 
 sanitary authority, the County Council of the district 
 may direct a local inquiry as to the accommodation in 
 the district for the housing of the working classes ; and 
 if, after such inquiry, it is certified that there is need, 
 and that there is no probability that accommodation 
 will be otherwise provided, and that, having regard to 
 the liability that will be incurred by the rates, it is 
 prudent, under all the circumstances, for the authority to 
 undertake the provision of accommodation, the County 
 Council may authorise the local authority to do so.* 
 The authority may then purchase land by agreement 
 for the purpose, and erect cottages on it in accordance 
 with the certificate, and may borrow money for the 
 purpose through the Local Government Board. It is pro- 
 vided also that the term " cottage " may include a garden 
 of not more than half an acre, the value of which shall 
 not exceed £3. It is further provided that the rural 
 sanitary authority, if unable to purchase land by agree- 
 ment for the purpose, may, through the medium of the 
 
 * 53 and S4 Vict., c. 70, Part III. 
 
88 4.QBARIAN TENURES. 
 
 Local Grovemment Board, obtain a scheme for the 
 purchase of land by compulsion, to be approved by- 
 Parliament in the ordinary way. It appears that only 
 one case has occurred in which a rural sanitary author- 
 ity have obtained power to buy land by agreement for 
 the erection of cottages — that of Thingoe in Suffolk, 
 where they have obtained power to borrow £1,900 for 
 the erection of twelve cottages. No case has occurred 
 in which the compulsory powers have been put in force. 
 
 SUMMARY OV LEGISLATION. 
 
 It wHl be seen from this brief survey of agrarian 
 legislation, how fully Parliament has recognised the defects 
 of the present system of land tenure in England and Wales 
 and of the distribution of property in land, and how mani- 
 fold and varied have been the efforts to mitigate them. 
 There is scarcely any point where an attempt has not been 
 made to deal with the subject. Efforts have been made to 
 promote the expenditure of capital on entailed estates, to 
 free land from the trammels of entail so as to make it 
 easily saleable, to simplify titles, and to cheapen and 
 facilitate the transfer of land. In two notable instances 
 Parliament has interfered with the freedom of contracts 
 between landlords and tenants for the protection of the 
 property of the latter. It has adopted' the same 
 method in the case of Tithes. It has accepted the 
 principle of the compulsory purchase of land by local 
 authorities for two purposes — for allotments, and for 
 the erection of labourers' cottages; it has recognised 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 89 
 
 the principle of the sale of quasi-public lands for the 
 purpose of promoting the multiplication of small owner- 
 ships. Lastly, by the more recent Act of last year 
 it has made a further great step towards increasing the 
 number of small ownerships and small tenancies, by 
 giving power to local authorities to purchase land, and 
 to break it up into small lots for reselling or letting. 
 It has admitted the principle of the loan of public 
 money for this purpose, and also for the conversion 
 of tenancies into ownerships on the method of the 
 Irish Land Purchase Acts. It has been shown that 
 the success attending these efforts has not been con- 
 siderable. The land system practically remains un- 
 altered, though something has been done, here and there, 
 to mitigate its defects. So far as the labourers are 
 concerned, the indirect effects of the Allotments Acts, in 
 inducing landlords voluntarily to let allotments to their 
 labourers, in order to avoid the purchase of land for that 
 purpose by local authorities, have ]3een important : but 
 the direct object aimed at — of vesting the ownership and 
 management of allotments in the hands of local author- 
 ities — has not been realised. 
 
 It will be endeavoured later to discuss the probable 
 outcome of the Small Holdings Act. Meanwhile, it is 
 proposed to describe the land legislation for Ireland and 
 Scotland, which may throw much light upon the general 
 question of agrarian reform. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 LANDOWNERSHIP IN IRELAND. 
 
 If the efforts made by tlie Legislature for the 
 reform of the agrarian system of England and Wales, 
 with the object of bringing capital to the land, of giving 
 greater security to tenants, and of improving the con- 
 dition of labourers, have been numerous, those for Ire- 
 land have been far more so, and far more drastic in their 
 methods and results. It may indeed, with truth, be 
 said, that Ireland has been passing through an agrarian 
 revolution, exceeding in scope and effects, that which 
 any country in Europe has experienced in modern times, 
 save France at the time of its great revolution, and 
 Eussia when serfdom was abolished. 
 
 Till within a few years ago, the law relating to 
 landed property in Ireland, whether as regards its inherit- 
 ance, and the power of entailing and settling it, or as 
 regards the relations of landlords and tenants, was almost 
 identical with that of England. The actual economic 
 condition of the two countries, however, in respect both 
 of landlords and of tenants, differed in almost every 
 essential particular. England, as has been shown, is a 
 country, in the main, of large ownerships of land. The 
 landlords there are generally resident ; they exercise all 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES, 91 
 
 the functions of owners ; their relations to their tenants 
 are of a close and friendly character ; they always supply 
 the capital required for permanent improvements, for 
 drainage, building, planting, and for labourers' cottages ; 
 their tenants supply the capital necessary for the ordin- 
 ary cultivation of the farm, the plant, the stock, and 
 manures. Ireland, on the contrary, is a country of re- 
 latively even larger landownerships than England, but 
 of very small holdings and tenancies. The landlords, to a 
 large extent, are non-resident. As a rule, in three out of 
 the four provinces, there has been little or no sympathy 
 between them and their tenants. They are generally of a 
 different race and different religion. Whether resident or 
 non-resident, whether English or Irish by birth, whether 
 sympathetic or not with their tenants, the Irish landlords 
 have in the past, with rare exceptions, expended nothing 
 on improvements of the land; the tenants themselves 
 have effected all the substantial improvements, have done 
 everything which distinguishes the cultivated land from 
 its original condition of waste, have erected the houses 
 and farm buildings, have reclaimed the land, drained and 
 fenced it. In England it has been shown that large 
 farms prevail, and that small holdings on which the 
 cultivator makes his living by cultivating with his own 
 hands, and without the aid of hired labour, are almost 
 extinct. In Ireland, on the contrary, the great bulk of 
 the tenantry are of this class. Of 655,000 holdings, 
 584,000 are rated at £30 and under, and 62,000 between 
 £30 and £100. Till the efforts in recent years of Par- 
 liament to convert tenants into owners, this class of 
 
92 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 occupiers of land consisted almost wholly of tenants ; 
 the classes of yeomen and peasant proprietors scarcely 
 existed in Ireland. 
 
 If English law had been introduced into Ireland in 
 feudal times, it is probable that the small occupiers of 
 land there would have been treated, as were the villein 
 tenants in early times in England, and would have had 
 conceded to them fixity and perpetuity of tenure, as 
 copyhold tenants of the lords of manors, subject to 
 customary payments and fines on inheritance and trans- 
 fer. English law, however, was not enforced in Ireland 
 till a far later date, when the feudal system in England 
 had already been almost extinguished and forgotten, and 
 when the rights of individual property in land had 
 obtained a fuller recognition. On the confiscation of 
 the property of the Irish chiefs, the English settlers 
 and adventurers assumed the status of English land- 
 owners. The ancient Irish customs and laws, which 
 gave a certain protection to the cultivators, were set 
 aside ; the English land laws, imported into Ireland, 
 confirmed these views of the new comers, pushed to their 
 extreme the rights of landlords, and conceded nothing to 
 the occupiers, in respect of their customary rights under 
 the old Irish customs.* The land system thus intro- 
 duced was a method of government, a badge of conquest, 
 and a means of holding in subjection the common people, 
 fhe tendency of the English law of primogeniture and 
 entail was aggravated by the penal laws, directed against 
 
 * The effect of the change upon the Irish peasantry has been graphic- 
 ally described by Mr. Froude in his " English in Ireland," vol. ii., p. 20. 
 
AOBAJRIAN TENURE'S. 93 
 
 the ownership of land hy Catholics, and it resulted that, 
 relatively even to England, there were far fewer owners of 
 land, and that for ten owners of land of under 50 acres 
 in England, there was only one such owner in Ireland. 
 The land was cultivated exclusively hy tenants, con- 
 sisting, for the most part, of the subjected people. In 
 the greater part of Ulster, and in some isolated districts 
 in the rest of Ireland, the native Catholic cultivators 
 were dispossessed of their holdings in the better lands, 
 and were driven to the mountains and to the waste and 
 inferior lands, and their farms were taken by Protestants 
 imported from Scotland or by the disbanded soldiers of 
 Cromwell's army. The fugitive Catholics reclaimed the 
 wild districts to which they were driven, and were 
 allowed to sub -divide their holdings as they pleased . Later, 
 the same process was repeated, in many parts of the south 
 and west of Ireland, of dispossessing the tenants of the 
 best pasture-lands, in order to consolidate the holdings 
 into great grazing farms ; and those of the evicted 
 tenants, who did not emigrate, were compelled to settle 
 upon the inferior land of the mountains and moors. It 
 was by these arbitrary processes that what are called the 
 congested districts in Ireland came into existence. 
 
 By the imported English law, the tenants, whether 
 in Ulster or the rest of Ireland, had no interest in their 
 holdings, otherwise than by contract ; they were for the 
 most part yearly tenants, subject to a six months' 
 notice to quit, and were not entitled, on the determination 
 their tenancies, to any compensation for the improve- 
 ments, they had effected, for the houses and' farm 
 
94 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 baildings they had erected, or for the reclamation 
 and drainage of their farms. Whatever the law, 
 however, custom had to a certain extent remedied the 
 injustice. In Ulster, where there was a closer connec- 
 tion of race and religion, and a greater sympathy 
 between landlords and tenants than elsewhere, the 
 custom had grown up, under which the interest of 
 tenants in their holdings was, to a large extent, recog- 
 nised by the landlords. 
 
 The tenants, under the Custom of Ulster, were 
 considered as entitled to continue in possession of their 
 holdings, so long as they paid their rent, and to seU and 
 bequeath their interests in their holdings. It was 
 also generally recognised that the rent ought not to 
 be increased, so as to encroach on the value of the 
 tenant-right. Although not recognised by law, this 
 tenant-right was admitted and acted upon more or less 
 by the general body of landlords, and any serious 
 attempt to evade it, on the part of a landlord, was 
 certain to give rise, even in Ulster, to grave popular 
 discontent in the district, and often to agrarian crimes 
 of a terrible character. To a less degree, the interests of 
 tenants in their holdings in other parts of Ireland were 
 recognised and admitted by the better landlords. 
 Generally, it may be said that the harsh exercise of 
 rights by landlords, permissible by law, was restrained, 
 if not by the desire, on their part, to act fairly by those 
 below them, at least by the fear of violence and revenge. 
 Practically, however, it was admitted, almost universally, 
 that once in possession, a tenant had the right to 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 95 
 
 continue, so long as he paid his rent. The disputes gener- 
 ally occurred on the subject of rent. It cannot now be 
 denied that the rents generally were such as amounted 
 to an appropriation by the landlords of the tenants' 
 improvements. When bad years occurred, there was 
 great inducement to landlords to take advantage of the 
 tenants' inability to pay rent, for the purpose of evicting 
 them, and laying down their land in large farms — a pro- 
 cesswhich involved expropriation of the tenants' interests. 
 Under this condition of things, there was in every 
 part of Ireland, except Ulster, an absence of any security 
 to tenants that they could enjoy the benefit of their 
 improvements ; there was, on the contrary, the fear that 
 if they effected improvements their rents would be 
 raised by their landlords, and consequently there were 
 inducements to the tenants to appear to be even poorer 
 than they really were. It would be difficult to con- 
 ceive a system more opposed to the prosperity and 
 progress of an agricultural community. 
 
 In many parts of Ireland, also, the small farms had 
 the valuable privilege attached to them of turning out 
 cattle during the summer months, on the neighbouring 
 mountains, moors, and waste lands. It has already 
 been pointed out, in the case of England, that such a 
 privilege is a most important addition to, if not an in- 
 dispensable condition of, the existence of small holdings. 
 The manorial system, however, had never been intro- 
 duced into Ireland. There were no commons in the 
 English legal sense of the term. The mountains, moors, 
 and waste lands were by law the absolute property of 
 
96 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 landowners in Ireland. The tenants turned out tlieir 
 cattle upon them by the leave and licence only of their 
 landlords, the owners of the waste lands. When the 
 landlords found that they could turn the mountains and 
 waste lands to their better advantage, for sheep or cattle 
 farms, they not unfrequently did so, without regard to 
 their tenants' interests, and deprived them of this 
 privilege. There was no law to protect the tenants 
 from a change in their condition of a most serious ■ 
 character. 
 
 Where this deprivation of the privilege of turning 
 out cattle on the waste lands took place, it was the cer- 
 tain cause of agrarian trouble. There can be little doubt 
 that the fears engendered by agrarian crime alone pre- 
 vented large districts being cleared of their population 
 for the consolidation of farms, for the creation of grazing 
 farms, and for the turning of the waste lands into sheep 
 and cattle runs. The secret societies, which, under 
 various names, were so common in Ireland, were due to 
 the grave insecurity of the tenant class, and to their efforts 
 to protect themselves and their property, against the 
 harsh exercise of rights by landlords, under laws alien 
 to the people, and entirely opposed to the prosperity of 
 the country. 
 
 That some part of this process of consolidation of 
 holdings was an economic advantage, if not a necessity 
 to the country, cannot be doubted, for in many districts 
 the sub-division of holdings had become so great that 
 the population was excessive, and was beyond what 
 could be sustained by the land. ' But the consolidation 
 
AGRAEIAN TENURES, 97 
 
 was carried out often with a reckless disregard of the 
 interests of the tenants ; the process was generally first 
 adopted in the case of the better land of a district, 
 where it was the least needed. Multitudes of small 
 tenants were forced into emigration, and carried with 
 them, across the Atlantic, the bitter memories of wrong. 
 Others were compelled to find homes and a miserable 
 existence upon the inferior lands in their district, already 
 overcrowded, Hence it is, that in many parts of the 
 west of Ireland, the traveller finds large tracts of most 
 fertile land, with scarcely any inhabitants upon it, and 
 devoted to grazing purposes, while hard by, on the very 
 poorest land, almost unfit for cultivation, there are large 
 communities of persons with holdings insufficient to sup- 
 port them, and eking out their existence by a periodic 
 exodus in search of work, during the harvest time, in 
 England and Scotland, or supplementing their work on 
 their small plots of potatoes by fishing, or by occasional 
 work as labourers on the large farms in the district, 
 
 THE ENCUMBERED ESTATES ACT. 
 
 The agrarian condition of Ireland had been aggra- 
 vated by a measure, conceived by Parliament, with the 
 hope of inducing capitalists to purchase land in that 
 country, and to expend their money in improvements, 
 after the fashion of EngHsh landlords. After the famine 
 of 1846-7 a very large number of landowners were in 
 financial difficulties of a most serious character. Their 
 estates were heavily burthened with mortgages and 
 
 H 
 
98 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 family charges. With greatly reduced rents and with in- 
 creasing poor-rates, there was little or no margin for the 
 support of the owners. In 1849 a special commission 
 was appointed, under Parliamentary powers, for the sale 
 of these encumbered estates, on the petition of encum- 
 brancers and creditors, and with full power to cut all the 
 legal knots in which they were involved, to give a Par- 
 liamentary title to the new purchasers, and to distribute 
 the proceeds among those entitled. It was hoped and 
 intended to attract purchasers with capital, who would 
 improve their estates in a manner very different from 
 the Irish system. 
 
 Under this measure a very large number of proper- 
 ties, valued at over £50,000,000, were sold. They 
 belonged, for the most part, to the older families of 
 the gentry of Ireland, who had managed their estates 
 according to the traditions of the country, and with 
 regard to the interests of their tenants, and who had not 
 considered that they were justified in imposing rack-rents. 
 These lands were now bought by persons of a very dif- 
 ferent class, who had no knowledge of the traditions of the 
 estates, or of the former relations of the tenants to their 
 landlords. The new purchasers were no more improving 
 landlords than those who were sold out. They bought 
 for investment only, and with the intention of making 
 as much as they could out of the land. 
 
 The scheme of introducing the English land system 
 entirely failed. But this new class of landlords felt no 
 compunction in screwing up their rents, to a point at 
 which they completely appropriated the tenants' interest, 
 
AOEABIAN TENURES. 99 
 
 or in clearing their properties of tenants, with a view to 
 the consolidation of holdings, or the making of , great 
 grazing farms. Their action caused, the gravest agrarian 
 difficulties in Ireland, and was a potent cause of subse- 
 quent reforms. With our present knowledge of the land 
 question of Ireland, it appears strange indeed that no 
 eSovi was made, when passing this measure, to secure 
 the interests of the tenants, who were being handed 
 over to new masters. 
 
 CLASSES OF CULTIVATORS. 
 
 To understand the agrarian condition of Ireland, 
 and to appreciate the effect of the land reforms, which 
 have of late years been carried out, it is necessary to bear 
 in mind the different classes of which its agricultural 
 community consists. 
 
 There are, first, the great grazing farms, including 
 some of the very best and most fertile pastures to be 
 found in any part of the United Kingdom, on which 
 cattle are fed and fattened by a special class of persons 
 engaged in the business, for the most part non-resident. 
 They have been properly exempted from all recent legis- 
 lation, in the interest of tenants, giving fixity of tenure 
 and judicial rents. It has been estimated that the 
 annual value of these grazing farms is about £2,000,000 
 a year. 
 
 Next in order come the large farms, of over 100 
 acres each, cultivated by tenant farmers, employing 
 hired labour in the work on their farms. The. number 
 H 2 
 
100 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 and extent of these are greater than is generally recog- 
 nised. The agricultural returns show that there are 
 32,000 farms, averaging about 200 acres each, with an 
 aggregate of 6,600,000 acres, and a rental of £4,000,000. 
 
 Thirdly, there are the small farms, rented at from 
 £10 to £100. They are 208,000 in number, with 
 a total area of 6,400,000 acres. The tenants work 
 their farms themselves, with the aid of their families 
 and one or two labourers. They constitute the main 
 body of the agricultural class in Ireland ; and now that 
 they have fixity of tenure and judicial rents, they may 
 be considered a class of peasant owners, living wholly 
 by the land. 
 
 Lastly, there are the smaller tenants, holding plots 
 of land, rated at under £10. They number 365,000. 
 Many of these are cottier tenants, unable to make a 
 living wholly out of their land, but supplementing it by 
 working as labourers on adjoining farms, or by migrat- 
 ing to England and Scotland for harvest work, or for 
 work in the brick-fields, or by fishing during a part of 
 the year, when the herrings and mackerel are off the 
 coast. They live mainly on potatoes and milk, resorting 
 to meal during a part of the year, or when the potatoes 
 yield a bad crop. They earn enough as labourers, or in 
 other ways than on their holdings, to pay their rents, and 
 to provide themselves with meal and clothing. When 
 the potato fails, they are thrown on their beam-ends, and 
 are unable to pay their rents, and at the same time 
 to provide their families with food in substitution for 
 potatoes. They are the chief cause for anxiety in the 
 
AOBABIAN TENURES. lOl 
 
 years of periodic failure of tlie potato crop. They 
 constitute the main portion of the population in what 
 are known as the congested districts. They are passion- 
 ately attached to their homes. They cannot be called 
 unthrifty, compared with the lowest class of labourers 
 in the large towns in England, for they save up their 
 wages during the three or four months, when they have 
 migrated for work, and carry back funds sufficient to 
 pay their rents, and to maintain their families during 
 a part of the year. They are able to compare their 
 existence with that of the labourers in England, and it 
 is evident that they prefer their own conditions of life ; 
 for there is nothing to prevent them transferring their 
 families to England, and obtaining permanent work as 
 labourers in the manufacturing and mining districts. 
 
 It was of this class that the Eoyal Commission on 
 Agriculture, presided over by the Duke of Richmond in 
 1881, reported as follows : — " With respect to the very 
 small holders in the western districts of Ireland, we are 
 satisfied that, with the slightest failure of their crops, 
 they would be unable to exist upon the produce of their 
 farms, even if they paid no rent. Many of them plant 
 their potatoes, cut their turf, go to Great Britain to 
 earn money, return home to dig their roots or to stack 
 their fuel, and pass the winter, often without occupation, 
 in most miserable hovels. Employment at a distance, 
 always precarious, has largely failed them during the 
 late calamitous seasons." 
 
 Besides these various classes of occupiers of land, 
 there are the agricultural labourers pure and simple — a 
 
102 AOBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 class working for wages on the land of others, living 
 generally in the most miserable hovels, too often without 
 any gardens or potato lands attached, hiring generally 
 small patches of land, for the growth of potatoes, from 
 adjoining farmers at exorbitant rents, under what is 
 called the con- acre system. Of the agricultural classes 
 in Ireland, there can be little doubt that the lot of these 
 labourers is the hardest and poorest. Bad as it is, it 
 has somewhat improved of late years, as the rate of 
 wages has risen. The census of 1881 gave the number 
 of this class at 143,800. In 1891 it was reduced to 
 118,980, a decrease of 17 per cent. ; it is probable that 
 this number includes a great many who should rather be 
 classed as cottier tenants, than as simple labourers. 
 
 It is to these various classes of the agricultural com- 
 munity of Ireland that the measures of agrarian reform, 
 of the last twenty years, have been applied — measures 
 aiming at fixing the peasantry on the soil, creating out 
 of them a class of yeomen or peasant owners, or convert- 
 ing them into joint owners of the land vnth their land- 
 lords, and giving greater security, and therefore greater 
 inducement, for the outlay of capital on the land. 
 
CHAPTBE V. 
 
 RECENT AGRARIAN REFORMS IN IRELAND. 
 THE LAND ACT OP 1870. 
 
 There were two possible lines on which, remedial mea- 
 sures for the occupiers of land in Ireland might proceed, 
 with the object of giving them greater security in 
 their holdings — the one, that of altering the law between 
 landlord and tenant, and of giving equally to all 
 tenants protection for their improvements, past and 
 future, and greater security against eviction ; the other, 
 that of converting tenants into owners by the aid of 
 State loans. It was obvious that the second of these 
 processes, unless of a compulsory character, with an 
 independent determination of the value of the landlord's 
 interest, would be slow and uncertain in its operation, 
 dependent as it would be upon the willingness of land- 
 lords to sell, on terms which the tenants would accept, 
 and upon the readiness of Parliament to make advances 
 by way of loans for the purpose. The first was an 
 immediate process, dependent only on a few words of 
 an Act of Parliament, giving instant relief to the whole 
 body of tenants. The second aimed at the extension 
 of individual ownership, by the conversion of tenants 
 
104 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 into peasant proprietors ; tlie former was an advance 
 towards dual ownership between landlords and tenants. 
 Parliament was invited to proceed in both, directions at 
 the same time. The first general attempt to deal with 
 the subject was that under the Irish Land Act of 1870. 
 This Act legalised tbe Customs of Ulster and any like 
 customs in other parts of Ireland, and gave to tenants, 
 who held under them, the protection of the law. It 
 then proceeded to enact for the rest of Ireland a somewhat 
 analogous system. It reversed the presumption of law 
 that improvements belong to the owner of the land, and 
 secured both past and future improvements to the tenants, 
 and enabled them to claim compensation for them on 
 the determination of their tenancies. It laid down a 
 further scale of compensation for disturbance, ranging 
 from seven years' rent in respect of holdings valued at 
 Jess than £10 a year, to less amounts for larger hold- 
 ings, payable beyond the value of improvements, on 
 eviction for any other cause than non-payment of rent. 
 This great land measure passed through both Houses 
 of Parliament, without being challenged in principle, 
 though many efforts were made to amend and defeat 
 its details. Two causes contributed to its passing : 
 the one, that the state of Ireland was so disturbed 
 by agrarian agitation, that all parties recognised that 
 legislation of some kind was necessary to restore social 
 order; the other, that the representatives of the Con- 
 servative electors in the rural parts of Ulster were 
 unanimously in favour of a measure which gave legal 
 sanction to the custom of that province. It was 
 
AQBABIAN TENURES. 105 
 
 believed that the compensation payable under the 
 Custom of Ulster, and under the provisions of the Act 
 elsewhere, for disturbance of tenancy, would operate 
 to prevent the undue raising of rent by landlords. The 
 Act, however, contained no provision to protect the 
 tenant, who should be unable or unwilling to leave 
 his farm. It proceeded on the assumption that the 
 payment of full compensation for the tenant's interest, 
 and the fine on eviction in the case of small tenants, 
 would be a suflScient deterrent to the bad class of 
 landlords against raising their rents. 
 
 The Act also contained provisions, which were known 
 as the Bright clauses, for the purpose of promoting the 
 conversion of tenants into owners. These enabled the 
 Treasury to advance two-thirds of the purchase money, 
 on the sale of any holding to its tenant, repayable 
 by equal annual instalments and interest, spread over 
 thirty-five years, at the rate of £5 for every £100 
 advanced. This process had already in the previous year 
 received a partial trial, by the provision in the Act for the 
 Disestablishment of the Irish Church, which directed 
 the sale of the landed property of the Church to its 
 tenants, upon rather better terms ; and under this pro- 
 vision about 5,000 tenants had produced one-fourth 
 of the purchase money, and had been converted into 
 owners. It was hoped that the Act of 1870 would 
 be equally effective in promoting a peasant proprietary, 
 on the lines which had long been advocated by Mr. 
 Bright, who was then a member of Mr. Grladstone's 
 Cabinet. With this object the Act directed the Landed 
 
106 4GBABIAN' TENURES. 
 
 Estates Judge, on the sale of landed property in the 
 usual course by his Court, to afford, by the formation 
 of lots for sale or otherwise, all reasonable facilities 
 to occupying tenants desirous of purchasing tbeir hold- 
 ings, so far as should be consistent with the interests of 
 the owners of the properties thus dealt with. 
 
 These clauses of the Land Act proved to be an 
 almost total failure. A select Committee of the House 
 of Commons in 1877-8, presided over by the writer, 
 investigated the causes of failure. It reported that, 
 while in the six years since the passing of the Act, 
 landed property, to the value of nearly six millions, 
 had been sold by the Landed Estates Court to 11,500 
 tenants, only 523 tenants had been able to avaU them- 
 selves of the provisions of the Act, and had been 
 converted into owners. The Committee recommended 
 many amendments of the Act, so as to facilitate 
 the operation ; it also advised that the proportion 
 to be advanced by the State should be increased to 
 three-fourths of the purchase money, and that the 
 period of repayment should be extended, so as to make 
 the terms easier for the tenant purchaser. It rejected, 
 however, the suggestion that the whole of the purchase 
 money should be advanced, and that the time of repay- 
 ment should be extended to fifty-three years. " The 
 objections," it said, " to such a scheme are that it would 
 involve no exertion on the part of the tenants ; that the 
 period of repayment of the loan would be a very long 
 one, equal to the average of two generations ; that 
 in the meantime the relation between the State and the 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 107 
 
 new owners would be very much tliat between a land- 
 lord and his tenants." 
 
 THE LAND ACT; OF 1881. 
 
 Ten years had not elapsed before another formidable 
 agrarian crisis arose in Ireland. The years 1878 and 
 1879 were exceptionally bad for tenant farmers. Con- 
 tinuous rains during the autumn of the last of these 
 years ruined the crops of potatoes and oats, and made it 
 impossible to dry the turf. The succeeding year, 1880, 
 was also one of great loss to the tenants. Prices of all 
 agricultural produce were very low. The agitation, 
 which consequently arose in Ireland, was the more 
 formidable, as the Ballot Act of 1872 had entirelj^ 
 destroyed what remained of the political influence of the 
 landlords of Ireland, and had practically handed over its 
 representation in rural constituencies — that is, in four- 
 fifths of the whole of Ireland — to the tenant farmers. 
 The landlords were less disposed to meet the agricul- 
 tural crisis, by reductions of rent, than they had been 
 before the Act of 1870. Many of them, in spite of this 
 Act, had succeeded in raising their rents, so as to appro- 
 priate the interest, which it had been intended to 
 secure to the tenants. It was true that the Act enabled 
 the tenants,, on a rise of rent, to quit their holdings, 
 and to claim compensation for their tenant right, and in 
 the case of small holdings, compensation for disturb- 
 ance. But the tenants had no desire to give up their 
 farms ; they had no other means of living ; they were 
 compelled, therefore, to submit to the increase of rent. 
 
108 AGBABIAN TENURE 8. 
 
 In most cases tlie rents were increased by small amounts 
 from time to time, each increase being such, as the 
 tenants would submit to, rather than give up their 
 holding. It was found, therefore, by experience that the 
 Act gave very little protection against rack-renting and 
 grasping landlords. There arose, in consequence, an almost 
 universal demand for further protection. The pressure 
 was quite as strong from the farmers in the province of 
 Ulster, as from those in the rest of Ireland ; for the Act 
 of 1870, while recognising the Custom of Ulster, had 
 failed to provide security against its infraction and 
 evasion by the frequent raising of rent. An unanimous 
 demand arose from the farmers of this province for fuller 
 protection of their tenant-right interests ; they claimed 
 that complete security could only be given by conceding 
 to them fixity of tenure, the right of free sale, and 
 the periodic revision of rents by some authority inde- 
 pendent of the landlords. The demand known as the 
 three F's — namely, Fixity of Tenure, Tree Sale, and 
 Fair Eents — embodied in their view the essential ele- 
 ments of the Ulster Custom. 
 
 In the General Election which took place early 
 in 1880, the Conservative candidates for county con- 
 stituencies in Ulster felt themselves compelled to 
 concede the claims of the Ulster farmers. They also 
 obtained from the Ministry an understanding that, if 
 it should obtain a majority in the Elections, it would 
 legislate in this direction. In the rest of Ireland the 
 demands from the tenant farmers were at least as 
 strongly in favour of agrarian reform, in the direction of 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 109 
 
 fixity of tenure and fair rents. Many of them advo- 
 cated and demanded the extinction of landlordism, and 
 the constitution of an universal system of peasant pro- 
 prietors, by means of State loans. It may be said that 
 Ireland was practically unanimous in favour of a revolu- 
 tionary measure of Land Eeform. 
 
 The Grovernment which was formed under the 
 leadership of Mr. Gladstone, after the General Election 
 of 1880, found itself unable to deal with the whole 
 question of Land Reform in Ireland without full 
 inquiry. It postponed legislation for a year. Mean- 
 while, it appointed a Eoyal Commission, with Lord 
 Bessborough as chairman, to investigate the subject; 
 and it endeavoured to stave off the immediate crisis, 
 and to protect the great body of smaU tenantry in Ireland 
 from eviction for non-payment of rents, which had 
 practically become impossible, by a temporary measure, 
 known as the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. This 
 measure proposed to extend to tenants, rented at under 
 £30, threatened with eviction for non-payment of rent, 
 during the next two years, the same protection, in the 
 shape of compensation for disturbance, as was given by 
 the Act of 1870, in the case of evictions for other 
 reasons. It was supported on the broad principle that 
 landlords ought not to be permitted to take advantage 
 of an exceptional time of distress, to appropriate pro- 
 perty that legitimately belonged to the tenants under 
 the Land Act of 1870. 
 
 This measure aroused the most formidable opposi- 
 tion in Parliament, It was carried through the House 
 
110 AGBABIAN TENUBE8. 
 
 of Commons, after long debates, by majorities less, by one 
 half, than the normal party strength of the Grovernment. 
 It was rejected by the House of Lords by a majority of 
 282 to 51, in spite of the emphatic declaration by the 
 Grovernment that it was necessary for the preservation 
 of peace and order in Ireland, and in the face of the 
 assertion of the Duke of Argyll — one of the strongest and 
 most consistent supporters of the rights of landowners — 
 that there were cases known to the Grovernment, where 
 landlords in Ireland were taking advantage of the failure 
 of the crops, and of the inability of their tenants to pay 
 rent, to clear their estates by wholesale evictions. 
 
 The rejection of this measure added fuel to the 
 flames of agitation and disorder in the land, and made 
 the task of the Government infinitely more difficult. 
 Mr. Parnell expounded, at Ennis, his scheme of substi- 
 tuting, for violence and outrage, the social ostracism of 
 persons who should take farms from which tenants had 
 been evicted ; and under the newly invented term of 
 " Boycotting," this process became common in Ireland, 
 and was used by local Land League Associations against 
 any persons, who were obnoxious to them. Mr. Parnell 
 and the leaders of the Land League were prosecuted by 
 the Grovernment for a criminal conspiracy in advising 
 persons not to pay excessive rent, but were acquitted by 
 a Dublin special jury. The murder of Lord Mount- 
 morres^ though not arising out of agrarian disputes, 
 greatly excited public opinion in England. 
 
 In the following year, 1881, the Grovernment pro- 
 posed and carried a coercive measure of a trenchant 
 
AOBARIAN TENURES. Ill 
 
 character, and a Land Act of a most comprehensive kind, 
 for Ireland. However deplorable the state of things in 
 Ireland, and however greatly to be condemned was much 
 of the language used during the agitation, it must now 
 be admitted that no such Land Eeform could have been 
 carried through Parliament, if it had not been for the 
 agitation, and the disturbed state of that country. In 
 the recess the Bessborough Commission had completed 
 their inquiry and reported. They fully confirmed the 
 complaints, which the Irish tenants had made of the work- 
 ing of the Land Act of 1870, and of the injustice from 
 which these often suffered in the raising of rent, so as to 
 appropriate the value of the improvements effected by 
 them. They said that the Land Act had failed to pro- 
 tect the tenants from occasional and unreasonable 
 increase of rent. Instead of attempting to amend the 
 Act, they advised its repeal, and the enactment of a 
 simple uniform Act for Ireland on the basis of the 
 three F's. 
 
 " We regard," they said, " the present condition o£ affairs in 
 Ireland as a symptom of deep-seated disorder in the body politic. 
 . . . If we are right in maintaining that grievances exist 
 for which the present law provides no remedy, justice requires 
 that a remedy should be provided, whatever may have been the 
 conduct of individuals, and however widely the example set by 
 them may have been followed. . . . The circumstances of 
 the present occasion do indeed require that the remedy now to 
 be proposed for an admitted grievance should be complete. We 
 wish to place on record our decided opinion- that, unless the 
 measure is a full and exhaustive one, going to the root of the 
 whole matter and settling it permanently, it would be better not 
 to interfere with the question at all. We are able to point to 
 
112 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 evidence that a complete measure of justicOj though it may not 
 be nearly all that is demanded by the more extreme, will bear 
 along with it a more than usually good promise of acceptance. 
 Nothing is more noticeable in the immense mass of evidence we 
 have taken than the general moderation of the tone of those 
 who feel themselves aggrieved by the existing law, and the 
 almost complete absence of demands for measures of confiscation, 
 and of proposals tending to create antipathy between class and 
 class/'' 
 
 Another Eoyal Commission, presided over by tlie 
 Duke of Richmond, and appointed to consider the De- 
 pression of Agriculture over the whole of the United 
 Kingdom, had also devoted much of its labour to the 
 case of Ireland. They admitted to a large extent the 
 grievances of the Irish tenants and the failure of the 
 Land Act of 1870. The majority reported as foUovfS: — 
 
 " Great stress has been laid upon the want of security felt 
 by an improving tenant, which, it is alleged, limits not only the 
 number of persons employed, but also the quantity of food pro- 
 duced for the benefit of the community. Bearing in mind the 
 system by which the improvements and equipments of a farm 
 are very generally the work of the tenant, and the fact that a 
 good tenant is at any time liable to have his rent raised in con- 
 sequence of the increase in value, that has been given to the 
 holding by the expenditure of his own capital and labour, the 
 desire for legislative interference to protect him from an arbitrary 
 increase of rent does not seem unnatural, and we are inclined to 
 think that, by the majority of landowners, legislation, properly 
 framed to accomplish this end, would not be objected to.'" 
 
 An influential minority of the Commission went 
 much further, and recommended legislation based on 
 the three F's, 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 1]3 
 
 The measure proposed under these circumstances 
 by Mr. Grladstone, and ultimately carried through Par^ 
 liament, was one of the greatest agrarian reforms ever 
 conceived and enacted for any country. It secured to 
 the main body of tenants, throughout Ireland, fixity of 
 tenure, and the right of assigning and devising their 
 holdings to any other person, without the leave of the 
 landlord ; it gave them the right to appeal to a special 
 tribunal to decide as to what should be the rents for their 
 holdings. The decision of the tribunal prescribes the 
 amount of rent for a period of fifteen years, after 
 which there is the right to apply for a revision. The 
 general effect of the measure was to endow the tenants 
 with a permanent interest in their holdings, to elevate 
 them to the position of joint owners of their holdings 
 with their landlords, and to create a system of dual 
 ownership of land, throughout the length and breadth 
 of Ireland. The true justification for this great Act 
 was that this dual ownership already practically 
 existed, from the circumstance that all the permanent 
 improvements had been effected by the tenants and 
 their predecessors in title ; that in Ulster dual 
 ownership had, in fact, been long recognised by the 
 custom of that province, though imperfectly protected 
 by it, and that the tenants' interests were bought and sold 
 at large prices ; that the best landlords in other parts 
 of Ireland had practically acted upon the same under- 
 standing in their transactions with their tenants ; that 
 free contract, on which, theoretically and in point of 
 law, the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland were 
 
114 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 based, did not, and could not, virtually exist under the 
 existing conditions ; that the tenant was unable to dis- 
 engage himself from his interest in bis holding, so as to 
 contract on equal terms witb his landlord witli respect 
 to future rent ; and that the Legislature was bound to 
 give protection to the tenants against unjust ap- 
 propriation of their interests by the raising of rents. 
 
 It was maintained also that the tbree P's hung 
 together by a necessary and logical sequence ; that 
 when it was' conceded that the tenants were entitled to 
 appeal to an independent tribunal, for the determination 
 of the rent, as was advised even bytheDuke of Eichmond's 
 Commission, this must necessarily involve a judicial 
 term, during which the decision as to rent would run, 
 and at the end of which there would be an equal claim for 
 renewal ; and that the creation of a term would equally 
 involve the right to assign and devise it. 
 
 There were excepted from the provisions of the 
 Act grazing farms rented at over £60 a year, farms 
 on whicb the occupier was not resident, demesne lands 
 and home farms, town parks, land let on lease, and 
 finally all holdings managed according to the English 
 system, wbere landlords had efiected the permanent 
 improvements. 
 
 There was a supplementary part of the Act, amend- 
 ing the Bright clauses of the Land Act of 1870, in 
 accordance with the recommendations of the committee 
 of 1877-8. It increased the proportion of the purchase 
 money, to be advanced by the State, from two-thirds 
 to three-fourths, and extended the term of repayment 
 
■ AGRARIAN TENURES. 115 
 
 from thirty-five years to forty -nine years. It contained 
 special provisions for enabling the Landed Estates Court 
 to meet the difficulty of breaking up properties into lots, 
 so as to enable the tenants to buy. It set apart the sum 
 of £5,000,000 to be advanced by the State under this 
 scheme of purchase. 
 
 This part of the measure was purposely drawn so as 
 to require of the tenant purchasers some money pay- 
 ment, as evidence of their desire and capacity to enter 
 upon the new condition of absolute owners of their 
 holdings, and as earnest of their ability to pay the 
 annual instalments to the State. It was never put 
 forward as the main feature of land reform; it was a 
 supplementary proposal, with the object of gradually 
 adding to the number of persons invested with the 
 status of full ownership, and increasing the stability of 
 landownership in Ireland. Proposals made in the course 
 of the discussions in Committee, for the advance by the 
 State of the whole of the purchase money, were steadily 
 resisted, on the ground that they would inevitably result 
 in a demand for the universal and compulsory applica- 
 tion of purchase to every holding in Ireland, and the 
 consequent expropriation of all landlords. It was 
 pointed out that, in view of the great concessions made 
 to the tenants, in giving to them fixity of tenure and 
 judicial rents, and by raising them to the position of 
 joint owners with their landlords, there was no longer 
 the same motive, from an economic point of view, of 
 multiplying owners under a system of State loans, with 
 the object of giving security of tenure, and inducements 
 I 2 
 
116 AQBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 to improve their holdings ; and that the policy of this 
 part of the measure was comparatively unimportant. 
 
