TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 771 



connection between cause and effect, and not a maxim of conduct ; for the laws of 

 economics, like the laws of every science, are, as it has been aptly expressed, 

 statements in the indicative and not the imperative mood. But the possession 

 of the scientific knowledge of the causal connection is more likely than its absence 

 to conduce to prudent practice. In the instance before us the conclusion seems 

 inevitable that, so far as the depression is due to foreign competition, and the 

 vii-ginity of competing soils, and facility of transportation, continued .attention to 

 products, which must be conveyed to their market quickly, is likely to be more 

 profitable in an old country like England than the continued production of commo- 

 dities, which can be raised to greater advantage on newer soils, and be easily 

 transported from considerable distances. I am aware that this is a hard saying, 

 that necessary conditions of cultivation, sometimes neglected, must be taken into 

 account, and that such a change as is often contemplated in such discussions may 

 mean a painful and difficult departure from traditional habit, and an apparent 

 sacrifice of inherited or acquired skill. It is easy to talk glibly of the English 

 farmer abandoning the cultivation of cereals, at any rate as a staple product, and 

 turning his attention to vegetable and dairy produce, to fruit-raising and poultry- 

 rearing and bee-keeping, and the various other modes of making a fortune which 

 are put forward for his edification. But the lesson of economic theory is plfiin so 

 far as the depression is due to foreign competition and the maintenance of a Free 

 Trade policy is assumed, 



I do not discuss the latter question, because it is far too large to be adequately 

 treated in a paragraph or two, and is excluded from practical politics by the leaders 

 of political parties ; but it is certainly a que.stion on which economics may reveal the 

 unseen. Among those invisible facts may perhaps be placed a circumstance often 

 neglected in popular discussion. In many arguments on agricultural depression 

 the landed interest is treated as strictly separable from the rest of the community, 

 and a fall in rent is regarded as the loss to a particular class of an advantage 

 enjoyed apart from exertion. 



If I may say so in passing, some of the abundant popular use made in recent 

 years of the conception of rent as an unearned increment seems to me to afford 

 an example of the misapplication of theory to practice. For in not a few instances 

 what has happened is this : A theory resting on nice distinctions has been crudely 

 applied to practice, and the distinctions employed to prescribe a definite policy 

 without regard to their nicety. In other words, the theory has been used as a 

 precise maxim, which could be straightway embodied in practice, and not as a 

 scientific conception, the knowledge of which might protect the practical man from 

 hidden pitfalls. 



In England, at least so far as agricultural land is concerned, the landlord is 

 usually a partner with the tenant, and, whether or not the system be better than 

 that of occupying-ownership, it is certain that part of the rent is a return for ex- 

 penditure, and not a payment for natural qualities of soil or situation ; and to this 

 extent a fall in rent is likely to operate as a discouragement or preventive of the 

 fresh and continuous expenditure needed to maintain the land and the buildings in 

 a state of efficiency. I cannot doubt, in view of evidence given before the Commis- 

 sion on Agriculture, and of other signs, that the depression must have already 

 produced deterioration in this I'espect, and thus have injuriously aflected the 

 economic position of the general community. 



Nor is the landed interest strictly and entirely distinct. In an old country 

 different classes are connected with one another by ties hard to disentangle, and 

 impossible to sever without injury or danger. The educational endowments of the 

 country, as a melancholy personal experience has taught me,' cannot regard agri- 

 cultural depression with the complacency of disinterested observers. The effect on 

 certain public institutions, like some of the London hospitals, is notorious ; and it 

 can scarcely be doubted that, though the prudent management by which they are 

 characterised may have led many of the great insurance companies to write down 



' Cf. papers read by the present author to the Royal Statistical Society in Feb- 

 ruary, 1892, and January, 1895. 



3d2 



