CHAPTER VIII. 



Competition and Rent. 



This leads naturally to the consideration of the 

 evidence as to the bearing of competition upon rent. 

 There can be no doubt from the facts before us that, 

 except in a few of the very worst districts, there is 

 competition — in most districts considerable competition 

 — for farms, and that even in the very worst districts 

 there is competition for good farms.^ It would, in our 

 opinion, be misleading to take the degree of competition 

 as a measure of depression, and to assume that keen 

 competition necessarily shows that farmers have over- 

 come the difficulty of making ends meet. The evidence 

 from Scotland shows that while on the one hand prices 

 are much lower than they were five or six years ago, 

 and profits have practically disappeared, competition 

 has greatly increased.^ The same state of affairs is 

 reported by Mr Wilson Fox from Lancashire, where 

 plenty of men compete for farms and bid the old rents, 

 even when the outgoing tenant has failed to make 

 farming pay. 



" Notwithstanding that farms will fetch as much in 

 the market, and in many cases more, than is being 

 paid, it is almost the universal opinion among the 

 farmers that, if prices continue as they are, and rents 

 are not further reduced, farmers cannot keep their 

 heads above water." ^ 



Though part of the competition may be due to a con- 



' Strutt, 13,841 ; Matthews, 61,460; Pringle, Beds, Hunts,Northants, p.23; 

 Riley, 36,509. 



^Riddell, 54,668; Guild, 53,565 ; Mitchell, 54,283 ; Speir, Ayrshire, 

 etc., p. 5; Ferguson, 23,108, etc.; Hutchinson, 23,505-11, 24,397; 

 M'Connell, 55,334- 



' Garstang, p. 17. 