 Eeferring at a later period to these clauses, Mr. 
 Grladstone said of them : " They were so framed as not 
 to say to the tenants, with the most dangerous approach 
 to Socialism, ' We are going to make you proprietors of 
 your holdings, and at the same time to reduce your 
 rents.' They were framed in terms, the compliance with 
 which would of itself show that the men who so com- 
 plied were the picked men of their class, who would be an 
 example to the community, and whose action — in itself 
 highly beneficial — would have laid the foundation of a 
 peasant proprietary on the principles of industry and 
 of virtue." * 
 
 The measure, though its main provision was vehe- 
 mently attacked by the Conservative members, as one 
 involving confiscation of the rights of property, was met 
 in the House of Commons on its second reading, not by a 
 motion for its rejection, but by a very ambiguous motion. 
 An amendment was moved by Lord John Manners to the 
 effect that " the House, while anxious to maintain the 
 security and efiiciency of the Custom of Ulster and other 
 analogous customs, and to remedy any defects in the 
 Land Act of 1870, is disposed to seek for the social and 
 material improvement of that country by measures 
 for the development of its industrial resources, rather 
 than by a measure that confuses, without settling on a 
 general and permanent basis, the relations between 
 landlord and tenant." 
 
 * Hansard, Yol. 330, p. 1536. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. ' 117 
 
 This half-hearted amendment was rejected by a 
 majority of 352 to 176. Of the Irish members, thirty- 
 five, under the leadership of Mr. Parnell, abstained from 
 voting, on the plea that the measure was insufficient 
 as a remedy; twenty-four other Home Eulers, twelve 
 Liberal members for Ireland, and thirteen Conservative 
 members for rural constituencies in Ulster, voted in 
 favour of the Bill. The measure then had the support 
 of an enormous majority of the Irish members who took 
 part in the division, and there was every reason to 
 believe that its main principle was acceptable to the 
 mass of the Irish tenantry. 
 
 In the House of Lords, Lord Salisbury, as leader of 
 the Opposition, bitterly attacked the Bill, which he 
 described as one " giving to tenants the right to sell 
 that which they had never bought " and " to tear up 
 contracts by which they had bound themselves." He 
 denied that it would be accepted in Ireland — except, 
 perhaps, for a very short time — as a message of peace ; 
 for thenceforward the landowners would look upon 
 Parliament and the Imperial Grovernment as their worst 
 enemies, and, in view of recurring general elections, 
 would be living in perpetual apprehension of earth- 
 quakes. In view, however, of the state into which 
 Ireland had been allowed to drift by the culpable 
 carelessness of the Grovernment, and of the apprehension 
 which haunted the landlords there, he could not re- 
 commend his followers to vote against the second reading 
 of the Bill, but rather to apply themselves in com- 
 mittee to remove some of its glaring injustices. 
 
118 AGRARIAN TENURE 8. 
 
 and to wait, and see how their amendments would 
 be received.* 
 
 In pursuance of tliis policy, a number of amendments 
 were moved, and carried by overwhelming majorities, 
 fundamentally altering the Bill in the interests of land- 
 owners. These amendments were, with few exceptions, 
 rejected by the Commons, and the Lords finally insisted 
 on two or three only, not of vital importance to the 
 measure — namely, the exclusion of English-managed 
 estates and of long leaseholds. The measure therefore 
 finally passed into law without substantial amendment, 
 so far as the great body of the tenantry of Ireland 
 was concerned. 
 
 Looking back at this great and comprehensive mea- 
 sure, which, for breadth of conception and completeness 
 of detail, has rarely been surpassed — one which efiected 
 an agrarian revolution in Ireland of an unprecedented 
 character, and the passing of which was due to the 
 eloquence, lucidity, and exposition of general principles, 
 combined with a mastery of details, on the part of its chief 
 author — it may be permitted to regret one circumstance 
 only connected with it, which unfortunately militated 
 against its being accepted as a complete settlement by 
 the Irish people : that it was not found possible to 
 consult the leaders of the Irish party, to a greater 
 extent, as to its details, either before the measure was 
 introduced, or while it was passing. 
 
 Finality in an agrarian measure is of the utmost 
 importance, and can only be achieved by obtaining the 
 * Hansard, Vol. 264, p. 267. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 119 
 
 previous consent of the leaders of those for whom the 
 remedial legislation is intended. It has been one of 
 the misfortunes of the system of the Grovernment of 
 Ireland, that its popular leaders have never been in a 
 position where they were themselves responsible for legis- 
 lation, and were seldom even consulted in the framing 
 of measures of reform by those responsible for them. 
 
 In the case of the measure now under consideration, 
 the majority of the Irish members under the leadership 
 of Mr. Parnell took exc,eption to it in detail on the 
 following points : — 
 
 1. That the term of fifteen years was too long, in 
 the probable event of a considerable fall in the prices 
 of agricultural produce, and that there ought to be 
 some means of revising such rents, according to a scale 
 of prices. 
 
 2. That the Land Commissioners ought to have 
 power to deal with the arrears of excessive rent, which 
 were hanging round the necks of vast numbers of 
 tenants. 
 
 3. That the Act should apply to leaseholders, and to 
 the holders of town parks. 
 
 4. That the reduction of rent ought to date from 
 the day, when the application is made for judicial rents, 
 and not from the day, when the decision of the Court 
 is given. 
 
 5. That the Commissioners ought to have power to 
 deal with the congested districts, by buying land and 
 adding it to the insufficient holdings of the smaller 
 tenants. 
 
120 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 6. That power should be given to local Authorities 
 to buy land, on which to erect decent cottages for the 
 labouring people. 
 
 7. That in the case of the purchase clauses, the 
 whole of the purchase money ought to be advanced by 
 the State, and the terms of repayment extended, so as to 
 lessen the rate of annual payments. 
 
 It will be seen that all these points have since been 
 conceded by Parliament. It is impossible, therefore, not 
 to conclude that it would have been far better if many 
 of these concessions had been made at the time when the 
 principal Act was passed. 
 
 The measure, however, was already most heavily 
 freighted. A little more would have caused the vessel 
 to founder in the difficulties which surrounded it. Con- 
 cessions had to be made, rather to the enemies of the Bill, 
 to the representatives of the landlords in both Houses of 
 Parliament, than to the tenants, and to the representatives 
 of the people of Ireland. The criticism points rather to 
 the general treatment of Irish questions in Parliament 
 since the Act of Union ; to the traditional neglect of Irish 
 opinion; and to the fact that Irish reforms have invariably 
 been proposed by Grovernments in which the great 
 majority of the Irish people were not represented, and 
 submitted to the decision of a House of Commons of whose 
 members the vast majority knew nothing of the condi- 
 tion of Ireland, and were fearful that what was to be done 
 there, would be quoted as a precedent hereafter for legis- 
 lation affecting England and Scotland — and to a House 
 of Lords, where the only Irish peers were landlords, and 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 121 
 
 whose members generally regarded Msh questions from 
 the point of view only of landlords. 
 
 THE ARREARS. ACT OF 1882. 
 
 A year had not passed, from the enactment of this 
 measure, before it became necessary to deal with one of 
 the principal subjects omitted in the Act of 1881 : that 
 of Arrears of Eent. In consequence of the bad years of 
 1878 and 1879, and the subsequent fall of prices, avast 
 number of the smaller tenants in Ireland had several 
 years of arrears hanging round their necks. These 
 practically prevented their going to the Land Com- 
 mission for the revision of their rents, as the landlords 
 were able to threaten eviction for the arrears due, if the 
 tenants should take this course. It was thought expe- 
 dient, therefore, in the interest of peace in Ireland, and 
 for the success of the Land Act, to legislate on this 
 question. The Arrears Bill, laid before Parliament in 
 1882, provided that in respect of holdings of £30 rental 
 and under, where the tenants, who were in arrear of rent, 
 could show that they had paid the year's rent due between 
 November, 1880, and November, 1881, and could prove 
 their inability to pay the residue, the State would advance 
 one-half of the arrears accruing due before November, 
 1880, not exceeding one year's rent. AU the remaining 
 arrears were to be cancelled. The arrangement was to 
 be compulsory on the landlords. Tenants, evicted up to 
 a certain date, were to have the benefit of the Act, as 
 well as of the six months' equity of redemption given by 
 
122 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 the general law. 'It was estimated that £2,000,000 
 would be required from the State for this purpose, of 
 which £1,500,000 was to be taken from an Irish Fund, 
 the surplus of the property of the Disestablished Church, 
 and £500,000 from the Consolidated Fund. Of the 
 large body of tenants paying under £30 a year, it was 
 expected that one-third would make claims under the 
 Act. Assuming that the arrears amounted generally to 
 more than two years' rent, the effect of the Act was to 
 make a free gift out of an Irish Fund of one year's rent, 
 to require the tenant to pay one year's arrears, and to 
 wipe out all the residue. It was admitted by the Grovern* 
 ment, in making the proposal, that it could not be 
 defended on logical grounds, and that the interference 
 of the State, in the settlement of debts by compulsion 
 and gifts, could not be justified either on economic or 
 on constitutional principles. It was defensible only on 
 account of the state of Ireland, and because a clearance 
 of accounts all round was necessary for both landlords 
 and tenants, to enable them to make a fresh start under 
 the Land Act. 
 
 This very moderate measure was vehemently contested 
 by the Opposition in both Houses of Parliament. It was 
 denounced as a sop to discontent, a makeshift expedient, 
 demoralising in its effect, and one that would sow the 
 seeds of worse complications. It passed the Commons 
 only after long discussions and many divisions. In the- 
 Lords, the Opposition mainly concentrated itself upon 
 the compulsory clause. Lord Salisbury moved an amend- 
 ment, giving to landlords the option of refusing to 
 
AORABIAN TENJJBE8. 123 
 
 compound for arrears — in other words, making the 
 measure dependent on the consent of the landlords. 
 " If," he said, " there was such a thing as stealing on 
 the part of the State, that offence was proposed by the 
 BiU. . , . Confiscation was proposed. The only way in 
 which the Bill could be brought into correspondence with 
 principles of common honesty, was to make the appli- 
 cation of the compulsory powers optional with the land- 
 lords."* His amendment was carried by 169 to 98. On 
 the third reading of the Bill, Lord Salisbury vehemently 
 attacked the Prime Minister, saying, " that it seemed as 
 if he took pleasure in using a great public crisis, when 
 all the forces of insurrection were behind him, to under- 
 mine the rights of private property. If the Government 
 persisted in their obstinacy, and the measure failed, the 
 responsibility would rest with them." f 
 
 From Lord Salisbury's language and attitude in this 
 debate and elsewhere, it seemed as though the House of 
 Lords was about to embark in a great constitutional 
 conflict with the House of Commons. But wiser coun- 
 sels soon prevailed. The House of Commons rejected 
 Lord Salisbury's amendment by a large majority ; but 
 Mr. Grladstone's conciliatory attitude on minor points 
 brought many opponents to the view that it would not 
 be wise to allow the measure to fail. At a meeting of 
 the Conservative peers, held by Lord Salisbury, there 
 was revolt against his authority ; and a large majority 
 decided, in spite of his advice, not to insist upon his 
 amendment. When the Bill again came under discussion 
 
 * Hansard, Yol. 273, p. 158. f Hansard, Vol. 273, p. 352. 
 
124 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 in the Lords, Lord Salisbury persisted in his contention 
 that the measure in its compulsory form was one of public 
 plunder. "I believe," he said, "that the Bill will be 
 only permissible with the alteration in it, which makes 
 the consent of the landlord necessary before, it can 
 be put in operation, and without that alteration, I 
 believe it to be a most pernicious Bill — that it is one of 
 simple robbery, and one that will bear the gravest fruit 
 in the legislation of the future. These are my views. 
 I have had the opportunity this morning of conferring 
 with the noble lords, who form the majority of your 
 lordships' House, by whom this amendment was carried, 
 and I found that the overwhelming majority of their 
 lordships were of the opinion, that in the present state 
 of aiFairs, especially those which have recently arisen 
 in Ireland and in Egypt, it is not expedient that the 
 Arrears Bill should be thrown out. I do not share that 
 opinion. If I had the power I would have thrown 
 out the Bill. I find myself, however, in a small minority, 
 and therefore I shall not divide the House." * A grave 
 political crisis was thus averted. The Lords again 
 gave way and passed the Bill. 
 
 Much advance has been made on such questions 
 since this discussion. It will be seen that in the Scotch 
 Crofters' Act of 1886, when judicial rents were conceded 
 to the crofters, who were practically in the same posi- 
 tion as the small tenants of Ireland, Parliament, without 
 a protest from anyone, gave to the Commissioners the 
 power, when determining the judicial rent of a holding, 
 * Hansard, Yol. 273, p. 1335. 
 
AQBABIAN TENVSES. 125 
 
 to wipe off any arrears of rfent ttey might think fit. No 
 one then denounced this as confiscation or public plunder. 
 The Commissioners availed themselves freely of the 
 power, and wiped out arrears to a far greater extent than 
 did the Arrears Act in Ireland, while the landlords got 
 nothing as a sop from any Scotch fund, as did the 
 more fortunate landlords of Ireland. In fact, when the 
 subject is dispassionately considered, apart from the 
 party feeling, which may have existed at the moment of 
 its first discussion, it would seem that when the principle 
 of judicial rents is conceded, — when it is admitted that 
 the relation of owner and occupier is not that of land- 
 lord and tenant in the ordinary sense of the term, but 
 that of joint ownership, — and when the tribunal to 
 determine rents makes large reductions, — it should 
 follow as a matter of justice that there should be an 
 extinction to a large extent of any arrears of rent which, 
 in the opinion of the same Court, the tenant cannot pay, 
 and which have been due to the past attempt of the 
 landlords to extract what is thus judicially admitted to be 
 an excessive and unjust rent. That is, in effect, what the 
 Arrears Act did for the Irish tenants ; it wiped out 
 arrears of rent for more than one year, if the Commis- 
 sion, to whom the matter was reserved, should hold that 
 the tenant was unable to pay any more. So far as the 
 landlords were concerned, it gave them a bonus, for 
 consenting to the measure, in the shape of the payment 
 of a second year's rent in arrear out of the surplus of the 
 Church Fund. It is generally understood that it was 
 the Irish peers, as representing the landlords of that 
 
126 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 country, wlio, deliglited at this unexpected prospect held 
 out to them of getting two years' arrears of rent paid 
 down, persuaded the majority of the Conservative peers 
 to revolt against Lord Salisbury, at their meeting, on 
 the day when he gave way in the House of Lords, 
 
 Never did a remedial Act effect its purpose more 
 rapidly and effectually. It appears that the number 
 of tenants, who applied for the wiping out of arrears 
 under it, was 135,997, of whom 129,952 were 
 allowed ; and the amount paid to landlords out of the 
 Church funds was £812,321 — much less than was anti- 
 cipated. The effect upon social order in the disturbed 
 districts was most marked, and thousands of tenants 
 were enabled to go before the Land Commission, and 
 get their rents reduced. 
 
 THE LAND COMMISSION. 
 
 In the meantime, and since the passing of the Land 
 Act, the Land Commission was at work. It appointed 
 numerous sub-commissioners for hearingand determining 
 applications for the reduction of rent. It soon appeared 
 that the cases of excessive renting were far more 
 numerous, and far graver, than had been expected, even 
 by the authors of the Land Act. The sub-commissioners 
 made large remissions, and were supported, on appeal, by 
 the chief commissioners. It may be presumed that some 
 of the worst cases of over-renting were the first to be 
 brought into Court. As the result of four months' 
 working, 1,500 cases were decided, at an average 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 127 
 
 reduction of rent, of 25 per cent. This caused great 
 consternation among the landlords of Ireland. In the 
 early part pf 1882 they brought their grievances before 
 the House of Lords, through Lord Donoughmore, com- 
 plaining desperately of the action of the Land Commis- 
 sion, and demanding immediate inquiry into the working 
 of that body. 
 
 The motion was vigorously opposed by the Grovern- 
 ment, on the ground that it was really directed against 
 the Land Act itself, that it would tend to paralyse the 
 action of the Commission, and that about four months 
 only having elapsed since the Act had come into force, 
 it was much too soon to form an opinion as to the 
 working of the Commission. The Government was 
 defeated by a majority of 96 to 53. A Select Committee 
 was then appointed to inquire into the working of 
 the Land Act. The Grovernment refused to take any 
 part in it, and the inquiry was necessarily therefore of 
 an ex parte character. The Committee took much 
 evidence as to the complaints by landlords of the work- 
 ing of the Commission and the Sub-Commissions, and 
 drew up a hostile report ; but nothing came of it, unless 
 it were, as the Irish members have asserted, that it 
 frightened the Sub-Commissioners into greater tenderness 
 to the landlords in their reductions of rent. The really 
 important part of the report as regards future action 
 was that relating to the Purchase Clauses of the Act of 
 1881. Onthis point the Committee reported as follows: — 
 
 "'The provisions of the Act, 1881, intended to facilitate the 
 purchase by tenants of their holdings, were by some persons 
 
128 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 looked upou as the most important, and by almost all as among 
 the most important features of the legislation. The witnesses 
 concur as to the great national benefit, political and social, which 
 may be expected from an operation which would, on just and 
 reasonable grounds, convert a number of tenants in Ireland into 
 proprietors of their farms. This view, and the arguments in 
 support of it, derive great additional force from the present 
 condition of Ireland; the unexpected operation of the Act of 
 1881 upon the interests of landlords; the dislocation of the 
 relations which have long subsisted between landlords and 
 tenants ; and the circumstance that it is no longer possible for 
 landlords, by reason of this dislocation, to discharge the great 
 public functions hitherto devolved upon them. All the witnesses 
 are agreed that the present arrangements made to promote 
 the purchases of holdings must be taken to have failed." 
 
 They gave three reasons for the failure : — 
 
 "1. The fact that the great bulk of land in Ireland was 
 subject to entails and family settlements, and that the proceeds 
 of the sale to the tenants could by law be invested only in 
 Government stocks. 
 
 "2. In great numbers of cases properties were subject to 
 land rents, and there were no means of apportioning these rents 
 away to different holdings sold to tenants. 
 
 " 3. The main obstacle, however, was, that there was no 
 sufficient inducement under the Act for tenants to purchase their 
 holdings at any price at which the owners would be likely to sell, so 
 long as the tenants were required to pay down one-fourth of the 
 purchase money ; and that the other parts of the Act giving 
 fixity of tenure and the right of sale had reduced greatly the 
 inducement to the tenants to make any sacrifice for the purpose 
 of obtaining full ownership." 
 
 " There is a concurrence of opinion," the Committee added, 
 " that no scheme for converting tenants into proprietors, which 
 requires the tenant to pay down a portion of the purchase money, 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 129 
 
 or to pay a yearly instalment greater than his rent, is likely to 
 be successful ; but that, on the other hand, if these difficulties 
 could be avoided, there would be a general desire on the part of 
 the tenants to become purchasers/'' 
 
 They advised that the whole of the purchase money 
 should he advanced by way of loan from the State, that 
 the interest should be reduced to 3 per cent., and that 
 the repayment by instalments should be spread over sixty- 
 six years, making the annual charge only B^ per cent. , or 
 over forty-six years with an annual charge of 4 per cent. 
 They showed that on these terms, at twenty years' pur- 
 chase of the holding, there would be a reduction in his 
 annual payments, to the purchaser, of 15 per cent, as 
 compared with his previous rent. The proposal, as was 
 to be expected, killed the purchase clauses of the Act of 
 1881, for no tenant could be expected to buy on the 
 terms oiFered by it, in view of the far more favourable 
 terms recommended by the Lords Committee. 
 
 In 1885, the Government of Mr. Gladstone was 
 defeated on its Budget, and in the prospect of a 
 renewal of some of the clauses of the Coercion Act, by 
 a combination of the Conservative Party, and of the 
 Irish Nationalists under the leadership of Mr. Parnell. 
 A new Government was formed by Lord Salisbury ; and 
 for the remainder of the Parliament, and during the 
 interval which elapsed before the General Election in the 
 autumn, there was an entente cordiale, if not a closer 
 relation, between the new Government and the Irish 
 party — one which was fruitful of results affecting Land 
 questions in Ii-eland. 
 
130 AQBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 THE LAND PURCHASE ACT OF 1885. 
 
 It was during this period that Lord Ashbourne's first 
 Land Purchase Act was passed, with the cordial support 
 and approval of Mr. Parnell and his followers. In fact, 
 its details were the subject — and very properly so — of 
 previous negotiations between the Government and Mr. 
 Parnell. By this Act the Treasury was empowered to 
 advance the whole of the purchase money, for the sale 
 of any holding to its tenant, subject to the approval of 
 the Land Commissioners that the price was fair and 
 reasonable. The interest to be charged was fixed at 
 3 per cent., and as the principal sum was to be repaid 
 by equal annual instalments, spread over forty-nine 
 years, the actual annual charge during this period to 
 the tenant purchaser was 4 per cent. At the end of 
 that term the holding was to be free from all charge to 
 the State. Of the purchase money, one-fifth was to be 
 retained by the Land Commissioners as a guarantee 
 fund, from which, in the event of default by the 
 purchaser, the State could recoup itself, and was payable 
 to the landlord after the equivalent proportion should 
 be repaid by the annual instalments. Two additional 
 Land Commissioners were appointed to carry out this 
 Act. The total advance from the Treasury was limited 
 to £5,000,000. The measure passed with practically 
 little opposition. It was treated as an experiment which 
 might be worth testing. It was pointed out, however, 
 that its terms were so generous to the purchasing 
 tenants that they amounted to a bribe to them to avail 
 
AGRARIAN TENUBE8. 131 
 
 themselves of it, and to purchase of their landlords, and 
 ;that if successful, in the sense that numerous transac- 
 tions should take place, in which the interest and 
 .instalment would be less than the previous rent, there 
 would be so great an inequality created between the 
 new class of occupying owners, and the old class of 
 tenants, paying rent for ever, that there must arise an 
 universal demand for the compulsory enforcement of 
 sale upon all landlords. 
 
 During the same brief period before the Greneral 
 Election, another measure of importance, affecting the 
 interest of labourers in Ireland, and giving to local 
 authorities power to purchase land compulsorily for 
 cottages and gardens, was also passed by arrangement 
 between the Government and the Irish leaders. It 
 will be adverted to later, when the special legislation 
 for labourers is discussed. 
 
 THE LAND PURCHASE SCHEME OF 1886. 
 
 In the autumn of 1885 the General Election took 
 place, which resulted in the overthrow of Lord 
 Salisbury's Government. It is no part of the object 
 of this work to enter upon any account of the Home 
 Eule policy of the Government which was then formed 
 by Mr. Gladstone, or of its ultimate defeat and rejec- 
 tion at another General Election in 1886. In dealing, 
 however, with the general course of agrarian re- 
 forms, it is necessary to recall the fact that simul- 
 taneously with the Home Eule Bill, and as part of its 
 policy, a Land Purchase scheme was also proposed by 
 J 2 
 
132 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone. It is true tliat this measure fell to the 
 ground when the Home Eule measure was defeated ; 
 hut a proposal such as that made in the Land Purchase 
 Bill was a matter of graye and permanent significance, 
 and one that could not hut have an effect on the future 
 course of legislation^ 
 
 Under this Bill, it was proposed to give to every 
 landlord in Ireland the option of being bought out by 
 the State, upon certain definite terms, in respect of all 
 land let by them for agricultural purposes, but not 
 including demesne lands and woods. Whenever the 
 landlords exercised this option, the land was to become 
 the property of the tenants on the terms of the Act. 
 In respect, however, of holdings of £4 rent and under, 
 the tenants were to have the option of refusing the 
 terms of ownership. 
 
 The price to be paid under this scheme to the owners 
 was twenty years' purchase of the judicial rent, after de- 
 ducting law charges, bad debts, and cost of management; 
 and where no judicial rent had been fixed, the value was 
 to be arrived at by a computation based on the relative 
 valuation for rating purposes, and judicial rents of other 
 land in the district. It was obvious that the actual 
 terms of purchase would vary very much, and that in 
 respect of very small holdings, where the cost of collec- 
 tion had been great, and where, in bad times, large remis- 
 sions of rent had been made, the number of years' 
 purchase might not be more than from twelve to fourteen, 
 while for larger farms it might be eighteen years. 
 Mr. Gladstone, in his first statement, estimated that 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 133 
 
 £113,000,000 would be the extreme limit of the amount 
 required for this scheme of purchase, on the assumption 
 that nearly all landlords would avail themselves of it ; 
 but later he reduced his estimate, and maintained that 
 £50,000,000 would be sufficient for any demand that 
 was likely to occur, having regard to the fact that many 
 landlords would not exercise the option. The payment 
 to the landlords was to be in a 3 per cent. Land Stock, 
 specially created for this purpose, the interest of which, 
 and the sinking fund for repayment in fifty years, was 
 to be a first charge upon the Irish revenues. 
 
 This scheme of purchase was denounced by the 
 opponents to the Home Rule Bill, and its unpopularity 
 among the English and Scotch, constituencies largely 
 contributed to the defeat of that measure. Nor were 
 the Irish landlords at all appeased by this ofier to 
 relieve them from all concern as to the possibility of 
 adverse legislation at the hands of an Irish. Parliament. 
 
 On the rejection of the Home Rule Bill a General 
 Election took place, in which the Grovernment of Mr. 
 Grladstone failed to secure a majority for their policy, 
 and a new Grovernment was formed immediately after, 
 with Lord Salisbury at its head. 
 
 THE AGRICULTURAL CRISIS OF 1886. 
 
 In the autumn of 1886 there occurred another 
 agrarian crisis in Ireland — the result, in part, of a failure 
 of the potato crop in many districts in the west and 
 south of the island, and in part, of the great fall in 
 the price of cattle and other produce in 1885. The 
 
134 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 Land Commissioners showed their appreciation of the 
 grave depression of agriculture, by making in 1885-6 far 
 larger reductions of rent in their judicial determinations 
 under the Land Act of 1881, as compared with Griffith's 
 valuation, than in the years 1882 to 1884. 
 
 On the meeting of the new Parliament in the autumn 
 of 1886, and the constitution of a new ministry under 
 Lord Salisbury, the Irish members, through their 
 leader, Mr. Parnell, now at the head of eighty-six out 
 of the 103 members from Ireland, made a demand for 
 immediate legislation to meet the crisis. In a Bill laid 
 before Parliament he asked for a revision of judicial 
 rents fixed before 1885, for the inclusion of leaseholders 
 in the Act of 1881, and for temporary relief for those 
 who had not yet applied for judicial rents, by the sus- 
 pension of proceedings for the recovery of rent, on 
 payment of half the rent and arrears due. 
 
 Mr. Parnell, on moving the Bill, justified the mea- 
 sure as a temporary one, to meet the existing emergency, 
 and applicable only to the existing rents and those of 
 the coming year. He maintained that prices had fallen 
 by an average of more than twenty per cent. He showed 
 that the Land Court was itself recognising this fall by 
 reducing the rents by twenty per cent, more than before 
 1884. He contended that it was not just or fair that 
 the whole of this heavy reduction of prices should faU on 
 one of the two classes of co-owners of land in Ireland. 
 
 The new Government refused assent to the Bill. 
 The Irish Secretary, Sir M. H. Beach, declined to re- 
 open the judicial rents, awarded under the Land Act of 
 
AQRABIAN TENURES. 135 
 
 1881. He denounced the measure as one of gross in- 
 justice and confiscation to the landlords of Ireland. He 
 threw doubts upon the gravity of the crisis. He pro- 
 mised, however, a Eoyal Commission to inquire into the 
 facts, and into the condition of the Irish tenants under 
 the existing depression. The measure, supported by the 
 Liberal party and the Irish members, was rejected by 
 a majority of ninety- five. 
 
 In the winter which followed, agrarian agitation was 
 again rife in Ireland. A large proportion of the land- 
 lords made considerable abatements, of from fifteen to 
 thirty per cent., of their rents, even of judicial rents, in 
 order to meet the difficulties of their tenants ; but many 
 of the worse landlords refused to do so, insisted upon 
 full payment of rent, and supported their claims by 
 wholesale evictions. The tenants then proceeded to 
 combine together to offer payment of rent with reason- 
 able abatements only ; and the form of combination, 
 known as the Plan of Campaign, was devised and recom- 
 mended to the tenants, by some of the leaders of the 
 Irish Nationalists, and was adopted by the tenants on 
 a certain number of estates. 
 
 It was claimed by the authors of this form of com- 
 bination that it was mainly instrumental in inducing the 
 great majority of landlords to make abatements of rent, 
 and that it was only put in force in a few of the worst 
 cases, where the landlords declined to adopt this course. 
 It was not justified as a proceeding which, in ordinary 
 times, would be defensible, but as one which gave 
 protection to tenants in their just claims when the 
 
136 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 Legislature had refused to listen to their demands. 
 The combination was pronounced to be a criminal 
 conspiracy by the Irish Judges, but a Dublin jury 
 refused to convict its authors. 
 
 Meanwhile, during the autumn and winter the 
 Eoyal Commission promised by the Government, and 
 presided over by Lord Cowper, proceeded to carry out 
 their inquiry. Their report fully vindicated the claims 
 made by the Irish members in the autumn session of 
 1886. It confirmed the view as to the great stress upon 
 tenants, owing to the very low price of produce and 
 stock of all kinds. It advised that there should be a 
 reduction of judicial rents to meet the crisis. It 
 strongly condemned, however, the agrarian combina- 
 tions, and suggested coercive legislation for the purpose 
 of putting them down. 
 
 THE LAND ACT OF 1887. 
 
 When Parliament met in 1887, the Government, 
 following many previous precedents, proposed simul- 
 taneous legislation of a coercive and remedial character 
 — coercion, to put down the combinations of tenants, 
 and to prevent the boycotting of persons and of evicted 
 farms ; a remedial measure, to meet, in a very partial 
 manner, the now admitted grievances of the tenant 
 farmers. 
 
 Their Land Bill was introduced in the House of 
 Lords. It practically amounted to little more than 
 the extension of the Land Act of 1881 to leaseholders, 
 other than perpetual leaseholders, and to the holders of 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 137 
 
 town parks, and the dealing with arrears o£ rent, 
 on the principle of bankruptcy, in the County Courts. 
 The Grovernment declined to adopt the recommendation 
 of their own Eoyal Commission for the revision of judi- 
 cial rents. To disturb a settlement intended by Parlia- 
 ment to be permanent, it was said, would lead the Irish 
 tenants and people to believe there was no prospect of 
 any finality in regard to land legislation. There was a 
 clause, however, greatly in the interest of the landlords, 
 enabling them to turn tenants, who neglected to pay 
 their rents, into caretakers of their holdings by mere 
 notices, and without the necessity of previous evictions. 
 In the House of Commons the bankruptcy clauses 
 were all but universally condemned, as certain to lead 
 to litigation, fraud, waste of money, and demoralisa- 
 tion, and they were ultimately withdrawn. The Govern- 
 ment was also compelled by the Dissentient Liberals 
 to give way on the subject of the revision of judicial 
 rents, and finally agreed to a clause of a temporary 
 character, enabling rents, fixed before 1886, to be re- 
 duced, during the next three years, by the Land Com- 
 missioners, according to a scale of prices of produce. 
 The Grovernment, however, resisted all appeals to them 
 to deal with arrears of rent, which had accumulated 
 during the two years of bad seasons, otherwise than 
 by the abandoned bankruptcy clauses. It was gener- 
 ally admitted that the subject of arrears ought to be 
 dealt with, but no agreement was come to, and the 
 almost unanimous demand of the Irish members was 
 rejected. The clause with respect to evictions, was 
 
138 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 also vehemently opposed by the Irish members. Under 
 the previous state of the law, when a tenant neglected 
 to pay rent, the landlord had the right to evict him. 
 After the eviction there was a period of grace of six 
 months, during which the tenant had the right of re- 
 deeming his holding, by payment of the rent due and 
 costs. During this period, therefore, it was impossible 
 for the landlord to let the land to a new tenant. The 
 practice was for the landlord, after eviction, to re-admit 
 the tenant as caretaker of the holding, pending the six 
 months' grace. At the end of this period a second eviction 
 was often necessary, if the tenant was still unable to pay 
 arrears of rent. The new clause proposed that the 
 landlord might dispense with the first eviction by 
 merely giving a formal notice to the tenant. The legal 
 effect of the notice was that the tenant ceased to be a 
 tenant in the legal sense of the term, and was converted 
 into a caretaker, and that the six months' grace was to 
 run from the date of such notice. It was contended by 
 the Irish members that this clause would enormously 
 facilitate the process of eviction, and would enable the 
 landlords, in a period of general agricultural distress, to 
 deprive their tenants by wholesale of their status as 
 judicial tenants, and to turn them into tenants -at-will 
 by simple notices, reserving to themselves the right to 
 evict them at any convenient time thereafter, or to retain 
 them as tenants without the protection of the Land Act 
 of 1881. The Grovernment, however, stood firm by 
 their proposal, and the clause was carried, in spite of 
 the protests of the great majority of the Irish members. 
 
AQBARIAN TENURES. 139 
 
 In the House of Lords, Lord Salisbury, while renew- 
 ing his objections to a revision of judicial rents, as a 
 measure of confiscation, said that his Grovernment 
 found itself compelled to accept the amendment, as 
 otherwise many persons in the north of Ireland might, 
 when a General Election occurred, be found voting for 
 Home Eule.* The measure, as thus amended, carried 
 the much-attacked principle of dual ownership to nearly 
 its extreme point, and to its logical conclusion. Unfor- 
 tunately, the Grovernment neglected to make a complete 
 settlement, by refusing to listen to the almost unanimous 
 demands of members from Ireland, of all parties, to deal 
 with the question of ai'rears, which had grown up in 
 the last two years. They were so enamoured of their 
 scheme of dealing with this question on the principle of 
 bankruptcy, that they refused to entertain any other 
 method. It followed that the disputes on the estates 
 where combinations had been entered into remained un- 
 settled, and were left to drag on for long years to come, 
 with all the suffering and bitterness entailed upon all 
 parties. As it stood, the Act was strong testimony to 
 the policy of listening to the demands of the Irish 
 members on purely Irish questions. There was nothing 
 in it, except the eviction clause, which the Irish mem- 
 bers had not demanded in 1881. If, again, the Irish 
 members had been listened to in 1886, and this 
 measure had then been passed, there would have been 
 no agrarian agitations, no combinations, no Plan of 
 Campaign, and no necessity or excuse for coercion. The 
 
 * Hansard, Vol. 319, p. 15. 
 
140 A.OBABIAN TENURES.- 
 
 clause facilitating eviction has also had the effect pre- 
 dicted by the Irish members. Tenants have been 
 turned into caretakers under it, by simple notices, at 
 the rate of about 5,000 a year. The bulk of them have 
 not since been evicted. They remain in possession of 
 their holdings on sufferance. They have altogether 
 lost their rights under the Land Act. The landlords 
 can evict them at any moment which may be conve- 
 nient, or may impose any terms on them, or claim any 
 amount of future rent. At this rate a large propor- 
 tion of the smaller tenants in Ireland may in time lose 
 the protection of the Act of 1881. 
 
 In 1891 a further extension was given to the prin- 
 ciple of dual ownership by conceding the benefits of the 
 Land Act of 1889, in respect of judicial rents, to perpe- 
 tuity leaseholders, who had been excluded from the Act 
 of 1887. This was done by a measure with the innocent 
 title of " The Eedemption of Kent Act." * By its pro- 
 visions the lessee under a perpetuity lease may call upon 
 the owner to sell his interest in the land, upon terms to 
 be settled by the Land Commissioners, under the Land 
 Purchase Act of 1891 ; and in the event of the owner 
 objecting to this, the Land Commissioners have the 
 power, on the application of the lessee, to determine 
 what reduction of rent shall be made. This measure, 
 which passed with scarcely any notice, seems to contain 
 the germ of a compulsory purchase of landlords' interests. 
 At all events, it carries the principles of judicial rents 
 and dual ownerships to their most extreme point. 
 
 * 54 and 55 Vict. c. 57. 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 LAND PURCHASE IN IRELAND. 
 
 In the same year, 1891, there was also carried another 
 scheme for future agrarian reform in Ireland — Mr. Bal- 
 four's Land Purchase Act. Lord Ashhourne's Act of 
 1887, which provided for the advance of £5,000,000 for 
 the purchase hy tenants of their landlords' interests, 
 had been supplemented by another Act in 1889, making 
 a further advance of the same amount ; and the scheme 
 of advancing the whole of the purchase money upon 
 such favourable terms had been so far successful, that the 
 whole of the £10,000,000 was approaching exhaustion, 
 at the beginning of 1891. Upwards of £11,000,000 
 had been applied for. Sales to the extent of £8,900,000 
 had been sanctioned by the Land Commissioners, 
 and £6,928,000 had actually been advanced. For this 
 amount 13,700 tenants- — -or rather, joint-owners — had 
 been converted into full owners of their holdings, sub- 
 ject to payment to the State of interest and instalments 
 of capital for 49 years. The average terms between 
 landlords and tenants were about 17-|- years' purchase of 
 the rent, varying from 23 "6 years' purchase, in some cases, 
 to as little as 1 1 "5 years' purchase in others. The average 
 rate of purchase showed a tendency to fall. In 1886 it was 
 
142 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 18 times tte rent, in 1888 it was 17, and in 1890 it was 
 i6'7 times tlie rent. At 17| years' purchase the interest 
 and instalments payable by a purcbaser whose previous 
 rent has been £100 a-year, is only £70 — a reduction of 
 30 per cent. Of this annual amount, however, £17 10s. 
 represents payment to the sinking fund, for extinction 
 of the debt in 49 years, and therefore adds as much 
 every year to the value of the holding in the market. 
 The true comparison, therefore, is between £100 a-year 
 of rent and £52 10s. of interest on the advance from the 
 State, to which should be added the landlord's proportion 
 of the local rates, averaging about £4. The real reduc- 
 tion, therefore, is £44 a-year, or 44 per cent. This great 
 boon is due to the use of money borrowed from the 
 State at 3 per cent., to purchase the landlord's interest 
 on the very low terms of 17^ times the rent. 
 
 The new measure of Land Purchase introduced in 
 1890 by Mr. Balfour, and carried by him into law in 
 1891, is based on the general lines of Lord Ashbourne's 
 Acts, in the sense that the whole of the purchase money 
 of holdings, sold to the tenants, is to be advanced by the 
 State, at a very low rate of interest. The principle, 
 however, of local guarantee is introduced by way of 
 security to the Imperial Exchequer for the much larger 
 advances now contemplated. Certain contributions 
 from the Treasury to Irish local authorities, for the 
 support of lunatics and paupers, and for educational 
 purposes, are hypothecated, without the consent of these 
 bodies, as security for the payment of the interest and 
 instalments of the tenant purchasers within their districts. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 143 
 
 The capital value of these contributions, reckoned 
 at 30 years' purchase, amounts to about £33,000,000, 
 and this is defined as the maximum sum which can be 
 advanced by the Imperial Treasury for the purpose of 
 land purchase in Ireland ; but it is provided that, as 
 this capital sum is repaid by the annual instalments, it 
 may be re-lent again ad infinitum : a process under 
 which it is possible, that in about 100 years, the whole 
 of the agricultural land in Ireland may be subjected 
 to the process of purchase. The principle of local 
 guarantee being asserted, it follows that the amount to 
 be advanced in any district must be proportionate to 
 the share of such district in the Imperial contributions. 
 
 In the case of default of payment by the purchasers 
 of their interest and instalments, the Imperial Treasury 
 has power to withhold payment of the contributions, 
 which have been hypothecated by the Act, from the county 
 in which the default takes place, and the authorities are 
 then empowered to make good the deficiency in the State 
 contributions, out of the rates. In the event of their 
 neglecting or declining to do so, the Lord-Lieutenant 
 has power to levy rates on the district for the pur- 
 pose. By this process it is proposed to make the rate- 
 payers of Ireland responsible for the default of the 
 purchasers of holdings under the Act in their several 
 districts. Their consent, however, to the advances is not 
 required ; the Irish people, therefore, through their repre- 
 sentatives, protested against this enforced guarantee. 
 
