AT this moment there is sitting, we believe, a kind of secret council, protected and patronised by the Cabinet, whose object is to inquire "into systems of land tenure, rating, and some problems connected with the housing of the working classes." Mr Francis Acland presides over this council, and Mr C. Roden Buxton is the secretary. The proceedings of this mysterious body are hidden from the common eye. Like much else that is schemed and done by our Ministers, its inquiry is at once "unofficial" and conducted under "the auspices of the Government." The reason of an absurd contradiction is obvious. The hirelings sent to pry into what they are never likely to understand may use the prestige of the Government when it suits them, and may be publicly discountenanced if their indiscretions appear too monstrous. Their object, moreover, is perfectly clear. It is to discover how much of "political" profit lies in the land. Will the poor, ill-treated acres of England yield a cry at another election? Are there still votes to be wrung from the brazen mouth of the gramophone, as it shrieks its imbecility about "the land and the pee-pul"? For us these questions do not seem worth an answer. The green fields of England are not the proper cloth upon which to gamble for the

emoluments of office; and if the Government has an honest desire to understand the land, it will instantly discountenance the researches of Mr Francis Acland, carried on at once "unofficially" and "under its auspices," and appoint a public commission publicly authorised to collect evidence.

It does not wish to understand the land. The land, in the eyes of Mr Lloyd George and his friends, is of as much value as a Chinese pigtail. If it prove a popular cry, then agriculture may go hang. The unsettlement of landlord and tenant matters not a bit to the zealot from the town who travels to the country, carpet-bag in hand, to find a seat. The harm which has been done to the tillage of our fields, hampered already by Free Trade, is incalculable. The owners of large estates have long received a lower rate of interest on the money they have invested than any other conductors of industry, and, as though the increased taxation of recent years, the death duties, and the accumulated burdens laid upon their backs by such measures national insurance were not enough, another campaign of vindictive spoliation is threatened.

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The result might have been foreseen. The exodus from the country districts continues. Thousands crowd into the towns who might, in hap

pier conditions, be profitably employed in the country. Many of our best farmers, hampered by the feeling of insecurity, are betaking themselves to Australia, and thus robbing the motherland of a strength and energy which she can ill spare. What is the Government doing to stem the tide of emigration, to save the countryside of England from being deserted? It is promising heavier taxes upon the land; in a spirit of revenge it is declaring that it will still further hamper a declining industry; and then, at the very moment of its downfall, it is promising a minimum wage and better houses to all who will remain upon the land. Low wages and bad houses are not the causes of the rural exodus: they are the symptoms of decaying agriculture. And the sanguine souls who promise good wages and sound houses do not tell us where the money is to come from which will provide them.

The Socialist believes that the only short out to reform is that the community should take possession of the land. We can easily picture to ourselves how generously agriculture would thrive when farms, small and great, were managed one and all by smart young bureaucrats from the towns, and were made the joyous material of political favouritism and corruption. But the Socialist is doomed to disappointment. Man in his aspirations remains an individualist. Ownership is very near to the heart of each one of us. What Arthur

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At the outset of an excellent speech, Lord Lansdowne freely confessed that the agricultural system of the United Kingdom was passing through a period of transition. old relationship which existed between landlord and tenant was, in many respects, the best best that fate and chance have ever devised. "It is an honourable partnership," said Lord Lansdowne with perfect truth, "and a partnership to my mind full of advantage to both partners. The landlord provides the much larger share of the capital of the enterprise. He bears his full share of the risks and responsibilities; he is content with a very low rate of interest for the capital which he embarks in the concern, and he is also content with a very moderate amount of control over the manner in which the enterprise is conducted. . On the other side, the tenant has the use of the landlord's capital, and his own capital has been set free for the cultivation of his farm." Such is the system which has endured

for many years. It has survived the adversity caused by bad seasons and low prices. Many are the tales which tenants might tell, of aid freely given and rent returned. In some districts the ancient system will still flourish. In others it is doomed. Many landlords, however willing they may be, have been too heavily fined and taxed of late years to continue their policy of foresighted benevolence. Worse still, for the purpose of party aggrandisement a strange atmosphere of suspicion has been created. Stealthy politicians have told their ignorant electors that the possession of anything is a crime; that the possession of land is the worst crime of all, a crime which can be adequately punished by death alone. Now, the fiercest enmity may be fought more easily than suspicion. A palpable wrong may be righted. The force of a falsehood, subtly invented and often repeated, gathers strength as it goes, and in the end may work more evil than injustice itself.

