A MODEL LANDLORD

Dunstan Times, Issue 1249, 5 February 1886, Page 3

A MODEL LANDLORD

It is a sign of the times that landlords, even iu jthe most obtuse quarters, are rff ring their laborers the advantages of the allotment system, and this not, as was too commonly the case formerly, at a rental considerably in excess of the average paid .by adjacent tenants of larger holdings. Lord Salisbury, for instance, is offering allotments at Hatfield at a rent one-third less than that paid by adjoining farmers for similar land. The Irish ‘Chief Secretary, Sir William Hart Dyke, bent like his chief on conciliating popular fav rt r, has expressed his willingness to let small holdings on his estate at Lull ngstone, in Kent, at 5s per acre. This is considerably more liberal than the Premier’s L2lower, though it is higher than the norma! rate, and Lord Salisbury is also more niggardly in the quantity of the land which he is prepared to place at the laborers’ disposal. It must not be supposed that allotments have been unobtainable hitherto On some few large estates the system has been long in vogue, and has answered admirably. As a specimen, one tnay cite the oase of Lord Toll©mache, who belongs to the class of landlords without whom the system would have long ago proved intolerable, and have been swept away by a storm of popular indignation. His Lordship, to qu >te the testimony of the ‘ Daily Telegraph,’ possesses about .46,000 acres of land in Cheshire, ap-l during the whole of the, agricultural depression from 1877 to~IBSS Me had neither a vacant firm nor a tenant in arrears. His estate in ■ Cheshire has during his lifetime been cut up into farms of about 200 acres in extent, his Lordship considering that a thrifty farmer, with sous and daughters, could do excellently on a 200 acre farm, while they would suffer severely on a smaller holding. In order to bieak up Lis eslatninto farms of that size, ho built or .rebuilt between fifty and sixiy houses, at a cost of Lf4S,OOO ; each of these farms or homesteads costing about L 2.500. In addition to this, Lord Tollemache has built no loss than 260 cottages for the accommodation of his laborers, which has solved the labor difficulty satisfactorily on the Peekforton estate. In regard to the education of children on his estate an anecdote is told which, the saire authority asserts, has the advantage of being perfectly true. Lord Tollemache was anxious to provide mixed schools for the education of farmers’ and laborers’ children; but after they had been built, at e rudderable expense, his Lordship found that the tenant farmer objected to send their sons to the same schools With the laborers’ obii dren. Having listened quietly to the mis ters’ complaint, his Lordship said “ There is only one way out of ths difficulty. I will send my own sons.” For nearly two years L"rd Tollemache’s children attended the school, and, he is sta'ed to have remarked, ‘ ‘ to their undoubted advantage."