SELF-DESTRUCTION OF INDUSTRY.
A DEAD lock seems to be the term for the actual condition of agricultural affairs ; for even the view of the most energetic and encouraging virtually admits as much. It is not only Mr. Dis- raeli who says that landlords and farmers can't get on—we have the same assertion on other testimony. We have heard, on pri- vate authority, of farmers in a highly agricultural county who are living on their capital or withdrawing from the business. Farm high, farm low, the returns do not more than replace the outlay, if they do that ; at the actual price of wheat, farming is a loss ; and there is no prospect that the foreign grower will suffer prices to 'be more remunerative. In a letter to the Times, Lord Kinnaird rebukes the " croaking" at agricultural meetings, and repeats that the true way to meet any fall in prices, is for the farmer to exert himself to increase the produce of the soil—
"Alarmed by these forebodings, he grudges the necessary outlay required for dem ' g justiee to his farm, and endeavours to economize by still farther stinting
the land; inevitable eon sequence of which is a diminished steelyard,_ followed by the rain predicted by these incautious speakers; whose proper course should be to encourage the farmers to make trial of a little extra exertion, instead of creating a panic, which confirms their inactivity. The cheap rate at which portable ma- nures can be obtained (care being taken that they are not adulterated) is of im- mense advantage to the farmer, and offers an inducement to make the experiment. "I took a small farm into my own hands, in such had condition that the pro- dace of straw and turnips was not sufficient to keep the cows for the use of the family and rear the young stock. I put guano over the whole farm the first year I had it, at the rate of only one guinea per acre; and the return in fodder and green crop was enough to enable me to tie up a dozen cattle to fatten. "Instead, therefore, of these croakiags, let exhortations to renewed exertions on the part of th. farmer be substituted, and let the landlord aid these exertions by other means than by the reduction of rent. I have found the system of affording assistance by giving manure work well; those who reside in the neighbourhood of towns, and near a railroad, may obtain the supply in a substantial fbrm, while other. can get it in the shape of guano, bones, &c. When I first tried this pl the tenants could hardly be induced to drive the manure; but they have since learnt to appreciate it, and to thank me for the benefit thus derived. Landlords ought also at once to unite to press on the Government the expediency of bring- ing forward a measure at the commencement of the session for an additional grant for drainage-money. The rate of interest for the last was perhaps too low, at a time when interest rose to such a height as was the case in 1847; but those taking advantage of it could well afford to pay seven per cent, as on good land I have known repeated instances of the entire expense of draining being repaid in three years, and in one case a tenant having but three years of his lease to run drained his farm and made it pay. The principle of fostering any trade, whether farming or manufacturing, is generally a bad one; but in this case it increases the pro- duction of food and gives employment to the labouring classes."
Lord Kinnaird is not iu a position to depend upon the success of his experiment so absolutely that its failure would have been ruin ; a degree of solicitude which of itself tends not to stimulate but to paralyze exertion, for it is a vulgar error that a sense of fatal consequences is a wholesome spur to the common run of minds. But the recommendations implied in the last of the three paragraphs above are remarkable. Lord Kinnaird objects to the reduction of rent, but he advises the giving of manure by the landlord, or "assistance" in some other shape ; and landlords should " also " obtain grants of Government-money at limited in- terest. "On good land " a farmer can "snake it pay" in three years. It is clear, you would say, that farmers have not enough capital; but see the conditions demanded for the profitable invest- ment: capital is to be obtained, by landlord or farmer, at a limited interest ; and then the landlord is to "aid" the exertions of the farmer, the actual trader in the land—virtually the same as abat- ing the rent. Farming therefore will not do on equal terms with other trades; so the Protectionists say; so practical farmers say ; and so by implication says the noble Free-trader who sets so good an example of active energy. If want of capital were the only difficulty, why have not the Cobdens and Birleys, the Morrisons and Browns, invested their hundreds of thousands and millions in so noble and patriotic a trade Perhaps Lord Kinnaird's con- ditions. suggest the reason.
Lord Kinnaird is against the principle of fostering any trade ; but in this case, he says, " it increases the production of food, and gives employment to the labouring classes." The plea is not a bad one ; but we do not know how is is reconcileable with Free- trade maxims.
And the worst part of the whole business is, that employment for the labouring classes, and subsistence, do not seem to be at all convertible terms. Read the accounts in the Morning Chronicle; which we know to be corroborated by other testimony. The labourers do not earn enough to support life in its full vigour, nor to keep up their full labouring efficiency. And these are the labourers engaged in the production of food ! The actual system of farming„ therefore, cannot fairly support its traders or its la- bourers : the conclusion is not only asserted by farmers and Pro- tectionists, it stares you in the face from the avowals of Free- traders.
"The remedy ?" everybody asks ; for it is a coward cant of the present day, that you must not talk of an evil unless you have the antidote in your pocket. None but St. Georges must talk of dragons. Yet it-is most certain, in all kinds of pathology, from medicine to polities, that before you can even devise your remedy you must understand your malady ; and before you can do that, where both patient and doctor are multitudinous, there must be a comparing of notes on the symptoms. In the present case especially, it is most literally true that men have obstinately refused to look at all the facts; the entirety of the facts being also most veritably
and especially necessary to a right comprehension of the parts. Yet many have their remedies cut and dried. Among farmers there is a decided anti-rent movement, not quite so thoroughly Democratic as that which prevails on the lands of the Van Rens- slaers in the State of New York, or so Communistic as that among the farmers on the Rhine, for it only goes to " reduction "; but the principle of interference with "the higgling of the market"
in that behalf is the same. The Rural Commissioner of the Morning Chronicle reports that Socialism is extending among the
half-starved rustics of Devonshire ; and the Communists will not
be slow to tell the farmer, that under any form of their doctrine there would be no rents, no chance market, no haphazard labour. The Protectionists still keep up their obsolete cry : their remedy creates no general hope. The mere empirical Free-trader Is not quite unshaken in his faith : but the thorough Economist will say that agriculture wants its engine system—not merely to apply machine power to field work, for that is but half the process that has developed manufacturing arts, but to introduce the minuter and more painstaking processes which save waste of material, labour, and capital—which concentrate as well as augment power; in short, the Economist will say that agriculture wants its Ark- wright.
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