104 



THE LANDED INTEREST. 



same extent, without having ever before written 

 or read a business letter ? Or of a young 

 military officer giving up his commission to take 

 the direction and responsibility of a great ship- 

 owning house ?' And yet this is in effect what 

 is done every day by the majority of English 

 landowners. They complain that the business 

 so undertaken " is not sufficiently lucrative to 

 offer much attraction to capital." And people 

 are surprised that within the narrow limits of the 

 British Isles, with a teeming, wealthy, meat- 

 consuming people, so large a proportion of the 

 cultivated land is still permitted to remain only 

 partially productive. 

 Security The third point of difference between the 



for tenant's 



capital, two countries is the system of yearly tenancy 



whether 



by leases in England, while leases of nineteen and twenty- 



or other- 

 wise, one years may be said to be the rule in Scotland 



should be 



given. anc i the exception in England. It is in the 

 nature of a yearly tenancy that there should be 

 insecurity. Agricultural investments demand 

 time to be fully remunerative. How can a man 

 subject at any time to a year's notice to quit be 

 expected to improve ? That he does so in very 



