28 LANDLORD AND TENANT 



the landlords should earn their living by exercising their 

 true function as the brains of the agricultural industry. If 

 they do not do that, they merely waste the substance of 

 others and are a burden on the cummunity. 



The landlord exercising his proper function as guide, 

 philosopher, friend and master of his tenant is, indeed, a 

 high ideal. It is nowadays the fashion to praise everything 

 democratic and everything tending to the freedom of the 

 masses. But the true ideal must be relevent to the state 

 of development of the people, and with this important 

 principle in mind, I maintain that the landlord exercising 

 his true function is the highest ideal for the conditions now 

 prevailing in India or likely to prevail within the next fifty 

 or hundred years. The broad fact is that the people need 

 leaders ; I do not mean the " stump orators " who merely 

 stir their emotions, I mean men of action who can direct 

 the work of others. The nature of that leadership cannot 

 be set forth better than by Ruskin whose writings on 

 industry have not received the attention they deserve. Let 

 me refer you to some passages in his book entitled Unto 

 this Last. Ruskin wrote in words relating to England an 

 industrial country so his illustrations relate naturally to com- 

 merce and manufactures, but we can easily see the application 

 of his principles to landlords. Translating his ideas to the 

 realm of agriculture we easily see that it is the landlord's 

 function just as much as that of his tenants " to provide 

 for the nation '' he with his brains and his savings, they 

 with their hands. The tenants are his children they need 

 his guidance, his support. With them he can rejoice, and 

 with them he must suffer. " The manufacturer in any 

 commercial crisis or distress, is bound to take the suffering 

 of it with his men."* 



And men will ever honor the landlord who thus regards 

 * Unto this Last, Section 24. 



