This, surely, is the right attitude for the great landed
proprietors to take. They have no right to try to atop the working of the present law of the country. But they have every right to point out that the old system of land tenure will not work with present taxation, and to warn the men who govern the country that they must have some other system to put in its place as the old one is abandoned. At present there seem to be indications that there is nothing ready to take the place of the old system, and that, as the taxation falls, proportionately, almost as heavily on the small farmer as on the great land- owner, the result of the present crushing taxes will be a general deterioration in intensity of cultivation and even the abandon- ment of the less fertile lands. This, at any rate, can hardly be for the good of the country.
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