124 AGEICULTUEAL DEPRESSION, 1873 TO 1887 



every landlord is a Dives; the majority sit at the rich 

 man's gates. Many of them succeed to land encumbered 

 by settlements and mortgages ; they cannot dispose of their 

 property, for land is a drug in the market ; rates and 

 taxes swallow up what is left from interest and rent 

 charges, and the so-called landowner becomes an agent 

 between his tenants and the mortgagees and taxgatherers. 

 Anyone who has lived in the country can call up before 

 his eyes numerous families who have curtailed their ex- 

 penditure, diminished their establishments, let or closed 

 their houses, or become absentees on the Continent. But 

 among farmers arrears, bills of sale, liquidations, bank- 

 mptcies kept ever in advance of reductions and remissions 

 of rent. It is, of course, impossible to determine the exact 

 amount of their loss. In 1875 their capital might be placed 

 at something between 230,000,000?. and 260,000,000?. ; in 

 1887 it has fallen to below 160,000,000?. AVhere they once 

 employed over 10?. per acre, they now scarcely employ 61. 

 The census returns of 1881 in a different way attest their 

 impoverishment. The number of tenant farmers dimi- 

 nished between 1871 and 1881 by 10 per cent., while the 

 great increase in the number of bailiffs shows that many 

 are farming as servants land which they had formerly held 

 as occupiers. Many of those who are still in occupation of 

 land are only holding on by their eyelids in hope of better 

 times, or protection. Up till the last year labourers had 

 suffered least of all by agricultural depression. Their 

 position was, and for those who are emploj^ed still is, 

 immeasurabl}^ superior to their condition at the commence- 

 ment of the century. Their cottages are improved, their 

 wages higher, and the prices of all the necessaries of life 

 lower ; they are better housed, better clad, and better fed. 

 But as arable land is converted to pasture, and farmers 



