The Express.
London, England, 1846-11-21 00:00:00

LYCEUM THEATRE - MR. ALLCROFT'S
VOCAL and INSTRUMENTAL PROMENADE CONCERTS,
THIS EVENING 'Saturday), Nov. 21. Paoo amnia : —Part I. Overnne,
" Pre ma Clercs." Quadrille, " Royal (Hunt." Solo, Sax Mom Mr.
H. Diann. New Polka, " Victoria-Albert." Ballad, Sinclair, " Wilt
thou meet me!" Watts, "The Naiads." Fantasia, Violin, Master
Tblrlwall. Polka, " Royal Mail." Mr. Henry Russell will sing " The
Idiot," and several popular songs.—Part 11. Operatic Selection from
Don Quixote. Fennel', Trumpet, Mr. Main. Quadrille " Nea-
politan Carnival." Solo, Flute, Mr. Cada Polka, " Ellin." Over-
ture, " Diatoms de la Couronne." Finale, "Tarante".la."—Cooductor,
M. Negri ; Leaders, Moms. and Thomas.—Fit, Promenade,
and Upper Boxes, le.; Drees Circle, 2s. 6d.; Private Boxes, One
Guinea. Places and Private Boxes to be had at the Box-oftloe, end at
Mr. Allmoil'a, IS, New Bondetreet, and 62, Regent-atreet.

h* erpresio.

MAILS,

The overland closed mailariaMarMilles, to the Becht/mama
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Hong-Kong, Re., Dill be made up on the
evening of the 2011 November
The mils for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar,
will be made up on the morning of the 27th November.
The mails for New South Woks, Van Diernen's Land, and New
Zealand will be made up on the evening of the 30th November.
The West India mails, excluding those for Mexico, Honduras, and
the Haminnab, will he made up on the morning of the 2nd December.
fl overlord mails far Gibraltar, Malts, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Hong-Kong, and China, rids Southampton,
will be made rip on the morning of the 3rd December.
The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the United
Stater, will be made up on the en•DlJir of the 3d December.
The mails for the Brazils, the River Plate, Monte Video, Pernam-
buco Bahia, Madeira, and Buenos Ayres, will be dispatched on the
evening of the 4th December.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
We cannot in any war. any oommorticatiam Hurls sent to oa
anon=usly • those who choose to *Wren, oft In confidence will
had NEITHARCAN WE UNDERTAKE
TO RETURN ANY THAlsrethtlPTS WHATEVER.
..• AtlettißelDente Intended for The &sprat, baidon evening paper,
mod be at the Mee by Two o'clock on the day of publication.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
TIM DAY. Morning, 2 min. past 8; Afternoon, 22 min. put 3.
Toasonsow.--81onaing, 40 min. put 3; Afternoon, 1 min. past 4.

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 21.

IT is a good omen for the cultivators of the soil, that
landowners have of lath become extremely sensitive to
imputations of unduly influencing their tenantry.
An instance of this v4ll be found in the letter of the
Duke of BEAUFORT'S solicitor, in which, onhis Grace's
bells lf, he denies that any of the Monmouthshire tenants
of the Duke have received notice to quit their farms
for supporting the Duke's brother, Lord GRANVILLE
SOMERSET, the present county member. The state-
ment to the contrary, to which we alluded, appeared
in some of the local papers, and was so consistent with
probability that its adoption was natural.
We are glad, however, to receive a oontradietion,
and we trust that his Grace's Monmouthshire tenants
will be permitted to exercise their political franchises
at the next election freely and independently. There
are, however, a few lines in the letter referred to
which we cannot leave without a passing remark in
connexion with the subject of leases.
The solicitor, after referring to the statement that
the Duke had turned some of the tenants out of their
farms for supporting his brother, says, "Now, this
is not true, but the real facts of the case are
that his Grace has no
is not a protectionist,"
not. Who ever 1—

