PREFACE XV 



tion that competition is the only fair test of value, is 

 absurd, in the face of the statement of a wise landlord 

 like the Duke of Richmond, that it would be fatal to set 

 men bidding against each other, or of the speech of Lord 

 Londonderry at Darlington in December 1894, when he 

 said " that the root of the present evil was to be found 

 in the offering of competition rents which the land was 

 unable to bear." ^ If the Duke and the Marquis are 

 right, as we have every reason to believe, so far from 

 competition being a fair measure of rents, it is obviously 

 an instrument for enabling the landlord to put up to 

 auction his tenant's property as well as his own. 



Again, when it is realised that in agriculture changes 

 of cultivation, the development of less unprofitable 

 methods, the building up of a paying stock, the opening 

 and organisation of new markets, all the operations and 

 processes of re-adjustment, take a long time, and mean 

 investments which do not at once begin to pay, the 

 urgent need for ampler elbow-room and greater elas- 

 ticity of action is manifest. The evidence of success is 

 even more eloquent than that of failure. Men of judg- 

 ment and energy have pushed their way everywhere, 

 through the worst of these bad times, where they have 

 had a free hand and unimpaired capital, and reasonable 

 chances. 



Whether we examine these central and essential topics, 

 or study the possibilities of organisation in produc- 

 tion, handling, and distribution, winning back and keep- 

 ing the control of home markets for butter, poultry, 

 eggs or other products, for which the British farmer has 

 so many natural advantages ; or again, the future supply 

 of the most skilled and competent labour, which in the 

 opinion of the present writer, would be the result of a 



' Quoted by Mr John Clay. " Memorandum on Rent, Final Report," p. 183. 



