LANDLORDS 437 



of land and especially as stepping-stones whereby 

 the labourer can make a start at becoming a master 

 himself. The struggle is intense and not always 

 successful, but wherever we found farms of graduated 

 sizes we heard of men who had worked their way up. 

 The labourer is thinking of these things, and will tell 

 you that he wants to put his boy on the railway 

 because thereby he gets a chance of rising and some 

 better prospect than the workhouse for the close of 

 his life. 



If we consider the men who are engaged in this 

 business of agriculture, we must conclude that the 

 owners, however kindly and helpful to their tenants, 

 are yet deficient in leadership. There is nowadays 

 no one to set beside Coke of Norfolk or the land- 

 owners who did pioneering work in the second quarter 

 of the nineteenth century; almost the only working 

 part they take in agriculture consists in the breeding 

 of pedigree stock, and that rather as a form of social 

 competition than for the improvement of farming. 

 The great opportunities of leadership they might 

 exercise in the way of drawing their tenants into 

 co-operative marketing and purchase, or improved 

 methods of farming, are rarely or never exercised ; 

 at their worst landlords become mere rent receivers 

 and must inevitably become crowded out unless they 

 take some higher view of their function. The model 

 farms that were not uncommon a generation ago 

 were justly discredited as only instructive in their 

 expensiveness ; what we do lack are examples of 

 large-scale capitalist farming distinguished by its 

 rigorous application of science and business to the 

 real purpose of the industry making money. 



We doubt if there are many more profitable 

 enterprises open at the present day than would be 



