28 



AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



farmers in the depressed areas is extremely precarious, 

 and deserves the prompt and careful attention of 

 Parliament. 



It would seem, therefore, a plain duty to probe the 

 causes of depression to the utmost, and to initiate in any 

 direction which may prove practicable, such legislative 

 and administrative changes as will quicken the transition 

 to a better state of equilibrium, and promptly check, so 

 far as may be, the operation of the forces which have 

 been pulling down agricultural enterprise. If this can 

 be done so as to save from ruin the largest possible 

 number of those upon whom the full force of the 

 economic loss of the last twenty years has fallen, every 

 effort should be made to attain this result. 



