OBITUARY.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 8096, 12 February 1892, Page 5

OBITUARY.

Press Association—Electrio Telegraph—Copyright London, February 10.

The death is announced of the liight Hop. James Caird, the eminent agricultural authority, at the age ol 76 years.

February 11 General Waller is dead.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Jamea Caird, P. C., X.C.8., LL.D., F.R.S., was born at Stranraer in 1816, and was educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh. Iα 1849, at the request of Sir Robert i'eel, he visited the west and south of Ireland, then suffering from the effects of the famine, and reported to the Government on the best means of encouraging the revival of agricultural enterprise in that country. Iv 1850 and 1651, aa Commissioner of " The Times," Mr Caird conducted an enquiry into the state of English agriculture, his letters when published in a volume having a large circulation on the Continent and in America. He contested the election of a member for his native district in 1852, and was defeated by a majority of one, but in 1857 he was elected member for Dartmouth, and in 1859 was elected for Stirling, remaining in Parliament for nine yeais. In 1860 he became Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Sea fisheries of the United Kingdom. In 1864, after many years' perseverance he carried a resolution in the House of Commons in favour of. the collection of agricultural statistics, which waa followed by a vote of £10,000 for that purpose- Iv 1863 he visited Algeria, Italy, and Sicily to ascertain the possibility of extending the production or cottou in those countries in case the American supplies were lessened by the Civil War. In 1865 he was appointed Inclosure Commissioner, afterwards the Laud Commission for England, of which ha was senior member. In 1869 he revisited Ireland, and published a pamphlet on the Irish land question, receiving the Companionship of the Bath soon after. In 1878, at the request of Lord Salisbury, he served on the. Indian Famine Commission, which visited all parts of India and reported largely on the subject. In 1885 he served on Earl Cbwper's commission to enquire into the agricultural state of Ireland. He became a member of the new Board of Agriculture, with the rank of a Privy Councillor, and in 1890 he prepared an account for the Royal Agricultural Society of England of the fifty years' work of that Society. Sir James "Caird was Deputy-lieutenant of his native province of Galloway.

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