has said that the rent has completely disappeared from three of his estates.  On the Thorney and Woburn estates over L750,000 was spent on new works and permanent improvements alone between 1816 and 1895, and the result, owing to agricultural depression and increased burdens on the land, was a net loss of L7,000 a year; and every one with any knowledge of the management of land knows that this is no isolated case, though it may be on an exceptionally large scale.  Where would many tenants be if commercial principles ruled on rent audit days?  The larger English landlords of to-day are as a rule not dependent on their rent rolls.  To their great advantage, and to the advantage of their tenants, they generally own other property, so that they need not regard the land as a commercial investment.  They can therefore support the necessary outlay on a large estate, the capital expenditure on improvements of all kinds, and thus relieve the tenant of any expense of this kind.  The farms are let at moderate, not rack rents, such as the tenants can easily pay.  Also the landlord can make large reductions of rent in years of exceptional distress.[709] Rents are generally collected three months after they are due, a considerable concession; and even then arrears are numerous, for any reasonable excuse for being behind with the rent is generously listened to.  It is owing to forbearance in this and other matters that the relations between landlord and tenant are generally excellent.  Where are the best farm buildings, where the best cottages, where does the owner carry on a home farm often for the assistance of the tenant by letting him have the use of entire horses, well-bred bulls, and rams, if not on the larger estates?  The restrictions in leases, so much decried of late years, were nearly always in the interest of good farming, and their abolition will lead to the deterioration of many a holding.

Bacon said, ’Where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly’ and wiser words were never uttered.  Yet these are the men who are singled out for attack by agitators, who are only listened to because the greater number of modern Englishmen are ignorant of the land and everything connected with it.  At a time when rents have dwindled, in some cases almost to vanishing point, taxation has increased, and confiscatory schemes and meddlesome restrictions have frightened away capital from the land.  Many of the landlords of England would clearly gain by casting off the burden of their heavily weighted property, but they nearly all stick nobly to their duty, and hope for that restoration of confidence in the sanctity of property and of respect for freedom of contract which would do so much towards the rehabilitation of what is still the greatest and most important industry in the country.

FOOTNOTES: 

[665] And an ever increasing burden of taxation.