FOREIGN COMPETITION 395 



parts of the same counties. Cheshire, for instance, had not 

 suffered to anything like the same extent as other counties, 

 nor was the depression so severe in Cumberland, Westmore- 

 land, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. The rainfall 

 had been less in the northern counties. In the midlands, the 

 eastern, and most of the southern counties the distress was 

 severe, in Essex the state of agriculture was deplorable, but 

 Kent, Devon, and Cornwall were not hardly hit.^ 

 The chief causes of the depression were said to be these : — 



1. The succession of unfavourable seasons, causing crops 

 deficient in quantity and quality, and losses of live stock. 



2. Low prices, partly due to foreign imports and partly to 

 the inferior quality of the home production. 



3. Increased cost of production. 



4. Increased pressure of local taxation by the imposition 

 of new rates, viz. the education rate and the sanitary rate ; 

 and the increase of old rates, especially the highway rate, in 

 consequence of the abolition of turnpikes. Some exception- 

 ally bad instances of this were given. In the parish of 

 Didmarton, Gloucestershire, the average amount of rates paid 

 for the five years ending March 31, 1858, was £i6 6s. 3^., 

 for the five years ending March 31, 1878, ;^ii8 ii.y. 7^. In 

 the Northleach Union the rates had increased thus in decennial 

 periods from 1850: — 



1850-1 .... ^5,471 



1860-1 .... 5,534 



1870-1 .... 8,525 



1878-9 ... . . 10,089 



On one small property in Staffordshire the increase of rates, 

 other than poor rates, amounted to 3.$-. (>d. in the £ on the 

 rateable value. 



5. Excessive rates charged by railway companies for the 

 conveyance of produce, and preferential rates given to foreign 

 agricultural produce; the railway companies alleging, in defence 



^ Parliamentary Reports of Commissioners^ 1882, xiv. pp. 9 sq. 



