94 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



Mr Cooke thinks " many men are now paying rents 

 which the products of the farm will not justify." 



Mr Latham says " tenants have been paying their rents 

 out of capital for such a length of time, that they are 

 much reduced in their method of farming, and in their 

 capacity of farming." The deterioration of the produc- 

 tion of the soil is very general. 



Mr Looker, an agent, admits that " Jenants are not 

 satisfied that the land is worth any rent atalT?' " They 

 continue to fulfil their obligations ; occasionally one 

 drops out, and somebody else comes in at a less rent." 



Mr Lander : " Farmers are very short of capital through 

 paying rent out of it." 



Professor Long thinks that excessive rents paid out of 

 capital, and therefore reducing the capital of the 

 farmers, have contributed to the depression. 



Mr James Hope, Mr C, S. Read, Mr Reynolds, Mr 

 Wyatt, and many other witnesses are generally of 

 opinion that rents have largely been paid out of capital, 

 and that this has caused numerous changes of tenancy, 

 and deterioration of farming. Mr Rankin, as a landlord, 

 generally assented to that view. 



Mr Herman Biddell, speaking of the distressed 

 districts of Suffolk, says that " if they had had a re- 

 duction of rent, the same as they have got now, when 

 wheat was selling at 38s and barley at 34s, they would 

 have been able to go on, and admits that even present 

 reductions have not been sufficient to prevent tenants 

 from paying rent out of capital." 



Mr Pringle says of the South Midland districts, " I 

 believe, of those who still remain as the remnant of the 

 old stock of farmers, a very large proportion have done 

 so, because they had some private means to fall back 

 upon. As was said in the great depression in 1836, so 

 now the evidence given to me in Bedford, Huntingdon, 

 and Northampton (and I think it is thoroughly supported 

 by the balance sheets from farmers), all points to a re- 

 petition of that feature of depression from 1879 to 

 1894, that rent has been paid not out of profits but out 

 of capital, and that farmers are getting worse from year 



