CHAPTER III 

 AGRICULTURAL DRAMATIS PERSON^^ 



THE LANDOWNER 



ONE cannot think about the landowner without 

 the question of rent arising/ and unfortunately 

 most of the popular ideas about agricultural rent 

 are fallacious. The general view of townsmen, who 

 have not studied the question, is that the landowner is 

 an extortioner and draws a large revenue from the land 

 which he possesses ; and they often question his right 

 to possess it. 



In the first place, with few exceptions, the landowner 

 (or a predecessor) has bought his land just as he would 

 have bought any other form of property — the one difference 

 being that in buying it he contracts either consciously 

 or unconsciously special responsibilities, particularly 

 towards the nation and to the people living on his land ; 

 and an impartial study of the rents charged by owners of 

 agricultural land for the last eight hundred years will 

 show that these have not been extortionate. 



In the fourteenth century rent averaged about 6d. per 

 acre and good meadow land about 2/- per acre (6d. in 

 those days was about the equivalent of 6/- in, say, 1914). 

 To buy, land was worth about 12 years' purchase (i.e. 

 the rent X 12). This rate of rental remained the same 



» See Appendix Nu. i. 

 4« 



