igd LAND REFORM 



(1872-7) farmers, as a body, made an annual average 

 profit of ^43,286,000, equal to an average income per 

 farmer of ;C^^5 per annum. In the second five years 

 (1892-7) they, as a body, incurred an annual loss of 

 ;^ 1, 694, 600, thus showing how fast their capital had 

 been disappearing. 



But the calculations which directly affect the in- 

 dustrial classes — manufacturers and workmen — are 

 those which show the falling off of the gross output 

 of farms — the decline in the purchasing power of the 

 land. In the first five years (1872-7) Mr. Harris 

 estimates the gross value of the produce sold from 

 all the farms of the United Kingdom to average 

 ;i^249, 148,000 per annum. ^ We may reckon that the 

 bulk of this enormous sum was spent in our own 

 country in labour or commodities.^ Its relative im- 

 portance may be gauged by the fact that for the same 

 five years (1872-7) the total amount of our exports 

 of British and Irish products averaged less than 224 

 millions per annum, including coal (the nation's capital) 

 and raw material. This export trade, therefore, was 

 considerably less than the home trade as represented 

 by the purchasing power of our own soil. 



^ Mr. Turnbull puts the sum at 255 millions. 



^ Mr. Harris calculates that of this sum above 65 millions were spent 

 in labour and 12 millions with tradesmen. On this important point 

 Adam Smith remarks: "The capital employed in agriculture not only 

 puts in motion a greater quantity of productive labour than any equal 

 capital employed in manufactures, but in proportion, too, to the quantity 

 of productive labour which it employs, it adds a much greater value to 

 the annual produce, to the land and labour of the country, to the real 

 wealth and revenue of the inhabitants." Adam Smith goes on to describe 

 the cosmopolitan character of the capital employed in other industries. 

 The capital of the merchant has no fixed residence, but " may wander about 

 from place to place according as it can either buy cheap or sell dear." 

 The capital of the manufacturer must reside where the manufacture is 

 carried on, but that might be anywhere at home or abroad. But he adds, 



