The Inaugural Address of James Caird, Esq., C.B., F.R.S., President of The

The Inaugural Address of James Caird, Esq., C.B., F.R.S., President of the Statistical Society, Delivered on Tuesday the 16th of November, 1880 Author(s): James Caird Source: Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1880), pp. 559-572 Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2339025 Accessed: 27-06-2016 03:27 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Wiley, Royal Statistical Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Statistical Society of London

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Vol. XLIII I [Part IV.

JOURNAL OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY,

DECEMBER, 1880.

The INAUGURAL ADDRESS of JAMES CAIRD, ESQ., C.B., F.R.S.,

PRESIDENT of the STATISTICAL SOCIETY, deliver ed onz TUESDAY, the 16th of November, 1880.

IT is my duty, first of all, to express my warm appreciation of the distinction conferred on me by this Society, in electing me their President. When I look at the list of distinguished men who have occupied this chair, I feel deeply the responsibility that is laid upon me, to see that no effort of mine shall be wanting to c arry forward the useful work of the Statistical Society. With the aid of the Vice-Presidents, Council, and Secretaries, and the distinguished Editor of the Journal, I trust that this object will not fail to be accomplished. Your late President in his kind reference to my appointment spoke of it in connection with the questions affecting land, with which the Government and parliament would be called upon to deal. And as these questions are of specially pressing importance at the present time, I will venture to make them the subject of my inaugural address. Mr. Brassey last year at this time, read a very interesting anld instructive paper on Agriculture in England and the United States, and Mr. Shaw Lefevre, our previous President, delivered a most able address two months earlier at Sheffield, on the State of British Agriculture, and the causes of its depression. Since that time there have been published the report of practical farmers deputed from this country to visit America, also the careful letters of the correspondent of the " Times," and, finally, the able and instructive official report to the Royal Commission on agriculture, of Mr. Clare S. Read, and Mr. Pell, M.P., on the Agricuilture of the United States and Canada. We have thus had presented for our consideration a carefully collected mass of facts and deduc- tions, affecting the future prosperity and welfare of the most important single industry in this country, the land. Much con- sidera.tion of these, coupled with a personal knowledge of botl countries, and sources of private information in the United States, have led me to a conclusion different from that of the assistant VOL. XLIII. PART IV. 2 P

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 660 The PRESIDENT'S Inaugutral Address. [Dec. commissioners. They give figures to show that wheat cannot be grown in America in an average of years, and delivered in this country, much below 48s. a quarter. Some support to this view may perhaps be claimed from the recent rise of price. But that is altogether due to the famine in certain parts of Russia, whence, and from Germany, the supply of wheat to this country has dwindled to one-twentieth of what it was at this time two years ago, whilst, for the same reason, a considerable portion of the American shipments, which would have come to us, have gone on to Northern Europe. The actual prices of the last ten years, and the imports of wheat from the United States and Canada in the same period, show that price has very little control over the quantity sent forward. In five of these years the average price was 45s. 8d., and in the other five, 56s. I id. The average annual importation at the lower price was 32 million cwt., and at the higher price 23 million cwt. The year of lowest price, 43s. iid., was that of largest imporfation. A fall of i is. a quarter, or one-fourth of the value, had no effect whatever in diminishing the volume. There is indeed an obvious error in making the average yield of wheat " over a long series " of years " in the UInited States the basis upon which to calculate the future value of the crop, or the cost of production. The great prairies of the west are only beginning to be tapped, a region immensely superior in natural fertility to the older cultivated lands of the east, where a yield of 12 bushels an acre has proved the average. The figures quoted by the Commissioners show an average of more than double that quantity in Manitoba. And in potatoes, while the yield of the Eastern States is stated at 8o bushels an acre, that of the prairie region is 300 to 400. It is not so much a question of price as of yield. The cost of production is found to be within 2S. a bushel. All that the western farmer, who owns his land, produces beyond what be consumes, and any wages he may pay, is gain to him. This gain will be increased by every additional bushel each acre produces, and by every increased facility, and consequent reduction in the cost of transport. The rapidity with which this takes place in America may be gauged by the number of tons carried from west to east over the leading railroads in 1868 and 1879, 3' million tons in 1868, and 72 million in 1879. This is an increase in twelve years of more than double in quantity, and it was accompanied by a reduction in the cost of transport of one-half. It is computed that the saving to the public in the whole of the United States by the reduction made in railroad freights, during the six years between 1873 and 1879, is equal to go millions sterling. "This," in the words of an American writer, " is the result of intelligence, skill, and "inaenuity, left free to work out the best possible results, un-

