MR. °MANNING ON ENGLISH LANDLORDS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I think my friend, Sir Henry Malet, in the Spectator of August 27th, must have failed to notice that, in my letter to the Daily Chronicle, I expressly recognised the existence of the well- managed estates where liberal reductions have helped to keep farmers on their legs. My point was that, in moat parts of the country, land has been and is starved because tenant-farmers have been crippled by paying rent and outgoings year by year out of capital. The statement to which Sir Henry Malet takes exception, that old tenants have in general had to pay more than new tenants, was the substance of important evidence before the Commission on the Depression of Trade and Agriculture, and is, I submit, matter of common knowledge everywhere. Some years ago, Mr. Clare Read, who cannot be accused of being a Radical, said there ought to be a redaction of rents to at least what prevailed fifty years ago. I have no doubt rents have been largely reduced since then in some parts of the country, as much as or even more than in Sir Henry Malet's neighbourhood ; but I am equally confident that no general reduction has been made to anything like the standard named by Mr. Read.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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