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world. I understand the Law of Distress to be one of the incidents 

 of the Law of Real Property. Land has been bought and sold for 

 all time subject to this law as part of the bargain, and for which 

 money consideration has been given, and it has thus become part of 

 the security for which the purchaser has paid his money, upon 

 which the mortgagee has arranged his loan, and upon which rent 

 charges have been created. Any ruthless interference, therefore, with 

 this law, to the extent of a total repeal, would be equivalent to an 

 unjustifiable detraction from the value of property. We are told by 

 those who advocate the abolition of this law that it would be to the 

 tenant's advantage by placing all creditors on an equal footing with 

 the landlord, that it would add to his independence, and enable 

 him to procure greater facilities from his banker by having better 

 security to offer him. Gentlemen, there is probably not a man 

 in this room who has not, during some period of his life, been in 

 some measure indebted to his banker for monetary assistance. 

 Bankers are, as a body, a very estimable class of men ready to 

 grant you accommodation, but upon two conditions : first, that 

 you must furnish them with ample security, and, secondly, that 

 you mast pay for the privilege you are receiving. Now I would 

 like to ask gentlemen this evening, if there is not another body 

 of men who are equally accommodating, especially in times of 

 depression like the present, I refer to the landlord^. Have you 

 the smallest conception at this moment of the amount of money 

 that the landlords have practically lent out to their tenants during 

 the past four or five years in the shape of arrears, remissions, and 

 reductions of rent, aye, even in hard cash, for which they w ill never ask 

 for a penny as interest, and in a majority of cases will never see their 

 principal again ? Gentlemen, this is no imaginary statement ; but 

 does it not appear to you unreasonable to deprive the landlord of the 

 partial security he possesses, and that enables him in the hour of 

 need to lend a helping hand to a suffering tenant on more liberal 

 terms than he can expect to receive assistance elsewhere, and, in 

 fact, when he is not in a position to offer any security at all to his 

 bankers ? Believe me, gentlemen, you are safer in the hands of 

 your landlords as your bankers than in those of anybody else. 

 And when the history of the present agricultural depression 

 comes to be written — if it ever be written by an unprejudiced pen 

 — the conduct of the landlords of this country in generously coming 

 forward, at the greatest sacrifice to themselves, to share with the ten- 

 ant-farmer in his misfortunes and losses will deserve to be recorded 

 in letters of gold. But, gentlemen, I do not consider that the tenant- 

 farmers of England are responsible for this outcry against the Law 

 of Distress. It has certainly become an electioneering cry of the 

 Radical party ; but it found its origin with the tradesmen, with the 

 agricultural implement makers, artificial manure manufacturers, and 

 other trades connected with agriculture. These traders now ask 