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1880.] The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. 561

" hampered by other legislation than that of their own officers." A halfpenny a ton per mile is now the average railroad charge, and this will be farther reduced by the competition of water carriage, for that country has every water advantage which nature can bestow, in its magnificent rivers and lakes. By the latter and canals wheat can be carried from Chicago to New York at half this rate, and by barges on the Mississippi from St. Louis to the seaboard, an equal distance, the same work is now being done for one-fifth of it. In the month of August last nearly 200,000 quarters of grain, about one-tenth of our total monthly supply, was so sent on these terms for shipment at New Orleans, where an immense and rapidly growing increase of business has arisen, through the deepening of the channel of the mouth of the Mississippi. This is a line of export only beginning; it draws its supplies from an earlier region than the north-west, much of which is shipped in steamers, and delivered in Europe before the harvest of Iowa or Minnesota has begun. But these great navigable rivers, the Mississippi and Missouri, draining a basin nearly as large as Europe, excluding Russia, must ever exercise a restraining influence on the cost of railway transport in America. Ocean freight also, instead of being increased by larger traffic, will be more likely to be lowered when cargoes are found for both outward and inward voyages. And steel ships are now being built for this trade, of 5,ooo to 6,ooo tons, which, with little increase of working expense, will be able profitably to carry cargo at still lower rates of freight. There is thus no probability of prices being enhanced by an increased cost of transport. And when we turn to the area of production, and the quality of the soil with which European agriculture is now brought into competition, we can hardly fail to see the extraordinary advantage possessed by the New World. A line drawn from Hudson's Bay to the mouth of the Missis- sippi, would embrace an area, east of that river, as large as Europe, as varied in climate and production, and in mineral wealth. From the Mississippi westward to the Pacific, is a region nearly twice that extent, one-half of which is believed to be capable of being made arable, and the other half is to a large extent fit for grazing cattle. The climate admits of the most varied kinds of produce, cotton, sugar, and tobacco in the south; Indian corn, wheat, and potatoes in the north and west. Already one-half of all the cotton used in the world is produced here, and there is hardly any limit to its possible extension. The production of the various kinds of corn in the United States alone is now six times that of the United Kingdom. Their increase of acreage under wheat, between last year and this, is more than all the breadth we grow. Including the vast plains in western Canada, between the Red River and the Rocky Mou.ntains 2 p 2

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 562 The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. [Dec. south of 550 north latitude, proposed to be traversed by the Canada Pacific Railway, not one-tenth of the land believed to be arable has yet borne a crop. The vigorous surplus population of all Europe, for many generations, will thus find room in these western prairies. The quality of the soil is its next grand feature. " In the Great "North West," say the Royal Commissioners, "the country so "recently opened to the over populated countries of the Old World, "there is no forest -to subdue, or scrub to uproot. The whole is "one vast plain, more or less fertile, which can be converted into a "grain field by the simple operation of two shallow ploughings. The " soil around Portage la Prairie is a rich black loam, light of tillage, "yet sufficiently retentive to withstand severe drought. In many "places there appeared no variation to the depth of 3 feet. In some "spots the land is swampy and low, but a few main dykes would "dry many hundred acres, and with a soil so friable no drainage "for surface water could possibly be required. This vast region "is called by some the future wheat granary of the New World. "Much has been said against the long and severe winter; but "it is a crisp dry cold that is not unpleasant, and with the first "sharp frost and fall of snow the roads that were before impassable "become excellent highways for the cartage of timber and grain. "To the young, the vigorous, and the courageous, who cannot get "a comfortable living in England, it offers a home that will soon "provide all the necessaries of life, and in a few years of steady "and well directed toil will probably ensure a competency, and "possiblv a moderate fortune."' A recent American writer describes the soil of the great basin of the Mississippi to be of the same nature as that of the most fertile plains of Asia and Europe, and this receives some confirma- tion from an analysis of four prairie soils, brought by me twenty years ago from Illinois, and then examined by Professor Voelcker. He found them very rich in nitrogenised organic matter, more so than any soils of which he had record, a peculiarity which, with their beautiful state of division, distinguished these soils so favourably. This fertile ground, friable and free from boulders, loose stones, or stumps of trees, nearly level, and thus offering great facility for railway construction, is also most favourable for machine cultivation. No manual labour except to direct the machinery need be employed from the time the seed is sown till the grain is placed in the railway or on shipboard. And, marvellous though the richness of the soil of this vast central region is, that is not the only gift of nature it possesses, for much of it is underlaid by deposits of coal and iron, far exceeding in extent the great mineral fields of the eastern States. Such is the magnificent country now brought within compa-

