AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1263, 14 May 1896, Page 7

AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

ROYAL COMMISSION'S REPORT SUGGESTS LEGISLATION. London, March 15. The second report of the Royal Commisi sion on Agriculture has been presented to Parliament. It is signed by a majority of the Commissioners—Viscount Cobham, Mr Henry Chaplain, Mr Walter Long, Sir N. F. Kingseote, Mr C. N. Dalton, Mr C. J. Elton, Mr Owen Thomas, Mr Robt. Lacey Everett, Mr John Gilmour, Mr William Cutback Little and Mr Charles Whitehead ; three others, including Mr ShawLefevre, dissenting. Tho majority report lays stress on tho extreme gravity of tho agricultural situation, upon which it is proposed to dwell more fully in the final report. For tho present they recommend tho relief of agricultural land from some of tho burdens it now bears, and the granting of State loans for agricultural purposes to arrest tiie decline in agriculture. They propose that public money should bo advanced to a limited amount and on adequate security for the purpose of agricultural improvements; that tho terms of redemption of the land tax should lie reduced, and also its maximum rate in tho pound j and say that thero are inequalities in Imperial taxation operating with especial sovority against agricultural lands, to which the attention of tho Legislature is urgently demanded. In respect to local taxation, the Commissioners are of opinion that, in order to placo agricultural lands in their right position as compared with"" other properties, it is essential that they should be assessed to all local rates in a reduced proportion of their ratable value—at only one fourth, if existing precedents be followed.

THE MINORITY REI'ORT. Part 11. of the Blue Book which has just been laid on the table of the House of Commons contains the report on agricultural depression drawn up by tho minority of tho Commission—namely, the chairman (Mr Shaw-Lefevre), Lord Rondel and Sir R. G iff en. These members dissent from many of the recommendations of the majority, and they particularly object to the schemo of State subvention limited to occupiers of land only. With respoct to remedial measures they say it is obvious that, apart from any attempt artificially to raise the prices of agricultural products, either by tampering with the currency and debasing the gold standard or by protective duties, they must take the direction of some or all of the following sources: either of improving tho status of tenant farmers by giving them greater security

for their improvements and strengthening them in any negotiations with their landlords for the alterations of the terms of their tenancies, by the reduction of rent or otherwise ; or of giving greater facilities for sending farmers' products to market and receiving supplies of feeding stuffs, manures, &C, by lowering the charges of railway companies, or by facilitating the extension of light railways ;_ or of promoting the co-operation of occupiers of land with a view to raising the standard of quality of their products, and getting rid of middlemen between the producers and the consumers ; or, lastly, of reducing the burdens on land and assisting improvements by loans of State money on reasonable terms. The three members mentioned above have also, in conjunction with Mr George Lambert, signed a protest against the issue of any but a final report at this stage of the proceedings. MR CHANNING'S REPORT. Mr F. A. Channing, M.P., has also issued a report, and states that whilst concurring in the propriety of making a report at this time on matters which require immediate legislation, he could not sign the document presented by the majority for several reasons. He says reductions of rent have by no means been universal, except in the case 3 where the old tenants have had to leave and new tenants have come iu. In many districts there have been only temporary abatement of rent, sometimes wholly insufficient to meet the times, and In somo cases, even in depressed districts, there appear to have been neither reductions nor abatements of rent of any kind. A considerable number of farm accounts were obtained by the Commission, and it appears, taking 03 of them, that while the average annual net profit of the tenants over the 30,648 acres has been .£2315, divided among 03 tenants, the average annual amount of the rents paid has been .£37,044- In other words, the owner has been drawing an annual average of nearly 21s an acre, while the share of the tenant in the gross receipts lias been only Is 3d an acre. This demonstrates that the tenants have been unable in bargaining as j to the rent to escape any portion whatever , of the local burdens which, in theory, are supposed to fall upon the landlord. The evidence of tenant fanners had been practically unanimous that the reductions of rent have been insufficient and that furthor reductions are necessary. Finally, ho suggests that the Government shall immediately appoint a special commission j to institute a comprehensive and scientific enouiry into the incidence of local taxation, having regard to the national burdens also borne by land. Mr Shaw-Lefevie has issued a supplementary memorandum upon the subject of local rates on agricultural land in England and Wales, in which he holds tliattha main grievance in respect of rural rates is that there is great inequality in different parts of the country, and that, owing to exceptional circumstances, the rates in somo unions are vory heavy.

