A FULL REWARD FOR THE TILLER. 365 



entitled to a higher rate of interest — which, as a rule, when 

 times are normal, and supposing him to be capable, he 

 receives. Under this arrangement, so it is rightly urged 

 in its favour, the raw material for Agriculture, that is, the 

 land, is placed at the tiller's disposal at the lowest possible 

 charge to himself, while at the same time he is left free to 

 devote the whole of his own disposable capital, whatever 

 its amount may be, to working purposes, where it is most 

 needed and where it will yield the highest return. That is, 

 of course, not the motive with which our prevailing land 

 system was originally created. Land was, or else became, 

 accumulated—" hoarded " — in few hands. A large posses- 

 sion of land meant political power, a high social standing, 

 and more besides. The land was, accordingly, not to be 

 parted with. The occupiers were of an inferior caste and, 

 in truth, originally the landlord's retainers, and the tenant 

 system became established among ourselves, as did more 

 or less modernised forms of the ancient medietas, the metayage 

 or mezzadria, which sprang from the same root, among our 

 neighbours. In such countries as northern Germany the 

 ancient privileges of the landed class survived to a late 

 day, just as did, among ourselves, our game laws. Owners 

 of manors were still magistrates in right of their possession 

 when I had my property in Prussian Lusatia. These men 

 had exercised petty justice. And I found memory fresh 

 of a predecessor of mine who had run a peasant through 

 with his sword, because he had dared to beat off a dog of 

 his which had assaulted the peasant, without any penalty 

 being exacted from the murderer. And so fully impressed 

 were people still with the extensiveness of the jurisdiction 

 formerly permitted to " rittergutsbesitzer " that a weigh- 

 ing frame which I had had put up close to a pond which 

 served as reservoir for fish after dragging my large fishponds, 

 to have them ready for delivery to the fishmonger — who 

 bundled them off to Hamburg en route for the East End, 

 to feed the Jews — was very frequently mistaken for a 

 gallows dating from the time of squires' jurisdiction, which 

 was then not very distant. The privilege of magistracy 

 came to an end in 1875. 



