11 



this one, the greatest of all, unprepared uncovered the better able by being rid of a part to perform 



' b - - < • « * • • ^ • i- their duty and their wishes by the rest. 



7 ____ plant 



tion— and as is ever usual in such cases, the deserted 

 victim in the end of the guardian genius it so long 



If it be an evil for the occupier to hold more land 

 than he has capital to manage, how is it a good for 

 the owner ? If it be a benefit to the country that 



invoked successfully, and unwisely. 



It may indeed be easy to many who never saw 

 this before to see this now, from the vantage-ground ,-,.,- , , ; -. 



of after knowledge ; but it is not so easy to trace | plainest terms, how can free-trade in corn e^er per- 



money should circulate, how is it a benefit that land 

 " " stagnate ? To reduce the proposition to its 



land 



and point out in all their ramifications, tne inwaru 

 weakness, the ignorance, the errors, the improvi- 

 dences, the neglects, the unprepared positions, and 

 the false calculations that have rooted themselves 

 with ease, and spread their consequence throughout 

 the whole business of agriculture, and of that raw 

 material that agriculture is concerned upon— the 



The whole subject, long protected by false 

 expedients, from an honest scrutiny, is found 

 in a state of dislocation, and wants overhauling : 

 high prices, high rents, cloaking ignored ^ duties, 

 neglected improvements, unstimulated invention, and 

 stupid laws, have worked together in mischievous 

 alliance, in nothing so mischievous as in mutually 

 keeping possible each others' existence. Error is 

 fruitful of collateral incidents : like the first lie, it 

 begets a legion to support it. Where there is one 

 radical fault, it spreads like a leaven through the 

 w r hole mass ; it is vain to go on cobbling at details ; 

 you must go back to the origin of the evil, if you 

 wish to cure or even to understand it. 



He would be like to earn for himself the title of a 

 powerful assertor of undisputed propositions who 



manently exist without free-trade in the land that 

 grows it ? For what is land to corn but the raw 

 material to the manufactured article ? 



The land is, in two distinct and separate ways, 

 tied up out of commerce. First by entails and 

 family settlements, secondly by the shameful and 

 absurd expense of transfer, an expense proportion- 

 ately greater, not directly, but inversely with the 

 extent of the purchase ; thus confining the sale, in 

 effect, to large purchasers, thereby reducing the 

 market to its narrowest capacity, and consequently 

 reducing the price ; for where purchasers are few, it 

 needs no Locke or Adam Smith to tell us, the 

 exchangeable value is reduced proportionately. 



But what shall we say of those not uncommon 

 cases where the occupier himself would readily and 



be the mirchaser. and could well afford 



gladly 

 to be 



so 



purchaser, 

 and the proprietor would readily and 



gladly be the seller, and would be the 

 and his successors after him, by being so 



richer, 

 of 



land upon which the one cannot afford, nor the 

 other prudently expend even the capital requisite 

 for its improvement? Upon what principle of 



should braVeW V^ thaUit the bottom j public policy or of private benefit can the system 



- - -- - - ! be defended of withdrawing land from the reach ot 



of all agricultural processes lies that rawest of raw 

 materials — the Soil. And yet strange enough it is 

 that what sounds so broad and obvious a physical 

 truth in the ears of the farmer, seems to struggle in 

 vain for a recognition in that of the landowners. In 

 vain do the Crown-lawyers in Parliament, who are 

 best able to know the truth, and can afford to speak 

 it, again and again, session after session, invite the 

 landed legislators around them to turn theirindividual 

 attention and collective weight to the amendment 

 of the laws relating to, and the practices, — worse 

 than any laws, that tyrannise over the land. Ask 

 any tenant occupier in any county of England, with 

 a lease or without one, what is the one thing need- 

 ful to help him to rub through a period of agricultural 

 depression — what it is that will keep out the fiend 

 of despondency, cheer his hopes, stimulate his enter- 

 prise, and turn adversity itself to its best lesson and 

 purpose ; he will tell you, the help and countenance 

 of an intelligent and spirited landlord. Put the 

 converse question — ask him what is the most dead- 



capital, and the twice-blest employment^ of labour, 

 blest in the operation and in the result, in order to 

 gratify a vanity of extensive but empty ownership, 

 the likeness of which, amongst occupiers, men are 

 now loud in condemning, as a source of the most 

 self-deceptive injury and public loss. 



