e absurdity
be removed, and each party placed upon the basis of just and equal
principle."

"It is very right," said Hickman, "to educate the people, but who is to
educate the landlords?"

"A heavy task, I fear," said Easel, "from what I have observed since I
came to the country."

"The public opinion I speak of will force them into a knowledge of their
duties. At present they disregard public opinion, because it is too
feeble to influence them; and consequently they feel neither fear nor
shame. So long as the landlords and the people come together as opposing
or antithetical principles, it is not to be supposed that the country
can prosper."

"But how will you guide or restrain the landlord in estimating the value
of his property?" inquired Mr. Clement. "Here are two brothers, for
instance, each possessed of landed property; one is humane and
moderate, guided both by good sense and good feeling; this man will
not overburthen his tenant by exacting an oppressive rent. The other,
however, is precisely the reverse of him, being naturally either
rapacious or profligate, or perhaps both; he considers it his duty to
take as much out of the soil as he can, without ever thinking of the
hardships which he inflicts upon the tenant. Now, how would you remedy
this, and prevent the tenant from becoming the victim either of his
rapacity or profligacy?"

"Simply by taking from him all authority in estimating the value of his
own property.

"But how?" said Clement, "is not that an invasion of private right?"

"No; it is nothing more than a principle which transfers an unsafe
privilege to other hands in order to prevent its abuse."

"But how would you value the land?"

"I am not at this moment about to legislate for it; but I think,
however, that it would be by no means difficult to find machinery
sufficiently simple and effective for the purpose. I am clearly of
opinion that there should, be a maximum value on all land, beyond
which, unless for special purposes--such, for instance, as building--no
landlord ought to be permitted to go. This would prevent an incredible
amount of rack-renting and oppression on the one hand; and of poverty,
revenge, and bloodshed on the other. Where is the landlord now who looks
to the moral character or industrial habits of a tenant? Scarcely one.
On the contrary, whoever bids highest, or bribes highest, is sure to
be successful, without any reference to the very qualities which, in a
tenant