Education. [1846 The systematic teaching of scientific agriculture had hardly begun at the end of the period Agricultural under notice. The Agricultural College at Cirencester, founded in 1845, was the only institution of its kind in England, and nothing besides the Chair of Agriculture at Edinburgh University, established in 1790, was known in Scotland. In Ireland agricultural classes in elementary schools were started soon after the famine of 1846-47, only to prove failures, while the excellent Institution at Glasnevin, near Dublin, established in 1838 as an agricultural school for National School teachers, was reorganised in 1852, when the existing buildings were erected. Prince Albert, when visiting Ireland, showed so much interest in the model farm that it was named the Albert Farm. Agriculture was a special subject taught at a few county schools towards the end of the period or shortly afterwards, and it must be mentioned that the Rev. W. L. Rham had long before (in 1835) begun to teach the elements of practice with science in the school which he established at Winkfield, in Berkshire. In all the improvements mentioned previously as having Agricultural Advancement in Scotland. taken place between 1846 and 1865 Scotland was in the van. In 1848 the Duke of Buccleuch proposed the establishment of a Chemical Department of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, which was founded in 1784. The department was formed in 1849, and devoted itself to investigations in the chemistry of agriculture. Great attention was paid to the improvement of live stock, including Clydesdale horses. The Highland Society for some years before 1846 had encouraged the breeding of Shorthorn cattle in Scotland, and Scotch Shorthorns had acquired a high reputation before 1865. Mr. A. Cruickshank, Mr. Thomas Chrisp, and the Duke of Buccleuch were among the most successful exhibitors of the breed in 1852. By this time the Aberdeen-Angus cattle, in the hands of Mr. McCombie and others, had been considerably improved, and the Ayrshires and Galloways were receiving careful attention. Some breeds of sheep were well managed; but little had been done with the Blackfaced breed. There were few really good cheesemakers in Scotland at this 1865] In time, and in 1854 a deputation was sent by the Ayrshire Agricultural Association to visit some of the cheese dairies of England. The members saw Cheddar made in the famous dairy of Mrs. Harding, in Somerset, and they recommended the Cheddar system, then hardly known in Scotland. 1855 Mr. and Mrs. Harding were invited to Ayrshire to teach the dairy farmers of that county and neighbouring counties, and this was the foundation of the Scotch Cheddar cheese industry, which has since become one of considerable importance. At a later date the Canadian system of making this cheese was adopted under a famous Canadian instructor. There was no marked progress in butter-making until a much later time. Indeed, the cured butter for which the northern counties of Scotland were noted in 1850 was said many years later to have deteriorated. From 1853 to 1857 agricultural statistics were collected in Scotland for the Board of Trade through the agency of the Highland Society; but a dispute arose in the latter year, and the arrangement lapsed. It was not until 1866 that the statistics were collected through the officers of the Inland Revenue. Great attention was paid in Scotland to the improvement of turnips, with excellent results. Under the system of nineteen years' leases, rents rose steadily in Scotland. Speaking at Inverness in 1865 the Duke of Argyll referred to estates which had increased in value from less than £6,000 to nearly £70,000 during the preceding hundred years. But a century is a long period, and presumably the enormous increase occurred chiefly during an earlier portion of it rather than in that now under consideration. Between 1846 and 1865 the value of lands' as assessed to income tax in Scotland rose from £5,509,014 to £6,830,639. Irish Agriculture. The famine of 1846-47 led to the ruin of a large number of tenants in Ireland, and their transference from the good cultivated land to the mountains and the margins of bogs. In their old places numbers of Scotchmen were installed in consolidated holdings, and the farming of Ireland was improved by the change, while native farmers were impoverished. In 1848 the Encumbered Estates Act was passed, with unsatisfactory results (p. 449), and in the same year the Irish Tenants' League was formed for the [1846 purpose of extending the Ulster custom of Tenant-Right to the rest of Ireland. The Landlord and Tenant Act of 1860 was not a response to this demand, but mainly a measure framed to base tenancy on contract, instead of upon custom or service. It had no considerable effect beyond making evictions more easy. This was the first of a long series of measures intended to put the relations of landlords and tenants in Ireland upon an improved footing; but nothing of importance was done during the period under notice. The wretched condition of the peasantry produced agitation and wholesale emigration, and the Irish Land Question became a permanent trouble to Parliament, and a subject of inquiry by Royal Commissions. In spite of all, however, Irish agriculturists shared in the prosperity of their British neighbours during the decade ending with 1862, while the practice of farming improved, and rents