 The terms of the State advances, so far as the tenants 
 are concerned, are the same as under the Ashbourne 
 
144, AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 Act : namely, £4 for a term of 49 years, to cover the 
 interest and sinking fund for every £100 advanced; 
 but the interest charged by the State is only £2 15s. 
 per cent. ; the difference between this and the £3 charged 
 under the Ashbourne Act — viz., 5s. per cent. — is payable 
 to the local Authorities, and is to be employed by 
 them for the benefit of the labourers, in the building 
 of cottages under the Labourers' Acts of 1883 and 1885. 
 On the assumption that the whole £33,000,000 will 
 be advanced, the annual sum thus payable will be 
 £82,000. The object of this provision is to secure 
 some part of the benefit of the Land Purchase scheme 
 for the most necessitous class in Ireland. 
 
 Besides the security afforded by the Imperial con- 
 tributions, there are other securities under the Act for 
 the payment of interest and instalments by the pur- 
 chasers, which are to be resorted to in the first instance, 
 and before the local ratepayers can be called upon to 
 make good deficiencies, under the process already ex- 
 plained. These are : — 
 
 1. The Landlords' Eeserve Fund, established under 
 the Ashbourne Act. 
 
 2. A new Imperial grant for local purposes of 
 £40,000 a year, which is to accumulate for five years, 
 until a fund of £200,000 is provided as a special reserve 
 fund. 
 
 3. A Tenants' Eeserve Fund is further provided by 
 requiring that, whatever the terms of sale, the pur- 
 chasing tenant shall for the first five years pay to the 
 State at least 80 per cent, of his previous rent. In the 
 
AGUABIAy TEXUBES. 145 
 
 case, for instance, of a sale being effected at seventeen 
 years purchase, the interest and instalments payable on 
 a holding of £100 a year would, under Lord Ashbourne's 
 Act, be only £6S, a difference of £32 a year in favour of 
 the occupying purchaser. Under the provision of Mr. 
 Balfour's Act, the purchaser is required to pay for five 
 years the minimum sum of £S0 ; the difference of £12 
 a year is to accumulate for these five years, and to form 
 a Tenants' Eeserve Fund. At the end of the five years 
 the annual payments ^vill be readjusted in view of the 
 excess payment during this period. Instead of being 
 £GS a year, they will be considerably less. In bad 
 seasons, if purchasers are unable to pay their instal- 
 ments, the Commissioners, if satisfied as to their inabUity, 
 may draw upon the reserve fund, and prolong jjro tanto 
 X\ifi period of extinction of the debt. 
 
 Another reason was given by Mr. Balfour for this 
 provision that for five years the annual payments should 
 be not less than SO per cent, of the previous rent: 
 
 " We think,'' he said, " that so large and sharp a reduction 
 as from £100 a year of rent to £68 a year of interest and 
 sinking fund, may produce, and we think will produce, consider- 
 able difficulty on adjoining estates, where purchase may not 
 have taken place. For recollect, what we are doing is this : we 
 are giving to the tenant an immense advantage which the land- 
 lord could not, from the nature of the case, give him. The contrast 
 between the position of a tenant who has purchased, and a 
 tenant who has not, is so sharp, if you give the full reduction 
 all at onoe, that we think the temptation to put undue pressure 
 on the landlord to induce him to sell, or the discontent which will 
 ensue if he does not sell, are sufficient reasons for making this 
 K 
 
W6 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 change from the rent which the man has paid to his landlord^ to 
 the annuity which he will ultimately have to pay to the State, 
 as gradual as possible/' * 
 
 A very important section was added in tlie course of 
 tlie Committee on the Bill, with the approval of all 
 parties, and with the object of bringing to a conclusion 
 the agrarian disputes, which had remained unsettled of 
 late years, by the reinstatement of the evicted tenants, as 
 purchasers of their former holdings. Clause 13 provided 
 that advances might be agreed to by the Land Com- 
 missioners in such cases within six months after the 
 passing of the Act, in spite of the fact that the evicted 
 men were not in possession of their holdings. It was 
 agreed on all hands that the reinstatement of these men 
 was expedient, in the interest of peace and order in 
 their districts. 
 
 This measure was presented to Parliament by its 
 author as a final one, as a complete solution of the 
 Irish Land Question, by providing for the ultimate 
 substitution of a system of peasant proprietors for the 
 dual ownership now existing, and in the meantime as 
 exhausting completely the securities on which public 
 money could be safely lent. It need scarcely be observed 
 that it does not afiect Ireland only ; it involves Imperial 
 credit on a very great scale, in which England and Scot- 
 land are even more interested. All the more necessary 
 was it, therefore, that the Act should be accepted by the 
 Irish members as a settlement. But no attempt appears 
 to have been made, as was the case before the first 
 
 * Hansard, toI. 342, p. 1,V05. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 147 
 
 Ashbourne Act, to come to terms with the Irish members 
 before the introduction of the Bill, or to obtain their 
 assent to its details. Nor was effort made to modify 
 the scheme, when passing through the House of Com- 
 mons, so as to meet their wishes. It followed that the 
 Irish representatives neither accepted the measure nor 
 rejected it. They criticised in a hostile spirit all its 
 details. They opposed with vigour many of its most 
 important checks and securities, especially those im- 
 pounding the local contributions from the Imperial 
 Treasury, without the consent of local authorities or 
 of the ratepayers in Ireland, as collateral security for 
 the repayment of the sums borrowed. It is to be 
 feared that this want of assent of those most concerned 
 may have a serious effect in the future. 
 
 The measure appears to have owed its origin to 
 various concurrent and independent motives, partly to 
 the belief often expounded by its author, Mr. Balfour, 
 that the system of dual ownership, established, or rather 
 recognised and sanctioned, by the Act of 1881, was 
 economically unsound, and that it was necessary to 
 revert as quickly as possible to that of absolute owner- 
 ship ; in part to the block in the market for land in 
 Ireland, and to the desire of many landlords to part 
 with or to reduce their properties, especially in fear of 
 the prospect of Home Eule ; and in part also to the desire 
 of the tenants to obtain the further reduction of their 
 annual payments, such as would result from the use of 
 English credit in the purchase of land at Irish prices. 
 With respect to the first of these motives, it is difficult 
 K 2 
 
148 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 to appreciate the force o£ tlie economic objections to 
 dual ownership. The system certainly opposes no 
 obstacle to the outlay of capital on the land, for the 
 occupier's interest in this respect is absolutely secured 
 in the future by the terms of the Act of 1881 ; it had 
 also been practically at work in Ulster for two centuries, 
 and accounted mainly for the better cultivation and the 
 more peaceful state of that province, owing to the security 
 it afforded to improvements. The system also of dual 
 ownership, under the name of " emphyteusis," is widely 
 spread in various parts of Europe, and is recognised as 
 one well adapted to small occupiers, giving them pro- 
 tection for their improvements without requiring the 
 large investment of capital involved in full ownership. 
 In the larger farms the system may render it more 
 difficult to deal with the land, by cutting it up into 
 smaller ownerships, but this is rather an advantage than 
 the reverse, in the case of small holdings. It must be 
 recollected, also, that under the scheme of purchase 
 through State credit, the system of dual ownership wiU 
 continue to exist for forty-nine years, till the mortgage 
 is paid off, with the difference only that the State and 
 not the landlord is practically the co-owner with the 
 occupier. 
 
 PROBABLE RESULTS OF ACT, 
 
 It is not, however, proposed to review all the argu- 
 ments in favour of the measure or the objections raised 
 to it. It is more important to consider its future effects. 
 It was presented by Mr. Balfour to Parliament as a boon 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 149 
 
 of enormous magnitude to the Irish tenants : as one 
 whicli, in that sense, is certain to be acted upon to its 
 full extent before long. Throughout the whole of the 
 long debates, also, in the House of Commons, he in- 
 variably argued, illustrated, and defended his measure on 
 the assumption that the average terms, ou which sales and 
 purchases would be effected, would be between seventeen 
 and eighteen years' purchase of the judicial rents of the 
 holdings. At this rate the boon will unquestionably be 
 very great to those tenants whose landlords are willing 
 to avail themselves of the Act. These expectations, 
 promises, and hopes held out by the author of the 
 measure constitute an all but distinct promise to the 
 Irish tenants, and if not realised, wiU raise a very serious 
 demand for an amendment or extension of the Act, at 
 no distant time. 
 
 So far, the Act, after being in operation for more 
 than a year, has not had much practical effect. The appli- 
 cations under it have not exceeded the half of those 
 during a similar period under the Ashbourne Acts. It is 
 said that there are two main causes for this — the one, 
 that the landlords do not like being compelled to take 
 land stock, in payment for their land, instead of solid 
 money, as under the previous Acts, being quite uncer- 
 tain as to the value which the land stock may have in 
 the market ; and the other, that tenants have a great 
 dislike of the provision, already described, known as the 
 Tenants' Insurance Fund, under which, whatever may 
 be the terms agreed upon, they are compelled to pay 
 eighty per cent, of their previous rents for five years. 
 
150 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 SO that a great part of the benefit of the purchase at a 
 low price is postponed for that period. 
 
 Of the benefit which will accrue to the tenants 
 under the Act, as it stands, at the average price contem- 
 plated by Mr. Balfour, according to the experience of 
 the past three or four years, there can be no doubt 
 whatever. The provision as to the tenants' insurance 
 may disguise and conceal the extent of the benefit for 
 five years after the purchase, but this wiU only make 
 the benefit still greater after this term is over, and it is 
 difficult to believe that the bulk of the tenants in Ireland 
 are not shrewd enough to understand this. 
 
 It is worth while to consider a few cases which have 
 occurred, as illustrations of the benefit accruing from 
 operations under the Purchase Acts : — 
 
 (1) A tenant farmer in the north of Ireland held a 
 farm of 250 acres a few years ago at a rent of £229. 
 In 1886 he applied to the Land Commissioners for a 
 judicial rent. They fixed his rent at £160, a reduc- 
 tion of about thirty per cent. In 1889 he induced his 
 landlord to sell under Lord Ashbourne's Act at nineteen 
 years' purchase. He obtained an advance of £3,000 for 
 this purpose, and his payments will be £120 for forty- 
 nine years, as compared with £229, his rent three years 
 previously — a reduction of nearly fifty per cent. 
 
 (2) A speculator in farms three years ago bought the 
 tenants' interest in two farms in the north of Ii-eland — 
 the one rented at £60, the other at £80. He gave £400 
 for the first of these, and £540 for the other. Having 
 effected these purchases, he then induced the landlord 
 
AOBABIAN TENURES. 151 
 
 to sell these farms to him as tenant, and obtained 
 advances from the Land Purchase Commission of £960 
 and £1,360 respectively, reducing his annual payments 
 to £38 and £54. He then, without ever having been in 
 occupation, sold the two farms again, subject to these 
 payments to the Government, and he realised £970 and 
 £1,280 for what he had bought at £400 and £540, 
 making a net profit of £1,310 on the two transactions. 
 This case shows how easily the boon conferred by the 
 State can be realised in hard cash by the purchasing 
 tenant. 
 
 (3) A large farm was subject to a rent-charge of 
 £1 50 a year. The farm was a most valuable one, and 
 the tenant had erected buildings upon it at a cost of 
 £15,000. He agreed with the ground landlord to 
 acquire the rent-charge at twenty years' purchase. The 
 Land Commission advanced the whole of the purchase 
 money — viz., £3,000. The purchaser has been able, 
 therefore, to convert a permanent rent-charge of £150 a 
 year into an annuity of £120 for forty-nine years. 
 
 (4) A farm of ninety-six acres in Cork was leased in 
 1876 for a very long term of years, at a rent of £150 a 
 year. In 1883 the tenant sold the farm, subject to this 
 rent, for £750. The new tenant applied quite recently to 
 the Land Commission under the Eedemption of Eent Act. 
 The Land Commissioners held the letting value of the 
 farm to be £125 a year, and the selling value £2,200, 
 and allowed an advance of this amount under the Land 
 Purchase Act. The occupier of the farm under this 
 arrangement will have to pay to the State £88, as 
 
152 AGEABIAN TENURES. 
 
 compared with his previous rent of £150, subject to 
 which he gave £750 for the farm. His interest is now 
 increased in value by £1,200, which may be regarded as 
 a gift from the State. 
 
 (5) The tenants of the Cloghaleigh estate in Tipperary 
 combined together in 1881 to refuse payment of rent 
 unless a reasonable abatement were made. Their land- 
 lord declined any concession, and ultimately made a 
 clean sweep of his property by evictions. The tenants 
 were housed by the Land League in temporary buildings, 
 near to their former holdings, where they resided for 
 over ten years in confident expectation of being rein- 
 stated. The landlord let the whole property to the 
 Land Corporation, who in vain tried to make a profit 
 out of it. In 1892, the property having come under 
 the control of the Landed Estate Court, an agreement 
 was finally arrived at, and sanctioned, under the 13th 
 clause of the Land Purchase Act of 1891, for the 
 reinstatement of the evicted men as purchasers, at 12j 
 years' purchase of their former rents, all arrears being 
 wiped out. After five years the annual payments of 
 these purchasers will be reduced by more than 50 per 
 cent, as compared with their old rents ! Many other 
 cases have occurred where properties have been sold to 
 the tenants at twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years' 
 purchase of the former rents. 
 
 In view of these cases, which might be multiplied 
 indefinitely, it cannot be doubted, that even where 
 purchases can be effected at the rates contemplated by 
 Mr. Balfour — namely, seventeen or eighteen years' 
 
AORABIAN TENURES. 153 
 
 purchase of tlie rent — an enormous boon is conferred 
 on the occupying purchaser, and even more so when 
 the terms of purchase are lower. 
 
 In the case of leasehold house property sold in 
 England, it is found that where there are fifty years 
 unexpired of the lease, there is a very small difference 
 between its price in the market and that of a perpetuity 
 lease at the same rent ; but that as the length of the 
 lease shortens the market price rapidly decreases in 
 value. Fifty years are a long time to look forward to, 
 and the reversion after such a term is worth very little. 
 It can scarcely be doubted that the same view 
 holds good in Ireland. "What the tenants appreciate 
 and desire is, not so much that their farms shall be 
 free of charge after fifty years' payment of the interest 
 and instalments — ^f or they no more look forward so long 
 . ahead than do the leaseholders in England — but the 
 immediate reduction of their annual payments, which 
 is equivalent to an abatement of rent. 
 
 On the other hand, it is not so easy to see the 
 advantage which landlords generally will derive from 
 the sale of their property, at the estimated rates. A 
 large proportion of the Irish landlords are heavily encum- 
 bered with mortgages and family charges, and live upon 
 the slender margin, which remains after paying these 
 charges. After a sale of their property at seventeen or 
 eighteen years' purchase of the rent, it is certain that 
 in the great majority of Cases there will be no margin 
 at all remaining for the owners. Even in the case of 
 the unencumbered owners, where the estates are subject 
 
154 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 to family settlements, and where the proceeds of the sale 
 must remain in the Land Stock, the loss of income, at 
 seventeen years' purchase, will be more than 50 per cent. 
 Those landowners who have hitherto sold have generally 
 been those with a very large stake in land, who 
 have been anxious to reduce it, or those who, being 
 unencumbered and not subject to settlements, have 
 been willing to clear out of the country, in fear of 
 further legislation. 
 
 If, therefore, through the unwillingness of landlords 
 to sell under the new Land Purchase Act, or from im- 
 pediments created by the Act as compared with the Ash- 
 bourne Acts, there should be very few transactions under 
 it, there will be profound disappointment among the 
 tenants of Ireland ; and there will arise a universal de- 
 miand for an amendment of its provisions, founded on 
 Mr. Balfour's statement that his measure was intended 
 as a great boon ; and this appeal will be quite as strong 
 from Ulster as from the rest of Ireland. It will be very 
 difficult to resist this claim by any valid arguments. 
 
 On the other hand, it may be that the impediments 
 or difficulties in the way of the working of the Act will 
 prove to be of a temporary character, that in a short 
 time the transactions under it will greatly increase in 
 number, and that before long the £33,000,000, to be 
 advanced under it, will be exhausted, so that tenancies 
 to this amount in value will be converted into ownerships 
 at or about the number of years' purchase, which formed 
 the basis of Mr. Balfour's statements and promises. It 
 will be worth while to consider what will be the position 
 
AQBABIAN TENURES. 155 
 
 of the agrarian question in Ireland if this should he the 
 case, and how far the Act can be expected to he a final 
 settlement. 
 
 The position will then be this — that about one-third 
 of the land in Ireland, which can come under the opera- 
 tion of the Act, will have been dealt with. Scattered all 
 over Ireland there will be a privileged class of occupying 
 owners, consisting of the tenants of one out of every three 
 estates, whose owners have consented to sell to their 
 tenants under the Act, and who have been converted into 
 owners, upon terms, the average of which will involve the 
 payment of thirty-two per cent, less than their previous 
 rent. In some cases where the landlords may have sold 
 on more favourable terms — say at fifteen, fourteen, or 
 even twelve years' purchase of the rent — the comparison 
 between the occupying owners, and those who still 
 remain as tenants, will be still more favourable to 
 the former ; their payments will be forty to fifty per 
 cent, less than their previous rents. It is true that 
 under the provisions of the last Act the full benefit of 
 this will not appear for five years — that in the meantime 
 these purchasing tenants must pay up to eighty per cent. 
 of their previous rent ; but this is a mere blind. It 
 may conceal for a time the true comparison, but when 
 the five years are over, this will become all the more 
 apparent. Is it possible to conceive that this inequality 
 in condition between the two classes of occupiers — 
 namely, the two-thirds of them paying their old rents 
 for ever, and one-third of them paying, on the average, 
 thirty-two per cent, less than their previous rent for a 
 
156 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 term of years only — can be a stable condition of things, 
 and one which can be a permanent settlement and. give 
 content in Ireland ? On one side of a road there will be 
 occupiers of land, whose landlords have consented to sell 
 on such terms, enjoying this very great reduction ; on 
 the other side will be tenants, whose landlords have 
 refused to sell, so as to enable their tenants to avail 
 themselves of such splendid terms, and who will be pay- 
 ing their old rents. How can we expect the latter, who 
 will still constitute two-thirds of the tenantry of Ire- 
 land, to be content when their more fortunate brethren 
 are so highly favoured ? It will be no answer to them 
 that the funds are exhausted, and that there can be no 
 more advances from the State. 
 
 A further inequality between these two classes will 
 appear whenever there is a year of great agricultural 
 loss — when the potato crop is bhghted, as happens every 
 sixth or seventh year. The privileged occupiers, whose 
 annual payments are so greatly reduced, will find 
 under the provisions of the Act of 1891 a special clause 
 to give them relief. But those remaining as tenants, 
 under much higher rents, may be compelled to pay in 
 full, or be subject to eviction, and will have no protec- 
 tion from the law. How can such inequahties be justi- 
 fied ? There must arise either a demand for the universal 
 and compulsory conversion of the tenants into owners, 
 upon the average terms conceded to the fortunate pur- 
 chasers by their landlords, or for an equivalent reduc- 
 tion of rent. If the finances of the State forbid the 
 advance of more funds for the scheme of compulsor}- 
 
AGBAUIAN TENURES. 157 
 
 purchase, then there will be the stronger argument for 
 the legislative reduction of judicial rents, so as to cor- 
 rect the inequality of conditions, and to fix rents at 
 the point corresponding to that which the fortunate 
 minority have been able to obtain through the opera- 
 tion of the Purchase Act. 
 
 Already these views are beginning to spread in 
 districts where some fortunate tenants have been able 
 to avail themselves of the Ashbourne Acts by the sale 
 of their holdings by the landlords on the terms already 
 referred to. In an article on this subject in the 
 Nineteenth Century* Mr. T. W. Eussell, M.P., thus 
 describes the effects of a large transaction of this kind 
 in the County of Tyrone : — 
 
 "In my constituency/'' he says, " a large estate has recently 
 passed from owner to occupiers. The transaction has meant a 
 reduction of 30 per cent, on the judicial rents, and a terminable 
 annuity takes the place of an annual rent. The result is that 
 every tenant in South Tyrone is discontented, and compulsory 
 sale is demanded in every fair and market. The larger the 
 transfer, the greater the benefit, the more will the feeling 
 spread. It will be impossible to maintain that the tenants on 
 the badly-managed estates should get an advantage denied to 
 those who live on estates where owners have not been ruined. It 
 will be impossible to say that the dishonest tenant in the south, 
 whose conduct has made his landlord glad to sell, shall have a 
 boon denied to the honest man who has paid his rent, and whose 
 landlord has not any motive to part with his property. Every 
 estate that is sold makes the position more untenable." 
 
 In the same sense, Mr. T. W. Eussell, commenting 
 on the Bill of 1890 with unanswerable logic, said : — 
 
 * The Nineteenth Century Beview, October, 1890. 
 
158 AGBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 " The measure will introduce a new standard of rent. No 
 Irish tenant will consent to pay more for the hire of the land 
 than some of his neighbours are paying for its purchase. . . . 
 The present fair rents which have been judicially fixed will 
 appear so unfair, that a new agitation will spring up, and such a 
 pressure will be brought to bear upon landlords that they will 
 have practically no chance but to sell. One result will be that 
 it will be impossible to stop lending when the limit of thirty 
 millions has been reached j and it is well that Parliament should 
 understand that once it is committed to the principle of land 
 purchase on a large scale, there will be no stopping until the 
 great bulk of Irish landlords are expropriated." 
 
 The landlords, as a class, are also beginning to 
 understand this, and to appreciate the prospects which are 
 before them, if many of their order consent to sell upon 
 such terms as those already agreed to. Among them 
 the opinion is growing that any one of them who sells 
 to his tenants at a low rate is acting in opposition to 
 the interests of his class. In a recent case, a lady who 
 owns property in the west of Ireland commenced nego- 
 tiations with her tenants, and was on the point of 
 coming to terms with them for the sale to them of their 
 holdings at fifteen years' purchase of their rents — terms 
 which would have secured a reduction to them in their 
 annual payments of 40 per cent. When the neigh- 
 bouring landowners heard of this intention, they sent 
 a deputation to this lady, urging her not to sell to the 
 tenants at such a price, and pointing out that if she did 
 so, it would be impossible for them to maintain their 
 existing rents. At their instance she withdrew from 
 the negotiation, and has since endeavoured to persuade 
 
AORABIAlsr TENURES. 159 
 
 one of the adjoining landlords to buy her property. The 
 tenants, on their part, have lost the enormous advan- 
 tage they would have gained if the transaction had been 
 completed. It is believed that the feeling which 
 prompted this action on the part of the neighbouring 
 landlords is spreading through Ireland, and is one of 
 the causes of the reduced number of yearly sales under 
 the Land Purchase Acts. Those who have sold have 
 been described by another landlord as " men who have 
 been frightened enough, or who are rich or careless 
 enough, to be willing to part with their property at a 
 fraction of its holding value," and " belonging to a 
 small minority of landlords who are in a position to 
 part with their properties at the prices at which most 
 of the sales have hitherto been arranged." 
 
 As regards the tenants, the difficulty was fully pre- 
 sented to Lord Salisbury's Government in the autumn 
 of 1890 by a deputation of tenant farmers from Ulster 
 to the Irish Secretary. They pointed out that already 
 great discontent was arising in Ulster from the com- 
 parison between those tenants, who had obtained the boon 
 offered by the Ashbourne Act, and their less fortunate 
 neighbours continuing under old rents, and that this 
 difference would render the present position impossible. 
 " We look forward," they said, " with apprehension to 
 the future spread of discontent and agitation in the 
 country. . . . Landlords whose relations with their 
 tenants are satisfactory, and who regard their rents as 
 well secured by substantial tenants, are not likely to 
 make such terms as tenants will consider themselves 
 
160 AGRARIAN TENURES, 
 
 safe in accepting, and so occupying ownership has no 
 chance of being adopted exactly where the conditions 
 are most favourable to its success. We submit that no 
 permissive scheme can ever cover the ground, inasmuch 
 as it must be slow and uncertain in its results." 
 
 One of the strangest anomalies resulting from the 
 Land Purchase Acts arises in the following manner. The 
 Purchase Commissioners, in very numerous cases, have 
 refused to give their sanction to sales between landlords 
 and bodies of tenants, on the ground that the terms 
 agreed to have been too high, and that there is not 
 sufficient security for the money to be advanced by the 
 State. These refusals have almost always been in the 
 case of very small holdings in the west and south of 
 Ireland, and often where the rates of purchase were no 
 more than fourteen to sixteen times the judicial rent. 
 At fifteen years' purchase, the annual payments to the 
 State would be forty per cent, less than the previous rent. 
 On the refusal of the Land Commissioners to sanc- 
 tion such sales, these tenants fall back into their 
 position of having to pay their old rents for ever, when 
 their more fortunate neighbours have perhaps been 
 able to buy their holdings and reduce their annual 
 payments by thirty or forty per cent. How can such 
 inequalities be maintained ? How can the eviction of 
 the former class, for non-payment of such rents in 
 times of depression and loss, be justified and sup- 
 ported ? 
 
 It has happened not unfrequently that a conflict has 
 arisen between the Land Purchase Commissioners and 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 161 
 
 the judges of the Land Court in respect of properties 
 under the control of the latter. The tenants have 
 agreed with their landlords or the mortgagees to buy 
 their holdings at a certain price; the Land Purchase 
 Commissioners have then objected to make the advance, 
 on the ground that the terms are too high. To meet these 
 views, the parties have then agreed to lower terms, but 
 the judges of the Land Court have refused to sanction 
 the sale, in the interest of other creditors, differing in 
 their view, as to what should be the selling price, from 
 the Purchase Commissioners. In such cases the tenants 
 lose the advantages of the Act, and remain under the 
 obligation to pay their old rents for ever. 
 
 There appear, indeed, to be at this moment three 
 independent tribunals in Ireland, with power to deter- 
 mine the value of land, who may differ from one 
 another — the Land Commissioners, who determine the 
 judicial rent after a survey of the land by their officers ; 
 the Purchase Commissioners, who have to determine at 
 what number of years' pui'chase it is safe for the State 
 to make an advance for the sale to the tenants ; and the 
 judges of the Land Court, who can determine at what 
 price the land may be sold on the petition of mort- 
 gagees or creditors. Each of these tribunals takes the 
 opinion of separate surveyors, who may differ widely 
 from the others in their opinion as to the value of the 
 •property. 
 
 In the recent General Election, the symptoms of a 
 general political movement in Ireland, for the com- 
 pulsory sale of landlords' interests to the tenants, began to 
 
162 AGRARIAN TENURES, 
 
 show themselves in an acute form even in the province 
 of Ulster. The Unionist candidates for agricultural 
 constituencies, in that part of Ireland, found themselves 
 compelled to give in to the popular demand on this 
 point. Mr. T. W. Eussell, who had opposed the 
 proposal in this direction in the discussions on the 
 Land Purchase Bill, announced himself as relieved from 
 any pledges on this head, and promised the electors 
 of Tyrone to support a compulsory measure of land 
 purchase. Other prominent candidates in Ulster 
 followed suit. 
 
 On the other hand, there are not wanting signs 
 that in some cases landlords, of the worst class, have put 
 pressure of an unfair character upon their tenants, to 
 induce them to buy their holdings, at extravagant 
 rates, and on terms, which they may hereafter be un- 
 able to fulfil as regards the State. 
 
 The late Mr. J. Gr. McCarthy, one of the Land 
 Purchase Commissioners, gave evidence on this point 
 before Lord Cowper's Commission and spoke of the 
 pressure brought to bear upon tenants by landlords 
 anxious to sell. When asked how they exercise such 
 pressure, he replied : " By telling the tenant he must 
 either sign a contract for sale or go out. I have seen 
 letters of this kind. I have a letter in my possession 
 from an extensive land agent, telling the tenant that 
 the sheriff would not be put off beyond the morrow, 
 but that if he handed the sherifE the contract for 
 purchase duly executed, he would give possession." 
 
 Several memorials have been presented to the Land 
 
AGEABIAN TENURES. 163 
 
 Commissioners from bodies of tenants, asking for abate- 
 ments of the interest and instalments payable by tbem, 
 a-nd complaining that they only agreed to the terms of 
 purchase under threat of eviction. 
 
 The conclusion, then, which results from a careful 
 consideration of the Land Purchase Act of 1891, is that 
 it cannot be expected to be a final settlement of the 
 land question of Ireland ; that, whatever may be its 
 immediate result, it opens out a vista of fresh demands, 
 and that it has unsettled rather than settled the question. 
 If, as there seems reason to expect, the transactions 
 under it should be few in number — either because 
 landlords object to the Land Stock, or because the 
 tenants object to the provisions as to the Tenants' Insur- 
 ance Fund; or if the Act should fail from an unwilling- 
 ness on the part of landlords to sell on the terms which 
 formed the basis of all Mr. Balfour's expositions of its 
 policy — ^it will be difficult for those who have to deal 
 with the question to resist the claim of the tenants 
 for further legislation. If, on the other hand, the 
 Act should succeed, and sales of holdings to tenants 
 become very numerous on the terms expected, it is 
 equally certain that a demand will arise in Ireland which 
 it will be difficult to meet with any satisfactory answer. 
 It will be claimed that the scheme of purchase 
 shall be made compulsory and obligatory on all land- 
 lords, on the ground that it is unjust that a boon of so 
 great a character should be conferred on some tenants 
 and denied to others, according to the whim, profit, 
 or necessities of their landlords ; and that equality of 
 L 2 
 
164 AQBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 treatment for all tenants is essentially necessary and 
 just. 
 
 If it should be replied to such a demand that the 
 £33,000,000,alreadyprovidedfor, exhausts all the security, 
 which on the principle of the Act of 1891 is an essen- 
 tial condition of the use of Imperial credit, the alterna- 
 tive course, of reducing the judicial rents in proportion 
 to the instalments of the purchasers, will probably be 
 proposed. 
 
 In this view the Land Purchase Act of 1891 has left 
 the land system of Ireland in a position of unstable 
 equilibrium. It has effected no permanent solution of 
 the agrarian question, and must lead to future difficulties 
 of a most serious character. 
 
 It may be well here to point out that under the 
 Land Acts, according to the last report of the Commis- 
 sioners, judicial rents have been fixed, either by decisions 
 of the Court after hearing both parties, or by confirma- 
 tion of private agreements between landlords and 
 tenants, in 277,000 cases. Eents originally amounting 
 to £5,739,000 have been reduced to £4,548,000 : an 
 average reduction of 20"7 per cent. There were 24,500 
 cases still waiting decision before the Commissioners, 
 and 4,300 in the Civil Bill Courts. The number of 
 decisions is not the full measure of the working of this 
 Act ; for in many cases reductions of rent may have 
 been made as a consequence of the Act, and without 
 confirmation by the Commission. Fixity of tenure and 
 the right of free sale are secured to every tenant of land 
 within the purview of the Act, whether he applies to 
 
AOBABIAN TENURES. 165 
 
 the Court for a judicial rent or not. Considerable as 
 the enforced reductions of rent by the Land Commission 
 have been in Ireland, it may be doubted whether the 
 landlords there have had to submit to the same losses 
 and sacrifices as the English landlords have experienced 
 during the same period. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FUETHER REMEDIAL MEASURES IN IRELAND. 
 
 LEGISLATION FOB LANDLORDS. 
 
 The Land Acts of 1870, 1881, and 1887, and tte Land 
 Purchase Act of 1891, by no means exhaust the 
 efforts of Parliament on behalf of the various classes 
 of which the social system in rural districts of Ireland 
 is composed. Imperial funds have been brought in aid 
 for the improvement of their condition to a degree 
 far beyond what has been attempted for England and 
 Scotland. 
 
 (1) AS REGARDS LANDOWNERS. 
 
 The Board of Works of Ireland, which is, in fact, 
 a branch of the Imperial Treasury, is empowered by 
 various Acts — the 10 Vic. c. 32, 13 and 14 Vic. c. 19, 
 23 Vic. c. 19, and 29 and 30 Vic. c. 40— to make 
 advances to landowners for such objects as drainage, 
 the erection of farm-houses and of dwellings for agri- 
 cultural labourers, and the planting of trees for shelter. 
 The loans are made on favourable terms as regards 
 interest, and are repayable in varying terms of years. 
 The payments take precedence of other charges on the 
 properties. Under these Acts, considerable sums have 
 been advanced to landowners, by way of loans, during 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 167 
 
 the last forty years, amounting in the aggregate to 
 about £5,000,000. The transactions, however, for the 
 last few years have been limited. In 1891-2, 135 
 loans, to the amount of £30,500 only, were granted, of 
 which twenty were for drainage, ninety-three for farm 
 buildings, and ten for labourers' cottages. 
 
 (2) EXTINCTION OF TITHE RENT-CHARGE. 
 
 By the Irish Church Disestablishment Act of 1869, 
 another booii has been conferred on Irish landowners, 
 through the aid of Imperial credit, which has not been 
 extended to England — namely, the extinction of the 
 tithe rent-charge in a certain number of years. By a 
 clause of this Act there is a permissive sale to the 
 landowners of Ireland of the tithe rent-charge, at a rate 
 which yields them four and a-half per cent. On the 
 other hand, they are credited with a loan at three and 
 a-half per cent., repayable by instalments in forty-five 
 years. The effect of the two provisions is that the tithe 
 rent-charge, payable before 1869, is continued at the same 
 rate for forty-five years, and at the end of that period 
 will be extinguished. In the interval, one per cent, of 
 the estimated capital value of the tithe — the difference 
 between the four and a-half per cent, at which the land- 
 lords are supposed to buy the charge and the three and 
 a-half per cent, at which they have been credited with 
 a loan from the State — is accumulated by the Irish 
 Church Temporalities Commission, and at the end of 
 that period will produce a sum equal to the capital value 
 
168 AGBAIUAN TENUBE8. 
 
 of the tithe, and will then meet the claims, which have 
 heen imposed on the funds of the Irish Church. 
 
 The scheme is a good illustration of, and not im- 
 possibly a precedent for other uses of State credit for 
 the extinction of burthensome charges. As twenty-three 
 out of the forty-five years contemplated by the Act 
 have already expired, the time is not far distant, when 
 the Irish landowners, who have availed themselves of 
 this option, will be altogether relieved of the tithe. 
 
 (3) LOCAL REGISTRATION OF TITLES. 
 
 Another important Act affecting ownerships of land 
 has been passed for Ireland, but is still wanting in 
 England — namely, that carried in 1891 for the estab- 
 lishment of local registries of titles.* It is founded on 
 Lord Cairns' system for registration of titles, but is to 
 be carried out locally by the officers of the various 
 counties in Ireland. Under this Act, registration of 
 titles is still permissive in the case of ordinary properties, 
 but is obligatory in the case of holdings sold under the 
 Land Purchase Act. By the fourth part of the Act 
 another important change of the law is effected in respect 
 of holdings sold to tenants under the Land Purchase 
 Acts. It provides that any such land, on the death of 
 its owner, shall vest in his personal representatives as 
 if it were a chattel real, and that, on the death of the 
 owner intestate, the land shall devolve upon, and be 
 divisible among, the same persons as if it were personal 
 estate. The effect of this is to abrogate the law of 
 * 54 and 55 Vict., c. 66. 
 
AGRABIAN TENURES. 169 
 
 primogeniture, not only in respect o£ all land, hereafter 
 to be sold under the Purchase Acts, but in respect of 
 any land sold in the past under these Acts, and to apply 
 to it the same law of equal division among the children 
 or next-of-kin, as applies to personalty. There will be, 
 henceforward, the curious anomaly in Ireland, that all 
 land, which has been at any time sold to tenants under 
 the Land Purchase Acts, will be subject to one law of in- 
 heritance, and all other land to another law. It cannot 
 be doubted that this is a first step towards ' abolishing 
 altogether the general law of the descent of land. 
 
 LEGISLATION FOR TENAISTTS. 
 (1) ADVANCES TO TENANTS. 
 
 The Land Act of 1881 (Sec. 31) gave power to the 
 Board of Works to make advances to tenants for the 
 improvement of their holdings. The Board have made 
 a considerable number of such advances. They have 
 recently reduced the minimum amount which they will 
 lend under the Act. The total sum which has been 
 advanced for this purpose has been £872,767 in 10,203 
 separate transactions — averaging, therefore, not more 
 than £85 each. 
 
 (2) COTTIER TENANTS. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that there are districts 
 in Ireland, where the population is congested, in the sense 
 that communities exist of cottier tenants, with very small 
 holdings, which are quite inadequate to afford support 
 out of the land. These are the heritages from times of 
 
170 AGBAMAN TENURES. 
 
 confiscation, and of consolidation of farms on the better 
 lands, carried out without regard to the interests of the 
 people, and by which vast numbers of tenants were driven 
 to inferior lands. The Legislature has recognised the 
 evil and has made amends for past injustice. Not the 
 least important part of the Land Purchase Act of 1891 
 was that relating to these congested districts. Under its 
 provisions a Special Board was constituted in Ireland, 
 called the Congested Districts Board, of which the Chief 
 Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, and all members of 
 the Land Commission, are ex officio members, together 
 with five other unpaid members nominated by the Lord- 
 Lieutenant. The Chief Secretary, or, in his absence, 
 the Under-Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant, acts as 
 Chairman of the Board. This Board bas extraordinary 
 powers of administration in respect of districts, which 
 are defined as congested districts — namely, those elec- 
 toral divisions of counties, where the rateable value, 
 when divided by the number of population, gives a sum 
 of less than £1 10s. for each individual. The Board is 
 endowed with funds, consisting of £1,500,000, charged 
 upon the surplus fund of the Irish Church Temporalities 
 Commission, or rather with the interest of such fund at the 
 rate of 2f per cent. — amounting, therefore, to rather over 
 £40,000 a year — and of two comparatively small Irish 
 Funds, the Irish Eeproduction Loan Fund and the Sea 
 and Coast Fisheries Fund. The interest of the Church 
 Surplus Fund is to form part of the guarantee fund 
 under the Land Purchase Act, but subject to this, the 
 Board may utilise it for the purpose of its work. 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 171 
 
 The Commission is empowered out of these funds to 
 give special aid to the migration or emigration of any 
 occupier of a holding within any congested district, 
 with his family, and to settling such migrant or emi- 
 grant, under favourable circumstances, in any place to 
 which he first migrates or emigrates, on condition that 
 he transfers his interest in his holding to an occupier 
 of a neighbouring holding, and that the holdings be 
 amalgamated, or that he transfer such interest to the 
 Land Commission. In other words, the Commissioners 
 are empowered to facilitate the consolidation of the very 
 small holdings, by giving aid to the migration or emi- 
 gration of their occupiers, subject to the condition that 
 no holding is to be increased by amalgamation so that the 
 rateable value shall exceed £20. The Commission is 
 also entrusted with wide powers, in concert with the 
 Land Commission, to facilitate such amalgamation by the 
 apportionment of the purchase annuities, or by a sale 
 to a tenant, or by making an advance towards the pur- 
 chase of an interest in a holding. It is provided that 
 no small holding, thus dealt with, is to be sold during 
 the continuance of the purchase annuity, except to the 
 occupier of a holding in its neighbourhood or to the 
 Land Commission. 
 
 The Board is further empowered to aid in pro- 
 viding suitable seed potatoes, and seed oats, for sale 
 to occupiers, in developing agriculture, forestry, the 
 breeding of live stock and poultry, weaving, spinning, 
 fishing (including the construction of piers and harbours, 
 and the supply of fishing-boats and gear, and industries 
 
172 AOBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 connected with and subservient to fishing), and any- 
 other suitable industries ; for such purpose the Land 
 Commission is empowered to acquire land, by purchase 
 or lease, and to place such land under the management 
 of the Congested District Board. 
 