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1880.] The PRESIDENT'S Inaaugural Address. 563

ratively easy reach of the more populous States of Europe, affording not only an outlet for those of their people who desire to emigrate, but bringing, by the aid of railway and steamship, the working man of the old countries into close contact with the abundance of the new. A barrel of flour and a barrel of pork or beef, 500 lbs. in weight, a year's very full supply for a working man, can now be transported from Chicago to Liverpool at a cost of little more than two days' wages for an artisan, or four days' of a labourer. The mechanic of Lancashire can thus, by the expenditure of a few days' pay, place himself and his family on an equality in regard to his food supply with the mechanic of Illinois or Wisconsin. To the consumers this is an enormous benefit, but to the producers of food in this country, and Europe generally, a factof momentouis import, with which they must prepare to reckon. Upon this contest agricultural Europe enters heavily weighted with large standing armies, heavy taxation, differences of language and laws, impeding that freedom of communication and facility of movement which is possessed by a competitor who is free from all such embarrassment. Let us first try to get a clear conception of the products in which that competition is most likely to be successful. Articles of easy and simple cultivation, which can best bear rougb handling and long carriage, which can be grown on a grand scale, and be cheaply cultivated and manipulated by machinery, such as wheat and Indian corn, may be expected to be the earliest exports. The following figures of imports to this country are instructive:

Quantities and Value of certain Articles of Food Imported in 1870 and 1879.

1870. 1879.

Value Number Total Value. Va ue Number TotaI Value. per Head. or Weight. Toa au.per- Head. or Weighit.

?: s. ? ? s. d. ? Liv3 animal8 {Fcattle i8 } 872,000 4,298,OOO 21 i6 - } 1,192,000 6,892,oco ~sheep - 34 - 47 8 Per cwt. Cwt. Per cwt. Cwt. s. d. s. d. Bacon and hlams 6... 6z 2 567,000 I,769,000 34 4 4,917,000 8,88o,ooo Beef .42..24z 9 215,000 461,000 47 8 812,000 i,937,000 Meat, frese, salted, } 56 - 115,000 327,900 58 - 721,000 2,130,000 Butter .105- 1,159,000 6,8oo,ooo IOI 6 2,045,000 I0,380,000 Cheese ...... 55 6 1,041,000 3,o83,000 42 6 1,789,000 3,824,000 Wheat per Cwt. Corn of all kinds ....I IO 6 74,103,000 34,i70,ooo IO 6 136,743,000 6i,26i,ooo

The article which has increased the most is corn, an increase, in weight, nearly nine times that of all the increase in cattle and pro-

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 564 The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. [Dec. visions. In wheat alone the quantity has doubled in ten years, being in a ratio three times greater than is required by the increase of our population, and nine-tenths of that increase is from America. The price at the end of the period was the same as at the beginning. Next to corn is bacon and hams, the product of Indian corn, in which form the prodigious American crop of 1,500 million bushels is to a large extent exported to Europe. The increase of pork in its various kinds was in ten years ninefold, notwithstanding a gradual fall in price from 62s. 2d. per cwt. to 34s. 4d. It is in these two kinds of corn, wheat and maize, the crop of which in the United States alone yielded 2,000 million bushels in 1879, that we must look for the earliest and most lasting competition. Had it not been for the succession of bad harvests here the price of imported wheat would have fallen, probably somewhat in proportion with that of the meat produced by feeding pigs on Indian corn. The decline in the home production of wheat and pigs is in fair proportion to the abundance in which these have been poured in upon us, and which, for that reason. have become least remunerative. But thotwithstanding a considerable rise of price in live animals and in meat, and the maintenance of a good average value in dairy produce, the imports of these have not increased in anything like the same scale of magnitude. These are the products in which there is most risk of damage by long transport, and upon the preparation of which most skill and labour must be bestowed. Large though the foreign importations of these appear to be, their total amount hardly yet affords two ounces per head per day to the population of the United Kingdom. Wheat and Indian corn are the crops of easiest cultivation and readiest transport upon the prairies of the West. The agriculturists of the eastern States of America see this, and have yielded to an inevitable fate, which threatened ruin, but has resulted in gain. Driven by the more cheaply produced crops of the West from the growth of wheat, they have turned their whole efforts to the production of vegetables, hay, fruit, poultry, and the dairy. The chief impulse to this change was given by the reduction in the cost of transport from the West, made between 1865 and 1875, in which last year the value of the new agricultural products of the small State of Massachusetts was nearly 8 million dollars greater than in the first. Though the change has been beneficial on the whole, there are nevertheless many deserted farms in the State; there has been in many places a decrease in the rural population, and much land formerly cultivated would "not now bring the cost of the stone " walls with which it is enclosed." This has happened in the more sterile parts of the country, and those most remote from railways. Since 1875 the cost of transport has been still further reduced,

