TO THE TENANT FARMERS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 FARMERS’ GRIEVANCES 
 
 HOW TO REMEDY THEM AT THE 
 GENERAL ELECTION. 
 
 1. Tenant Right. 
 
 2. Distress and Hypothec 
 
 3. Game. 
 
 4. Local Government 
 
 and Rates. 
 
 5. Tithes. 
 
 BY 
 
 I. S. LEAD AM* M.A., 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD; BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 
 
 \ 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 the national press agency, limited, 
 
 13, Whiiefriars St net, E.C. 
 
 MARCH, 1880. 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE. 
 

FARMERS' GRIEVANCES, 
 
 AND HOW TO REMEDY THEM AT THE 
 GENERAL ELECTION. 
 
 The Tenant Farmers of Great Britain are very generally 
 indisposed to participate actively in political contests. They 
 vote, if they vote at all, as a matter of tradition, and tho 
 questions at issue bet wen Conservatives and Liberals seem to 
 them to bear but a remote relation to their own immediate 
 interests. It is the intention of tho following pages to point 
 out to tho Farmers that at no time in the history of the 
 country has a general election more vitally involved their 
 future, and the renewed prosperity or growing decadence of 
 the farming industry is now dependent upon the way in 
 which they give their votes. The Tenant-Farmers are not o^th^British 
 an unimportant class. They are computed to number 501,000 Farmer, 
 in Great Britain and to own in crops and live and dead stock 
 about one-fifth of the whole capital value of the land. Not 
 only are they capitalists, but they exercise such skill in the 
 application of their capital, despite the artificial impediments 
 with which they liavo to contend, that the compai*atively 
 unfertile soil of the United Kingdom has been rendered 
 the most fruitful in the world. An English acre yields on 
 the average 29A bushels of wheat, while in France the same 
 area will only produce 161 bushels, in Austria 121, in tho 
 United States 12, and in Russia 5A. Similarly with barley ; 
 and as to live stock England has no rivals. A class which 
 by its energy renders such signal service to the community 
 deserves attention and respect. 
 
 It is the fact, however, as Farmers too well know,that the competition 
 experience of the last few years has been in the highest 
 degree calamitous. The average crop of wheat has only been 
 three times reached between 1869 and 1879. The average 
 prices have also been low. The imports of wheat from abroad 
 have increased, so that out of about 25,000,000 quarters 
 consumed in the cereal year 1879-80, 18,126,000 will bo 
 foreign grown. The total agricultural deficiency from 1876-9 
 has been £30,000,000; in Sctland £10,000,000 annually 
 from 1877-9. As an example, cheese has fallen since 1874 
 from 80s. to 55s. and less per cwt. The average price of 
 cheese is reckoned at from £25 to £30 per ton lower than it 
 was in 1873. Tho price of butter has fallen 20—30 per cent. 
 
 Nor is this all. In the meantime the Farmers’ outgoings 
 have been steadily mounting up. The cost of implements 
 and machinery has risen 25 per cent., and not only has the 
 cost of labour increased at about the same rate, but in conse¬ 
 quence of the emigration which has resulted from the exten¬ 
 sion of education to the labourers the labour left behind is 
 that of the comparatively unskilful and unintelligent. 
 
4 
 
 The Fanners' Embarrassments. 
 
 Those who are engaged in legal business know best to 
 what sOraits the Farmer is reduced. An abstract of the 
 number of bills of sale between the 1st July, 1878, and 1st 
 March, 1879, only eight months, shows 1,733 pledges of their 
 property by Farmers, as against little more than half that 
 number in the corresponding months of tho previous year. 
 The rate at which these bills of sale were given during the 
 last week of February, 1879, was G.OOO per annum, and since 
 that date Farmers’ circumstances have, as we know, been 
 drifting from bad to worse. 
 
 Farmer's It is P lain > then, that the Farmer’s position has become 
 
 difficulties be one of extreme difficulty, and the question whether that 
 relieved? difficulty admits of alleviation is of urgent importance both to 
 himself and the community. Tho very existence of British 
 agriculture is at stake if it cannot sustain tho competition 
 which threatens it. And if it can be shewn that tho success 
 of this competition is due, in great measure, to artificial 
 restrictions which impede our farming enterprise, an urgent 
 case will have been made out for their immediate reform, 
 duceof ■ tbe°" It has been said that the energy of the British Farmer 
 
 United has made Great Britain the most productive wheat soil in tho 
 increased ^ 6 world. Nevertheless the Earl of Leicester, a Peer both 
 Liberal in his politics and liberal to his tenantry, and at the 
 same time one of the highest agricultural authorities in the 
 kingdom, has declared that the produce of this country might 
 almost be doubled. It is a remarkable fact that while England 
 has a population of only 300 per square mile and imports 
 food, Guernsey and Jersey contrive to maintain a population, 
 with presumably as large appetites, of 1,200 per square mile, 
 and export food into the bargain ! If, however, it bo said 
 that these islands are superior to the rest of England in 
 natural fertility, let us take for comparison Jersey and the 
 Islo of Wight, which enjoy very similar conditions. The 
 acreage of the Islo of Wight is some 84,000 acres; its 
 population 56,000 ; it imports a large proportion of its food. 
 The acreago of Jersey is one-third that of the Isle of Wight; 
 its population is tho same, yet it exports 55,000 tons of 
 produce annually. 
 
 What is the cause of this astounding contrast? It is 
 plain that Jersey stands in no hazard of the competition to 
 which the Isle of Wight is exposed. Why is it that the Isle of 
 Wight farmer cannot, like the Jersey man, defy the American 
 producer ? The cost of carriage from the American farm to the 
 home market amounts to between 14s.6d. and 15s. per quarter. 
 This is a natural protection to us of 35 per cent., which is 
 not likely to be lowered, for, in the older States of the Union, 
 tlie land is already exhausted, there is not yet sufficient accu¬ 
 mulated capital for indulgence in high farming, and there is 
 a rapid growth of domestic consumption. With this protec¬ 
 tion, more than equivalent to the average rent of the wheat 
 growing land of this country, the British Farmer might meet 
 
Why is Foreign Competition successful? $ 
 
 competition, and, if tlio authority of Lord Leicester be 
 as good as it is generally taken to be, become a rich man into 
 the bargain. The fact is that his difficulties arise from a 
 cause which, summarised under a comprehensive term, implies 
 an infinity of evils—to which the Isle of Wight with the rest 
 of Great Britain is subject, and from which Jersey is free—the 
 English land system. 
 
 The land system, as it should be if it were capable real cause 
 of being carried out in perfection, has been well Farmer’s 
 described by Mr. G. S. Lefovre, the Liberal member for difficulties. 
 Beading. He says :* “ The ideal of the English system of 
 large proprietors and of tenants hiring the land they farm 
 in lieu of owning it, is where the Landlord, being a capitalist, 
 is able to relieve the Tenant of all expenditure of a per¬ 
 manent character, and to leave him the full employment of 
 his capital in his trade of farming, in stocking and cultivating 
 the laud. This ideal involves a considerable expenditure on 
 the part of the Landlord in building farm houses, in draining 
 and other permanent improvements, and in building 
 labourers’ cottages. If these functions are performed by the 
 Landlord; if he has the cajhtal and does what is recognised as 
 a duty, nothing can be better from an economic point of 
 view than the condition of the property, and the relation of 
 
 Landlord, Tenant, and Labourer. The whole system, 
 
 however , depends upon the owner of the property being able 
 to provide the capital for permanent improvements, such as 
 buildings, drains, and labourers’ cottages. If this capital be 
 not forthcoming the system breaks down at its central point, 
 on which the economic success of the whole system hinges. 
 
 Jf the Landlord cannot provide the necessary capital for permanent 
 ■improvement no one else will do so. The farming Tenant cannot be 
 expected to do so upon any length of lease which is ordinarily given 
 to him?* Now it is a recognised fact that the Landlords of andth^ dLaWS 
 this country cannot provide the needful capital. The law, as Farmer’s 
 it stands, enables individuals to accumulate vast aggregations troubles - 
 of land, so that 4,500 persons own one-half of England and 
 about seventy one-half of Scotland. But these Landlords 
 are not real owners. They enjoy but a life interest 
 in the estate, which, with or without their will, goes upon 
 their death to their eldest sons. The less capital, therefore, 
 that they expend upon the land the more they have for then- 
 younger children, who are also provided for by charges out of 
 the estate. Two or three generations of these charges are 
 sufficient to paralyse even the largest proprietors. In the de¬ 
 bate in the House of Commons upon Mr. Chaplin’s motion 
 with regard to agricultural distress, of which more will be said 
 presently, Mr. It. W. Duff, the Liberal member for Banffshire, 
 gave a good example of the hardship thus worked upon the 
 Farmers. "Take the case,'’ he said, " so often referred to, 
 
 “ Freedom of Land.” By G. Shaw Lefevre, M.P. 1880. 
 
6 Embarrassments of the Landlords. 
 
 of a limited owner with an encumbered estate and a largo 
 family. If a Tenant asks for repairs, his Landlord tolls him, 
 
 ‘ I have done enough for my next heir; you must just work 
 away as best you can.’ Hence the tumble-down buildings, 
 the undrained'fields, and the miserable hovels for labourers, 
 which have brought discredit on so many entailed properties. 
 As for the heirs, the eldest sons, the certainty of their future 
 exposes them in youth to the solicitations of money-lenders, 
 and they frequently succeed to their property already crippled 
 by debt. The following is an example of a state of things by 
 no means uncommon among the landowners: ‘ A property 
 of 10,000 acres, with a rental of as many pounds, 
 
 was settled upon the Karl of -for life, with remainder to 
 
 his son, Lord-, as tenant in tail. Upon the coming of 
 
 age of Lord-the estate was re-settled. In consideration 
 
 of an annuity of £1,500 per annum the son agreed to join in 
 the settlement, and to assent to charges which brought up 
 the total encumbrance to £11,500 per annum, leaving a 
 margin of £1,600, out of which the son was to receive £1,500 
 during his father’s life-time. The son gave up Ins reversion 
 in tail and took a life interest in succession to his father, with 
 remainder in tail to his own issue. Within a year from the 
 re-settlement the son, having run into debt for a few thousands, 
 was made bankrupt; the whole of his reversionary life inteiest 
 was then assigned to the creditors, and the result is that during 
 rheLandLaws (he /m , s () f f ((t her and son and perhaps for many years after, P>is 
 Farmer's great estate in'll h in the position of Icing in the ostensible 
 
 troubles. posms{o)l 0 f mn absolutely loithout means and without 
 
 any motivo or probably power to sell.”* Ibis being a 
 not uncommon state of tilings it is not surprising to hear 
 of a case quoted by Mr. W. Fowler, formerly Ml. for Cam¬ 
 bridge.! “A property in Sussex was purchased m 1810 1 or 
 £50,000 and placed in strict settlement. So it remained until 
 1850, when it bad become so reduced in condition through 
 neglect that it was sold to the present owner for £25,000. 
 Tie, being a man of capital and enterprise, lias so improved 
 it, that recently he was offered £75,000 for the same estate. 
 This explains how it is that, as was given in evidence before 
 a Committee of the House of Lords in 1870 by Mr. Bailey 
 Denton, out of 20,000,000 acres requiring drainage only 
 ThsTanriTaiffs 0,000,000 had been properly drained. Mr. Mechi bears 
 and the Far similar testimony, that millions of acres require an expenditure 
 How 8 tbe° UbleS ' of from £20 to £36 per acre. The public dissatisfaction with 
 Conservatives this state ot' things has at last become sufficiently firo- 
 proposetmieal nounced to compel the introduction of a bill lor its 
 with them. amelioration. But the Conservative Government, naturally 
 indisposed to extensive change, has endeavoured in its measure 
 
 «“ Limitation of Entails ar.d Settlements.” By Cl. Uhaw Lefevre, 
 M.P. 1877. 
 
