DISTEIBUTION OF LAND 161 



but, in striking the balance of profit and loss, they cannot 

 be overlooked. 



Under other systems of land tenure than our own, ruin 

 is widely spread. Everywhere the pressure of foreign 

 competition is severely felt, but in other countries it is 

 accompanied by demands for relief which it is impossible 

 to resist and mischievous to concede. Advocates of a 

 peasant proprietary belong, as a rule, to the party which is 

 most deeply pledged to a Free Trade policy. Do they 

 reflect that foreign experience shows their economical and 

 agricultural theories to be opposed ? The agricultural 

 labourer has hiblierto supported Free Trade ; transform 

 him into a small farmer, and you make him a Protec- 

 tionist. From this, as well as from every other point of 

 view, it is assuredly no time to hazard agrarian experi- 

 ments, which can only succeed under exceptional combina- 

 tions of favourable circumstances. 



In many respects the existing relations of landlords^ 

 tenants, and aofricultural labourers, mi»ht be advantaoce- 

 ously modified. But the true lesson to be drawn from the 

 small numbers directly interested in land is not that the 

 existing system is to blame for the collapse, not that the 

 three profits are necessarily doomed, but that the day has 

 passed for legislation which favours a few producers at the 

 expense of millions of consumers. In France one half, in 

 England barely one fifth, of the total population are en- 

 gaged in agriculture. The English landed interests waste 

 their strength if they struggle for relief in the form of 

 Protection, or the reduction of the tithe rent-charge. 

 What chance have 38,000 landlords and 224,000 farmers 

 of persuading twenty millions to pay 6d. for a loaf of bread 

 which they can now purchase for 4^c/. ? For every one 



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