THE AGRARIAN REFORM OF 1903. 115 



It has broken the domination of the landlords, 

 and made arbitrary evictions practically im- 

 possible. The evictions which even in 1887 

 numbered 3,869 sank in 1893 to 1,018 and in 

 1896 to 695 ; the records of agrarian crime sank 

 simultaneously from 883 to 380 and 251.^ 



An enduring peace was, however, not to be 

 looked for. Every fifteen years at least the 

 parties meet each other before the courts, and 

 there strive with all the means in their power 

 over the division of an ever-diminishing surplus. 

 The judge who has to decide between them pro- 

 duces, it may be, a correct average result ; but 

 even where thousands of errors, by mutual com- 

 pensation, bring about a true average result, 

 this abstract equity does not bring much comfort 

 to the individual victims. If ever a Commissioner 

 ventures to raise a rent, a storm of indignation 

 arises. It has become perfectly clear that the 

 land courts may work away so long as all idea 

 of a general raising of rents is barred out, but 

 should anything of this kind ever take place, it 

 would bring about an agrarian revolution against 

 the State and its courts. 



As land legislation has reduced the landowner 

 almost to the position of a mortgagee, so it has 

 brought the relations of the tenant to his land- 

 lord into a condition which is neither one of 

 vassalage nor of a true co-partnership, but 

 that of a debtor. The law has protected him 



^ Fry Commission, App. 



