Independent Farmer Becoming Tenant. 107 



CHAPTER IX. 



The Independent Fakmer Sinking to the Position 



OF Mere Tenant. 



''There was one remark made by Ex-governor Bout- 

 well at the Old Home celebration at Lunenbnrg last week 

 which particularly arrested the attention of his listeners. 

 'Farmers tell me,' he said, 'that it is hard to make both 

 ends meet, and I am glad of it'. The astonished auditor 

 then had matters explained as follows : — 



" 'We look about and see such aggregations of indi- 

 vidual wealth as were never dreamed of when I was a 

 lad, or in middle life. This vast capital is seeking safe 

 investment, and if it can find it at 2%, and safe, it is 

 satisfied. If farming were profitable these people would 

 certainly buy up all the land and hire its cultivation for 

 profit, and the present self-respecting and respected 

 farmer would become practically a serf on the soil. So I 

 am glad of the struggle, for it keeps our sturdiest people 

 still self-supporting, industrious, self-reliant; still the 

 sound common sense of the nation, its backbone in every 

 great stress. So it is fortunate the condition is what we 

 hear, and what I have explained.' " 



"Whether the provincial life is being buttressed in its 

 independent position and hardy virtues by a meagre and 

 laborious existence, or whether it is not thereby weak- 

 ened, may be questioned. In the Roman republic the im- 

 poverishment of agriculture preceded and led up to its 

 enslavement; and it is decidedly open to doubt whether 

 existing conditions on our farms, as described, offer as 

 great resistance to the centralizing tendencies of the 



