190 REPORT— 1870. 



On the Decline of Small Farmers in Yorlshire and Lancashire, the Cause and 

 Effect. By J. Walter Ellis. 

 The decline in numbers may be traced to three causes, want of capital, high 

 rents, and dear labour. Farming, to be now successful, is a question of capital 

 and intelligence. Many farms in Yorkshire and Lancashire are now made into one, 

 three and four or five small farms being let as one fai-m, the buildings puUed down, 

 the fields made larger by removing many fences, so that machinery may be avail- 

 able ; then a man with intelligence and capital takes it, and it is better farmed, pro- 

 duces more, and adds greater profit to the national weal by the use of machinery. 

 As land passes into commercial hands, the rents are in many cases nearly doubled, 

 as a commercial man expects higher interest for his money : often one of his 

 clerks or his cashier is appointed agent or steward over the estate, who has little 

 sympathy with the farmers ; and invariably the smallest farmer feels the eflects 

 fir.st, and the consequence is he removes to the large towns, where he is well 

 paid for his labour (.3s. 6c?. to 4.s. per day). Many labouring men liave made 

 this summer, in towns and works near town, at Gd. per hour, as much as £2 lOs. 

 per week. The author knows three, who were once small farmers, who have had 

 £2 per week in the neighbourhood of Bradford this summer, and whose families of 

 grown-up daughters make from 18s. to 25s. per week as weavers in the factories. 

 The small farmer is better off as a labourer in the town than the middle-size farmer 

 is in the country. The large towns are ready to absorb all the surplus labour 

 froni the country, by the centralizing of works, the use of steam-power, and the 

 continual increasing producing power of the English manufacturer : and the cry is 

 for more labourers from the country, as the town labom-ers are being fast used up ; 

 by imbibing the vices of the town they soon become as weak as the old residents 

 of the town. 



Our Navy. By Frank P. Fellowes, F.8.A., F.S.S. 



This paper pointed out that the supremacy of England on the sea was the means 

 of ensuring the freedom of all seas to all nations. Our holding Malta, Gibraltar, 

 and our numerous other foreign dockyards and stations, our fleets scattered through- 

 out the world, ensured the freedom of the Mediterranean, Black, and other inland 

 seas, and prevented their becoming the appanage of any great power; freed the 

 Indian archipelago, the Chinese, Japanese, and other seas from pirates; and, in 

 fact, caused aU seas to be open to the ships of evorj^ nation without passport or 

 toll legally or illegally levied. Our present maritime position was therefore as 

 great a benefit to other nations as to England itself. Mr. Fellowes stated that a 

 national dockyard, in his opinion, should be, as it were, a little kingdom in itself, 

 in which (shouJd it be cut oft' from the outer world) it could furnish men, materials, 

 and appliances to build, equip, repair, man, and provision ships. 



The question as to where dockyards should be placed, and how many we should 

 have, was a political and national, rather than an economical question. These 

 points should he decided, therefore, on political and national gi-ounds, and not from 

 an economical point of view. The question of economy comes afterwards ; that is, 

 when we have already decided that it is wise and necessary to have a doclsyard in 

 a certain position, and it is established, the question of economy properly com- 

 mences in the management and conduct of the operations of such dockj'ard. 



In speaking of our numerous foreign naval estabUshments, the author showed 

 that our keeping up Malta, Gibraltar, and other foreign stations was in reality 

 economical, as otherwise we should have to maintain a much larger fleet to be as 

 powerful on the sea. 



This paper entered minutely into the question as to the proportionate distribu- 

 tion of money to the various naval services that would ensure the greatest efl'eetive 

 force. We give an illustration. The annual expenditure in building new ships is 

 about £1,500,000 ; the annual total expenditure for all na^al services is about 

 £10,000,000. K by doubling our expenditure of £1,500,000 for new ships we 

 could produce new first-rate irou-clad or other vessels, one of which in efl'eetive 

 power woidd be equal to two of the existing ships of similar tonnage and horse- 

 power, we practically double our naval efiective force ; that is, we are as eflicient 



