THE FALL IN RENTS,
tion that even on these terms, which seem to landlords revolu- tionary, there is no choice of tenants to be had. Only in the West, where farms are still comparatively small, and farmers undignified and ignorant, does the old quiet con- tinue, and even there an unmistakable demand is arising for better terms in every respect but rent. There are estates where, many leases having been granted at one time, thousands of acres have been thrown up at once, and where the smaller farmers are beginning to think and say that if they had no consciences, the position of bailiffs to a great owner forced suddenly to take over his own land—that is, in fact, forced to turn farmer without an idea of the minute thrift which alone makes farming profitable—is better "by heaps" than the position of a tenant with ever so good a lease. "Why, he find the capital!" they say, at the smaller ordinaries, and think of their own money with a new sense of love and reverence, because it is going to stay in the bankers' or the lawyers' hands.
There is no doubt of the fact, or that for landlords it is a grave one, although we do not know that they deserve any very serious commiseration. They have enjoyed the pleasant things of the world for a long time, have used their power very often a little roughly, and have even now far more secure positions than any other persons engaged in necessary and customary trades. They have dealt in an article which man- kind could not do without, have enjoyed a monopoly of pro- duction, and unlike brewers or manufacturers of shirtings, have made their own laws. Nobody has ventured to fine them because labourers worked too long hours or children were sent on to the land too soon, and nobody has ever inter- fered with their management of cottages, or their neglect to supply house drainage, good water, or reasonable ventilation. Still, a ten-per-cent. fall in the incomes of i
the most secure and powerful class n the country means an immense reduction in the aggregate purchasing fund, even if the purchases are mostly luxuries, and may involve important political consequences, if only because all county Members are feeling a new anxiety, and it is worth while to inqui e into the reason of the decline. The popular explanation does not seem to meet all the facts. Many of the landlords, all the farmers, and we perceive, most of those who write upon the subject, say that the change is due to a perceptible decrease in the average profit of farming. Farmers cannot get the old eight per cent., or whatever the interest was which they were willing to concede in confidence that they usually made. The price of wheat is now so entirely regulated by the foreign supply, that it is doubtful even if a war, unless it were a war with America, would greatly increase the averages; and even in that case, the new importations from India would probably in a few months make up all the deficit. The price of meat is threatened by the new trade in dead meat from America, till'Protectionist devices against the cattle plague are almost worthless, and the grand ultimate threat, to "lay the land down in grass," has become almost a meaningless menace. At the same time, the cost of production has gone up. Manure, the farmer's most costly necessity, has increased in price all round some forty per cent. Horseflesh, his most ne6essary machinery, has become dearer both to buy and to keep by at least one-quarter, perhaps as regards keep by one-third. And human labour, upon which his outlay in cash is largest,—the usual cost of labour per annum about equalling the rent—has risen all round in cash, or in the exchange of cheap perquisites for cash, by three shillings on twelve,—that is, by five-and-tsventy per cent. Profit is, there- fore, it is alleged, unprocurable, and the farmer sees no direction in which compensation can be obtained except a reduction of rent, upon which, therefore, he insists' with a dry persistence. not decreased by a consciousness that for once he has got the logical as well as the actual upper hand of the ownes of the soil.
There can be no doubt that the farmers' complaint is in some measure true, but there are other causes—or at least, one other cause—at work to which we desire to call attention. As we are informed, the trouble is felt principally with regard to farms above 250 acres. The smaller farmer is not half so
worried as his larger neighbour. He has more to pay for labour, for horses, and for manure ; but the increase is upon a more limited surface of expenditure, while he feels directly ti y and keenly certain new advantages.—the high price of his hay, the excessive demand for milk, and the great profit obtainable if he devotes a few acres to that rough market,gardening in which the master's eye does so much, and of which, for some incomprehensible rea- eon, the larger farmer is half or wholly ashamed. [We do not know if the feeling is local, but we can testify to one district -where a large growth of profitable vegetables is considered an undignified proceeding in a farmer, justifying severe sneers at the ordinary, and jeers in the market-place of the plainest and the hardest kind.] . It is the larger farmer who is retiring, not the smaller, and it is not quite certain that his only motive is a fear of want of profit. Another and perhaps a stronger one is distaste for an occupation which, though in some respects pleasant, involves a great loss of independence, which is more affected by the caprice of the capitalist who lets the " plant " than any other, and which, while demand- ing every year larger means, every year affords less and' less of those happy chances offered by almost every other kind of occupation. It takes a man with £7,500 now-a-days to farm 500 acres with anything like certainty of reasonable ' profit, and a man with £7,500 now-a-days is comparatively educated, knows quite well whore New Zealand is, and what Michigan or Oregon is like, sees what can be done in trade, and even in the professions—though the comparative profit- ableness of these latter is declining day by day—and is entirely unwilling to ask as a favour to be allowed to enter on an occu- pation in which chances scarcely exist, good social position is unattainable, security for ins money is not yet conceded, and tho individual who is most important to him regards him as his inferior. The large farmer thinks he could do better with his money, dissuades Ws children from his own pur- suit, and unless tied to the soil by.age, habits, or tempera- ment, retires from an occupation which has ceased to be in consonance with his now intellectual position, He might still be tempted by a farm which he could hold "as if he were owner," with no conditions but rental, but he will no longer remairrin a trade in which the dealer, in every action of his life, implies to his customer that he has done him a favour in selling his goods, demanding in return both de- ference and gratitude. "The man was rude," says the dealer in shirtings, but he was a good customer." " The man was rude," says the dealer in farms, "though he was actually one of my own tenants!" The class willing to take large farms decreases, therefore, rapidly, and there is little chance that except through a distinct change of system, affect- ing all social relations, it will ever revive again, and the im- mediate consequence of the change is disastrous to the land- lord. We say the immediate consequence, because we imagine that the end which some anticipate is still very far off, and that the landlords will, for the most part, yield only for a moment, The possession of power is too dear to the wealthy to be readily given up, and we expect to see a recurrence to small farms, with all their drawbacks and annoyances, before the landlords join the Liberals in finally making land an ordi- nary marketable commodity. There are still men to take a hundred and fifty acres, pay rent, and touch their hats for the privilege of paying it ; and though the erection of new farm buildings is a pinch and the retrogression in the style , of farming is a pain, the landlords will meet the pinch and bear the pain before they surrender power. We do not-expect to see rents permanently lowered, for lowering them in a moderate degree will not meet the whole case, nor do we expect to see landlords farming their own estates, for they want their lives for other ends than managing the details of agriculture ; but we do expect to see a rapid, perhaps a violent return to little holdings, in the bends of men but little above the labourers, to whom they are of necessity the harshest of employers,—and through whom they also, as time goes on, will sonic day be defeated.
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