RURAL ENGLAND OF TO-DAY 41 



interest on capital, and not, in the economist's 

 sense, rent at all. So far as the capital 

 expenditure is concerned, the landlord is 

 simply a partner in business with the tenant- 

 farmer. The large landlord, again, is fre- 

 quently able to grant remissions of rent, or to 

 wait for its payment, where a more necessitous 

 or more greedy type of owner might press 

 hardly on the tenant. The system of large 

 estates, whose business is transacted from a 

 central office by a highly-paid, though often 

 indifferently-trained agent, has some advan- 

 tages in continuity of management and the 

 wider outlook which comes of dealing with 

 large sums of money and large numbers of 

 men. Again, the relation of a large land- 

 owner to the tenants and labourers of his 

 estate, though frankly that of superior to 

 inferior, is generally of a friendly and a 

 personal nature. 



There is, further, one institution whose 

 maintenance entirely depends on the country 

 landowner. Sport, apart from the farmer's 

 occasional rabbit-shoot, would die out if it 

 were not for the great houses. At present, 

 whatever may be said against these pursuits, 

 either on humanitarian or economic grounds, 

 they certainly fill an important place in the 

 tradition of the countryside. Hunting, in par- 



