severe. Between 1866 and 1883 the values of agricultural imports from abroad rose from £77,069,431 to double that figure, i.e., £157,520,797. Again, in 1851, the supply of wheat was 317 lbs. per head per annum for a population of some 27 millions, and it cost £53,500,000; but in 1885 the supply was 400 lbs. per head for some 36 million people, and yet the cost was reduced to £43,700,000. No doubt the consumers, as a whole, profited by the low price of bread, but, nevertheless, the agriculturist was being steadily ruined; and it has been seriously doubted by some economists whether the wider interests of the nation at large do not suffer when the cheapness of food proves so disastrous to a respectable and The fall in prices may be further seen from the following table 2:—

important class.1

Other produce has fallen in proportion. Thousands of farmers have been ruined, agriculture generally has suffered a severe and prolonged depression, and much arable land has been laid down again as pasture, while some has gone altogether out of cultivation. Meanwhile political false prophets have been going about with their usual nostrums, and the flags of Protection and even of Bi-metallism are being waved before the bewildered eyes of the British farmer, as if they were signals of salvation.5

1 Prothero, Dict. Pol. Econ., i. 565, from which the above figures are taken.

2 See Hazell's Annual for 1895, p. 15, and 1896, p. 11.

See the Agricultural Returns. The arable land of 1893 was about 2,000,000 acres less than in 1873 (cf. also Hazell's Annual, 1895).

Notably in Essex.

5 This sentence was first written in 1890. There is no reason to alter it in 1895.

§ 248. The Causes of the Depression.

Now it is perfectly obvious, to an impartial observer of economic facts, that an industry, so flourishing as English agriculture was not very many years ago, could not have suffered so severe a collapse unless there had been some great underlying cause, besides the ordinary complaints of bad harvests and foreign competition already referred to. These must have due weight given them, but bad harvests are not peculiar to England, and foreign competition, however keen it may be, has first to overstep a very considerable natural margin of protection in the cost of carriage. It costs, for instance, according to a high American authority, 9s. per quarter to transport American wheat from Chicago to London.1 It is clear that besides these, there must have been other influences of considerable importance to cause English agriculture to have been, in spite of its apparent prosperity, in so insecure a position that it should have sunk to the depressed condition in which it even now remains. We have not to look far for the causes. There are several, and one among them is the lack of agricultural capital.

But how, it may naturally be asked, has it come about that the English farmer, after the very favourable period before the depression, should thus suffer from a lack of capital, a lack which renders it almost impossible for him to work his land properly? The answer is simple. His capital has been greatly decreased, surely, though not always slowly, by an enormous increase in his rent. The landlords of the eighteenth century, it has been said, perhaps somewhat too severely, made the English farmer the foremost agriculturist in the world, but their successors of the nineteenth have ruined him by their extortions.2 Such, at any rate, is the verdict of eminent agricultural authorities; and landowners have been compelled, for their own sake, to reduce the exorbitant rents which they

1 Mr David Wells, quoted by Thorold Rogers, in The Relations of Economic Science to Social and Political Action, p. 12. Mr Edward Atkinson puts it at 11s. This is about d. per ton per mile.

2 Thorold Rogers, Economic Interpretation of History, p. 182.

received in former years. Unfortunately, too, the attention of other classes of the community has been, till lately, diverted from the condition of our agriculture by the prosperity of our manufactures. But these two branches of industry, the manufacturing and the agricultural, are closely interdependent, and must suffer or prosper together. It is possible, also, that there are certain economic theories which have helped the decline of English agriculture. They are the Ricardian theory of rent, and the dubious "law of diminishing returns." They have made many people think that this decline was inevitable, and have diverted their attention from a very important, though not the only, cause of the trouble-namely, the increase of rent. But putting the possible effect of these theories aside, we may employ ourselves more profitably in looking at the facts of the case. It has been mentioned before, that in Tull's time, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the average rent of agricultural land was 7s. per acre, and by Young's time, towards the close of the century, it had risen to 10s. per acre.2 Diffused agricultural skill caused an increase of profits, and the hope of sharing in these profits led farmers to give competitive rents, which afterwards the landlords proceeded to exact in full, and frequently to increase. The farmers were enabled to pay higher rents by the low rate of wages paid to their labourers,3 a rate which the justices tended to keep down by their assessments. In 1799 we find land paying nearly 20s. an acre; in 1812 the same land pays over 25s.; in 1830, again, it was still at about 25s., but by 1850 it had risen to 38s. 8d., which was about four times Arthur Young's average. Indeed, £2 per acre was not an uncommon rent for good land a few years ago (1885),5 the average increase of English rent being no less than 26 per cent. between 1I have dealt with them in an article in the Westminster Review, December 1888, but perhaps their importance is overrated.

