lOO AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



number were obliged to succumb after their capital was 

 almost exhausted." 



Mr Huskinson says of a Lincolnshire estate : — 

 "Matters continued steadily there up to 1887, and the 

 reason was that the tenants were all men of substance 

 and capital, and they bore the loss for some considerable 

 period without troubling the proprietor." In 1887 there 

 had to be a reduction of 40 per cent, and " since then it 

 has been rather a serious case all through." 



Lord Wantage thinks that the hope of times changing 

 and the help of bankers kept tenants going on at the 

 old rents. 



Mr Boyd Kinnear says, " The depression fell in the 

 first instance upon the tenants. Undoubtedly, until 

 rents were reduced, they lost heavily." 



Mr Bamford : — " Reductions were not made soon 

 enough, and thus the farmers as a class lost their capital 

 in a great measure." 



Mr Turner reports of the Frome District complaints 

 that reductions did not come soon enough to save the 

 original tenants. 



One of the farmers quoted by Dr Fream says : " Good 

 farmers have not been sufficiently well treated and met 

 by the landlord, and so long as any balance was thought 

 to be at the bankers, no reduction was made, and even 

 after, not considering whether or no the farm paid any 

 interest on tenant's money." 



Mr Clare Sewell Read says : " Some of the larger 

 landlords hardly reduced the rents in time. I got into 

 a terrible row some years ago, when I was a Member of 

 Parliament, because I advised the landlords to make 

 those concessions to the old tenants that they were 

 forced to make to the new ones ; but some of them did 

 not take my kindly hint, and on those estates there has 

 been a considerable change of tenancy ; but upon the 

 others, I am happy to say, that timely reductions have 

 kept the tenantry there." 



Mr Johnson (Suffolk) says that in many cases the 

 application of old tenants for a reduction of rent to meet 

 fall of prices has been refused, the landlords thinking 



I 