 + “Aspect of the Land Question.” \V. Fowler, M.P. 
 
Why does the Land need Capital ? 
 
 7 
 
 to retain tlio system of limited ownership. The owner, there¬ 
 fore, while ho lias some facilities for undertaking improve¬ 
 ments, should ho care to do so, has no more motive for action 
 than before, and it is needless to say, is put under no com¬ 
 pulsion to sell. On these grounds the Government Bill is 
 strongly opposed by the Liberal Peers, Lords Morley, liipon, 
 and Carington, the last of whom has emphatically denounced 
 the injury to Landlord and Tenant which the prevailing system 
 inflicts. Whatever legal shape the reform of the Land Laws 
 may take, Liberals like the Marquis of Hartington, the 
 Marquis of Tavistock, Earl Cowper, Mr. Forster, and Mr. 
 
 Gladstone, are generally agreed that the embarrassed 
 owner who cannot do justice to his property must bo set 
 loose from his trammels that the land may pass freely to 
 more solvent proprietors. 
 
 “ Free Trade in Land ” is now the first article of reform 
 promised by the Liberals, aliko for the sake of the Landlords, 
 the Tenants and the public. Mr. Gladstone was only pro¬ 
 nouncing the opinion of the Farmers and of tho Liberal party, 
 when he declared in the course of his speeches in Midlothian 
 that “thepresent law of entail was one of tho most serious 
 restraints upon the effective prosecution of tho agriculture 
 of the country.” Yet the Conservatives, fearing to diminish 
 the political influence of tho Landlords, are determined, in 
 substance, to retain it as it is. In this matter, at any rate, 
 the Farmer will have no difficulty in seeing with which party 
 his interests are identified. 
 
 If capital, then, is so urgently needed for the soil, why, it theFannerno 
 may be asked, do not those enterprising capitalists, tho Tenant security for 
 Farmers, contribute it ? Tho answer to this, if it were not so 1118 ca P ital - 
 familiar, would be incredible. The law, in effect, prohibits it. 
 
 Wheroas it might have been expected that evory allurement 
 would be offered to capital; yet in consequence of the utter 
 insecurity of investment in agriculture “ the best 
 authorities are of opinion that capital is being rapidly with¬ 
 drawn.”* Nor is this to be wondered at. Three-fourths of 
 the land of England is held upon yearly tenancy, with six 
 months’ notice to quit,at the expiration of which the Landlord 
 enjoys tho legal right of appropriating tho Tenant’s capital 
 invested in the soil. In this way a positive inducement is 
 held out to the Tenant to put as little into the land, and to 
 take as much out as possible; and it is notorious that this is 
 the effect of the system. Those who oppose any change in 
 the condition of the Tenant in this respect, urge that Tenants 
 from year to year are better off than the leaseholders, in 
 so far as they are loss liable to have their rents advanced. 
 
 But why is this ? Simply because the Tenant from year to 
 year, having no security whatever for his capital, cannot and 
 
 * “ The Relations of Landlord and Tenant in England and Scotland,” 
 p. 100, By W. E. Bear. 1870, Printed for the Cobden Club. 
 
Eviction. 
 
 ) 
 
 8 Why docs Ihe Land need Capital? 
 
 will not imperil it. It is his interest to keep his farm poor, 
 and to incur no expenditure that will not he followed by 
 quick returns. This injustice to the Farmer works injury to 
 the public. Mr. Wren Roskyns, formerly Liberal member 
 for Oxfordshire, and an untiring exponent of Farmers’ 
 grievances, aptly summarised the present system as a “ game 
 of beggar-my-neighbour between Tenant for life, and Tenant 
 at six months’notice, each trying to strip the land by least 
 investment in it.”* The Farmers are hampered, their land 
 rendered less productive, and English money is dri\en abroad 
 to buy food, which could be profitably grown at home. 
 
 That the apprehensions of the Farmer lest his capital 
 should be confiscated are not groundless has been shewn in 
 some very startling instances. In 1872, the late Mr. George 
 Hope, of Fenton Barns, in Scotland, an agriculturist whose 
 farming was reputed the most skilful in the United 
 Kingdom, that is, in the world, and whose family had been 
 Tenants for upwards of a century upon the same estate, 
 suddenly received notice to quit. He had presumed to differ 
 in political opinion from a Conservative Landlord, the Hon. 
 Nesbit Hamilton, who, on the same grounds and at the same 
 time, evicted another Tenant, Mr. Sadler, of Ferry gate, of 
 whom, together with Mr. Hope, no less an authority than 
 Mr. James Howard pronounced “ they aro the most enter¬ 
 prising Farmers of my acquaintance.” The whole of the 
 large capital which they had invested in his land their Land¬ 
 lord irredeemably confiscated. It is only fair to Mr. Hamilton 
 to add that, when in Parliament, in 1849, he had been one of 
 the most outspoken opponents of a measure introduced by 
 Mr. Pusey, the Liberal member for Berkshire, establishing 
 the principle of Tenant-Eight. Other well-known examples 
 have occurred since the case of Mr. Hope. The Earl of 
 Larnley, a nobleman of extreme Conservative opinions, 
 thought fit, in 1876, to evict a gentleman, who was 
 admittedly one of his best Farmers, for the same crime of 
 entertaining political opinions of his own. For no crime at 
 all, but apparently from mere caprice, Mr. ltichard Foxton, 
 Tenant of Welburn, near Kirby Moorside, North Yorkshire, 
 was, in April, 1879, after an occupation by his family of three 
 hundred years, evicted from his holding. The occupation 
 had, of course, been on a 3 'eai'ly agreement, with six months’ 
 notice. The Tenant, confiding in the probity of his Landlord, 
 had erected farm buildings, drained and enclosed bogs, built 
 bridges, planted trees, and executed other permanent and 
 valuable improvements, to the amount of £3,000. He had 
 been assured by the former owners of the farm that he would 
 never have to leave it; and he relied on that assurance. The 
 farm was thrown into Chancery,and bought by a neighbouring 
 proprietor. The Tenant received notice to quit from the 
 
 * “ Catcehism of the English Land System.” By W. Hoskyns, M.P. 
 
j Vhy does the Land need Capital ? g 
 
 iiew Landlord, and was turned adrift without compensation 
 or appeal. 
 
 Against tyranny of this sort, whether prompted by poli¬ 
 tics, temper, or avarice, the Liberal party, which, by the 
 Reform Bill, first gave Tenant-Farmers paying a rent of £50 
 the right to vote, lias always protested. The right to vote* 
 however, leaving the Farmer, as it did, unprotected against 
 political coercion, was only an additional temptation to des¬ 
 potic Landlords to refuse leases,in order to retain the Farmers 
 in dependence upon them. The Liberal party, therefore, 
 again coining to the Farmers’ assistance, and, in spite of the 
 strenuous opposition of the Conservatives, who avowed them¬ 
 selves desirous of supporting the Landlords’ “ influence,” 
 passed the Ballot Act, and the Farmer became at last free to 
 vote as he pleased. It is a noticeable consequence of r.he 
 Ballot, and of the independence which it has conferred on the 
 Farmer, that since its introduction the Farmers have felt 
 strong onougli to agitate for Tenant-Right on their own 
 account instead of supinely acquiescing in tho efforts made 
 from time to time in their behalf by Liberal Landlords in 
 Parliament. 
 
 But it is not only the appropriation of his capital by evic¬ 
 tion that the Farmer has to fear. It is well-known that when 
 the rents of yearlyTenants are raised they are generally raised 
 in respect of the improvements effected by themselves, and 
 the consequent augmented value of their holding. Mr, C. S. 
 Read, M.P. (the Tenant-Farmers’ representative in the House 
 of Commons), in a speech delivered at Harleston, gave an 
 account of an estate in Norfolk on which the rents of all the 
 Tenants whose land was in good heart were put up at 
 Michaelmas, 1878, from 10 to 15 per cent, while the Tenant 
 of one farm in an exceedingly foul condition, without being 
 told the valuation which had been put upon it, was invited to 
 bid, and tho bid, though below his then rent, was accepted. 
 Facts like this may well dishearten Farmers and drive both 
 them and their capital from the land. It is an intolerable 
 wrong that an investor in a business should not be allowed 
 to make the best of his investment, provided lie thereby 
 inflict no injury upon the property of others. And it is insult as 
 well as injury that he should be compelled to purchase the 
 safety of that investment by political subserviency or by 
 cultivating tho goodwill of the agent and the gamekeeper. Yet, 
 oven though he succeed in preserving his capital during his 
 life, his unexpected death involves its loss, absolutely without 
 compensation, and the ruin of his family is the greater in 
 proportion to the services which, as a Farmer, he has rendered 
 by his outlay to the community. A mass of more outrageous 
 injustices never was heaped upon any body of long-surtering 
 men, and but that the Farmers have trusted as their friends 
 those whose political principles involve its retention, the 
 romedy would long since have been applied. 
 
 The Liberals 
 and the 
 Farmers 
 
 Insecurity of 
 the Farmer’s 
 outlay. 
 
10 
 
 Tenant-Right. 
 
