38 ESSEX PAST AND PRESENT 



on ' Experiences of a Scotsman on Essex Clays,' con- 

 tributed by him to the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society : 



Corning from a country where long leases were the rule, it was 

 a novel experience to have farms as yearly tenants ; but I for one 

 prefer to have it so. On this farm where I write there was at first 

 a short lease now expired and we now sit on at a twelve months' 

 notice. The Agricultural Holdings Act, plus nitrate of soda, makes 

 me feel easy in my mind regarding this. The majority of incomers 

 have had their choice in this matter, but I have not heard of any 

 who have taken a long lease. 



As regards the position of the landlords, I should 

 like to place on record the views expressed to me in the 

 course of a conversation with which I was favoured by 

 Mr. Alec Steel, of Prittlewell Temple, Southend, one 

 of the earliest and most successful of the Ayrshire 

 settlers in Essex. With his comments, alike on the 

 point in question and on the general situation, my 

 sketch of Essex Past and Present may be appropriately 

 concluded : 



In my opinion (said Mr. Steel) many of the tenants are better 

 off than the landlords, bearing in mind the difference in the posi- 

 tions which each must maintain. It is not only that the landlords 

 have not yet had time to recover fully from the depression that 

 came upon them, but the prospects of their complete recovery are 

 heavily handicapped by the permanent burdens on the land. This 

 is especially the case with regard to the payment of tithe. There 

 is land I know of which for the last ten years or so has been let at 

 53. an acre. But out of that 55. the landlord has to pay 45. 6d. 

 in tithe. Reckoning other charges as well, the landlord gets 

 nothing. In another instance, where the landlord receives 363. an 

 acre, the tithe alone amounts to 123. the acre, apart from various 

 taxes. In Scotland, where there is no tithe, there is no land out of 

 cultivation. I never saw a derelict farm until I came to England. 

 Here even poor land must pay 6s. an acre or so for tithe, before 

 the landlord gets from it a single penny. If, however, a farm goes 

 out of cultivation there is no tithe to be paid, so that an owner of 

 land within forty miles of the greatest market in the world may 

 find it better to let his land lie derelict than accept a tenant at a 

 low rental. 



When land represented the chief source of wealth in the country, 

 it may rightly have been required to bear these burdens. The 



