42 Agriculture and the Community. 



the desired end. They are of the nature of compromises, 

 and do not meet the full claim of the farmers. The demand 

 has been strengthened in the past few years by the large 

 number of agricultural holdings which have been changing 

 owners. Many farmers, much against their better 

 judgment, have been compelled to purchase their farms 

 because they saw no other way of retaining occupation. 

 The avowed intention of many owners to get rid of their 

 land has intensified this feeling of insecurity. The farmers 

 do not want to become owners. Most of them have not 

 the necessary money to buy the land, and at the same time 

 provide the working capital for farming. They have no 

 confidence that the new owners who are securing posession 

 of the land have any intention of developing their estates 

 as agricultural subjects or that they have the necessary 

 knowledge or training to do so, even if that were their 

 intention. 



The demand for security of tenure and for judicial rents 

 is reasonable and ought to be supported by the community 

 within limits, so long as the system of tenant farming is 

 continued. The security cannot be absolute ; it ought not 

 to become fixity of tenure. It ought to be subject to the 

 right of the community to insist on a standard of 

 cultivation, and only those farmers who are making good 

 use of their land should be granted security. But within 

 these limits the best farmers would readily respond to the 

 better opportunities confronting them, and their example 

 would set a steadily improving standard for farming to 

 which the less enterprising could be compelled to conform 

 or they would find the pressure exercised to the point of 

 turning them out of their holdings. Security of tenure 



