SELF-HELP NOT PROTECTION 215 



processes ; till recently his laudlord often appropriated in 

 the shape of increased rent the results of his enterprise. 

 He has no benefit of fancy prices for his produce ; he can- 

 not wait his market, for his goods suffer in the keeping ; he 

 is deprived by railway rates of the natural protection aflfbrded 

 by distance ; he is subjected, without the favour of fashion, 

 to the barest competition ; his scanty profits are intercepted 

 by middlemen, who stand between him and the producer. 



On the other hand, if agricultural produce all round 

 has decreased in value by 25 per cent., rents have fallen 

 from 30 to 40 per cent,, while seed corn, cake, manure, 

 or store cattle and sheep are cheaper in proportion. Much, 

 too, has of late been done for farmers. The Game Laws,' 

 which, for more than a century bred bitter feelings, have 

 been modified. The law of distress, which, by giving 

 artificial security to landlords, often raised rents above 

 their natural level, is limited in its range. The old legal 

 maxim ' Qidcqidd plantatur solo accedit solo ' is at least 

 shaken. The present Government has removed some of 

 the inequality of taxation by allowing farmers to declare 

 their actual income under Schedule D. It has also pro- 

 tected them against adulterated produce, which robbed their 

 dairy-farms of legitimate profits,^ or their purchases in 

 cake of half their value. ^ But such remedies only touch 



' Game is no new grievance. In 1774, Ai-thur Young {Political 

 AHthmetic, p. 204) speaks of the number of hares as ruinous to farm- 

 ing. In 1830 a pamphleteer, writing as Agricola, begs landlords to 

 abandon their 'contemptible place-hunting battues,' the proceeds of 

 which are ' destined for the London poulterer,' and speaks of the 

 ' nursery of game ' as ' the stepping-stone to a sinecure.' 



- The Margarine Act. But it may be doubted whether the Act will 

 effect its object. Perhaps the best legislative protection against the 

 admixture with butter would have been to requh-e it to be coloured red 

 or pink. 



' The Merchandise Trade Marks Act. 