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1880.] The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address 565

so much further as to bring our English counties under the same influence of Western agriculture as was Massachusetts in that year.* We are brought face to face with the same difficulty now which they encountered then, and if we meet it in the same way we may hope for an equal success. And we must not overlook the immense gain to the consumers in this country by a permanently lower range of the price of corn. The cost of moving corn from the prairies to this country has been reduced by fully gd. a bushel, which on the consumption of corn of all kinds in the United Kingdom is a gain to us of io millions sterling, much of which will be spent on other articles of food which will be produced at home. The great corn fields of America will prove an advantage to us nearly as great as to our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic, if we accept from them what they can produce more cheaply, and devote our attention more exclusively to products with which they cannot so easily compete. This is no new doctrine of mine. Thirty years ago I pointed out, in my letters to the " Times," the gradual change which free trade would bring about in the food of the people of this country, and that as they grew in better circumstances, their expenditure on articles the produce of grass and green crops, butcher's meat, butter, cheese, and milk, would become many times greater than that in bread, while the foreign supply of the latter would increase in the most rapid degree. Again in 1859 I enforced this view when, after a visit to the United States and the western prairies, I for the first time obtained an impression of the magnitude and fertility of the vast central plains drained by the Mississippi and Missouri, the development of which was thrown back ten years by the revolt of the Southern States. In 1868, in a paper read by me to this Society, I pointed out our growing dependence on America for wheat, and her vast power of expanding the supply. In the second year after the close of the war, 1867, the imports of American wheat and flour were 5 million cwts.; in 1879 they were upwards of 44 millions, an increase in fourteen years more than eightfold. During the same period our own agriculture, partly from the pressure of this growing competition and partly from unfavourable seasons, shows a decline of more than 20 per cent. in wheat, and Io per cent. in oats, while green crops and grass have increased in nearly like proportion. Our system of agriculture is thus already beginning to accom- modate itself to the change which American competition will certainly render necessary. In the northern and western parts

* A few days ago the "Times" gave a description of recent railway shipping appliances in New York, which alone would make a fresh saving of id. a bushel on the cost of transport.

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 566 Thbe PRESIDENT'S Inaugur-al Address. [Dec. of the country where live stock predominates over corn, and where the labour bill is comparatively moderate, the effects of this competition are little felt, and the suffering that has arisen of late years has been more the result of ungenial seasons, and grazings unthrifty for the herds and flocks. In the corn districts the loss has been greater, because not only were the crops inferior but the prices were low, whilst the labour was very costly. In the least fertile tracts of poor clay, where every operation is expensive, and the land is unkindly for grass, it must either go out of cultivation, or be turned to some other purpose than that of growing food. It is hopeless to expect that such soils can maintain their old position. Indeed, nothing but the greatest prudence and freedom of action will carry our landowners and farmers, on even the better class of corn lands, through the earlier years of the competition on which they are entered. How is this freedom of action to be attained ? What now hinders it ? Entails, settlements, and mortgage, costs of transfer, and uncertainty of title. The early principle of entail was that the fee of the estate should be incapable of being mortgaged, so that each succeeding owner should enter upon it without incum- brance. This kept the estate solvent; but it soon became necessary to depart from this principle in order to make provision for the widow and younger children. This has been further extended by the need to find money for permanent improvements, such as roads, buildings, and drainage. Every new charge complicates the title, whilst at the same time diminishing the free income. When cost of management, repairs, and renewals of buildings, rates and taxes, family provision and interest of debt are deducted, the gross income, thus reduced by one-half to two-thirds, has to bear the entire weight of any reduction of rent rendered necessary by a permanent drop in prices. A man with 5,oool. a-year of gross rental, has probably not so much as half of it to spend, and if his rental is diminished by IO or 20 per cent., the whole of this loss falls upon the narrow margin left to him. The fixed charges, including the interest of debt, are not affected. The intolerable burden thus cast upon the life tenant has been attempted to be lessened and shifted by many legal devices. The most ingenious one was that devised by Sir Robert Peel on the repeal of the corn laws. By his advice the legislature agreed to advance to landowners, for permanent improvements, certain large sums which were to be redeemed in twenty-two years by half-yearly payments, which should at the close of the term have repaid the loan. The condition upon which the loan was in each case granted was that the lender was to be satisfied that the improvement contemplated would more than repay the half-yearly instalments.

