152 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



soil could be worked cheaply, matters have gone less 

 badly and held together better. But wherever the soil 

 has presented serious difficulties, the course of events has 

 presented the same features. There have been sweeping 

 changes of tenancies. The few instances where the old 

 tenants have remained are where they have been men of 

 means of their own, and not dependent merely on their 

 farming capital. But, in general, the old tenants on the 

 bad soils have been drained of their capital, and have 

 disappeared. In some cases the landlords have relet at 

 once, at heavy reductions, long withheld from the old 

 tenants ; in other cases, they have had to painfully 

 ascertain by their own experience in farming the land 

 themselves, the amount of the losses they had been im- 

 posing on their old tenants for years past, and have at 

 last let the farms to new tenants at heavy reductions, 

 generally even then insufficient to give any real security 

 to the new comers. 



It cannot be seriously doubted that, under the existing 

 system, many thousands of conscientious, intelligent 

 farmers have been used up and swept away, because the 

 full force of the economic pressure has been thrown upon 

 their resources, which were admittedly only sufficient 

 for the actual working of the soil. It is equally clear, 

 from our inquiry, that at the present moment, in every 

 district of the country there are still many men who 

 have done well by the land, who are being gradually 

 deprived of their capital and brought to ruin. Mr 

 Pringle gives a description of this class of men which 

 we believe will hold good of many counties in Great 

 Britain, 



" There are any number of farms still well managed, 

 and producing as much as can be secured by liberal 

 farming, where for years there has been a steady loss on 

 each year's transactions. This has been possible simply 

 because private capital and the savings of the good times 

 are being burned up in this unquenched fire. ' A rela- 

 tion of mine,' says one of these men, ' has lost ;!^20,ooo 

 on 1000 acres during the last fourteen years. The only 



