PROLONGED DEPRESSION ^ 379 



carried into effect. Gra nts we re made in aid of local taxation. 

 Measures were adopted to stamp out disease amongst live-stock, 

 and to protect farmers against the adulteration of feeding-stuflfs, 

 and against the sale of spurious butter and cheese. The primary 

 ha])ility_fQ2Liithe_rent:charge was transferred from occupiers to 

 owners (1891). The law affecting limited estates in land was 

 modified by the Settled Lands Act (1882). A Railway and Canal 

 Traffic Act was passed, which attempted to equahse rates on the 

 carriage of home and foreign produce. The permissive Agri- 

 cultural Holdings Act of 1875, which was not incorrectly described 

 as a " homily to landlords " on the subject of unexhausted improve- 

 ments, was superseded by a more stringent measure and a 

 modification of the law of distress (1883). A Minister of Agriculture 

 was appointed (1889), and an Agricultural Department estabhshed. 

 But the legislature was powerless to provide any substantial help. 

 Food was, so to speak, the currency in which foreign nations paid 

 for Enghsh manufactured goods, and its cheapness was an undoubted 

 blessing to the wage-earning community. Thrown on their own 

 resources, agriculturists fought the unequal contest with courage 

 and tenacity. But, as time went on, the stress told more and more 

 heavily. Manufacturing populations seemed to seek food-markets 

 everywhere except at home. Enterprise gradually weakened ; 

 landlords lost their abihty to help, farmers their recuperative power. 

 Prolonged dej)ression checked costly improvements. Drainage was 

 practically discontinued. Both owners and occupiers were engaged 

 in the task of making both ends meet on vanishing incomes. Land 

 deteriorated in condition ; less labour was employed ; less stock 

 was kept ; bills for cake and fertilisers were reduced. The counties 

 which suffered most were the corn-growing districts, in which high 

 farming had won its most signal triumphs. On the heavy clays of 

 Essex, for example, thousands of acres, which had formerly yielded 

 great crops and paid high rents, had passed out of cultivation into 

 ranches for cattle or temporary sheep-runs. On the light soils of 

 Norfolk, where skiU and capital had wrested large profits from the 

 reluctant hand of Nature, there were widespread ruin and bankruptcy. 

 Throughout the Eastern, Midland, and Southern counties, — 

 wherever the land was so heavy or so fight that its cultivation was 

 naturally unremunerative, — the same conditions prevailed. The 

 West on the whole, suffered less severely. Though milk and butter 

 had fallen in price, dairy-farmers were profiting by the cheapness of 



