216 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



have it on any reasonable terms. This is very well 

 known to be the rule, and to have been a chief cause of 

 this terrible exodus of labourers from the country to the 

 towns. In addition to this they will give no security to 

 the farmers for their improvements. They treat the 

 farmers in every respect exactly as they treat the 

 labourers. If they do offer the labourers land — as 

 they are doing now that there is a deal of excitement on 

 the subject — they never give it except on what are 

 prohibitory terms — that is, as yearly tenants, and with- 

 out any security whatever for their labour and im- 

 provements. 



Now the report of the Agricultural Commission, to 

 which I have already referred, contains some remarkable 

 evidence as to the results obtained in those few cases 

 where landlords really do their duty, and treat the land as 

 a trust rather than as property only. There are two or 

 three landlords in the country who have done so, and in 

 every case where such landlords' estates are referred to in 

 these reports, it is invariably stated that there is no 

 depression in agriculture, that the farmers are well off, the 

 labourers are well off, and all are contented. That is re- 

 markably the case in parts of Cheshire and Suffolk on Lord 

 Tollemache's estates. Lord Tollemache is almost the only 

 landlord in the country who not only gives his farmers 

 voluntarily perfect security of tenure, but also gives 

 every labourer as much land as he can cultivate, at a 

 moderate rent, and on an equally secure tenure ; and, what 

 is more remarkable, he encourages outsiders of decent 

 character — anybody, in fact, who likes — to come and settle 

 on his estate. He offers land to build a house, and a few 

 acres in addition on which to keep a cow, at a low rent. 

 The result is that on his estate everybody is well off; the 

 farmers are contented, the labourers are contented and 

 prosperous. The farmers say they have the best of 

 labourers to work for them, utterly disproving the 

 common assertion that if you let a labourer have land he 

 will not work for the farmer. At the same time the 

 labourers and the farmers find customers in those persons 

 who have come to live on the land, and small communities 



