Note 10 — LETTER XLV.
Reading edition
I have had by me for some time a small pamphlet, “The Agricultural Labourer, by a Farmer’s Son,”10 kindly sent me by the author. The matter of it is excellent as far as it reaches; but the writer speaks as if the existing arrangements between landlord, farmer, and labourer must last for ever. If he will look at the article on “Peasant Farming” in the ‘Spectator’ of July 4th of this year, he may see grounds for a better hope. That article is a review of Mr. W. T. Thornton’s “Plea for Peasant Proprietors;” and the following paragraph from it may interest, and perhaps surprise, other readers besides my correspondent. Its first sentence considerably surprises me to begin with; so I have italicized it:—