SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 385 



increased tax on the lands I hold in my own hands; he dares 

 not, I am confident, venture even to suppose that I have let my 

 land collusively, or received any fine or other consideration in 

 hand to lower the amount of the reserved rent. 



" I let my land, as you know, at a rent which I think and 

 believe to be its real value, that is, I take to myself such a 

 share of the produce as ought in my opinion to belong to the 

 landlord, leaving the tenant what in my opinion he ought to 

 have as his share, and I do not calculate this idly or by guess. 

 You have laid before me on divers occasions what the produce 

 of a farm will be, if well managed in an average season, stating 

 the gross amount of receipt on each article of produce valued 

 at an average price, such as you and I think likely to be per- 

 manent; of this sum you and I allot what we think necessary 

 for the cultivation of the farm, what we think the tenant 

 ought to have to pay his household, pay his tithes, rates and 

 taxes, and allow some savings to him if he is industrious and 

 frugal; the rest is apportioned to me as my share, and more 

 than that portion no landlord ought to take, and in fact most 

 landlords of gentlemen's families and liberal educations are 

 contented with such a proportion. 



"Those who exact higher rents, who have no feeling for 

 the oppression of their tenants, who employ attorneys as 

 their stewards, or keep lawyers in pay by retaining fees to 

 watch over their interests, and recover arrears from their 

 tenants when they can no longer support their families, and 

 who are at last compelled to deduct from their net profits the 

 cost of law charges, the losses suffered by tenants unable to 

 pay the whole of the arrears, and the increase of poor's rates 

 on their estates, which must arise from the persons who used 

 to pay them being reduced to the necessity of receiving them 

 or of starving, are surely not to be considered as examples 

 which Government wishes to hold up for imitation, and compel 

 humane men to adopt. 



"If I am mistaken in the rate I have set upon my lands 

 as rent, the Commissioners will by enforcing the surcharges 

 put me right; I must in that case raise the farms not in lease 

 to the rent they consider as a proper one : Government will 

 in that case have the credit of raising my estate very much to 



2 C 



