124 CAUSES OF THE DECLINE 



capital than arable farming-. In a word, as Caird himself 

 put it, England is becoming- less of an arable farm, more 

 of meadow and a market garden, while the towns are 

 extended into the country. 1 



To what extent the small occupying owner still survives 

 we shall consider in our next lecture. But if the causes to 

 which we have attributed their decline are the true ones, 

 it is difficult to believe that they can have much of a 

 future. As market gardeners, the small owners may 

 succeed, but will they be able to compete in the growing 

 of cereals and the raising and feeding of cattle ? 2 



But although the disappearance of the small landowner 

 is chiefly to be attributed to natural economic and social 

 causes, there is, it appears to me, one way in which some 

 manorial lords have of late artificially, and of set purpose, 

 extinguished small tenancies. I allude to their treatment 

 of copyholds for lives and years contingent on lives, and 

 leases for years contingent on lives, in all cases renew- 

 able. 



It will be remembered that in the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries there were many instances of attempts on the 

 part of lords of the manor to turn copyholds of inheritance 

 into copyholds or leases for lives, attempts which in most 

 cases succeeded, while in the eighteenth century leases for 

 lives were probably created to increase the number of the 

 voters. In the nineteenth century the copyholder o 

 inheritance was too well protected by the Law Courts 

 be thus dealt with, but it is otherwise with the other 

 tenancies. 



Between copyholds for lives and leases for lives there is 

 now little difference. They are commonly granted for 

 three lives, with a right of renewal, that is, of putting in 



1 Caird, The Landed Interest. 



8 Caird, Higli Farming the best substitute for Protection. 





