AUTHOR'S NOTE TO NEW EDITION 



In the chapter of this work headed " What Might Be 

 and What Is," I discussed the sales of English landed 

 estates which were in progress at the time of its 

 writing, intimating that, in my view, their importance 

 was perhaps exaggerated. During the past year, 

 however, owing to various causes already touched 

 on in these pages, many more such sales have been 

 announced. What proportion of them has been, or 

 will be actually carried through is another matter, 

 and one on which 1 have no information. At any 

 rate, tenants have taken alarm, for the good reason 

 that such a sale often means the termination of their 

 tenancy, that is, unless it suits them to purchase the 

 holdings they occupy. Owing to their representations 

 a Departmental Committee on the Position of Sitting 

 Tenants was appointed by the Government to con- 

 sider the question, which committee returned a report 

 that, whatever else it may have been, was not unani- 

 mous. Thereupon the Government introduced a Bill 

 in the House of Lords, of which the sole provision is 

 that when a landlord determines to sell his property 

 the farmer holding on an annual tenancy can claim 

 two years' notice instead of the single year to which 

 he is entitled. 



It is very difficult to understand how the tenant 

 could benefit by such an alteration of the law, 

 since after a short extra twelve months of grace he 