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1880.] The PRESIDENT'S Imaugural Address. 567

This principle has been carried on by the Land Improvement Com- panies, and much good by it has been effected. It was greatly aided by the general advance of prices up to 1875, through which a gradual and not inconsiderable rise of rent was obtained. But a succession of bad seasons and diminishing prices, with farms thrown on the hands of their owners, many of whom had not the means of raising capital to carry them on, and the general agricultural collapse which led to the appointment of a Royal Commission of inquiry, produced soon afterwards the Land Bills of Lord Cairns, which, in consequence of the change of Government, have been held in abeyance. These important measures have been prepared with great care and consideration, with all that knowledge of the law and lucidity of arrangement which their distinguished author commands, and with full recognition of the necessity which has arisen for giving as much freedom to deal with the land of this country as is compatible with the principle of entail and settlement. And if that principle is to be maintained these Bills give probably as much facility to landowners as the system admits. But the whole evil will not then be removed. That evil is " limited ownership." The transfer of land is hampered on every side by the devices required to maintain collateral rights, and for this object the land of this country is loaded with what Lord St. Leonards described as the " complication " of our law of real property." The transfer of larnd cannot be made as easy as that of America until this is removed. And it is with American land that we are now brought into such direct competition, that t believe it will be found impossible, in the interest of any one, to maintain for any length of time the complication of settled landed property. The tenant farmer is the first direct sufferer from this competition, but that will very speedily fall on the landowner, whose rent begins when, but not until, all the costs of production are paid. It is therefore most of all the interest of the tenant for life, the limited owner, that his land should be freed from all that hinders him from dealing with it in the most advantageous manner. Under Lord Cairns's Bills the limited owner would have power to sell (1) in order to pay off debt, or (2) to raise money for improvements. The money must then pass to trustees for these parposes, and from them into the hands of the lawyers, and possibly the court. There need not be very heavy costs in using the money simply for the purpose of paying off debt. But neither landowners, nor trustees, can proceed to invest the money in land improvements, until they have received the sanction of the land commissioners. Every step beyond the order to sell must thus be taken, not by the man who has a direct interest in the economy

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 568 The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. [Dec. and success of the operation, but by persons who have no such interest. Writing thirty years ago on tllis subject, I said, " Much of the " land of this country, more than two-thirds of tlle kinigdom, is in " the possession of tenants for life, so heavily burthened with "settlement encumbrances that they have not the mealls of im- "proving, the land which they are obliged to bold. A neglected "property in this country, the nominal owner of which is incapable " from his embarrassments to improve it, will not be looked at by "tenants of capital; and tenants of liniited means on such a "property must be overborne in unrestricted competition with " farmers of capital, cultivating land where every convenience and "accommodation which an unencumbered landlord finds it his "interest to give has been supplied." The competition has now become infinitely more serious, while the encumbrances have not diminished. The couintry has to carry a national debt of near 8oo millions, and as it would be a moderate estimate to take the mortgage debt on landed property at one-third of its value, the landowners have to bear a special burden in the annual interest accruing upon several hundred millions besides, in addition to their full share of the public debt. Though the Three per Cents are at par, and the general rate of interest for some years has been so low as to show a rapid accumu- lation of capital, no reduction of interest on loans for landed property has been effected. The mortgaged landowner is so completely shackled that he can make no stand aoainst this, and the transaction between him and the capitalist is so environed by questions of title and collateral interests, requiring legal investigation, that they cannot directly approach each other. Over a considerable extent of England at this time there is as much need of a Landed Estates Court, as there was in Ireland in 1849; many large properties would no doubt be broken up by it, but the parlia- mentary title which could then be given would render future dealings with the land easy and inexpensive, and would after a time lead to an enhancement of its value. This has now become a pressing question for " limited owners," much more in their own interests than those of any other body of the community. In regard to the welfare of the public, the fact that this country can now depend on foreign lands for a con- stantly increasing proportion of its food has vastly diminished the national inconvenience occasioned by entail and settlement. That which would be best for all would be entire freedom to the voluntary action under which wise self-interest would fit all efforts to their best results. Simplicity of title is the first step to facility of transfer. There would be abundance of land for sale if

