[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I think your
correspondent Mr. A. C. Dowding, writing on farm tenancies, may be doing some landowners an injustice. He seems to overlook the fact that owners of land receive such an inadequate return for their capital that owing to the present excessive tithe, with Land and Income Tax in addition, high cost of labour and materials for upkeep, they are absolutely forced to put their farms on the market. It is unusual for a landlord to get more than 4 per cent. gross on his capital (the writer only receives 3 per cent.), and when the charges I have mentioned are 'deducted (to say nothing of occasional loss of rent :through a bad tenant) he has no choice between selling out, mortgaging, or starvation, and decides to sell, as being the least evil of the three.—I am,
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