TENURE 31 



(including equipment), as distinct from capital invested 

 in the working of the farm, is lower than from other forms 

 of investment, but nowhere is this so strikingly the case 

 as in England. 



During the past centur}-, and up to 19 14, statistics 

 show us that 88 per cent of the occupiers of agricultural 

 land were tenants, and only 12 per cent occupying 

 owners. So that our system was one under which one 

 man owned the land while another cultivated it. 



The advocates of the tenancy system maintain that 

 it is an excellent plan for the man unskilled in cultivation 

 — the landowner — to provide the capital, in the form of 

 land, for the practical man— the farmer — to work ; and 

 it is undoubtedly pleasing to the practical man to get 

 capital below the market rate of interest, but it is un- 

 economic and therefore in the long run unsound. Above 

 all, it is not conducive to the highest effort on the part 

 of the farmer. 



It is interesting to note that in Denmark sixty or 

 seventy years ago the proportion of occupying owners to 

 tenants was precisely the same as with us at the present 

 time. Hut when the reform of agriculture was undertaken 

 in that country, acting upon a definite policy in which 

 the agriculturists and Government worked in complete 

 accord, the first object was to reduce the number of 

 tenants and to increase the number of occupying owners. 

 So that to-day in Denmark the position is reversed, 

 there are only 12 per cent tenants and 88 per cent 

 occupying owners. It is very generally held in other 

 countries that occupying ownership is the basis of sound 

 agricultural conditions ; and there can be no question 

 that the countries in which agriculture has reached its 

 highest point of development and organization have 

 occupying ownership as the dominant form of tenure. 



