M.— AC4RICULTURE. 229 



clergy in inipiuviu'; llm land :uul in organising luial industry. Far- 

 sighted landowners realised tliat the day of the big estate was past, 

 and they joined forces with their Government to substitute, with all 

 proper safeguards for economic success, the occupying-owner for the 

 farm tenant. The success has been undoubted, and neither could the 

 landowner complain of unfair treatment nor the tenant of having 

 imposed upon him an undue financial burden. When in recent 

 years force of circumstances compelled the disintegration of the 

 great estates in England, many farm tenants had no option but to 

 purchase their holdings, and the purchase was made under the 

 worst possible conditions. The system of land banks on the Con- 

 tinental model would have simplified the process of such transfer, 

 and would have obviated in a large measure its inevitable 

 risks. In Denmark the landowners have been the pioneers of all new 

 methods and processes in farming, and the farmers in their neighbour- 

 hood have followed their example. The fact that the standard of 

 Danish farming is to-day very high and very level is mainly due to the 

 Danish landowners. In the actual woi'k of the co-operative movement 

 the clergy in Denmark, as in Belgium, have played an important part, 

 often acting as secretaries to the co-operative societies, and by precept 

 and example guiding the industrial activities of the smaller cultivators. 

 In strong contrast the English rural clergy are relatively valueless from 

 an economic standpoint, and thus lose much of the personal influence 

 which they might otherwise possess. This was not always the case 

 in English history. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the monks 

 in England were resident landov/ners, and initiated most of the im- 

 provements which were made in the practices of medieval farming. 

 It was their influence which was mainly instrumental in the improve- 

 ment of live-stock, drainage, reclamation, and the construction of roads 

 and bridges. Further, the Danish landowner, in common with the best 

 types oi his class in all Western European countries, because he applies 

 business methods to the cultivation of his land, has been the means of 

 increasing the aggregate yield from the soil of his country for the benefit 

 of the nation, while as a reward for himself he has derived a profit from 

 the process which surpasses what is generally conceived as possible 

 throughout this country. Not only is his estate administered on the 

 soundest commercial lines, and made to yield a fair return to him as 

 proprietor, but because a considerable proportion, and often the whole, 

 of it is farmed according to up-to-date methods he receives a large profit 

 as a cultivator. 



Denmark, however, it must be remembered, is a purely agricultural 

 country. An even better example for British comparison is Belgium, 

 because that country possesses an industrial development similar to but 

 even more intensive than that of the United Kingdom. Although its 

 factory output is greater per head of population than in this country, 

 its rural development has been considerable and progressive. The 

 landowners have been pioneers in this work, while the priests have co- 

 operated with a knowledge and enthusiasm unsurpassed in any other ' 

 country. The result has been that poor and waste land has been 

 brought into high productivity, and Belgium, in spite of her urban 



