their own collections. They have refrained from larger works, and not one of them has yet made it plain that the growing bulk of his lyrics can be regarded as a whole. Mr Robert Nichols, in his second, and first noticeable, volume, 'Ardours and Endurances,' had a naïve magnificence, an exuberant imagination and a power of vivid language. But though he has made a fine attempt at a prose play, he has flagged in the writing of verse. Mr W. J. Turner, by combining a power of so approaching common things, as to make them seem newly strange, with a fascinating imagery of distant and imaginary lands, suggested that he might be evolving a universe of his own, as consistent and exciting as Mr de la Mare's. But of his last two books, 'Landscape of Cytherea' (he meant Cythera ') is wilfully obscure and tangled and 'The Seven Days of the Sun' is a perverse, though witty, piece of petulant eccentricity. These are only examples of disappointments that have occurred during the post-war years. Mr Blunden, working away with quiet assurance at his two subjects, the war and the English countryside, is producing a body of poetry that never fails in accuracy or sincerity, though his method is a little narrow and inelastic. His motive is perhaps the chronicler's desire to preserve two things which are disappearing from human knowledge. Mr Robert Graves, delving into a subsoil to which he believes psycho-analysis has shown him the way, may have discovered a principle of poetic being for himself. It may be that the revival flags because inspiration, too violently stimulated by events since 1914, is for a little while in need of recuperation. It may be that public encouragement is suffering from fatigue similarly induced. It is possible, as some assert, that the wireless will rejuvenate poetry by restoring to it the direct vocal appeal which it has been gradually losing over a period of some two thousand years. But it is certain that at this moment English poetry is in a depressed and languid, though by no means hopeless, condition. EDWARD SHANKS. Art. 10.-GOOD ESTATE MANAGEMENT. 1. The Land and its People. By Lord Ernle. Hutchinson, 1925. 2. The Tenure of Agricultural Land. By C. S. Orwin and W. R. Peel. Cambridge University Press, 1925. 3. The Land and the Nation: Rural Report of the Liberal Land Committee, 1923-25. SECTION 4, subsection (7) of the Agriculture Act of 1920 enacted that 'Where the Minister is of opinion, after consultation with the agricultural committee, that the owner of any agricultural estate situate wholly or partly in the area of the committee, whether the estate or any part thereof is or is not in the occupation of the tenants, grossly mismanages the estate to such an extent as to prejudice materially the production of food thereon or the welfare of those who are engaged in the cultivation of the estate, the Minister may, if he thinks it necessary or desirable so to do in the national interest, and after holding such public inquiry as he thinks proper and after taking into consideration any representations made to him by the owner, by order appoint such person as he thinks fit to act as receiver and manager of the estate or any part thereof.' In the following year this clause was repealed by the Corn Production Acts (Repeal) Act, and it has not since been re-enacted. But the fact that it remained for a year on the Statute Book is significant of the present tendency to regard agricultural land not solely as private property, but as held in trust by the landowner for the benefit of the community. It has become a matter in which the nation is vitally interested. If the landowner should fail in his duty as a trustee it has been enacted that he should be relieved of his trusteeship. This raises the further question-what are the obligations of the trusteeship, and what is to be done if the landowner, through no fault of his own, is unable to carry them out? Answers have been suggested by successive Ministers of Agriculture. The traditional duty of the landlord is to supply the equipment capital, which enables the farmer to use the land productively. Lord Ernle has stated that, on the evidence available, landowners receive a net revenue of something like 3 per cent. on their capital outlay on equipment, but nothing is paid to them for the use of the productive powers of the land. Our system of agricultural landowner and tenant operates in fact as a method of cheap agricultural credit, founded, not on State aid, but entirely on private capital. A lease or tenancy agreement is practically a loan of land equipped for cultivation, at a low average rate of interest on the capital expended in equipment. The farmer, who as tenant accepts the loan, is thus free to use his own capital for the cultivation of the soil. Mr Wood, in a speech made on Dec. 9, 1924, recognised that the equipment capital of land, as opposed to the current working capital (supplied by the tenant farmer), has hitherto been supplied by the old landowners at an astonishingly cheap rate of interest. He also asked what was going to happen if that class, by taxation or for one reason or another, should gradually disappear. The new occupying owners would find it exceedingly difficult to supply the equipment capital as well as the working capital. That meant either that farms would become impoverished