OBJECTIONS. 103 



cases 70 to 80 per cent. We liave not seen it 

 suggested to what extent rents should come down 

 except in general terms, but it seems to us that 

 after all, this is a matter which can be best 

 arranged between a willing tenant taking land 

 from a man who has land which he willingly lets. 

 At all events, the evidence goes to show that land- 

 lords have met their tenants — except in a few- 

 cases here and there — with liberality; and that 

 for one case where rent has been maintained at 

 an unreasonably high rate, it is easy to put fifty 

 where it has been lowered to the satisfaction of 

 the tenant, who even then is not able to earn 

 a fair business profit. By the bye, we once heard 

 (in 1903) a Liberal landowner and former member 

 01 Parliament, declare that he made a jirofit out of 

 his cottage rents, and that he put up such rents, 

 if possible, ou every vacancy. We cannot recom- 

 mend the policy, and we were surprised to hear 

 it from one Avho persistently is talking about 

 the " dov\n trodden "' and the " ];oor " and againsL 

 tariff reformers. It struck us that a little 

 generosity on his part would have been better. 



LA^D Nationalisation. 

 It would be unjust to nationalise the laud 

 without compensation, and that contention has 

 been admitted by John Stuart Mill, Henry George, 

 and others ; but directly such is admitted, and the 

 compensation is enquired into, one finds that the 

 compensation payable to the landowners for their 

 land and for the improvements they have made 

 upon it, is much more than any rent the landlords 



