i 



CHAPTER XXV 



LAND TENURES {continued) — WHY NO DEFINITE (JON- 

 STRUCTIVE SCHEME IS PUT FORWARD — BETTER 

 PURPOSE SERVED BY SHOWING HOW TEXTILE INDUS- 

 TRIES WOULD HAVE FAILED IF RUN ON AGRICULTURAL 

 SYSTEM OF TENURES 



Having referred in the previous chapter to certain advantages 

 accruing to foreign States owing, among other things, to their 

 superior system of land tenures, it is necessary to suggest certain 

 remedial measures which might he adopted with considerable 

 advantage by CJreat Britain. It will be well, however, first to 

 review the position, because it is absolutely certain, in this 

 dissonant age, when political interests can be served by a cheap 

 system of economics, and certain powerful sections of voters 

 would lie prepared to maintain the datuH quo ante at any sacrifice 

 of national interests, that whatever system may be suggested, 

 it is sure to meet with as much organised opposition as though 

 it were a measure proposed to defeat the ends of justice and 

 overturn the stability of the Empire. 



The Opposeks of Land Reform : Why they object 



The political trimmer would obviously oppose any kind of 

 land reform tliat appeared to be in want of harmony with the 

 programme of his party pro tern. The manufacturing interests 

 — with the exception of those who have come over to Tarilf- 

 rcform, erroneously believing that a prosperous universal agri- 

 cultural industry for Great Britain would seriously militate 

 against their overseas trade— would oppose land reform of a 

 nature that would give British people the same chance in 

 agriculture as is enjoyed Ijy the people of all otlier European 

 States. The landlord and farming interests, although their 

 political power is practically a negligible quantity, owing to 

 lack of organisation, would, strangely enough, not favour land 

 reform unless many of the objectionable features of the present 



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