The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-09-28
Land Owners Are without Profit from
Their Holdings, and i'm Many Cases
suffer Actual Losses.
FARMS PUT BACK INTO GRASS
THE RAILROADS AND TAXGATHER-
ERs COMPLETING THE RUIN.
The Former Do Not Try to Encourage
Local Trade and Offer No Facilities
for Shipment of Produce.

Correspondence of the Indianapolis Journal.
LONDON, Sept 20.-English agriculture
is fast approaching state resembling ruin.
The land owners are not only without profit
from their holdings. but in many cases are
out of pocket each year through. the fact
that they own farming land The farmers,
both tenants and freeholders, are making
hard living, but this is the best that can be
said. The agricultural laborers find easy
employment and comparatively easy work.
The limit of wages is so low, however. that
good labor all goes to the city. The re-
suit is a labor famine on the farms and
still further loss to the land owner and the
farmer.
The great cause for this ruin of British
agriculture is competition with new coun-
tries. There are local causes, however.
which render this competition more acute.
First and foremost of these is the attitude
of British railroads toward local freight.
1t costs less to ship cattle from Chicago
to Liverpool than from 100 miles inland to
Liverpool. 1t costs more to ship goods
from England TO Ireland than from Eng
land to Japan. Denmark can land her agri-
cultural products in London for less freight
than the same goods can be sent to London
from thirty miles back in the country.
The railroads make no effort to encourage
local trade. They offer no facilities for
shipping market produce. Their system
of collecting freight is absurdity in view
of what can be done. The railroad mana
gers appear to regard with indifference the
possibilities offered by free and fair ex-
change of commodities between the rural
districts and the great city of London.
xtvba
upon foreign supplies for what they eat.
England is good farming country. The
climate is not so favorable as might be,
but lean years the exception. An
average of forty bushels of wheat to the
acre compares favorably with the eighteen
bushels of the United States or even the
twenty-five bushels of the Northwest. Eng
lishmen are good farmers. If they were
not the land would have all been aban-
doned to the rabbit and the pheasant long
ago. Even with their acknowledged skill,
however, the English farmers have been
driven back by the superior forces at work
against them.
Since 1872 the area of land under cult
walton has progressively declined. In thir-
ty years over 100000 acres has gone back
from the pillow to permanent pasture. The
acreage of all crops, excepting potatoes and
rye. has decreased enormously. Seven
eighths Of the land is occupied by tenants,
and only one-eighth is farmed by owners.
None of the landowners are making in
terest upon their investment equal to that
returned from government bonds; few of
them are making any interest at ALL and
many of them are paying for the privilege
of owning land.
RENTS AND LABOR.
The rent paid for land is high, running
from "a to sl2 per acre. This rental is
eaten UP for the owner by taxes and the
cost of improvements. The taxes are
enormous and the cost of improvements
may be realized when it is known that to
get fifty-acre farm ready for tenant
at least $500 must be spent for buildings.
On the part of the tenant the rent is far
beyond the net earning power of the land
The landlord must get the amount or let
his land lie idle. The tenant must farm to
live and trust to good luckeand a lenient
landlord to pull through the year.
Agricultural labor is scarce because the
farmers cannot pay wages sufficient to
counteract the attractions of city life with
its opportunity for greater earnings and a
chance to spend them in livelier manner.
The city laborer gets an average of from
81 to 50 per week. The farm laborer gets
an average of from 50 to IS per week Each
of these pays for his own living out of the
money received. The farm laborer has a.
better home and lives cheaper.
There is no real poverty in rural England.
In fact, 1t would seem miracle to an
American farm laborer did he know what
the English farm laborer accomplishes with
his apparently infinitesimal wage. Out of
1t he pays for rent, food and clothes for
himself and family. But he can get more
money In the city and take part in the ex-
elements of life in a great metropolis. The
evils do not impress him, for, after all, it
needs intelligence to live happily in the
country, and the English farm laborer as
a rule is not intelligent. He could not very
well be so, born and brought up in the
deadly mental atmosphere of his class in
England.
There seems to be very few statistics as
to what 1t actually costs to raise farm prod
uce in England. In a general way this or
that farmer says he is losing money il he
does not get certain stipulated prices for
his products. These prices would sound
high to American farmers, as, for instance
IL there was a guarantee of 50 cents a BUSH
Ell for wheat or barley, the grain-growing
sections Of the United States would over
flow with money. and yet the English far
mer says he is losing money IL he sells for
less. and he undoubtedly is. Unrestricted
competition with new countries renders his
case apparently hopeless.
Protection for agriculture by heavy i'm
port duties Is held by some to be the rem
edy. but this cannot be secured. The farm
ers are few and the consumers are many
There not enough farmers to form a
great agrarian party. Hence. the govern
ment Is needless of their political needs
1t would. also. be questionable method
OF taxing the many for the few, though the
general conditions throughout rural Eng
land would respond favorably to such a
policy.
OTHER CAUSES OF TROUBLE.
There are causes at work 10 ruin Eng
lands agriculture other than free trade
and foreign competition, for Denmark. a
small and equally exposed country. has
built up a magnificent agricultural indus
try in spite of a free~trade policy. Dem
mark has far-reaching system of agricul-
tural education. government which de-