CHAPTER X. 

 OWNERSHIP AND TENANCY. 



THAT fascinating book, The Chronicles of a Clay Farm, 

 contains among the sketches which embellish its lively pages 

 one which represents two dogs both straining to reach a 

 bowl of food. They are coupled by a stout chain which has 

 been caught by a post between them and effectually prevents 

 either from reaching the coveted object. The legend below 

 the picture runs : " In which there is Antagonism of interest 

 yet Mutuality of obj ect. " In the chapter entitled ' ' Landlord 

 and Tenant," to which this pictorial allegory is a pendant, 

 Wren Hoskyns says : " Place yourself in your neighbour's 

 position . . . and look back upon yourself from that point : 

 the thing is difficult, and there is little danger of your getting 

 too perfect in the art of looking on your interest with your 

 neighbour's eyes. Let the antagonism between you be for 

 the time imaginary, the mutuality real. So you will see 

 your own best interest and happiness in truer light and 

 leisure by taking your neighbour's judgment, even for his 

 own ends, into council with your own. The too frequent 

 practice is to do the exact reverse ; to realise the antagonism 

 and make the mutuality a fiction and a humbug. What the 

 effect is first upon the soil, secondly upon the labourer, 

 and thirdly on the public wealth, wherever this mistaken 

 system has been long in operation, let him say, who has seen 

 a country, a district, or even a single acre, which has been the 

 arena of pure unmitigated selfishness, on the part of its 

 owners and occupiers, and all who come between the two. 

 The signs are not easily mistakable beggared labourers, 

 beggared parish funds, and beggared public finances can be 

 recognised afar." 



This was written nearly seventy years ago. The 



no 



