This general fall in prices seems to have been directly connected with the increase of foreign competition.[695] Wheat has been most affected by this development, and at the date of the Commission the home production had sunk to 25 per cent. of the total quantity needed for consumption. Other home-grown cereals had not been similarly displaced, but the large consumption of maize had affected the price of feeding barley and oats. As regards meat, while foreign beef and mutton had seriously affected the price of inferior British grades, the influence on superior qualities had been much less marked. Foreign competition had been, on the whole, perhaps more severe in pork than in other classes of meat, but had been confined mainly to bacon and hams.

The successful competition of the foreigner in our butter and cheese markets was attributed mainly to the fact that the dairy industry is better organized abroad than in Great Britain.

The Commission found that another cause of the depression was the increased cost of production, not so much from the increase of wages, as from the smaller amount of work done for a given sum. Where wages in the previous twenty years had remained stationary, the cost of work had increased because the labourer did not work so hard or so well as his forefathers.

The following table[696] is a striking proof of the increased ratio of the cost of labour to gross profits:

County.Acreage
of
farm.		Period
of
account.		 Average
gross
profit.		 Average
annual
cost of
labour.		 Average
cost per
acre.
 Ratio of
cost of
labour
to gross
profits.
£s.d. £s.d. s.d. Per cent.
Suffolk5901839-43 1,577133 773110 262 49.03
1863-67 1,54509 83690 284 54.07
1871-75 1,72501 1,026148 352 59.48
1890-94 728105 97315 330 133.50

On a farm in Wilts., between 1858 and 1893, the ratio of the cost of labour to gross profits had increased from 47.0 per cent. to 88.3 per cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 1873 and 1890, from 44.4 per cent. to 184.3 per cent.; and many similar instances are given, illustrating very forcibly the economic revolution which has led to the transfer of a larger share of the produce of the land to the labourer.

On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that the farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease in cost of cake and artificial manure, while the low price of corn had led to its being largely used in place of linseed and cotton cakes.

Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is well to state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would counteract low prices. 'The result of all our experiments,' he said, 'is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more ... the last bushel always costs you more than all the others.' As prices went lower 'we must contract our farming to what I should call the average of the seasons'; and in the corn districts, the higher the farmer had farmed his land by adding manure the worse had been the financial results.[697]

In 1896 the injustice of the incidence of rates on agricultural land was partly remedied, the occupier being relieved of half the rates on the land apart from the buildings, which Act was continued in 1901.[698] But the system is still inequitable, for a farmer who pays a rent of £240 a year even now probably pays more rates than the occupier of a house rated at £120 a year. Yet the farmer's income would very likely not be more than £200 a year, whereas the occupier of the house rated at £120 might have an income of £2,000 a year.

In 1901 and 1902 Mr. Rider Haggard, following in the footsteps of Young, Marshall, and Caird, made an agricultural tour through England. He considered that, after foreign competition, the great danger to English farming was the lack of labour,[699] for young men and women were everywhere leaving the country for the towns, attracted by the nominally high wages, often delusive, and by the glamour of the pavement. Yet the labourer has come better out of the depression of the last generation than either landowner or farmer: he is better housed, better fed, better clothed, better paid, but filled with discontent. Since Mr. Haggard wrote, however, there seems to be a reaction, small indeed but still marked, against the townward movement, and in most places the supply of labour is sufficient. The quality, however, is almost universally described as inferior; the labourer takes no pride in his work, and good hedgers, thatchers, milkers, and men who understand live stock are hard to obtain[700]; and the reason for this is in large measure due to the modern system of education which keeps a boy from farm work until he is too old to take to it. His wages to-day in most parts are good; near manufacturing towns the ordinary farm hand is paid from 18s. to 20s. a week with extras in harvest, and in purely agricultural districts from 13s. to 15s. a week, often with a cottage rent free at the lower figure. His cottage has improved vastly, especially on large estates, though often leaving much to be desired, and the rent usually paid is £4 or £5 a year, rising to £7 and £8 near large towns. The wise custom of giving him a garden has spread, and is nearly always found to be much more helpful than an allotment. The superior or more skilled workmen,[701] such as the wagoner, stockman, or shepherd, earns in agricultural counties like Herefordshire from 14s. to 18s. a week, and in manufacturing counties like Lancashire from 20s. to 22s. a week, with extras such as 3d. a lamb in lambing time. At the lower wages he often has a cottage and garden rent free.