CHAPTER XVIII. 

 ADVERSITY. 1874-1912. 



SINCE 1862 the tide of agricultural prosperity had ceased to flow ; 

 after 1874 it turn d, and rapidly ebbed. A period of depression 

 began which, with some fluctuations in severity, continued through- 

 out the rest of the reign of Queen Victoria, and beyond. 



Depression is a word which is often loosely used. It is generally 

 understood to mean a reduction, in some cases an absence, of profit, 

 accompanied by a consequent diminution of employment. To some 

 extent the condition has probably become chronic. A decline of 

 interest on capital lent or invested, a rise in wages of labour, an 

 increased competition for the earnings of management, caused by 

 the spread of education and resulting in the reduction or stationary 

 character of those earnings, are permanent not temporary tendencies 

 of civilisation. So far as these symptoms indicate a more general 

 distribution of wealth, they are not disquieting. But, from time 

 to time, circumstances combine to produce acute conditions of 

 industrial collapse which may be accurately called depression. 

 Such a crisis occurred in agriculture from 1875 to 1884, and again 

 from 1891 to 1899. 



Industrial undertakings are so inextricably interlaced that agri- 

 cultural depression cannot be entirely dissevered from commercial 

 depression. Exceptional periods of commercial difficulty had for 

 the last seventy years recurred with such regularity as to give 

 support to a theory of decennial cycles. 1 In previous years, each 

 recurring period had resulted in a genuine panic, due as much to 

 defective information as to any real scarcity of loanable capital. 

 The historic failure of Overend and Gurney in 1866 and the famous 

 " Black Friday " afford the last example of this acute form of 

 crisis. Better means of obtaining accurate intelligence, more 



*E.g. 1825-6, 1836-7, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1877-8. 



