COUNTRY LIFE
Tenant Farmers
Not once or twice in days when agricultural depression began to be serious I heard an old Midlaqd farmer say : " Better a bad landlord than no landlord." The saying was in common
use among farmers ; and might well be used by the group of social reformers who are agitating for kindlier treatment of the rural landowner. It was temporarily forgotten by farmers in the bumper years that ended soon after the War, sooner than most economists expected. They bought their farms ; and half the subsequent troubles of agriculture have resulted from the sudden change. The farmers robbed themselves of their reserve of capital at the same time that they put an end to the only other source of capital, a capital often acquired without the handicap of interest. The best alternative to the landlord was invented in Worcestershire, where by the Evesham custom a seller is paid at a standard rate for the trees he has planted. In some other fruit districts tree-planting virtually stopped, especially in regard to cider apples, because the interest on the capital expenditure was too remote, whether for landlord or tenant. In more extensive agriculture no alternative to the landlords' easy capital has yet been discovered, and the source of that capital has been attenuated by death duties, often paid on unsaleable land. The Treasury is much too sound an economist to be willing to accept the land itself in lieu of money, though such an easy method of land nationalisation has been strongly urged by several schools of political thought.
* *- * *
Previous page
