PREFACE xvii 



fall vacant by the death or resignation of the 

 existing tenant. Formal notice would be given 

 to the Council, and purchase would become 

 the subject of negotiation. The price would be 

 determined by the same circumstances which 

 operate at present. Landlords would be as 

 adequately protected, as they are under the 

 Small Holdings Act, from the damage of 

 severance or the loss of amenities, by the rise 

 in price which these injuries to the property 

 would entail. The great advantage of this 

 modified form of compulsion is that farms in 

 occupation are safe. 



A useful note of warning is sounded by 

 practical agriculturists. There is no doubt 

 that small owners or small tenants cannot stand 

 up against bad seasons. In the disastrous 

 period beginning with 1878 multitudes of 

 large tenant farmers were kept on their legs 

 either by their own capital or by the capital 

 of their landlords. It is, however, extremely ^^ 

 doubtful whether many farmers possess as much 

 capital as they did at the end of a long period 

 of unexampled prosperity, and it is practically 

 certain that fewer landlords, impoverished as 

 they are by recent taxation, command the 



