Dec. 1895.J 



PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 



351 



Yery few people in Cambridgeshire pay any special attention 

 to the rearing of poultry, though one very successful instance is 

 quoted. In some districts, fruit growing and market gardening 

 are reported to have considerably increased of recent years, 

 though the railway rates are said t ) be a great disadvantage in 

 these days of severe foreign competition. 



Royal Commission on Agriculture ; Report on the County . of 

 Norfolk, hy Mr. R. Henry Rew, Assistant Commissioner. 

 [C— 7915.] Price Is. 2d. 



From this report it appears that agricultural depression com- 

 menced in Norfolk some time prior to the Duke of Richmond's 

 Commission, and that in 1881 the position was trying and 

 troublesome. Since that time matters are said to have been 

 steadily getting worse, the seasons of 1893 and 1894 having 

 brought about a climax. 



The burden of the complaints of agriculturists in the county 

 is " low prices." The reduction in the value of produce has, it is 

 maintained, far outrun any attempts which could be made to 

 re-adjust the cost of production. 



The position of the owners of land in Norfolk is reported to 

 be very serious, and the evidence of the effects of the depression 

 on this class is, to a large extent, patent. Many of the owners 

 of well-known estates — men whose names are famous in the 

 history of the county — have had their incomes so much curtailed 

 that they have had to let " the hall " and live on a more modest 

 scale elsewhere. Others have been compelled to let their shoot- 

 ings and to practice severe retrenchment in every direction to 

 enable them still to occupy their old homes. 



Evidence as to the reductions of rent, collected by the Norfolk 

 Chamber of Agriculture, indicated that rents on the best lands 

 had been reduced by 25 to 35 per cent., and on the medium 

 lands from 40 to 60 per cent. Mr. Rew is disposed to put the 

 range of reduction at from 20 to 60 per cent., the average 

 which would represent the largest quantity of land in Norfolk 

 being probably about 35 to 40 per cent. This estimate does 

 not, of course, take account of farms for which no tenant at 

 any rent can be found, nor does it include exceptional cases 

 such as those, on the one hand, where special circumstances 

 have kept up the rent of particular farms, or, on the other hand, 

 where farms have been let at merely nominal rents. 



Speaking of the position of the tenant farmers the Assistant 

 Commissioner says : — 



Twerity or thirty years ago no class connected with the land 'held 

 their heads higher,' to use a colloquialism, than the farmers of Norfolk. 

 As men of considerable capital, conducting a profitable business on a 

 large scale, and with a Avell-deserved reputation for enterprise and 

 ability, they had a fair right to do so. Many of them owned the whole 

 or a part of the land they farmed, and they lived in a style to which 

 they might not unreasonably claim that their income and property 

 entitled them. But all this has now very largely changed. The typical 



