New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-10-01
yFw 1GP1PIty CONTROVERSIES

New agrarian controversies are opening in
Great Britain before the old one has fairly
closed The Scottish land agitation, which
first took form in Abcrdccnshirc, is spreading
rapidly in the North. In some districts the
tenants are refusing in large bodies to pay
rent unless great reductions are made. and in
Ross-shire recourse has been had to the tao
ties of the Irish Land League, notices being
posted warning tenants against sacrificing
the interests of their class by comply
ing with their landlords terms The Scotch
people are too logical to enter into q
movement of this kind without mastering the
details of the reforms which they are anxious
to have introduced. Their ears are not to bc
stopped with elastic phrases such a. the abOi-
ton of landlordism. Nothing short of
thoroughly digc,tcd scheme of remedial lcgis-
lation will "a isly them. This, it seems, has
already been prepared. a Land bill, providing
for an adjustment Of rents by arbitration,
compensation for improvements, a reyauation
OF farms, and a species of tenant right re-
scmbling free sale, has been framed by the
Scottish Chamber of Agriculture and will be
laid before Parliament during the approaching
session.
he LUHilNl TENANT ldIlifIh arr dlNb UlpNlUH
in the same direction The general committee
of the Farmers Alliance has already invited a
conference of its members in November, and
directed a subcommittee TO draw up compre-
hensive plan of agricultural reform which may
be considered at that time. Whatever success
one or two Conservative candidates may have
have had in the by-ccctions in advocat-
ing the policy of fair trade, this representa-
tive body of English farmers does not
follow false scent. but advances boldly
in the pathway of agraran reform. The ne
cessity for Land bill was never more urgent
and it is recognized by landlords as well rs
tenants. NJ. BOuiat, the French Consul Gene
raj in London, after ascribing the depression
of the English agricultural classes to a long
series of bad harvests, to formidable COMPETE
ton from the United States, and TO a constant
increase in the cost of, labor and production
lays great stress on the fact that large num-
Der of farms which have been considered very
productive are now tcnantless in the
southern and eastern counties because the
farmers are unwilling to pay more
than a fraction of the former rent and not
even that on a long lease. Farms are actu-
ally going begging, good ground is lying fall
low, because the tenants have been forced back
upon the soil and starved out, and their places
cannot be filed under the present system of
land tenure. When farms are thrown up every
week in every quarter of England and tenants,
are with difficulty induced TO remain even after
the rent has been scaled down onc-half, the
land-Owning class are equally interested with
the tenants in promoting an enlightened
scheme of agricultural reform. The situation
is tcrsely defined by Land: at is really ex-
traordinary how all parties at the present
"moment are admitting the necessity of Land
"bill for England Of some sort or other"
New fields of agrarian agitation and reform
are "white already to harvest" in England
and Scotland. Yet the prospect in the old
field, which has been drained and dragged,
fuuOwed and watcred by scientii and pro-
grcssive rcformers, during the present year
is far from encouraging. Lord Derby is
one of the most sagaciOus observers of
the effects of British legislation. Yet it
is his deliberate Judgment that the Eng
lish people are at the beginning not
ut the end, of the struggle in Ireland, albeit
1.-THE Government has satisfied every reason
liable man in England and Scotland that the
utmost limits of just concession have been
reached" If those limits are approached in
England and Scotland, the end will be reached
at once. Reform in either country Will be an