Thus it is that the landlord of the old school has lost a vast deal of his power for good, and clearly some means must be devised for doing the work which once he cheerfully took upon himself. What shall these means be? Lord Lansdowne does not believe, and we are in cordial agreement with him, that the English farmer is "attracted by the idea of the impersonal landlordism of a public body." It is not likely that he should be attracted by this obvious in

humanity. A public department at Whitehall is no better to deal with than a County Council. The shackles of a bureaucracy are far heavier to bear than those shackles of feudalism of which we have heard so much lately. Moreover, the cost of public administration is recklessly extravagant. It leaves no

margin for aid in bad seasons, and the poor tenant of a County Council must expect a very short shrift if he falls behind in his rent. How, then, shall we encourage the small holder, who, wherever he has flourished, has been a source of strength and security to the State? By making them, says the Rural League, "the complete and undivided owners of the land which they cultivate."

It is a great enterprise, and worth whatever sacrifice we may make for it. The method advocated by Lord Lansdowne is the same method which has succeeded in Ireland even beyond the hopes entertained for it. "Those with whom I have the honour to act," says Lord Lansdowne, "are in favour of State-aided purchase,-not a mere indiscriminate measure of State-aided purchase, but a measure to be liberally resorted to wherever the conditions are favourable and opportunities present themselves; and we desire this upon terms which should not be inconsistent with what we owe to the security of the public interest." The demand made to initiate this experiment is but a single sum of £12,000,000,- the same sum which is paid annually upon

Old Age Pensions. The money would be secured upon the land itself, and when we remember that the present Government has already undertaken to spend £2,500,000 on purchasing land which County Councils shall let out upon hire, the plan does not appear to err on the side of extravagance.

The first and greatest difficulty is to find the right men. We want them neither idle nor unskilled. They should not take up small holdings for the sake of ease nor because they have failed in some other industry. The vocation should be there, and the ambition to succeed. Many years ago Lord Wantage sketched a small holder, who might still be taken as an ideal of his kind. "He is a man who came from the north of England," wrote Lord Wantage, "where he seems to have saved money as an agricultural labourer. He has got seventeen acres, and is able to pay a good rent and redeem his land gradually at the same time. He has built his own house at a cost of £75, a cow-house and a shed besides, and has fenced in his little property, which now bears four acres of good barley and four of oats; there being grass for a dairy and a stock of poultry which will bring him in £1 a-week. He will sell his corn for £50 or £60. . . . Here, we see, is a man who has been sufficiently thrifty and skilful to save money for himself, thereby giving evidence of

those qualities which enable a man to succeed in life, wherever he is placed, and would certainly enable any English peasant to make a living on a small farm." If only we could find enough of such men, the problem of English agriculture would be half solved.

That there are risks in using the public credit for the foundation of small holdings cannot be denied. The owners must be prevented from selling or pledging their farms until the purchase is complete. The small holders should be chosen with the best discretion that a properly constituted board can bring to the task. Yet a system of ownership has prospered elsewhere, and if we may profit by the experience of foreign countries, the risks of the project need not be too great. There is, for instance, the example of Ireland, an example which Lord Lansdowne quoted with some hesitation. "I am going be cautious in talking about the Irish analogy," said he, "because it is not a perfect analogy by any means, but I do think we have a right to refer to the Irish analogy when we want to show the extraordinary contentment, the extraordinary improvement in agriculture, which at once results from the transformation of the tenant to the owner." That is perfectly true, if we remember that in Ireland also the establishment of small owners has not been unattended

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