As a body the tenant-farmers are loyal to their landlords—­in some cases enthusiastically loyal.  It cannot, however, be denied that this is not universal.  There are men who, though unable to put forth a substantial grievance, are ceaselessly agitating.  The landlord, in view of unfavourable seasons, remits a percentage of rent.  He relaxes certain clauses in leases, he reduces the ground game, he shows a disposition to meet reasonable, and even unreasonable, demands.  It is useless.  There exists a class of tenant-farmers who are not to be satisfied with the removal of grievances in detail.  They are animated by a principle—­something far beyond such trifles.  Unconsciously, no doubt, in many cases that principle approximates very nearly to the doctrine proclaimed in so many words by the communistic circles of cities.  It amounts to a total abolition of the present system of land tenure.  The dissatisfied tenant does not go so far as minute subdivisions of land into plots of a few acres.  He pauses at the moderate and middle way which would make the tenant of three or four hundred acres the owner of the soil.  In short, he would step into the landlord’s place.

Of course, many do not go so far as this; still there is a class of farmers who are for ever writing to the papers, making speeches, protesting, and so on, till the landlord feels that, do what he may, he will be severely criticised.  Even if personally insulted he must betray no irritation, or desire to part with the tenant, lest he be accused of stifling opinion.  Probably no man in England is so systematically browbeaten all round as the country gentleman.  Here are two main divisions—­one on each side—­ever pressing upon him, and, besides these, there are other forces at work.  A village, in fact, at the present day, is often a perfect battle-ground of struggling parties.

When the smouldering labour difficulty comes to a point in any particular district the representatives of the labourers lose no time in illustrating the cottager’s case by contrast with the landlord’s position.  He owns so many thousand acres, producing an income of so many thousand pounds.  Hodge, who has just received notice of a reduction of a shilling per week, survives on bacon and cabbage.  Most mansions have a small home farm attached, where, of course, some few men are employed in the direct service of the landlord.  This home farm becomes the bone of contention.  Here, they say, is a man with many thousands a year, who, in the midst of bitter wintry weather, has struck a shilling a week off the wages of his poor labourers.  But the fact is that the landlord’s representative—­his steward—­has been forced to this step by the action and opinion of the tenant-farmers.