 •Tenant-Right. What is this remedy? Simply an equitable principle 
 The remedy. of T enan t-Right. When in July last, in the debate 
 The Conserv- w hich took place upon Mr. Chaplin’s motion, the Liberals 
 Tenant-Right, alleged that what was wanted was not so much a 
 commission of inquiry as an immediate redress of Faimers’ 
 wrongs, Sir Stafford Northcote, the Conservative Chan¬ 
 cellor of the Exchequer, spoke of these allegations as 
 “ extraordinary statements, and likely to make a mischievous 
 impression.” The Government, therefore, after deceiving 
 the Farmers in 1875 with professions of an intention to remedy 
 their grievances by the Agricultural Holdings Act, in 1879 
 turn round and attack the Liberal complaints of the Farmers’ 
 wrongs as “ extraordinary” and “mischievous.” On that 
 occasion Mr. J. W. Barclay, the Liberal member for Forfar¬ 
 shire, “as one of tho few Tenant-Farmers in the House, and, 
 he presumed, one of those mischievous agitators to whom tho 
 right hon. gentleman, the Chancellor of tho Exchequer, had 
 been good enough to allude,” protested in behalf of the 
 Tenant-Farmers, and intimated that the inquiry which the 
 Government teas icilliny to grant , but which had been previously 
 refused to a Liberal member, was intended to stave off the just 
 grievances of the Farmers. 
 
 Tenant-Right, The Tenant-Right which the Farmers demand is a simple 
 a just claim, act of justice. Payment for value received by tho Landlord 
 is the just principle of compensation for tho Farmer’s unex¬ 
 hausted improvements. The Tenant should bo “paid the 
 unexhausted value of his outlay, if that has added to tho 
 letting value of the holding, whether or not he has derived 
 profit from the investment.” Mr. James Howard (late Liberal 
 member for Bedford) once observed that “ by judicious means 
 a Tenant might often add to the value of an estate much 
 more than the amount of the outlay upon his improvements. 
 For instance, a well known agriculturist in Worcestershire, 
 at small cost, embanked a meadow for a short distance at a 
 particular point, which raised the value of a considerable num¬ 
 ber of acres.” “ On broad principles,” he added, “ I think the 
 Tenant has just as righteous a claim to be paid for the exercise 
 of his skill in raising tho valuo of an estate as for the outlay 
 of his money.” Owing, however, to practical difficulties in 
 the way of valuations on this principle and to the opposition 
 which it was sure to excite, the “ Landlord and Tenant Bill,” 
 which was a moderate, though effective, provision for Tenant 
 Right, introduced by Mr. James Howard, adopted the Tenant’s 
 pecuniary outlay as the standard by which to calculate his 
 claims upon the Landlord. Besides this, the Tenant has 
 plainly a just claim to appropriate all the return upon 
 his speculative outlay during his tenancy, because, 
 should the investment prove unremunerative, he alone 
 Tenant-Right an( ^ no ^ Landlord, will be liable to bear the loss. Tho 
 Farmers’ cas0 * s P rec ^ se ^y analogous to any other investment of capital, 
 
 grievance. “ A capitalist lends a man of business a thousand pounds on 
 
Tenant-Right. 11 
 
 good security, and at a fair rate of interest. The man of 
 business uses that sum profitably in his investments and thus 
 adds to it, besides paying interest upon it regularly. When 
 the loan is returned, is the capitalist entitled to claim the 
 increment, or any part of it, as well as the original sum 
 lent?” Certainly not. “The loss of a bad investment falls 
 entirely—and justly—on the investor, and conversely, tlio 
 whole pi’ofit of a good investment should be his.” * 
 
 The opponents of Tenant-Right sometimes maintain that, 
 in the case of long leases, improving Tenants enjoy adequate 
 security. This may bo true when the leases aro “ farmed 
 out.” But, in the first place, as has been seen, the majority 
 of tenancies are not on long leases ; in tho second, they 
 are not by any means always “farmed out;” and thirdly, 
 tiro process of “farming out,” as it diminishes tho produc¬ 
 tiveness of the soil, thereby injures the community, who are 
 compelled to purchase abroad sufficient to supply this artificial 
 deficiency. Mr. IIopo, speaking of the Lincolnshire custom 
 of Tenant-Right, by which the Banners under agreements to 
 quit are paid for their improvements in draining, marling, 
 and manuring, remarks, “It is this Lincolnshire custom 
 which I, and ycoteh farmers generally, want to see added to 
 leases for periods of 19 or 21 years, being sure it would have the 
 effect of adding one-third to the crops of the lcingdom in a vert, few 
 years.”] If even long leases, therefore, are, by themselves, 
 insufficient to induce the application of capital, still more are 
 low rents. There is but one magnet by which capital can 
 be attracted, and that is security, which is at present 
 withheld. 
 
 Seeing, then, that tho present absence of Tenant-Right is 
 not only a grievance to tho Farmer but, on first-rate authority, 
 inflicts an unnecessary loss of more than 33 per cent, of its 
 food consumption upon the community, it remains to be seen 
 how it has been dealt with by the Conservatives and Liberals 
 respectively. 
 
 It was first recognised as coming to the front among 
 public questions of prime importance by a Liberal Peer, 
 Lord Portman, in 1841, whose Bill gave “ power to a Tenant, 
 whether holding from year to year or under a lease, to charge 
 his Landlord with the unexhausted value of any permanent 
 improvements which he had executed, after having given 
 notice of his intention to execute them, with the consent or 
 silent assent of the Landlord. The amount due was to bo 
 settled by arbitration. The Bill further gave power to the 
 landowner to charge his estate with the amount paid for 
 compensation.” This Bill being dropped in tho House of 
 Lords, a Liberal member of Parliament, Mr. Pusey, in 1847 
 brought in his Bill for Compulsory Tenant-Right, of which 
 
 * “Relations of Landlord and Tenant in England and Scotland.” By Mf' 
 
 E. Bear, p. 8G. 
 
 + Tints, December 30, 1874. 
 
 Parliament 
 and Tenant- 
 Right. 
 
The Liberals 
 and Tenant- 
 Right. 
 
 Mr. Howard's 
 Bill for 
 
 Tenant-Right. 
 
 The Conserv¬ 
 atives and 
 Tenant-Right. 
 
 j 2 Parliament and Tenant-Right. 
 
 Mr. James Howard lias said : “I believe that no more honest 
 measure was ever proposed to the British House of Commons. 
 It held the balance fairly between Landlord and Tenant; it 
 o-ave the latter an indefeasible right to h s iinprovements. 
 
 whilst it secured the interests of the owner. Hus Bill did 
 
 not then pass, but in 1848 a Committee was appointed to take 
 evidence upon the question, of which Mr. Pusey was chairman 
 The evidence was for the most part “ m favour not only of 
 legislation, but of compulsory legislation, in order to secure 
 the capital of Tenant-Farmers.” This measure failed at 
 the time, but in 1850, wider a Liberal Government, it paused 
 the ]Louse of Commons with a Liberal majority and teas thrown 
 out by the Conservative majority of the /Louse of Lords. In 
 1873 Mr. Howard, a Liberal, and Mr. Head, who was 
 originally elected to Parliament as a Tenant-Farmer 
 independent of politics, brought in their Landlord and Tenant 
 Bill This Bill, which was for compulsory compensation, met with 
 determined opposition from the Conservatives. Lord Elcho, a 
 Conservative, led the attack upon it with the resolution that 
 “ this House is not prepared to prohibit freedom of contract 
 in England between Landlord and Tenant,” as if that were a 
 free contract which one of the parties enters upon with a 
 multitude of legal presumptions in his favour. In the course 
 of the debate, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, a Liberal, significantly 
 remarked that “he thought it was proper that the country 
 should learn the opinions of the great Conservative party upon the 
 question of Tenant Right/ Viscount Royston admitted that 
 “ he had heard of no opinions on his ” (viz., the Conservative) “side 
 of the House in favour of the Bill, as if stood (i.e., with the 
 compulsory clauses)/ On the other hand, Mr. Wren Hosltyns, 
 the Liberal member for Oxfordshire, “thought tho with¬ 
 drawal of tlio Bill was one of the greatest calamities of the 
 Session. A discussion upon it would have shewn who were the 
 true friends of the Fanners in that House/ 
 
 The Agricultural Holdings Act, 1875, at length made this 
 disclosure unmistakably. It was an ingenious contrivance 
 for pacifying the Farmers, and at the same time retaining 
 those unjust privileges cherished by the Conservative majority 
 of tho landowners. It is not necessary to enter upon a 
 detailed criticism of an Act which, though it remains upon 
 the Statute Book, was from the first, as it was intended to be, 
 a dead letter. In any case it was unsatisfactory, for it was 
 full of vexatious restrictions upon the Tenants and of unfair 
 presumptions in favour of the Landlords. Finally, it adopted 
 the principle which has always been contended for by the 
 Conservatives, that though compensation may be enacted the 
 Landlord should not be compelled to grant it. The Bill, in a 
 word, made compensation permissive and not compulsory. It 
 is well that Farmers should be presented with tho opinions of 
 men of their own class with reference to this measure of the 
 “ Farmers’ friends.” Inquiries have been made by the 
 
Mark Lane Express among the Farmers in all parts of England The conserv- 
 as to their opinion of the Act. The answers shewed in Tenanc^ight. 
 the first placo that, with exceedingly few exceptions, 
 the Landlords, as the Liberals had prognosticated, had 
 availed themselves of the permissive character of the Act and 
 contracted themselves out of its provisions. As to the 
 intrinsic merits of the Act, there was, among the Farmers, 
 one general drift of opinion, summarised in the reply, “ It 
 was so obviously a Landlords’ measure.” “ The Tenants’ 
 opinion is that it is more a Landlords’ Act than a Tenants,’ ” 
 is another answer ; while a third Farmer, who lias jfiainly 
 made up his mind as to the “Farmer’s friends,” at last says, 
 
 “ My candid opinion has been that the Act is the greatest insult to 
 the British Farmer that has ever been produced, and I think they 
 will find it so.” 
 
 Now, since this is the opinion of Farmers upon a measure Tenant* 
 professedly introduced in their interest by the Conservative Right. 
 Government, and since Farmers, like othor people, sometimes 
 have short memories, it is as well to remind them what line 
 the Liberal party took in the House of Commons at the 
 time the Bill was debated. 1'he Liberals, from the beginning 
 to the end of the debate, demanded, as Mr. Pusey, Mr. 
 
