Agricultural Capital and Profits 63 



a member of Parliament ; and he continues : 

 "As a great part of the yeomanry have 

 freeholds of this kind, the whole order 

 becomes respectable to their landlords on 

 account of the political consideration which 

 this gives them." And then we have this 

 very remarkable passage : " There is, I 

 believe, nowhere in Europe, except in 

 England, any instance of the tenant 

 building upon the land of which he had 

 no lease, and trusting that the honour of 

 his landlord would take no advantage of 

 so important an improvement. Those laws 

 and customs so favourable to the yeomanry 

 have perhaps contributed more to the 

 present grandeur of England than all their 

 boasted regulations of commerce put 

 together." By contrast, he says that 

 throughout the greater part of Europe the 

 yeomanry are regarded as an inferior rank 

 of people, even to the better sorts of trades- 



