RISING RENTS 147 



yielding a fair return upon the capital embarked in 

 it, though it was never likely to lead to a fortune. Of 

 this prosperity the best external evidence was that we 

 could very rarely hear of any farms to be let, while in 

 every part of the country the good farms were bespoken 

 long before they came into the market. Rents, too, 

 were rising ; we heard over and over again of re-letting 

 at an increased figure, especially where the farms had 

 been put up for competition. We even heard of one 

 or two cases of rent having been raised on a sitting 

 tenant, and no landlord or agent would incur the un- 

 popularity of such an action unless he had very solid 

 grounds for supposing that it was justified. Next, it 

 was noticeable that nearly all the advanced and skil- 

 fully adapted farming we saw was being done by tenants. 

 Large tenant farming has for the last century or more 

 been the special characteristic of British agriculture ; 

 under this method has been built up our supremacy 

 in production per acre and in live stock, and to-day it 

 still seems the most effective form of dealing with the 

 land on a wholesale scale. As a system it offers many 

 points for criticism ; it is often illogical, but its prime 

 justification is that it works well, when the landlords 

 and tenants are such as we find them in this country. 

 In the majority of cases the tenant stands entirely on 

 the side of the landlord and backs him politically and 

 privately, however contrary their interests may appear 

 to be. We heard but rarely of cases of injustice or 

 oppression, and when they did arise it was generally 

 over game. For example, we heard of one landlord who 

 had threatened to turn a tenant out if he did not take 

 his fowls off the stubbles and thus leave the shed corn 

 for the partridges. In the south and east of England 

 the game sometimes are allowed to interfere seriously 

 with the farming. 



