THE LAND TENURE BILL.
[TO TRY EDITOR OP TRY " SPECTATOR:1
SIR; I am much interested in your observations upon this Bill in the Spectator of March 17th (p. 405). Nine years ago I inherited a purely agricultural estate of about seventeen hundred acres, which I have since increased to two thousand. My gross rental, including an income of £200 from personalty which goes with the estate, is about £2,500 ; and the fixed charges are a rent-charge of £100 and the interest on a mortgage for £4,000, besides tithe and a small amount of Land-tax, which on the main portion of the property is redeemed. During my ownership I have charged to the estate the rates on my house and garden, and my garden expenses, which latter do not amount to more than £100, but all the rest of the income has been expended on the estate, with £1,800 in addition—not counting Estate-duty, £1,288, and purchase moneys—or the cost of an extensive repair to the house. I am now about to expend £750 in replacing some farm buildings, and next year I must build another pair of cottages, which will be £400. My circumstances are, no doubt, to some extent exceptional, but in the main I am only a type of " the rapacious landlord of fiction " of whom Mr. Rider Haggard spoke in his letter to the Times.—I am, Sir, &c., A SQUIREEN.
[We are confident that our correspondent is a type, not an exception. For every landlord who neglects his duty to the land it is possible to show three or four who are, we had almost said, the slaves of their estates.—En. Spectator.1
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