662 
CHAMBERS OF AGRICULTURE. 
ample opportunity for doing so elsewhere, as such conduct 
must necessarily endanger the well-being and existence of 
these excellent institutions.” But this is going back to the 
scheme of the old agricultural society. It not only ignores, 
but actually protests against, the special purpose for which 
we had supposed that the newer association was intended. 
The more probable term of the alternative before us is that 
the council of the Cheshire Chamber of Agriculture is mis¬ 
directed, and does not authoritatively interpret the funda¬ 
mental principle on which these chambers are constituted. 
Nothing, indeed, could exceed the courtesy and good temper 
with which the rebuke of the council was in this case both 
administered and received. Lord Egerton of Tatton, who 
presided, defended the view of the council in the most 
temperate and courteous manner. Mr. G. W. Latham, 
whose opinions upon the land question had been condemned, 
argued the point with perfect temper, and, as we think, with 
complete success; and Mr. George Willis, a tenant-farmer, 
appears to us to have fairly hit the mark when he maintained 
that that chamber ought to be at liberty to discuss every 
question affecting agriculture, whether political or not. 
Nevertheless, it is right that attention be directed to the 
difference which arose—if not by the Central Chamber, to 
which some sort of undefined allegiance is, we imagine, due 
—at any rate by those journals which report the discussions 
of chamber and of club alike. It appears to us—and this 
example is only another illustration of a view which has been 
more than once expressed in these columns—that the former 
institution is not so fairly agricultural as the latter. It does 
not represent the tenant-farmer class sufficiently. It may 
seem a paradox to say so of an organization originally 
intended to exert an influence upon Government, but it is 
probably too much directed by members of Parliament. It 
seems to us to be in danger of becoming simply an agency 
for maintaining and extending the political ascendancy of 
one class. It is capable of great public service, if it be used 
to ascertain and convey the political opinions of agriculturists 
as a body. It will only be a shortlived item in the history 
of party politics if it be worked for the purpose of maintain¬ 
ing landlords in their position as the “natural political 
leaders of the country.” And yet this is what it appears to 
us that it is in danger of becoming. How else are we to 
explain the hearty welcome with which the co-operation of 
the tenant-farmer is received in the work of distributing the 
burden of local taxation, which now lies so exclusively on 
land and houses—the comparative coolness with which he is 
