lo Agriculture and the Communit'S. 



agriculture, unless that question can be answered un- 

 hesitatingly in the affirmative, there is nothing sacred in 

 private ownership of land which ought to deter us from 

 considering an alternative. In the words of Lord Ernie, 

 " Private property in land is not so exceptional in its 

 nature as to make its tenure legally assailable. But the 

 moral title deeds by which some of it is held are not, 

 historically, without a flaw ; and no prescriptive rights, 

 according to modern reading of ancient maxims, can be 

 acquired against the People " (" English Farming," 



P- 397)- 



The president of the National Farmers' Union of Scot- 

 land, Mr. James Gardner, giving evidence before the 

 Royal Commission on Agriculture, 1919, spoke of " the 

 more or less derelict condition of the permanent equipment 

 of many farms in drainage, housing, fencing, and the great 

 difficulty at the present time of getting these put in a 

 proper state of efficiency." In reply to a question he 

 answered, " I think that in the majority of cases the 

 permanent equipment is more or less inefficient." He 

 agreed that this was not a new state of affairs and that 

 it was due to the fact that the cost of such improvements 

 was not a good investment. Most of the other farmers 

 who appeared before the Commission agreed that the 

 landowners were not able to make the capital expenditure 

 required. Every writer on agriculture in recent years 

 accepts this as merely a statement of the facts. Lord 

 Ernie devotes a large part of the final chapter of his book 

 to a sympathetic description of the plight of landowners. 

 " Something of the same apathy is certainly visible in the 

 management of many estates. Much ought to be done 



