BAD TIMES AT HOME.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2157, 2 April 1879, Page 1 (Supplement)

BAD TIMES AT HOME.

If we are to judge by what we read, the state of farming in the Old Country is in a worse condition than it has been for the lust century. From all parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, comes the same cry of dissatisfaction at the low price of com, and the low price of stock ; the high price of labor and the high rental. It is manifest that there is a vast amount of truth in the state-

raent that those who leased land, say six years ago, at the then ruling rates, cannot now afford to pay that vent owing to the extreme depression in everything appertaining to farming. Home papers teem with discussions on the question of how the worst phases of the impending ruin of tenants are to be averted, and us usual nearly every writer has a different station of the gieat problem, as the one panacea for their real or supposed ills, just perhaps as it suits his owh individual case. Remission of rents is the key not© of a great many of theae solutions, and it must be apparent that if landlords were inclined to listen to this strain of the general soug of lamentations it couM not otherwise than have the desired result In many instances it i» said that tenants have been paymj,' at the rate of from 25 per cent to 50 per cent more per annum for the work done on the farm, than they did some years ago. The friends of the farm laborer aver that the high price of labor is not the cause of the backward tendency in affairs relating to agricultural, as very few will deny that the farm laborer at Home has until very recently occupied the position of a serf rather than an atom of that free and enlightened nation, called Britons. His position has improved of late, and the improvements in wages means a mental and moral improvement. The impossibility of making any provision for the education and decent clothing of his family, was an utter impossiblity, so long as his remuneration amounted to a sum in the year so uu»igni6cant that it would barely pay in these days for the luxury of tobacco indulged in by many. They admit that there has been an improvement in his lot in life, and no one with the interests of his fellow creatures at heart, would grudge him this amelioration. The remedy is in the reduction of rent. This it is said, is out of propottion altogether to the other auxiliaries of the farm. What a farmer can afford to pay now, and what he could afford to pay years ago, are two different things. The price of grain and stock, through foreign competition (chiefly America), has been gradually on the decline, and as the country in which he farms is the grain market which rules all other grain markets of the world to a certain extent it mnst follow that the introduction of almost unlimited foreign supplies has a tondency to decrease the value of grain commodities, and is injurious to the local grower, who labors under the disadvantage of having to pay a rent out of all proportion to the money value he can take from the land. This is one of the complaints of the tenant farmer, and is one which carries a consideiable amount of truth on the face of it. He is also trammelled with the obligations devolving on him by his conditions of lease, obligations which in a great many instances were the outcome of an age of unprogressiveness, and which no«r-a-days are so arbitrary that the tenant i» not to much his own master as the servant of the landlord. He is Wound down by iron rules m to cropping, which may hate the effect of keeping the land in good heart, but which might reasonably be dispensed with for those which modern science has laid down. No good or honmtfarmer

would (with a long lease before him) so depreciate the workable value of the land as to m»ke it altogether unremunerative. It is more to his individual interest that the land should maintain its producing properties in * lucrative form, than that it should by slovenly farming sink him into ruin. Ot course there may be too sides to thu question, but between landlord and tenant there should exist a mutual principle of give and take. In mny instances landlords have made concessions to the tenant which have enabled the latter to pull through to some extent. In other cases the tenant* have had to give up their farms ruined, and in almost every cane of this sort the farm has had to *>c let at a reduced rental. In Scotland the effects of high rents hare been most disastrous. Long leases have tended to this state of things, as lessees at one time would give au advance on consideration of the lease being for a large term. £100 per annum is no uncommon thing for tenants in Scotland to lose in the working of their farms, and in many instance* the loss may be estimated at as high as £1000. Protection has been introduced into the question by some as a remedy for the state of depression, and the argument has been made use of that as one-6fth of the whole capital of England is invested in farming it should receive some consideration at the hands of the government — the consideration no doubt being that wheat, etc , should not be admitted into Great Britain duty free. This mi&bt be a questionable policy, as apart from all other objections to it, the deviation would be accepted as an admission that the foreigner has all along been right, and those who represent the British nation in parliament have all along been wrong. Tbere hai been considerable competition in the securing of farms, through there being an excess of tenants over farms, but there can be little doubt that the day of competition in this direction, has waned, at least until the chances of securing a reasonable profit from the land are more apparent. America, Canada, and these colonies are receiving the attention of thos« who cannot, by reason of excessive rentals, make both ends meet.