 It will be seen how varied and extensive are the 
 powers of this Board. The most important of them, 
 from an agrarian point of view, is that enabling the 
 Board, in concert with the Land Commission, to buy or 
 lease land, for the purpose of adding to the holdings of 
 occupiers in congested districts, and of facilitating 
 migration of tenants to holdings, where they can support 
 themselves and their families. This points to the pur- 
 chase of grazing farms from which the tenants have been 
 driven in past times, and the re-settlement on them of • 
 tenants drawn from the congested districts. 
 
 It is too early as yet to form an opinion as to the 
 working of this new Board, and as to their administra- 
 tion of the important and difficult duties imposed on 
 them. It appears, however, that so far no case has 
 occurred in which the Board have been able to effect the 
 purchase of land, so as to relieve the congestion by add- 
 ing to the holdings, or by migrating the occupiers to 
 larger farms, and effecting the consolidation of those that 
 remain. The work of the Commission, hitherto, has been 
 mainly directed to the encouragement of the breeding of 
 cattle and to the promotion of fisheries. It appears that 
 391 electoral districts in seven counties — including 
 Donegal, Eoscommon, Sligo, Galway, Mayo, Kilkenny, 
 and Cork— with an area of 3,411,000 acres and a 
 
AGBABIAN TENUMHS.. 173 
 
 population of 544,000, have been declared to be con- 
 gested districts witbin tbe letter of the Act. 
 
 LEGISLATION FOE, LABOURERS. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that, of the various 
 classes in Ireland, the agricultural labourers are relatively 
 in the lowest and worst condition. 
 
 The first effort to ameliorate their condition was 
 contained in the Irish Land Act of 1881. Under the 
 19th clause of this Act, the Land Commissioners were 
 authorised to make it a condition of their award for a 
 judicial rent, that the tenant should erect one or more 
 cottages for his labourers, and should let them with 
 adequate gardens. The Board of Works were also em- 
 powered to issue loans on favourable terms for facili- 
 tating this object of the Act. It cannot be said that 
 this provision has been productive of any substantial 
 benefit to the class of labourers, save so far as it has 
 admitted a principle which may hereafter be capable 
 of extension. In the eleven years that have passed 
 since the Land Act became law, only 255 loans have 
 been issued by the Board of Works, under this pro- 
 vision for the erection of labourers' cottages, involving 
 a total outlay of £14,876, giving an average of about 
 £58 per cottage. 
 
 More effective have been the subsequent efforts of 
 Parliament. In 1883 an Act* was passed providing that 
 where the^existing house accommodation for agricultural 
 
 * 46 and 47 Yict., c. 60. 
 
174 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 labourers is deficient, having regard to the ordinary 
 requirements of the district, or is unfit for human habi- 
 tation, owing to dilapidations, the want of light and ven- 
 tilation, or proper conveniences, or to any other sanitary 
 defects, and where such defects cannot be remedied other- 
 wise than by a scheme for the erection of dwellings in 
 lieu of or in addition to the dwellings already existing, the 
 Sanitary Authority shall, upon the requisition of twelve 
 ratepayers, take action, and, if satisfied as to the neces- 
 sity, shall pass a resolution in favour of an improvement 
 scheme. The scheme is to propose the erection of a 
 sufficient number of labourers' cottages, so as to provide 
 for the accommodation of the labouring class in suitable 
 dwellings, and with proper sanitary arrangements, and 
 each cottage is to have a plot of land or garden, not 
 exceeding half an acre. The scheme may provide for 
 its being carried out by the person entitled to the first 
 estate of freehold in any property, or with the con- 
 currence of such person, under the superintendence and 
 control of the Sanitary Authority. 
 
 If difficulty is encountered in acquiring land by agree- 
 ment for the purpose, there is power to obtain it by com- 
 pulsion. In such case, however, the scheme must be 
 confirmed by the Irish Privy Council, and, if opposed, 
 by Parliament ; and in all cases, it is directed that the 
 land shall be selected with due regard to the convenience 
 of landowners, so as to diminish the value of their 
 interest as little as possible. The Treasury is em- 
 powered to lend money to the Sanitary Authority for the 
 purposes, repayable by instalments spread over a term 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 175 
 
 of fifty years at £4 9s. per cent. If the Sanitary Autlio- 
 rity neglects to act upon the representations of rate- 
 payers, it must report to the Local Government 
 Board, who may, if they think necessary, direct a local 
 inquiry. Finally, the Sanitary Authority is prohibited 
 letting such cottages to any but agricultural labourers, 
 and in these cases, not for a longer term than from 
 month to month. The maximum for which the rates 
 of a district can be charged under the Act is Is. in the £. 
 
 In 1885 it was found necessary to amend this Act in 
 a number of details. By the amending statute,* limited 
 owners are allowed to lease land for the purpose of the 
 erection of cottages by Local Authorities for ninety-nine 
 years. Local Authorities are empowered to take land on 
 lease by compulsion, and it is provided that the loss, injury, 
 or damage sustained by any owner or occupier of land 
 taken for a term of years shall, as far as possible, be" 
 compensated for by the annual rent to be paid to 
 the owner. Local Authorities are also authorised to 
 purchase or hire and put into repair any cottages which 
 are in a bad state, and to purchase and allot half an 
 acre of land to each of them. 
 
 It appears from the most recent returns that ninety- 
 one Unions in Ireland have availed themselves of the 
 facilities afforded by these Acts, and have promoted 
 schemes for the erection of labourers' cottages under 
 then^. Their applications involved the erection of 
 24,515 cottages, of which 11,871 have been authorised, 
 and 1,852 are still under consideration. Loans have 
 * 48 and 49 Yict., c. 77. 
 
176 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 been sanctioned by the Treasury to the amount of 
 £1,254,475. Further schemes are in a state to be sub- 
 mitted to the Board of Works, involving the erection of 
 2,998 more cottages, at a cost of £374,284. Of those 
 already authoTised, 8,955 have been erected, and 8,823 
 actually let to labourers. The rent obtained from them 
 varies from 8d. to Is. per week. At these rates, the 
 loss to the Unions in the difference between the interest 
 and instalments payable to the Treasury, and the rent 
 payable by the tenants, is very heavy. The rents col- 
 lected do not pay more than one-third of the annual 
 charge. It would appear, however, that the Local 
 Authorities are willing to bear this cost, and that the 
 Local Government Board have to exercise their re- 
 straining power to prevent the excessive use of the Act. 
 They have refused their assent to applications for the erec- 
 * tion of as many as 10,792 cottages. Yery few Boards of 
 Guardians in the two provinces of Ulster and Connaught 
 have availed themselves of the Act. Of the 11,871 
 cottages already authorised, only seventy-eight are in 
 Ulster and eighty- seven in Connaught. The average 
 cost per cottage is a little over £100. 
 
 The annual charge to the Local Authorities in respect 
 of the amount already borrowed from the State under 
 the Act is £55,928, of which one-half falls yearly on the 
 rates, " even if the rents are paid up in full," or if no 
 repairs are required within the year. It appears that 
 in almost every scheme compulsory powers have been 
 inserted, and that it is very rare for a local authority to 
 obtain land by agreement. This must add considerably 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 177 
 
 to the cost of carrying out the schemes. A large 
 number of proposals have been rejected by the Local 
 Government Board on the ground of non-compliance 
 with the requirements of the Act — such as where the 
 land proposed to be taken is part of a demesne land, or 
 home farm, or is not adjoining a public road, or is 
 unsuitable for cultivation, or is too far distant from a 
 water supply. It will be seen how far more stringent 
 and effective these Acts have been in Ireland than 
 those in England. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that the Land 
 Purchase Act of 1891 provides that out of the £4 
 a-year payable by the tenant-purchasers for forty- 
 nine years, in respect of every £100 advanced to 
 them, for the purchase of their holdings, 5s. per 
 cent, (called the county percentage) is to be paid to 
 the guarantee fund, and that so much of it as may 
 not be required is to be paid out of that fund to 
 the " Local Taxation (Ireland) Account," and to be 
 applied towards the cost of providing labourers' cot- 
 tages, under the Acts of 1883 and 1885, already referred 
 to. There is a further provision (sec. 21) that in 
 respect of cottages thus erected, the requirement of the 
 Act of 1883, that every cottage shall be provided 
 with a plot or garden, not exceeding half an acre, shall 
 not apply ; and that such cottages may be provided with 
 or without such plot or garden — an enactment which 
 evidently points to the erection of labourers' cottages in' 
 towns as well as in rural districts. On the assumption 
 that the whole of the £33,000,000 is advanced, this 
 
 M 
 
178 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 provision will supply an annual fund for forty-nine 
 years of £82,000, for the assistance of local authorities 
 in the erection of cottages. This, at the average rate of 
 the cost of houses built under the Labourers' Act, will 
 suffice for the erection of about 800 cottages a year. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS AS TO IRISH AGRARIAN LEGISLATION. 
 
 From the review of legislation for Ireland during the 
 last twenty years, it will be seen how varied and compre- 
 hensive have been the efforts of the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment to reform its agrarian condition, and to what an ex- 
 tent Imperial credit has been resorted to in dealing with 
 the subject. It can scarcely fail to strike an impartial 
 critic that the experience of this period has shown 
 that it is better to take the opinion of the majority of 
 the Irish members upon matters which so vitally con- 
 cern the interests of the people they represent, than to 
 •deal with them with the imperfect knowledge and sym- 
 pathy which the majority of English and Scotch members 
 must have. The period affords also abundant proof that 
 Parliament, after refusing the demands of the Irish 
 representatives, has been forced on, step by step, now 
 by agitation and disorder in Ireland, now by the neces- 
 sities of political combinations, now as a matter of 
 bargain, to do that which it had previously rejected, and 
 to concede with a bad grace what it had denied to con- 
 stitutional demands. There is little which the majority 
 of the Irish members have asked for which they have not 
 ultimately obtained, and when the Ulster members have 
 
AGBABIAN TEMUEES. 179 
 
 joined in the demand, with those from other parts of 
 Ireland, the united pressure has soon hecome irresistible. 
 The moral is that the Irish understand their affairs 
 better than Englishmen can do. It need not be added, 
 however, that this argument does not apply with equal 
 force to questions, where loans on Imperial credit are 
 involved. These are not purely Irish questions. They 
 affect still more the taxpayers of England and Scotland, 
 who must rightly claim a potent voice in the use of 
 their credit. 
 
 Another conclusion forced upon us is that when the 
 concession was made to the Irish tenants of fixity of 
 tenure and judicial rents, which put them into a posi- 
 tion of co-owners with their landlords, and created a 
 system of dual ownership of land, it was necessary to 
 work out this new relation to all its logical conclu- 
 sions. Much difficulty and confusion have arisen from 
 the continued use of the terms landlord and tenant. 
 Since the Act of 1881 the occupiers of land in Ireland 
 have no longer been tenants in the English sense of the 
 term, and their co-owners have no longer been entitled 
 to the rights of landlords, as understood in England. 
 This recognition of equality in the position of the two 
 classes in Ireland has necessitated equal treatment in a 
 variety of questions that have arisen and will arise. It 
 is because English and Scotch members and writers have 
 so frequently failed to bear this in mind, that many 
 of the difficulties of the last ' few years have sprung up. 
 Even statesmen of the highest eminence have, within 
 short intervals, if not in the same speeches, condemned 
 M 2 
 
180 AGBABIAiT TENURES. 
 
 the Land Act of 1881, for confiscating the rights 
 of landlords, by elevating the tenants to the posi- 
 tion of dual owners, and have denounced the tenants 
 for combining together to break their contracts, un- 
 mindful of the fact that the Legislature, with general 
 consent, had solemnly determined that the Irish occupiers 
 do not hold by contract, but by tenure. 
 
 It is only by bearing in mind this essential differ- 
 ence, that a solution can be found for the agrarian 
 questions of Ireland, in v^hatever phase they may present 
 themselves in the future. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AGRARIAN QUESTIONS IN SCOTLAND. 
 
 The agrarian condition of Scotland partakes partly 
 of the English, partly of the Irish system. In its 
 Lowland counties generally, the system of large owner- 
 ships of land and large farms prevails, even more exclu- 
 sively than in England. Small ownerships, where the 
 owners occupy and farm the land as a means of living, 
 can hardly be said to exist. South of the Tay, and in 
 some districts north of that river, there are practically 
 few small farms. In some of the Lowland districts north 
 of the Tay, as in parts of Aberdeenshire and Forfar- 
 shire, there are many small farms of from 20 to 100 
 acres, where the tenants work with their own hands, 
 and are not employers of labour. These, however, are 
 the exception. As a rule, under the agricultural 
 system in the Lowlands of Scotland, whether north or 
 south of the Tay, the separation of the three classes of 
 landlords, farmers, and labourers is very distinct and 
 complete. 
 
 There is this difference, however, as compared with 
 England : the farms, as a rule, are not held under yearly 
 tenancies, but are let on leases for nineteen years. On 
 the termination of these leases the farms are relet. 
 
182 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 There is no obligation on the part of the landowner 
 to relet the farm to its late occupant. There is not, 
 therefore, that permanence of occupation by the same 
 tenants and their families, which is to be noted on some 
 of the great settled estates in England. As a rule, 
 the cottages in the Lowland districts, in the case of large 
 farms, are held direct by the labourers from the tenant 
 farmers. There is general complaint of the insufficiency 
 of cottages. The unmarried labourers, male and female, 
 either board in the farmer's house, in a manner which 
 often leaves much to be desired, as regards decency and 
 morality, or the young men live and board together in 
 bothies, where the refinements of life are often conspicu- 
 ously absent. The postponement of marriage, until some 
 cottage is vacant, leads to much evil, and is the cause, 
 probably, of the high percentage of illegitimate births. 
 Nowhere is there a greater gulf between the labourer 
 and the tenant farmer, or a more total impossibility of 
 the labourer rising to the higher position, than in the 
 best cultivated parts of Scotland, such as the Lothians. 
 On the other hand, the wages of the labourers are much 
 higher than in most parts of England; but they 
 are not often eked out by good gardens or allotments. 
 
 Another point of difference has relation to the un- 
 cultivated and waste lands. The manorial system of 
 England not having been extended to Scotland, these 
 lands are by law the property of their owners, and there 
 are no rights of turning out cattle on them appurtenant 
 to adjoining cultivated land, the property of others. 
 Where tenants of farms enjoy the privilege of turning 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 183 
 
 out their sheep or cattle on the moor or waste land, it is 
 by leave and licence of the owner, or it may be by con- 
 ditions of their leases ; but the owner has it in his power, 
 subject to any such leases, to make what use he thinks 
 fit of the uncultivated land. 
 
 THE CROPTERS. 
 
 In many Highland districts the agrarian system 
 is very different. Till the rebellion of 1745 the Clan 
 system prevailed there. The working members of the 
 Clan had in olden times reclaimed the better land in 
 the valleys, and cultivated it in small holdings or crofts, 
 and had erected thereon their dwellings. They turned 
 out their cattle on the mountains — a privilege indis- 
 pensable to their well-being in their small holdings. 
 They held by a very undefined tenure, under which an 
 hereditary right to their holdings was recognised by 
 the paramount Lord or Chief of the Clan, and they were 
 secure from evictions so long as they paid their cus- 
 tomary rents. After the rebellion of 1745 the English 
 law of landownership was introduced, in supersession of 
 the customs and traditions of the tribal system. The 
 Chief of the Clan was invested with the full rights of 
 a landowner over crofts and mountains, instead of being 
 treated as the lord of a manor, after the fashion of 
 feudal times. With these powers, the Highland chiefs 
 before long began to consolidate holdings and to clear 
 their estates of their dependents. 
 
 At the beginning of the present century the intro- 
 
184 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 duction of sheep farming greatly hastened this process. 
 The great landowners, being under no obligation at law 
 to recognise the interest of their tenants in the turning 
 out cattle on the mountains, deprived them of this privi- 
 lege for the purpose of letting the mountain land in 
 great sheep farms. The crofts in such cases lost a great 
 part of their value. They could no longer be cultivated 
 to advantage. The crofters in the interior of the country, 
 and at a distance from the sea, were compelled to emi- 
 grate en masse, or were moved by their landlords to other 
 lands near to the coast, where similar crofts were con- 
 ceded to them, and where they could supplement their 
 means of living by fishing, or collecting and burning 
 seaweed for kelp, which for a time was a very profitable 
 business. 
 
 After the recent investigations of the Commissioners 
 appointed under the Crofters' Act, it must be admitted 
 that the crofters, as a rule, had been cruelly rack- 
 rented. Subdivision reduced the size of their holdings ; 
 the mountain land conceded to them for turning out 
 cattle was insufficient ; the kelp industry came to an end 
 in consequence of other inventions; the condition of the 
 crofters consequently deteriorated. It is thus graphic- 
 ally described in the report of the Eoyal Commission in 
 1884 :— 
 
 " The crofter of the present time has, through past evictions, 
 been confined within narrow limits, sometimes on inferior and 
 exhausted soil. He is subject to arbitrary augmentations of 
 rent. He is without security of tenure, and has only recently 
 received the concession of compensation for improvements^' (not. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 185 
 
 however, for any buildings he may have erected). " His habita- 
 tion is usually of a character which would almost imply physical 
 and moral degradation in the eyes of those who do not know 
 how much decency, courtesy, virtue, and even mental refinement, 
 survive amid the surroundings of a Highland hovel. The crofter 
 belongs to that class of tenants who have received the smallest 
 share of proprietary favour or benefaction, and who are, by 
 virtue of power, position, or covenants, least protected against 
 inconsiderate treatment. 
 
 "The opinion so often expressed before us that the small 
 tenantry of the Highlands have an inherited inalienable title to 
 security of tenure in their possessions, while rent and service are 
 duly rendered, is an impression indigenous to the country, though 
 it has never been sanctioned by legal recognition, and has long 
 been repudiated by the action of the proprietors. 
 
 " The processes by which the comminution of crofters' hold- 
 ings and the displacement of the people were effected are too 
 familiar to require detailed description. The reduction or with- 
 drawal of common pasture, the diminution of arable ground, 
 the obliteration of townships, and the transfer of the inhabitants 
 to the moor, the shore, or the cultivated area of other commu- 
 nities, were the methods by which a revolution in the rural 
 economy of the country was effected. 
 
 " Eviction and repartition have done their lamented work, 
 and passed away for ever. The interest, prudence, and senti- 
 ments of the proprietors are alike enlisted for other views 
 .and purposes; but the dangers of subdivision are perpetuated by 
 the tenacity of tenant, who too often settles his offspring on the 
 impoverished holdings, in defiance of estate regulations and the 
 dictates of self-preservation.^^ * 
 
 In most parts of the Western Highlands and in the 
 Hebrides, the crofters have, in consequence of the sub- 
 division and comminution of their holdin-gs, ceased to 
 
 * " Report of Royal Commission on Crofters,'' pp. 7, 8, 16. 
 
186 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 be small farmers, making their living wholly out of the 
 land. They resemble, rather, the cottier tenants, already 
 described, in Ireland. They are labourers living chiefly by 
 the wages of labour obtained in other ways, by fishing, 
 by hiring out as gillies, during the sporting season, or 
 by migrating to the south for temporary work during a 
 part of the year, returning in the autumn to their crofts, 
 to dig their potatoes, and to live there during the 
 winter months, for the most part in idleness. The 
 chief part of the work on the crofts, and in cutting turf 
 for fuel, falls upon the women. 
 
 In other districts, as in Caithness, Orkney, and 
 Shetland, there are still to be found communities of 
 crofters of a more purely agricultural profession, who 
 live wholly or mainly on the produce of their crofts. 
 Mixed with the crofters are a yet inferior class of 
 " Cottars," who have only their cottages, with or 
 without small gardens, but without any land which 
 can be called agricultural holdings. They are more 
 exclusively labourers, depending on other employment 
 for their living. 
 
 The'process, which has been described above, of the 
 gradual deterioration in the condition of the crofters by- 
 their deportation to other districts, or by the expropri- 
 ation of the mountain land, over which they had 
 formerly the privilege of turning out their cattle, has 
 been to some extent accentuated by the creation of deer- 
 forests within the last fifty years. It appears, however, 
 that, in the main, the deer forests have been created out 
 of the large sheep farms, and to a large extent consist of" 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 187 
 
 land, at such a heiglit in the mountains, that it is not of 
 much value even for the grazing of sheep. The cases 
 are rare in which it has been proved that crofter com- 
 munities have been removed in the interest of deer 
 forests. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly the fact 
 that some of the forest land, at the lower heights, in- 
 cluded in deer forests, would be of great value to the 
 crofters, as pasture for their cattle ; but most of the 
 owners of these domains, devoted wholly to sport, look 
 with disfavour on the crofter communities, discourage 
 their growth, and resist any demands for the increase of 
 their pastm-e lands. 
 
 It is alleged that the deer forests have been the 
 means of inducing a large expenditure by wealthy 
 sportsmen from the south, during parts of the year, in 
 the employment of gillies, and during the rest of the year 
 in laying out paths, and in the erection of lodges. It 
 is to be feared, however, that the profuse expenditure, 
 during two months of the year, of wealthy strangers 
 has not been without disadvantage on the crofter popu- 
 lation, in encouraging habits of drink, in setting up a 
 false standard of life, and in creating a class of syco- 
 phants, living in a certain luxury for a short time, and 
 in idleness the rest of the year. Whether, from an 
 economic point of view, the dispossession of sheep in 
 favour of deer is a serious matter, is a moot point. 
 The subject, however, is not a purely economic one. 
 It is one affecting the moral and social conditions of 
 the whole population of the Highlands. It may be 
 doubted whether, apart from the high rents, which 
 
188 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 the great landowners of Scotland derive from their 
 sporting rights, and which for the most part are 
 spent elsewhere, the local communities derive any real 
 advantage from the substitution of sport and pleasure, 
 for the ordinary and normal industrial occupations of 
 an agricultural character. 
 
 THE CUOFTERS' ACT, 1886. 
 
 It will be seen from this brief description of the 
 Highland districts of Scotland, how closely the con- 
 dition of the Scotch crofters and cottars resembled, a 
 few years ago, that of the smaller tenants and cottiers 
 in the west and south of Ireland. In both cases there 
 were traditions of a not very distant past, before the 
 introduction of the English system of laws, when the 
 occupiers had recognised rights in their holdings, to the 
 extent that they could not be turned out of them, so 
 long as they paid their customary rents. In both cases 
 the occupiers had also ratione tenurce — enjoyed the use of 
 adjoining waste lands and mountains for turning out 
 their cattle at nights, so essential to small holdings. In 
 both cases English law had been imposed on them, had 
 refused to recognise the customs of the country, and had 
 placed the occupiers at the mercy of the landlords. In 
 both, the latter, by virtue of the rights and powers 
 thus conferred on them, had in many cases consolidated 
 the holdings, had effected clearances of the population, 
 had removed the tenants to inferior lands, had been the 
 cause of what are called congested districts, had deprived 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 189 
 
 small holders of pasture-land which they had previously- 
 enjoyed. In both cases the occupiers had effected whatever 
 improvements existed on the land, had reclaimed and 
 drained it, had erected the cottages in which they lived. 
 In both, the law recognised no right, on the part of the 
 occupiers, to the improvements they had effected, and 
 gave them no compensation on dispossession. In both, 
 the occupiers held by yearly tenancies only, under 
 excessive rents, arbitrarily increased from time to time, 
 without regard to the improvements of the tenants and 
 their traditional rights — rents which in bad seasons the 
 occupiers were wholly unable to pay. 
 
 It was, therefore, to be expected that when, in Ire- 
 land, the Land Act of 1881 recognised fully the injus- 
 tice which had been done in the past to the tenants, and 
 conceded to them the status of joint ownership with their 
 landlords, by provisions embodying fixity of tenure, the 
 right of free sale, and an appeal to an independent 
 tribunal for the determination of rent, an agitation for 
 similar concessions should arise on the part of the 
 Scotch crofters. But for the precedent of that Act, it is 
 not to be supposed that Parliament would have departed 
 so widely from the previous views of jurists and econo- 
 mists, as to recognise a right on the part of the Scotch 
 crofters, to a reversal of what had been effected, when 
 English law was introduced into the Highlands, and the 
 establishment of the crofters as joint owners with their 
 landlords. The Scotch crofters were neither numerous 
 enough nor, politically, powerful enough to compel 
 attention to their grievances and their claims. The 
 
190 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 precedent would have been considered too dangerous. 
 After the passing of the Irish Land Act, however, it 
 was soon perceived how close was the analogy in fact, 
 and in historical tradition, between the Scotch crofters 
 and the Irish small tenants, and it became impossible 
 to resist the logic of the comparison. 
 
 In 1883 a Eoyal Commission, presided over by Lord 
 Napier and Ettrick, was appointed to inquire into the 
 grievances of the crofters. It reported in 1884. It 
 affirmed, to the full, the complaints of the crofters, 
 of want of security on their holdings, of default 
 of compensation on removal for their improve- 
 ments, of excessive rents, of deprivation of common 
 pastures, and of undue restriction of the area of culti- 
 vated land. It recommended legislation for them on 
 the model of the Irish Act. The General Election of 
 1885 — the first which occurred after the extension of 
 the franchise to the householders in counties — showed 
 that under the secrecy of the ballot, the landlords, in aU 
 the northern counties of Scotland, had entirely lost their 
 poHtical influence. Candidates, pledged to support the 
 cause of the crofters, were returned in all the Highland 
 counties. Meanwhile an agitation of a serious character 
 had arisen among the crofters in several parts of the 
 Western Highlands. Those in the Isle of Skye refused 
 to pay rents without heavy reductions ; those in, the 
 Lewis demanded extension of their holdings, and when 
 refused, made raids on the deer forests in their neigh- 
 bourhood and killed off the deer.. There were all the ele- 
 ments of an agrarian struggle of a dangerous character. ; 
 
AGBABIAN TEXUBE3. 191 
 
 The Government and Parliament were not deterred 
 by these outbreaks of violence from proceeding to con- 
 sider remedial measures ; and in the short Parliament 
 of 1886, while the Home Eule Bill for Ireland was 
 under discussion, time was found for the passing of a 
 Crofters' Act, framed on the general lines of the Irish 
 Act of 1 SSI, extending to the Scotch crofters the benefit 
 of fixity of tenure and judicial rents, and constituting 
 them dual owners with their landlords. The Act passed, 
 with the assent of all parties, without opposition in 
 the House of Commons, and without any denunciations 
 or complaints that it was a measure of confiscation, or 
 even an unjust invasion of the rights of landlords. 
 This is the more remarkable when it is considered 
 that the Act dealt with arrears of excessive rents as well 
 as with future rents. 
 
 The Act differed, in many important respects, from 
 the Irish precedent — in several matters going beyond it 
 in the interests of the crofters, in a few lagging somewhat 
 behind it. A comparison between the two measures is 
 the more interesting, as the later Act will doubtless be 
 quoted as a precedent for the future extension of the 
 other. 
 
 The Crofters' Act* concedes two only out of the three 
 F's to the Scotch tenant — ^namely, " fixity of tenure," 
 and " fair rents," to be fixed by an independent tribunal. 
 It does not confer the right of " free sale." On the con- 
 trary, the crofter is strictly prohibited assigning his hold- 
 ing to any other person. "The crofter,"it provides, "shall 
 
 * 49 and 50 Vict., c. 29. 
 
192 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 not execute any deed purporting to assign his tenancy." 
 On the other hand, he is permitted to bequeath his 
 interest in his holding to one person, being a member 
 of the same family — that is to say, to his wife, or " any 
 person who, failing nearer heirs, would succeed to him 
 in case of intestacy." The landlord, however, is entitled 
 to refuse to accept any such person as a successor to 
 the crofter in the holding, on reasonable grounds, sub- 
 ject to an appeal to the Sheriff's Court. In the absence 
 of any testamentary bequest, the holding descends to 
 the heir-at-law, and where there is more than one heir, as 
 in the case of there being no son, and more than one 
 daughter of the crofter, then to the eldest of such persons. 
 It seems, then, that a new law of succession is established 
 for the crofter's interest, which in other respects is con- 
 sidered by law as personalty. The Aq^ differs from the 
 Irish Act in this, for the tenant's interest in Ireland 
 vests, as personal property, in the executors of the will, 
 or the personal representatives, on his death, and is 
 divisible among the next of kin in the case of in- 
 testacy, but with the condition that the holding itself 
 cannot be divided. Consequently, if no arrangement 
 can be made among the next of kin, the holding must 
 be sold. 
 
 The prohibition against assignment by the Scotch 
 crofter of his interest in his holding, seems to have been 
 adopted in his interest rather than in the curtailment of 
 his rights as against his landlord. It has the effect of 
 preventing the crofter mortgaging his holding. His 
 creditors also cannot take the holding in discharge of his 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 193 
 
 debts. The crofter must obtain the landlord's assent 
 to any assignment ; and this power, it is presumed, will 
 be used by the landlord in the interest of the tenant, 
 rather than adversely to him. It would seem that there 
 is an ajiproach in this arrangement to the homestead 
 law of the United States, under which a certain minimum 
 of land, and of stock and plant, is free from liability for 
 the debts of the owner. The tenure thus created assimi- 
 lates also to the practice of the best- managed crofter estates 
 before the Act. It was never claimed by the crofters 
 that they had the right of selling their crofts, as was 
 the case with the Irish tenants. It was always admitted 
 that the landlord's power was supreme in the selection of 
 a new tenant. On the other hand, the practice was for 
 the croft to descend from father to son, or to such member 
 of his family as the occupier designated by wUl 
 
 The Act very closely defines the class of persons 
 who, occupying land, are entitled to the status and 
 privilege of " crofters." The holdings must be situate 
 in the counties of Argyll, Inverness, Eoss and Cromarty, 
 Sutherland, Caithness, Orkney and Shetland. Their 
 occupiers must be tenants from year to year, residing on 
 the holdings, which must be rented at not more than £30 
 a year, and must be situate in a crofting parish. A 
 crofting parish is defined as one in which there were at 
 the commencement of the Act, or have been within eighty 
 years prior thereto, holdings consisting of arable land, 
 held with a right of pasturage in common with others, 
 and in which there are still tenants of holdings which 
 otherwise comply with the definition of "crofts." It will 
 
 N 
 
194 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 be seen that leaseholders are excluded from the benefits 
 of the Act, just as leaseholders in Ireland were not 
 admitted to the benefit of the Irish Land Act till 1887. 
 Three commissioners were to be appointed under the 
 Act (one of whom was to speak the Graelic language), 
 with power to decide, subject to the approval of the 
 Secretary for Scotland, what parishes legally come within 
 the terms of the Act. The Commissioners are directed to 
 visit the districts, where applications are made by the 
 crofters for judicial rents. The rents thus fixed are to 
 be final in the sense that there is no appeal from the 
 Commissioners ; but the rent is fixed for seven years 
 only, instead of fifteen, as in the case of the Irish Act. 
 Any reduction of rent, made by the Commissioners, is to 
 apply retrospectively to any rents, collected or due, from 
 the date of the application by the crofter, an important 
 difference from the Irish Act, which, however, was 
 amended in this direction by the Act of 1887. The Com- 
 missioners are also empowered to wipe out or reduce 
 any arrears of rent that may be due. This principle, 
 rejected in the Irish Act of 1881, but partially 
 adopted in 1882, after a party conflict which nearly 
 gave rise to a constitutional crisis between the two 
 Houses of Parliament, was admitted on all hands as 
 necessary in the case of the Scotch crofters. " The ques- 
 tion of arrears," said Mr. Robertson, the ablest of the 
 Scotch lawyers on the Conservative side of the House, 
 " is one which has to be faced, and I think it is for the 
 interest of the landlord and the tenant, that some aid 
 should be given by Parliament for the settlement of this 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 195 
 
 question."* And Mr. Arthur Balfour added, " I think 
 it would be impossible to regard this Bill as satisfactory 
 unless it contained some scheme for dealing with 
 arrears." And this, in spite of the fact that he con- 
 sidered the arrears to be due, not to poverty of the 
 crofters, but to political agitation — and " that the wiping 
 out of legal debts might lead to unfortunate demoralisa- 
 tion." But not a voice was raised against the clause. 
 
 Another most important clause, not to be found 
 in the Irish Act, though subsequently adopted, to some 
 extent, in the Land Purchase Act of 1891, so far as the 
 provisions applying to the congested districts were con- 
 cerned, is that enabling the Commissioners, on the 
 application of any five or more crofters, to enlarge 
 either their separate holdings, or the land over which 
 they have the right of pasture. 
 
 " Where any landlord," the Act proceeds to say, 
 " after application, has refused to let such crofters avail- 
 able land on reasonable terms, for enlarging their holdings 
 or pasture, they may apply to the Crofters' Com- 
 mission, setting forth that there is land available for 
 the enlargement of such holdings, which they are 
 willing to take on lease, but which the landlord refuses 
 to sell on reasonable terms ; that is to say, on such 
 terms as are usually obtained for the letting of land of 
 the like quality, and similarly situated, in the same 
 district for other purposes than that of a deer forest or 
 a grouse moor or other sporting purposes." 
 
 The Commission is then empowered to compel the 
 
 * Parlimentary Debates, Yol. 304, p. 809. 
 
 N 2 
 
196 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 landlord to let land on lease, for the enlargement of tlie 
 holdings or of their pasture lands, at a reasonable rent, 
 provided they are satisfied — 
 
 (1) That there is land in the parish available for 
 enlarging the holdings of the crofters, but that the 
 landlord refuses to let the same on reasonable terms. 
 
 (2) That the applicants are willing and able to pay 
 a fair rent for it, and that they are able properly to 
 cultivate the land, so far as it consists of arable land, 
 and suflBciently to stock it, in so far as it consists of 
 pasture land. 
 
 There are several restrictions on these important 
 powers — 
 
 (1) The land so taken must be contiguous or near 
 to the crofts. 
 
 (2) It cannot be taken without the consent of the 
 landlord and of its tenant, if subject already to a lease, 
 not being a lease for the purpose of a deer forest or 
 grouse moor. 
 
 (3) No land can be taken 
 
 {a) which forms part of any garden, park, or 
 plantation. 
 
 {d) which forms any part of any farm, whether 
 subject to lease or not, unless the Crofters' 
 Commission is satisfied that the part so 
 to be taken can be assigned, without material 
 damage to the letting value of the re- 
 mainder. 
 
 (c) if it forms part of an existing farm of less 
 than £100 a year letting value. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 197 
 
 (d) if it is arable or improved pasture in the 
 
 immediate vicinity of a residence or farm- 
 stead, or is land, whicli could not be taken, 
 without substantially impairing the amenity 
 of such residence. 
 
 (e) if it forms part of a deer forest, and if the 
 
 taking of it, for the purpose of the Act, 
 would seriously impair the use of the 
 remainder, as a deer forest, and would act 
 injuriously on the prosperity of the inhabit- 
 ants generally of the- district, in which such 
 deer forest is situate. 
 (4) The addition to be made to any crofter's hold- 
 ing must not bring the annual value of the whole to 
 more than £16 a year. 
 
 Land thus taken and assigned to the crofters is to 
 be subject to the same legal conditions as the crofter's 
 holding. 
 
 Provisions are contained in the Act, giving full 
 compensation to the crofters on renunciation of tenancy, 
 or on removal from their holdings, over and above that 
 provided in the Agricultural Holdings Act, for per- 
 manent improvements, whether buildings or otherwise, 
 provided 
 
 {a) that the improvements are suitable to the 
 
 holding. 
 (d) that they have been erected or made or paid 
 for by the crofter himself, or his predecessor 
 in the same family, 
 (c) That they have not been erected in virtue of 
 
198 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 any specific agreement in writing under wliich 
 the crofter was bound to execute them. 
 
 The Commissioners are further empowered by the 
 Act to settle any questions in dispute among the 
 crofters or between them and their landlords, as to the 
 taking of sea-weed, of peat, or of heather for thatch- 
 ing, and also any disputes as to boundaries. 
 
 From this brief description of this important Act, it 
 will be seen in what respects it differs from the Irish 
 Land Act of 1881. It falls short of that Act, and its 
 amending Act of 1887, so far as the tenants are 
 concerned, by not giving to the crofter the right of 
 selling and assigning his holding ; in not extending to 
 leaseholders ; in being limited to holdings of £30 a 
 year and under. 
 
 On the other hand, it goes beyond the Irish Land 
 Act in the following most important respects : — 
 
 (1) In giving full power to the Commission to 
 reduce or to wipe out arrears of rent. 
 
 (2) In the shorter terms for judicial rents — viz., 
 seven years instead of fifteen. 
 
 (3) In applying the abatements of rent to any 
 rent paid or due after the application to the Com- 
 mission. (This was adopted for Ireland by the Act 
 of 1887.) 
 
 (4) By directing the Commissioners to visit the 
 crofting district personally, and by making their decision 
 final. 
 
 (5) By empowering the Commission to take land 
 compulsorily on lease from adjoining landowners, for the 
 
AOEABIAN TENURES. 199 
 
 purpose of adding to the holdings of crofters, or to 
 their common pasture. 
 
 (6) By empowering the Commission to draw up 
 schedules for regulating the use by crofters of sea-weed, 
 peat, heather, etc., and to determine disputes as to 
 boundaries. 
 
 (7) By empowering the Grovernment to lend money 
 to crofters on personal security, for the purpose of 
 encouraging the coast fisheries. (This, again, has been 
 adopted, in the provisions with regard to Congested 
 Districts, in the Irish Act of 1891.) 
 
 The Eoyal Commission on Crofters had also recom- 
 mended that facilities should be afforded to them to 
 purchase their holdings on the principle of the Bright 
 clauses of the Land Act of ,1870. 
 
 " It may at first sight," they said, " appear strange to 
 recommend the acquisition of small parcels of poor land at a 
 high price by industrious and intelligent men, who would be able 
 to invest their savings or the surplus moduct of their daily toil 
 with far greater advantage in the vacant tracts of America and 
 Australia. Yet habit and local affection bear so great a sway in 
 the actions of mankind, that Highlanders will be found who 
 would rather be proprietors in the mountains of Skye^ or the 
 wastes of Lewis, than on the fertile plains of Manitoba, and for 
 no other purpose would they be more likely to receive assistance. 
 In the mainland of Orkney a living example of small landowners 
 is still extant in the ' Lairds of Harray,^ who practise good hus- 
 bandry, who rarely admit subdivision of the soil among their 
 issue, and who buy and sell their miniature estates at from thirty 
 to forty years^ purchase. The possession of real property ought 
 to be a powerful agent in forming habits of industry and 
 self-respectj and in supplying sources of rational enjoyment. An 
 
200 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 opportunity of embracing this alternative condition o£ life and 
 labour should be offered to the Highland people, and Govern- 
 ment might lend its co-operation with manifest advantage and 
 little risk. The earnings of the fishermen are precarious and 
 intermittent, but they are often considerable. The purchase of 
 holdings might offer a safe investment for money suddenly won 
 and easily spent. The practice of purchasing the dwelling already 
 prevails in the villages of the east coast and in Loch Fyne, and 
 might be extended among the same class in the western High- 
 lands and islands." 
 
 They recommended that the Grovernment should 
 advance, by way of loan, two-thirds of the purchase 
 money, up to twenty-five years' purchase of the rent, 
 where the landlord and crofter should agree to a sale 
 and purchase. 
 
 This recommendation, however, was not carried out 
 in the Crofters' Act. In the course of the discussions, 
 Mr. Arthur Balfour proposed an amendment for giving 
 effect to a scheme of purchase, not so much in the interest 
 of the tenants, as in that of the landlords. He pro- 
 posed that when the Commissioners should reduce the 
 rents of any croft, the landlord might claim to have his 
 interest bought, at not more than twenty-five years' 
 purchase of the rent. 
 