and production diminished, or that the State would have to take the place of the old landlord by lending capital. In the latter event the State would certainly claim some measure of control in the business which it was financing, so that within thirty or forty years something like nationalisation by a side wind might be expected. The view is developed by two writers, each of whom has a practical experience of agriculture under post-war conditions-Mr C. S. Orwin, Director of the Institute of Agricultural Economics, and Lieut-Colonel Peel, University Lecturer in Agriculture at Oxford. They go further than did Mr Wood. Regretfully, but none the less, convinced, that the old system can no longer stand, and that the break up of estates will proceed at a greater rate, they have thought it better to look for an alternative now, rather than acquiesce in a policy of drift. And their alternative is the acquisition by the State of all agricultural land in England and Wales. They have arrived at this solution by a line of reasoning different from that pursued by earlier advocates of land nationalisation. The traditional argument, as they point out, in favour of the expropriation of the landlord is an argument for the transference of the unearned increment of the land to the State. The basis of the schemes of Thomas Paine and the 18thcentury reformers; of Henry George and his disciples; of the English Land Restoration League, or the Land Nationalisation Society, is the assumption that private property in land is immoral, and most of them are frankly confiscatory in character. Perhaps for this reason none of them have obtained any considerable public support. They are definitely rejected by the authors of the proposals now under consideration. Mr Orwin and Colonel Peel have noticed that the trend of events and of agricultural legislation has been more and more to restrict the scope of the landlord as an active participator in the development of the rural industry. The incidence of taxation, and notably of the death duties, owing to special circumstances, has pressed with undue severity on the landowner. They believe that he can no longer carry on, and support their contention by the long list of estates sold in the post-war period. Their practical experience prevents them from believing that the situation can be saved by any one of the remedies now constantly advertised-agricultural education and research, agricultural credits, co-operation, or the multiplication of small holders or small owners. And if State aid is essential to agriculture, they can discern no answer to the argument that 'any benefit to the land will accrue sooner or later to the land- If the landlord can no longer carry out his part in the agricultural co-partnership, the State cannot be expected to assume his obligations without ensuring that it will secure the benefits to be derived. Definite proposals are, therefore, put forward for the State to buy out on equitable terms the owners of all agricultural land, subject to such minor exceptions as special circumstances may require, in return for National Land Bonds, and for the subsequent administration of the estates of England and Wales by Government officials. It is claimed that under State ownership there would be a great simplification in such matters as the provision of land for public purposes, land settlement, afforestation and the development of the timber resources of the country, taxation, and the preservation of places of historical interest. The administration should be economical. It would be decentralised on a County basis, under County and District Land Agents. Difficulties now inherent in the management of small or scattered estates would be removed. It is frankly stated that no advantage, on balance, is claimed for the system of State ownership when contrasted with the system of private ownership which has prevailed so long; it is only put forward to provide an orderly way out of the difficulties which the breakdown of the old system is creating.' But no such moderation is discernible in a subsequent publication-the Rural Report of the Liberal Land Committee, 1923-25. Without attempting to summarise a considerable volume, it may be broadly stated that the Committee has satisfied itself that the state of British agriculture is bad, and that the existing system of landlord and tenant is at fault. It, therefore, proposes that the State should 'resume possession of all agricultural land, buying out the present owners by annuities, that the land should be relet to socalled cultivating tenants,' and the future administration entrusted to County Agricultural Authorities.' It is clear that the Committee has spared no pains in its investigations, though to one with personal knowledge of several of the authorities quoted, the conclusions derived from their evidence are somewhat surprising. The writer has attempted to test some of them by the facts experienced in the management of a scattered agricultural property of some 30,000 acres, during the past fifteen years. On this property the general standard of farming has steadily improved. Since the war it has only been thought necessary to apply in three cases for a certificate from a County Agricultural Committee that a holding was not being cultivated according to the Vol. 246.-No. 487. L |