 Howard, and Lord Portman had done, that compensation 
 to the Farmers should be compulsory on the Landlord. Thus, 
 after the Premier’s speech Mr. Knatehbull-IIugessen, the 
 Liberal member for Sandwich, “put it to the House that 
 freedom of contract . . . did not at this moment really exist 
 in the hiring of land. Freedom. there certainly was on the 
 side of the Landlord, but the only freedom which 
 the Farmer had was the freedom to decline the 
 
 contract if he did not liko the Landlord’s con¬ 
 ditions. Yes, but that was not freedom in contract— 
 
 it was freedom to avoid entering into any contract at all. 
 
 What lie called freedom of contract was freedom on both 
 sides.” After reference to legislative interference with 
 freedom of contract in the case of the Merchant Shipping Bill 
 and the Truck Act, “ he put it to the landowners and country 
 gentlemen” (i.e., tho Conservative party generally) “ whether 
 it was quite honest and consistent to join in this interference 
 with tho manufacturers and then, when it became a question 
 of aiding the Tenant-Farmers ... to turn round and declaro 
 against the wickedness of interfering with freedom of con¬ 
 tract. . . He spoke as a landowner . . . but he believed that 
 a compulsory enactment upon the question, based upon clear and 
 sound principles, would work the very reverse of injury. 
 
 Her Maj'esty’s Ministers might have desired to appear 
 again on the political stage as ‘ the Farmers’ friends,’ but if 
 they had nothing better than this Bill to give to the Tenant- 
 Farmers of England, ho believed that they would appear in 
 that character, as tho playbills said, ‘ positively for the last 
 time,’ The duty and interest of landowners alike dictated 
 
The Conser¬ 
 vatives and 
 Tenant-Right. 
 
 that they should ascertain without delay what it was that 
 justice demanded should bo given to the Tenant-Farmers; 
 what it was that was demanded by the interest of the State in 
 the development of the productive powers of the land, and 
 having ascertained this, that they should (/ire it freely , give 
 it outright, and not permit any one Tenant to be deprived of it by 
 the caprice of any one Landlord, sheltering himself behind the 
 specious plea of freedom of contract.” 
 
 To this plea, by areal Farmers’ friend, in their behalf, what 
 was said by the Conservatives ? Why, Mr. Chaplin, whom 
 the Farmers of Mid-Lincolnshire return as their representa¬ 
 tive, an eminent Conservative, said: ‘‘lie believed the necessity 
 for legislation 'teas not so great’ or so urgent as had been represented. 
 The public feeling in its favour had been very much over¬ 
 stated. There were beyond doubt many districts and some counties 
 in England where nothing of the hind was required. As regarded 
 the 42nd Clause, extending the notice to cpiit, ho confessed 
 this was a matter on which ho had always held a most 
 decided opinion. ITc objected altogether to extending the notice 
 to quit from six months to twelve months 
 
 Mr. Lowe, the late Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 on the other hand, “ thought it would be eminently unfair to 
 pass a Bill stating that in the opinion ot Parliament such and 
 such a thing ought to bo done without Parliament taking 
 upon itself tho responsibility of making it compulsory.” 
 
 To this Mr. Pell, Conservative member for South Leices¬ 
 tershire, that is, a Farmers’ representative, replied that 
 “ compulsion would not do.” 
 
 After further debate, Sir Georgo Campbell, Liberal 
 member for Kirkcaldy, moved as an amendment: “ That the 
 relations of Landlord and Tenant will not be put on a satis¬ 
 factory footing by any measure which does not make it 
 obligatory on Landlords to give sufficient security to Tenants, 
 either in the shape of a right to compensation for capital 
 sunk in the soil, to be paid in tho event of a deter¬ 
 mination of the tenancy, or by a lease of sufficient 
 duration.” He added that “ although the confiscation of 
 Tenants’ property was not the rule, yet the very liability to 
 the exception constituted a state of insecurity which was a 
 great and real grievance, and which Government had admitted 
 the necessity of trying to remedy. The dependent condition of 
 the Tenant-Farmer was a social and political evil which ought to 
 be removed .” Sir Thomas Acland, member for North Devon, 
 and one of the few Liberals whom the Tenant-Farmers of 
 England return to Parliament, himself the owner of 30,586 
 acres in England, similarly supported the Farmers’ interests 
 against tho Government. “Ife believed that Lord Portman 
 in the year 1843 introduced Bills in the House of Lords on 
 the subject, but being opposed by country gentlemen and 
 hereditary Peers” (the large majority of whom, be it remem¬ 
 bered,. are Conservatives), “he had to abandon his attempt 
 to do justice to the Tenant-Farmers of the country.” 
 
- —- -/n.'mw.niTmw.ill.W,n 
 
 Parliament and Tenant-Right. 15 
 
 After further observations, among which should ho 
 mentioned that of Mr. Nowdogate, the Conservative member for 
 North Warwickshire, that the Bill’s “second merit is that it is 
 permissive,” Sir Walter Barttelot, the representative of The^Conser- 
 the Farmers of West Sussex, and on agricultural topics ono Tenant-R?sht. 
 of the leaders of the Conservative side of the House of 
 Commons, like Mr. Chaplin upon a later occasion, to which 
 attention will presently be called, sneered at Farmers’ griev¬ 
 ances altogether. “ They know that throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land Agricultural Chambers had risen up and 
 demanded that there should be some legislation. But ho was 
 not absolutely clear that Agricultural Chambers represented 
 the views and wishes of the Tenant-Farmers of this country. 
 
 What he wanted was that the Bill should respect, as the 
 measure of a Conservative Government ought to respect, the 
 rights of private property ” (i.e., of course, the privileges 
 enjoyed by the Landlord at the expense of the Farmer). After 
 these outspoken expressions of opinion from their supporters 
 it is not to be wondered at that the Government declined to 
 adopt the principle of compulsory compensation. At a compara¬ 
 tively recent date, July -1th, 1879,u2)on the occasion of the debate 
 arising upon Mr. Chaplin’s motion for an address on agricultural 
 distress, Mr. Cliajfiin himself commented upon the complaints 
 of the Farmers, as drawn U 2 ) by tlio Farmers’ Alliance. This 
 is how he treated the question of Tenant-Right. As to the 
 alleged insecurity of the Farmers’ capital, ho said : “ What 
 are the facts of the case ? I declare I really do not know ono 
 single well-managed estate whero security is wanting,” and 
 he then went on to tell the Farmers, “ There in no one to blame 
 but themselves .” Mr. Thomas Brassey, the Liberal member 
 for Hastings, rising to second Mr. Chaplin’s motion, observed 
 that “it was earnestly to be desired that the great agricul¬ 
 tural interest should bo assured that they had friends on 
 botli sides of the House.” What sort of friends the Conser¬ 
 vatives were shewing themselves on the subject of Farmers’ 
 grievances we have already seen. But the Liberals, once 
 again, approached this matter in a very different spirit. 
 
 Mr. Brassey, after entering at some detail into the depression 
 of agriculture, pointed out that what the Farmers 
 are now agreed U 2 ) 0 n is true, viz., that the restricted 
 powers of limited owners, and the settlement of land 
 upon unborn children were the first causes of the embarrass- Lil3erals 
 ments of owners of property, and consequently of the inferior and Tenant- 
 condition of much of the land of the country. He reminded Right ' 
 the House that “in the speech in which he moved fora 
 committee of inquiry in 1845, Mr. Cobden “(the celebrated 
 Liberal statesman)” stated that the primary cause of the 
 distressed condition of agriculture was the deficiency of capital in 
 the hands of the Farmers. That deficiency he attributed to 
 insecurity of tenure.” Yet Mr. Cha 2 )lin, the Farmers’re 2 )ro- 
 sentative, still, in 1879, refuses to admit this ! Later in the 
 
16 
 
 The Law of Distress and Hypothec. 
 
 debate Mr. John Bright, whom it is scarcely necessary to 
 describe as a Liberal, roundly took the Conservative majority 
 to task for the indifference they exhibited towards the 
 Farmers’grievances. “I never hear you” (Conservatives) “utter 
 a word in favour of those things which your Tenants are asking 
 Parliament to grant them. You have no remedy and you have no 
 suggestion, tf I had four hundred Tenant-Farmersbefore me and 
 ashed the question of them , what would they say f They would say 
 it was necessary to give them security for their expenditure m 
 improvements , which your resistance would not allow 10 pass the 
 House. The moment the emasculated Bill passed the House, 
 from the highest to the lowest of you the first thing you 
 did was to get rid of the little that was left of the Bill. 
 
 In spite, then, of the denials of the Conservatives, the 
 Liberals are persuaded that the Tenant-Farmers are suffering 
 under a grievance which demands redress. Mr. Goschen and other 
 Liberal leaders have announced that, in the event of a Liberal 
 return to power, the question of Tenant-Eight shall receive a 
 With which j ust settlement. By this time, at any rate the Farmers must 
 realise that in this matter they have nothing to hopo from 
 interest? the present Government. It is within their power at this 
 election to prove to their Conservative “ friends that, they 
 are intelligent enough to know when they are enduring a 
 wrong, and that experience has at length taught them to 
 which party they must look for substantial and not delusive 
 remedy. , 
 
 Another grievance which is oppressive to the lonant- 
 Farmer, and one not altogether unconnected with the denial 
 of Tenant-Eight and of Leases, is the Law of Distraint or 
 Distress. By this law, as is well known, the Landlord is 
 permitted a security for his debt in priority to other credi¬ 
 tors. It is one of the causes of the infrequency of leases, 
 because the certainty of recovering their rents, if in arrear, 
 induces Landlords to take as Tenants men whom they would 
 be unwilling to trust with leases- It also has a tendency 
 to raise the Landlord’s rent above its natural level, sinco 
 a speculative, reckless, and insolvent Fanner will often 
 outbid men who are at the same time more prudent and 
 more substantial. It further enables a needy, grasping 
 Landlord to squeeze a good and improving Tenant 
 by threatening to take an adventurer in his place and thus 
 burden him with the expense and loss which accompanies a 
 change of holding. The Tenant is besides a loser by the 
 fact that the system impairs his credit, since no one is willing 
 to advance capital without some sort of security, and the Law 
 of Distress leaves the Tenant comparatively little to. offer. 
 Moreover, the privilege thus accorded to the Landlord is both 
 an infringement of that freedom of. contract which the Con¬ 
 servatives invoke when they refuse the Farmer, a compulsory 
 Tenant-Bight, and opposed to that free trado in land which 
 the Liberal Party desires to establish. Contracts should, 
 
 The second 
 Farmer’s 
 grievance- 
 Distraint. 
 
