332 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



area of 4986 acres. The total profits were ;^i3,9i3 i8s 7(1, 

 the losses ;^io,io6, the net profits being thus ^3806 19s 8d, 

 or a profit of is lofd per acre per annum, or ij\ per cent, 

 on p^8 capital. Two of these accounts are of exceptionally 

 favoured farms. 



In another table he shows that the average rents of eight 

 farms amount to no less than 7^ times the profits of tenants. 



The figures from Lincolnshire are still more striking. 



Mr Wilson Fox, in the appendix to his report on Lincoln- 

 shire, gives ten accounts of tenant farmers for periods ranging 

 from one to eleven years, over an area of 7341 acres. The 

 average rents for the whole are ;^8457, the average profits 

 ;^543 1 8s 4d, and the average losses £38^ 15s 4^d, or a net 

 average profit ^158 2s ii|-d, or about i"86 per cent, of the 

 average annual rent.^ 



I am convinced from these and similar figures, which 

 can be produced from all parts of the evidence and reports, 

 that the contention in paragraphs no and in, that the 

 position of farmers, as regards profits, is only from 40 to 50 

 per cent, below what is assumed for income tax purposes 

 to be their ordinary and average range of profits, is 

 fallacious and seriously misleading. 



These statements, however they may be supported by 

 rearrangement of figures, are inconsistent with the obvious 

 inferences from all the more recent farm accounts, with the 

 careful records of their own inquiries handed to us by our 

 Sub-Commissioners, and with the tenour of the great mass 

 of evidence from landowners and agents as well as from 

 tenant farmers. 



Cost of Production. 



Further, I cannot think that the arrangement of the report 

 is satisfactory as regards the " Cost of Production," para- 

 graphs 157-167. The economic position of the farmer can 

 only be arrived at by an analysis of the whole of the farm 

 out-goings, including necessarily rents and other non-repro- 

 ductive items. The chapter on the cost of production deals 

 imperfectly, and in some respects inaccurately, with the two 



' The items for produce consumed in farmhouses, which are erroneously 

 entered in two accounts on the side of expenditure, are here transferred to 

 receipts. 



