ART. V.-1. Minutes of Evidence taken before the Royal Commission on Agriculture. Volumes I, and II. London, 1894. 2. Reports of the Assistant Commissioners to the Royal Commission on Agriculture. London, 1894 and 1895.

EVER was an indictment better justified than that upon

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which the Government escaped condemnation by the House of Commons, at the opening of the present Session, by the miserable majority of only twelve. Mr. Jeffreys, in his amendment to the Address, moved the addition of words declaring the 'greatest apprehension' as to the disastrous condition of the agricultural interest and the prolonged depression of the textile and other industries, and the consequent increase in the number of the unemployed'; and expressing regret that her Majesty's Ministers have shown no appreciation of the gravity of the present situation.'

It is true that, in the Queen's Speech, regret at the continuous depression in agriculture was expressed, and that the promise of a Bill to facilitate the construction of light railways was given, while the uncompleted investigations of the Royal Commission on Agriculture were referred to by way of excuse for the lack of any proposal of substantial relief to a state of affairs which is merely disguised by the mild term depression.' But a Bill to promote the construction of light railways, at the best, would only open the way to a slight palliation of agricultural distress which would take years to come into full operation; and if it empowers local authorities to spend or risk the money of the ratepayers, it will be an illusive gift indeed. As for the Royal Commission, its appointment was denounced by many of the best friends of agriculture as altogether unnecessary, and as a mere pretext for delaying legislation, seeing that the prevalence of agricultural distress had long been only too obvious, and that certain measures of relief had been demanded by its victims, with virtual unanimity, for years. Under ordinary circumstances, it would be justifiable to await the Report of the Commission; but the calamity under notice is so tremendous that the adhesion of the Government to the usual custom, except in relation to light railways, is by itself sufficient proof of the truth of Mr. Jeffreys' indictment. Having piled new and heavy burdens upon the land last Session, under the pretext of levelling the death duties, the Government might have promised at least to complete the levelling process by readjusting the incidence of local taxation.

The Royal Commission, which is a pretext for delaying substantial relief to agriculture, has been the means of placing

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before the country a great mass of evidence depicting the ruinous condition of that industry, which, it might be supposed, could hardly fail to convince the most sceptical and impress the most callous. Yet that evidence, apparently, has failed to impress the minds of Ministers with a due sense of the national calamity which it describes, or to touch their consciences to an extent sufficient to induce them to lay aside mere electioneering measures for a time, in order to save the country from an impending catastrophe.

It was not necessary to wait for the opening of Parliament in order to come to this lamentable conclusion. The words of some members of the Ministry during the recess, and the silence of others in relation to the subject, proved it only too surely. For example, the President of the Board of Agriculture, in addressing the members of the Farmers' Club and Chambers of Agriculture on the 11th of December, gave his hearers the poor comfort of assuring them that agricultural depression, like the poor, was always with them, and enforced his teaching of resignation to the inevitable by declaring that there was no question of immediate State remedy for agricultural depression.' Further on in his speech, Mr. Gardner, as if to emphasize the warning to his hearers not to expect anything from the Government, repeated himself by stating that he did not believe that there was any question of heroic or immediate remedy for agricultural depression.' Instead of looking to the Government for relief, he advised them to study botany, to cultivate the cider industry, and to grow more small fruit. It can hardly be doubted that Mr. Gardner, before making these discouraging statements to a representative body of agriculturists, had made himself acquainted with the views and intentions of the Cabinet in relation to his subject. Other members of the Government and some of its leading supporters, when they deemed the distressful condition of agriculture worthy of notice at all, comforted their audiences with the assurance that the masses of the population derived great advantage from the extremely low prices of food which were ruinous to that industry.

Reports of the debates on the Address and Mr. Jeffreys' 'amendment bristle with statements indicating that the Party in power regard the condition of agriculture with a feeling of toleration, if not with indifference. Lord Welby, in moving the Address in the House of Lords, after alluding to agricultural depression, and declaring that there was no hope of a speedy if even of an eventual rise in prices, administered the usual comforting assurance that, although wages had fallen in some

trades,

trades, the working classes had been able to avail themselves of the cheap prices of articles of consumption.' The Prime Minister alluded to the universality of agricultural depression, as if that afforded a reason for regarding it as a necessary evil, instead of a reason for seeking a common cause. The President of the Local Government Board declared that although low prices are undoubtedly at this moment the cause of great suffering to the agricultural interest, they are, on the other hand, the cause of infinite blessing to a vast multitude of the labouring people throughout the country.' As to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while prudently entrenching himself behind precedent, and declaring that the Government could not attend to agriculture until the Commission had reported, he sounded the familiar note before concluding his speech. I do not want to raise prices,' he said, and the avowal was received with loud Ministerial cheers. In my opinion,' he added, the cheapness of commodities has been an infinite blessing to the great mass of the people of this country.'

