AN AGRICULTURAL OBJECT-LESSON.* THE Duke of Bedford's work on the

history of his agri- cultural estates is a highly interesting and instructive essay in applied economics. It is practically a defence of the great landlord against the charges that are urged against him by self- styled reformers, and an attack upon recent fiscal legislation, which tends, according to the Duke's contention, to overtax a position which is one of loss rather than profit, and to defeat its own object by bringing investments in land into discredit, thus scaring capital from agriculture and reacting unfavourably on the labourer, in whose interests it was

supposed to have been designed. He can speak without hesitation of the good that has been wrought on the estates by his family ; since the system existed long before he succeeded to the property, and his story certainly tends, as he hoped, to prove "that the system of land tenure, which allows a great estate to descend unimpaired from one generation to another, secures to those dwelling on the soil material and

moral advantages greater than any that are promised under any alternative system, tried or untried?' As owner of land which was practically brought into being, from an agri- cultural point of view, by his ancestors, his case is especially strong. As he says himself :—

"If ever there was an estate to which collectivist ideas re- garding land are not applicable, it is Thorney. Only 300 acres of eulturable land came to the house of Bedford on the dissolution of the monasteries. The remainder of the lordship was won from the sea and the swamps by patriotic enterprise, hard work, and lavish expenditure In the period 1816-95 the taxation of Thorney has amounted to the sum of .t614,714, and. in addition, the Dukes of Bedford have expended £983.640 on soil which was reclaimed by an ancestor from the inroads of the sea at the cost of £100,000. The taxation paid for eighty years has amounted to nine-tenths of the net income, and in 1895 £8,568 was paid in general taxation, leaving a net deficit of £441 on the year's working. Whatever may have been the draw- backs to the investment of capital in land when the Stuarts reigned, I think it is capable of proof that modern fiscal legislation has scarcely encouraged the spirit of enterprise, nor has it deepened the sense of security in the sanctity of private property. Low prices, bad seasons, and a crushing weight of taxation have entirely caused rent, as understood by the political economist, to disappear from the Thorney Estate. At the same time the average net income for the past twenty years, even without taking the death duties into account, is only equal to 4 per cent, interest on the capital outlay on new works."

Such are the material rewards which the Dukes of Bedford have received as landlords. On the other side of the account they can show work done in the interests of agriculture which is well known to all who have any acquaintance with the history of English farming. Francis, the fifth Duke, "was among the first to initiate an agricultural system which was destined, some years later, to make the agricultural

• A Great Agricultural Estate being the Story of the Origin and Adminixtration Waburn and homey. By the Duke of Bedfold. London Johu Murray.

industry of Great Britain a model for the whole civilised world." At the end of the last century he had started a model farm, a local agricultural society, and the Woburn sheep-shearing meetings, which brought agricultural experts- together, and "covered much of the ground now occupied by the Royal Agricultural Society." As his descendant says, "It is curious to find Duke Francis in 1797 conducting experiments in the feeding of cattle and the growing of grasses,—experiments which the Royal Agricultural Society is still conducting on the Woburn Estate in 1897." It was of this Duke that Arthur Young said that "the agricultural

world never perhaps sustained a greater individual loss than the husbandry of this Empire has suffered by the death of

the Duke of Bedford." It need hardly be added that care for the labourer, his good and healthy housing and general welfare, has always been a very heavy charge on the estate.

So heavy, in fact, has this latter charge been, that it more than accounts for the loss that the Dukes of Bedford have

sustained in their agricultural enterprise. In 1879, when there was a deficit of £2 249, we find that "churches and schools" absorbed 21,657, and "pensions, charities, compassion- ate allowances," &c., £1,838, or nearly £3,500 between them. "The estate, per se," says the Duke, "is insolvent in

point of income and expenditure, and there is no net rent which can reach my pocket. This insolvency, how-

ever, is due in a measure to expenditure on charities, and to the maintenance of a system in the interests of tenants and labourers which, perhaps, cannot be justly described as com- mercial." Again, we read that "cottage property on these

estates has represented a considerable financial loss. The rents are nominal. They are neither based on the capital outlay nor calculated on the ability of the tenants to pay.

Taking an average of four individuals per cottage (a low estimate), the Beds and Bucks Estates have a population of some 3,000, and the Thorney Estate one of 1,300, at an absolute cash loss to their owner, the rental being more than absorbed by the expenditure for taxation and maintenance,, which on these estates is paid by the landlord." It is thus evident that indirect alms-giving accounts for a great deal of the failure of these estates to reward the enterprise of their owners. But there is no need to follow this point further,, for direct charities alone are more than sufficient for our purpose. A statement of voluntary payments to churches and schools, pensions and charitable gifts, on the Beds and Bucks Estates from 1856 to 1895, shows that the total in these forty years came to £290,000, while the total net income during the same period was £300,000. Now we must con- tend, in the interests of scientific bookkeeping, that it is not correct to debit the estate with the charities that the Dukes of Bedford expend within its boundaries. The net income on a property is the difference between the incomings and the necessary working expenses, and when we are wishing to. arrive at information concerning the financial condition of agriculture, it is a little misleading to find expenditure charged to the estate as a matter of course which ought to be charged to the benevolence of the landlord. And when this expenditure is so considerable that its proper allocation would have nearly doubled the net income shown, the import- ance of the item is obvious. A professional man who made £500 a year, and gave away half of it, would misstate the facts of the case if he contended that his income was only £250. The Duke himself puts the matter clearly enough as follows :—

"It is obvious from a glance at these figures that, if the estate had been, strictly speaking, managed upon a commercial basis, a surplus might have been realized by the simple process of drop- ping the charities during the nine lean years. The nine deficits amounted in the aggregate to £61,005; while the sum of the charities distributed in those years exceeded that sum by 236,224- Again it will appear from the foregoing return, that for forty years the average annual expenditure on charities amounted to £7,248, whereas in the years of deficit the voluntary paymants, so far from being curtailed, reached the larger average of £10,803, thus illustrating the distinction between the commercial system warmly advocated by modern land reformers and that followed on the Bedford Estates."

Exactly ; but what we have to discover is whether the posi- tion of agriculture is really such that landlords are obliged to return half of their miserably dwindled receipts in charity to

their tenants, or whether this is done by the Dukes of Bed- ford simply because the .greatness of their non-agricultural wealth enables them, and the traditional benevolence of their

family impels them, to do so. In the latter alternative, we have to congratulate the Bedford tenants on the possession of a landlord ready and able to make them comfortable and prosperous at his own expense ; but in the former, we must either sing a requiem mass over farming in these islands or else take prompt measures for its restoration. For it is obvious that no industry can survive which depends on charity for its existence. Industry is one thing and charity another, and any attempt to blend them can only pro- duce, in the long-run, an inefficient and barren hybrid. The Duke of Bedford speaks of agricultural property as a "possession which involves the owner, who does his duty, in a considerable annual loss," from which we can only infer that he regards the charities given in the Woburn and Thorney estates as a necessary part of the conscientious fulfilment of -the landlord's duties ; but we should like to know how much is involved in the use of the phrase, "does his duty." If a landlord's duty consists in bolstering up, out of his own pocket, an industry which is essential to the preservation of national vigour, the sooner the conditions are remodelled the better, since it is obviously impossible to expect the landlord .class as a whole to show the patience and generosity of the Bedford family. The question is as important as it is interesting, and all who are concerned, not only in agriculture, but in the health and vigour of the British race—which can only be secured by the preservation of a class of open-air labourers—must welcome the appearance of this work upon the subject by one who is so singularly qualified to discuss it.