 He said, " The Amendment will give to every land- 
 lord the power to say — 'If you forbid me to use my land 
 in the manner in which it has hitherto been used — if 
 you prevent my being full owner of my property — I do 
 not object to it, but take the ownership yourself. . . . 
 You will avoid the system of joint ownership, which 
 you have tried in Ireland, and found to fail, which you 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 201 
 
 are about to try in the north of Scotland, where you 
 will also find it to fail. ... If you object to 
 landlordism, in the sense of large proprietors, by all 
 means, after due consideration, substitute for it small 
 proprietors, but do not attempt to substitute this 
 absurd scheme of small properties held in joint 
 ownership."* 
 
 It was answered by the Minister in charge of the 
 Bill that the crofter had neither the desire, the will, 
 nor the ability to become the owner of his holding. 
 The proposal was rejected by a majority of 215 to 
 123. 
 
 Looking back, with the experience of both Irish 
 and Scotch Acts, it cannot be denied that the latter was 
 far more complete, and in every respect better suited 
 to the small holdings, than was the Irish Act of 1881. 
 It had the advantage of being framed after full consulta- 
 tion and concert with the representatives of those for 
 whom it was intended, and with the knowledge of the 
 shortcomings of the Irish Act. It was passed also 
 without that vehement party opposition, whirch has 
 generally been the experience of remedial legislation 
 for Ireland. It embodied many of the amendments 
 which had been asked for by the Iri^ members in 1881, 
 but which were then refused. If a similar measure had 
 been applied to holdings of under £30 a year rental in 
 Ireland, leaving the large holdings to the other pro- 
 visions of the Act of 1881, it would have gone a 
 long way to solve completely the agrarian difficulty, 
 
 Hansard, Vol. 304, p. 942. 
 
202 AGBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 and "would have saved Ireland from much subsequent 
 agitation and suffering. 
 
 Many attempts were made, in the course of the 
 passing of the Scotch measure, to extend its provisions. 
 An amendment to include crofts let on leases was re- 
 jected by a narrow majority. Another proposal, to 
 extend the operation of the Act to other counties, such 
 as Aberdeenshire and Perthshire, was also rejected by a 
 yet smaller majority. The limitations imposed on the 
 discretion of the Commissioners, in respect of the addi- 
 tions to the crofters' holdings and common pastures, and 
 especially that relating to deer forests, were also severely 
 criticised. That referring to deer forests was proposed 
 by Mr. Arthur Balfour, who expressed the confident 
 opinion that deer forests should be maintained in the 
 interest of crofters, as they afforded so much casual em- 
 ployment for them as gillies and gamekeepers. 
 
 The Eoyal Commission on Crofters had not spoken 
 in the same confident tone on the subject of deer 
 forests. It pointed out that, as compared with sheep 
 farms, they resulted in a greater outlay of capital ex- 
 penditure and in the employment of more labour. It 
 showed that crofters had rarely — at least, in recent times 
 — been removed to make, or add to, deer forests ; that 
 comparatively little of the land so occupied could 
 now be profitably cultivated or pastured by small 
 tenants; and that, contrary to what is the general 
 belief, deer forests, in a far greater degree than sheep 
 farms, afford employment to the various classes of 
 labourers. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 203 
 
 But they added that— ♦ 
 
 " The formation of deer forests is calculated to perpetuate 
 in an altered form an evil, which has often been submitted 
 to our attention — the absence of a graduated local repre- 
 sentation of the various orders of society. Under the system 
 of pastoral farming, on a larger scale, this defect is deeply 
 felt. The labouring class is represented by the crofter, the 
 cottar, and the shepherd ; the large farmer is the absent 
 tenant of an absent landlord. The minister, the doctor, the 
 schoolmaster, and the factor, thinly scattered at great intervals 
 over the forsaken country, are the only representatives of culture, 
 of counsel, and of power. This forlorn feature in the social 
 aspect of some remoter parts of the Highlands is changed, but 
 not much mitigated, by the transfer of the farm to forest. For 
 a brief space in the year the sporting tenant appears at the 
 lodge, with company, expenditure, and benefaction in his train ; 
 but the area consolidated in a single hand is greater still ; the 
 gulf between the labouring people and the leaders of social life 
 is as wide as ever, the leaders are less concerned in local interests, 
 and intermediate social positions are blotted out. . . 
 
 " It is our opinion that provisions should be framed, under which 
 the crofting class would be protected against any diminution for 
 the purpose of afforestment of arable or pasture area now in 
 their possession, and by which the areas, which might hereafter 
 form the most appropriate scene for expanding cultivation and 
 small holdings, should be preserved from curtailment. . . . 
 
 " The appropriation of land to the purposes of deer forest 
 might be prohibited below a prescribed contour-line of elevation, 
 so drawn as to mark in a general but effective way the limit of 
 profitable root and cereal cultivation, of artificial pasture, and of 
 pasture adapted for wintering live stock — a line which on the 
 east side of Scotland, in a high latitude, might approximately 
 be fixed at an altitude of 1,000 feet above the sea-level ; and on 
 the western seaboard at a level lower than 1,000 feet, making 
 allowance locally for the convenience of the march." 
 
204 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 With respect to the destruction of the crofters' 
 crops by deer, the Commissioners say : — 
 
 " The complaint that arable ground possessed by crofters, 
 when in the vicinity of a forest, is liable to be ravaged by deer, 
 is one which has been brought several times under our notice. 
 In some cases the proprietor has, when appealed to by the 
 crofters, shown readiness to erect a fence to protect their crops 
 from depredation, or to afford aid in warding off the deer ; but 
 in others the small tenant has been left without protection and 
 without assistance, in which case the cultivator is exposed to a 
 double prejudice — substantial injury and the hardship of night 
 watching. Where the forest from which the deer proceed is 
 adjacent to the crofter, and belongs to the proprietor of the 
 crofter's holding, the remedy, in our opinion, is clear and simple. 
 The proprietor should be bound to erect a sufficient deer-fence 
 round the arable land of the township, or the individual crofter's 
 holding, in so far as it is requisite for the complete protection of 
 the party injured. This fence should be maintained by the 
 proprietor in regard to skilled labour, transport, and purchased 
 materials, the crofters being held to afford unskilled labour on 
 the ground. The case becomes much more complex and difficult to 
 determine when the deer issue, not from a forest belonging to 
 the proprietor of the holding injured, or not only from such a 
 forest, but from forests more or less remote — in fact, from the 
 whole neighbouring country. . . . Under such circumstances 
 the only practical solution might be to grant an inalienable 
 right to the crofter to kill the deer on his arable land when 
 found injuring his crop; and this alternative would be most 
 consistent with the principles embodied in the Ground Game 
 Act of 1880.'' 
 
 'No legislation has been adopted with regard to either 
 of these two proposals of the Crofters' Commission. At 
 the time of their Eeport, in 1884, the deer forests of 
 Scotland are said by them to have extended over about 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 205 
 
 2,000,000 acres. Since that year there have been added 
 to the area about 500,000 acres. 
 
 RESULTS OF THE CROFTERS' ACT. 
 
 In pursuance of the Crofters' Act of 1886, a Com- 
 mission was appointed, consisting of a Commissioner 
 and two Sub-commissioners, for the purpose of carrying 
 out the directions of the Act ; and during the last five 
 years these Commissioners have been engaged in visit- 
 ing the crofter districts in the north and west of Scot- 
 land and in the islands, in fixing rents, wiping out and 
 reducing arrears, in hearing and determining claims for 
 enlargement of holdings or of common pastures, and in 
 settling disputes of boundaiies and successions under 
 the Crofters' Act. 
 
 During this period the Commissioners have determined 
 fair rents in 11,679 cases. The holdings consisted of 
 66,500 acres of arable land, 69,900 acres of " outrun," 
 and 850,400 acres of common pasture, giving an average 
 of ■ a little over five acres of arable land, five and a half 
 of outrun, and seventy acres of common pasture. The 
 old rent was £59,000, or about £5 per holding. The 
 Commissioners have reduced these rents to £41,866, or 
 about twenty-eight per cent. Arrears were owing in 
 respect of these holdings, amounting to £149,382 — 
 equal to nearly three years' rent. The Commissioners 
 have cancelled £100,675 of these arrears — sixt3^-seven 
 per cent., or nearly two of the three years' arrears — and 
 have required payment of £48,600, a little over one 
 year's rent at the reduced rate. This is the average of 
 
206 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 the whole ; but in many cases the reduction both of 
 rent and arrears has been far greater. There remained 
 at the end of 1891 but 3,155 cases to be dealt with. 
 The work, therefore, of the Commissioners, so far as the 
 determination of rents is concerned, is approaching to a 
 completion. 
 
 During the same time, there have been 187 applica- 
 tions from 2,084 crofters for enlargement of their 
 holdings or their common pasture. Of these, only 33 
 cases from 527 crofters have been sanctioned ; 79 cases 
 from 867 crofters have been dismissed ; and 74 cases 
 from 688 crofters remained to be dealt with, in 1891. 
 It does not appear that in any case has there been an 
 enlargement of a holding. The enlargements have been 
 of the common pastures. 
 
 It is evident, from the proceedings of the Commis- 
 sion, that the difficulties in the way of enlargement of 
 holdings or of common pastures are very great. The 
 conditions imposed by the Act of 1886, and on which 
 the Commissioners must be satisfied, before they sanction 
 the enlargement, and the taking of land for the purpose 
 from the landlord of the crofters, are so numerous and 
 minute, that very few cases can be expected to run the 
 gauntlet. Among the chief difficulties are that the land, 
 required by the crofters, is often the subject of a lease 
 to some grazing tenant, effected before the passing of the 
 Act, or that it forms part of a farm of which the rent is 
 under £100 a year, or that it cannot be taken from a con- 
 tiguous farm or forest without interfering with the value 
 of the residue. It appears that only in two cases have 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 207 
 
 tlie Commissioners been able to grant enlargement out of 
 deer forests. Assuming that all tbe other conditions 
 are complied with, and that the landlords are unable 
 to avail themselves of any of the numerous points which 
 are open to them, the Commissioners have to satisfy 
 themselves that the applicants are able to pay a fair 
 rent for the land, that they will properly cultivate it as 
 arable or pasture land, and if pasture land, that they 
 will be able properly to stock it. In a special report 
 explaining their reasons for having been able in so few 
 cases to enlarge the crofters' holdings, the Commis- 
 sioners say : " We are of opinion that poverty, such as 
 was largely indicated by the circumstance that the 
 crofters had fallen heavily into arrears of rent, has 
 materially operated to prevent applications for enlarge- 
 ment. This of itself would make it a serious matter 
 for intending applicants to satisfy the Commissioners 
 that they are willing and able to pay a fair rent for the 
 land asked for, and are able properly to cultivate the 
 land, if arable, and properly to stock the same, if pasture. 
 Even assuming arrears to be due to excessive rents, and 
 that a fair rent is now fixed, it is manifest that compliance 
 with the above requirements must be attended with 
 much diflBculty." * 
 
 It is evident that the whole subject of the enlarge- 
 ment of the crofters' holdings, and of their common 
 pastures, will require a careful reconsideration by the 
 Legislature. It is now proved beyond question that 
 the crofters were terribly over-rented for years before 
 
 * Report of the Crofters' Commission, 1888. 
 
208 AGBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 the Act of 1886; that their holdings were allowed 
 to be comminuted to a point insufficient for their 
 existence ; that much of the land was deteriorated 
 by over-cropping ; that the poverty, into which the 
 tenants had fallen, was the result of this over-renting, 
 and the comminution of their pastures in the interest 
 of adjoining sheep farms and deer forests. It seems 
 cruel mockery to deny them that increase of their 
 holdings and pasture (which alone can afford them a 
 living), on account of their poverty, when that poverty 
 is the result of bad treatment by their landlords in 
 past times. 
 
 As an illustration of the cases which arise upon 
 the claims of crofters for the enlargement of their 
 common pasture out of adjoining deer forests, the 
 following passage may be cited from the last report 
 of the Commissioners : — 
 
 "The crofters of the townships of Elphin and Knockan, 
 Assynt, asked for enlargement of their holdings by taking land 
 from the Forest of Glen Canisp, let to Earl Brownlow. The 
 proprietor, the Duke of Sutherland, opposed the application on 
 the ground that the assignation of the land would seriously 
 impair the use of the remainder as a deer forest. On hearing 
 the case and on inspection, it was found that the land applied 
 for extended to a distance of fully five miles along the north 
 shore of Loch Veyatie, was from half a mile to one mile wide, 
 and that there was a narrow strip of water about half a mile in 
 length connecting Loch Veyatie with Fionn Loch, which strip 
 crossed the principal pass taken by deer when going to or coming 
 from the adjoining deer forest of Coulmore. Were the appli- 
 cation granted, this pass would be disturbed or closed up against 
 deer, and, thereby, the use of the remainder as a deer forest 
 
AOEAUIAN TENURES. 209 
 
 seriously impaired. The application, therefore, as made, could 
 not be conceded, having regard to the provisions of Section 13 
 (3) (e) of the Act. On the other hand, it was plain that the 
 applicants had a reasonable claim for enlargement of holdings, 
 as their common pasture ranges from 500 to 1,600 feet above 
 the level of the sea, and is liable to be covered with snow in 
 winter for considerable periods of time. They need grazing land 
 at a lower altitude. It ■n;as ascertained that the claim might be 
 met by taking from the forest 880 acres in another part. This land, 
 however, cannot be assigned unless the applicants undertake the 
 erection of fully one mile of such fencing as will suffice to keep 
 stock out of the forest. An order has meanwhile been made 
 whereby the applicants are allowed to lodge a minute stating 
 whether they will undertake to erect the necessary fence. The 
 case is one of importance and difficulty." * 
 
 The reports of the Crofter Commissioners are full of 
 interest as to the condition of the crofters, and as to 
 the various disputes and complaints, which have come, 
 before them. It appears that the common pastures are 
 held by, the crofters under various systems — sometimes 
 on the Club Farm system, where the tenants interested 
 club together, and graze the pasture with sheep belong- 
 ing to them all in common; elsewhere, the pastures 
 are regulated, and every crofter is limited to turning 
 out a certain number of cattle or sheep ; in other cases, 
 there is no regulation, and each commoner turns out as 
 many head as he can. In this matter, the following 
 remarks of the Commissioners are of interest : — 
 
 " Most of the common pastures on Lord Macdonald's estate 
 in Skye, which we examined, are grazed on the Club Farm 
 system — that is to say, the crofters interested in a hill pasture 
 
 * Report of the Crofters' Commission for 1891, p. 20. 
 
 
210 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 have a common sheep stoet, under the management of one or 
 more individuals specially charged therewith, and each crofter is 
 from time to time paid his proportion of prices or profits. This, 
 in our opinion, is a highly desirable system, and, if honestly 
 carried out, operates beneficially for all. On the other hand, in 
 those parts of Sutherland and the western islands visited, each 
 crofter, in the absence of any uniform management, grazes as 
 many sheep as he pleases on the common pasture. The inevitable 
 consequence of this is that the strong take advantage of the 
 weak, and the better-to-do of the poorer, tenants. Widows in 
 particular, and old men whose families have grown up and left 
 them, suffer greatly. It was not an uncommon thing for us to 
 find one crofter with thirty or forty sheep, and his neighbour 
 with only six or seven, though both had the same rights of 
 pasture. Other undesirable results of this mode of grazing are, 
 that no proper or uniform system of breeding is maintained, 
 that the sheep are subject to constant molestation, every crofter 
 being obliged to look after his own, and that no due regard is 
 paid to the ' carry on the hill,' many of the crofters interested 
 ■ placing more sheep on the ground than it will support. Hence 
 the death-rate among sheep, where such defective arrangements 
 exist, is much greater than where the Club Farm system has 
 been adopted.'" 
 
 In comparing the general results of the Crofters' Act 
 with, the Irish Land Acts of 1881 and 1887, the Arrears 
 Act, and the congested districts part of the Land Pur- 
 chase Act of 1891, it will be seen what a striking 
 analogy there is between the results of the two methods. 
 The average reduction of rents of the crofters in Scotland 
 amounted to twenty-eight per cent. ; that in Ireland, 
 for all tenants, to twenty-five per cent. If the smaller 
 tenants were separated from the larger, it is probable 
 that the reduction in Ireland would more nearly approach 
 
AGEABIAN TENURES. 211 
 
 that in Scotland. In Scotland, the average of arrears 
 was three years' rent, and two years' rent was wiped out 
 by the Commission. In Ireland, it has been shown that 
 the arrears in respect of the smaller tenants, dealt with 
 by the Arrears Act of 1882, amounted on the average 
 to three years' rent. Of this, one year's arrears were 
 wiped out, those of another year were paid to the landlords 
 out of the Church Surplus Fund, and one year's rent only 
 was required from the tenants. Yet this measure, so 
 favourable to the landlords, was denounced as robbery 
 and spoliation, and as a most indefensible interference 
 with just debts, while the far more stringent Act for 
 Scotland was passed with universal consent, and with- 
 out even the suggestion of injustice or wrong. 
 
 The powers of the Congested Districts Board for 
 Ireland closely resemble those of the Crofters' Com- 
 mission for the enlargement of holdings and of common 
 pasture, but, so far, have resulted in nothing ; while 
 the Crofters' Commission has found it most difl&cult 
 to put in force this salutary provision. On the other 
 hand, the Irish Board has very wide powers for improv- 
 ing the condition of the people, and is endowed with 
 a considerable income for the purpose ; while the 
 Crofters' Commission is without such powers. It is 
 probable that a comparison between the two systems 
 will lead to improvement and extension of both. 
 
 In Scotland there is already a strong movement in 
 favour of an amendment and extension of the Crofters' 
 Act. It is contended that leaseholders should be in- 
 cluded in its benefit. It is alleged that many landlords 
 o 2 
 
212 AOBABIAN TUNUBE8. 
 
 in Scotland, after the passing of the Irish Land Act of 
 1881, fearing the extension of it to their own country, 
 induced their crofter tenants to take leases, with the 
 express object of excluding them from the operation of 
 any legislation framed on the model of the Irish Act. 
 If this be the case, and in view of the extension of 
 the Irish Act to leaseholders in 1887, it will be 
 difficult to refuse the same extension in Scotland. 
 It is also claimed that the Crofters' Act should be 
 extended to other counties in Scotland. If there be any 
 considerable number of persons, in the same position 
 as the crofters, in other counties, it will be unreasonable 
 to refuse them the same privileges. Lastly, it is main- 
 tained that the provisions of the Act for enlarging 
 the holdings and the common pasture of the crofters, 
 should be made operative and workable.* 
 
 It is also to be observed that the great considera- 
 tion shown by the Legislature for the remaining crofters 
 has raised expectations and hopes in many adjoining 
 districts, where the crofters have, within modern times, 
 been improved out of existence by the consolidation of 
 their holdings into large farms. 
 
 In the Lowlands of Caithness, Elgin, Morayshire, 
 and other districts adjoining the Highlands, which are 
 now laid out in very large farms, it appears that the 
 land was originally reclaimed from the waste and moor 
 by persons in the position of crofters. The process of the 
 
 * A Royal Commission has quite recently been appointed to report 
 upon the deer forests of Scotland, and whether any portions of them are 
 available for the extension of the common pastures of the crofters. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 213 
 
 clearance of these people, and the consolidation of their 
 holdings into large farms, has taken place within the 
 present century. The crofters and their families were 
 deprived of their holdings without any compensation. 
 Many of them emigrated. Others became farm labourers 
 on the larger farms. It cannot be said that their condi- 
 tion has been improved by the change. In the Low- 
 lands of Caithness the process of consolidation has been 
 carried to its furthest point. The farms are very large. 
 They are cultivated by a small body of what are 
 termed " pluralist farmers," many of whom hold three 
 or four, or even more, large farms of over 400 acres each. 
 By letting them in this way the owners are saved the 
 expense of erecting a number of separate farm-houses. 
 The labourers are hired by the year. The married men 
 live in cottages attached to the farms, mostly without 
 gardens. The unmarried men herd together in bothies, 
 such as have been already referred to. The landowners 
 are, for the most part, in embarrassed circumstances, are 
 nonresident, and are only too glad to be relieved of the 
 expense of building farm-houses. The agrarian con- 
 dition of such a district, where the system of large farms 
 exclusively prevails, where the landowners and large 
 farmers are mostly non-resident, where the labourers 
 have no attachment to the soil, and where there are 
 wholly wanting the steps in the ladder by which they 
 can rise in the social scale, cannot be said to be satis- 
 factory or sound. The net produce of the land may be 
 large ; but if it finds its way into the pockets of non- 
 resident farmers, and Edinburgh factors and mortgagees, 
 
214 AGBABIAN' TENURES. 
 
 it does little to improve the condition of the people of 
 the district. 
 
 It cannot be matter for surprise that the labourers, 
 in such a district, and under such conditions, are dis- 
 satisfied, and are demanding agrarian reform of a very 
 radical character. They have the recollection of their 
 parents or ancestors, in no remote times, having been 
 small farmers with an interest in the soil, and with an 
 intense love for their homes and holdings. They have 
 the memories of the great wrong inflicted on them by 
 the clearances, and consolidations of holdings, when these 
 people were deprived of their homes, and were reduced to 
 the condition of labourers. This feeling has been aggra- 
 vated by the passing of the Crofters' Act ; for the Act 
 was a practical ex post facto recognition that the crofters 
 had an interest in the soil and in their homes, diffeipent 
 from that of other farm tenants, and that they should 
 not have been evicted at the mere will and caprice of 
 the landlord. If such a measure had been passed into 
 law fifty or eighty years earlier, it would have pre- 
 vented the clearances of large bodies of crofters, the 
 consolidation of their holdings into the large farms of the 
 present time, and the conversion of crofters into labourers. 
 
 These traditions, among the labouring population, of 
 past wrongs, and the knowledge that, in the absence of 
 small holdings, they are now practically debarred from 
 hope of rising from their position to that of small farmers, 
 account, in a large measure, for the very radical nature 
 of the representation in Parliament of the counties 
 referred to. In what direction and to what extent it 
 
AGBABIAN TENUBB8. 215 
 
 will be possible to undo tbe past, and to re-create small 
 holdings, and to bring the land within reach of the 
 labouring people, is a problem which has to be con- 
 sidered and dealt with. The process of breaking up 
 the larger farms into small ones must be a costly one, 
 involving considerable outlay on farm buildings, and 
 other expenses. The landlords, as a rule, are without 
 the means to undertake it. It is difficult to believe that 
 the county authorities, under the Small Holdings Act 
 of 1892, will effect much, even if they attempt it. 
 The probable outcome of this Act, however, will be con- 
 sidered later. 
 
 In the south of Scotland the land question does not 
 appear to be so ripe. Whatever may have been the 
 origin of the present agrarian status there, the system 
 of large farms, and the complete separation of the three 
 classes of landlords, tenants, and farmers, have existed 
 so long, that there is no recollection of a previous con- 
 dition. The English system is seen there to its best ad- 
 vantage, so far as the cultivation of the soil is concerned. 
 The farmers are protected in their improvements, and 
 in their outlay of capital, by the prevalence of leases of 
 nineteen years. The cultivation is of a very high order. 
 The labourers are well paid, though their condition leaves 
 much to be desired. The good relations between the 
 landlords and their tenants are shown by the fact that 
 they have passed through the ordeal of the very severe 
 agricultural depression, of the last twelve years, without 
 a crisis. In spite of the fact that long leases prevail, 
 
216 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 entered into at times when prices were high, rents 
 have been very largely reduced, and the difficulties 
 have been surmounted without the intervention of 
 the legislature. 
 
 In most other respects the agrarian condition of 
 Scotland resembles that of England. The Agricultural 
 Holdings Act of 1875, the Ground Game Act of 1880, the 
 Small Agricultural Holdings Act of 1892, apply to 
 Scotland equally as to England. The Allotments Acts 
 do not apply. Lord Cairns' great Act of 1882 does 
 not apply; but there is greater power of disentail- 
 ing estates, and of getting rid of family settle- 
 ments, under the Scotch law ; and when this is done, 
 the land may be sold, and the proceeds may be divided 
 between the persons interested, in a manner which frees, 
 the funds from the trusts and settlements. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE AGRARIAN CONDITION OF THE CHANNEL 
 ISLANDS AND THE ISLE OF MAN. 
 
 The description, of the agrarian condition of the 
 British Isles will not be complete without a short refer- 
 ence to that of the small islands of the group, which 
 differ so essentially from their larger neighbours in 
 respect of the ownership and tenancy of land — namely, 
 the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. 
 
 In the Channel Islands landed property is distri- 
 buted among a very great number of small owners, a 
 large proportion of whom cultivate the land themselves 
 in small holdings. In Jersey, with an area of culti- 
 vated land of not more than 20,000 acres, there are 
 2,500 owners, giving an average of eight acres each. A 
 large percentage of the land is cultivated by its owners. 
 In Gruernsey, with a smaller area of cultivated land, there 
 are relatively a greater number of owners, and sixty per 
 cent, of the land is cultivated by them. These small culti- 
 vating owners are scarcely of the class we should call 
 peasant proprietors, though their acreage is small ; they 
 are rather of the class of small yeomen farmers. Their 
 land is of great value in proportion to its area. The 
 
218 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 cultivation is of a very high order. It involves a very 
 great expenditure in manure. In Guernsey, almost eyery 
 owner has his glass houses, where he grows grapes and 
 tomatoes. In Jersey also there are considerable areas 
 of land covered by glass. The main product, however, 
 of Jersey is that of early potatoes for the London 
 market. Four thousand acres are devoted to this, at 
 a cost of cultivation alone of £40 per acre. The pro- 
 duce is said to be worth £300,000 in good years. Land 
 suitable for this crop sells at £200 the acre. 
 
 The industry of the cultivators is most remarkable. 
 There are everywhere unmistakable signs of pro- 
 sperity, of comfort, and of the saving habits of the 
 population. The small owners are not above working 
 themselves on the land, and in their glass houses, em- 
 ploying sometimes additional labourers. There are few 
 cottages, in the ordinary sense of the term, such as 
 would remind us of rural England. There are very 
 numerous small farm-houses scattered over the island, 
 affording evidence of comfortable circumstances. The 
 class of yeomen farmers form a body of intelligent and 
 independent men, proud of their 'status, devotedly 
 attached to their island institutions, and thoroughly 
 loyal to the Crown of Grreat Britain. 
 
 Of the extraordinary amount of the produce of the 
 island, of the high cultivation of the land, of the general 
 industry, prosperity, and content of the population, of the 
 wide diffusion of landed and of personal property among 
 them, of the saving habits and thrift of the people, 
 there cannot be the smallest doubt. The only question 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 219 
 
 is, whetlier this is due to the favourable soil and climate 
 of the islands, to the exemption of the inhabitants from 
 Imperial taxation, or to their laws and institutions, which 
 have favoured the distribution of land, and have opposed 
 obstacles to its aggregation in few hands. 
 
 That a sunny climate and the natural capacity of 
 the soil may have something to account for in these 
 conspicuous results may well be. It appears, however, 
 that many parts of the south of England are nearly 
 as well favoured in this respect, without exhibiting these 
 results. The best authorities of the island, and tha 
 general opinion of the people themselves, attribute 
 their condition to the fact that they have enjoyed 
 Home Eule, and that they have never been sub- 
 jected to the English land laws relating to the in- 
 heritance, settlement, and transfer of land, with their 
 inevitable tendency to the accumulation of land in few 
 hands. 
 
 The islands have enjoyed from time immemorial the 
 old customary law of ISTormandy with respect to the 
 ownership and descent of land. They escaped almost 
 wholly from the operation of the feudal law, with its 
 principle of primogeniture and its facilities of entail- — 
 laws which, in France, under the old regime, were applied 
 only to the property of the nobility. The nobles of the 
 Channel Islands fled from them when the separation from 
 Erance took place in Norman times. Their manors 
 were confiscated by King John. There remained only 
 the common people and their customary laws. These 
 laws differed little from the customary laws of France, 
 
220 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 which were with some modifications made universal 
 by the Code Napoleon. 
 
 The laws of Jersey aim at the subdivision of land. 
 On the death of the owner of land, his property must be 
 divided among his children. The eldest son is allowed 
 to have a certain small advantage over other children ; 
 he inherits the principal house and two acres of land. 
 After subtracting this, the residue is divided in the- 
 proportion of three-fifths equally among the sons, in- 
 cluding the eldest, and two-fifths equally among the- 
 daughters, but with the further provision that a- 
 daughter's share is not to exceed a son's share. The 
 widow receives the income of one-third for her life, and 
 her right of dower to landed property belonging to her 
 husband at the time of marriage is indefeasible. There 
 is no right of testamentary devise of any landed pro- 
 perty if there be children, and, in the absence of children,, 
 only of land which may have been acquired by the testa- 
 tor daring his lifetime. In respect of personal property, 
 the testator may dispose by will of one-third only if 
 there be children, and of one-half if there be a widow 
 but no children. Entails are strictly prohibited ; and the 
 law which, in 1850, authorised within the very narrow^ 
 limits above described, devises of landed property, pro- 
 hibited the creation of successive estates for life. 
 
 The people of the island have resisted with the greatest- 
 obstinacy any attempt to introduce the English system 
 of land laws. They are devotedly attached to their own 
 institutions and laws. They attribute to them the fact 
 that property is so widely distributed, and assign thenx 
 
AGRABIAN TENURES. 221 
 
 as the cause of the universal thrift, industry, and saving 
 habits of the population, which have led to such re- 
 markable results in the aggregate wealth and prosperity 
 of the islands. 
 
 In Falle's " Histoiy of Jersey," edited by the Eev. 
 Edward Darrell, which gives the best account of the 
 special laws and customs of the island, the following 
 passage occurs, representing the prevalent views in 
 Jersey both of the jurists and of the people : — 
 
 " If the descent o£ property had been regulated here as in 
 England, the island would long ago have become the property 
 of a few powerful families^ which would have left no inter- 
 mediate class between the large landlord and the rack-rented 
 dependent. It is to the land laws that we owe the substantial 
 Jersey freeholders, who are at once the boast and the protection of 
 the country. . . . Under this system the country has flourished. 
 Perhaps no population anywhere possesses collectively a greater 
 aggregate of wealth. At the same time, there is scarcely any 
 other place, where a population of equal numbers could show so 
 few of very splendid fortunes. The system corrects itself. 
 When the shares are small, the younger children do not think of 
 farming themselves, but sell them to the elder brother for money or 
 ' rents,' and go into business. It is, therefore, so far from being 
 correct that estates are reduced almost to nothing, that very few 
 indeed could be found which are materially reduced by partitions, 
 and none whose relative agricultural produce is affected by 
 them." 
 
 This was written in 1837, before the island had, by 
 means of steam communication, obtained an easy market 
 in London for its products of early vegetables and 
 fruit, to which it is customary to attribute its pre- 
 sent wealth. It represents, not less at the present time 
 
222 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 than then, the almost universal opinion of the best- 
 informed people in the island as to the cause of its 
 prosperity. 
 
 Th^ere' is an interesting provision in the island law, 
 which serves in lieu of a system of mortgages, and which 
 aids in the distribution of property on the death of the 
 owner, and the maintenance of small ownerships. The 
 owner of land may burthen his property with a per- 
 manent annual payment up to three-fourths of its value. 
 These charges are called rentes. They are subdivisible. 
 On non-payment of these charges, or any part of them, the 
 holder may obtain a decree for the sale of the land, but 
 so long as they are paid the principal sum cannot be 
 called in. Neither can the owner of the property pay 
 them off directly against the wish of the holder, but he 
 may discharge his property of them by substituting 
 other rentes on other property — which he may purchase 
 — and the holder is bound to take such substituted securi- 
 ties provided they are of the same value and security. 
 These rentes are treated as landed property. They have 
 the advantage that they offer the means of investing 
 small sums on the security of landed property, without 
 the inconvenience of being liable to be paid off like 
 mortgages. The debtor, on the other hand, instead of 
 being obliged to wait, until he has accumulated a sum 
 sufficient to pay off his mortgage debt, may get rid of 
 the debt on his property by buying and assigning to 
 his creditor small amounts of rentes, as low as £8 at a 
 time, and cancelling the charge on his property by that 
 amount. The Jersey freeholder who buys subject to such 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 223 
 
 charges need only advance one-fourtli of tlie purchase 
 money, and he is independent of the rent-holder so long 
 as he pays the interest due. By law, the purchaser of 
 land must pay down one-fourth of the purchase money 
 in cash, but he may leave the remainder as a charge on 
 the property in rentes. This greatly facilitates the dis- 
 persion of land by extending the sphere of competition, 
 and enabling persons to buy, who would not do so under 
 a different system. 
 
 Most of the freeholders in Jersey are more or less 
 encumbered with such rent charges ; but if the owner is 
 industrious he pays them annually, and gradually 
 reduces their amount. There are some disadvantages 
 connected with the system : the chief is, that the rentes 
 may be split into jminute fractions, and the expense of 
 collection becomes heavy. 
 
 It will be seen that the whole system aims at the 
 subdivision and dispersal of property, and the result 
 shows that the object has been achieved. There are 
 probably few communities in the world where property 
 is more widely distributed, and where there is so little 
 poverty. In a single parish of Jersey — that of St. 
 Peter's, a purely rural district of 3,030 acres — there was 
 ten years ago a population of 2,150, or 530 families, and 
 of these 404 were registered as owners of land or rentes. 
 The rateable value of the parish was £13,000. It may be 
 that the light taxation of the islands contributes to this 
 favourable result, but from every point of view their 
 social and economic condition is weU worthy of careful 
 consideration. 
 
224 -AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 ISLE OF MAN. 
 
 The Isle of Man is anotlier exception to the general 
 condition of the United Kingdom as regards the owner- 
 ship of land. It contains a very numerous proprietary. 
 Its area comprises about 80,000 acres of cultivated land, 
 mostly small fai-ms of from 20 to 100 acres in extent. 
 There are very few large landowners. The smaller 
 farms are in a large proportion cultivated by their 
 owners. Thirty per cent, of the total acreage is there 
 owned by the cultivators. There is a numerous class of 
 yeomen farmers, whose families have owned their land 
 for long periods, and even for centuries. 
 
 It appears that the occupiers of the land in oldeu 
 times held as customary tenants under the feudal lord 
 or chief of the island. From having been merely 
 tenants at will, they had by degrees acquired fixity of 
 tenure, with the right of renewal to themselves and 
 their heirs, on payment of customary fines of small 
 amount ; but they had not obtained the right to sell 
 their land without the permission of the lord. Save 
 in this respect their position was much the same as 
 that of the tenants in Ireland, for the tenants had 
 effected all the improvements on their holdings, and 
 the lord had never contributed anything for the build- 
 ings, drainage, or other improvements. About the 
 middle of the seventeenth century an attempt was made 
 by the then lord of the island — the Earl of Derby — 
 to treat these customary occupiers as tenants in the 
 English sense of the term, and to assert the right of 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 225 
 
 full ownership in the land. He forced the tenants to 
 accept leases of 21 years, at the end of which, their 
 legal rights would cease, and he would have the right 
 to resume possession, or to impose rack rents on them, 
 and practically to appropriate their improvements. 
 
 This gave rise to great discontent and agitation. 
 After long disputes on the subject, a settlement was 
 arrived at in 1703 between the occupiers of the land and 
 their lord ; this was confirmed by the local legislature, 
 and the reigning earl gave his consent to it as lord of 
 the island. It was re-affirmed by a later Act in 1777. 
 The preamble to this Act is as follows : — 
 
 " The ancient feudatory tenures of this Isle between the 
 Lord and his tenants having in the year 1643 by undue means 
 been changed into leasehold estates, the regular course of descent 
 which before had flowed in an easy uninterrupted stream was 
 thereby clogged with difficulties not to be borne ; the tenants 
 grew dissatisfied, and much litigation ensued which tended to 
 dissolve all harmony and subordination between them and their 
 chief, so essential to their mutual interest and happiness ; for the 
 remedy whereof the Act of Tynwald called the Act of Settle- 
 ment was passed in 1703. This Act, which has ever been re- 
 garded as the Magna Charta of the Island, provided as follows : 
 — ' Whereas several disputes and differences have arisen and been 
 contested between the Lords of the Isle and their tenants touch- 
 ing their estates, tenures, fines, rents, suits or services, to the 
 great prejudice of the Lords and the impoverishment of the 
 tenants and people thereof, who by that means have been dis- 
 couraged from making such improvements as their estates were 
 and are capable of ; for the absolute and perpetual ascertaining 
 whereof, and the avoiding all ambiguities, doubts, and questions, 
 proposals were made unto the said James Earl of Derby by 
 3 persons named under an instrument of the 24 Keyes, who are 
 
 P 
 
226 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 empowered to treat on behalf of all and every the tenants within 
 the said Isle, in the manner following : 
 
 "' That in case his Lordship would be pleased to declare and eon- 
 firm unto his tenants their ancient customary estates of inheritance 
 in their respective tenements, descendable from ancestor to heir 
 according to the laws and customs of the Isle, that then the 
 said tenants should in consideration thereof advance and pay 
 unto his Lordship the same fines which they severally and 
 respectively paid for their several tenements in or about the 
 year 1643. 
 
 " ' That all and every the said tenants of and within the 
 said Isle and members of the same, as well all tenants in 
 possession as in reversion, shall and may from henceforth for 
 ever quietly and peaceably have hold and enjoy all their several 
 lands and tenements to them and their heirs as customary 
 tenants against the said Earl of Derby his heirs and assigns, 
 paying unto the said Earl such yearly rents, boons, suits and 
 services as hereinfore are mentioned and which now are or here- 
 tofore have been usually paid/ " 
 
 The Earl of Derby gave Ms full and free consent to 
 the Act of Settlement, with a reservation only as to the 
 tithes of the Abbey demesnes and certain rectories. 
 
 It appears that this Act of Settlement was somewhat 
 analogous to the Irish Land Act of 1881, in the sense 
 that it conceded fixity of tenure and free sale and the 
 right of bequest to the occupiers of land in the island, 
 and put an end to the assertion of a right of sole owner- 
 ship on the part of the feudal lord of the island. The 
 occupiers, thenceforward, held the land subject to a low 
 perpetual rent, and to the liability to pay the customary 
 fines on changes of tenancy either from death or alieoa- 
 tion. Certain customary services for which the tenants 
 were liable fell into disuse, and practically ceased after 
 
AGEAEIAN TENURES. I'll 
 
 the sale of the island to the Crown. Technically, the 
 Crown is the owner of nearly all the land in the island. 
 The occupiers hold under the. Crown in perpetuity, on 
 payment of (a) the Lord's- Eent, which amounts to about 
 £1,500 for the whole island, (5) fines on alienation. 
 
 The laws with respect to the inheritance and tenure 
 of land in the island are practically the same as in 
 England. If the land has continued to be widely 
 distributed, it is due probably, in part, to the fact that 
 the Act of Settlement referred to is of comparatively 
 recent date, and- also to the fact that there has not 
 been any great desire on the part of capitalists to buy 
 np land, and to become great landowners in so remote 
 an island, where no social or political advantages were 
 to be gained by the process. 
 
 It is alleged that of late years, with a closer con- 
 nection with England, there is observable in the island 
 something of the same tendency as in Cumberland and 
 Westmoreland, for the yeomen farmers to seU their 
 farms and to become tenants, and for a consequent 
 aggregation of land in few hands ; but this has not 
 gone far as yet. The general agrarian condition of the 
 island is satisfactory. The land is well cultivated ; the 
 people are prosperous and content ; there is little 
 poverty; the labourers have the hope of rising from 
 their position to be tenants and, ultimately, owners of 
 small farms. It may be questioned whether, under the 
 existing laws, the island can long resist the tendency to 
 the aggregation of- land which, it is believed, results 
 from the operation of English laws of inheritance and 
 p 3 
 
228 AGBABIAN TENURE 8. 
 
 settlement, and a comparison between the working of 
 this law and that of the Channel Islands will in the 
 future be of great interest- 
 
 No one, however, can regard the condition of 
 either of these parts of the British Isles without 
 coming to a conclusion as to the immense value of a 
 widely distributed land ownership, in promoting in- 
 dustry and thrift, in producing general prosperity and 
 content, in knitting together the various classes of the 
 community from the highest to the lowest, and in 
 afEording hopes and stimulus to the latter to rise from 
 their position of labourers to that of tenants and owners 
 of land. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF AGRARIAN REFORMS. 
 
