POSITION OF LANDOWNERS ^ 39^ 



of necessaries. In actual money, labourers suffered least ; but 

 standing, as they do, nearer the border-line of starvation, it is 

 probably true that they also suffered most. At the present day, 

 farmers have improved their position ; labourers, in spite of the 

 recent rise in the price of provisions, are better ofif ; for landlords 

 alone, although agricultural land readily commands both tenants 

 and purchasers, the general conditions have materially changed 

 for the worse. Financially crippled by recent taxation, land- 

 lords are assailed with increasing vehemence. The attack upon 

 the system of land-tenure which they represent derives fresh 

 strength from the poverty to which they are reduced by increased 

 taxes. They have not the command of money necessary either to 

 give fair play to the system or to supplement it by creating small 

 tenancies. At the same time, the attack is no longer aimed at 

 them only as representatives of a system or as members of a class. 

 The personal element is introduced ; venomous tongues attempt 

 to poison the crowd against them as individuals. Courage in the 

 face of odds has always characterised the landowning classes. 

 They weathered the storm of 1888 ; they may " muddle through " 

 the present crisis with equal success. Their prospects would be 

 brighter, if they were more ahve to the reality of their position. 

 Men are beginning to ask how many owners of land have 

 troubled to master the intricacies of the undeveloped land duty, 

 of the single tax, or of site values ; or have made themselves 

 competent to explain their injustice, their fallacies, and their effects 

 on rural districts. They are already wondering why landowners, 

 up to the present moment, have formulated no alternative policy, 

 and why they are still disunited, and still unable to agree on any 

 concerted action. To most onlookers, it would seem the part of 

 ordinary prudence, without further loss of time, to frame a compre- 

 hensive programme of land reform on broad and generous hues, 

 while maintaining the principle that private ownership is the only 

 satisfactory system for progressive land-cultivation. 



Owners of agricultural land in England are numerically few. No 

 doubt the paucity of their numbers in times past enhanced thek 

 social position, as well as their power and influence. To-day it is 

 a peril to stand where many envy and few sympathise. For man}'- 

 years in our history, landowners, as a class, took the most active 

 part in the politics of the country, and conducted the whole adminis- 

 trative work of rural districts. They do not do so to-day. It may 



