ROYAL COMMISSION OF 1893 381 



to other uses required an immediate outlay which few owners could 

 afford to make. Scarcely one bright feature relieved the gloom 

 of the outlook. Foreign competition had falsified all predictions. 

 No patent was possible for the improved processes of agriculture ; 

 they could be appropriated by all the world. The skill which 

 British farmers had acquired by half a century of costly experiments 

 was turned against them by foreign agriculturists working under 

 more favourable conditions. Even distance ceased to afford its 

 natural protection either of time or cost of conveyance, for not even 

 the perishable products of foreign countries were excluded from 

 English markets. Yet the evidence collected by the Commission 

 established some important facts. It proved that many men, 

 possessed of ample capital and energy, who occupied the best 

 equipped farms, enjoyed the greatest liberty in cropping, kept the 

 best stock, and were able to continue high farming, had weathered 

 the storm even on heavy land ; that small occupiers employing no 

 labour but their own had managed to pull through ; that, on 

 suitable soils, market gardening and fruit-farming had proved 

 profitable ; that, even on the derelict clays of Essex, Scottish milk- 

 farmers had made a living. At no previous period, it may be added, 

 in the history of farming were the advantages and disadvantages of 

 English land-ownership more strongly illustrated. Many tenants 

 renting land on encumbered estates were ruined, because their 

 hard-pressed landlords were unable to give them financial help. 

 At least as many were nursed through the bad times by the assist- 

 ance of landowners whose wealth was derived from other sources 

 than agricultural land. 



When the extent of the agricultural loss and suffering is con- 

 sidered, the remedies adopted by the legislature seem trivial. Yet 

 some useful changes were made. Farmers were still further pro- 

 tected against adulteration of cake, fertilisers, and dairy produce 

 by the provisions of The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act (1893) 

 and the Sale of Food and Drugs Act (1899). The Market Gardeners 

 Compensation Act (1895) enabled a tenant, where land was specifi- 

 cally let for market garden purposes, to claim compensation for all 

 improvements suitable to the business, even though they had been 

 effected without the consent of the landlord. The Improvement 

 of Land Act (1899) gave landowners increased facilities for carry- 

 ing out improvements on borrowed money. The amendment of 

 the Contagious Diseases of Animals Act (1896), requiring all foreign 