(From the N.Z. Times, May 11.)

For years the cry of distress has risen up from the broad acres. It began with the repeal of the Corn Laws which the farmin" interest resisted with passionate fervour, it grew with the growth ot machinery and the improvement of steam navigation, it reached its most acute stage with the spread of agriculture in Canada and Western America. During the last general election it was one of the most important factors in returning the unexpectedly large Conservative majority. That majority was pledged to immediate action for the relief of the fanning industry, and tho result is the Bill now before the Commons for tho transfer of a proportion of local rating to tho National Exchequer. Another result of the agricultural depression was the establishment of the National Agricultural Union, tho President of which is Lord Anglesea, which body has raised up in tho present House of Commons an independent Agricultural Party, pledged to its programme, of 230 members. Another result 0 was tho appointment some years ago of tho Royal Commission of enquiry, a aummarised version of whose report wo publish elsewhere, together with three dissontiont minority reports. _ The history of .British agriculture which culminates in these rep >rts, since the repeal of the corn duties, is very instructive and interesting. When Protection was removed the industry drooped for a very short time. The rush of the railway system, the Californian and Australian discoveries very soon gave it new life, and the Crimean war did what the great Napoleonic wars had done, made tho farming interest rich and prosperous. The discovery of the proper method of draining added enormous areas of heavy lands to the aggregate of corn-growing land, while the researches ot Sprengel into the chemistry of soils and the discoveries of Liebig iu the chemistry of manure united to make high-class farmin" one of the foremost as well as most profitable departments of industry The State assisted by passing the Public Money Drainago Acts and the Land Improvement Companies Acts, under which 16 millions of money have been advanced for a-'ricultural drainage and improvement between the years 1815 and 1895 of which four millions came from the Treasury, which has been repaid every farthiii". A million acres were added d'urim' this period to the cultivated area, but they only took tho placo of the million absorbed by the spread of railways and roads and tho increase of cities and towns. It was in 1873 that the depression set in, and by 1882 it had become alarming. A series of bad seasons absolutely unprecedented united with low prices of corn and meat and outside competition, to seriously damage the agricultural industry, lne evU has since got worse. Whole counties have gone out of high-class cultivation ; rents are computed by some autwnties to have fallen back to the level of 1830; and the tenant farmers are judged to have lost

i more than half their capital. So far back as 188 G, Sir John Caird, perhaps the highest agricultural authority in Great Britain, estimated the annual shrinkage of agricultural income at £ 12,800,000, twenty millions each being lost by the landlords and tenants, the balance by the agricultuial labourer. At the present day the evidence given before the Royal Commissioners, whose interim report we publish to-day, is that tho capital loss to the landowner is 600 millions out of a total estimated by Sir James Caird less than 20 years ago at 2000 millions. The report is an interim report, intended to gain time by assisting immediate legislation. Its significance lies in the main point on which the minority reports differ from the report of the majority of tho Commission. The first of the three minority reports puts tho improvement of status of the tenant farmer iu the front rank; Mr Channing, whose memorandum h tho second of these reports, shows conclusively that in many counties the tenant farmer has suffered everything and the landlord nothing unexpected daylight this is in the shape of a document showing that in GO farms in one county the tenants made a profit of Is 3d per acre, while tho landlord got one guinea ; the landlords getting an average of £551 53 to the tenants' .£3 0s 7d. The interesting facts to tho inhabitants of new countries are two—lst, the landlord interest by a large majority wants to perpetuate the worst system of landlordism on the face of the earth, in spite of tho unexampled depression ; 2nd, the legislation introduced for tho relief of agriculture, providing as it does for State aid m relief of rates, is an acceptance of the principle of protection. The first, is a warning to now countries to keep down the evil of landlordism; the second is an encouragement to the colonies to hope for the imposition one day of differential duties in favour of colonial produce.