d no charge is worse founded. It
would be a sad day for the tenants on many an estate if they were
managed on commercial lines. One of the first results would be that
many properties would be given up as a dead loss. They could only be
made to pay by raising the rents or cutting down the ever-recurring
expenditure on repairs and buildings which are necessary for the
welfare of the tenants. The Duke of Bedford, in his _Story of a Great
Estate_, has said that the rent has completely disappeared from three
of his estates. On the Thorney and Woburn estates over L750,000 was
spent on new works and permanent improvements alone between 1816 and
1895, and the result, owing to agricultural depression and increased
burdens on the land, was a net loss of L7,000 a year; and every one
with any knowledge of the management of land knows that this is no
isolated case, though it may be on an exceptionally large scale. Where
would many tenants be if commercial principles ruled on rent audit
days? The larger English landlords of to-day are as a rule not
dependent on their rent rolls. To their great advantage, and to the
advantage of their tenants, they generally own other property, so that
they need not regard the land as a commercial investment. They can
therefore support the necessary outlay on a large estate, the capital
expenditure on improvements of all kinds, and thus relieve the tenant
of any expense of this kind. The farms are let at moderate, not rack
rents, such as the tenants can easily pay. Also the landlord can make
large reductions of rent in years of exceptional distress.[709] Rents
are generally collected three months after they are due, a
considerable concession; and even then arrears are numerous, for any
reasonable excuse for being behind with the rent is generously
listened to. It is owing to forbearance in this and other matters that
the relations between landlord and tenant are generally excellent.
Where are the best farm buildings, where the best cottages, where does
the owner carry on a home farm often for the assistance of the tenant
by letting him have the use of entire horses, well-bred bulls, and
rams, if not on the larger estates? The restrictions in leases, so
much decried of late years, were nearly always in the interest of good
farming, and their abolition will lead to the deterioration of many a
holding.

Bacon said, 'Where men of great wealth do stoop to husbandry, it
multiplieth riches exceedingly' and