INCREASING PRESSURE OF COMPETITION. 149 

 owners and their tenants in a safer position His duty 



to protect 



to encounter foreign competition. But the himself by 



a definite 



sooner the principle of security of possession for and length- 

 ened term. 



a definite and lengthened term becomes also 

 generally recognised in England, the better will 

 it be for the individual and public interests. 

 Writing with the responsibility of a practical 

 experience of forty years, and with a general 

 knowledge both personally and officially of the 

 agriculture of the United Kingdom, and of the 

 relations between landlord and tenant, I venture 

 with all becoming respect for the opinions of 

 others, to say with confidence that the good 

 understanding which has hitherto as a rule 

 protected the English farmer under a yearly 

 tenancy, will not for many years longer be able increasing 



pressure of 



to withstand the inevitable pressure of home and competi- 

 tion, 

 foreign competition. However unpalatable the 



truth, the relation is and must become one of 

 business, and not merely of mutual confidence. 



There are two modes, as I have said, of 

 meeting the difficulty, and we may shortly con- 

 sider the first, that of the tenant becoming 

 himself the owner of his farm. The Irish Land 