These few out of many similar quotations that might be given show clearly that the paramount idea of the Manchesteror, perhaps we should say, the Newcastle-school of politicians is that prices ruinous to growers of agricultural produce are beneficial to the working classes, and that, so long as they are comfortable, nothing else matters much. It is to be borne in mind that the statements mentioned were made in the course of a debate which brought out striking evidence of serious depression in other branches of productive industry besides agriculture, the truth of which was admitted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other members of his party. The connection between bad trade and the ruin of agriculture, however, may be set aside for the moment, for the sake of concentrating attention upon the agricultural branch of the subject.

A prominent member of the school of politicians just referred to-Lord Farrer-in an article on the Currency Question in the 'National Review' for October 1894, may be cited as having enunciated the paramount idea of his party in relation to the great fall in prices which is almost universally allowed to be the main cause of agricultural distress. Although denying 'that the fall in silver operates as a continuous premium on the exports from silver-using countries, which enables the producers of those countries to compete successfully with those of gold-using countries, and to lower the real price of wheat and other articles in the markets of the world,' he goes on to say: 'Even supposing that it had this effect, the consumer of these articles might ask whether the effect was a bad one.' Further

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on in his article Lord Farrer declares that money wages have risen, even in the agricultural industry (which is incorrect), and that in purchasing power they have risen still more, adding: 'To me, I confess, the strongest argument in favour of retaining our gold standard untouched is the maintenance of the rate of nominal wages and the rise in real wages; and the strongest argument against degrading the standard is that it would diminish the reward of labour, by increasing the price of the things which the labourer has to buy, without increasing his money wages in the same proportion.' The implications here, as in previous passages quoted, are that workmen flourish on the losses of their employers, and that this is a sufficient reason for not interfering with circumstances which are rapidly bringing about the ruin of our productive industries, and of agriculture especially. These shallow conclusions will be called in question presently; but for the present they are left unanswered.

Perhaps the most cynically frank exposition of the paramount idea of the school of politicians under notice is that of a correspondent of the 'Times,' Mr. G. T. Hartley by name. Writing on the report of the Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture, to the effect that the farmers of Norfolk had lost capital to the extent of 3,000,000l., this gentleman asks: Why should a statesman interfere with this state of things? Brown, farmer, of Norfolk, loses 3,000,000Z.; Robinson, artisan, of Birmingham, gains 3,000,000l. The wealth of the country remains as before.'

Here we have the prevalent idea of a particular school of politicians in a nutshell. Or it may be put in this form: Perish Agriculture, so long as the people get cheap food!

It is the main object of this article to show the utter fallacy of the widely-prevalent view of agricultural distress and its results which has just been stated in almost brutally uncompromising language. First, however, it seems desirable to describe briefly the condition of agriculture in this country, as portrayed in the evidence taken by the Royal Commission.

Two of the reports of Assistant Commissioners first issued were on districts where, if anywhere in England, freedom from serious depression might have been expected those of Mr. Fox on the Garstang district of Lancashire, and of Mr. Jabez Turner on the Frome district of Somersetshire. The Garstang district is surrounded by excellent markets, and the soil is much above average in fertility, while the farmers, who are of the working type, and who for the most part occupy holdings which they can manage with little or no help from persons outside their own families, are engaged principally in the production of milk, cheese, butter, culinary vegetables,

fruit, poultry, and eggs-commodities which meet with a ready sale in the manufacturing and mining centres of population. Yet many of the small farmers told Mr. Fox that, although they worked much harder than the labourers, they were in a worse financial position; and occupiers of larger holdings assured him that they had only managed to feed and clothe their families in recent years, paying them no wages for their work. Here, as in many other parts of the country, where small farmers have been able to make ends meet, it has been at the sacrifice of the interests of their grown-up sons and daughters, who have worked at home for little or nothing more than board, lodging, and clothing, when they might have earned good wages for working elsewhere. The fall in rents has been less in the Garstang district than in any other from which a report has been received-only from 5 to 16 per cent. as a rule, though much more in some cases.

In the fertile corn and sheep district of Glendale, in Northumberland, where the farms in the lowlands are commonly from 300 to 1000 acres, and on the hills several thousands of acres in extent in many instances, Mr. Fox found that ruin had been staved off by timely concessions from the landlords, whose rents had been reduced by 20 to 30 per cent. as a rule, and in some cases up to 50 per cent. Originally men of large capital, the Glendale farmers are described as crippled in their resources, and as not likely to hold on to their farms unless prices advance.

The Frome district, with its famous Cheddar cheese industry and its fine pastures, is not one in which the most serious depression would be looked for. Yet Mr. Turner found that rents had generally fallen 25 to 40 per cent., and that there had been numerous changes of tenancy on all but the good cheese farms.

In the neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, Mr. Turner's second district, a good deal of agricultural distress was disclosed. Owing to the low prices of corn, the area of permanent pasture had increased by 27 per cent. since 1878, and rents had fallen 25 to 60 per cent., while a considerable number of farms were unlet at the time of the Assistant Commissioner's visit.

Dr. Fream has given a lamentable description of the condition of agriculture in the Andover Union of Hampshire and the country around Maidstone, apart from the hop and fruit farms. In the Hampshire district, where corn and sheep are the main staples of the farming industry, he found agricultural distress practically universal. A great deal of the land had fallen to less than prairie value,' being out of cultivation, and used only

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