46 THE LAND AND ITS PROBLEMS 



paid badly, they lived under distressingly bad conditions, 

 and with little opportunity or prospect of advancement. 

 And I cannot but feel that the Church and the landowners 

 could have been more active in advocating and effecting 

 improvement. 



Coming to quite recent times, if owners as a body had 

 been more sympathetic with the quite reasonable wish of 

 agricultural labourers to form Trade Unions of their own, 

 the feeling between labour and the other two sections of 

 the agricultural community would have been far better 

 to-day. 



Or again, when the National Insurance Act came into 

 force, had landowners united in assisting the working 

 men to retain (and work under the Act) their Friendly 

 Societies, formerly so numerous, these could have been 

 saved from extinction. 



Where they have been saved they have justified their 

 continued existence to the full. 



Even in these days, with labour becoming more and 

 more powerful, I still believe that the landowner can 

 play a great part where he is qualified ; he will still be 

 accepted as leader — simply because he is outside faction, 

 and his integrity is known. 



The landowner's chief claim to consideration lies in 

 the fact that he is the largest shareholder in the agri- 

 cultural industry. 



It was his capital that rendered possible the great 

 developments of the nineteenth century ; and it was his 

 sense of duty, and his interest in these developments, 

 rather than motives of gain which led him so to invest 

 his capital. He was, in fact, a patriotic investor and alas 

 too often a philanthropic investor as well. 



But the present situation demands more landowners ; 

 no longer must landowners be mere philanthropic investors 



