e foreigner in our butter and cheese
markets was attributed mainly to the fact that the dairy industry is
better organized abroad than in Great Britain.

The Commission found that another cause of the depression was the
increased cost of production, not so much from the increase of wages,
as from the smaller amount of work done for a given sum. Where wages
in the previous twenty years had remained stationary, the cost of work
had increased because the labourer did not work so hard or so well as
his forefathers.

The following table[696] is a striking proof of the increased ratio of
the cost of labour to gross profits:

Ratio of
Average cost of
Acreage Period Average annual Average labour
of of gross cost of cost per to gross
County. farm. acct. profit. labour. acre. profits.

L s. d. L s. d. s. d. Per cent.

Suffolk 590 1839-43 1,577 13 3 773 11 0 26 2 49.03
1863-67 1,545 0 9 836 9 0 28 4 54.07
1871-75 1,725 0 1 1,026 14 8 35 2 59.48
1890-94 728 10 5 973 1 5 33 0 133.50

On a farm in Wilts., between 1858 and 1893, the ratio of the cost of
labour to gross profits had increased from 47.0 per cent. to 88.3 per
cent.; on one in Hampshire, between 1873 and 1890, from 44.4 per
cent. to 184.3 per cent.; and many similar instances are given,
illustrating very forcibly the economic revolution which has led to
the transfer of a larger share of the produce of the land to the
labourer.

On the other hand, this Commission found, like the last, that the
farmer had derived considerable benefit from the decrease in cost of
cake and artificial manure, while the low price of corn had led to
its being largely used in place of linseed and cotton cakes.

Before leaving the subject of this famous Commission it is well to
state the answer of Sir John Lawes, than whom there was no higher
authority, to the oft-repeated assertion that high farming would
counteract low prices. 'The result of all our experiments,' he said,
'is that the reverse is the case. As you increase your crops so each
bushel after a certain amount costs you more and more ... the last
bushel always costs you more than all the ot