Year: 1879

was introduced the other day py an Engish friend
I,aysandu tongues They are sold by every English
grocer even in the small towns, and are something
delicious being tenderer and better cooked than
the .rst,mss real native psassns t hard to ses
the objection which some people nave here to
American meat. except that Is an innorn prejudice
sbly shared in until our servants begged US to buy
American beef as being both cheaper and better.
And vet they say that servants and workpeople will
not eat it! Still this was in Birmingham where the
lower classes are developed. There sold at retail
American beef sirlon is eighteen cents 3d. pound
while English is twenty eight Us. 2d); shin for
soup meat is six cents 3d. pound for American
and twelve cents t6d) for English. Owing to the
being initiated now-the Wiltshire farmers giving
up cheese making or small private cheese factories
cannot compete with the cooperative system that
exists in Amerca and selling their milk. They
have yet got intelligence enough to make butter
most of which comes from Normandy and Holland
Milk selling pays near London, and would pay
still better but for the middle men,


THE GRAIN TRADE.


When we remember that England buys abroad one
half of the grain needed for consumption and be-
tween one-fourth and one-third of its other
Mr.. Bright that che wished that cursed America had
never been discovered" The farmers indeed, are
furious that foreign competition has lowered tho
prices of all produce The politicians sympathize,
pretend to sympathize, with them; probably they
really DO they chiefly land owners themselves
Other people who are merely consumers. and inter-
es ted in getting food cheap laugh They say now
that the Americans can sell cheaply because they
make farming business and try to make it pay;





tant they cultivate the land because it is respect
able to have to do with land. Has England come to
fu,ness; complaints that there small weekly
markets. where produce is sold by the producer d.
reey to the s aDIse Is rhn oa men who
great trouble with the farmer is the Land system.


THE RENT TROUBLE


There was always part of political economy
which we when students in America. found very
difficult to understandable theory OF rent; it seemed
go FAR fetched And it is Just this theory of rent
WI, IL haac pOlitcal to be considered
by many people merely theoretical and of prac
tica But 1t does not need many days in England
to see what rent means and why theories should be
made concerning it. One may say. by the way that
it is the fault of political economists in America to
teach the study too much after English text books
without regard to the peculiar circumstances Of
America. In America. where nearly every person
the land which he farms it was difficult for US
to understand why should 60 FAR to de-
wise theory Of rent and why should call it rent
In England the ordinary person refuses to imagine
any man farming land which does not pay rent.
The British farmers unable to follow that sys-
ten of culture which seems to them individually the
most advantageous. but must conform to the regu-
iat;ons tssned by the landlord or his agent Owing
to the rigid and complicated law OF fixtures passed
by the landlords for their own benefit all the i'm
proyements Of any kind put on the farm belong
the landlord, and the tenant is allowed compen-
sation for them whatever. An attempt was made two
years ago, under the Agricultural Holdings act
able tenant to obtain some compensation for i'm
provements at the expiration of his lease. but so
many clauses and provisos were inserted in the act
that it rendered partially useless and has
satisfied no one. Moro than this, nearly
all the rates and taxes imposed land fall
upon the tenant and not upon the landlord. and the
proposition to fix greater share upon the landlord
meets with intense opposition from the conserva-
tive party to which most of the land belongs. Tho
poor rates especially oppressive, and the poor
rates If not their origin at least their present
great to the fact that land lin England is In
few hands and laborer has nothing to support him
as soon as ever through disease old age he is in
capable Of manual labor The assessment of all the
land in Great Britain for the purpose Of taxation is
of William and Mary. and only $5,O00.O0O taxes are
paid whereas by real assessment at present value
800 900, 900 (f20 600. .000) could be obtained.


OTHER EAIBARRAssMENTs


Not the least Of the burdens upon the farmer is
strict preservation OF game Not only pheasants
the greatest pest of tho agriculturisare protected
and the farmer has no remedy. few days ago
farm Now when owing to succession Of bad har-
the product Of grain has been greatly reduced
and when owing to American competition the price
is low the farmers say that it impossible for them
to continue farming at the present high rate OF rents
Although nomnally the rents do not high. 1t is
the other burdens placed upon the farmer which mako
them so. In Wiltshire and Hampshire the ordinary
Of land fifteen shillngs $3 75) per here
in Worcestershire, it is about thirty shngs ($7 SOY
per acre. while small patches of land let for garden
ing fetch much f6 ($30) per acre. Heretofore
there almost more farmers wishing to take farms
than there farms to be let. o consequence
in part of the process which has been going IN for
some time III England of throwing several small
agent is lessened and less expense falls the land
lord in keeping up farm buildings, &c. Now. how
an o to
themselves, which is not profitable for them,
let them lie unworked Not long ago. having some
business in Acester. found the coffee room of the
hotel taken up by meeting between the owner of
very large estate In the neighborhood and his ten
ants. Each tenant had come provided with notice
to quit in his pocket which he intended servo
the landlord in the rents were not materially
reduced and the strict preservation OF game given
up Out of seventy farms tnat landlord had already


fifteen his hands. In another very large estate in
tho immediate neighborhood the tenants had de-
cent and the landlord after listening the whole OF
the circumstances. reduced the rents by thirty per
cent and entirely gave up the preservation OF game
1t is hardly possible to take up newspaper without
seeing that in consequence of interview between
Lord So-and-So and his tenants . remission of ten.
fifteen or twenty per cent as the case may be- has
been made on the rents for the present year.


THE REMEDIES PROPOSED.


ia proposed by the leading members of the liberal
party consists in material changes OF the land laws
and. as the phrase goes, in making the land free
To this view Lord huntington, the actual leader of
the liberal party and the eldest Of the Duke Of
Devonshre one of the largest landowners in Eng
land. has given his adhesion in speech in the House
Of Commons last wcek-a most noteworthy fact.
While making the land free 1t Is not proposed either
to compel the great landowners to sell their
estates and certainly not to divide the land
among the population. 1t is only pro-
po.ed to place land the footing with
the freedom Of the land. ana which did not only
maintain great estates but tend to increase their sze
are. first the law OF descent commonly called primo



land OF landed proprietor goes in parcel to his
eldest nearest heir; second. the laws which,
by means of marriage settlements trust deeds and
power in wills and leases for ninety mine years and
over. permit land to DO tied up sometimes for 100
years q time. 50 that IL cannot be sold-whether
the pleasure Of the owners or by process of law
to pay OFF debts and encumbrauccs; third the law
of distress. by which the landlord has the rst claim
upon the land for his debt while the claims of others
must be entirely postponed. Add to these the game
laws; though any suggestion that these not most
beneficent is regarded great heresy In England
n
day, ut least than not wearing tall hat and tho
orthodox black coat whom you do 20 to church. 1t
would be necessary also to pass law of obligatory
of ttle such exists in most Con tinen
tai countries and In America, and by which IL would
DO easy to sell land without mourning very great
legal expenses.


TERRIBLE LEGAL EXPENSES.


Registration does exist in certain parts of England,
but II is pcrmittory and not obligatory. case
Cured not long ago In which three acres OF glebe
land sold TO poor man. whowas obliged 10 pay
$5G5 merely for the legal examination OF the title for
deed. With those changes in the law great estates
would DO brought Into the market from time to
time. when. OF late is frequently the case, the