2 Both Tull and Young are quoted by Rogers, Economic Interpretation of History, p. 176.

3 Ib., p. 179; and cf. Six Centuries, p. 492.

4 Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, v. 29.

" W. E. Bear, The British Farmer and his Competitors, p. 31. The calculation as to the increase in rent is Mr James Howard's.

1854 and 1879. Now, such rent as this was enormous, and could only be paid in very good years. In ordinary years, and still more in bad years, it was paid out of the farmer's capital.1 This process of payment was facilitated by the fact that the farmer of this century did not keep his accounts properly, a fruitful source of eventual evil frequently commented upon by agricultural authorities,2 and obvious enough to anyone who knows many farmers personally; and, also, by the other fact, that even when the tenant perceived that he was working his farm at a loss, the immediate loss (of some 10 or 15 per cent.3) involved in getting out of his holding was heavy enough in most cases to induce him to submit to a rise in his rent rather than lose visibly so much of his capital.*

The invisible process, however, was equally certain, if not so immediate. The result has been that the average capital per acre now employed in agriculture is only about £4 or £5, instead of at least £10, as it ought to be, and the farmer cannot afford to pay for a sufficient supply of labour, so that the agricultural population is seriously diminishing. Nothing in modern agriculture is so serious as this decline of the rural population, and we must, further on, devote a few words to a consideration of the agricultural labourer and the conditions of his existence. But before doing so it may be well to point out, for fear of misconception, that the high rent of English agricultural land is not the only cause of

1 Prothero, on Agricultural Depression, in Dict. Pol. Econ., i. 564, points out that even after 1874, "the last of a cycle of prosperous years," rent continued to rise for two years longer, and that farmers have lost their capital.

2

Rogers, Six Centuries, 471, and Relations of Economic Science, p. 17. 3 Rogers, Relations of Economic Science, p. 17.

The state of the case is very clearly and forcibly put by Thorold Rogers in the pamphlet just quoted, p. 18.

5

Ib., p. 17. Elsewhere Rogers (Six Centuries, p. 471) remarks that Arthur Young, even in his time, set down £6 an acre as the minimum capital necessary for successful agriculture, which is equivalent to more like £12 at the present time. Rogers also mentions that on certain land known to him the capital was (in 1878) under £6 an acre. My own calculations on this head will be found in the Economist of April 28th, 1888, and they coincide closely, though independently, with the statements made by Professor Rogers.

the depression. It is a very important cause, and operates in more ways than are usually seen on the surface, nor is it any argument to say, as some have done, that because land will not pay for the expense of farming, even when it is let rent free, that therefore the former high rent had nothing to do with the matter. For when a farmer has lost all his capital in paying rent when he was not earning it, he is not anxious to continue the experiment even at a reduction of that rent, especially when he knows that, if successful, he will only have to pay more rent again in the future. But, apart from this, the causes of the depression are manifold and various. Almost chief among them may be placed a certain lack of adaptability to changed circumstances which has characterised the British farmer as compared with his foreign competitors. This is very noticeable in the case of dairy farming, where foreign producers have rapidly overtaken our own countrymen in supplying the British home market. Many an English farmer has gone on growing wheat for years after it was obviously a loss to him, when he might gradually have introduced some other crop. Again, he has neglected dairy farming, or only carried it on on unscientific principles, while foreigners have been scientifically perfecting their methods. He has certainly despised the smaller industries of the farm, such as poultry-rearing and egg-producing,1 so that our home market is now largely stocked with fowls and eggs from France, Germany, Denmark, and even Italy. Again, as a nation, we have paid too little heed to agricultural education, and though socalled "technical instruction" is now given, it is conducted in many places in a most chaotic manner, and money is lavishly wasted with the minimum of result. Dairy schools are certainly at length being established, but not before they had become familiar to every Danish cowherd and Danish butter was ousting our own from the home market. Here, as elsewhere in our educational system, the State has neglected duties which every other great European nation

1 It is only in the last two years (1895) that the farmers of a certain parish which I know well in Wiltshire have paid attention to their poultry, by placing fowl-houses for them in the stubble after harvest.