Apricultiiral Leases and La7id TeniLre. 



173 



honesty of purpose of landowners as a body. 

 But it must be remembered that life is uncer- 

 tain, and there is no security for a man that 

 a son will walk in the same path as his father 

 before him. It is absolute security that the 

 British farmer must have before agriculture 

 attains its highest development — a security 

 that shall be tenable against the contingen- 

 cies of life and death, or the caprices and in- 

 firmities of human nature. It is frequently 

 asserted in defence of the system of yearly 

 tenures that such and such districts or indi- 

 vidual estates have been held on no other 

 principle, and that they have exhibited an 

 energetic and improving tenantry. This is 

 not disputed ; but it may be said — give the 

 same set of men ample security for their 

 outlay, and see how much more will be done. 

 All landlords are not good landlords, though 

 it may with truth be said that this country is 

 blessed with very many high-minded men, 

 having the interests of their tenantry very 

 near to their own hearts ; but that the capital of 

 an improving tenant, which maybe locked in 

 the soil, should be left to the mercy and 

 caprice of a bigoted and narrow-minded 

 landlord, is a state of things which calls loudly 

 forredress, and which must before very long be 

 changed. It has been thought to be impos- 

 sible to apply legislation to the relations of 

 landlord and tenant ; but few, I think, will 

 doubt that we are rapidly approaching the 

 time when legislative protection will be the 

 stronghold of English agriculture. Such pro- 

 tection should not, I trust it never may, 

 loosen those bonds of natural esteem and 

 regard which happily reign between so 

 many landlords and their tenantry. It 

 should rather be the means of creating 



a better feeling than that which may 

 sometimes be found to exist ; and, looking at 

 the question in its broadest aspect, it almost 

 ceases to be an individual one, for it is a 

 grave national question, one upon which 

 hinges the incentive to a more commercial, 

 and in consequence, a more enlightened 

 treatment of the soil of this country. I am 

 no advocate for fixity of tenure in its full 

 scope and bearing. By such a system land- 

 lords would lose what it never can be ex- 

 pected they will consent to abandon, viz., 

 a control over their properties, and it would 

 result in their losing all interest in the im- 

 provement and development of them ; or it 

 might develop itself into such a condition of 

 things as exists in Ireland under the opera- 

 rations of the Land Act, where landlords are 

 paying enormous sums amounting in one 

 instance to about forty years' purchase of 

 their properties as compensation to ejected 

 tenants^ and with no right of appeal. Such 

 cases, I hear, are not unfrequent. In con- 

 clusion, we may congratulate ourselves upon 

 having seen very vast improvements in our 

 own time, due mainly to the energy of the 

 tenant-farmer, and the skill of the engineer 

 and mechanic; but let us also see some of 

 those changes which I have ventured to 

 advocate in the relations of the proprietor 

 and cultivator of the soil, and, great as are 

 the resources of the country — great as are 

 the spirit and enterprise of the agricultural 

 community of this kingdom, agriculture will 

 yet rise to a degree of perfection hitherto 

 unseen, when the natural produce of the 

 soil of the country will be very largely in- 

 creased, and when every waste place will 

 blossom as the rose. 



