A Short History of English Agriculture Part 34

[647] Caird, _English Farming in 1850-1_, p. 474.

[648] _Progress of the Nation_.

[649] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, v. 29.

[650] _Progress of the Nation_, pp. 137-9.

[651] Yet as the growth of population overtakes the corn and meat supply, these prophets may in the end prove correct.

[652] The Great Exhibition of 1851 was said to have widely diffused the use of improved implements.--_R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1856, p. 54.

[653] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1890, p. 34.

[654] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1856, p. 60.

[655] Ibid. 1901, p. 30. See below, p. 343.

[656] _Board of Agriculture Returns_, 1878, and _R.A.S.E. Journal_, 1868, p. 239. Young estimated the number of cattle in England in 1770 at 2,852,048, including 684,491 draught cattle.--_Eastern Tour_, iv.

456.

[657] _R.A.S.E. Journal_, (2nd ser.), ii. 230.

[658] Ibid. iii. 430.

[659] _R.A.S.E. Journal_ (2nd ser.), ii. 270.

[660] See _Autobiography of Joseph Arch_.

[661] Ibid. ix. 274.

[662] In many districts, however, his food was better than this.

[663] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 276-7.

[664] Hasbach, _op. cit._, pp. 193, et seq. The Gangs Act (30 & 31 Vict. c. 130) had already brought the system under control.

CHAPTER XXI

1875-1908

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.--FOREIGN COMPEt.i.tION.--AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS ACTS.--NEW IMPLEMENTS.--AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONS.--THE SITUATION IN 1908

About the year 1875 the good times came to an end. The full force of free trade was at last felt. The seasons a.s.sisted the decline, and there was now no compensation in the shape of higher prices. In the eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were only two good crops. A new and formidable compet.i.tor had entered the field; between 1860 and 1880 the produce of wheat in the United States had trebled. Vast stretches of virgin soil were opened up with the most astonishing rapidity by railroads, and European immigrants poured in. The cost of transport fell greatly, and England was flooded with foreign corn and meat. English land which had to support the landlord, the t.i.the-owner, the land agent, the farmer, the labourer, and a large army of paupers,[665] had to compete with land where often one man was owner, farmer, and labourer, with no t.i.the and no poor rates. Yet prices held up fairly well until 1884, when there was a collapse from which they have not yet recovered. In 1877 wheat was 56s. 9d., in 1883 41s. 7d., and in 1884 35s. 8d.; by 1894 the average price for the year was 22s.

10d.[666]

Farmers' capital was reduced from 30 to 50 per cent., and rents and the purchase value of land in a similar proportion. Poor clays only fit for wheat and beans went out of cultivation, though much has since been laid down to gra.s.s, and much has 'tumbled down'. In fact most of the increased value of the good period between 1853-75 disappeared.

The year 1879 will long be remembered as 'the Black Year'. It was the worst of a succession of wet seasons in the midland, western and southern counties of England, the average rainfall being one-fourth above the average, and 1880 was little better. The land, saturated and chilled, produced coa.r.s.er herbage, the finer gra.s.ses languished or were destroyed, fodder and grain were imperfectly matured. Mould and ergot were prevalent among plants, and flukes producing liver-rot among live stock, especially sheep. In 1879 in England and Wales 3,000,000 sheep died or were sacrificed from rot,[667] by 1881 5,000,000 had perished at an estimated loss of 10,000,000, and many, alas! were sent to market full of disease. Cattle also were infected, and hares, rabbits, and deer suffered. In some cases entire flocks of sheep disappeared. The disease was naturally worst on low-lying and ill-drained pastures, but occurred even on the drier uplands. .h.i.therto perfectly free from liver-rot, carried thither no doubt by the droppings of infected sheep, hares, and rabbits, and perhaps by the feet of men and animals. Apart from medicine, concentrated dry food given systematically, the regular use of common salt, and of course removal from low-lying and damp lands, were found the best preventives.

Besides this great calamity, this year was distinguished by one of the worst harvests of the century, outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, of pleuro-pneumonia, and a disastrous attack of foot-rot. The misfortunes of the landed interest produced a Commission in 1879 under the Duke of Richmond, which conducted a most laborious and comprehensive inquiry.

Their report, issued in 1882, stated that they were unanimously convinced of the great intensity and extent of the distress that had fallen upon the agricultural community. Owner and occupier had alike been involved. Yet, though agricultural distress had prevailed over the whole country, the degree had varied in different counties, and in some cases in different parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for instance, had not suffered to anything like the same extent as other counties, nor was the depression so severe in c.u.mberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall had been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the eastern, and most of the southern counties the distress was severe, in Ess.e.x the state of agriculture was deplorable, but Kent, Devon, and Cornwall were not hardly hit.[668]

The chief causes of the depression were said to be these:--

1. The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops deficient in quant.i.ty and quality, and losses of live stock.

2. Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to the inferior quality of the home production.

