TENANTS NOT SATISFIED WITH RENTS 1 49 



creditors let them go on in the hope of better times 

 coming, and the landlords are afraid to stop them." ^ 



In Suffolk, " more would quit if they dared, but are 

 dipped too deep to move." 



" Most farmers who have not had private means, or 

 who have not had friends to help them, have gone. 1 

 am convinced that most of the labourers' wages have 

 been paid out of capital." ^ 



" The majority of the farmers have been drawing on 

 capital for the last ten years. An average farmer cannot 

 live on his farm at present prices and pay rent." 



" I have farmed at a loss for the last thirteen years. 

 It is not a question of rent at all. We could not make 

 it pay anyhow." 



" No land in the county of Suffolk to-day is worth 

 any rental save the very best, situated near a town or 

 railway." 



Having regard to the large amount of similar evidence 

 from the districts most affected by depression, it 

 cannot be seriously maintained that tenant farmers in 

 such districts are satisfied with their present rents. 



The expressions of acquiescence which have been 

 quoted are, it is obvious, mainly due to the desire of most 

 of the farmers for a rise in prices which would enable the 

 old conditions to be renewed, under which the margin 

 was large enough to prevent any serious friction between 

 the interests of owner and occupier, unless, indeed, the 

 owner appropriated an unfair share of the returns in 

 good times by greatly enhanced rents. 



Further, an opinion crops up here and there in the 

 reports, that the loss from low prices is so great that rent 

 does not really matter. If farms were held rent free, 

 many farmers say they would not be making anything. 

 But this~is obviously an argument advanced not against 

 the reduction of rents, but for an artificial raising of 

 prices. It is impossible to suppose that any tenant 

 seriously wishes to go on paying rent out of capital till 

 he becomes bankrupt, and the arguments occasionally 



' Norfolk, p. 35. 



* H. Biddell, quoted by Wilson Fox, Suffolk, p. 57. 



