370 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



difficulty is likely to supervene in respect of permanent 

 improvements, will not " rob " his land at the close of 

 his occupancy, but hand over the holding to his successor 

 in the same good heart in which he himself received it. 

 However, unfortunately, as has been said, such conditions, 

 so far from being universal, are really only exceptional. 



We need not make too much of the alleged " rapacity " 

 of landlords, though undoubtedly some such there is. We 

 know, indeed, from frequent complaints made — since the 

 time of Sir James Caird — that most land in England is, 

 in the reverse sense, actually tinder-rented. It would 

 probably yield more if the tenant, urged to more strenuous 

 application by a higher rent, such as Lord Townshend and 

 " Coke of Norfolk " imposed, were compelled to put more 

 " back " into his work. However, such under-letting is not 

 due to any conscious generosity on the part of the landlord. 

 Many of his class show this by the claims for higher rent 

 which they put in whenever they can. So common is the 

 disposition to do this that Mr. Prothero, when he endorsed 

 the Premier's plea for a guaranteed minimum price for 

 wheat, oats, and potatoes, deemed it necessary, in virtue 

 of the powers conferred upon him under the Defence of 

 the Realm Act, to prohibit any raising of rent by the land- 

 lord on the ground of such guarantee. " Rapacity " of 

 this particular kind is in truth exceedingly common, even 

 where its existence is denied. We had a most popular 

 landlord in Sussex, a noble Earl, the owner of much land, 

 who made it his boast that " he never raised rent." " No," 

 remarked to me one of his principal tenants, a highly 

 respected farmer, whose name was a household word in 

 the county ; "he does not raise rent but he gives notice 

 to quit, and then a fresh bargain has to be concluded." 

 There is undoubtedly not a little of this sort of " grabbing." 

 "If a man improved the farm during a lease" — this is 

 what Sir James Caird wrote in 1850-51, and in spite of 

 Agricultural Holdings Acts it still holds good to a consider- 

 able extent — " he would be obliged to pay an increased 

 rent for it, in consequence of that improvement, when he 

 renewed it for a second term. If he held from year to 



