508 
Recommendations of the 
permits — that is to place on record, as a matter of history, the 
conclusions arrived at bv the Royal Commission ; and especially 
to commend to the attention of all interested in agriculture the 
mass of evidence collected and garnered — indeed, a storehouse 
of invaluable facts and opinion : the full-length Portrait from 
the Life of the distressed Giant of British Agriculture, together 
with his home and foreign relations. It would be invidious and 
unnecessary to mention names : it suffices to refer to the official 
list of witnesses. From a professional point of view, the 
vividly-written itineraries, at home and beyond the seas, of the- 
Assistant-Commissioners — or some of them at least — are simply 
fascinating. Without any doubt or question the historian of 
the future will regard the results of the labours of the Royal 
Commission as the closure of the gates of an epoch in agri- 
cultural history, from whence the historical imagination will 
conjure in fresh and energetic departure the never-ending pre- 
cession of agricultural phantasmagoria. 
(Signed) CatHCART, 
Chairman of the ' Journal ' Committee. 
In obedience to Your Majesty's command, we* now desire to 
report the conclusions at which we have arrived upon the effect 
of the evidence which has been submitted to us as to — 
1. The depressed condition of the agricultural interest^ and 
the causes to which it is owing ; 
2. Whether those causes are of a permanent character, and 
how far they have been created or can be remedied by 
legislation. 
Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the causes of 
agricultural depression, or as to remedies which may be sug- 
gested for it, it will be observed that there prevails complete 
uniformity of conviction as to the great extent and intensity of 
the distress which has fallen upon the agricultural community. 
Owners and occupiers have alike suffered from it. No descrip- 
tion of estate or tenure has been exempted. The owner in fee 
and the life-tenant, the occupier, whether of large or of small 
holding, whether under lease, or custom, or agreement, or the 
provisions of the Agricultural Holdings Act — all without dis- 
* The following are the signatures attached to the Report : — Eichmond and 
Gordon, Buccleuch, Vernon, James Stansfeld, W. H. Stephenson, R. Nigel, 
F. Kingscote, Henry Chaplin, John Clay, Jos. Coweii, Mitchell Henry, Charlea 
Howard, J. L. Naper, Robert Paterson, Bonamy Price, C. T. Ritchie, B. B. 
Hnnter Rodwcll, William Stratton, Jacob Wilson. (Two Commissioners had 
resigned before the Report camo under discussion.) 
