420 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



of natural life. Reclaiming land for the plough presents 

 something of the same difficulty in a lesser way. Reclama- 

 tion and improvement cost money. " Coke of Norfolk " 

 spent a great deal before he got his first return. A late 

 duke, whom I knew as a lad, and who got his affairs rather 

 out of order, when told by a good man of business that all 

 might be set right if he would only consent to economise 

 for a limited number of years, coolly replied : " Why 

 should I ? " 



It is to these waste spaces that one would wish to see 

 the principle of the Prussian law, to which Lord Selborne 

 enviously referred, applied, or else the French law which 

 expropriates au nom de I'ntilite publique. The difficulty is 

 to make the law work. In theory it seems easy enough. 

 Under the Prussian law the Government is entitled to call 

 upon the owner of any waste land, which is found suitable 

 for cultivation, or, if there should be more than one, all 

 those concerned, to combine to a consortium — formed like 

 one of the French compulsory associations syndicates, the 

 Belgian wateringues or the German deichgenossenschaften 

 — in order conjointly to reclaim and cultivate such land, 

 failing which cultivation may be carried out by the parochial 

 or district authorities at the landowners' expense, so that 

 the Nation be no longer defrauded of the benefits which 

 Providence has prepared for it. Here is an interference 

 with the rights of " property," such as our own landowners 

 would probably never dream of being possible, but which 

 is calculated to recall to their mind the fact that their 

 " property " is not their absolute property at all, but to 

 some extent a value held by them in trust for the Nation. 

 There are occasions conceivable on which they may be 

 called upon to give an account of their stewardship. Un- 

 fortunately the matter presents undoubted difficulties in 

 practice. Wherever there is a willing competitor in the 

 field from the outset, the thing is easy enough. In Prussia 

 since a very long time, wherever there are mineral deposits 

 under private property, a person, or a company of persons, 

 is entitled at law to give notice to the authorities that he 

 or they intend to work such deposit. Thereupon the 



