CHAPTER XXI

1875-1908

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS AGAIN.—FOREIGN COMPETITION.—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 assisted 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 competitor 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 tithe-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 tithe 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 grass, 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 coarser herbage, the finer grasses 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 hitherto 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 Cumberland, 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 Essex 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 quantity 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:—
  5. 1850-1
  6. £5,471
  7. 1860-1
  8. 5,534
  9. 1870-1
  10. 8,525
  11. 1878-9
  12. 10,089

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