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1880.] The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. 569 the restrictions that impede its transfer were removed. Whether that is to be done by an encumbered estates court and a parlia- mentary title, or by compulsory registration of title, with a short and definite limitation of challenge, is a question for our most capable law reformers. But when the transfer of land in this country shall be made nearly as cheap and easy as the transfer of stock in the money market, a new spirit will be introduced which would elicit individual ingenuity and enterprise, give additional value to the land itself, and rapidly stimulate improvement. I do not feel it necessary to refer to the special circumstances of Ireland at this critical juncture, or to the further measures that may be required there in regard to the tenure of land. A very compe- tent commission is engaged in sifting the whole subject of the rela- tions between landlord and tenant in that country, the result of- which will doubtless enable the legislature to deal with it in a spirit of mutual justice and conciliation. Those of us who can remember the condition of Ireland in the terrible years of the potato famine between 1846 and 1850, will note a remarkable distinction between that period and this. In the counties where the famine was worst, I found, in 1849, that even the finest quality of land was deserted in many cases by the tenants, owing to the pressure of rates. The difficulty then was to retain the old tenants on the land; theil anxiety now is to keep possession of it. Apart from the obvious motive which they have been encouraged to entertain of becoming the owners of their farms on easy terms, the returns of the Irish farmers during the last ten years have been much more favourable than those of the sister countries. They have rapidly diminished their dependence on wheat, the acreage of which has decreased more than one-third. They have been placing their reliance more on the rearing of cattle and the produce of the dairy, for both of which the prices have been good. The small farms, requiring little expenditure of hired labour, have enabled them to escape the growing labour bills of the larger farms of this country. For similar reasons the west of England and most parts of Scotland have not suffered with anything like the severity of the more purely corn districts of England, whose dependence is chiefly on wheat, and where the system of large farms is necessarily accompanied by increasing labour bills. In seven out of ten years the seasons have been wet and chilly, and this has pressed with special severity on the crops which thrive best with abundance of heat and sunlight. South of the Humber, and east of Derbyshire to Dorset, the loss of tenants' capital from this cause, over so lengthened a period, is unprecedented in our time. It has been borne in comparative silence, for men when they find their means shrinking away are not prone to speak of it. But there are few parishes in all that region

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 570 The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. [Dec. of countrv from the Humber to the Solent in which farms have not been surrendered to their owners, and some in which farms are absolutely tenantless. The local bankers, for their own protection, have been compelled to withhold credit, and tenants with diminished capital and restricted credit have found it necessary to retire from large holdings, and either take smaller farms or quit the business. A local journal in one of the southern counties, in Sep- tember last, contained over one hundred advertisements of auction sales of farming stock, within its own district, embracing 5,0ooo acres of land given up by the tenants, some of which had been relet at a great reduction of rent, but most remained on the owners' hands. In every county one meets with instances of considerable estates with six or eight farms thrown on the landlord's hands, and certain localities can be named where, within a mile or two of thriving towns, there are hundreds of acres of clay land entirely deserted, and on which there has not been a furrow turned for two years. It is in such circumstances no longer a question of reduction of rent, or of outlay on improvements. The tenants have left the neighbourhood, employment of labour has ceased, and the landlords and their agents, even if they had the means, can have little hope of gaining a profit where a hard-working farmer has failed. The entire area of corn in Ireland is not more than half of that of the eleven principal corn counties of England upon which this heavy loss has fallen, and if measured in money, the loss of capital in Ireland occasioned by the seasons would bear no comparison with that in England. Circumstances have thus forced upon us changes which can no longer be postponed. These, by legislative measures which will tend to break up embarrassed estates, will gradually place the land in the possession of owners who can act upon it with freedom. There will then be a large increase of landowners cultivating their own land, and especially will this be so if the same facilities for purchasing it as have been offered in Ireland are, in justice to them, also offered to the farmers of England and Scotland. We shall find landowners selling a portion of their property, in order to become themselves the cultivators of the rest with the capital thus acquired, and the smaller landowners, to whom they sell, vieing with them in the improvement of their new farms, neither being hampered with the restrictions on cultivation generally imposed between landlord and tenant. Room too will be found for peasant proprietors, where the agricaltural labourer may in favourable localities get a foothold on the land of his own country. I should have little fear of a prosperous result to well applied industry on this principle, if due care is taken that no Government loans for such an object be granted except where the climate is favourable,

