MR PENNANT S IMPORTANT EVIDENCE 343 



initial comment on this chapter, viz., that it does not touch 

 the real issues raised, and does not attempt either to chal- 

 lenge the existence of, or to suggest any practical solution 

 for the serious difficulties, economic and legal, in the rela- 

 tions of landlord and tenant which the agricultural depres- 

 sion has brought more vividly to light, and to meet which 

 suggestions as to reforms in tenure have been made. 



Rents. 



The whole reasoning of the chapter on rents is vitiated 

 by the assumption that there is perfect freedom of contract 

 in bargaining. It ignores the mass of evidence, in my 

 opinion conclusive, as to the inability of the improving 

 farmer to reduce his rent by bargaining, to the point which 

 leaves him the results of his improvements and high cultiva- 

 tion, and it ignores also the conclusive evidence as to the 

 force of competition, in keeping up the rents of such farms 

 to a level which transfers the whole, or major part of the 

 profits, to the landlord. 



While it is perfectly true that the further shrinkage in 

 agricultural prices and in land values could not accurately 

 be predicted in the earlier years of the depression, it is 

 plain from facts brought before the Richmond Commission 

 in 1881-82, before the Commission on the Depression of 

 Trade and Agriculture in 1885, and the present Commis- 

 sion, that the attention of landlords and agents has been 

 vigorously and unceasingly called to the necessity of 

 permanent and adequate reductions of rent, and that these 

 reductions have in most cases been postponed till the last 

 moment, and in a great number of cases have only been 

 made after the ruin and removal of the old tenants. 



I submit that the chapter in the Majority Report on rents 

 fails to present the facts laid before us as to the extent to 

 which high rents, and rents which absorb and confiscate 

 tenants' improvements, have led to crushing reverses, to 

 wholesale ruin, to the sweeping away of large numbers of 

 old tenai>ts, and to continual and widespread deterioration 

 of the condition and the productive power of the land. 



I think that the evidence cannot but produce on any 

 impartial mind a profound conviction that, next to the fall 

 in prices, the greatest and most destructive cause of 



