IX 



there exists to-day a Board of Agriculture with a Govern- 

 ment representative in both Houses of Parliament, and its 

 political Chief in the Cabinet, to watch over agricultural 

 and horticultural interests ; and, above all, that through 

 harmonious co-operation and friendly discussion between 

 landowners and tenant farmers at meetings, both of the 

 Central Chamber and of its Associated Chambers, and the 

 strenuous efforts of public spirited men, who have sub- 

 ordinated personal considerations to the advancement of 

 rural industry, the land laws have been reformed, and the 

 position of progressive and industrious farmers rendered 

 more secure through the medium of the Agricultural 

 Holdings Acts. For the existence upon the Statute Book 

 of the first of these Acts, as well as for its subsequent 

 periodical amendment, the Central Chamber has been mainly 

 responsible. There is probably no greater tribute to its use- 

 fulness and to its conciliatory spirit than the fact that, while 

 rival politicians, generally of urban extraction, have been 

 noisily propounding schemes and promoting legislation for 

 the supposed benefit of the agricultural community, the 

 leaders of the industry landlord and tenant-farmer alike 

 have, through the medium of the Chamber, quietly set 

 themselves from time to time to put their own house in 

 order on practical lines. Every industry and, owing to 

 its sporadic distribution, none more than Agriculture has 

 found effective combination essential to its fair treatment 

 on the part both of other interests and of the Legisla- 

 ture. This necessity was recognised by the enlightened 

 founders of the Central Chamber of Agriculture in 1865 

 long before the bulk of the great industrial combinations, 

 with their immense present-day political power, were even 

 dreamt of, and more than thirty years before any other 

 agricultural organisation of a national character and with 

 like objects came into being. What is in store for British 