3. Increased cost of production.

4. Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate; and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exceptionally bad instances of this were given. In the parish of Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was 26 6s. 3d., for the five years ending March 31, 1878, 118 11s. 7d. In the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial periods from 1850:--

1850-1 5,471 1860-1 5,534 1870-1 8,525 1878-9 10,089

On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates, other than poor rates, amounted to 3s. 6d. in the on the rateable value.

5. Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence of this, that foreign produce was consigned in much greater bulk, by few consignors, than home grown, and could be conveyed much more economically than if picked up at different stations in small quant.i.ties.

As to the effect of restrictive covenants on the depression, the balance of evidence did not incline either way.[669]

The Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875 was stated to have done much good in the matter of compensation to tenants for improvements, notwithstanding its merely permissive character, as it had reversed the presumption of law in relation to improvements effected by the tenant, prescribed the amount of compensation, and the mode in which it should be given.

As to the important subject of freedom of cropping and sale of produce, there were diverse opinions, some advocating it wholly, others not believing in it at all, others saying each landlord and each tenant should make their own bargains since each farm stands on its own footing, others again favouring modified restrictions. The preponderance of opinion was in favour of a modification of the law of distress.

The Commission further said that the pressure of foreign compet.i.tion was greatly in excess of the antic.i.p.ations of the supporters and of the apprehensions of the opponents of Corn Law Repeal; if it had not been for this, English farmers would have been partly compensated for the deficient yield by higher prices. On the other hand, the farmer had had the advantage of an increased and cheapened supply of feeding stuffs, such as maize, linseed and cotton cakes, and of artificial manures imported from abroad. At the same time the benefit to the community from cheap food was immense. It seemed just, however, that as agriculture was suffering from low prices, by which the country gained as a whole, that the proportion of taxation imposed on the land should be lessened; it was especially unjust that personal property was exempted from local rates, contrary to the Act of 43 Eliz. c. 2, and the whole burden thrown on real property. The difficulties of farmers were aggravated by the high price of labour, which had increased 25 per cent. in twenty years, largely owing to the compet.i.tion of other industries, and at the same time become less efficient. As provisions were cheap, and employment abundant, the labourer had been scarcely affected by the distress. His cottage, however, especially if in the hands of a small owner, with neither the means nor the will to expend money on improvements, was often still very defective.

Farmers were already complaining of the results of the new system of education, for which they had to pay, while it deprived them of the labour of boys, and drained from the land the sources of future labour by making the young discontented with farm work. The Commission denied that rents had been unduly raised previous to 1875[670]; and in the exceptional cases where they had been, it was due to the imprudent compet.i.tion of tenant farmers encouraged by advances made by country bankers, the sudden withdrawal of which had greatly contributed to the present distress. Districts where dairying was carried on had suffered least, yet the yield of milk was much diminished, and the quality deteriorated, owing to the inferiority of gra.s.s from a continuance of wet seasons. The production and sale of milk was increasing largely, so that the attention of farmers and landlords was being drawn to this important branch of farming, milk-sellers necessarily suffering less from foreign compet.i.tion than any other farmers.

Let us turn once more to the hop yards: in 1878 the acreage of hops in England reached its maximum. We have seen that in the first half of the eighteenth century hop yards covered 12,000 acres; which between 1750 and 1780 increased to 25,000, and by 1800 to 32,000. In 1878, 71,789 acres were grown. The great increase prior to that year was due to the abolition of the excise duty in 1862, which on an average was equal to an annual charge of nearly 7 an acre.[671] This encouraged hop-growing more than the taking off of the import duty in the same year discouraged it. In 1882 there was a very small crop in England, which raised the average price to 18 10s. a cwt.; some choice samples fetching 30 a cwt.; growers who had good crops realizing much more than the freehold value of the hop yards. This, however, was most unfortunate for them, as it led to a great increase in the use of hop subst.i.tutes, such as qua.s.sia, chiretta, colombo, gentian, &c., which, with the decreasing consumption of beer and the demand for lighter beer, has done more than foreign compet.i.tion to lower the price and thereby cause so large an area to be grubbed up as unprofitable, that in 1907 it was reduced to 44,938 acres. Yet the quality of the hops has in the last generation greatly improved in condition, quality, and appearance. Growers also have in the same period often incurred great expense in subst.i.tuting various methods of wire-work for poles; and washing, generally with qua.s.sia chips and soft soap and water, has become wellnigh universal, so that the expense of growing the crop has increased, while the price has been falling.[672] The crop has always been an expensive one to grow; Marshall in 1798 put it at 20 an acre, exclusive of picking, drying, and marketing[673]; and Young estimated the total cost at the same date at 31 10s. an acre[674]; to-day 40 an acre is by no means an outside price. It may be some encouragement to growers to remember that hops have always been subject to great fluctuations in price; between 1693 and 1700, for instance, they varied from 40s. to 240s. a cwt., so that they may yet see them at a remunerative figure. 'Upon the whole', says an eighteenth-century writer, 'though many have acquired large estates by hops, their real advantage is perhaps questionable. By engrossing the attention of the farmer they withdraw him from slower and more certain sources of wealth, and encourage him to rely too much upon chance for his rent, rather than the honest labour of the plough. To the landlord the cultivation of hops is an evil, defrauding the arable land of its proper quant.i.ty of manure and thereby impoverishing his estate.'

