OWNERSHIP AND TENANCY. m 



" antagonism of interest " between landlord and tenant 

 which then subsisted was, like everything connected with 

 the land, the result of historical causes. The terms on which 

 farms were held on payment of money rentals had gradually 

 grown out of, and been grafted upon, the manorial system 

 under which tenants were bound by a variety of conditions, 

 of service and otherwise. The conservatism of the rural 

 mind combined with the complexity of the legal instinct 

 had carried forward as much of the old system as could 

 possibly be squeezed, by the utmost ingenuity, into the new. 

 The result was that farm leases and agreements were in 

 most cases a jumble of restrictive and irritating conditions 

 which were only endurable when, as commonly happened, 

 they were tacitly ignored. These antiquated and impractic- 

 able documents embodied the general principles which 

 governed the relations of landlord and tenant, modified only, 

 in some districts, by the " custom of the country," which 

 the common sense of the agricultural community, free from 

 legal assistance, had established as equitable. 



The legal position of the tenant of a farm at the time 

 Wren Hoskyns wrote was intolerable, but it was endured 

 because over the greater part of the country landowners 

 adopted his precepts and looked at the position from the 

 other man's point of view. Generally speaking, on the large 

 estates of hereditary landowners there was a reasonable 

 spirit of " give and take " which maintained good relations 

 in spite of unreasonable documents. But, as at all periods 

 of history since land became a saleable commodity, new 

 men from time to time acquired the old acres without 

 necessarily acquiring the old traditions. The intrusion of 

 the business man in an industry conducted on unbusiness- 

 like principles naturally led to trouble. Tenants, especially 

 after their relative political power was increased at the 

 end of the " sixties," began to agitate for the redress of their 

 grievances by Parliament, and in 1875 the first Agricultural 

 Holdings Act was passed. Much scorn was subsequently 

 expended on that measure as being merely permissive. In 

 those days compulsion was less popular with the legislature 

 than it has since become, but, in fact, this enactment marked 