We took occasion to notice, some time since, a 

 pamphlet, addressed to the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer by Mr. Calvert, Q.C., upon certain 

 laws affecting agriculture, in which the effect upon 

 the condition of landed property arising from the 

 position of Tenants for life was most ably scruti- 



remedies suggested. We 



suggested, 

 cordial welcome of a 



ening and destructive thing to a farm or a property 

 that makes improvement an impossibility, kills 



energy, turns backward that which should be pro- 

 gress, and makes, even 

 impossible ; the 



standing as you were," 

 swer will be sadly, and per- contra- 

 wise to tne same effect. It is a trite and easy matter 

 to calculate the number of pounds sterling to the 

 acre that the tenant in agriculture should be master 

 of to hold a farm; but what would be the blank 

 looks if the same principle of calculation were pro- 

 pounded to the tenants in tail to hold an estate. Of 

 all the greedy swallowers and potent " assiniilators" 

 of capital where is there one like land, to be the 

 ownen of?. Of all the low-interest-paying invest- 

 ments of capital where is there one like land, 

 to buy ? Of all the borrowers on first-rate security 

 who borrows at so great expense, to pay so high an 

 interest, as the borrower on land I Of all the help- 

 less creatures in creation, tied to a possession that 

 he cannot part with or improve, or enable others to 

 do it for him, who so helpless as the tenant for life 

 in tail ? The State at length recognizes the public 

 impolicy and private cruelty of his predicament, 

 and lends him money to drain his land; in other 

 words.it supplies to him the means of making the 

 first plunge into an indefinite investment. It opens 

 out to him a new and bolder relation with the soil 

 he is the owner of. 



nised, and the proper 

 have now to express our 



second letter from the same pen in continuation of 

 the subject.* If a very small share of the intelli- 

 gence with which Mr. Calvert has popularised 

 the really momentous features of this question, 

 were generally diffused amongst both the owners 

 and occupiers of land, we may safely say that a 

 more valuable new year's offering could hardly be 

 made to them. To quote from it is almost im- 

 possible : the subject itself is so succinct,, from its 

 very nature, as well as from its terse and simple 

 treatment in his hands, so appropriate and oppor- 

 tune in its suggestions, that we shrink from the 

 mutilation of his views and arguments by detached 

 extract ; and would rather entreat for the ten 

 minutes its entire perusal w T ould cost, with all who 

 feel an interest in the question, — never perhaps so 

 vital as at this moment, — What can be done for 

 British Agriculture ? 



To state the objects of this important letter, 

 without the writer's arguments, is merely to open a 

 naked case to the possible damage of misunderstand- 

 ing and pre-conceived error of every kind. It goes 

 to what Mr. Cobden would call ' the backbone ' of 



cry the tenant-farmers and the public — ' drain yon> 

 fields, improve your roads and fences, put up ample 

 accommodation for an increased head of Stock and 

 for the housing and economical conversion of an 

 increased produce. 9 Now let us look at the position 

 inherited by a very large proportion of those to 

 whom this natural and reasonable demand is ad- 

 dressed. Mr. Calvert has well described it, as it 

 commonly arises. 



" No sooner does the tenant in tail come of age 

 than he is urged by those whose influence is irre- 

 sistible, to cut off the entail, to resettle the estate 

 and to fasten upon it the debts of his ancestors' 

 In fact, he is invited to pay for the extravagance of 

 a father or grandfather, who has often done worse 

 than nothing for the condition of the family pro. 

 perty. Thus the burthens of the generation which 

 is passing, or passed away, are heaped upon that 

 which is advancing. It may be fairly made a ques- 

 tion whether the law ought not to be modified in 

 this respect ; whether so young a person should be 

 by law capable of binding himself in so important 

 a transaction. It is open to two serious objections ; 

 one, that a young man executes a solemn act deeply 

 compromising his fortune, when as yet he cannot 

 understand its consequences; the other, that the 

 weight of hereditary debts which he thus fixes upon 

 himself, crushes all his efforts and disappoints all 

 his intentions to improve the cultivation of his 

 estate. This system sacrifices the interest of the 

 entire present generation, not merely of the tenants 

 for life, but also of their tenants and labourers; 

 while the principle upon which it cherishes the 

 prospects of generations unborn, are, to say the 

 least, extremely doubtful. I am convinced that 

 the interests of the remainder-man or descendant 

 will be much promoted by the removal of this 

 peculiar restriction which is now part and parcel of 

 the law of settlements. The agricultural improve- 

 ment of a district effected in one generation is 

 eminently useful in the next. Indeed a further 

 question arises whether the entire system of settle- 

 ment will not be summarily destroyed, if it con- 

 tinues to interfere with the due cultivation of the 

 soil, and with the provision of employment to the 

 labouring classes. J? 



Mr. Calvert has taken up a subject which he 

 thoroughly understands ; considering it, as it must 

 be considered, both from the legal and the agricul- 

 tural point of view. Every word he writes proves 

 it. The landlord, the tenant, and the labourer are 

 equally concerned in this question : this he clearly 

 ; and we confidently trust that in the House of 









» 





sees ; 



Commons he will prosecute it, and make it under- 

 stood as it deserves to be. It is almost monstrous 

 to suppose that with so large a portion of the 

 proprietary interest in the land tied up as it were 

 from free action in the employment of capital, or in 

 the power to enable others to employ it, a fair scope 

 can be offered to those who have to meet a free com- 



petition against the world. 



