But how, it may naturally be asked, has it come about that the English farmer, after the very favourable period {204} before the depression, should thus suffer from a lack of capital, a lack which renders it almost impossible for him to work his land properly? The answer is simple. His capital has been greatly decreased, surely though not always slowly, by a tremendous increase in his rent. The landlords of the eighteenth century made the English farmer the foremost agriculturist in the world, but their successors of the nineteenth have raised his rent disproportionately. Such, at any rate, is the verdict of eminent agricultural authorities; and the land-owners have been compelled, for their own sake, to reduce the exorbitant rents they received a few years ago. Unfortunately, too, the attention of other classes of the community has been till lately diverted from the condition of our agriculture by the prosperity of our manufactures. But these two branches of industry, the manufacturing and the agricultural, are closely interdependent, and must suffer or prosper together. It is possible, as I have pointed out elsewhere, that there are certain economic theories which have helped the decline of English agriculture. They are the Ricardian theory of rent, and the dubious “law of diminishing returns.” They have made many people think that this decline was inevitable, and have diverted their attention from the prime, though not the only, cause of the trouble--namely, the increase of rent. But putting these doubtful theories aside, we may employ ourselves more profitably in looking at the facts of the case. I have mentioned before that in Tull’s time, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the average rent of agricultural land was 7_s._ per acre, and by Young’s time towards the close of the century it had risen to 10_s._ per acre. Diffused agricultural skill caused an increase of profits, and the hope of sharing in these profits led farmers to give competitive {205} rents, which afterwards the landlords took care to exact in full and frequently to increase. The farmers were enabled to pay higher rents by the low rate of wages paid to their labourers, a rate which the landed gentry, as justices, kept down by their assessments. In 1799 we find land paying nearly 20_s._ an acre; in 1812 the same land pays over 25_s._; in 1830 again it was still at about 25_s._, but by 1850 it had risen to 38_s._ 8_d._, which was about four times Arthur Young’s average. Indeed £2 per acre was not an uncommon rent for good land a few years ago (1885),[57] the average increase of English rent being no less than 26⁠½ per cent. between 1854 and 1879. Now such rent as this was enormous, and could only be paid in very good years. In ordinary years, and still more in bad years, it was paid out of the farmer’s capital. This process of payment was facilitated by the fact that the farmer of this century did not keep