126 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION, 1873 TO 1887 



even the cultivation of the soil. Wise reform will only 

 affect existing- conditions by degrees ; it will pave the way 

 for, but not effect, radical change ; it will create no arti- 

 ficial class by the stroke of a pen. Relief from agricultural 

 depression must be sought, not in the manufacture of a 

 peasant proprietary by suppression of landlords, but in the 

 restoration of confidence and the consequent attraction of 

 more capital into land, the extinction of all hindrances to 

 the development of high farming, the removal of every ob- 

 stacle to the wider distribution of landed interests, and 

 above all, the revival of paralysed energies. 



Crude panaceas are in vogue at the present day ; wild 

 theories are promulgated for the redistribution of English 

 land. In the days of her commercial and agricultural 

 supremacy, England might safely ignore such demands 

 for change. An ever-increasing prosperity postponed the 

 shock of antagonistic interests. But now, when disastrous 

 seasons and foreign competition paralyse the energies of 

 agriculturists, when commerce ceases to expand with 

 sufficient rapidity to employ a growing population, land 

 questions are not merely considered with curiosity, but 

 the exclusive privileges of the few are discussed with 

 deepening eagerness. The assailants of property may be 

 noisy out of all proportion to their numbers ; their confi- 

 dence may rather proceed from ignorance than from the 

 calm of reasoned conviction ; they may have given no 

 proof, tested by success, that their schemes are feasible ; 

 they may forget that the first and worst sufferers by eco- 

 nomic blunders are the poor ; but it is idle to ignore the 

 danger of an agitation which has already scared away 

 capital from the land, and renders chronic the enfeebled 

 condition of agriculture. It is easy to distinguish the his- 

 torical and economical aspects of Irish from English land 



