Since Mr. Haggard’s tour the black clouds which have so long lowered over agriculture have shown signs of lifting.  Rents have been adjusted to a figure at which the farmer has some chance of competing with the foreigner,[707] though the price of grain keeps wretchedly low; stock has improved, and there is undoubtedly to-day (1908) a brisker demand for farms, and in some localities rents have even advanced slightly.  The yeoman—­that is, the man who owns and farms his own land, perhaps the most sound and independent class in the community—­has, unfortunately for England, largely disappeared.  Even of those who remain, some prefer to let their property and rent holdings from others!  It has been noticed that the labourer’s lot has improved in this generation of adversity; and well it might, for his previous condition was miserable in the extreme.  The farmers have suffered severely, many losing all their capital and becoming farm labourers.  The landlords have suffered most; they have not been able to throw up their land like the farmer, and until quite recently have watched it becoming poorer and poorer.  The depression, in short, has driven from their estates many who had owned them for generations.  Those who have survived have usually been men with incomes from other sources than land, and they have generally deserved well of their country by keeping their estates in good condition in spite of falling rents and increasing taxation.

No class of men, indeed, have been more virulently and consistently abused than the landlords of England, and none with less justice.  There have been many who have forgotten that property has its duties as well as its rights; they have erred like other men, but as a rule they play their part well.  Even the worst are to some extent obliged by their very position to be public spirited, for the mere possession of an estate involves the employment of a number of people in healthy outdoor occupations which Englishmen to-day so especially need to counteract the degenerating influences of town life.  Many of the great estates[708] are carried on at a positive loss to their owners, and it may be doubted whether agricultural property pays the possessor a return of 2 per cent. per annum; which is as much as to say that the landlord furnishes the tenant with capital in the form of land at that rate for the purpose of his business.  What other class is content with such a scanty return?  They are often charged with not managing their estates on business principles, and no charge is worse founded.  It would be a sad day for the tenants on many an estate if they were managed on commercial lines.  One of the first results would be that many properties would be given up as a dead loss.  They could only be made to pay by raising the rents or cutting down the ever-recurring expenditure on repairs and buildings which are necessary for the welfare of the tenants.  The Duke of Bedford, in his Story of a Great Estate,