228 RURAL RECONSTRUCTION 



vague and unformed — in not a few cases wrong, as the subsequent 

 course of events has shown. The problem is not satisfactorily 

 solved even now. But it is not that difficulty, truly, which makes the 

 present situation so embarrassing — farmers asking for what landlords 

 protest that, in justice to themselves, they can never concede ; and 

 landlords, on their side, advancing impossible claims against tenants 

 — but the fact that the glaring diversity of interests makes a solu- 

 tion practically hopeless on the basis of the present system of 

 tenure. It is easy enough to point out cases in which extreme 

 demands put forward would really represent only what is just — 

 the acting party in that case having been conscientious and reason- 

 able. However, laws are made, not for the just, but for the unjust ; 

 and unquestionably there are cases in which rights claimed by land- 

 lords for their own protection might easily be abused to the tenant's 

 detriment, especially if the tenant is looked to for forward and more 

 intensive farming. 



The disagreement and contrariety between the system adopted 

 and the equities of the case, now so glaringly exhibited, did not come 

 seriously into account in the backward past ; but with agriculture 

 advancing as it has done, it has become plain. It is impossible 

 under the present system to do equal justice to both the collabo- 

 rating and, under another aspect, distinctly competing, interests 

 concerned. 



However, the problem which so much occupies us at present is 

 not merely a question between tenants and landlords. It concerns 

 a much wider circle of people — in a sense, indeed, the entire nation. 

 The War, with its necessities and trials, has irresistibly forced larger 

 views upon us than we took before. Moreover, agriculture has become 

 a national interest. It is for the nation's sake that its capabilities 

 have to be carefully handled and waste has to be guarded against. 

 Now, under tenancy there is absolutely bound to be otherwise quite 

 avoidable waste, for the tenant, whatever be the terms of his agree- 

 ment, farms the land for his own private profit, and only for a limited 

 measure of time ; and if in the earlier part of that period he put new 

 productive power into the land, he is, in justice to himself, sure, 

 during the concluding years of his tenure, to do what he can to 

 recover what he first put in. What will happen after his surrender 

 of his farm he does not know, and it does not concern him ; so he 

 naturally, and rightfully, exhausts his land. His aim, quite 

 correctly, is, not to improve the particular farm, but to make money 

 out of it for himself. Accordingly, be he ever so " improving," ever 

 so lavish with fertilisers and careful cultivation, and be his lease as 



