320 = 54 
British Agriculture. 
The large 
capital of 
tenant-farmers 
entitled to 
legal security. 
But even increased freedom for the energies of the landowner 
will fail if not adequately backed by an intelligent and enter- 
prising tenantry. The rapid changes which have taken place in 
late years, both in the improvement of live-stock and in the 
better cultivation of the land, are in the main due to them. 
The vast business Avhich has grown up in the importation and 
manufacture of manures and feeding-stuffs, shows their willing- 
ness to enter upon new lines of expenditure which promise 
useful results. They have a large capital at stake, and they 
justly desire freedom of action in regard to cultivation, and 
security for that portion of their capital which, being neces- 
sarily incorporated with the soil to produce a future return, maj 
be confiscated wherever it remains unprotected by contract oi 
by law. 
CHAPTEK VIII. 
No Minister of 
Agriculture, 
and no Govern- 
ment control 
ejiercised, or 
State schools, 
or State flocks 
or herds 
maintained by 
Government. 
The Government in its Connection with Agricultuei 
There is no Minister of Agriculture in Great Britain, and i 
attempt is made by Government to interfere with the cultivati( 
of the soil, or between the landowners, the tenants, and t 
labourers. There are no State flocks, or herds, or horse-bree 
ing establishments, nor any State schools of agriculture. 
Ireland such schools, and several experimental farms, were es' 
blished at the cost of the Government, at the time of the pots 
famine. In the disorganised state in which that country tl i 
was, some benefit ensued. But the general principle of « ' 
political system is that every trade and business should be » 
supporting, subordinate only to the general laws, and control 
by the rule of free competition. The political influence \ 
sessed by the landed interests insures for them adequate rej 
sentation in the Government, and their great wealth endi 
them with the means of promoting all objects of general inte 
to them as a class. The Royal Agricultural Societies in 
land and Ireland, and the Highland and Agricultural Soc 
of Scotland, are the self-supporting national institutions of ( 
Kingdom for the promotion of Agriculture. And, besides g • 
provincial societies in various parts of the country, there ai m 
every county one or more local Agricultural Societies for the 5 
object. These are all self-supporting, having neither sti] nl 
from the State nor being subject to its control. The jod 
result of this principle is seen in the successful manner in w ch 
they have ev»ked friendly competition amongst all classes •0- 
nected with the land, and disseminated in every part o '^ 
