GENERAL CONCLUSION I5I 



where the landlord pays a drainage rate of 8s. Farms 

 up to 100 acres are generally from 10 to 30 per cent, 

 higher. 



In Beds, Hunts, and Northants, Mr Pringle quotes 

 existing rents as follows : Fine feeding land, 30s to 55s ; 

 inferior pasture, $s to 20s ; best fen land, 25s to 35s; 

 best barley and turnip land, 20s to 30s ; first-class clay 

 loams, 22s to 27s ; best class stiff clay, still well-farmed, 

 I OS to 20s : second-class lands of all kinds from 9s or lOs 

 to 1 6s and 20s, and only the very worst clays at 2s 6d 

 to IDS. Similar figures could be quoted for other 

 districts. But these suffice to show that, even with a 

 very liberal allowance for additional remissions in ex- 

 ceptional seasons like 1893 and 1894, it is wholly impos- 

 sible that the majority of farmers are at present on any- 

 thing like equal terms with landowners as regards a fair 

 distribution of the economic loss. Having regard to the 

 evidence as to payment of rents out of capital, and to 

 the extraordinary figures disclosed in the farming 

 accounts, it is substantially established that on many 

 estates, even where considerable reductions have been 

 made, the owners are still receiving an income which 

 their land is not producing, while the tenants are really 

 subscribing out of their capital to keep the estate and 

 its owner going. 



A general review of this class of evidence should con- 

 vince any impartial mind that, next to low prices, 

 excessive rents have been the chief and most effective 

 cause of agricultural decay, and are still the most effective 

 check on agricultural recovery. Although the true 

 economic meaning of rent is fully recognised . by the 

 ablest and most far-seeing landowners, and put in 

 practice to some extent on their estates, in general the 

 competition value has been taken, or, still worse, values 

 which have long since become economically impossible 

 have gone on being exacted, partly as a matter of habit, 

 partly because tenants were not in a position to give 

 notice, and either get a fair reduction or escape. The 

 degree to which the mischief has proceeded has largely 

 been in proportion to the nature of the soil. Where the 



