248 LAND REFORM 



whose love of the soil is inborn, would not jump at 

 the opportunity of being able to feel that the farm he 

 cultivates was his own. 



The best way, however, to deal with statements of 

 this kind is to bring forward typical cases wherewith 

 to refute them. 



In September, 1905, an estate in Worcestershire 

 was sold by auction.^ 



The following letter shows that the tenants of the 

 lots sold were most anxious — as might be supposed 

 — to be able to buy their farms : — 



" October 6, 1905. 



" I now have much pleasure in enclosing you a copy 

 of the sale particulars, together with the prices realized 

 for the respective farms. 



" The majority of the tenants had been in occupa- 

 tion of their holdings from twenty-five to fifty years, 

 and the rent they were paying was an exceedingly 

 moderate one, in consequence of which the prices 

 realized do not show much return as an investment. 

 Nearly every tenant on the Estate was anxious not to 

 leave his farm or to have his rent unduly raised ; and 

 I am quite convinced, from conversation I had with 

 nearly all of them, that if the same facilities were in 

 existence in England as there are in Ireland, whereby 

 they could borrow the purchase-money at a low rate 

 of interest, that nine out of ten of them would have 



present time the farmer keeps one man, three horses, and a number of 

 cows. Last year a few acres badly cultivated and poorly manured were 

 sown with wheat and oats, but the crops were so poor that some of them 

 were ploughed in, being not worth gathering. The large rick-yard which 

 used to be so well filled is now empty, and the staddles and other 

 appliances stand useless. In about two years more the holding will be 

 so far ruined that it will take some years to bring it into heart again. 

 Then, no doubt, the man will leave and take another farm. 



^ I am indebted to the courtesy of the head of the firm to which the 

 sale was entrusted — Messrs. Ludlow & Briscoe, Birmingham — for par- 

 ticulars of the lots that were sold. 