It was by this time the general opinion of men with a thorough experience of farming, that in many parts of Great Britain no sufficient compensation was secured to the tenant for his unexhausted improvements. In some counties and districts this compensation was given by established customs, in others customs existed which were insufficient, in many they did not exist at all. It must be confessed that often when a tenant leaves his farm there is more compensation due to the landlord than to the tenant. Human nature being what it is, the temptation to get as much out of the land just before leaving it is wellnigh irresistible to many farmers.

In these days, when the landlord is often called upon by the tenant to do what the tenant used to do himself, the question of compensation to the tenant must on many estates appear to the landlord extremely ironical. It is, in the greater number of cases, the landlord who should receive compensation, and not the tenant; and though he has power to demand it, such power is over and over again not put in force.

At the same time there are bad men in the landlord cla.s.s as in any other, and from them the tenant required protection. By the Agricultural Holdings (England) Act of 1875, 38 & 39 Vict. c. 92, improvements for which compensation could be claimed by the tenant were divided into three cla.s.ses. First cla.s.s improvements, such as drainage of land, erection or enlargement of buildings, laying down of permanent pasture, &c., required the previous consent in writing of the landlord to ent.i.tle the tenant to compensation. Second cla.s.s improvements, such as boning of land with undissolved bones, chalking, claying, liming, and marling the land, the latter now hardly ever practised, required notice in writing by the tenant to the landlord of his intention, and if notice to quit had been given or received, the consent in writing of the landlord was necessary. For third cla.s.s improvements, such as the application to the land of purchased manure, and consumption on the holding by cattle, sheep, or pigs, of cake or other feeding stuff not produced on the holding, no consent or notice was required. Improvements in the first cla.s.s were deemed to be exhausted in twenty years, in the second in seven, and in the third in two. It was the opinion of the Richmond Commission of 1879 that, notwithstanding the beneficial effects of this Act, no sufficient compensation for his unexhausted improvements was secured to the tenant.

The landlord and tenant also might agree in writing that the Act should not apply to their contract of tenancy, so in 1883 when the Agricultural Holdings Act of that year (46 & 47 Vict. c. 61)[675] was pa.s.sed, it was made compulsory as far as regarded compensation, and the time limit as regards the tenant's claims for improvements was abolished, the basis for compensation for all improvements recognized by the Act being laid down as 'the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant'. Improvements for which compensation could be claimed were again divided into three cla.s.ses as before, but the drainage of land was placed in the second cla.s.s instead of the first, and so only required notice to the landlord. This was the only improvement in the second cla.s.s; the other improvements which had been in the second cla.s.s in the Act of 1875 were now placed in the third, where no consent or notice was required.

The Act also effected three other important alterations in the law; first, as to 'Notices to Quit', a year's notice being necessary where half a year's notice had been sufficient, though this section might be excluded by agreement; secondly, after January 1, 1885, the landlord could only distrain for one year's rent instead of six years as formerly; and thirdly, as to fixtures. These formerly became the property of the landlord on the determination of the tenancy, but by 14 & 15 Vict. c. 25 an agricultural tenant was enabled to remove fixtures put up by him with the consent of his landlord for agricultural purposes. Now all fixtures erected after the commencement of the Act were the property of and removable by the tenant, but the landlord might elect to purchase them.

This Act was amended by the Act of 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. 50), and has been much altered by the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 (6 Edw.

VII, c. 56), which has treated the landlord with a degree of severity, which considering the excellent relations that have for the most part existed between English landlords and tenants for generations, is utterly unwarranted. In several respects indeed he has been treated by the Act as if the land did not belong to him, while freedom of contract, until recent years one of the most cherished principles of our law, is arbitrarily interfered with. The chief alterations made by the Act of 1906 were:--

1. _Improvements._--By the Act of 1883, in the valuation for improvements under the first schedule, such part of the improvement as is justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil was not credited to the tenant This provision is repealed by the Act of 1906, in reference to which it must be said that the latent fertility of the soil, sometimes very considerable, may be developed by a small outlay on the part of the tenant for which outlay he is certainly ent.i.tled to compensation. But the greater part of the improvement may be due to the soil which belongs to the landlord, yet the Act credits the tenant with the whole of this improvement. An addition is made to the list of improvements which a tenant may make without his landlord's consent and for which he is ent.i.tled on quitting to compensation, viz. repairs to buildings, being buildings necessary for the proper working of the holding, other than repairs which the tenant is obliged to execute.