g lowered
over agriculture have shown signs of lifting. Rents have been adjusted
to a figure at which the farmer has some chance of competing with the
foreigner,[707] though the price of grain keeps wretchedly low; stock
has improved, and there is undoubtedly to-day (1908) a brisker demand
for farms, and in some localities rents have even advanced slightly.
The yeoman--that is, the man who owns and farms his own land, perhaps
the most sound and independent class in the community--has,
unfortunately for England, largely disappeared. Even of those who
remain, some prefer to let their property and rent holdings from
others! It has been noticed that the labourer's lot has improved in
this generation of adversity; and well it might, for his previous
condition was miserable in the extreme. The farmers have suffered
severely, many losing all their capital and becoming farm labourers.
The landlords have suffered most; they have not been able to throw up
their land like the farmer, and until quite recently have watched it
becoming poorer and poorer. The depression, in short, has driven from
their estates many who had owned them for generations. Those who have
survived have usually been men with incomes from other sources than
land, and they have generally deserved well of their country by
keeping their estates in good condition in spite of falling rents and
increasing taxation.

No class of men, indeed, have been more virulently and consistently
abused than the landlords of England, and none with less justice.
There have been many who have forgotten that property has its duties
as well as its rights; they have erred like other men, but as a rule
they play their part well. Even the worst are to some extent obliged
by their very position to be public spirited, for the mere possession
of an estate involves the employment of a number of people in healthy
outdoor occupations which Englishmen to-day so especially need to
counteract the degenerating influences of town life. Many of the great
estates[708] are carried on at a positive loss to their owners, and it
may be doubted whether agricultural property pays the possessor a
return of 2 per cent. per annum; which is as much as to say that the
landlord furnishes the tenant with capital in the form of land at that
rate for the purpose of his business. What other class is content with
such a scanty return? They are often charged with not managing their
estates on business principles, an