224 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



Nivernais knows on which side his bread is buttered. In Germany, 

 for money-making — except by the very common practice, aimed at 

 if not always attained, of netting a handsome profit on resale — 

 the skilful man with adequate working capital will by preference 

 select tenancy for his operations ; but then, in Germany, the land- 

 lords so favoured are, as a rule, municipalities, the State, permanent 

 foundations, or else territorial families, who in the majority of cases 

 have their properties entailed, which means that there are authorities 

 to control their acts in the interests of the heirs-in-tail. Under such 

 conditions safe tenure for the term bargained for — which is always a 

 long one — is absolutely assured, and accordingly long plans may be 

 laid without risk, and recovery of outlay is certain. 



In our own case things are, as a rule, very different, and, in truth, 

 insecurity — in the double sense, as relating to recovery and of 

 time — constitutes one of the most serious blots on the picture of our 

 land system ; and it is in a great measure that insecurity which is 

 answerable for that comparatively poor figure which we cut under 

 Sir Th. Middleton's inquiry in comparison with owner-farmed 

 Germany. 



We are accustomed to look upon this question as one more 

 specifically affecting large farmers. However, we must not nowa- 

 days leave the small cultivator out of account, be he under the 

 county council or under a private landlord. To the business farmer 

 insecurity means a danger of the loss of money, and possibly a set- 

 back in his calling ; for, as a rule, he has no second string to his 

 bow, and failure to secure a farm means to him enforced idleness. 

 To the small man it means a danger of losing home and all. As 

 regards business farming, we have in the past taken too short a view 

 of things, for, as agriculture stands now, with new calls upon it, plans 

 have to be laid for a long time ahead. Now, an owner is free to 

 take as long views as he pleases and to adapt his system of husbandry 

 in the fullest measure to his own requirements. He is bound by no 

 covenants, no agreements, hampered by no interference, no dictation. 

 He has, indeed, to take tfhe full risk of good seasons and bad, pro- 

 viding, if he is a good man of business, out of the surpluses secured 

 in the former for the loss to be encountered in the latter. But by 

 accepting that risk he secures what is worth a good deal more to 

 him in his calling, that is, full independence in his management 

 and the absolute certainty that, barring vicissitudes to which every 

 business is exposed, of recovering every penny of money that he 

 has judiciously laid out and every effort of his head and arm that 

 he has made, grounded upon sound calculation, in the shape either 



