104 The Landed Interest. 



letter? Or of a young military officer giving up 

 his commission to take the direction and respon- 

 sibility of a great shipowning house ? And yet 

 this is in effect what is done every day by the 

 majority of English landowners. They com- 

 plain that the business so undertaken " is not 

 sufficiently lucrative to offer much attraction to 

 capital." And people are surprised that within 

 the narrow limits of the British Isles, with a 

 teeming, wealthy, meat-consuming people, so 

 large a proportion of the cultivated land is still 

 permitted to remain only partially productive. 

 Security The third point of difference between the 



for tenant's ... 



capital, two countnes is the system of yearly tenancy 



whether 



by leases in England, while leases of nineteen and twenty- 

 or other- 

 wise, one years may be said to be the rule in Scotland 

 should be 



given. and the exception in England. It is in the 

 nature of a yearly tenancy that there should be 

 insecurity. Agricultural investments demand 

 time to be fully remunerative. How can a man 

 subject at any time to a year's notice to quit 

 be expected to improve .-' That he does so in 

 very many cases is due to the confidence of a 

 long-standing connection between landlord and 