and protectionist
tenant" not a

tenants always
Yet those, who I

protectionist farm-tenants know very well, that their
opinions upon the subject are mere reflections of their
landlords! notions, and that personally they ore most
indifferent about the matter. But, being yearly
tenants, they dare not run the risk of displeasing their
landlords. Not that there would be the slightest
chance of any of them being dismissed from their
farms fit echo( the wrong way. Oh dear no that
I never bigeme. Lawyers and land-agents understand
their buslases too wail kr that. But as, on nearly all
Legs elates, yearly tusuats hold under yearly agree-
ments, which contain regulations about cultivation
and so forth, such as we AO presently show to be
the kind of stipulations inserted in a model lease,
which are never strictly noted upon, a cross-vote is
very apt to lead to the dlssevay of cross-cropping and
breach of covenant. Thatagriculture languishes, and
farmers are slow to improve under such circumstances,
cannot surprise any one.
But a lease, unless it be a reasonable one, very
different in form from most leases hitherto iu use,
will not go far to advance husbandry.
In the form suggested we have seen that the reser-
vations made to the landlord are such as serve to
retain all dominion over the farm in the hands of the
owner, leaving to the tenant little more than a license
to till the ground. The object which the framers of
such documents might be su to have in view
is, how nearly a tenant can gremi enda de to approach to
the condition of a bailiff; and the purpose has been
so successfully worked out, that the main distinction
between a tenant and a bailiff seems to be that the
former farms at his own risk, and with his own ca-
pital or that of his creditors, while the latter cultivates
at the risk and with the capital of the landowner.
The one is not unfrequently dismissed with as little
ceremony and consideration as the other. Yet the
public is surprised that farmers as a class are not en-
terprising, and that papital which overflows in other
businesses is with difliculty attracted towards hus-
bandry.
The form provides for payment of a rent calculated
according to the average price of wheat, barley, and
oats. This is intended as an advantage to the tenant ;
but we think the value of corn rents has been much
overrated. When tenants were promised to have se-
cured to them, by means of corn-laws, certain prices
for their corn, it was only reasonable that the land-
owners, for whose benefit corn-laws were enacted,
should make their rents with the prices of corn.
Bat when the trade in corn 6eoemea, as will ghost*.
be the case, free from artificial restrictions, there'
seems no reason why landlords and tenants should
not make their contracts in money, rather than by
the ruder plan of payment in kind. Money will be a
fairer measure of the yearly value of the land from
year to year than grain ; and contracts for money
rents are most beneficial to the owners of land, and
are not disadvantageous to tenants. Besides, what is
of great importance in farming, money tents tend to
give husbandry more of a:commercial character, than
when rent is paid in grain. The grand error of all
persons interested in land has been a too exclusive
attention to corn, and to the price of corn, as the
source of revenue, and the tendency of corn rents is
to perpetuate that error. On the other hand, the ne-
cessity of providing for a fixed money payment makes
it incumbent upon the farmer not to rely solely on
growing corn, which has been rightly enough termed
"the rudest and most barbarous process of agricul-
ture." He must produce something else besides corn,
and in so doing will prastically produce most corn
likewise. We hold, therefore, that money rents are
decidedly to be preferred in the present condition ,
English agriculture.
We now come to the stipulations as to cultivation.
First, we find the prohibitory rent of 501. an acre
imposed on every acre of pasture land broken up.
This is really a rural superstition, the inveteracy of
which is only, to be explained by the fact, that farmers
in general are greatly deficient in capital. There is
comparatively little -land in England which would
not be more valuable as arable land than as permas
nent pasture, if, when broken up, it were well funned.
We hear of rich pastures which will feed in the year
a bullock, or a beast and a half to the acre, when the
same land, broken up and highly cultivated, would
feed twice or three times the number of cattle and
produce a large quantity of human food besides. The
only plausible objections ever urged to breaking up
pasture land resolve themselves into the assertion, that
the actual occupiers have not the skill or the capital
to cultivate the land properly. Even dairy farming,
for which permanent pasture is sometimes thought to
be indispensable, can be far more productively
carried on by means of arable culture, than on
mere pasture farms. Of this the Flemish dairy
husbandry is proof, and we could mention
