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TJie Country Gentlcmaii s Magazine 



suitable for that county it was certainly good 

 for the country. One of the landowners who 

 formed this committee was the Earl of Lich- 

 field, a nobleman who was as far-seeing as he 

 was anxious to do the best he could to im- 

 prove the position of his tenants and neigh- 

 bours generally. The other landowners of 

 this committee were equally ready to acknow- 

 ledge the desirability of having some code of 

 rules established for governing the letting and 

 hiring and entering and quitting farms. This 

 committee, Mr Good said, he had never 

 heard of till lately, although he had a full 

 recollection of the result of a prize for a 

 "model lease" which was offered by the 

 Earl of Lichfield a few years ago. From the 

 letter, however, of one of the tenant-farmers 

 on the committee, it appears that his (Mr 

 Good's) proposal for boards of agriculture 

 contained much matter which had been talked 

 over by them a year or two ago. But the 

 subject and its details were merely left in a 

 crude form, and in that condition it appears 

 they still remain. This was just the stage to 

 which he arrived over and over again, and it 

 was only when he had an opportunity for 

 giving special attention to the subject, and 

 hit upon the idea of electing a board or a 

 standing committee with agricultural assessors 

 for each County Court district, he saw the 

 practicability of carrying out this system in 

 every part of the country. 



CONSTITUTION OF AGRICULTURAL BOARDS. 



The " Tenant-i?/^/;/ " cry was one in which 

 he had never joined, as it was one which 

 could not be dealt with satisfactorily by the 

 Legislature, and it had only been resorted to 

 as a clap-trap term by men who wanted to 

 gain the ear of farmers, but from not having 

 any practical knowledge or judgment, they 

 had simply created a strong prejudice against 

 the cause which they affected to advocate. 

 As he said at Newcastle and Chester-le-Street, 

 we do not want the Legislature to deal with 

 details, as that would be impracticable with 

 the hundreds of variations in the " customs " 

 which are necessary in this country. But 



what we do want is a plain system of self- 

 government, by the formation of boards in each 

 district for defining customs, with a simple 

 Act of Parliament to make it lawful for the 

 members of the said boards to act as agricul- 

 tural assessors in County Courts, the judge, of 

 course, being present to put a proper legal 

 construction on any technical points that may 

 arise in causes that are being tried. The 

 land question and farmers' difficulties, and 

 the farm labourers' unions, were questions 

 that are daily cropping up in every circle of 

 society, and he believed that if farmers were 

 much longer checked in their desire to gain 

 the required freedom of cultivation and 

 security for capital invested, they would 

 begin to look with favour on agitators whom 

 they now avoided, when a more radical mea- 

 sure would be carried than the best friends of 

 this country could countenance. He did 

 not think Chambers of Agriculture had ac- 

 complished the work they might have done 

 had their constitution been difterent. He 

 suggested that the Chamber should appoint 

 a provisional committee, that should draw up 

 a code suitable to the neighbourhood ; and 

 at the same time consider the advantage of 

 boards of agriculture, how they may be 

 elected, and the advisability of members of 

 boards being eligible to act as agricultural 

 assessors, so as to assist County Court judges 

 in trying cases affecting agricultural interests. 

 In conclusion, Mr Good repeated that if a 

 wholesale measure was passed under the 

 pressure of agitation upon what was termed 

 " tenant-r/^/^/," it would then be necessary to 

 have these boards for arbitrating where pos- 

 sible, and for supplying agricultural assessors 

 when cases could not be settled out of court. 

 If this were not done, the country, as regards 

 landlords, tenants, and labourers would be 

 thrown into a state of confusion, the least of 

 which would not be their hostility towards 

 each other. On these grounds he hoped this 

 subject would be discussed, and the question 

 amicably settled without that interference by 

 outsiders which was sure to come unless men 

 of practical judgment took it up themselves. 



