wiser words were never uttered.
Yet these are the men who are singled out for attack by agitators, who
are only listened to because the greater number of modern Englishmen
are ignorant of the land and everything connected with it. At a time
when rents have dwindled, in some cases almost to vanishing point,
taxation has increased, and confiscatory schemes and meddlesome
restrictions have frightened away capital from the land. Many of the
landlords of England would clearly gain by casting off the burden of
their heavily weighted property, but they nearly all stick nobly to
their duty, and hope for that restoration of confidence in the
sanctity of property and of respect for freedom of contract which
would do so much towards the rehabilitation of what is still the
greatest and most important industry in the country.

FOOTNOTES:

[665] And an ever increasing burden of taxation.

[666] See Appendix III.

[667] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1881, pp. 142, 199.

[668] _Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners_, 1882, xiv. pp. 9 sq.

[669] _Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners_, 1882, xiv. 14.

[670] The rise between 1857 and 1878 has been estimated at 20 per
cent., and between 1867 and 1877 at 11-1/2 per cent. Hasbach, _op.
cit._, p. 291.

[671] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 324.

[672] See infra, p. 330.

[673] _Rural Economy of Southern Counties_, i. 285-6.

[674] _Victoria County History: Hereford, Agriculture_.

[675] In one respect the Act of 1883 restricted the rights of tenants
to compensation, for while the Act of 1875 had expressly reserved the
rights of the parties under 'custom of the country', the Act of 1883
provided that a tenant 'shall not claim compensation by custom or
otherwise than in manner authorized by this Act for any improvement
for which he is entitled to compensation under this Act' (Sec. 57).

[676] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv. 96.

[677] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1892), p. 63.

[678] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1901), p. 33. Cf. infra, p. 310.

[679] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (1893), p. 286; (1894), p. 677. Sometimes to
artificially raising them.

[680] Ibid. (1901), p. 34.

[681] _Parliamentary Reports, Commissioners_ (1897), xv.

[682] Broadly speaking, the arable section, or eastern group, included
the counties of Bedford, Berks., Bucks, Cambridge, Essex, Hants,
Hertford, Huntingdon, Kent, Leicester, Lincoln, Middlesex, Norfolk,
Northampton, Notts, Oxford, Rutland, Suffolk, Surrey