122 AGKICULTURAL DEPRESSION, 1873 TO 1887 



culminated when the sunless, ungenial 1879 produced the- 

 worst harvest within living memory. Meanwhile America 

 enjoyed crops of most exceptional abundance, and, taking 

 advantage of the agricultural collapse in England, flooded 

 the country with her produce. Some conception of her 

 profits may be formed from the ease with which she carried 

 out her resumption of cash payments. 



Foreign competition, coming on the back of unpro- 

 sperous seasons, completed the ruin of English farmers. 

 They were unable to recover themselves, and went from 

 bad to worse. The modern problem is low prices. The 

 margin of profit on the staple produce of agriculture sank 

 to nothing. Wheat-growing ceased to pay ; the keeping 

 of more stock on arable land barely met the expense of 

 artificial food ; the reconversion of tillage to pasture 

 glutted the milk market ; meat farming suffered from 

 the severe competition of America. Added to all these 

 difficulties was the heavy burden of local taxation ; labour 

 was dearer and less eSective ; men were obliged to be 

 employed where boys had sufficed ; railway companies car- 

 ried foreign goods at preferential rates, which compelled 

 English farmers to pay part of the bill for carriage of their 

 foreign competitors. Many remedies were proposed, some 

 the results of wide, others of limited experience. Each 

 suggestion, fortified by instances of its successful adoption, 

 was recommended to the country at large. Investments 

 in fish-farming or jam-making at the best could afibrd 

 only local relief. As to this large class of remedies, the 

 most that was to be said was that farmers must sit loosely 

 to routine^nd welcome assistance from whatever quarter 

 it came. [No general cure for distress exists, except 

 favourable seasons, increased supplies of money whether 

 metallic or paper, revival of trade, curtailment of produc- 