numerous instances in this country in illustration.
The next stipulation is, that which prohibits assign-
ment of the tenant's interest in the farm without
the consent of the landlord, and which authorises the
landlord to re-enter in case of an actual assignment,
or an assignment by operation of law, such as the
bankruptcy or insolvency of the tenant, or his interest
being taken in execution. In the model form we have
referred to, there is an exception of gift of the lease
to the tenant's " wife, child, or children, in and by his
last will." This exception is not common, and it is
obviously very narrow, applying only to tenants who
happen to have wives or children, a circumstance
which ought to form no ingredient in the contract for
a lease.
Now capital will not freely find its way into the
business of farming, until this fetter on alienation is
got rid of. Let us trace its practical operation. A
tenant takes a farm for a term of twenty-one years, and
forthwith proceeds to farm with spirit. He drains,
and he subsoils, he clears the land of weeds, he
trims the hedges, scours ditches, deepens and
straightens brooks and watercourses, and puts his
land into good mechanical condition for producing
grain. We could point to farms on which 101. and
121. per acre of hard cash, without calculating the
cost of horse labour, have been invested in the land
during the first three years of a term. Now, suppose
the farm to consist of five hundred acres, of which
three hundred acres have been thus expensively
improved, there will be a sum of 3,0001. added to the
value of the farm. The addition is as complete, as if
the same stun had been expended in building on a
leasehold plot of ground in the Regent's-park. The
mode of investment differs, but the fact of
investment is the same in both cases ; yet how
different is the position of the two tenants? The
leaseholder of Regent-street may sell or mortgage his
interest, and thus make the capital he has laid out
available for additional improvement. The farming
leaseholder, on the contrary, finds his out!sy utterly
useless, except in the very form in which he has
invested it. Ile has expended, perhaps, all his own
capital in the improvement of the land itself, and he
finds himself cramped for means to conduct the culti-
vation, to purchase stock or artificial manures, to
avail himself of the turn of markets to bay or to
hold; in short, having got his machinery of min:wile-
ture—his land—into good condition, be wants the Pill
amount of floating capital necessary to render that
machinery productive. In such a case, and it is not
an uncommon one, why should the tenant not be able
to mortgage his interest in the farm, or to deposit his
lease as a security with his banker—or even sell it to
some person who possesses the extra capital, which
the original lessee wants ? What passible injury
could the landlord suffer from any such transactions?
On the contrary, in every instance the transac-
tion which the restriction on assignment now for-
bids, would be the occasion of a fresh outlay
on the farm r.nd the consequent improvements of the
landlord's property. Again, suppose the tenant to
have expended the money of his creditors in improv-
ing the farm, why should not the lease be available
for the benefit of such creditors ? Of coarse the lease
would contain a provision, enabling the landlord to re-
'on should the person to whom the lease
led t=eBst ion,
be he mortgagee, banker,
creditor, or assignee in bankruptcy, in case of injury
to the property. But in fact it would not be for the
interest of any such tranaferree to commit any injury.
The continuance of this high condition of the land
would constitute its value as a security. A beneficial
interest would be created, which would be available in
the tenant's hands, and in this way farmers would come
into the money market with the same advantages
which all other industrial capitalists enjoy. That the
abandonment of the restraint on assignment now so
generally, inserted in farming. leases, is necessary
to the full development of agricultural industry, the
above suggestions will make manifest. That each
restriction may be abandoned, not only with perfect
safety to the landowner, but greatly to his benefit, is
also obvious. The only privilege he would lose well's'.
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re, but the real ram canes or we .e ury ....--..--. ___ , r
race has not one farm-tenant who be a sort of semi-feudal power to •,IIW- ' .
protectionist," &c. Of course he has who should, throughout the term of P: uzii,
ko ever heard of a great political tenant. -
tionist landlord who had any • farm- "
d a protectionist? At all events, such IT can hardly be questioned that ift,' :functions of
ways vote as if they were
.protectionists. the English Legislature are, in practifft •tintlergiring i
who are in the habit of mixing with such alteration. The last twenty years hat \lgo:Nerd a
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