 The foregoing review of the agrarian conditions of 
 the different countries and communities, which constitute 
 the United Kingdom and its dependent islands, has 
 shown how varied are the actual circumstances in 
 different parts, and how numerous have been the efforts 
 of the Legislature to effect changes in the conditions of 
 ownership and tenure of land, and in the relations of 
 the various classes, which constitute their agricultural 
 communities. Its main objects have been to give 
 greater security to the cultivators of the soil for the 
 outlay of capital and labour upon it, and a greater 
 stimulus to their industry ; to multiply small ownerships 
 and holdings of land, so as to create steps on the ladder, 
 by which the lowest in the scale of social life, in rural 
 communities, may rise to higher positions ; and to 
 improve the status of and give greater independence to 
 labourers. In furtherance of these objects, the relation 
 of dual ownership of land between landlords and 
 occupiers has been recognised and sanctioned in two of 
 the three countries, in Ireland almost universally, in 
 Scotland partially ; the use of State credit by means of 
 
230 AQUARIAN TENURES. 
 
 loans, at low rates of interest, repayable over a term of 
 years, for the conversion of tenancies into full owner- 
 ships, has been adopted on a very large potential scale 
 in Ireland, and tentatively, on a small scale, in England 
 and Scotland. The same process has been sanctioned 
 for the purpose of the artificial creation of small owner- 
 ships and tenancies in England and Scotland, through 
 the agency of Local Authorities. The principle of the 
 compulsory purchase of land, for the purpose of benefit- 
 ing special classes of the rural community, has been 
 sanctioned in England by the Allotments Acts, in 
 Ireland by the Labourers' Act, and in Scotland by the 
 Crofters' Act. Freedom of contract between landlords 
 and tenants has been interfered with, and indefeasible 
 conditions have been imposed on them by three im- 
 portant measures : namely, the Agricultural Holdings 
 Act, the Grround Game Act, and the English Tithe Act. 
 The sale of property, devoted to public uses, for the pur- 
 pose of promoting the creation of small ownerships of 
 land, has been recognised by clauses of the Act for Dis- 
 establishing the State Church in Ireland, and by the 
 Grlebe Lands Acts of England ; special Commissions have 
 been constituted for dealing with the occupiers of land 
 in congested districts in Ireland and in Scotland, in the 
 hopes of improving their condition. The intentions of 
 testators and settlors as regards land, which they 
 intended to make inalienable by their descendants for 
 two or more generations, have been set aside by the 
 Settled Estates Act. Efforts have been made to 
 facilitate the transfer of land, and in Ireland the law 
 
AGBAMAX TENURES. 231 
 
 of primogeniture lias been set aside in tlie case of small 
 ownerships, artificially created under the Land Purchase 
 Act, and such holdings are declared to be personal 
 property, for the purpose of division among the children 
 or relatives on the death of their owners. 
 
 It will be admitted that these various efibrts of 
 Parliament almost exhaust the possible methods of 
 legislation, that it will be very difficult to discover any 
 new scheme, and that whatever further is done must be 
 in the direction of extending or improving, or making 
 more effective, some or all of them. It is to be observed 
 that the different measures adopted have had varying 
 degrees of efficacy and success. The Irish Land Acts 
 of 1881 and 1887, and the Crofters' Act of Scotland, so 
 far as they were concerned in raising the status of 
 occupiers of land, from that of mere tenants, to a level 
 with their landlords, as joint owners, had immediate and 
 complete effect according to the intentions of the framers 
 of these Acts. By a few simple clauses in these Acts of 
 Parliament the system of joint ownership was established; 
 tenants were made independent of their landlords, were 
 freed from capricious eviction, and from the arbitrary rais- 
 ing of rent, and were given fixity of tenure and the right 
 of bequeathing their interest, and in the Irish case, of 
 selling it. The only question which is in doubt as 
 to the complete efficacy of the Acts, is whether the 
 tribunals appointed to determine the amount of rents 
 have fixed them at their proper rates. The defect, if 
 it exists, may be corrected when the judicial rent is 
 open again to dispute after a short term of years. So, 
 
232 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 again, the Acts interfering in contracts between landlords 
 and tenants have had the same instant legal effect. 
 No one doubts that the Agricultural Holdings Act 
 has effected its intention, though it is contended in 
 some quarters that it has not gone far enough. The 
 best proof of the success of the Ground Game Act is 
 the general complaint that hares have almost disappeared 
 in large parts of the country. In some few cases it is 
 alleged that landlords have been able, by their per- 
 sonal influence, to induce their tenants not to take 
 advantage of the intention of the Legislature that they 
 should have full power to kill ground game on their farms. 
 The Acts for the advance of State money by way of 
 loan, to convert tenancies into full ownerships, have been 
 successful in Ireland, just so far as the terms have been 
 tempting to tenants to buy their holdings, in the sense 
 that the payments to the State for a term of years are 
 less than the previous rent ; but it is evident that large 
 numbers of landlords are unwilling or unable to sell 
 upon terms, which will induce tenants to buy. It 
 may well be, therefore, that the last measure will not 
 have the effect expected of it. 
 
 The Acts for the compulsory purchase of land for 
 the erection of cottages in Ireland, for the enlargement 
 of crofters' holdings and common pastures in Scotland, 
 and for providing allotments for labourers in England, 
 have been only partially successful in Ireland, and in 
 Scotland and England have had practically no direct 
 effect. The efforts for reducing the evils of our system 
 of entailing estates have had but a small effect, and 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 233 
 
 those for simplifying land transfer have as yet been so 
 feeble as to have no. substantial result. 
 
 As regards Ireland, it is impossible to discuss what 
 direction future land legislation should or will take, 
 without entering upon political questions, affecting the 
 government of that country, which would be beyond the 
 scope of this work. 
 
 The future of English agrarian reform, however, is free 
 from the political difficulties affecting the Irish question. 
 There is also general agreement as to the objects to be 
 aimed at. The leaders of the Conservative party have 
 admitted, in speeches and by their legislation, that it 
 would be most desirable to multiply small ownerships 
 — in part because, like Lord Salisbury, they appreciate 
 the danger to property from the small number of existing 
 owners, and would be glad to add to the supporters of it 
 by the creation of a numerous small proprietary, while 
 doubting as to the economic results ; and in part because, 
 like the late Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Chaplin, they 
 have come to the belief that, in the interest of the 
 labouring men in rural districts, and in the hope of 
 giving them an inducement to remain in their native 
 villages, and not to crowd into the towns, or to emi- 
 grate, it will be wise to multiply small ownerships and 
 small tenancies, so as to afford the steps in the social 
 ladder, by which the labourers can mount to higher posi- 
 tions, and become tenants and even owners of land. On 
 these points, and in favour of these objects, all are 
 agreed. How to arrive at them, or whether the steps taken 
 will achieve the end in vipw, is not so clear and certain. 
 
234 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 DUAL OWNERSHIP. 
 
 It will be admitted that, if it be desired to re-create 
 a body of yeomen farmers, and to give the fullest pos- 
 sible security for improvements, and for the outlay of 
 capital on the land by its tenants, the simplest and 
 easiest course, by which this could be effected, would be to 
 follow the lines of the Irish Land Act of 1881, and of 
 the Crofters' Act of 1886, and to raise the status of all 
 existing tenants in England and Scotland to that of co- 
 owners with their landlords, by giving to them fixity of 
 tenure, and the right of bequeathing, if not of assigning, 
 their interest, and also the right of appealing to an inde- 
 pendent tribunal for the determination of their rents. 
 This would undoubtedly be a short cut. It would mul- 
 tiply by many times the number of landowners. Dual 
 ownership has not, perhaps, the value of full ownership, 
 but it is not open to the economic objections that have 
 been urged against it in many quarters. The occupying 
 joint owners would undoubtedly, under such a system, 
 constitute a very useful class of yeomen farmers, per- 
 manently attached to the land, with the fullest induce- 
 ment to invest their capital and labour in it, and with a 
 freedom of cultivation very different from that which 
 prevails on many estates. 
 
 The important question, however, arises whether 
 such a measure could be supported and defended on any 
 grounds of justice and equity, as between the existing 
 classes of landlords and tenants. If it were true that 
 the Irish Act, as has so often been contended by its 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 235 
 
 opponents, was a measure of pure confiscation, a con- 
 cession wrung from Parliament only by agitation and 
 outrage, without any moral or historical justification, and 
 a transfer of rights of property from one class to another, 
 without warrant or defence, then it is not easy to see 
 v/hy Parliament should not, with equal equanimity and 
 with equal injustice, make the same concession to the 
 English tenants, and mete out the same measure 
 of confiscation to the English landlords, as to their 
 Irish colleagues. Those, however, who advocated and 
 defended the Irish Land Act on the grounds of justice, 
 and on historic claims, and who approved the Crofters' 
 Act for the like reasons, must be satisfied that there 
 are similar reasons, and equally sound arguments, for 
 extending this principle of dual ownership to England 
 and Wales, and to other parts of Scotland. 
 
 It has been shown, and it must be repeated and 
 emphasized, that the Irish Act was only a recognition 
 by law of a status which practically existed — except so 
 far as the determination of rents was concerned. The 
 tenants throughout Ireland had, all but universally, 
 efEected the improvements to the land, had reclaimed it 
 from its original waste, had drained and fenced it, had 
 erected the houses and farm buildings — had, in fact, 
 done everything which distinguished the farms from 
 their original condition of waste land. They had done 
 so under a general understanding that they were to 
 enjoy the fruits of their improvements, that they were 
 to remain on their farms, and bequeath them to their 
 families so long as rent was paid ; and in most cases they 
 
236 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 were allowed to assign their interest to purchasers, and 
 large sums were habitually given, with the knowledge 
 of the landlords, by incoming to outgoing tenants for 
 their interest. 
 
 Fixity of tenure and free sale, to a large extent, 
 already existed, but were liable to be defeated by 
 the arbitrary action of landlords, who refused to recog- 
 nise the traditions of the district. The tenant's interest 
 also was at the mercy of a landlord who arbitrarily in- 
 creased the rent so as to expropriate it. The essence of 
 the Land Act was the recognition of the status quo, the 
 legalisation of an interest which, de facto, existed, and 
 which was generally recognised, and the protection of the 
 tenant's interest from confiscation by the landlord ; and 
 this could only be effected by interposing an independent 
 authority between landlord and tenant to determine the. 
 rent. The same condition, it has been shown, existed 
 in the case of the crofters in Scotland, and led to 
 the Crofters' Act, which was practically based on the 
 Irish Act. 
 
 Wherever the same conditions exist it will be right 
 and just to extend the same principle, and to recognise 
 dual ownerships ; but with the exception of a few crofter 
 communities, in counties bordering on the crofter 
 counties, in Scotland, no similar conditions, it is believed, 
 exist in any part of rural England or Scotland. The 
 all but universal practice, in both countries, outside the 
 crofter district, has been for landlords to effect all the 
 improvements, to erect the farm-houses and steadings, to 
 drain and fence the land, and even, with rare exceptions, 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 237 
 
 to maintain the houses and buildings in substantial 
 repair. As a general rule, the annual outlay of landlords 
 on such matters amounts to not less than 15 per cent, of 
 the gross rental. • In large numbers of cases, the rents now- 
 paid by the tenants represent no more than a fair rate 
 of interest on the capital expended on the estates within 
 quite recent years. The tenants also have never had 
 expectations held out to them that their tenancies will 
 be continually renewed, or will be extended to their sons. 
 In Scotland the tenants are very frequently changed 
 at the end of the customary nineteen years' leases. In 
 England the changes of tenancies, except in the case of 
 some very large estates managed on a kind of here- 
 ditary system, are very numerous. There has never 
 grown up anything approaching to a tenant-right 
 interest, such as has been described in Ireland. The 
 right of an outgoing tenant is all but universally 
 restricted to compensation for growing crops, the cost of 
 cultivation, and unexhausted manures. It would be 
 impossible, then, to. argue in favour of conceding to 
 such tenants judicial rents — which it has been shown 
 practically involve fixity of tenure — upon any such 
 arguments of justice as were proffered and admitted 
 in the case of the Irish Act. 
 
 A demand has been made in some quarters for the 
 extension of the Irish Land Act to the case of the 
 Welsh tenant farmers. If it can be shown that there 
 is any analogy between the position of Welsh tenants, 
 and of Irish tenants before the Act of 1881, and that the 
 former have made the substantial improvements on 
 
238 AQUARIAN TENURES. 
 
 their farms, a very strong case would be made out for 
 such an extension. It is believed, however, that such 
 cases are exceptional in Wales, that the general practice 
 in the Principality does not substantially differ from 
 that of England, and that landlords have been in the 
 habit of making all substantial improvements. If this 
 be the case, the analogy in this respect between Wales 
 and Ireland fails, and if the IrisTi Act were actually ap- 
 plied to the Principality, the Land Commissioners would 
 hold, under the clause exempting from judicial rents, 
 all farms, where the landlords have effected improve- 
 ments, that they would not be justified generally in 
 giving to the tenants the benefit of the Act. 
 
 It has indeed been alleged that Welsh farms are 
 over-rented, and that rents there have not been reduced 
 in at all the same proportion as those in England, and 
 that the tenants are not in a position of independence 
 to enable them to contract on equal terms with their 
 landlords. This has been denied on behalf of land- 
 lords, and, till some independent inquiry has deter- 
 mined the fact, it will be impossible to express 
 a final opinion on the subject. It must be taken 
 into account that pastoral Wales has not suffered in 
 anything like the same proportion as the arable districts 
 in the east of England have done from the agricul- 
 tural depression of the last few years, and that, only 
 within the last year or two, has the price of stock fallen 
 to a point which has seriously affected the condition of 
 the Welsh farmers. 
 
 On the other hand, it must be admitted, there are 
 
AGBABIAN TENUBES. 239 
 
 special conditions in Wales which differentiate it to some 
 extent, or in some parts, from England. In many purely 
 rural parts of the Principality there is a wide gulf be- 
 tween the landowners and the farmers, approaching to that 
 which exists in Ireland. The peasantry habitually speak 
 a different language from their landlords, they are not 
 members of the same religious persuasion, they maintain 
 their own chapels and ministers, while the State church 
 is that of the upper classes. There is something of the 
 same earth-hunger among the smaller tenants, which 
 may induce them to submit to higher rents, than are 
 obtainable in England. It is significant that in Wales, 
 as in Ireland and in the Highlands, the landlords have 
 lost all share in the Parliamentary representation of the 
 counties. In a careful and able review of the electoral 
 position, published in the Times in the autumn of 1890, 
 the result of local inquiry, the following explanation 
 was given : — 
 
 " The explanation of the character of the present Welsh re- 
 presentation is to be found in other causes than that of an 
 extended franchise. To begin with the land, one thing is 
 remarkable. During the last twenty-five years the smaller 
 gentry, with incomes ranging from £500 to £5,000 a year, 
 have been disappearing from Wales. Financial difficulties have 
 compelled them generally to sell or sometimes to let their small 
 properties. Living among and mixing with the people, they 
 formed a social bond which is rudely snapped when the property 
 passes into the hands of some great landowner, who does not 
 visit the place once in two years, or into the hands of a new man, 
 who takes the place, but not the influence, of the old family. 
 Again, the consolidation of small farms, which saves the land- 
 lord much in repairs, and which may have other advantages, has 
 
240 AGliAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 for some time been adopted on many large properties in Wales. 
 One result of this consolidation has been the tendency to drive 
 the small farmer and peasant class into the towns. Large farms 
 worked with fewer hands than a number of small holdings, and low 
 wages, are every year lessening the number of agricultural 
 labourers in Wales. The population in the purely rural parishes 
 in Wales is steadily, if slowly, declining. These changes 
 in the smaller gentry, the small farmer, and the agricultural 
 labourer class, involve the breaking up of many ties and 
 associations, and a corresponding change in sentiments and 
 influence." * 
 
 In England generally, it may be asserted that during 
 the last few years the tenants have not been at the mercy 
 of landlords, so far as rent has been concerned. The land- 
 lords have been even more anxious to retain their tenants, 
 than the tenants have been desirous of remaining on their 
 farms, and have submitted to very great reductions and 
 abatements of rent. No claim, then, can be founded on 
 behalf of the tenants, either as regards their historic or 
 actual connection with their farms or as regards the 
 rents exacted, for any measure framed on the Irish 
 model. Nor is it certain that if the change were eifected, 
 the economic results would be satisfactory. It is to be 
 feared that the tenant farmers in England have, as a 
 general rule, insufficient capital, even for the purpose of 
 carrying on their business as farmers, on the present 
 system, and that they have none to spare for the more 
 permanent improvements of their farms. If converted 
 into co-owners with their landlords, the latter would 
 necessarily cease to expend capital on improvements, or 
 
 * The Times, August 22, 1890. 
 
AGBASIAN TENURES. 241 
 
 to maintain the houses and farm -buildings, and the 
 result might be that the measure would tend to the 
 diversion of capital from the land. In Ireland the case 
 was different ; for the landlords, as a rule, never ex- 
 pended any capital in improving their properties : they 
 were mere rent-receivers. In England the landlords have 
 been partners with the tenants, in the sense of taking 
 upon themselves the cost of all permanent improve- 
 ments. In the case of large farms involving a large 
 application of capital for the course of cultivation, for 
 plant, stock, and manures, there is much to be said in 
 favour of the separation of the tenant's capital and 
 landlord's capital on the English system. It frees the 
 capital of the farmer for what may be termed the true 
 business of farming, and it widens the field of possible 
 occupiers of such farms, by enabling men of smaller 
 capital to undertake the business. A given amount of 
 capital in the hands of a farmer will go further — in the 
 sense that he is able to undertake a larger farm, where 
 he is only required to provide a sufiiciency for the 
 ordinary farm improvements — than if he has also to 
 efiect permanent improvements and to purchase, in addi- 
 tion, the outgoing tenant's interest. 
 
 The existing prevalence of yearly tenancies, in Eng- 
 land and Wales, is due even more to the unwillingness of 
 tenants to take leases (owing to the uncertainty of the 
 future and the continued fall in prices of late years), than 
 to the refusal of landlords to grant them. It is probable 
 that the larger tenants would be no more ready to have 
 their rents determined by an external authority for a fixed 
 Q 
 
242 AGBAEIAN TENURES. 
 
 term of years, than they are to take leases of the same 
 length. If judicial rents had been fixed a few years ago, 
 the tenants in the greater part of England would have 
 suffered far worse than they have in the interval. The 
 determination of judicial rents in England would be far 
 more difficult than in Ireland ; for in England they must 
 necessarily, under present circumstances, be rack-rents, 
 while in Ireland they are in the nature of rent-charges. 
 Is it, again, to be laid down as a general proposition of 
 law that no owner of land, in the future, is to be allowed 
 to let the land to another person for the purpose of culti- 
 vation, without conceding fixity of tenure and judicial 
 rents ? Is it to be conceded that tenants who, only two 
 or three years ago, entered upon their holdings on yearly 
 tenancies, are already entitled to perpetuities ? 
 
 Lastly, it must be added that the conversion of 
 the tenant farmers of England into co-owners would 
 do nothing to solve the most serious difficulty of the 
 system — namely, the absence of small holdings, whose 
 occupiers would form a link between the labourers and 
 the large farmers. On the contrary, it would stereo- 
 type the existing state of things, so far as the size of 
 farms is concerned, and make it far more difficult to 
 effect a change in the interest of labourers. 
 
 It must be concluded, then, that an extension of the 
 principles and method of the Irish Act and of the 
 Crofters' Act, generally to England and Scotland, can- 
 not be supported by any arguments founded on historic 
 claims, on customary conditions, or on clear economic 
 advantages, as was the case with these Acts ; and that. 
 
AOEABIAN TENVBES. 243 
 
 unless we are prepared to make an inroad upon 
 existing rights, far different in quality and extent from 
 those involved in these Acts, we cannot look for any 
 land tenure reform for England and Scotland in this 
 direction. 
 
 LAND PURCHASE FOR ENGLAND. 
 
 The next question is to what extent, if any, the 
 credit of tlie State can be employed through the 
 medium of loans, on favourable terms, to multiply 
 ownerships, and especially small ownerships, of agri- 
 cultural land, in England and Scotland? The ques- 
 tion is twofold — the one, whether it is possible to 
 convert by such means existing tenancies, whether large 
 or small, into ownerships, after the example and precedent 
 of the Irish Land Purchase Acts ; the other whether, by 
 the purchase of estates en bloc, through the agency of local 
 authorities, and by breaking them up into smaller lots, 
 and reselling or reletting them, a class of small owners 
 or small occupiers can be artificially re-created ? 
 
 It has been shown that the recent Small Agricul- 
 tural Holdings Act aims at both these methods. The 
 question arises, then, whether they will be successful, 
 and whether they are likely to effect any substantial 
 change in the condition of rural districts. It wiU be 
 obvious that the first of these processes is an easy one 
 compared to the second. The conversion of existing 
 tenancies into ownerships, through State loans, is simple 
 enough compared to the process of buying estates, cut- 
 ting them up, and reselling them. It will also be 
 Q 2 
 
244 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 admitted that an even stronger case exists for giving 
 facilities to English tenants to become owners of their 
 holdings, than in the case of Irish tenants ; for the former 
 have not obtained the conces.sion of fixity of tenure, 
 putting them on a level with their landlords as co-owners 
 of the land. There can also be no objection in principle 
 to making use of State credit for this purpose. There 
 are, however, practical difficulties and limitations in the 
 carrying out of such a policy in England and Scotland, 
 which, do not exist in Ireland. 
 
 The first and main difiiculty in the cases of England 
 and Scotland is the general high average size of 
 tenancies, with the consequence that a very large 
 advance of money, by way of loan, would effect but 
 a small change in the tenure, and in the economic 
 condition of the cultivators of the soil, as compared 
 with what a similar sum will effect in Ireland. An 
 average farm of 200 acres in England has a rental 
 value of about £200 a year, and this at only twenty-five 
 years' purchase — at least eight years less than the rate a 
 few years ago — represents £5,000. To convert a thousand 
 such holdings into ownerships would involve, on the prin- 
 ciple of the Irish Acts, £5,000,000. To create one such 
 ownership in each rural parish would mean an advance of 
 over £60,000,000. The annual value of agricultural land 
 in England alone being £42,000,000, a year, even at the 
 present reduced rents, the sum of £100,000,000 would go 
 a very little way in producing a change in tenure of any 
 importance. The Small Holdings Act has recognised 
 this, and has very properly limited such advances to 
 
AGEABIAN TENURES. 245 
 
 farms with a rental of not more than £50 a year. It 
 has abeady, however, been shown that the number of 
 such holdings in the occupation of persons living wholly 
 by the land, is small in the greater part of England and 
 of Scotland. There could be no great public object 
 concerned in the lending of money for the purchase of 
 their holdings by persons living mainly by other occupa- 
 tions — such as tradesmen — or persons with other private 
 means. Of the comparatively small class of occupiers of 
 land, living wholly by their holdings, of fifty acres and 
 less, a very small number would probably be able to 
 come to terms with their landlords for the purchase of 
 their farms. 
 
 Nor are the terms offered by the State so attractive 
 as to be a great inducement to tenants to avail them- 
 selves of such facilities. The proportion of the purchase 
 money which may be advanced is four-fifths. The rate 
 of interest charged is £3 2s. 6d. per cent. The term of 
 repayment is forty-nine years. The annual charge, 
 therefore, is £4 2s. 6d. per cent. A well-secured rent 
 of a small holding will probably not be sold by its 
 owner for less than twenty-eight years' purchase, 
 including a reasonable sum for costs. In the case, 
 then, of a holding rented at £50 a year, the purchase 
 money would be £1,400. The State would advance 
 £1,120, and the annual charge on this for forty-nine 
 years would be £46 4s., or very little less than the pre- 
 vious rent ; while the tenant purchaser would have to pay 
 down £280 of the purchase money. It is to be feared that 
 very few tenants of small holdings will be in a position 
 
246 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 to do this. The terms, as compared with those which 
 the Irish tenants have obtained, are very unattractive, 
 in part because the landlord's interest can be bought 
 in Ireland at eighteen years' purchase, as against 
 twenty-eight in England ; in part because the rate of 
 interest charged by the State in Ireland is somewhat 
 less; but mainly because in the Irish case the State 
 advances the whole of the purchase money. It will be 
 obvious that the State could not with safety advance 
 the whole of the purchase money in England. The trans- 
 action is reasonably safe in Ireland, because the tenant's 
 interest, as a rule, is of considerable value — seldom less 
 than seven or eight years' purchase of the rent, and 
 often as much as twelve or fifteen times the rent, and 
 thus forms a margin of security for the advance from the 
 State ; but in England there is no such value attaching 
 to the tenant's interest, and no ordinary lender would ad- 
 vance on mortgage more than two-thirds of the purchase 
 money. The Act has in fact gone beyond what any 
 prudent lender would do in allowing the advance by the 
 State of four-fifths of the purchase money. If trans- 
 actions of this kind had taken place ten or twelve years 
 ago, before the agricultural depression had commenced, 
 and before the great fall of rents, it is certain that the 
 purchasers would, by this time, be in very great diffi- 
 culties, paying to the State, for interest and instal- 
 ments, twenty or thirty per cent, more than the average 
 rent of the district, besides having had to advance a portion 
 of the purchase money. It is quite uncertain whether we 
 have touched the bottom of rents, and one-fifth of the 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 247 
 
 purchase monej'^ is a very small margin for any mort- 
 gagee. It may confidently be expected, however, that 
 the transactions under this provision will be few and 
 far between, and that no practical result will follow 
 from its adoption on the general condition of ownership 
 or tenure of land. Nor is it reasonable to expect that 
 the State can improve the terms by advancing the whole 
 of the purchase money, for in such case the annual pay- 
 ments would be more than the previous rent, and there 
 would be no margin of security for the loan. 
 
 THE SMALL HOLDINGS ACT. 
 
 It remains to consider the second method of creating 
 small ownerships, by the means of State advances to local 
 authorities, who are empowered to purchase properties 
 en bloc, and resell them in small holdings. The question is 
 whether this artificial creation of small ownerships under 
 the Small Holdings Act of 1892 is feasible and practic- 
 able, and whether this scheme is likely to produce any 
 sensible effect on the condition of land ownership and 
 small holdings in rural England. 
 
 For the object in view there is general sympathy. 
 In these days, everyone professes the greatest desire 
 for the extension of the class of small owners of land. 
 Lord Salisbury avows his political motive for such an 
 extension, though little believing in its economic success. 
 Mr. Arthur Balfour has expressed a passionate love for 
 such a class. It will be admitted also that the object is 
 one of a sufficient national importance to justify the use 
 
248 AOBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 of State credit, for the purpose, on a considerable scale, 
 if it can be carried out so as to produce an adequate 
 result, and witb due security to the State and to local 
 authorities. 
 
 The important questions remain, however, whether 
 local authorities are likely to avail themselves of the 
 facilities afforded by the Act, whether their powers will 
 be sufficient to eiFect the object, whether they can do 
 much without serious loss, and whether the agricultural 
 labourers, for whose benefit the measure is mainly in- 
 tended, as a means of raising them in the social scale, 
 are likely to avail themselves of it, in the manner 
 contemplated. 
 
 The scheme appears to contemplate the purchase by 
 local authorities of not inconsiderable properties, for the 
 purpose of cutting them up into a number (1) of small 
 ownerships, of such a size that the occupiers will be able 
 to maintain themselves wholly by the land ; (2) of small 
 holdings or ownerships of a less extent, which the 
 holders will cultivate as an adjunct to their other 
 occupations, whether as labourers or as small village 
 tradesmen. 
 
 SMALL OWNEUSHIPS. 
 
 The two objects are very distinct, and must be 
 considered separately. With respect to the first class of 
 small ownerships, where the occupiers are expected to live 
 wholly by the land, it is obvious that the extent of the 
 holding must vary according to the nature and value of 
 the land ; but in the case of average arable land it can 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 249 
 
 scarcely be expected that an occupier can make a living 
 out of less than thirty acres, or, in the case of grass land, 
 of less than forty or fifty acres. If fruit or vegetable 
 cultivation be contemplated, the area may be less, but 
 the value of the land vsrill be relatively greater. 
 
 To make an experiment on any scale worthy of the 
 Act, and so as to produce any effect, we must presume 
 that the local authority will desire to purchase a pro- 
 perty of such a size, as will enable them to cut it into 
 twenty or thirty lots. A property of 600 acres might 
 be cut up into twenty lots of thirty acres each. It may 
 be quite possible in parts of rural England at the present 
 time to purchase an estate of 600 acres without tenants, 
 and at a low price ; but the derelict farms, of which 
 we hear in the East of England, are generally in a miser- 
 able and neglected state of cultivation, requiring a great 
 outlay of capital, and such that the experiment would 
 not have a fair chance of success. 
 
 As a general rule, and in ordinary times, it would not 
 be easy to secure a suitable estate of 600 acres, without a 
 tenant or tenants, and the county authority would find 
 that it would have to give a fair, if not a full, price for 
 the property as agricultural land — say, twenty-eight 
 times the rent of it, which may be assumed to be about 
 £1 per acre. Eor the sum, then, of £16,800 the autho- 
 rity might purchase an estate of 600 acres. It would 
 then have to buy the timber on the land at a valuation, 
 and the legal costs of the purchase would probably be 
 not far short of a year's purchase of the rent. 
 
 Having bought the land, it would be necessary for the 
 
250 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 local authority to get rid of the existing tenants. These 
 persons must be dealt with generously, if it be not desired 
 to arouse a feeling in the neighbourhood against the 
 scheme. They must be very fully paid for their grow- 
 ing crops, agricultural improvements, and unexhausted 
 manures. Having got rid of the tenants, it will then be 
 necessary to lay out the land in small farms of thirty 
 acres each. This will not be an easy task. New roads 
 and new fences must be made ; new houses and farm 
 buildings must be erected. All this will take time, and 
 will involve considerable expenditure. Meanwhile, the 
 cultivation of the land must be carried on. The authority 
 must buy the farm stock and implements of the outgoing 
 tenants. It must employ a bailiff to carry on the opera- 
 tions of the farm, or of such parts of it as may not be 
 sold at once. It will probably turn out that a part of 
 the property will be quite unsuited for small holdings, 
 and must be resold at a reduced price, or relet to adjoin- 
 ing owners or farmers. It will certainly prove that all 
 the land will not be equally suited for small holdings. 
 The better lots will be let first ; the remainder may 
 remain on hand for some time. All these operations will 
 involve a considerable outlay of capital on the part of 
 the authority, and a not inconsiderable risk. A pro- 
 portional addition, to meet this outlay, must be made to 
 the price asked from the new purchasers. It will be 
 admitted that there is no more difficult operation than 
 that of cutting up a large farm into a number of small 
 holdings, so as to make the best of the land, and to 
 average the holdings, as far as possible, and to tempt 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 261 
 
 purchasers. For this purpose it will probably be neces- 
 sary to employ and pay a special agent — some experi- 
 enced land surveyor. A mistake in making some of the 
 small holdings unprofitable and unsaleable would cause 
 great loss in the result of the venture to the authority. 
 The water supply may cause difficulty. New wells will 
 have to be dug, or new ponds made. The more such a 
 process is considered, the more difficult it must seem for 
 local authorities to undertake it, and the more sceptical 
 one becomes of their attempting it on any such scale 
 as to produce any effect upon the condition of land 
 ownership, or of their carrying it through without 
 considerable loss. 
 
 Let us suppose, however, that the difficulties are 
 overcome, and that the property has been bought, and 
 laid out and cut up into suitable holdings, that small 
 houses and farm buildings have been erected, and roads 
 and wells made : it remains to be considered how the 
 transaction will present itself to intending purchasers, 
 and what number of labouring men are likely to be in a 
 position to avail themselves of the advantages offered. 
 
 The proportionate price of a thirty-acre lot, on the 
 assumptions already made, will be £840. To this must 
 be added the cost of erecting the farm buildings, and 
 the share of other expenses incurred by the local 
 authority. It is difficult to believe that the addition 
 can be less than one-third of the purchase money, or £280. 
 It is more probable it will be one-half. At one-third, the 
 price of the small holding will be raised to £1,120. Of 
 this the purchaser is expected to pay down one-fifth, or 
 
252 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 £224. Of the residue, £896, one-fourth may be left 
 subject to a permanent rent- charge, and on the remain- 
 ing three-fourths the purchaser is to pay interest at the 
 rate of three and one-eighth per cent., and instalments, so 
 as to repay the principal in fifty years. It will be found 
 that the annual payments will be £34. Beyond this, 
 the purchaser will have to pay the Tithe and the 
 Land Tax. 
 
 The buyer, however, will also have to provide 
 money for the purchase of implements and stock, and of 
 the growing crops and unexhausted manure on so much 
 of the arable land as he acquires ; he must also have some- 
 thing to live on till the farm returns him a profit. £6 
 per acre would seem to be the smallest amount which a 
 tenant of thirty acres should commence with. The pur- 
 chaser, therefore, must be able to produce about £400 in 
 cash, and he will have to pay in interest and rent-charge 
 £34 a year, as compared with the previous rent of 
 £30 a year. It cannot be said that the terms are 
 attractive. It is to be feared that there are extremely 
 few men in the condition of labourers, or even sons of 
 small farmers, who are in a position to produce £400, 
 or anything approaching it; and it is to be expected 
 that those who have this amount of money will 
 generally prefer to hire a larger farm of 70 or 100 acres, 
 where they will be tenants only, or to emigrate to some 
 new-settled district, where they can buy a farm of 
 200 acres for a few pounds only, rather than encounter 
 the very hard work of making a living as owner out 
 of thirty acres of land in England. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 253 
 
 It may be that in some districts persons in a some- 
 what superior position to agricultural labourers will be 
 found, willing to come forward, with sufficient means to 
 purchase small holdings, on the terms indicated — such as 
 village tradesmen, rural craftsmen, and the like ; but the 
 object of the measure is to raise the status of labourers, 
 and this object will fail if a superior class alone are able 
 to avail themselves of the small holdings. It would 
 certainly be desirable that, before embarking on such a 
 scheme, involving considerable risk, the local authority 
 should ascertain how many persons, in the position of 
 agricultural labourers, are prepared to come forward 
 with cash for the payment of one-fifth of the purchase 
 money, and with sufficient means to stock the holding 
 and to live till they can get a return from it. It must 
 be recollected that the cultivation of a small holding — 
 " la petite culture'' as the French call it — is an art 
 which in some countries, where small holdings have 
 existed for generations, is widely spread, but which, 
 when lost by the consolidation of farms, and the aggre- 
 gation of land into few ownerships, is not easily acquired 
 again. It necessitates the most minute attention to 
 details, the most laborious devotion to the land, the co- 
 operation of the wife and children, and an industry and 
 labour beyond that of ordinary farm labourers, working 
 for weekly wages. It is to be feared that in most 
 parts of rural England there are but few men, who 
 have the experience, which will enable them to cul- 
 tivate these small holdings, and to make their living 
 out of them, in a manner, which will be profitable to 
 
254 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 themselves, and so as to secure the local authority 
 against loss. 
 
 All the evidence given before the Committee on 
 Small Holdings points to the difficulty of finding 
 persons in most parts of England in the condition of agri- 
 cultural labourers, or even of a superior class, ready and 
 willing to take such holdings, with the object of making 
 their living out of them, and with sufficient means 
 to advance one-fifth of the purchase money, and to 
 purchase implements and stock. 
 
 Lord Wantage,, as chairman of the Small Farms and 
 Labourers' Land Company, gave some interesting 
 evidence before the Committee on this point. The 
 company was formed for the purpose of buying estates 
 and reselling them in small lots to labourers. It has 
 bought four estates : that of Lambourne, in Berkshire, 
 of 411 acres ; that of Foxham, in Wiltshire, of 152 
 acres ; the Cottenham Estate, in Cambridgeshire, of 
 115 acres, and the Hay Farm in Essex, of 70 acres. It 
 has endeavoured to resell the land in small plots, on 
 easy terms of payment — namely, a deposit of 10 per 
 cent, only of the purchase money, and half-yearly pay- 
 ments of the remainder, with interest in equal sums 
 spread over twenty years — terms more favourable, so far 
 as the proportion of present payment is concerned, 
 than those offered under the Small Holdings Act. The 
 experience of the company, which, is carried on with 
 public objects, but with the hope also of making some 
 return in the shape of interest on its capital, has not as 
 yet been satisfactory in creating small ownerships. It 
 
A6BABIAN TENURES. 255 
 
 has found great difficulty in disposing by sale of 
 portions of its land. Of the Lambourne property, 
 two lots only have been sold, consisting of nineteen 
 acres, at £21 per acre. Of the Cottenham property, 
 nine acres of pasture have been sold at £70 per acre, 
 and two acres of arable at £50 per acre, to a single 
 purchaser. The remainder of the land has been let to 
 eighteen tenants in plots of from one acre to five acres. 
 
 It is stated that there are sixty-eight tenants of small 
 holdings on these estates. Very few of the persons who 
 have taken them appear to be agricultural labourers. 
 They are mostly small village tradesmen, who do not 
 intend to make a living wholly by the land — village 
 blacksmiths, bakers, wheelwrights, builders, carriers, and 
 publicans. Lord Wantage accounts for the absence of 
 demand for purchase in this way : — " I think there are 
 two schools, so far as I can see, among the labourers. 
 Taking one man, whom I urged to purchase, I have 
 said to him : ' I am astonished you do not purchase ; ' 
 the man replied, ' I think I can make more by hiring 
 land. Suppose I have a couple of hundred pounds, and 
 I buy some sheep and some implements and stock-in- 
 trade, I can do better by expending my money in that 
 way. I can get 5 per cent, in the one case, and 
 perhaps I should get 3 per cent, in the other. I can do 
 better by hiring than I can by purchasing.' Then 
 there is another school, who are represented by Mr. 
 Warrack (the purchaser of one lot of the Lambourne 
 Estate), who say, ' I am doing better by having pur- 
 chased the land. It is my land, and I am improving 
 
2S6 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 it.' As a rule, Englisli tenants prefer to hire — they 
 think they can do better." 
 
 The Company has a paid-up capital of £10,000. It 
 also owns the Lambourne Estate, valued at £3,200, the 
 gift of Lord Wantage. In spite of this generous aid, 
 it has been able, during the last two years, to pay divi- 
 dends of only 2 per cent. 
 
 The experience, therefore, of the company is not very 
 encouraging to those who desire to see small ownerships 
 multiplied.. From the difficulty it has had in selling 
 its land, it has been unable to turn over its capital and 
 to purch^jSe other properties. It has become, in fact, 
 the landlord of a numerous small tenantry on the three 
 properties which it has bought. Though much benefit 
 may result from the multiplication of small tenancies, it 
 appears that few labouring men have taken advantage 
 of the opportunities thus oflfered, but rather the class of 
 small village tradesmen. 
 
 The conclusion forced upon one by a consideration 
 of the whole case is, that very few men of the class of 
 agricultural labourers, or indeed of any other class, will 
 be found able, and still fewer willing, to advance one- 
 fifth of the purchase money for the purpose of purchas- 
 ing small farms, of from thirty to fifty acres, with the 
 intention of making a living wholly by them, that the 
 Act in this respect will prove to be almost a dead letter, 
 and that, if put in force, it will almost certainly lead to 
 financial loss to the local authorities who attempt it. 
 
 This part of the Act is free from any difficulty 
 arising from the want of power conferred on local 
 
AOBABIAN TENURES. 257 
 
 authorities to take land by compulsion. As the 
 owners of the small holdings, created under it, are 
 expected to make their living out of them, and are 
 to be provided with houses, it is not of great importance 
 where the land is situate ; and there can be little doubt 
 that somewhere within the limits of its authority, every 
 County Council will be able to buy an estate suitable 
 for the purpose. 
 
