PREFACE 



The Agricultural Commission may have disappointed 

 those who put their faith in revolutions or panaceas; 

 but the materials it has brought together must in- 

 evitably shape and guide public opinion. Whatever 

 else it has done, this inquiry has swept away some 

 delusions, and has helped to crystallise and group in their 

 true relations the inferences which men of sense have 

 long been drawing from the plain facts before them. 



Opinions will vary as to the adequacy or practical 

 value of the Final Report of the Majority. To some 

 the Majority Report will appear to lack cohesion, to 

 shrink from thinking out the issues raised, and to keep 

 out of sight many important facts and arguments 

 advanced in evidence. It strikes no definite note, and 

 points to no positive policy. It is vigorous and un- 

 compromising only in its defence of the existing land 

 system. If it has a real policy anywhere, it is that 

 things must be left to take care of themselves. 



But this is not the lesson which will be drawn by any 

 impartial reader from the comprehensive evidence of 

 the Commission, or from the vivid records of the local 

 inquiries of our Sub-Commissioners. 



So far from telling us nothing, and leading us no- 

 where, this vast accumulation of facts and figures, of 

 life-long struggles with difficulty, of the decay of land 

 values and crumbling away of the human happiness 

 that has rested on them, of economic injustice and 