17 
 
 The Laiv of Distress and Hypothec. 
 
 so far as is possible, bo put by the law upon an 
 equal footing, and there is no reason in the nature 
 of things why a Landlord’s contract with his Tenant 
 should be specially privileged. If the Landlord desires 
 security for his rent, he can obtain it by a contract 
 on the same terms as other creditors can obtain security 
 for their advances. Again, the present system is excep¬ 
 tionally unjust in this respect—that the Landlord not merely 
 secures his debt, but also the benefit of any improvements 
 which, at the expense of other creditors, theholding lias received. 
 
 He thus pockets not only his own money but their’s as well. 
 
 And while this wrong is inflicted upon individuals, the public 
 also suffer; for where the Landlord has, by tho peculiar 
 advantages which the right of Distress confei’s on him, been 
 tempted to take Tenants without capital adequate to tho 
 holding, the land is rendered less productive, and its deficiency 
 in yield must, of course, be supplemented by foreign impor¬ 
 tations. In the long run, too, the Landlord is often but 
 little tho gainer, since, where land is exhausted through 
 inadequate expenditure, rents must decline pi’oportionately. Tho 
 Law of Distress,therefore, is injurious to the Farmer and tho 
 public,while it confers no countcrbalancingadvantage upon tho 
 Landlord. What, then, is the attitude towards tho question of 
 the contending political parties ? In England it has only 
 recently begun to come to the front as a public questiort. 
 
 But the very nearly corresponding Law of Hypothec in Hypothec. 
 Scotland supplies us with a clue to tho respective disposition 
 of Libci’als and Conservatives in regard to it. Mi*. Gladstone, 
 speaking at Dalkeith on the 26th November last, observed 
 that “ a certain number of Tories are returned as adverse to 
 Hypothec from Scotland, knowing that their brother Tories 
 in the other two countries will destroy the effect of their votes.” 
 
 The fact is that the Farmers <«i Scotland are determined 
 to bo rid of Hypothec, and make willingness to vote for its 
 abolition a condition of the election of their representatives. 
 
 Mr. Vans Agnew, a Conservative, therefore brings in a Bill 
 for its abolition year by year which is quietly dropped towards 
 the end of the Session. Mr. Gladstone told the Farmers of 
 Dalkeith that Mr. Vans Agnew’s Bill was a “ Tulchan Bill.” 
 
 “ You know,” he said, “ what the Tulchan calf was. Why 
 
 it was the figure of a calf stuffed with straw. The practice 
 
 was to place the cow under the calf to induce the calf to give 
 
 milk, and Lord Rosebery’s idea is that the Bill of 
 
 Mr. Agnew is the Tulchan calf. The cow is the Liberal 
 
 party, or the Scotch Farmer, and the Tulchan Bill is placed 
 
 near the Scotch Farmer, in order to induce him to give 
 
 milk in the shape of votes for the Tory party.” In The Conserva- 
 
 the course of the debates which arose on agricultural depres- 
 
 sion in July, 1879, and to which reference has already been of Distress. 
 
 made, tho Conservatives never so much as suggested that the 
 
 Law of Distress, like tho absence of Tenant-Right, was a 
 
The Liberals 
 and the Law. 
 of Distress. 
 
 18 Parliament and the Lazv of Distress. 
 
 cause of embarrassment to the Farmers. On the contrary, 
 •vve have seen that both Sir Walter Barttelot and Mr. Chaplin, 
 in behalf, we may suppose, of their farming constituents, 
 ridiculed the notion of Farmers’ grievances altogether. It 
 was reserved for a Liberal member, in the case of the Law of 
 Distress as in the case of Tenant-Eight, to shew a genuine 
 concern in the troubles of the Farmers. Viscount Macduff, 
 who has since succeeded to the earldom of Fife, "wished to 
 remind the House that there had been, ever since he had had 
 the honour of a seat in it, no lack of Dills introduced bearing 
 upon Farmers’ grievances. Had they found his honourable 
 friend, the member for Mid-Lincolnshire” (Mr. Chaplin) 
 “ among the supporters of such measures, or was it only when 
 there was a chance of rents falling that agricultural grievances 
 were to he aired v Speaking as a Scotch member, he 
 might appeal to frequent endeavours to obtain a hearing 
 for certain well-known questions, but on those occa¬ 
 sions they had always been met by the strongest oppo¬ 
 sition from English county members, and had been told 
 that their ideas were revolutionary or subversive. As an 
 instance of this he might say that the Law of Hypothec had 
 long been an open sore to the Farmers of Scotland, and so 
 strong had been the feeling upon this subject that a Bill had 
 been introduced for its abolition by a Conservative member 
 during every Session of the present Parliament. Jf lion, 
 gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House ” (j.e., Conservatives) 
 " had really been anxious to place Farmers in a more advantageous 
 position, surely that ]fill would not have found such an united body 
 of Conservative opponents arrayed against it. As a Scotchman 
 he hardly liked t.o mention the question of the English Law 
 of Distress; but he had noticed that it had formed the 
 subject of discussion at several agricultural meetings, and lie 
 felt that ne could not do better than respectfully^ recommend 
 it to the champion of the English Farmer.” Mr. John Bright, 
 later in the debate, estimated the Conservative disposition in 
 the same way. He said: 11 1 suppose lion, gentlemen opposite' 1 ' (the 
 Conservatives) “thought that the Bill for the Abolition of Hypothec 
 looked a little towards something of the same kind in England, and 
 i therefore they were always willing to join in rejecting that 
 measure But the Liberals are not content wdth denouncing 
 the Conservative hostility to reform in this particular. Mr. 
 Goschen, in his election address, enumerates its abolition as 
 among the measures which a Liberal Government intends to 
 take in hand. The Earl of Fife, not satisfied with protesting 
 against its continuance at a time when, as an eldest son, he 
 had no immediate interest in the land, has, since lie has 
 become Landlord of over 257,000 acres, carried his Liberal 
 principles into practice. By a rare exercise of magnanimity 
 ho lias voluntarily renounced the unjust rights with which 
 the law has clothed him, and by the 19th article of the leases 
 which he has granted to his tenantry ho surrenders "all 
 
Game. 
 
 19 
 
 preferable rights as against other creditors of the Tenant 
 conferred upon him by the Law of Hypothec.” If words are 
 not sufficient to prove to the Farmers that it is to the Liberals 
 that they must look for succour actions like this can at least 
 not fail to do so ! 
 
 The Game grievance also has a connection with tho dis¬ 
 couragement of capital. As Mr. Clare Sewell Lead, the Tenant- 
 Farmer member, has said, “A Landlord could now lot his farm 
 to a Tenant upon the usual covenants, and eat him up with 
 Game without paying him the usual compensation. Ho could 
 turn him out of his farm,and half ruin him with a six months’ 
 notice to quit by confiscatingeveryshillingof his improvements.” 
 It has been estimated that something like £20,000,000 
 worth of agricultural produce is every year destroyed by Game. 
 This means- £20,000,000 a year dead loss to the Fanners ! In one 
 English county alone the Game is calculated to consume as 
 much food as would maintain 40,000 sheep. Mr. P. A. 
 Taylor, the Liberal member for Leicester, in his motion of 
 the 3rd March of this year for the abolition of the Game 
 Laws, said in the House of Commons: “From Leicestershire a 
 gentleman had testified to damage being sometimes doin' to tho 
 extent of £12 or £13 an acre, and Mr. Hewitt, of the Sussex 
 Chamber of Agriculture, had placed it upon record that tho 
 damage done by rabbits in some localities sometimes amounted to 
 £25 per diem. It was said that a Farmer could get compen¬ 
 sation if he could prove the damage, but a person who was 
 well acquainted with tho matter said he never knew a Farmer 
 who got one-half of the compensation he was entitled to. A 
 Warwickshire Farmer, a Tenant of an lion, member of the 
 House, whoso name he would not mention, wrote to him that, 
 having no clause in his leaso against the preservation of 
 Game, ho was nearly ruined by rabbits, and I 10 threatened 
 proceedings. Eventually his Landlord gave him a promise in 
 writing that if hi! would not interfere 2s. per acre would bo 
 deducted from his rent.” It is as well that the Tenant- 
 Farmers should reflect that Warwickshire at the last election 
 returned four Conservatives to Parliament! 
 
 The Game nuisance, as it at present exists, is unquestion¬ 
 ably a substantial grievance to the Farmer. “ Thick, 
 irregular hedgerows, which are a hindrance to agriculture, 
 are preserved because they harbour Game.”'-' Mr. P. A.Taylor 
 did not exaggerate when he said: “The Game Laws are 
 entirely incompatible with high farming, and he had it on the 
 highest authority that the two occupations of Game preserver 
 and improver of land could not possibly be followed by the 
 same man on the same estate.” Indeed, it is plain that no 
 capitalist can risk his money in an investment which may 
 very possibly be consumed before his eyes. The Game Laws, 
 therefore, as they stand, co-operate with tho causes which 
 
 * “Free Laud.” By Arthur Arnold (Liberal Candidate for Salford), p. 57, 
 
 The third 
 Farmers' 
 grievance— 
 Game. 
 
 Ravages of 
 Game. 
 
20 Parliament and the Game grievance. 
 
 have been already dealt with to depress British agriculture by 
 searing away the” capital of which it stands in eminent need. 
 
 What is it. then, that the Farmer wants ? Not the, 
 _ TIU , abolition of the Game Laws, which would probably 
 SdtheCtoDe involve the total disappearance of Game. He asks 
 grievance. simply, as Mr. Barclay, the Liberal member, for Forfar¬ 
 shire,” puts it, 11 to have the indefeasible right by his 
 own hands, or by those whom ho authorises to do 
 so, to protect his crops from the ground Game.” The 
 British Farmer likes a day’s sport as well as any man. and 
 such a measure, far from annihilating hares and rabbits, 
 would serve to check their numbers just so much as the 
 interests of farming demanded. But the right must be 
 “ indefeasible.” Permissive legislation in regard to Game 
 has proved a failure as complete as that dealing with Tenant- 
 Bight. “The Game by law"? has long belonged to the 
 occupier in England, but his right to kill it is, on the great 
 majority of estates, taken from him by means of the over¬ 
 whelming power which Landlords exercise over the terms of 
 private contract.”* 1 As to winged Game, which does very 
 little harm to the crops. Farmers would be perfectly willing 
 to reserve to their Landlords the right of shooting. By an Act 
 of Parliament to this effect, which would amount to an 
 equitable compromise, an injury would be redressed which, 
 while it mulcts the Farmer and the public to the sum of 
 £20,000,000 per annum, is accompanied by no corresponding 
 benefit to the Landlord. 
 