 SMALL TENANCIES. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that the Small Hold- 
 ings Act also contemplates local authorities purchasing 
 land for the purpose of letting or leasing to labourers, 
 and others, small holdings not exceeding in extent fifteen 
 acres, or £1 5 a year in value. They may also sell land to 
 this extent, upon the terms already described, without 
 the obligation that the holders are to make a living out 
 of it. The Act appears to assume that the holders of 
 land of this extent and value will not be able to make 
 their living out of it. The land, therefore, must be 
 held as an adjunct to other occupations, whether as 
 labourers or as village tradesmen. In the case of 
 labourers, the measure appears to be in the nature of an 
 enlarged Allotments Act. Under those Acts allot- 
 ments are restricted to one acre each. Under the Small 
 Holdings Act it will be possible for the local authority 
 to let up to fifteen acres; but it is scarcely to be expected 
 that labouring men will be able to cultivate or to stock 
 more than three to five acres at most. More than this 
 they cannot manage while they remain labourers, nor 
 
 R 
 
258 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 can they make a living wholly out o£ so little as fifteen 
 acres of average farm land, valued at £15 a year. If 
 any lettings of more than three or five acres are made, 
 they will probably be to village tradespeople. 
 
 On this point it may be well to quote from a letter 
 to the Times from Mr. W. H. Hall, a well-known 
 landowner in Cambridgeshire, who has been deeply 
 impressed with the importance of multiplying small 
 holdings of land, and who has endeavoured to create 
 them on his own property : — 
 
 "On my own estate/' he writes, " where I have for many years 
 been slicing small holdings off large farms, I have only one small 
 holder who does not combine some other business with farming. 
 Of very small holders, two are village postmasters, two are 
 millers, one is a master bricklayer, one is a gamekeeper, one a 
 publican. They are, in fact, men who mostly require to keep one 
 or two horses, or a pony^ for purposes of some trade, which 
 neither absorbs their whole time, or the whole strength of the 
 animal they keep. It is ruinously expensive work for the land- 
 owner who establishes small holdings. To keep an animal of 
 any kind the small holder necessarily wants a stable, and the 
 stable implies a yard to make manure in, and the yard wants 
 fencing, and at least one gate. Then he soon wants a shed in 
 his yard, with a manger and a water-trough, and perhaps a well 
 has to be sunk to supply the trough. Presently he will require 
 a pig-stye and a place to mix and keep the food for the pigs and 
 the cow. Then he will want a meadow to turn his animals into, 
 and that meadow will often (in East Anglia) have to be sliced off 
 a large iield, and specially laid down in grass for him. All 
 this requires large outlay of money, time, and thought. Fencing 
 the land is the smallest part of it ; but providing the buildings 
 and all the necessary accessories is where the shoe pinches. I 
 have, with the best will in the world, worked hard for a dozen 
 years at this business — an exceptionally uphill one, I admit, in 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 269 
 
 this rainless region — of establishing small holdings, and have 
 arrived at eight or nine. I am bound to say I get my rent 
 punctually from all." * 
 
 Speaking with, his experience that the demand for 
 small holdings comes rather from the small village 
 tradesmen th.an from labourers, he points out that the 
 measure " has never been put forward as a measure in- 
 tended to facilitate the acquisition of land by small trades- 
 men ; but has always avowedly had for its object the 
 advancement of agricultural labourers. Will the local 
 authority be more successful than I have been ? Even 
 supposing the possibility of a local authority consisting 
 of a majority of labourers, I do not believe that, even 
 in that extreme case, they will be induced to pledge 
 the rates for the purpose of setting up some of their 
 fellow-labourers as small holders." 
 
 That there will be a considerable demand for small 
 holdings up to fifteen acres from village tradesmen and 
 rural craftsmen, who have other occupations, and who 
 desire to cultivate a few acres in conjunction with their 
 business, cannot be doubted ; but whether the local 
 authorities will think themselves justified in acquiring 
 land for the purpose of supplying the wants of people in 
 this position, unless they can very largely benefit also 
 the class of labourers, for whom the Act was mainly 
 intended, may be greatly doubted. 
 
 On the other hand, there is reason to think that if 
 land is offered in small lots, from one acre up to five 
 acres on a certain tenure, not involving any immediate 
 
 * The Times, Feb. 1, 1890. 
 R 2 
 
260 AGEABIAN TENURES. 
 
 advance of capital for its purchase, but with the power 
 to purchase in the future, or to obtain fixity of tenure, 
 with the right to erect a house upon each holding, there 
 will be found to arise a considerable demand for such 
 holdings from persons in the position of labourers, or 
 just above them, to whom the certain possession of land, 
 with the power of becoming the owner of a home, will 
 be the strongest possible inducement to lay by money 
 to build the house and to provide the other necessaries 
 of a small holding. There is an interesting case of this 
 kind referred to in the Appendix to the Report of the 
 Eoyal Commission on Agriculture, of 1881, by Mr. 
 Little, one of the Sub-Commissioners. It appears that 
 many years ago Sir Thomas Acland let a considerable 
 area of waste land, called Penstrace Moor, in Corn- 
 wall, to a number of miners at a low rate. It consisted 
 of 478 acres, and it was let on leases for three lives to 
 seventy tenants, averaging between six and seven acres 
 each, and ranging from one acre to ten. The tenants, 
 who worked in the neighbouring mines, reclaimed the 
 land, and built houses upon these plots, above the 
 general average of labourers' houses in the district. The 
 land was originally worthless. It is now rated at £1 
 per acre. The stock on it is of a superior character, 
 and in quantity double that of the average of Cornwall. 
 Mr. Little says of this community : — 
 
 " Those who are employed in the mines work in night and 
 day shifts, and they utihse their spare hours on their farms ; the 
 wives and the children, however, do most of the farm work. 
 The family have a much more comfortable house, and many 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 261 
 
 advantages — such as milk, butter, and eggs — wHcli they would 
 not otherwise enjoy. The man has a motive for saving his money 
 and employing his spare time, and if he does not gain a large 
 profit as a farmer, he enjoys a position of independence ; he is 
 elevated in the social scale, his self-respect is awakened and 
 stimulated, and he acquires a stake and interest in the country. 
 , . . It is most valuable as an instance where the opportunity 
 of investing surplus wages and spare hours in the acquisition of 
 a home for the family, an independent position for the labourer, 
 and provision for the wife and children in the future, has been a 
 great encouragement to thrift and providence. The holdings repre- 
 sent so much time well spent, which, without this incentive, would 
 have probably been wasted ; and wages, which would otherwise 
 have been squandered, are employed in securing a homestead, 
 and some support for the widow and children when the workman 
 dies. I would ask, ' Are there not many places where the same 
 thing might be done if the opportunity offered ? ' Every 
 thoughtful employer of labourers, who has ever attempted to 
 impress upon his workman the duty of saving, must have ex- 
 perienced a difficulty in suggesting to them any object which 
 will appeal with sufficient force to the imagination and sentiment 
 to overcome the habit of spending all that is earned.'' 
 
 Another case of a somewhat similar character is to 
 be found on the borders of the New Forest. Twenty- 
 five years ago a public-spirited landlord sold a tract of 
 land to some thirty-five labourers. In process of time 
 a certain proportion of these have been obliged to sell, 
 and now rent what was once their own property. But 
 the majority have lived and prospered. The average is 
 five acres apiece. The soil was poor — only from four to 
 eight inches deep. By good cultivation it is now increased 
 to twelve inches. With abundance of manure and chalk 
 it is found to yield well. The land is used partly for 
 
262 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 market gardening and partly for dairying. There are 
 from one to three cows on each holding ; pigs are kept 
 in large numbers. Most of these small owners and 
 tenants work for wages elsewhere during parts of 
 the year. 
 
 It is in the promotion of such small occupations of 
 land, suitable for labourers, whether employed on agri- 
 cultural or other industries in rural districts, tbat we 
 must hope for any considerable result from tlie Small 
 Agricultural Holdings Act.* The tenure must be a 
 certain one, so as to give tlie sense of permanency, and 
 to offer every inducement to the holder to save his 
 money and to lay it out in building a cottage or in 
 other improvements. A letting of land by the year, as 
 in the case of allotments, will not supply this motive. 
 It must be realised that allotments, especially under 
 mere voluntary arrangements, in the hands of the land- 
 
 wner of the district, liable to be withdrawn if the 
 abourer should give dissatisfaction, do not, however 
 beneficial in many respects, afford any sense of ownership, 
 of permanence, of independence, of citizenship, which 
 alone will operate in raising the status of the labourers, 
 and act as an inducement to them to remain in their 
 villages. Neither will improved cottages held, at the will 
 of the landlord, at low rents, have the desired effect. 
 
 * So far as any proceedings have as yet been commenced, under the Small 
 Holdings Act, the applications have been for holdings of the kind above 
 indicated. In Lincolnshire (Holland Division) sixty-two persons have sent 
 in applications for holdings amounting in the aggregate to 360 acres, an 
 average of about six acres to each person. It is stated that local inquiries 
 are about to be held by the County OouncU to ascertain the hona fides of 
 the applicants. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 263 
 
 On this point we have the testimony of a writer who, 
 more than anyone of the present generation, understood 
 the feelings of the rural labourers, sympathised with 
 them, and appreciated the facts of their condition — the 
 late Mr. Eichard JefFeries. Writing of Wiltshire, where 
 he resided, he said — 
 
 " Ten years ago it was proposed to fix the population to the 
 soil by building better cottages and giving them large gardens 
 and allotments. This was done. Yet now we see, ten years 
 after, that, instead of fixing the population, the population be- 
 comes more nomad. There seems but one explanation — that it 
 is the lack of fixity of tenure. All these cottages and allotments 
 have only been held on sufferance, on good behaviour, and hence 
 they have failed. The labourer has no fixity of tenure. He does 
 not care to lay himself out to do his best in the field, or for his 
 master, because he is aware that service is no inheritance, and 
 that at any moment circumstances may arise which will lead to 
 his eviction. All the sanitary cottages erected at such expense, 
 and all the large gardens, and the allotments, have failed to pro- 
 duce a contented and settled working population. You cannot 
 have a fixed population unless it has a home. There appears no 
 possibility of amelioration of this condition until they possess 
 settled places of abode. Till then they must move to and fro, 
 and increase in restlessness and discontent. Till then they must 
 live without hope of growth in material comfort. ... A 
 race for ever trembling on the verge of the workhouse cannot 
 progress and lay up for itself any savings against old age. Such 
 a race is feeble and lacks cohesion, and does not afford that 
 backbone an agricultural population should afford to the country. 
 . . . I think it would pay every landowner to let all the 
 cottages upon his property to the labourers themselves direct, 
 givjng them security of tenure so long as they pay their rent, 
 and with each cottage to add a large garden of two acres at an 
 agricultural rent. If, in addition, facilities were to be given 
 
264 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 for the gradual purchase of the freehold by the labourer, it would 
 be still better. I think it would turn out for the advantage of 
 landowners, farmers, and the country at large to have a large 
 settled agricultural population/' * 
 
 It will be obvious that purchases of land by local 
 authorities with such objects as these — namely, of 
 creating a number of small holdings suitable for 
 labourers and others of their class, and averaging 2 to 
 5 acres each — will be much more feasible transactions, 
 involving much less outlay of capital, and attended by 
 much less risk, than the purchase of properties for break- 
 ing them up into small farms of from 20 to 50 acres 
 each, and, in proportion to the expenditure, will benefit 
 a much larger class. The purchase of 50 or 100 acres 
 in the neighbourhood of a village would supply from 
 twenty to thirty such holdings, and, assuming the price 
 to be reasonable, the financial risk to the local authority 
 would be small. It is scarcely necessary to point out 
 that a given advance from the State will provide funds for 
 a very much lai'ger number of the smaller holdings than of 
 the larger. It has already been shown that for holdings 
 of 30 acres the average advance by the State will be nearly 
 £900 each. An advance, therefore, of £11,000,000 will 
 provide funds for no more than a single such holding in 
 each of the rural parishes in England alone — a very 
 inappreciable effect upon the agrarian condition. The 
 same advance would provide for acquiring eight times 
 as many of the smaller holdings, averaging 4 acres 
 each, and suitable for labouring men. A grave 
 
 * " The Wiltshire Labourer," Longman's Magazine, November, 1883. 
 
AQUARIAN TENURES. 266 
 
 difficulty, however, must arise in carrying out any 
 sucli schemes under the Small Holdings Act as it 
 stands — that of obtaining land suitably situate for 
 such purpose. 
 
 COMPULSORY PUKCHASE. 
 
 It has been pointed out that in the case of larger 
 holdings, where the occupier is expected to live upon 
 his land, and to make his living wholly by it, their 
 situation is not a matter of so much importance, and the 
 local authority may select a suitable property out of 
 any that may be in the market in any part of its 
 district; but in the case of the small holdings, suit- 
 able for labourers and others, which are to be held as 
 adjuncts to their other occupations, and not to be 
 the main or only source of living to them, and 
 where, in the first instance at all events, the occupiers 
 will have no residence upon them, but will live in their 
 present cottages, it is, of course, essential that such 
 holdings should be conveniently near to the villages, 
 where the labourers and others live. If this be not the 
 case, they will wholly fail in their object. The local 
 authority, therefore, must purchase land for such a purpose 
 near to the village from which the application comes. 
 
 This will be no easy matter, if not an impossible 
 matter, in a great number of cases, and probably in the 
 great majority of cases. If it be conceded that this 
 policy of promoting and encouraging the independence 
 of labourers, by enabling them to obtain small holdings 
 with fixity of tenure, and by giving them the opportunity 
 
266 AGBABIAN TENUEE8. 
 
 of erecting their own homes, be important in the public 
 interest, it must be admitted that it will be most 
 important in those parishes and districts where, at the 
 present time, the land and the villages on it are abso- 
 lutely in the ownership of a single proprietor, and where 
 there is no possibility of any outsider being able to become 
 the owner of his home, or of any land, however small in 
 quantity, or to acquire any permanent interest in it. 
 
 It has already been shown that in a large proportion 
 of the rural parishes, probably one-half, this is the 
 actual condition of things, and that in large numbers of 
 others the land and the houses are divided between a 
 very limited number of owners. All the social forces in 
 rural districts, it must be admitted, tend towards this 
 concentration of property in few hands. Within the 
 ring fence of his property, whether it be a great pro- 
 perty, extending over many thousands of acres, or a 
 moderate one of 1,000 or 2,000 acres, the owner desires 
 to be supreme, and to be landlord both of the land and the 
 houses in the adjoining village. It will not be an easy 
 matter to reverse this, and to introduce a new principle, 
 almost unknown to the English social system in rural dis- 
 tricts, of independence, of multiplied small ownerships, and 
 of small peasant owners or occupiers with fixity of tenure. 
 
 It has been assumed that, in the present depressed 
 condition of agriculture and low value of land, the land- 
 owners will be ready and anxious to sell land, for the 
 purposes of the Small Holdings Act. It is very prob- 
 able that many will be willing to sell outlying proper- 
 ties, suitable for conversion into holdings of the larger 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 267 
 
 class ; but will they be equally willing to sell land in the 
 centres of their properties, close to the villages which they 
 own, for the purpose of creating small colonies of inde- 
 pendent owners or of occupiers with fixity of tenure ? To 
 men brought up in the present system of landownership in 
 rural districts, nothing could be more at variance with all 
 their traditions, and all their ideas of their position and 
 functions, and of the enjoyment of their properties, than 
 that they should consent to create colonies of independent 
 occupiers of land, within the limits of their ring fences, 
 and close to the villages where they are now paramount. 
 The last to entertain such a proposal will be those who 
 best fulfil the ideal of the present system, whose cottages 
 are in the best order, and whose allotments of land to 
 their labourers are ample and sufficient. These will be 
 the least able to understand the principle of independence 
 and security of tenure; for the whole system in which they 
 live and move, and for which they have expended labour 
 and money, is based on the opposite principle of depend- 
 ence, and of instability of tenure to all but themselves. 
 
 The question is not merely one of sentiment ; it is 
 also one of pecuniary interest and value. It may be 
 tested in this way : Would the trustees of a property, 
 consisting of 3,000 acres or more, in a ring fence, and 
 embracing the whole of a parish, or the greater part of 
 one, and including one ormore villages, feel justified, before 
 ofiering the property for sale in the market, in consenting 
 to the sale of 50 to 100 acres, surrounded by their property, 
 and near to the village or villages, for the purpose of found- 
 ing a class of independent owners or leaseholders ? 
 
268 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 The question was answered by a member of an 
 eminent firm of land agents in a letter to the Press 
 during the discussions on the Small Holdings Act : — 
 
 " My firm," he said, " has on its books for sale a considerable 
 number of landed properties of from 1,000 to 10,000 acres or 
 more. In most of them the land lies together, and many of 
 them consist of a whole parish, or of two or three adjoining 
 parishes. It cannot be expected that in these cases the vendors 
 will be willing to sell to local authorities 50 or 100 acres, in the 
 midst of these properties, near to the villages, for the purpose of 
 creating a number of small freeholders or leaseholders, as con- 
 templated by the Small Holdings Bill now before Parliament. 
 The entirety of a property within its boundaries is a great at- 
 . traction to purchasers. The planting of a number of small free- 
 holders in the midst of it might greatly interfere with the 
 amenities of the estate, as they are generally understood, and 
 with the sporting rights over the same. We have many other 
 smaller properties for sale, of 100 to 1,000 acres. Most of these 
 are of a residential character, where we could not advise vendors 
 to sell off part for the creation of small ownerships. ... It 
 must be recollected that, except in the east of England, where 
 the agricultural depression has been severe, there are very rare cases 
 of purely agricultural land for sale, which are not in the hands of 
 tenants. In writing this, I desire to express no opinion as to the 
 policy of the proposed measure." 
 
 It would be interesting to know what view the 
 courts of law would take of a proposal to sell land 
 in the centre of a property under their control, for 
 the purpose of creating a colony of freeholders or 
 leaseholders, and where the transaction is opposed by 
 some person interested, on the ground of its interfering 
 with the amenities of the whole property, and therefore 
 
AQBAEIAN TENURES. 269 
 
 witli its selling value. In the recent case, already 
 alluded to, of the sale by the sanction of the Court of the 
 great Savernake estate consisting of 36,000 acres and the 
 whole of ten or twelve parishes, and villages containing 
 over 1,000 cottages, what view would the Court have 
 taken of a proposal to sell fifty or sixty acres in each parish 
 for the creation of a number of independent leaseholders ? 
 Would a purchaser have been found for the whole estate, 
 subject to such a previous sale of so many patches cut out 
 of it, interfering with the full power of the new owner 
 over all and everything within this great dominion ? 
 
 If there should be difficulty on this score when the 
 owner is parting with the estate, and when the expediency 
 of the sale of portions of the property within its boundaries, 
 for the purpose of creating small occupiers with fixity of 
 tenure, is merely a question of money and of price, how 
 far more difficult will it be to persuade owners of such 
 properties, who have no desire to part with the whole of 
 their property, to sell portions for such purposes ? The 
 objection that the sale will reduce the amenities of the 
 whole property, and will interfere with the sporting 
 rights, will be raised in the great majority of cases. 
 Here and there an enlightened owner of a great estate 
 may be willing to allow the experiment to be tried, and 
 may perhaps impose conditions on the county authority 
 to minimise the possible detriment to his property ; but 
 as a general rule it is certain that very great, if not 
 insuperable, obstacles will be found by local authorities, 
 who desire to put the Act in motion, in buying land in 
 suitable positions. 
 
270 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 Let US suppose that a petition comes up to a County 
 Council, in the direction contemplated by the Act, from a 
 number of labouring men and others in a parish or adjoin- 
 ing parishes, pointing out that they are desirous of obtain- 
 ing small holdings, either as owners or leaseholders, in the 
 manner provided by the Act, and showing that in con- 
 sequence of the state of landownership in the district it 
 is impossible for them ever to hope to get the land other- 
 wise. Supposing, on inquiry, the local authority are 
 satisfied as to the reasonableness of the request, but find 
 that they cannot persuade the great owner of the parish 
 or district to sell any of his land, suitably situate, near to 
 the village ? "What course are they then to pursue ? It 
 will be no answer to the petitioners that they can have 
 small holdings in some other part of the county, or that 
 an experiment is being tried elsewhere, and that they 
 must wait to see the result. The position will be scarcely 
 less difficult where, instead of all the land in the parish 
 being in the possession of a single owner, it belongs 
 to five or six difierent persons, all of whom are un- 
 willing to sell. Each owner may consider that his 
 neighbour, rather than himself, ought to be prepared to 
 sacrifice his interest for the benefit of the labouring 
 people of the district. 
 
 It would seem, from the above considerations, that the 
 Act, in this respect, is doomed to almost certain failure, 
 precisely in those districts where it is most required, on 
 the very assumptions which have led to its passing ; and 
 that the power to take land by compulsion, at a price to be 
 arrived at by arbitration in some easy manner, as under 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES, 271 
 
 the Allotments Act, wiU be essential, if any transactions 
 to an extent worthy of an experiment are to be hoped for 
 and realised. Even with compulsion it will be difficult, 
 and perhaps costly, to work the Act. Under the 
 Allotments Act, very few cases have occurred, where 
 local authorities have purchased land for the purposes of 
 the Act, and only a single case has arisen where the 
 compulsory powers of purchase have been put in force ; 
 but the indirect effect of compulsion, in inducing land- 
 owners voluntarily to set apart land for allotments, has 
 been very considerable. 
 
 It may be claimed that a similar indirect result will 
 follow if compulsory powers of purchasing land are given 
 to County Councils, for the purpose of giving effect to the 
 Small Holdings Act. It must be recollected, however, 
 that there is a great distinction between allotments, and 
 the transactions contemplated by the later Act — namely, 
 the extension of small holdings with more or less of 
 security of tenure. The setting apart of allotments for 
 the labourers in no way diminishes the powers of the 
 landowners ; on the contrary, it rather increases them, 
 for it makes the labourer dependent on the landlord 
 for another of his means of existence. The very 
 essence of allotments is the temporary occupation of 
 land, terminable at the end of a year's notice at 
 most ; but the essence of the principle aimed at by the 
 Small Holdings Act is permanency of tenure, to be 
 arrived at by facilitating either ownerships or tenancies 
 with fixity of tenure ; and it is precisely this principle of 
 fixity of tenure, which will be to the landowners the 
 
272 AQBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 gravest objection to selling their land to local authorities 
 for this purpose. It is scarcely probable, then, that the 
 indirect effect of compulsion in the case of the Small 
 Holdings Act will be considerable, except iu the direction 
 of inducing landowners to let land for allotments, more 
 freely and of greater extent than is generally the case, and 
 perhaps also to increase the number of small holdings 
 on their estates, but without fixity of tenure. 
 
 It is certain, then, that the multiplication of small 
 ownerships and occupations of land with fixity of tenure, 
 in lots suitable for labourers and others, so as to create 
 a spirit of independence, and to raise their status, by the 
 process contemplated by the Small Holdings Act, can 
 only be effected, on any scale, sufficient even for an 
 experiment, by the adoption of compulsion. Without 
 this the Act will certainly be a dead letter, and 
 even with it, will be difficult to work and slow in its 
 operation. 
 
 In review, then, of the Small Holdings Act, it must 
 be concluded : 
 
 (1) That so far as it contemplates the creation of a 
 class of occupying owners of land of fifty acres and under, 
 or of £50 rental value and under, where the occupiers 
 are expected to make their living wholly out of the land, 
 there is little reason to expect any substantial result, 
 and that the operation of buying properties and cutting 
 them up into farms of this kind must be attended with 
 great risk of loss to local authorities. 
 
 (2) That the part of the Act from which there 
 is best reason to hope for substantial result, is that 
 
AQBABIAN TENURES. 273 
 
 aiming at the creation of small tenancies, witli fixity of 
 tenure, of from one acre to five acres and upwards, 
 which may be held by labourers and others as adjuncts 
 to their other employments. 
 
 (3) That this will involve, the purchase of land near 
 to the villages, where these labourers and others live, 
 and that there is little hope of obtaining such land 
 unless power to purchase it by compulsion be conferred 
 on local authorities. 
 
 (4) That the fear of the use of compulsory powers may 
 have the effect of inducing some landlords to act volun- 
 tarily in the direction aimed at by the Act, without the 
 intervention of local authorities. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 REFORM OF LAND LAWS. 
 LAND IN MORTMAIN. 
 
 It remains to consider whether any other methods are 
 open to the State of facilitating and promoting, what is 
 now admitted on all hands to be of national importance 
 — namely, the multiplication of small occupations and 
 ownerships of land, so as to afford opportunities to labour- 
 ing men to rise from their status to the higher ranks in the 
 social scale of farmers, and to give to them a sense of 
 greater independence and of permanency in their homes. 
 There are two directions in which it seems possible 
 to proceed : the one by making use of the land belonging 
 to the State, or held in mortmain by various bodies, allied 
 to the State, in the sense that they are not private 
 owners of property, and are invested to a certain degree 
 with a trust, not merely for the objects to which their 
 funds are destined, but also for the management of their 
 properties ; the othe.- by effecting reforms in our Land 
 Laws, with the object of removing all those facilities 
 and inducements which now exist, for the accumulation 
 of land in few hands, and of giving every facility for 
 dispersion and division. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 275 
 
 Some action has already been taken in the first 
 of these directions : — (1) The land belonging to the 
 Disestablished Church of Ireland was sold to its tenants. 
 (2) The Glebe Lands Act of 1887 directed the Agri- 
 cultural Department, when selling glebes in England, 
 to offer them in small plots to cottagers and others, 
 where this could be done without detracting from the 
 price. (3) The Commons Act of 1876 provided that 
 land set apart for the benefit of the poor, as fuel 
 allotments, under old Enclosure Acts, should not be sold, 
 but should be let in allotments to the labouring people. 
 (4) The Act of 1882, with respect to Charity lands, 
 provided that where land is held for the benefit of the 
 poor, the trustees should offer it in allotments to the 
 labouring people. (5) The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 
 of late years, of their own motion, and without any 
 direction by Parliament, have sold some of their estates 
 in various parts of the country to their tenants, taking 
 15 per cent, in cash payment, and spreading payment 
 of the remainder over twenty years. 
 
 The policy, therefore, of making use of public pro- 
 perty, or of property under trust for public purposes, has 
 been distinctly adopted in several directions with varying 
 degrees of success. It is obvious that this policy is capable 
 of considerable extension. The amount of land held in 
 mortmaiu in England is very large. It is believed that 
 in the aggregate not less than 2,000,000 acres are in this 
 condition, and in the ownership either of the Crown, or of 
 the Church of England, of the Universities and Colleges, 
 of Hospitals, of Charities, and other corporate bodies, 
 s 2 
 
276 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 It would appear, then, to be possible to make im- 
 portant experiments through the management of these 
 estates. There was a time, not many years ago, when 
 nearly the whole of the Church property, and the Colle- 
 giate and Charity estates, were let on leases for lives, 
 renewable by fines, and conferring more or less of fixity 
 of tenure on their tenants. In the case of the Church 
 property this system has been changed within the last 
 half century. Tenants were given the option either of 
 buying off their landlord's interest, or of being bought off 
 themselves, and as a result nearly half the Ecclesiastical 
 estates were conveyed to their tenants, and the 
 remainder became the absolute property of the Church, 
 let at rack-rents. * 
 
 In the case of the Collegiate and Charity properties 
 the tenants were treated with less favour ; the leases 
 were not renewed ; they were allowed to run out ; and 
 the lands are now let at rack-rents. 
 
 It is believed that an examination of the condition of 
 these State, Ecclesiastical, and other corporate properties 
 would show that, with a view to economic management, 
 and to avoid the necessity of a large outlay of capital, 
 the system of consolidation of farms into large holdings 
 has been carried out to a much greater extent, than in 
 the case even of the great estates of private owners. 
 
 But where property is under public and corporate 
 management, the State has the right to expect and 
 
 * The tenants of Church property were for the most part not in occu- 
 pation of the land ; they were middlemen, having leases themselves and 
 letting at rack-rents to occupying tenants. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 277 
 
 require that it shall be managed, with a due regard to 
 the interests of all classes living upon it, and not with the 
 object only of making the very utmost net income out of 
 it. On some of the best managed of the private estates 
 in the country, it has been found to be beneficial to lay 
 out the land not merely in large farms, but to have many 
 small farms also, so as to form something of a ladder 
 by which smaller cultivators may be able to rise to 
 higher positions. 
 
 It is not too much to expect that the great estates 
 in mortmain shall be managed in this spirit, that 
 facilities shall be given for small holdings, and that 
 even security of tenure shall be accorded, with the object 
 of effecting this. Where such estates are sold, facilities 
 should certainly be given for breaking them up and 
 selling them in small holdings. In the case of the glebe 
 lands, it is obvious that the requirement of payment 
 of the whole of the purchase money has been an abso- 
 lute bar to the objects aimed at by the Act — namely, 
 their sale in plots to cottagers and others. They afford 
 the opportunity of letting in small holdings with fixity 
 of tenure, and should be acquired by County Councils 
 with this object. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, to lay down any pre- 
 cise rule as to the manner in which this policy should be 
 carried out in the case of land in mortmain. It is sufii- 
 cient to point out that these lands offer opportunities 
 in the direction indicated, and that a central commis- 
 sion might determine in what direction changes of 
 management might be made. If the corporate bodies. 
 
278 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 in whom these lands are vested, should object, or should 
 have no means for carrying out any changes, it might 
 be a question whether the State, or local authorities, 
 should not take over their land, at a valuation, and 
 relieve them of the duties and responsibilities of land- 
 ownership. 
 
 A change in this respect would also have an important 
 effect on the management of private estates. If it be 
 found that the increase of small holdings, let on such 
 terms as to secure permanency of tenure, produces favour- 
 able results, and supplies the link in the system, which 
 will connect the labourers with the farmers, and there- 
 fore act as an inducement to the former to remain in the 
 rural districts ; and if it be found that the cost of erect- 
 ing buildings is the main obstacle to its extension, it 
 may be worthy of consideration whether the State, on 
 the principle of the earlier drainage loans, might not 
 lend money to landowners for this purpose, on favour- 
 able terms, in preference to other charges. 
 
 In the present economic condition of great parts of 
 England and Wales, it is useless to expect that any 
 schemes for the artificial creation by local authorities of 
 considerable numbers of small farms, can be successful. 
 If they are to come into existence again, it will be by 
 degrees — by the gradual division of large farms into 
 smaller holdings. 
 
 In some parts of the country this is now taking 
 place. In Sussex, for instance, it is stated that, owing 
 to the depression of agriculture, there is great difficulty 
 in letting large farms, but that small farms of from 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 279 
 
 40 to 80 acres are eagerly sought after. In one part 
 of the county there has grown up a business, which is 
 very profitable, of rearing and fattening poultry for the 
 London market, on farms of this size, and where the 
 land is mainly devoted to this purpose. 
 
 It is difiicult to believe that similar developments 
 may -not take place in other directions, when we con- 
 sider how vast are the demands of the ever-growing 
 urban populations for fruit, vegetables, dairy produce, 
 and poultry, and how enormous are the imports of these 
 products from other countries. 
 
 If in each of the next few years a single holding of 
 thirty acres, and four or five smaller holdings, of from 
 one acre to five acres, were carved out of larger farms, 
 in each of the 12,000 rural parishes in England and 
 Wales, a very sensible effect would soon be produced on 
 the agrarian system, and more good would result than 
 from the artificial creation of colonies of small holdings 
 in special districts by local authorities. 
 
 LAND TRANSFEE REFOEM. 
 
 There remains the question whether reforms in the 
 laws relating to the inheritance, settlement, and transfer 
 of land may not have an important efiect in modifying 
 the conditions of rural life, and in remedying the 
 defects that have been pointed out. It can no longer 
 be denied that the existing state of things, the prevalence 
 of large properties and large farms, and the extinction 
 of yeomen farmers and of smaller tenancies and 
 
280 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 ownerships, have been largely due to the influence of 
 our land laws, favouring the aggregation of large estates, 
 and opposing obstacles to their dispersion, and that 
 these forces have been supplemented by political and 
 social influences, and assisted also by economic causes. 
 
 These influences, whether legal, political, or social, 
 still prevail, except so far as the electoral reforms of late 
 years have tended to reduce the political influence of 
 great landowners. So long as these influences remain, and 
 so long as the laws favour aggregation, their effect will 
 undoubtedly be great, and it will be useless to re-create 
 artificially, by the use of State loans, small ownerships, 
 for they will in their turn be subject to the influences, 
 which will ultimately merge them again in larger 
 properties. 
 
 So far, the only real effort made to grapple with the 
 question, and to free land from the shackles imposed upon 
 it by the system of entails and family settlements, has 
 been Lord Cairns' great Act of 1 882. It must be admitted 
 however, that this Act has produced little effect as yet 
 — owing, in part, to the depression of agriculture, and, 
 in part, to the necessity for investing the funds derived 
 from the sale of settled land in the narrow list of securi- 
 ties which, by law, are open to trustees. On the other 
 hand, all attempts to deal in a more radical manner with 
 the law of inheritance, and to simplify and cheapen the 
 law of transfer, have been defeated. 
 
 There can be no question that, under the scheme of 
 Eegistration of Titles, as proposed by Lord Cairns in 
 the Act of 1875, the cost of all dealings with land. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 281 
 
 when once upon the register, whether by sale or (what 
 is almost more important), by mortgage, is reduced to a 
 minimum, and the transactions become of the simplest 
 possible character. The necessity for examination into 
 past deeds or former manipulations of the property is got 
 rid of, and the actual title in the hands of the holder is 
 reduced to a simple certificate of the entry on the register. 
 
 The difficulty in the way of its general adoption is 
 the cost of the examination of the title on first placing 
 it upon the register. This, of course, must be conducted 
 on the old system, in order to justify the registrar in 
 giving his certificate of title ; and owners of property are 
 easily persuaded not to incur this first cost. 
 
 To get over this initial difficulty, the method has 
 been devised of registering what is called a possessory 
 title, under which, upon a, prima facie proof of title, 
 the owner may get his property provisionally regis- 
 tered, without the expense of a full examination iuto 
 all past deeds and transactions, involving cost and 
 delay. In such case, after a certain number of years, by 
 the effiux of time, the title becomes indefeasible, and 
 the registrar can give a full certificate of title without 
 further examination. 
 
 What has been aimed at by all interested in facili- 
 tating and cheapening land transfer is that there shall 
 be a legal obligation, on all future changes of ownership, 
 to register at least possessory titles of the properties, 
 so that, in course of time, all titles may become inde- 
 feasible. When, superadded to this, there shall have 
 been arranged a system of local registration in respect of 
 
282 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 smaller properties, so as to avoid the centralisation m 
 London of all transactions connected with the transfer 
 and mortgage of land, there can be little doubt that all 
 future transactions will become exceedingly simple and 
 uncostly, and that great facilities will be given for the 
 sale of land in small lots. 
 
 It has been pointed out that this system of the 
 compulsory local registration of land titles has already 
 been adopted for Ireland, under a recent Act, in respect 
 of holdings sold under the Land Purchase Acts, ^nd 
 thus an important step has been taken in the direction 
 aimed at. Why the same measure did not include 
 properties sold under the Land Court, which practically 
 deals with all sales of land in Ireland, does not appear. 
 It was probably found that professional influence was 
 too strong to admit of this extension. It is certain, 
 however, that the two systems cannot long subsist by 
 the side of one another, and that the simpler and less 
 expensive system must prevail. 
 
 PRIMOGENITURE AND ENTAIL. 
 
 The other questions affecting our Land Laws — 
 namely, the amendment of the law of inheritance 
 and of the system of entails and family settlements — 
 are of even greater importance in their ultimate bear- 
 ing on the distribution of landed property. The sole 
 object of these laws is to prevent the dispersion of 
 properties on the death of their owners. It is not 
 surprising, therefore, that they have this effect, and 
 
AGBABIAN TENUBE8. 283 
 
 that they have, in the past, effectually prevented the 
 dispersion of large estates, and have acted as a con- 
 tinual inducement to the aggregation of others. The law 
 of primogeniture may be described as a declaration by 
 the State that, in the absence of a will made by the owner 
 of land, his land ought to descend to the eldest male in 
 the direct line of succession. In the case, however, of 
 there being only daughters, the law prescribes the 
 equal division of the property among them. The law 
 of entail and family settlement, or, rather, the legal 
 facilities for such arrangements, may be described as 
 the means for securing a family law of succession for 
 any number of living persons, and till the coming of 
 age of the unborn son of the last of them, in favour of 
 the eldest male in the direct line, so as to prevent the 
 dispersion of the corpus of the property, either by the 
 gift or extravagance, or under the will, of the immediate 
 holder. 
 
 Although, by a decision of the judges given in 1847, 
 an entail or settlement cannot be prolonged beyond the 
 period, when the unborn child of the last of successive 
 persons, living at the time of making the entail, comes of 
 age, yet the system is so deftly contrived that once in 
 every generation, when the eldest son of the tenant for 
 life comes of age, and when it is possible for the father 
 and son together to break the entail, there is an induce- 
 ment to the son to join with his father in making a 
 new settlement, so as to prolong the entail to another 
 unborn generation. 
 
 It has already been explained that there was a long 
 
284 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 period in the history of England when land was free 
 from the trammels of entail. When, in the year 1588, 
 it was attempted by the lawyers of the day to devise 
 a scheme for settling land upon unborn persons, 
 the judges refused to sanction it, giving as their 
 reasons * : — 
 
 (1) That the owner of the property would be pre- 
 vented from providing for his widow and children, in 
 such proportion as he might think fit. 
 
 (2) That the eldest son, being certain of his in- 
 heritance, and therefore independent of his father, 
 would not be subject to parental control. 
 
 (8) That it would lead to complexity of title and, 
 therefore, to uncertainty and expense of transfer. 
 
 Later, the able lawyers in the time of the great 
 Civil War succeeded in devising a method, through 
 the intervention of trustees, of evading the law laid down 
 in Chudleigh's case, and of creating the system of family 
 settlements. All the objections raised by the judges in 
 that case have since proved to be well founded. Apart 
 from the economic or social evils resulting from the ex- 
 cessive aggregation of landed estates in few hands, and 
 from the extinction of the class of small owners, there 
 are equally strong objections to the system from the 
 family point of view, on account of its interference with 
 parental control and with the power of the father to 
 dispose of his property, with the object of making 
 greater equality among his children. 
 
 * Chudleigh's case 1 Eep. 131 b. 
 
AGBAUIAN TENURES. 285 
 
 It is to be observed that there is nothing to prevent 
 personal property being settled in thesamemanner as land, 
 and with the same objects. But, generally, personal pro- 
 perty, when subject to marriage settlements, or to trusts 
 under the wills of its owners, is dealt with in a very 
 different way. The usual form of marriage settlement, 
 in the case of such property, is to the husband and 
 wife for their successive lives, with remainder to their 
 children in such proportion as they may appoint, and, in 
 the default of appointment, then equally among their 
 children. In these arrangements the parents retain full 
 power of distributing the property among their children 
 in such proportion as they think fit. If settlements of 
 land were confined to similar provisions, there would be 
 very little objection to them. As in the case of person- 
 alty, they would be restricted to so much of the property 
 only, as is considered necessary to provide for the support 
 of the widow, and to secure some provision for the 
 children, and the remainder would be left free in the 
 disposal of the owner ; whereas the object of the settle- 
 ment or entail of land is mainly to prevent any part of 
 the property being disposed of by the immediate pos- 
 sessor, either during his lifetime or by his will, among 
 his children, and to secure that the estate, subject only 
 to charges in favour of the younger children, shall go 
 to the eldest son. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to point out the economic evils 
 of this system : that it tends to prevent the access of 
 capital to the land, that it ties up estates for successive 
 generations with constantly increasing family charges, 
 
286 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 that it has been a main agent in the aggregation of land 
 in few hands, and in preventing the natural dispersion 
 that would occur through the accidents of fortune of the 
 owner, or through his desire to dispose of his property 
 equally among his children, instead of being compelled 
 to leave it intact to his eldest son. 
 
