A FULL REWARD FOR THE TILLER. 367 



very time when new demands made upon Agriculture called 

 imperiously for greater outlay on improvements, which the 

 comparatively impoverished landlord was not able to meet. 

 And so came about that deadlock at which we have actually 

 arrived with land running to waste under pasture, tenants 

 faihng to do justice to the Nation's soil, improvements being 

 left unexecuted and the land bringing forth much less than 

 the Nation has a right to expect and than in truth it needs. 

 The conditions surviving in the landlord's position are for 

 a good part hopelessly out of tune : Possession and wealth 

 have in the majority of cases parted company. 



Under such conditions, which plainly indicate the nature 

 of the prevaihng disease and therefore of the remedy needed, 

 it is idle to keep on singing the praises of a land system which 

 has become an anachronism, and which keeps the Nation 

 in want. That system has, as Mr. Prothero has put it, 

 " broken down." It was a palpable exaggeration, to begin 

 with, on the part of Mr. DisraeH, when bringing in his Agri- 

 cultural Holdings Bill of 1875, to boast on behalf of our 

 land system that under it the land yields " three distinct 

 livings " — to wit, one for the landlord, one for the tenant, 

 and one for the labourer. Such tripartition, between capital, 

 technical direction and manual labour — sometimes carried to 

 still further ramification — by the way, as a matter of fact, 

 is not pecuHar to Agriculture, but really exists in all forms 

 of business. In a manufacturing concern the fixed capital 

 is Hkely to be contributed at a comparatively low rate of 

 interest by preference share and debenture holders. There 

 may indeed be a ground landlord as a further venturer at 

 their back, content with still lower interest. The working 

 capital will be contributed by the ordinary shareholders 

 and the directors, who work the business and draw, accord- 

 ing to the profits earned, a higher rate of interest. And the 

 manual labour will be contributed by the " hands," who get 

 what the market rate and the pressure exerted by their 

 unions yield them. And in that case there,is genuine and fair 

 tripartition, with nothing more, unencumbered by hamper- 

 ing restrictions, covenants and the like, which constitute 

 a heavy price to pay for cheaper use of the land. One 



