50 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



of feudal control flows on as steadily as ever 

 Rusticus expected dum defluat amnis. 



The same fiscal changes which so profoundly 

 affected the landowners made a considerable 

 difference, also, to those who actually farm the 

 soil. But it is a matter of controversy 

 whether the financial position of our tenant- 

 farmers is materially worse to-day than in the 

 period of protective duties. A fall hi prices 

 does not necessarily injure the farmer, pro- 

 vided the land still yields a living. Whether 

 it so injures him or not depends upon the 

 question whether his rent has been reduced 

 sufficiently to meet the new conditions. The 

 farming accounts presented to the Royal Com- 

 mission on Agricultural Depression would seem 

 to show that in many parts of the country, 

 great as has been the reduction in rents, it 

 ought to have been greater still. But on the 

 whole the rents demanded nowadays are 

 probably not very much in excess of what the 

 tenant-farmer can afford to pay while making 

 a moderate living for himself. And, in the 

 case of some more generous or more careless 

 landlords, the tenants might perhaps appear 

 to be rather under-rented than over-rented. 



Much depends, again, on the extent to which 

 the farmers of England as a whole have 

 adapted themselves to the changes which 