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 1880.] The PRESIDENT'S Inaugural Address. 571 and the land of good natural quality. On such holdings there is ample room for good business in eggs and poultry, early and late vegetables and fruits, and milk and butter, upon all of which the profit will be in proportion to the skill and labour employed in their production. The system would not only give free play to skilled labour, but would also elicit the action of the higher qualities with which man is endowed, and which are too apt to lie dormant when he works under a mechanical routine. There are some things for which we do not require legislative help. And in one point of much importance I am glad to observe that the Railway Commission are watching the freight charges upon railways to see that the farming interests in this country are not unfairly dealt with. During the last ten years the competition in America has reduced the freight charges by one-half, without detriment to the shareholders, and with enormous advantage to the public. A similar reduction here might be found equally successful. In reviewing the statements in this paper, it must be obvious that a great change is being effected in the agricultural condition of this country and its people. The narrow bounds of these islands are being rapidly enlarged. By the aid of the improvements made in the adaptation of steam and steel to locomotion, the Atlantic, and the great lakes and rivers, and fertile plains of America, are becoming at once the cheapest lines of transport for the teeming riches of the West, and also the fittest links for connecting the mutual interests of the English speaking race. Of all Western peoples ours is already the most numerous; and when we contem- plate the farther spread of the English language over North America and Australia, and the habits of order, instincts of self- government, alnd love of liberty which are the inborn characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon race, and the voluntary action with which this beneficent conquest of nature is being conducted, we may well feel confidence in the future. Holding by natural position, and firm adherence to free trade, the post of intermediary between the Old World and the New, we shall be the first to reap the benefits of the rapidly extending commerce which this fuller development of so much of the eartlh's resources is bringing to our shores. Twelve years ago, in addressing this Society, I described the contents of a little blue book which I held in my hand, the first number of the Agricultural Returns. Under Mr. Giffen's care, that annual book has doubled in size. The prefatory remarks, introduced by Mr. Valpy, have been continued and extended, many comparative tables have been introduced. and much new matter has been added. It has thas become not only a useful guide to the legislator as well as the landowner and farmer, but to the importer and

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 572 Proceedings on the 16th Novemnber, 1880. [Dec. purveyor of food, and to all persons interested in its distribution and consumption. Those who took an interest in obtaining from parliament the means of collecting these returns, will join with me in expressing our warm appreciationl of the increasingly useful and instructive manner in which they are now placed before the public.

PROCEEDINGS on the 16th NOVEMBER, 1880.

Dr. GuY said that as a former President of the Society it was his duty to request the meeting to return a hearty and sincere vote of thanks to the President for the interesting and valuable address which he had just delivered. When their President began his paper he (Dr. Guy) must confess to have been somewhat saddened and depressed by the prospects held out to British agriculture; but by degrees the clouds cleared away, and he took comfort in the thought that many things which had worried their ancestors no longer alarmed themselves. There was a time when they were extremely afraid lest the country might become over populated. That fear had passed away. Then again we were overwhelmed with appre- hension about the national debt, when it was but a trifle compared with its present amount. That anxiety too had passed away; and we might indulge the hope that the same fate awaited the gloomy thoughts which the first part of the President's paper must have conjured up. England, let us hope, would survive these difficulties as she had those of times gone by. He would conclude by asking them to give to their Chairman the hearty vote of thanks which his address so richly deserved. (The vote of thanks was given unanimously and with applause.)

The PRESIDENT in replying said that he felt deeply indebted to the meeting for the reception which had been given to his remarks. He had read his paper under a sense of duty, because he thought that the extent of competition to which the agriculture of this country was now exposed was not so thoroughly understood as it should be; and he felt quite sure that a matter of this kind should be seriously looked in the face in order that those interested should make for themselves the best arrangements that they possibly could to meet it with success.

This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 03:27:19 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms