TUB AGRICULTURAL COMMITTEE. 321 



We shall lay before our readers a few extracts from this excellent 

 letter; and first of all let us hear what' degree of encouragement 

 seems to be afforded by several measures of relief passed during the 

 last two sessions. 



" Tithe, from its tendency to check improvement, has operated most preju- 

 dicially to the interests of agriculture. But a bill has just passed the legisla- 

 ture for its permanent commutation ; tithe in kind has been abolished, and it 

 will henceforth be charged on the estate of the landowner ; and the farmer, 

 having once made his arrangements with his landlord, may invest any portion 

 of his capital in the improvement of his farm, with the certainty that he will 

 derive the full benefit of its expenditure. 



"The County Rate has already been the subject of enquiry before the 

 Committees of the Houses of Lords and Commons, and as a member of the 

 latter Committee, and also of a Commission appointed to consider especially 

 what reductions can be made in that portion of the rate which is expended in 

 prosecutions, I may state, with confidence, there is every prospect, when our 

 recommendations can be carried into effect, of this Tax being so far reduced 

 that its pressure will be but lightly felt by the Agriculturist. 



"The Poor Rate has hitherto been a great burthen to the farmer in those 

 districts in which agriculture has been depressed from other causes. When- 

 ever an opportunity offered for obtaining satisfactory evidence of the working 

 of the new Poor Law Bill, the Committee did not fail to take advantage of it; 

 and it is gratifying to learn, from various parts of the country, that the effects 

 of this measure have exceeded the anticipations of its most sanguine advocates. 



"The moral effects of this important measure will be more beneficial 

 to the [agriculturist than the pecuniary relief : the agricultural labourer is 

 already aware that, under the new system of administering relief, the parish 

 must, in future, be his last, instead of his first resort, and there has, conse- 

 quently, arisen in his mind a strong desire to work, and remain in the service 

 of his employer. 



The author then proceeds to combat some of the alleged argu- 

 ments tending to prove the reality of Agricultural distress, account- 

 ing satisfactorily for the low price of wheat as proceeding from 

 increased cultivation not from importation out of Ireland or Scotland, 

 and proving that the average scale of English wheat between 1831 34 

 was considerably greater than that between 1828 31. The ruinous 

 consequences resulting from the non-adjustment of farm-rents to a 

 standard remunerating to the tenant are ably exposed. Let Mr. 

 Lefevre speak for himself: 



" In some districts, and more particularly in the case of farmers of small 

 capital, distress has been aggravated by a continuance of high rents, and it is 

 matter of deep regret that owing to the expectations held out, by the Corn 

 Law of 1815, that permanent high prices could be obtained by legislative 

 enactment, neither landlords nor tenants were prepared for that satisfactory 

 adjustment of rent which ought to have been made at the termination of the 

 war. Reductions in rent have been made from time to time, limited as was 

 supposed by the necessities of the tenant ; whereas, if considerable abatements 

 had been made at once at that period, less upon the whole would have been 

 required, the capital of the tenant would not have been diminished, and much 

 of the present distress might have been averted. 



" It has generally been supposed that excessive rents are only injurious to 

 tenants under lease ; but a moment's reflection will show that a tenant at will, 

 who, owing to a fall in prices, cannot realize the same amount for his stock as 

 when he entered upon his farm, is quite as dependent upon his landlord as a 

 tenant on lease, and he will rather submit to the payment of too high a rent, 

 in the hope of a recurrence of high prices, than hazard the loss of a consider- 