 This grievance then being so intolerable and the Farmers’ 
 demands for redress so moderate, what is the attitude towards 
 it of the Liberals and Conservatives respectively ? Tt has 
 been seen that there are some few Liberals who go so far as 
 to propose the abolition of the Game Laws altogether. At 
 any rate there is a pretty unanimous agreement among the 
 Liberals that some moderate reform such as that above indi¬ 
 cated would be a simple measure of justice which the Farmer 
 lias a right to ask. Bills to that effect have been over and over 
 again introduced into Parliament by Liberals and thrown out 
 he Conserva- Conservative majorities. At the present moment the 
 tives and the Conservatives in the House of Commons are as hostile to an 
 grievance improvement of the condition of the Farmer in this respect as 
 ever. The Game grievance, like the Tenant-Bight grievance 
 and the Distress grievance, is a pure delusion ! According to the 
 Conservatives no grievance of the kind exists! On the 2nd 
 March of this year Mr. Chaplin, who, it is as well to remind 
 Farmers, over and over again, has been elected by them to 
 represent their interests in Mid-Lincolnshire, said in the 
 House of Commons: “ The fact teas, the (tame laics were not a 
 practical grievance of the Fanners .” Sir Walter Barttelot, 
 another Conservative Tenant-Farmers’ representative, and 
 
 “Relations of L milord and Tenant.” By W, E. Bear, 
 
Parliament and the Game grievance . 
 
 21 
 
 who, ns has been, soon, mates light of Farmers’ grievances, 
 moved : “ That it is not now expedient to deal with the question 
 of the Game Laws.” The hon. member might have added, 
 u Nor over will bo until Fanners are so impoverished by 
 hares and rabbits that they find a difficulty in paying their 
 rent.” Sir W. Barttelot was seconded by Earl Percy, eldest 
 son of a Conservative Bute, and who is supposed to represent 
 the Tenant-Farmers of Northumberland. The Liberal 
 member for the City of Oxford, Sir William Hareourt, justly 
 said: “There could be no mistake about the amendment of 
 the hon. member for Sussex ” (Sir W. Barttelot), “which was 
 seconded'by the noble Lord the member for Northum¬ 
 berland. The principle of the amendment was 4 No 
 surrender.’ The amendment raised the issue in the plainest 
 form. They would have no alteration in the Game Laws. That 
 was the direct issue. lie had been curious to see what lino 
 the ‘ Farmers’ friends’ would take upon that issue in England 
 and Scotland.” The Conservative's, however, carried the day 
 by a majority of 73, and the hares and rabbits art' for the 
 present free to pursue their depredations upon the British 
 Farmer. This was not the first occasion that the subject of 
 Game disclosed the hostility of Conservative members to 
 the Farmers’ interests. When the debate on agricultural 
 depression, from which extracts have already been taken, was 
 proceeding Mr. Chaplin flung defiance at the Farmers’ plea 
 for consideration in the matter of Garni', as he had done at 
 their call for Tenant-Eight. “As to the Game Laws and 
 their reformation,” he said, “ I cannot for a moment accept- the 
 view that the Game Laws are in any way responsible for the present 
 distress in the agricultural parts of the country, for it is perfectly 
 well-known that those laws have existed for years in 
 good as well as in bad times. The same remark applies 
 to the other points in the programme of the Farmers' 
 
 Alliance.” Mr. John Bright was justified by language 
 like; this when, addressing the Conservatives upon the 
 same occasion, he said: “If anybody brings in a Bill to 
 protect Farmers from the ravages of Game, or to dimmish 
 the inducements to preserve it, hon. gentlemen opposite” (the 
 Conservatives) “will comedown in numbers, which they could 
 not exceed even if the Constitution were at stake, to expel 
 such an odious measure from the floor of Parliament.” Once 
 again let the Farmers ask themselves which of the two parties with which 
 really represents their interests in this question of Game. Is party is the 
 it true that to have one’s property consumed to the extent of fSe^t? 
 £20 000,000 per annum by creatures whose existence yields 
 pleasure and profit only to another is, as Mr. Chaplin and the 
 Conservatives assert, no “practical grievance?” If it is no 
 grievance, if the Farmers are content that things skould in this 
 respect remain as they are, then let them return Conservatives 
 to Parliament, for they may rest assured that until a Liberal 
 Government attains power the great Game plague will never 
 
Local (jovcrnment . 
 
 The fourth 
 Fanners’ 
 grievance.— 
 Local Govern¬ 
 ment and 
 Rates. 
 
 The Liberals 
 and Local 
 Government. 
 
 The Liberals 
 and the Rates 
 
 be alleviated. This, like the other Farmers’ grievances, doe 
 not really eall for a remedy which would he to the injury of 
 the Landlord. Many Landlords, especially Liberal Landlords 
 like the Earl of Fife, are far-seeing enough to appreciate the 
 fact that with improved farming rents will naturally rise 
 and that in this, as in other matters, the genuine interests 
 of Landlord and Tenant are identical. Lord Fife in the fifth 
 clause of his lease gives his Tenants both a right to kill 
 ground Gamo and even a claim to compensation for damage 
 to crops by Game into the bargain. What the Farmers ask 
 is less than what a Liberal Landlord spontaneously grants 
 yet the Conservatives in Parliament refuse tbo smallest 
 concession and deny the grievance! 
 
 The three crying evils under which the Farmer suffers havo 
 now been dealt with, but they do not entirely exhaust the 
 catalogue of his difficulties. The question of Local Government 
 and the cognate question of the incidence of Bates urgently need 
 solution. Mr. Gladstone’s Administration took the first step 
 in this matter as long ago as 1871. The injury to the Farmer 
 is not simply the bewildering complication of authorities 
 under which he lives,though it is bad enough to bo governed 
 at the same time upon different principles by a Vestry, a School 
 Board, a Highway Board, a Burial Board, Guardians and 
 Justices. Tiio fact is that this multiplicity involves a wanton 
 waste of the ratepayers’ money, and unnecessarily augments 
 the already too heavy burden of the Bates. Some years ago 
 ihoiv was a^farmin Gloucestershire of two hundred acres lyingin 
 twelve parishes, and subject to fifty Bates! and though this is, 
 no doubt, an extreme example, still it serves to illustrate the 
 variety of tlio burdens to which the Farmer is exposed. Con¬ 
 solidated Bating was what Mr, Gladstone’s Government 
 proposed to introduce, and to what extent, by that measure 
 alone, the burdens upon the Farmers would be lightened, 
 may be gathered from the fact that in the city of Manchester, 
 by a reform of this sort, £3,000 per annum has been saved, 
 so much does the increase of Bates depend upon the number 
 of officials who are employed in their collection. But this was 
 not all that the Liberals proposed to do for the Farmers. Mr. 
 Gladstone in his speeches in Midlothian in November last said, 
 in reference to this subject: “We avowed from the beginning 
 that the state of our County Government was wholly unsatis¬ 
 factory and must be radically reformed. We thought the law of 
 liability in .England, which threw the whole responsibility for the Hates 
 upon the Tenant,was an unjust law, and we proposed to divide it as it 
 f divided m Scotland. We know that there was a groat dosiro 
 in the counties to relieve ratepayers from the Consolidated 
 Fund. We saw in that desire, and in the power 
 to reliove the ratepayers from the Consolidated Fund, 
 a strong leverage placed in the hands of the Executive 
 Government to induce all the local interests to come freely 
 into tlio changes that must be made in order to establish a 
 
Local Government and Rates. 
 
 sound system of county government, and to (jive you , gentlemen , 
 the full and thorough control over the disposal of your own local 
 taxation that you have over the disposal of the Imperial taxes. 
 
 Before it was in our power to deal thoroughly and effectively The Conserv- 
 with the subject wo were removed from office, and our and the 
 successors took an entirely opposite view. In their view the 
 only thing material was to relieve the ratepayers, or to 
 hand over year by year large sums from the Consolidated 
 Bund. They made no other change whatever, left the present 
 irresponsible authorities in possession, and continued five 
 years in offie.o before they produced even the phantom of a Local 
 Government Bill, and when they produced it they contrived to 
 prepare it in such a way that no party, or section of a party, 
 in the House of Commons shewed the slightest desire to havo 
 it. The consequence is, gentlemen, that your Local Govern¬ 
 ment remains in the unsatisfactory position in which it for¬ 
 merly stood, whereas the Imperial Government has gratui¬ 
 tously and prematurely parted with the great inducements 
 which they held in their hands of bringing all parties into a 
 reasonable settlement, and inducing all constituted authorities 
 to come in and to abate their respective pretensions.” 
 
 It being of such pecuniary importance to the Farmer that 
 the Bates should be submitted to some unifying principle, as 
 the Liberal Government proposed, it remains to consider the 
 amount and manner of their incidence, to which Mr. Glad¬ 
 stone referred. The whole sum collected by local authorities 
 is roughly computed at about £51,000,000, of which, if 
 the estimate framed by Mr. Goschen in 1871 remains propor¬ 
 tionately unchanged, some £25,000,000 falls upon rural 
 districts. This is a large sum, though it is unlikely that in 
 the future it will be materially increased. Of the items 
 of which this total is composed, that which 
 presses most unfairly upon the Farmers is the Education 
 Bate. It was stated at a meeting of the Farmers’ Alliance 
 at Norwich in February last that there was “ an instance 
 just beyond the boundaries of Norwich, whero the School 
 Board Bate had increased the rental of a not very large ^® e Education 
 Farmer by £50 or £60 a year. The Highway Bate had also 
 caused an equal increase because his farm adjoined two roads 
 over which traffic passed to Norwich from a distance of twenty 
 miles.” At a meeting of the Farmers’ Alliance in the same 
 month at Burton-on-Trent, similar testimony was given by a 
 Farmer. The hardship upon the Farmer in the matter of 
 the Education Bate consists in this: that he is practically 
 obliged by it to supply the towns of the country with educated 
 artisans. It is not the case, as Farmers are sometimes 
 disposed to imagine, that education is of itself the cause of 
 the prevalent dearth of labour. The real incentive to the 
 educated labourer to benefit himself by leaving farming 
 employment is the wretched condition as to his home and as 
 to his prospects in the future to which tho present state of the 
 
24 
 
 Local Rates. 
 
