The Agricultural Depression in Britain

Southland Times, Issue 9092, 16 December 1885, Page 4

The Agricultural Depression in Britain

Mr Thos. JHobenaon, or Atny, .ireunu,< writes asfollows to the N.B. Agriculturist :— , In every direction over the kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, the flag of agricultural distress is flying, and for so far there seems not the most distant prospect in the f atnre of the possibility of hauling it down. From world-wide sources food productions are pouring in, with the result that Jtbose of, home growth are decreased in value by a scale; ranging from 30 to 50 per cent, . In theßS circumstances each one of the interests most nearly connected with the cultivation of the soil is advocating thoße remedial measures that would be the most likely to save it from the ruin that is threatened to all. One prescription for the disease is peasant proprietary, and the landlords and their agents are busily quoting the misery of the French peasantry againßt anything of the kind. Seasoning thus, they carefully ignore the equally prevalent misery of the larger French xent-paying tenants ; they avoid all reference to the 'comforts-of the B»iss peasant proi prietorty and they equally steer dear of the prosperity of the cultivators of the soil of the Channel Islands, where each one of these is the owner of the land he tills. Bent to a - landlord is, according to these parties, a factor that is demanded in the interest of the nation, and an essential in connection with the prosperity of the industry engaged in the' production of human food by the cultivation of the land- Of conKe, they say nothing of tbe privileges of landlordism over and above rent,>nd therefore I need not go into the Divine right here of preserving game, of conserving the streams and rivers from the general angler, of claims to property in mines and minerals not on but under their properties, and other perquisites of the class outside that rent that forms the nucleus around which all the others radiate. Next, there is the tenant-producer urging those changei iu'hia situation that, he thinks would emancipate him from his present pitiable position between the taxation of the home land he cultivates, and consequently of tbe produce thereof, and the competition he is compelled to enter into thus weighted with the foreigner wbo pays n*o rent, whose climate is more favourable, and whose taxes are next to nil, and whose labour bill is less. And gradually it is dawning upon him that if he is to have a remedy for his present untenable position he (the tenant-producer on British and Irish soil) must be freed from that class monopoly and its demands upon him that are crushing him and fast ruining bim in his Btruggle of competition against his freeland foreign rival, and at the same time to discharge all the tax obligations that an aristocratic Legislature had imposed on him. Of the interest that the labourer and the general consumer have in the land question as it is at the present moment, I need only gay that- the one is naturally concerned in seeing the source of his labour emancipated from the grasp of the monopolist ; and the other, in an equal degree, in freeing tbe pre« duoer from a tax upon the Taw material of that which he grows 5 remembering that where the land, the raw material of food, is taxed, the food itself, through the invest, mente of the consumer in it, is really the thing taxed. Now, let me draw your Attention to the letter of ' Farmer' in your last. He wants the Irish Land Act of 1881 applied to the. British aide, hut deprecates the crime of ♦ shooting iaaQfordu' in outer to obtain it, Toe A«t for Ireland was not obtained by such means. It was cairied by the Land League, a combtaa* tion which had no connection with the 'shooting of proprietors from behind the hedge,' or with any other crime. That there was crime t don't dispute ; but if so,*it was outside the League, and due entirely to that other crime o£ first raining by raokdent and then evicting and confiscating the tenant for tbe non.pay ment of tbat rack-rent by which he had been disabled from.the possibility of observing his engagement. * The National League is at the present moment morn powerful than ever. A I and Purchase Act has been passed to create a land ■ale if possible, and let the money-lenders, on the security of landed estate, out of the hopeless position their greed of a large annual dividend at the cost of the toil and the misery of, the tenants had inveigled them. This will give your readers an idea of how far on the load to the emancipation of the producer from slavery to the idler and his mortgages we are on' this tide of the Channel. - IE a ' Farmer' and his suffering class in Scotland want to be free, they must go and do as we have done. They must-get up a league — they must start a breach in every parish ; they must get in the labourers ; they must enlist the consumers.