The Press Monday, August 8, 1932. The Decline of British Agriculture.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20619, 8 August 1932, Page 10

The Press Monday, August 8, 1932. The Decline of British Agriculture.

The agricultural returns for England and Wales, summarised -in the cable news on Saturday, show that the amount of arable land under cultivation is 220,000 acres less than it was a year ago and that over the same period the number of agricultural workers has decreased by 20,000. It i, not merely the economic implications of these figures that will bc.disturbing to thoughtful Englishmen. " The whole " subject of agriculture," says a writer in a recent- number of the Nineteenth Century, "demands attention, not •• merely for the sake of the daily ncees"saries of life which agriculture sup*' i; plies, but quite as much because we '"should have in political life the •'benefit of the influence which a suc■'eessful and independent farming "population exerts—a steadying in- ■'■ iluence which has been responsible in "no small degree for the success of " democratic government in the past, "and which democratic government in '•' the future will surely need." Though the fall in the number of men employed in agriculture in England and Wales during last year is to some extent due to a temporary depression, it is also part of a long term trend. In the last hundred years the number has fallen by well over a million, which, the popu- i lation having nearly quadrupled itself | over the same period, means that the i importance of agriculture in the national economy is steadily dwindling. The j general downward trend has been somewhat obscured by alternating periods of prosperity and adversity. The abnormal prosperity caused by the Napoleonic Wars gave way in 1522 to c depression which lasted until 1348. From 1850 to 1873 agriculture flourished and English farmers led the world in the adoption of scientific methods. In 1875 another depression began, which lasted until the beginning of this century and was followed by a decade of moderate prosperity. The War boom collapsed in 1924 and at the moment English agriculture is worse off than it has been at any time since the middle !of the last eentury. The general cause of each of these depressions has been a fall in agricultural commodity prices, too rapid for the necessary adjustments to be made in production costs. In April, 1930, for instance, the average price of cereals was. 6 per cent, above the 1913 level, of live-stock and livestock products 49 per cent, above, and of all agricultural products 37 per cent, above. Yet in April, 1930, wages were 76 per cent, higher than in 1913; and as hours of work were shorter, labour costs had practically doubled. Many other charges had increased in a similar proportion, the total increase in the farmer's outgoings being probably about 50 per cent. This meant that only the stock-farmer was holding his own; but since then the situation has grown appreciably worse and a fall in milk prices has brought large numbers of stock-farmers below the margin of profit. The Labour Government, which had come into office pledged to help the farmers, did little beyond convening a singularly barren National Agricultural Conference. The National Government has assisted wheat-growers with a quota; but as cereals are less than 10 per cent, of the total agricultural output and farmers themselves are heavy buyers of imported cereals, this has done little to help the farming community as a whole.