 Land Laws reduces him. The crippled financial condition of 
 the limited owner, and the impossibility of attracting capital 
 without a compulsory Tenant-Eight, are the reasons why the 
 cottages of the English labourers are, in the language of one 
 of the Assistant Commissioners appointed to inquire into the 
 condition of Women and Children in 1869, a “ national 
 disgrace.” In Belgium and other parts of Europe where the 
 labourer is not only well educated, comparatively speaking, 
 but well housed, there is no such dearth of labour 
 complained of. 
 
 The Liberals It has been said that this increase of Eates is unfair upon 
 
 and the Rates. Farmers. “It is obvious that a leaseholder pays all 
 increase of local burdens up to the end of his term. As for 
 the yearly Tenant lie knows that lie pays the increase, and he 
 can never be certain that his rent would have been advanced 
 to a proportionate extent if the increase had not taken place. 
 If land is, as many say, not only not too highly taxed, but 
 not taxed enough^ the Eates should be levied, at least in 
 part, upon the owners and not entirely on the Tenants. 
 Assuming that Eates are partially paid out of the pockets of 
 the Tenants it is unjust in the extreme that the Farmer 
 should be charged five and often ten times as much for the 
 purposes of Local Government and Poor Eelief as the private 
 gentleman, professional man, manufacturer or tradesman 
 enjoying an income at least equal to his own, who resides in 
 the same Parish.”* The legislation for the relief of the English 
 Farmer from his unequal burden of Eates proposed by Mr. 
 Gladstone had been already tried with success in Scotland, 
 where it was justly accompanied by a due representation of 
 owners at the County or Parish Boards. In 1871 Mr. Goschen, 
 Liberal member for the City of London, made a report upon 
 this very point. He said : “A division of Eates between 
 owners and occupiers, coupled with an enactment similar to 
 that which prevails in the case of the Income Tax, by which 
 owners are prohibited from exempting themselves by contract 
 from any share in local taxation, would in this respect 
 probably afford considerable pecuniary relief to the occupier 
 of a farm. What places him now at most disadvantage is 
 that he has to pay the Eate in the first instance, and that it 
 is he who must disturb the existing state of things before 
 any part of an unforeseen increase of Eates can be thrown on 
 the owner. His position would be much improved if the 
 onus of changing the rent in consequenco of changes in the 
 Eates were put upon tins owner, or made equally applicable to 
 them both.f In accordance with this suggestion, the Select 
 Committee of the House of Commons, a House, be it 
 remembered, containing a Liberal majority, reported :— 
 
 * W. E. Bear on Agricultural Depression .—Fortnightly Review, 
 February, 1879. 
 
 t. “Goechen on Looal Taxation," p. 106. 
 
The Two Parties and the Rates. 
 
 25 
 
 (ff) That the existing system of Local Taxation, under The Liberals 
 which the exclusive charge of almost all Rates leviable upon 811(1 the Rates 
 rateable property for current expenditure as well as for new 
 objects and permanent works, is placed by law upon the 
 occupiers, while tho owners are generally exempt from any 
 direct or immediate contributions in respect of such Rates, is 
 contrary to sound policy. 
 
 ( b ) That tho evidence taken before your Committee shews 
 that in many cases the burden of tho Rates, which are directly 
 paid by the occupier, falls ultimately, either in part or 
 wholly, upon the owner, who, nevertheless, has no share in 
 their administration. 
 
 ( c) That in any reform in the existing system of Local 
 Taxation, it is expedient to adjust the system of rating in 
 such a manner that both owners and occupiers may be brought 
 to feel an immediate interest in the increase or decrease 
 of local expenditure, and in the administration of local 
 affairs. 
 
 (rt!) That it is expedient to make owners as well as 
 occupiers directly liablo for a certain proportion of the 
 
 Rates.”* 
 
 It appears, then, that in 1871 the Liberals were in favour 
 of exempting occupiers from a certain proportion of the Rates, 
 and the proportion fixed was one-half. It has been shewn 
 thattheRates falling upon tho rural districts amount to about 
 £25,000,000. The Liberals, therefore, proposed to relieve the 
 Farmers of Rates amounting to £12,500,000, and were prevented 
 doing so because the Farmers returned the Conservatives to power 
 at the last election. The Conservatives have professed to relieve The Conser¬ 
 ve Farmers to the amount only of £2,000,000. But what is t]ie taeRates nd 
 nature of this relief? Mr. Barclay, the Tenant-Farmer 
 member, said the other day “ he should be glad to hear how 
 many Farmers had felt themselves relieved of tho burden of 
 Local Taxation in consequence. It simply came to this , that the 
 money now paid in Local Taxation would have to be paid into the 
 Imperial Exchequer, which would be for the most part talcing 
 money out of one pocket instead of the other with a loss of 10 or 
 1 5 per cent, on the exchange. He was strongly of opinion that 
 if the taxes were expended and administered by the repre¬ 
 sentatives of those who had to pay them there would bo 
 a great reduction in the amount of taxation. With regard 
 to Local Representative Government it was surely humiliating 
 to the Farmers that although the people in the towns obtained 
 Local Representative Government fifty years ago, no broad 
 attempt had been made to confer it upon them.” Tho Parmer’s 
 Farmers must now have discovered to which of the two Interest? 
 parties they would have done well to entrust their interest. 
 
 They have at length an opportunity of retrieving their 
 mistake of six years ago, and of obtaining at the hands of a 
 
 ' * Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Local 
 
 Taxation, 1871. 
 
2 6 
 
 Protection. 
 
 Liboral Government a reform for which there is imperative 
 urgency and the removal of an injustice which tho Con¬ 
 servatives, while protending to palliate, have resolved to 
 retain in perpetuity. 
 
 The fifth Another burden upon the Farmer is the Tithe. This has 
 
 grievance- not yet become a leading question, but it merits consideration. 
 
 Tithes During the last seven years the £100 Tithe Bent charge has 
 
 been worth £112. In this last year ofFarmers’ misfortunes, 
 owing to the fact that the home produce, being so excep¬ 
 tionally inferior in quality, is given in large quantities 
 to live stock, tho value is as high as £115. This 
 shews plainly enough that the calculation of Tithe is 
 based upon an unfair principle. The Liberals havo as yet 
 made no declaration upon the question. What have the 
 Farmers, then, to expect from the Conservatives? Thus much. 
 The Government Valuation Bill contained a clause exempting 
 the clergy from taxation for tho stipends paid by them to 
 their curates. That exemption would have thrown an addi¬ 
 tional £100,000 upon the Farmers! It is not enough, then, for 
 tho Conservatives to postpone the interests of the Farmers to 
 those of the country gentlemen, but they also desire to impose 
 upon them the taxes of the country clergy ! 
 
 What have the How comes it, then, that tho Farmers of the United 
 
 done e for a the eS Kingdom yield such unswerving support to tho Conservatives? 
 
 Farmers? Why, at the last General Election, did they return 170 
 Conservative county members against only 49 Liberals ? It is 
 plain that, so far as favours to come are concerned, the 
 Farmers can havo no hope except from tho Liberals. But 
 what havo the Conservatives done in tho past that gratitude 
 should induce tho Farmers to continue to waive their own 
 interests for tho sake of the party ? No doubt, tho old 
 tradition that the Conservatives were Protectionists, and that 
 Protection was a good thing for the Farmers, has something 
 to do with this self-sacrifice on their part. But Farmers 
 nowadays understand what Protection meant, and why the 
 Conservatives wore so enamoured of it. They see now that 
 Protection was a benefit, if it was a benefit at all, only to the 
 country gentleman, and a ruin to the Farmer and the rest of 
 the community. As Mr. B. W. Gordon, tho delegate to 
 Canada of the Annandalo Farmers, said only the other day, 
 “ Every shilling of duty put on wheat or beef would give 
 cause for an increase of rent. And justly so, as if a man can 
 grow the same quantity of wheat and beef and sell it for a 
 higher price he can afford to pay more rent. On the other 
 hand, if agricultural produce is taxed, manufactures will be 
 so also; therefore for everything of that sort he will have to 
 pay a higher price. The labourer also will require higher 
 wages, as the cost of his food and clothing will be enhanced.” 
 The condition of tho Farmor in the old days of Protection, 
 which tho Conservatives under the present Premier fought so 
 stoutly to maintain but which ho now so loudly repudiates, 
 
What Free Trade has done for the Farmer. 
 
 27 
 
 illustrates the truth of Mr. Gordon’s viow. Agriculture was not 
 merely stationary; it was declining. The whole population was 
 impoverished in order that the Conservative Landlords might 
 have their rents kept up at an artificially high level. In 
 1834 the pressure of the rates was so heavy that acres upon 
 acres of land were allowed to drop out of cultivation, for 
 under the old Poor Laic, which teas amended by the Liberals, 
 the rates in some parishes exceeded 20s. in the pound! Mean¬ 
 time tho agricultural labourers were starving, for the price 
 of bread was such that they could not afford to buy food 
 sufficient to sustain their strength, and the Farmer was a loser 
 by having to pay two enfeebled labourers to do the work of 
 one. Nor even if the Farmer had been able to appropriate, 
 as he could not do, the whole of Avhatever increment there 
 was upon the natural average price of corn, would he have 
 always been a gainer. Thus in 1835 the average price of 
 wheat, notwithstanding these burdens under which the Farmer 
 was groaning, was 39s. 4d. per quarter. Now let the 
 Farmer consider what the Liberals did for him by 
 abolishing Protection in spite of the opposition of the 
 Conservatives. It is stated by the greatest agricultural What the 
 statistician in the kingdom, Mr. Caird, that thirty years ago dSK the™ 
 not more than one-third of the people oj this country consumed Farmers. 
 animal food more than once a week. The consumption lias 
 since then more than doubled, if no regard is paid to the 
 increase of population. Within the last twenty-five years, m con¬ 
 sequence of the abolition of Protection, “ the capital value of the lice 
 stock of the United Kingdom has risen from £146,000,000 to 
 £260,000,000, being again of £ 114,000,000.”^ In 1851 Mr! Caird 
 prophesied, at a time when the Conservatives were persuading 
 the Farmers that it would be their ruin, that tho Liberal policy 
 of Free Trade “ in its extraordinary effect on the welfare of 
 all other classes of the community, would, sooner or later, 
 bear good fruits also to them.” As Mr. Gladstone put it, in 
 addressing the Farmers of West Calder in November last, 
 
 “while the artificial advantage that you got from Protection 
 —as it was supposed to be an advantage—was removed, you 
 were brought into the free and open market and with the en¬ 
 larging of Free Trade was enlarged the buying capacity of 
 your customers, so that they were willing and able to give 
 you, and did give you, a great deal more for your money in 
 general than you ever got under the system of Protection.” 
 
 He might have added also that the prosperity which the 
 Liberal measure of Free Trade brought to the Farmer’s 
 customers not merely increased their buying capacity, but 
 increased the number of those who could afford to buy. 
 
 Whatever be the claims of the Conservative party upon the 
 Farmers they owe it no gratitude for Protection. 
 
 What benefits, then, have tin* Farmers received from the The Present 
 present Conservative Government ? It has been seen that tho andttie " 6114 
 
 * “The Landed Interest and the Supply of Food.” J. B. Caird, 1878. 
 
2 8 t Vhat have the Conse nnatives done for the Farmer ? 
 
 expense to the amount of £ 100 , 000 . A Government should 
 
 he creditors for a large debt of gratitude before they 
 venture to draw a bill on it to this extent. It has been 
 shewn that the Government could not. if it would, redress the 
 grievances of Tenant-Right. Distress, or Game, because it 
 would at once lose the support of the Conservative members. 
 Rut there is one standing grievance of the Farmers which it 
 had an excellent opportunity of dealing with—the Malt Tax. 
 
 Ma1t TaY The Conservatives entered office with a surplus of £0,000,000 
 bequeathed to them by the Liberals. Why did the;/ not then 
 relieve the Fanners of the Malt Tax ? Became , leing already 
 sure of the Farmers' voles , they feel under no compulsion to gain 
 their favour. If the Malt Tax is a grievance, and it seems 
 there is some difference of opinion on the question among 
 Farmers,which of the two political parties is the more likely 
 to remove it? Mr, Clare fcjewell Read has answered this 
 question for tin; Farmers in a speech delivered by him 
 in the House of Commons, on July 4th, 1879. “It was Colden. ” 
 (a Liberal) “ who advocated the repeal of the Malt Duties, and it 
 teas Lord John Bussell” (a Liberal) “ who said that if he repealed 
 the Corn Laws he ivould also repeal the. Malt Tax.” 
 
 The Agricultural Holdings Bill, 1875, by which the 
 Government, with many professions of good will,deceived and 
 betrayed the Farmers, has already been discussed. The 
 County Government Bill, which happily proved abortive, was 
 also a “Landlords’ measure,” for while it affected to grant 
 representation to the ratepayers it was soon seen to be merely 
 a contrivance for strengthening the hands of the magistracy. 
 The fact is that the Conservative principle is necessarily 
 adverse to the Farmer’s interest. The single aim of Conserva¬ 
 tive legislation, so far as it touches country districts, is the 
 conciliation of a class, the class from which their most 
 influential supporters are taken, the country gentlemen. 
 Hence it is that the Conservatives utterly fail to appreciate 
 Tile Conserva- Farmers’ grievances and Farmers’ difficulties. When the 
 tives’ view Farmer complains they preach him a sermon on economy, 
 grievances. But it is not economy that will retrieve the fortunes of 
 agriculture. The land is already suffering from forced 
 economy. The diminished means of the Farmer have com¬ 
 pelled him to let it fall into poor condition, so that, so far 
 from economy, it requires an increased expenditure for its 
 restoration. To judge from some of their utterances 
 Conservative Landlords are content that their Farmers should 
 be impoverished provided, as Mr. John Bright said, that they 
 pay their rents. They have not the foresight to see that a 
 holding cannot be done justice to by a Tenant who is at the 
 same time poor, and prevented by unjust laws from being 
 able to borrow capital. As Mr. Bear justly observes, 
 “concentration of capital is th6 great thing needful for 
 agricultural prosperity, and this is precisely what the laws and 
 customs relating to farming have in almost every imaginable 
 
 The County 
 Government 
 Bill. 
 
7he Last Straw 
 
 way discouraged.” This is the Liberal view of the matter 
 Now what is the Conservative ? Lord Burghley, a Conservative 
 elected by the Tenant-Farmers of North Northamptonshire 
 to represent them in the House of Commons, lias a much 
 simpler remedy. “For help” ho said, addressing an 
 agricultural audience in September last, “ Farmers must look 
 to their wives, who must not go about like grand ladies 
 but put their shoulders to the wheel. Then the daughters 
 must not be brought up to play the piano, but as Farmers’ 
 wives—not to play at lawn-tennis, or to speak French or 
 other languages; they were wanted to exist entirely in 
 this country to assist the agricultural interest ’’—that is 
 to assist Lord Burghley to his rents. But Lord Burghley 
 and the Conservative Landlords forget that the British 
 Farmer is a capitalist, and that he is no less justified than his 
 Landlord in expecting an average return upon his capital 
 and skill, and in adjusting his manner of living accordingly. 
 
 That Farmers should have means and leisure to cultivate 
 the amenities of civilisation is due to the operation of 
 those laws which the Liberals introduced ; and if then- 
 condition is to bo, as it ought to be, still further ameliorated, 
 it will be by the removal of those unwise restrictions which 
 the Conservatives are so resolved to retain. Contrast with ThfiT , h(ira1 
 Lord Burghley s oration the language of Mr. Gladstone view of 
 to the Farmers of Dalkeith : “ I wish you to believe I am S£ es 
 heartily and cordially with you, both in my capacity as 
 a Landlord, and also in ray capacity as a candidate before you, 
 not only for the sake of gaining your pledges, but on higher 
 and national grounds, in the struggle to give all possible 
 freedom to the cultivators of the soil, in order that the 
 agriculture of England may have full and fair play in 
 competition with the agriculture of the world.” 
 
 The Conservative Landlords who treat so contemptuously, I£ el the StraW 
 as has been seen, the Farmer’s grievances, nevertheless Farmer’s back 
 reckon with assurance upon retaining his political allegiance, mint Sate 
 lie is, as they suppose, too docile an animal to kick ao-ainst Bm - 
 them. They are, at this moment, just upon the eve of the 
 Dissolution, passing a measure through the House, in 
 spite of. the protests of the Liberals, by which, with 
 comparative exemption to themselves, they propose 
 to increase the Farmer’s burdens. On the loth of March, 
 
 1880, the Chancellor of the Exchequer moved the 
 second reading of the Probate of AVills Bill, the effect 
 of which will be to impose additional taxation upon the 
 savings which a Fanner may have bequeathed for the support of 
 his family after his death. But the Landlord's fortune is to he 
 taxed at a lighter rate ! An estate of £1,000 is to pay £3 2s. 
 percent, duty, but one of £300,000 only £2 IBs. Gd. If a 
 landowner leaves an estate worth £100,000, it is at present 
 liable to a duty of between £150 and £G00 ; but if ten Farmers 
 leave £10,000 each, their heirs, who, under the law as 
 
The Lasi StraiV. 
 
 30 
 
 The Farmers’ 
 Remedy. 
 
 it stands pay £‘2,000, are. under the new Conservative 
 measure, to pay £2,750. Mr. Gladstone pointed out that, 
 even as it is. whereas the value of the stock upon a farm is 
 usually about one-fourth of the Landlord s interest in the 
 farm yet “ the Farmer has tg pay more duty upon Ins stock 
 than the Landlord has to pay upon his farm, which is four 
 times the value of the stock.’' The plea for this is that it 
 is the real property which has to bear the Fates ; but it has 
 been seen that it is"the Farmer rather than the Landlord upon 
 whom they fall. The whole effect of the Government Bill was 
 summarised by Mr. Gladstone in an address on March 16th, 
 to a Grantham audience, in these words : “I will tell the 
 Farmer this: When the Farmer dies the son who succeeds him 
 has now to pay at least fire times as much as the son of the 
 Landlord who succeeds his ancestor. The Government are not 
 content with that; they are going to make the son of the Farmer 
 succeeding his father par six, seven or eight times as much as the 
 son of the Landlord .” If the Farmers have no spirit to resent 
 this last gratuitous injustice, they will, as Mr. Chaplin 
 sneeringly said, “have no one to blame but themselves,’ 
 should a return of the Conservatives to power further 
 aggravate their financial distress. 
 
 What, then, is tin* Farmers’ remedy? To parody Lord 
 Burghley’s sage advice, “ for help they must look to the liberals. 
 The election addresses of the Liberal leaders adopt the 
 grievances of the Farmer and guarantee their removal. Ihe 
 Conservatives deny that they exist. The future of the 
 Farmers is at this election in their own hands. If they cannot 
 find representatives of their own class they need not fight shy 
 of being represented by Liberal landowners. The first 
 principle of Liberalism is, where an established grievance 
 exists, to inquire for and to apply the appropriate remedy. 
 Liberal landowners, like Mr. Pusey, Sir Thomas Acland, Mr. 
 Knatchbull-Hugessen in the House of Commons, and tlio 
 Marquis of Huntly, the Earl of Leicester, and the Earl of 
 Fifo in the House of Lords, have denounced the flagrant 
 injustice under which the Farmers suffer. They have done 
 more. They have, so far as lay in their power, remedied it by 
 their leases. As for those Liberal Landlords who have not yet 
 expressed themselves in favour of a removal of Farmers’ 
 grievances, the Farmers may be assured that they will follow 
 the Liberal leaders, and the intention, of those leaders to 
 satisfy the Farmers’ complaints has been already clearly 
 announced by Mr. Gladstone and the Marquis of Hartington. 
 Nor will the benefits which the Farmers will derive from the 
 fulfilment of these intentions stop short at the repeal of the 
 legal injustice from which they suffer. If, for instance, the 
 Liberals are returned to power, and enact a compulsory 
 Tenant-Bight by which, while the Farmer is to receive the 
 value of his unexhausted improvements, ho will be liable on 
 'the other hand for deterioration, the obsolete restrictions 
 
 
The Fanners' Remedy. 
 
 31 
 
 upon cropping which now trammel agriculture will naturally 
 disappear. Mr. J. B. Lawos, of Eothamstead, ono of tho first 
 practical agriculturists in England, has shewn that, by the use 
 of special manures, the natural produce of land may bo 
 doubled, and thirty-thiee successive wheat crops have been 
 taken before the soil shewed signs of exhaustion. But the 
 restrictions upon cropping will continue to linger until the 
 Farmer enjoys that Tenant-Bight which tho Conservatives 
 refuse to grant. The Liberals see that the prosperity of the 
 Farmer is the prosperity of the community, and that he cannot 
 prosper under the disadvantages which now drag him down. 
 These once removed it is certain that the finest agriculture 
 in the world, at length able to attract the capital of which it 
 stands in need, will successfully challenge foreign competition. 
 —“ For help Fanners must look to the liberals 
 
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