542 EEPOKT- 1887. 



If the farm does not pay, the tenant will reduce the cultivation in extent, 

 or more probably in intensity ; he will dispense with a pair of horses, or 

 reduce his labour bill and his manure bill, leaving probably some of his 

 farm in grass. Suppose that is done to the extent of 25 per cent., that 

 saves 50X ; and then the tenant cannot expect so large a return on his 

 capital or for his skill, if he reduces his interest from 4 to 3 per cent, 

 and his own recompense in like proportion he will drop 50?. The charges 

 antecedent to rent are thus reduced 100?., and the reduction of return 

 being 150L, there remains 50?. to be put against the rent. Thus we 

 return to the old formula of the three interests in land, and find these 

 falling together, as they rose together. 



But all these considerations, notwithstanding the price or value of 

 the commodities it produces, must ultimately radically affect, though it 

 does not wholly regulate, the rent of the land ; and in this period of 

 transition it is most difficult to define what has been, or to anticipate 

 what may be, the final effect of passing experience on the relation of rent 

 to the other elements that constitute property in land. One fact is brought 

 out very pi'ominently at least in Scotland, viz., that the original Celtic 

 and Saxon idea of the leasehold tenure of land has been almost entirely 

 superseded by the more equitable idea of the Latin lease. The idea of 

 the purchase by the tenant for a definite period at a defined price of the 

 productive power of the land had many advantages while prices remained 

 normal and nearly uniform, and the only contingencies were those of the 

 seasons ; and it no doubt commended itself to the tenant, while prices 

 tended to rise, and he consequently profited. But when prices do not 

 fluctuate with the seasons, but from other causes oscillate violently and 

 invariably tend downwards, the base of the structure is shaken, and the 

 weaker party to the contract suffers most. In these circumstances it is 

 natural and it is just that the system of long leases should lose its 

 attraction — that the purchase idea and all its consequent feeling of inde- 

 pendence and gifasi-ownership should fade, and that the more natural 

 and equitable idea of co-operation and partnership should rise in appre- 

 ciation. One of the greatest boons, therefore, which could at present be 

 conferred on landlords and tenants would be the establishment of some 

 system whereby an authoritative return of the value of all sorts of 

 produce in the various districts of the country should be recorded, which 

 would be the measure of rent so far as dependent on price. It is not 

 enough that, as in Scotland, we should have certainly a not very satis- 

 factory, but still a well understood, method of fixing the value of the 

 cereal crops. These contribute less and less to the ascertainment of the 

 real value of the land. "We ought to have a similar and a better method 

 of fixing the value of other crops, and of beef, mutton, and dairy produce. 

 With such information, based on a system which should command general 

 confidence, I see nothing to hinder our having rents fixed vii-tually by the 

 value of the produce of the land, without the complication and difficulty 

 which attaches to the fixing of individual rents of separate farms at 

 frequent intervals, which in the case of the smaller farms would become 

 intolerable. There would be nothing impracticable in the agricultural 

 department having fixed its standard of 20s. to the pound on the value 

 of produce, say in 1888, isuing a notice thereafter, year by year, that for 

 each crop and year the pound of rent should be reckoned at 18s. or at 

 22s. This would be a system which would soon be understauded of the 

 people, and, "without any of the modern leading strings of coercion or 