The existing system of 



These 



the subject. 



letter, time has given 



the measures then 



Since the publication of the first 



proof of the necessity of 



and the 



for the nonce. 



He becomes a pseudo- capitalist 

 The money is borrowed and ex- 

 pended, the land is drained, and a Turnip-crop 

 springs up upon the four-course odd mark of his 

 farms, where the summer fallow used to be. 

 Turnips imply stock to consume them ; and stock 

 imply buildings, to cover them. The difficulty is 

 at his door again, with a louder knock than before. 

 Tiles and collars and four foot drains are expensive, 

 but what are they to Bricks and Mortar ! So the 

 State takes off the duty on Bricks, and talks of 

 playing the money-lender again, in new loans for 

 agricultural buildings. 



And why all this ? To support a false position : 

 virtually and in effect to keep land out of commerce : 

 to make free-trade in corn amalgamate with feudalism 

 in the soil : to keep ostensible owners in the osten- 

 sible proprietorship of ostensible acres, which there 

 is plenty of private capital in the country to buy and 

 improve, and realise, without recourse to loans from 

 the public, and leaving the present owners so much 



measures men proposed, and the partial 

 acts of the Legislature in the . direction pointed 

 out, have confirmed it. Probably the most im- 

 portant by far of the suggestions in his first letter 

 was the one to the effect "that Tenants for life 

 should be empowered, under proper safeguards, to 

 sell so much of the Settled Estates, as would be 

 sufficient for the discharge of the Settlement-incum- 

 brances ;" in other words, to discharge the inherit- 

 ance from a settled debt, to 



11 Throw away the falser part of it, 

 And live the truer with the other half." 



iC 



Why, 



1» 



referring 





Act, 13 and 14 Vic, c. 31, "is not the English land- 

 owner, who desires to make improvements, to be 

 released to the same extent as the Irish landowner, 

 from the trammels of the settlement ? Are not 

 landowners in both countries suffering from im- 

 prudent settlements, made, not by themselves, but 

 by their ancestors or predecessors in the days of 

 high prices? Are they not in both countries 

 equally compelled to encounter the competition of 

 other soils and climates ?" 



In these two last propositions lies the gist of the 

 whole subject. ' Lower your rents, or enable your 

 tenants to pay the same rents out of lower prices,* 



_____ ^___ . * 



* Second letter to the Right Hon Sir C. Wood, Bart., M.P., 

 upon certain laws affecting Agriculture. Bj Fuederic Cal- 

 veet, Esq., Q.C. 



settlements was based upon high prices, 

 have passed away ; and the country is satisfied, and 

 commercially prosperous under the change ; but 

 before the benefits which other classes enjoy can 

 reach the agricultural interest, though we are scarcely 

 doubtful of the result, yet much remains to be done. 

 The system of Government, or to speak more plainly, 

 of public loans, has worked well, but the very 

 success of a temporising and not very constitutional 

 expedient, may after all be only an index pointing 

 in the direction of a truer remedy. There is good 

 reason to believe that, in both Houses of Parliament, 

 the approaching Session will shew that the subject 

 is becoming better understood and its importance 

 appreciated. It is only strange that the simplifi- 

 cation of the dealings with land should be a point 

 remaining for discussion, after free trade in the pro- 

 duce of it has been for two years predominant, We 

 shall w r atch the subject with anxious interest, and 

 the more so as we believe it to be one the bearing 



m 



and influence of which is not half recognised as it 

 ought to be, towards the agricultural prosperity of the 

 kingdom. 



HOME COLONISATION. 

 Whatever may be the cause of the present low price* 

 of agricultural produce, we have little doubt that tb# 

 pressure which it produces on landlords and tenants will 

 prove, like the Potato failure to those of Ireland, eventu- 

 ally beneficial to them as a class, though the benefit will 

 be attained through much individual suffering. Among 

 the most hopeful signs must be enumerated the attention 

 bestowed on agricultural questions by the writers of tltf 

 daily London newspapers, and their sound and practical 

 mode of treating them, compared with that which pi*©* 

 vailed during former periods of agricultural distress. 

 Time was, in 1822 and 1835, when all the evils whi<* 

 afflicted farmers, and all the necessity for the increased 

 protection which they so frequently demanded, were 

 attributed to their propensity for cultivating infenP* 

 soils; and the remedy proposed was to suffer sontf 

 ) millions of acres of such soils to revert to the stat£ o 



