60 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



had for a while to be abandoned in most cases. 

 Rents were in many cases practically abolished, 

 and the landlord allowed his tenants to use his 

 land and his capital free to tide over the crisis. 

 With wheat at 22s. a quarter, wheat growing 

 was not an economic but a parasitical industry. 

 It continued to exist at all, it seems to me, 

 because of the stubborn love of the English 

 people for the land, and the instinctive patriotism 

 of the English landowners. 



I hope that that reading of the past history 

 of the land in Great Britain will be accepted as 

 a fair one ; for it seems to me that with an 

 appreciation of the truth as to the original 

 causes of the unsettlement of British agri- 

 culture, great progress will have been made 

 towards finding a remedy for the troubles now 

 existing. Free Trade assisted, but it did not 

 cause the " slump " in British agriculture. A 

 blow more cruel in its effects was struck 

 against the land at that time by the great 

 withdrawal of capital, of labour, and of intel- 

 ligence from agriculture to be directed to the 

 new tasks of industrial life. Even so, both 

 blows might have been met had it not been for 



