We cannot find space to deal with Lord Eversley's second
letter or with the controversy as a whole, but we are very glad to notice that this official explanation has been given. Though we are bound to say that we have very grave misgivings, in the present state of the national finances, as to the pledging of State credit even in the very modified way desired by Lord Lansdowne, we fully recognize that his proposal is not in any way open to the dangers of a wholesale scheme. We would much rather, if it were possible, see the present system of landlord and tenant continue, for we believe that it is probably the best system for financing the agricultural industry which could be devised. As soon as the tenant had paid off the loan by the State, he and his successors would almost certainly raise money for various purposes by mortgaging their farms, and in this way the landlord would reappear, though in not nearly so beneficent a form. A bank has no bowels. It is generally realized now that the English system of building leases is a better way of financing town building than the French or German system of buying the freehold. The builder, by borrowing the land on which he is to build from a landlord, finances his housing operations in the cheapest way, and thus the man who is to live in the house benefits. Houses are provided along the line of economic least resistance.
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