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together with a faulty administration of the poor law, had induced 

 a great amount of pauperism ; but the enormous growth of manufactures 

 during the first three-quarters of the century soon gave employment to 

 the surplus population. The use of animal food became general, and 

 the tendency was to convert arable into pasture land and the price of 

 wheat was maintained at a high level. High farming and intensive 

 cultivation were assisted by the high price and the large proportion of 

 lands under pasture. During the last 15 years, however, the price of 

 both wheat and meat has fallen owing to foreign competition, the 

 former from about 485. to about 32s., and the complaint is now general 

 that high farming does not pay in England. 



These being the facts connected with the progress of English 

 agriculture — and I have given a very imperfect sketch alluding only 

 to such facts as bear on the question on hand — is there any analogy 

 between the conditions under which large farms became profitable in 

 England and the conditions which exist in this country ? In England, 

 it has been calculated that while only 53 men can be supported per 100 

 acres on a dairy farm, 250 can be maintained on the same acreage of 

 wheat and 683 on a like acreage of potatoes ; and yet out of 50 million 

 acres of arable and pasture land in 1880, 25 millions of acres were under 

 permanent pasture, and 11 millions under com crops in the United 

 Kingdom. In India, it was pointed out by Dr. Buchanan as early as 

 the beginning of the century, that " the religion of the natives is a power- 

 ful obstacle in the way of agriculture. The higher ranks of society 

 being excluded from animal food, no attention will, of course, be paid to 

 fattening cattle; without that, what would our agriculture in England be 

 worth ? We could have no green crops to restore our lands to fertility, 

 and a scanty manure to invigorate our crops*f grain." As to the intro- 

 duction of machinery, the low value of human labour stands in the 

 way. It has been found that at the present value of labour, no water- 

 pump can compete with the Picottah in lifting water from wells. Again, 

 Sir James Caird has pointed out that a square mile of land in England 

 cultivated gives employment to 50 persons in the proportion of 25 men, 

 young and old, and 25 women and boys, and that if four times that 

 number or 200 were allowed for each square mile of cultivated land in 

 India, it would take up only one-third of the people. What is to 

 become, then, of the surplus human labour, if economical methods are 

 extensively employed. Manufactures are not growing on an extensive 

 scale to afford employment to the surplus population, and how are the 

 " pauper " ryots to be transformed into " solvent " labourers ? Is the 

 Grovernment to undertake the duty of finding work for the ryots 

 deprived of land or of feeding them at the public cost in normal seasons 

 as it does during famines, or is the surplus labour to be swept away as 

 so much " human rubbish ?" The possibility of high farming paying 

 depends on economic conditions, and so long as the conditions are absent, 

 no direct interference of Grovernment for bringing about large farms 

 and consolidation of holdings can be other than mischievous. Large 

 farms arc suitable to a country like England, which has to raise food 

 for a population, the bulk of which is engaged in manufacturing indus- 

 tries ; and agricultural improvements in this country should obviously 

 follow on lines adopted in European countries where peasant properties 

 prevail, by giving security of tenure, by the diffusion of education 

 among the peasantry, by the establishment of credit Banks, by Agri- 