 It has been suggested in many quarters that the best 
 mode of remedying these evils would be to prohibit any 
 kind of settlements or entails in the case of land, and to 
 confine such arrangements in the future wholly to per- 
 sonal property. There can be no objection in principle to 
 such a course. Lord Cairns' Settled Land Act distin- 
 guished between land and other property, and between 
 land, in the ordinary sense of the term, and the family 
 mansion and demesne land. It may be doubted, however, 
 whether such a prohibition against making settlements of 
 land would have any substantial effect, so long as such 
 arrangements were allowed in the case of personalty. 
 Lawyers would find the means of converting the one kind 
 of property into the other. They might mortgage the real 
 property to its full value or more, and settle the mort- 
 gage as personalty in family settlements , Neither does 
 it seem to be a wise course to enact a fresh distinction 
 between land and personalty. Again, if the only pro- 
 perty a person owns is land — say, a small farm — it would 
 seem to be rather hard upon the owner to say that, 
 although a leasehold house or other personalty might be 
 included in a marriage settlement, the farm could not 
 be so dealt with. 
 
 The better course would seem to be to prohibit 
 
AORABIAN TENURES. 287 
 
 all entails and family settlements, whether of land 
 or personal property, otherwise than in the form 
 of the ordinary marriage settlement — that is, to the 
 husband and wife for life in succession, with remainder 
 to the children, in such proportion, as he or they may 
 appoint, and, when there is no appointment, then 
 equally among the children. This limitation would 
 exclude the settlement of any property on the eldest 
 unborn son of a living person ; it would destroy the 
 main object of the family entails of land. It would also 
 be in full harmony with «uch a proposal, to apply 
 the principle to the cases of all existing family settle- 
 ments, where the eldest son has not reached an age, 
 when he has fully realised his expectation — say the age 
 of fifteen — and to provide that, notwithstanding the 
 terms of the settlement, the parent, who is in pos- 
 session, should have power to dispose of the property, 
 as he may think fit among his children. This pro- 
 posal would be in strict accord with that for abolish- 
 ing the law of primogeniture. It would seem to be 
 a logical conclusion from the withdrawal of the State 
 sanction to the preference of the eldest son, that there 
 should no longer be allowed a family law of succession, 
 in favour of successive eldest sons, and of unborn eldest 
 sons, through the medium of family settlements. The 
 joint operation of the two changes in respect of primo- 
 geniture and settlements would, it is believed, have a 
 very important effect in the ultimate distribution and 
 dispersion of landed properties. The principle of un- 
 equal distribution of land could not be maintained to 
 
288 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 the extent, which is now the case, under provisions 
 imposed on successive generations by ambitious an- 
 cestors. 
 
 COMPUIiSOBT HERITAGE. 
 
 There is much to be said in favour of going yet a 
 step further, and of adopting the principle, now generally 
 prevalent in Europe, known as " the compulsory heritage " 
 — namely, the enforced distribution, on the death of the 
 owner, of the greafer part of his property, whether land 
 or personalty, equally among his children. This prin- 
 ciple, derived from the Roman law, was the old common 
 law of Europe. The feudal principle of primogeniture 
 and entail was adopted later, and was applied exclusively 
 to feudal rights and property in possession of the nobility, 
 but was never extended to the common people. Later still, 
 wherever the feudal principle was abolished, the common 
 law of compulsory division became the general rule. 
 In France it was regulated and made universal by the 
 Code Napoleon. In countries where this system has 
 prevailed, there is no law so universally acceptable to 
 all classes, as one founded on the principle of justice and 
 equality in the family, and as beneficial in its applica- 
 tion and effect, in preventing the aggregation of property, 
 and especially land, in few hands. 
 
 Opinion in England, however, is very far from having 
 arrived at a point, when it would bear such a limitation 
 on the freedom of willing, and it would be useless at 
 present to propound such a change. It is strange, how- 
 ever, that those who can defend our system of entails 
 
AGBARIAN TENURES. 289 
 
 and family settlements, the very essence o£ whicli is to 
 deprive the holder of landed property of all power of dis- 
 posing of it among his children, and to secure its descent 
 to a single and eldest son — a system which so gener- 
 ally prevails in the case of landed properties — should 
 insist so strongly on the principle of freedom of he- 
 quest, and should be so averse to the Continental law 
 of compulsory heritage. It may well be doubted 
 whether, under a system of freedom of willing, in the 
 absence of entails, it will be possible to stay the process of 
 the aggregation of land in few hands. The feelings of 
 family pride, and of posthumous ambition to found or 
 sustain a family, and the social privileges which attach to 
 great estates, are so powerful, that they may possibly 
 work in this direction, unless counteracted by the law 
 of compulsory distribution on the death of the owners 
 of land. It has been described how strong is the 
 feeling of the people of Jersey and Gruernsey on this 
 point, and how deep their conviction that they owe their 
 prosperity, and the absence, of pauperism, to the wide 
 distribution of land secured to them by the law of 
 compulsory heritage. 
 
 REVERSAL OF STATE INFLUENCES IN FAVOUR OF 
 AGGREGATION. 
 
 There are many indirect means by which the State 
 has in the past favoured, and stiU continues to favour, 
 the aggregation of properties, or to oppose obstacles 
 to their dispersion. Foremost among these is the 
 
290 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 distinction drawn between land and personalty, for the 
 purpose of the death duties. No probate duty is charged 
 on land. The succession duty which is levied on land is 
 supposed to be an equivalent to the legacy duty. It 
 is assessed, however, not on the actual value of the 
 property, but on the value of the life interest of the 
 person to whom it is bequeathed. The payment of 
 succession duty may also be spread over five years. 
 The object of this arrangement is to make it easy for 
 the owner of the land to pay without selling any of 
 his land. Lord Thring has suggested, as a means of 
 promoting the sale of land in small parcels, that the 
 State should take payment of the succession duty in 
 kind. 
 
 " It is clearly," lie has said, " of advantage that well-to-do 
 peasants should have an opportunity of purchasing land out of 
 their savings if they wish to do so. In order to meet their 
 requirements, a sale of large parcels of land in the same part of 
 the country is of little avail, as in no case will there be found 
 an occasion in England for the establishment in any one place 
 of numerous peasant properties. The object is to ensure, as far 
 as possible, that in every village in England one or more peasant 
 properties may be capable of acquisition at a small expense. In 
 order to secure this, I would suggest that land, in the case of re- 
 demption of the land tax, and in the case of the succession duties, 
 might be taken in kind in payment. At present, a great prac- 
 tical diflSculty exists as to how the money for such purpose is to 
 be raised in the case of land. To raise money by mortgage 
 involves an expense not imfrequently as great as the sum 
 required to be paid as duty. On the other hand, if the Revenue 
 OflBce could take small portions of land as payment in kind they 
 would confer a double benefit : first, on the owner, by relieving 
 him from the obligation to find money at a disadvantage; 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 291 
 
 secondly, on the public, by putting into the market from time 
 to time, in different parts of the country, small plots of land 
 adapted to the resources of small proprietors/' * 
 
 There can be little doubt that the practice of con- 
 ferring peerages and other hereditary titles upon 
 persons who have performed no important public 
 service, but who have either inherited, or purchased, 
 and accumulated large properties in land, has been a 
 very potent influence in the aggregation of land. Mr. 
 Pitt, who was most profuse in his additions to the 
 peerage, is reported to have said that a man, who had 
 £10,000 a year in land, was entitled to a peerage, if he 
 desired it, and if he was on the right side in politics. 
 The same view seems to be entertained by some Prime 
 Ministers of modern times, though the qualification 
 has been enlarged. Many recent peerages have little 
 to justify them, except the possession of landed 
 estates ,of £20,000 a year and upwards. It may 
 be doubted whether there is any so sure a method of 
 obtaining hereditary honours, even in the present day, 
 as that of aggregating a large estate, and using the 
 influence, which attaches to it, in the field of politics. 
 So long as this bad tradition is maintained, the indirect 
 influence of the State in favour of aggregation will be 
 very great. Of the same order of influences is the 
 selection of county magistrates wholly, or chiefly, from 
 the class of landowners. In many rural districts the 
 Lord-Lieutenants refuse to put upon the rota of 
 
 * Nineteenth Century Review, 1892, p. 150. 
 T 2 
 
292 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 magistrates any but landowners of good estate, or those 
 closely connected with the landed interest. 
 
 To reverse all the influences which lead in this 
 direction, and which oppose themselves to the dispersion 
 of landed property, will be no easy task ; but unless 
 this is done, all the artificial attempts to create a class 
 of small ownerships will fail, and what is gained in one 
 direction, will be lost in another, and the existing 
 system will be bolstered up by the administration of the 
 country, as well as by fashion, custom, tradition, and 
 social privilege. 
 
 It is believed that the joint effect of the abolition 
 of primogeniture and the prohibition of entails, the 
 simplification of the methods of transfer by the 
 adoption of local registries, and the compulsory registra- 
 tion of titles, when assisted also by the withdrawal of 
 the State support to aggregations of land in few hands, 
 will soon be powerfully felt all over the country in 
 facilitating and promoting the creation of small owner- 
 ships. In the first instance these will be mainly held 
 as adjuncts to other employments, whether by labourers 
 or village tradesmen, but later it may be that many 
 more persons will make their living whoUy out of small 
 ownerships and tenancies than is now the case. 
 
 This, however, can only come about by degrees. The 
 attempt artificially to create small ownerships by State 
 loans will probably fail. What is wanted, is not so 
 much colonies of such persons in isolated districts, 
 as that there should be small ownerships and tenancies 
 within reach of every village in the country. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 293 
 
 In this respect there is much to be hoped for from 
 the action of landowners themselves. Public opinion 
 is often more potent in its effects even than legislation. 
 It may well be that, under the spur of public opinion, 
 the feeling will grow among landowners, that it will be 
 wise, as much in their own interest, as in that of the 
 people of their districts, to give facilities for the 
 acquisition of small ownerships, and of small holdings, 
 with security of tenure. If this should be the case, 
 there would soon be results far greater and more widely 
 spread than can possibly be expected from the action 
 of Local Authorities.* The operations of Building 
 Societies might, it would seem, be extended to the 
 purchase of small holdings of land ; and it may be 
 worthy of consideration whether the State might not 
 facilitate such transactions by the loan of money on 
 favourable terms, as in the case of Societies for the 
 erection of Artisans' Dwellings. 
 
 * In the case of a large estate, in a purely agricultural district, of 
 which the writer is a trustee, there were sold, a few years ago, over thirty 
 plots of land, varying from one acre to fifteen. They brought very high 
 prices, and were bought by persons of the class of village tradesmen, who 
 were tempted to buy by the offer of conveyances free of any legal charges. 
 
CHAPTEE XH. 
 
 NATIONALISATION VERSUS INDIVIDUALISM. 
 1. MR. HENRr George's scheme. 
 
 It has been shown that the principal efforts of the 
 Legislature and the main objects of land reformers have 
 been in the direction of multiplying ownerships of land, 
 and of reversing the influences and facilities for the 
 aggregation of large estates. There are some reformers, 
 however, who object to the policy of adding to the 
 number of individual owners of land, and who look 
 forward rather to some scheme of State or Municipal 
 ownership of land. 
 
 It will be well, therefore, to consider briefly 
 what should be the ultimate aims of agrarian reforms, 
 whether they should tend towards individual owner- 
 ship, or to nationalisation and municipalisation of land, 
 or to some form of socialism, in which ownerships, 
 or even permanent occupations, by individuals would 
 have no place. 
 
 Mr. Henry George, who is the principal expounder 
 of the tenets of one school of land nationalisers, has 
 denounced individual ownership in no measured terms, 
 and holds it to be a main cause of pauperism and dis- 
 tress. In forcible and picturesque language, he says : — 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 295 
 
 " The recognition of individual ownership of land is the denial 
 of the natural rights of individuals. . . . Our boasted free- 
 dom involves slavery so long as we recognise private property in 
 land. . . . Rent is a fresh and continuous robbery that 
 goes on every day and every hour. It is not from the pro- 
 duce of the past that rent is drawn, but from the produce of 
 the present. It is a toll levied upon labour constantly and 
 continuously. Every blow of the hammer, every stroke of 
 the pick, every thrust of the shuttle, every throb of the steam 
 engine, pays its tribute. . . . Private ownership of land 
 is the nether mill-stone. Material progress is the upper mill- 
 stone. Between them with an increasing pressure the working 
 classes are being ground.'" * 
 
 When, however, Mr. Greorge explains the practical 
 details of his scheme for remedying these evils, and for 
 carrying out his principle, they appear to resolve them- 
 selves into a method of taxation rather than a change 
 of land tenure. He proposes that the whole of that part 
 of the income of landowners, which is due to mere rent, 
 and not to interest on the value of the improvements 
 effected on the land, shall be levied by the Statp in the 
 form of a land tax. 
 
 " I do not propose," he says, " either to purchase or to con- 
 fiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; 
 the second, needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still 
 retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to 
 call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let 
 them buy and sell, bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave 
 them the shell if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to 
 confiscate land ; it is only necessary to confiscate rent.^f 
 
 * " Progress and Poverty," p. 241. 
 t "Progress and Poverty," p. 288. 
 
296 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 And again he says : — 
 
 "^The right of exclusive ownership of anything of human 
 production is clear. To improvements of land such an original 
 title can be shown, but it is a title only to the improvements, 
 and not to the land itself. If I clear a forest, drain a swamp, 
 or fill in a morass, all I can justly claim is the value given to 
 these exertions. They give me no right to the land itself, no 
 claim other than to my equal share with every other member of 
 the country in the value which is added to it by the growth of 
 the country. ... If . we concede to priority of possession 
 the undisturbed use of land, confiscating rent for the benefit of 
 the community, we reconcile the fixity of tenure which is neces- 
 sary for improvement with a full and complete recognition of 
 the equal rights of all to the use of the land." * 
 
 It is clear from such extracts that Mr. George, and 
 those belonging to his school of land nationalisation, 
 propose to leave the owners of agricultural land in 
 actual possession of their property, but to impose a tax 
 on them equal to the true rent of their land after de- 
 ducting that portion of the nominal rent, w^hich is due 
 to the improvements made upon the land, and not to 
 its inherent qualities or position. 
 
 In the case of town properties it is presumed that 
 Mr. Greorge would levy, in the shape of a tax, the true 
 ground rent — that is, the estimated rent of the land 
 without the buildings erected upon it. The proposal 
 then seems to resolve itself into a plan for taking 
 for State purposes what is commonly called the " un- 
 earned increment," not, however, confined, as Mr. J. S. 
 MiU proposed, to the future increment, but including 
 
 * " Financial Keform Almanac." 1891. 
 
AGJiABIAN TENU11E8. 297 
 
 the past increment, going back to the time when the 
 land was prairie or waste, and unimproved or unbuilt on. 
 With a tax thus levied, he would propose to exempt 
 the labouring classes from all taxes on articles of 
 consumption. 
 
 It is not necessary further to discuss such a proposal. 
 It is a system rather of taxation than of land tenure. 
 It savours of impdi unique of the school of physiocrats 
 in France before the Eevolution. It is not really in- 
 consistent with private property in land. As a method 
 of taxation it is beyond the scope of the present inquiry. 
 It may be well, however, to make two observations upon 
 it before passing on. Such a scheme, whatever may be 
 thought of its expediency, might be perfectly just if 
 adopted by a State, with respect to its unoccupied land, 
 or if applied, so far as the increment of value is concerned, 
 to the increased value of the future ; if, for instance, a 
 State were to announce and enact that, in future, all 
 purchasers of its 'public and uncultivated lands would 
 be subject to such a tax, no one could take exception to 
 it on the ground of injustice and inequality of treatment. 
 But in a country where individual ownership of land has 
 been recognised for generations, and where thousands of 
 interests have grown up on this basis, it is impossible 
 to recognise the justice of exempting personal property, 
 wholly or in part, from taxation, and accumulating it on 
 that property which has been invested in land. So far 
 as the labourers are concerned, it would seem to be a 
 matter of indifference whether the tax is levied on one 
 kind of realised property or another — on personal 
 
298 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 property invested in consols or in shares of public com- 
 panies, or in house property or in land. But the inequality 
 of treatment between the owners of these classes of 
 property would be so manifestly unjust, that the scheme 
 could not be carried out. The question therefore would 
 ultimately resolve itself into this, whether it would be for 
 the general interest to relieve the labourers of the taxes 
 on spirits, beer, tobacco, and tea, for the purpose of 
 accumulating them on all realised property, whether 
 land or personalty. 
 
 As, moreover, Mr. George does not propose to con- 
 fiscate the land itself, or to take the control and manage- 
 ment of it out of the hands of its present owners, but 
 merely to impose on them a tax representing the true 
 rent only — that is, the annual value of the land 
 irrespective of improvements upon it — his scheme 
 would have very little effect upon a large proportion 
 of the agricultural land of England at the present 
 time, for it is certain that the present rent, reduced, 
 as it has been, by agricultural depression, is in many 
 cases no more than a fair rate of interest on the capital 
 expended on the land within the last forty or fifty 
 years. 
 
 It may be doubted, indeed, whether there is any 
 extent of purely agricultural land in Great Britain 
 at the present time, where the rent represents more 
 than the interest on the money which has been spent 
 on converting it from waste land into its present con- 
 dition, including the making of roads, drains, and fences, 
 the erection of houses and cottages, the planting it. 
 
AGBABIAN TENUBE8. 299 
 
 and all those other improvements which have taken 
 place from the earliest of times. 
 
 In an interesting article in the Journal of the Royal 
 Agricultural Society, on " The Making of England," * 
 Mr. Albert Pell has shown that on three large typical 
 estates, in different parts of England, the expenditure 
 on improvements of various kinds within the last fifty 
 or one hundred years has been of such an amount that 
 the interest on it at four per cent, would exceed the 
 net rental derived by the landowners from the pro- 
 perties, and that the landowners would have been far 
 richer men if, instead of improving their estates, they 
 and their predecessors had invested this money in 
 consols, and had allowed their land to remain in its 
 original condition. 
 
 On one of these estates, in Norfolk, the expenditure 
 in improvement from 1776 to 1841 was £536,000, and 
 the gross rent, at the end of that period, was £52,000 a 
 year, the net rent, after payment of taxes, tithe, main- 
 tenance, and management, being no more than £30,000. 
 Since 1842 the present owner has expended £490,000 
 in improvements on the property, but his net rent is 
 reduced to a little over £25,000, which is not more 
 than 2|- per cent, on the outlay in the last hundred 
 years. 
 
 Such cases show how little in these days would be 
 obtained from a tax on agricultural land so levied as 
 to appropriate the true rent only, after deducting the 
 
 * Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1887, p. 355. 
 
300 AORARIAN TENURES. 
 
 interest on the amount of capital expended on improve- 
 ments in modern times. The question, however, of 
 " increment of value " is one of far greater importance in 
 towns, where the aggregation of population and wealth 
 has raised the value of land to a point often far exceed- 
 ing that of the buildings erected upon it, and where 
 this has been in no way due to the expenditure or 
 efforts of the successive owners of it. There is much to 
 be said in such cases in favour of a scheme of taxation, 
 ■ whether local or imperial, which shall impose on such 
 ground values a larger contribution than on property 
 which is due to the expenditure of capital and labour, 
 namely, the buildings erected on the land. This, how- 
 ever, as well as the analogous questions of " better- 
 ment " and " enfranchisement of leaseholds," is beyond 
 the scope of an inquiry into agrarian tenures in rural, 
 districts. 
 
 2. MR. ALFRED WALLACE'S SCHEME. 
 
 The Land Nationalisation Society, with Mr. Alfred 
 E. Wallace as its president, approach the question 
 from a somewhat different point of view to Mr. Henry 
 George. They agree with him as to the evils of the 
 present system, but they direct their attacks rather 
 against the system of landlordism and tenancy, than 
 against ownership. 
 
 " Landlordism/' says Mr. Wallace^ "_per se,is necessarily evil, 
 while the occupation of land by its real or virtual owners is good, 
 just in proportion as the owner is in a position to receive the 
 whole benefit, present and future, of his outlay on the land. To 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 301 
 
 secure this, the State must be the real owner or ground landlord. 
 It is equally clear that the nature of ownership of land must not 
 be the same as that of other property, as, if so, occupying owner- 
 ship would not be universally secured. A person must own land 
 only so long as he occupies it personally — that is, he must be a 
 perpetual holder of the land, and not its absolute owner; and this 
 implies some superior of whom he holds it. We thus come back 
 to that feudal principle (which in theory still exists) that any- 
 one must hold his land from the State subject to whatever 
 general laws and regulations are made for all land so held. 
 The State must in no way deal with individual landowners except 
 through the medium of special Courts, which will have to apply 
 the laws in individual eases. Thus, no State management will 
 be required, with its inevitable evils of patronage, waste, and 
 favouritism." 
 
 He then points out that the value of land is made 
 up of two distinct portions — the inherent value and the 
 improvements or additions made to the inherent value 
 by the labour and outlay of the owners or occupiers. 
 The inherent value should, he thinks, become the 
 property of the State, which must be remunerated for 
 its use by payment of a perpetual quit-rent. The other 
 portion, which is that created by the exertion of the 
 landowner ar his predecessors, consisting of buildings, 
 fences, drains, gates, private roads, plantations, etc., 
 should be the property of the occupier of the land, and 
 may conveniently be termed the tenant-right, because 
 the possession will constitute him a tenant of the State. 
 
 For the purpose of effecting this change, he proposes 
 that a valuation shall be made of every holding, separating 
 these two values, and that the State shall become the 
 owner of the former, compensating the existing owners 
 
302 AQBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 by paying to them annuities equal to the annual value of 
 the inherent value of the land, not in perpetuity, but for 
 a certain number of lives. The land having thus been 
 acquired by the State, every existing tenant would be en- 
 titled to continue in possession of his house, farm, or land, 
 as holder under the State, on payment of a fixed quit- 
 rent ; but to constitute him such a State tenant he must 
 first purchase the tenant-right. He is to do this either 
 by purchasing it from the landlord under a private agree- 
 ment, or, failing this, at a price to be determined by a 
 Land Court. He would then become the absolute owner 
 of the tenant-right, and, as such, the holder of the land 
 under the State in perpetuity. The tenant-right, carrying 
 with it the right of occupation, would be as freely saleable 
 as any other property. The land would be capable of 
 being subdivided and sold or bequeathed in portions. 
 Where the tenant is unable to purchase the tenant-right, 
 provision is to be made, either through authorised loan 
 societies or through municipal authorities, for the advance 
 of the sum required, to be repaid by a terminable rental 
 extending over a period of from fourteen to forty years. 
 Sub-letting would be absolutely prevented. This, it is 
 contended, would be absolutely essential to secure the 
 full benefit of nationalisation, because once admit sub- 
 letting, and landlordism would again rise under another 
 name, and the sub-tenants would be subject to all the 
 injurious influences and conditions, the abolition of which 
 is the very raison d'etre of the reform. The Land Court, 
 however, is to be empowered to permit sub-letting in 
 certain cases, in order to keep the house or land for 
 
AOBABIAN TENURES. 303 
 
 minors, and in other analogous cases. Mortgaging is 
 also to be strictly limited. 
 
 The scheme of land nationalisation thus propounded 
 seems to partake in part of the system of tenure created 
 by the Irish Land Act and the Scotch Crofters' Act, by 
 the establishment of a dual ownership of the land, the 
 State, however, being substituted for the landlord, and 
 the tenant being converted into a joint-owner, with per- 
 petuity of tenure at a fixed rent, and with the same 
 restriction against sub-letting as exists in those Acts. 
 In order to bring about this state of things there is to 
 be an expropriation of the landlord's interest, one portion 
 of which is to be transferred to the State in return 
 for an annuity for a certain number of lives, the other to 
 the occupying tenant for a sum of money down, which 
 is either to be paid direct by the tenant or by the local 
 authority, which is to lend money for the purpose to the 
 tenant, repayable over a term of years. This part of the 
 scheme, therefore, involves the system of the Land Pur- 
 chase Acts of Ireland. The scheme, apparently, is to 
 apply equally to buildings and urban property as to 
 land and agricultural property. As the value of the 
 improvements, whether town buildings of all kinds, 
 farm buildings, roads, drainage, etc., greatly exceeds the 
 inherent value of the land — which at the present time, 
 in the case of agricultural holdings, is very small — the 
 advance necessary from the State would represent a sum 
 many times greater than the National Debt. 
 
 The occupying holders would pay in the future two 
 rents, the one representing the inherent value of the 
 
304 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 land, if any, the other the interest of the purchase-money 
 of the buildings and improvements. It is clear, then, 
 that their payments for forty years would be consider- 
 ably greater than their present rents. There seems to be 
 no reason to suppose that the bulk of the farm tenants 
 would desire such terms ; in the case of larger holdings 
 they would prefer to remain as tenants under the 
 present system, paying rent, with the prospect of reduc- 
 tion in the event of prices ruling lower, to paying 
 more than their previous rent without any prospect of 
 a reduction. The landowners, being expropriated, would 
 cease to expend capital on permanent improvements. 
 It is not suggested that the State should undertake this 
 duty. The bulk of the yearly tenants are quite unable 
 to expend capital on permanent improvements. The 
 scheme, therefore, appears to be quite impracticable in 
 the case of the larger holdings, of which England mainly 
 consists. It follows also that private ownership of 
 land, having been got rid of by a supreme effort, 
 would certainly reassert itself in the case of the occupy- 
 ing owners, holding by a fixed quit-rent from the 
 State; and as it does not appear that there is to be a 
 periodic revision of the quit-rent due to the State, any 
 future increment of value would go to the occupying 
 tenant. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how the advantages, 
 if any, of the system could be worth the great effort 
 and risk to the State in carrying it out by a general 
 scheme of purchase on the enormous scale contemplated 
 by the author of the plan. 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 305 
 
 LAND RESTORATION. 
 
 There is yet another school of land nationalisers, 
 represented by the Land Eestoration League, who would 
 not be content to take the pure rent of the land in the 
 form of a tax, like Mr. George, or to take the interest of 
 landlords by compulsion, but subject to compensation, 
 as Mr. "Wallace advocates; but who propose that the 
 State should resume possession of land, and should take 
 the management of it, in the sense of dividing it into 
 holdings of whatever size might commend itself to the 
 people. In the manifesto of this Association it is 
 said : — 
 
 " The land of every country belongs, by indefeasible title, 
 to the living people of that country, unfettered by any grants, 
 bargains, or sales, made by preceding generations, and it is equally 
 manifest that the produce of labour rightfully belongs, by similar 
 indefeasible title, to those whose industrj' and skill produce it. 
 To secure this right of property in the produce of labour — a right 
 which is necessary to the improvement and use of land — the user 
 and improver of land must be guaranteed its secure possession,, 
 subject to the acknowledgment of the proprietary right of the 
 whole people to the land itself, and to payment to the community 
 of a fair equivalent for these advantages, which attach to its 
 use by reason of the growth and progress of the community. 
 Therefore the value of land, as distinguished from the value of 
 the improvements made upon it by the user, belongs rightfully 
 to the community, and should be taken for public uses, leaving 
 the producer the full recompense of his industry." . 
 
 " The question of compensation is a purely theoretic one ; 
 but, since it has been raised, we prefer to meet it by declaring 
 that we cannot tolerate the idea that the people of England 
 shall be compelled to buy back the land which is theirs by 
 
306 4GRABUN TENUBES. 
 
 natural right, or to compensate those who now appropriate their 
 earnings for the loss of power to appropriate these earnings in 
 the future." 
 
 In spite of this strong language, it would seem that, 
 as it is proposed to secure to the future cultivators of 
 land the value of their improvements in the future, so 
 it is probably intended to confine the confiscation of 
 existing interests to the true rent of the land, and, when 
 taking possession of land, to compensate the owners 
 for so much of its value as is due to improvements of 
 themselves and their predecessors. 
 
 It appears to be the object of this society to take 
 the direction and control of agricultural laud out of the 
 hands of private owners, and vest it in the State or in 
 local authorities. Having achieved this transfer, they 
 further advocate that the land should be subdivided 
 into smaller holdings, and relet to tenants, rather of the 
 agricultural labourer class than of the farmer class, who 
 are now the universal cultivators of the soil. In the 
 opinion of the advocates of this scheme, the resale to the 
 existing occupiers upon the principle of the Irish Land 
 Purchase Act, or the more recent Small Holdings Act, 
 would be to reintroduce the system of landownership in 
 a worse form than the present, and to multiply owners 
 who would probably, in the long run, be less regardful 
 of the interests of those below them, and of public 
 interests, than the majority of the present large owners 
 of land. Their object is that of universal tenancy rather 
 than of multiplied ownerships. 
 
 Under this scheme it would be necessary for the local 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 307 
 
 authorities not merely to become owners of the land, but 
 to be landlords in the ordinary sense of the term, with 
 the obligation to find capital for any permanent improve- 
 ments, which the occupiers might require. If existing 
 landowners find that the providing of capital for per- 
 manent improvements on a number of small holdings — 
 the building and maintenance of houses and farm 
 buildings — is a great drain on their resources and a 
 serious burthen on their rents, it is not probable 
 that local authorities or the State will be more for- 
 tunate in their experience. They will find it impossible 
 to refuse the demands for outlay, and will finally be 
 compelled to grant fixity of tenure as the only means of 
 resisting a ruinous expenditure. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that when fixity 
 of tenure is conceded to tenants of the State, or of 
 Municipalities, private property in land is to a great 
 extent admitted and established. Tenants with fixity 
 of tenure are practically owners of the land, subject to 
 payment of what is in the nature of a rent-charge, 
 rather than rent, in the ordinary sense of the term, but 
 which may be made liable to increase, so as to secure to 
 the State the future increment of valne. Subject to 
 this, occupiers of the land would practically be owners. 
 The rent would soon be regarded rather as a tax than as 
 true rent. The system would tend to stereotype the 
 particular class of tenancies created at its inception, and 
 to oppose obstacles either to consolidation or breaking-up 
 of holdings, as might be found economical and beneficial. 
 The tenants in possession also would strongly resist the 
 V 2 
 
308 AGRARIAN TENURES. 
 
 conversion of their holdings into building land, when 
 the increase of rent would go, not into their own 
 pockets, but into the public exchequer, or the funds 
 of the municipality. 
 
 It is further to be observed, in estimating the 
 possible results of any scheme of nationalisation of 
 land, that it would generally have the effect of collecting 
 and taking the rent of land from the rural districts, and 
 expending it in the centres of population on national 
 objects, or in relief of taxation ; while under the system 
 of individualism, especially where the ownership of land 
 is widely distributed, the rent, for the most part, is 
 expended on the district in the employment of labour. 
 The former, therefore, would rather tend to promote the 
 exodus of labourers from rural districts. The same 
 result would follow from the municipalisation of land, 
 unless the authorities charged with the receipt and 
 expenditure of rent were purely local, such as Parish 
 Councils; and it is difficult to suppose that bodies so 
 small could be entrusted with the ownership of all the 
 land within their district. 
 
 In considering also the ultimate possibility of any 
 general scheme of landownership by the State or by 
 municipalities, we cannot disregard the fact that all the 
 tendencies of civilised countries in modern times have 
 been in the opposite direction, that of individual owner- 
 ship of the most absolute character, with every facility 
 for the dispersion of property and the multiplication of 
 owners. This has been the case not only with long- 
 established communities in Europe, but also with young 
 
AGRARIAN TENURES. 309 
 
 communities, settled in new countries, in North and 
 Soutli America and in the AustraUan Colonies, where 
 there was every opportunity for any experiments in 
 landownership, which those, discontented with the old- 
 world system, might desire to attempt. Everywhere in 
 these newly-settled countries we see but one and the 
 same system — that of individual ownership. In the 
 case of the pastoral lands of Australia there has been, it 
 is true, an attempt on the part of the State to retain 
 some hold over them, and the Legislatures of these 
 Colonies have been unwilling to concede absolute 
 ownership over the vast districts conceded for sheep and 
 cattle farms ; but this has not arisen from any doubt as 
 to the principle of individual ownership, but rather the 
 reverse. The system has been provisional, and it has 
 been hoped and intended, as population increases and 
 higher methods of cultivation become profitable and 
 necessary, to substitute numerous small ownerships for 
 the rights of pasture granted on lease to the earlier 
 settlers. With this exception there has been no new 
 system of landownership based on nationalisation or 
 municipalisation of land, or on any Socialistic ideas, 
 devised and adopted by those who have been free from 
 all the traditions and difficulties of old communities, 
 and who found themselves in possession of boundless 
 land where any new experiment could have been made. 
 It was possible for any one of these new States to have 
 introduced a novel system of landownership as regards 
 the unoccupied land within its boundaries. It appears, 
 however, that Mr. George has not been able to influence 
 
310 AGBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 any one of them to adopt his views and to make a new 
 departure, by retaining in its hands the ownership of 
 land, and preventing the growth of individualism. 
 They have one and all adopted the old system. They 
 have parted with their public lands on the system of 
 individual ownership in its most absolute form, without 
 any reservation, with all the minerals below them, and 
 all the other incidents recognised by English law. 
 
 It would seem difficult not to conclude from this 
 concurrence that the principle of individual ownership 
 of land is so strongly ingrained in the minds of Anglo- 
 Saxons, that no other system is even thought worthy of 
 trial by them. 
 
 It may also be concluded from these facts that, if 
 any single State in America or any British Colony had 
 adopted some other system, and had put a limitation 
 on private ownership in favour of the people in their 
 collective capacity, the stream of emigration would have 
 passed by the State, and no one would have cared to 
 settle there. 
 
 It is highly improbable, then, that in any old 
 country like England, where vast interests have grown 
 up under the system of individual ownership, and where 
 a change from that to State or municipal ownership 
 would be attended with infinitely greater difficulty, any 
 really serious attempt will be made in this direction, or 
 that any success will follow from it. 
 
 In determining from an economic point of view 
 which of the various systems that have been suggested 
 is the best, it should be recollected that there are only 
 
AGBABIAN TENURES. 311 
 
 two ways in which capital can be attracted to the land — 
 namely, through the occupying cultivators, or through 
 the superior landlords, whether these last be individual 
 owners or local authorities. 
 
 All experience shows that occupiers of land, whether 
 large or small, will not expend capital on permanent 
 improvements unless they have security of tenure, either 
 of ownership, or of tenancy with fixity of tenure either 
 at certain rents, or at rents to be determined by inde- 
 pendent authority. 
 
 In the latter case the occupier virtually becomes the 
 owner of the land, and the landlord is converted into a 
 mere rent-charger. Where this is the case, and the 
 landlord is deprived of all control over the land, and all 
 power of resumption, he has no longer any inducement 
 to expend capital on the land. It is not probable that 
 the State or municipal authorities, if placed in this 
 position of rent-chargers, will be more willing than 
 private landowners to improve the land. If, on the 
 other hand, they are in the position of landlords with 
 a numerous tenantry, not with fixity of tenure, but 
 holding at rack rents, it is very certain that they will 
 find that position to be even more onerous and unpro- 
 fitable than most private owners do ; and the ratepayers 
 will soon weary of submitting to taxation for the outlay 
 of capital on land for the benefit of a few members only 
 of their body. 
 
 The main argument then in favour of individual 
 ownership of land, is that experience shows that full 
 ownership supplies the greatest inducements to improve 
 
312 AQBABIAN TENURES. 
 
 the soil, and to bring capital to it, and gives rise 
 also to sentiments of citizenship and of independence ; 
 of the highest value in the social organisation of rural 
 districts. If this be so, then the more landowners that 
 exist, the greater will be the result and effects of the 
 system. If it is good for a district that a number 
 of parishes, should belong to a single owner, and 
 that no one below him, whether farm tenant or labourer, 
 should have any permanency of tenure, and that all 
 should be dependent upon this single person, then it 
 will be admitted that the system might be still further 
 developed, to the point that all the land of the country 
 would belong to a single person — the State. If, on the 
 other hand, it is true that individual ownership of land 
 attracts capital to the land and fosters qualities of inde- 
 pendence and patriotism in the minds of those who 
 benefit from it, then the more widely spread it is the 
 better and safer it must be for the country. 
 
 The general conclusion, then, is that individual 
 ownership of land can best be defended, and is safest as 
 an institution, and is more effective as an instrument 
 of well-being, when it is widely spread. In this view, 
 all the influences of the State should be used in favour 
 of the dispersion of ownership among all classes. In 
 this direction also lie the best hopes of improving 
 the condition of the agricultural labourers by affording 
 them every opportunity of rising in the social scale, and 
 of acquiring that spirit of independence and of thrift 
 and prudence which go so far towards the welfare of a 
 community. 
 
AGBARLAN TENURES. 313 
 
 There is, it is believed, land enough in the country 
 for every variety in size of ownerships, for many large 
 properties and many large farms, and, side by side with 
 these, for numerous small ownerships and small holdings. 
 It is in this mixture of large and small ownerships, and 
 of large and small holdings, that lie the best hopes for 
 the future of our rural population, a condition of which 
 it may be truly said — 
 
 That diverse interests themselves create 
 The according music of a well-mixed state.* 
 
 * Pope's " Essay on Man.", 
 
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 Maggie Steele's Diary. By E. A. Dillwyn. as. 6d. 
 
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 The Boy Hunters of Kentucky. By Jack Mar8ton*8 Anchor. 
 
 Edward S. Ellis. 
 Red Feather: a Tale of the American 
 
 Frontier. By Edward S. Ellis. 
 Fritters ; or, " It's a Long Lane that has 
 
 no Tuminf 
 
 rrixy: or, "Tl .._ 
 
 Houses shouldn't throw Stones.'' 
 
 m-ng.' 
 "Those who Live in Glass 
 _ _ . shouldn't tl 
 The Two Hardcastles. 
 
 Seeking a City. 
 Rhoda^ Beward. 
 
 Frank's Life-Battle. 
 
 Major Monk's Motto; or, "Look Before 
 
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 that Glitters." 
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 "Golden Mottoes" Series, The. Each Book containing 208 pages, with Four 
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 Through Trial to Triumph; or. "The 
 
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 In Letters of Flsme ; A Story of the 
 
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 Strong to Suffer; A Story of the Jews. By 
 
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 nots. By Thomas Archer. 
 Adam Hepburn's Vow ; A Tale of Kirk and 
 
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 '^^'^-V-'^- : °^i ^^^ Story of the Lost VestaL 
 
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 Marshall. 
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Stlections from Cassell & Company's Publications. 
 
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 Around and About Old EngluLd. By C 
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 Harry Maxwell. 
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 Tom Morris's Error. 
 
 Worth more than Gold. 
 
 " Through Flood— Through 
 
 Fire." 
 The Girl with th« Goldw: 
 
 Locks. 
 Stories of th» Olden Time, 
 
Selections from Casseil & Company's Publications, 
 
 The " World in Pictures " Series. 
 
 A Bamble Koimd Prajioe. 
 
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 FeepB into China. 
 
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 each. 
 
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 txL Quest of Ooldj or, TTnder 
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 Esther Wesc. 
 
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 Poor NeUy. 
 
 Tom Heriot. 
 
 Aunt Tabitha'B 'Wai&. 
 
 In Mischief Again. 
 
 Through Peril to FortuiUk 
 
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 the Rev. Dr. Landels. 
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 B7 
 
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 I 
 
 Wonders of Animal Instiaot, 
 
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 My Diary. With Twelve Coloured Plates and 
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 The Earl of Shaftesbury. 
 
 Sarah Bobinson, Agnes Weston, and Mrs. 
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 Thomas A. Edison and Samuel F. B. 
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 EandeL 
 
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 Sir Titufl Salt and George Moore 
 
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 One VoL,cioih,ffziteai-es,y. j /»r« m 
 
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