advanced. Unfortunately the potato-disease, which had ruined thousands of tenants, had "come to stay," and distress recurred amongst the small occupiers with every bad season. A Bad Finish. In the last three years of the period the prices of corn fell seriously, the difference in respect of wheat between the averages of 1862 and 1863 being over 10s. a quarter. In 1864 wheat fell further to 40s. 2d. a quarter, and barley to 29s. 11d., while oats were reduced less seriously in value, selling at 20s. 1d. In 1862 the averages had been 55s. 5d., 35s. 1d., and 22s. 7d. But the crowning catastrophe remained for the year 1865, when Rinderpest, or Cattle Plague, was introduced into the country from Russia. We were quite unprepared to deal with this terrible disease, and consequently it spread without check through the country, causing an enormous amount of loss. In October, 1865, a Royal Commission commenced an inquiry into the origin, nature, and best method of encountering the fatal disease, and was sitting at the end of our period, nothing effectual having been done to stay the progress of the plague. 1865] J. E. SYMES. Industry. THE adoption of Free Trade was followed by a great expansion of English commerce and wealth, but this expansion was temporarily delayed by the financial crash of 1847. Its history bore a great resemblance to that of the other decennial crises, which occurred with such regularity between 1826 and 1866. First came a series of good harvests in 1842, 1843, and 1844. This led to a great ac 1847. cumulation of capital, partly through agri- Financial Crisis, cultural prosperity, but chiefly because other classes of the community, being able to buy food cheaply, had money to spare for industrial and commercial enterprises. The development in railway and steamboat communication operated in the same direction, for a saving in time is a saving in money, and the capital sunk in railway extension was now bringing in its returns. There was so great a glut of capital that the market rate of discount in 1844 sunk as low as one and three-quarters per cent. Then came the turn. The failure of the Irish potato crops in 1845 and 1846 synchronised with bad English harvests, and an outburst of railway speculation (pp. 208, 247, 404). Thus prices were pushed up in two very different ways, and capital was locked up just when it was beginning to grow scarce. In April, 1847, the rate of discount on the best bills rose to ten and even twelve per cent., and in May the price of wheat touched one hundred and thirty-one shillings. There was an immediate rush to wheat importation, which reached such dimensions that the market was swamped and the importers were ruined. On the 9th of August the crash began, and in three weeks there were failures to the amount of over three million pounds. At first it was only the grain importers who stopped payment, but their fall dragged down the brokers who had made advances to them, and this spread the ruin to other houses till the failures exceeded fifteen million pounds. Extravagant credit had been given in the good times of 1845 and 1846, and now everyone was trying to realise, partly from the fear that his debtors might fail, and partly in fear of pressure from his creditors. The Bank of England raised its rate and refused loans. Other banks hastened to sell their securities, and there were many failures among them, more especially in [1846 At Manchester, Liverpool, and the North-West of England. length, on October 25th, 1847, the Government advised the Bank of England to advance loans freely on good security at a high rate of interest, and promised that if it became necessary to exceed the limit of issue laid down in the Bank Act, Parliament should be asked to pass a Bill of Indemnity. As soon as this was known the panic subsided. The Bank Act, though suspended, was not violated. The mere knowledge that the directors had power to disregard it restored confidence to those houses that could offer good security, and the others had been by now, for the most part, swept away. The panic was over, but, as usual, it ushered in a period of depression, of general want of confidence and enterprise, and a consequent lack of employment. 1848. This state of feeling, combined with the spread of revolutionary ideas on the Continent, and especially Revived Chartism, in France, naturally tended to a revival of Chartism in England. The distinctive feature in the French Revolution of this year was the prominence of Socialistic ideas; and their triumph helped to re-awaken Socialist hopes in the minds of the more pronounced English Radicals. The Chartists formed what they called a National Convention, and used language so violent, at meetings so largely attended, that many well-informed and intelligent people believed that England was on the verge of a revolution. As a first step Parliament was to be given a last chance of passing the Charter. A monster petition was to be presented by a vast mob who were to assemble at Kennington Common and to march down to the Houses of Parliament. This procession was prohibited, but the "physical force" Chartists were only the more determined to hold it, and they believed that the result would be street struggles and barricades, with a revolution as the outcome. The upper and middle classes were seriously alarmed, and the Duke of Wellington made elaborate military preparations. Two hundred thousand persons enrolled themselves to act as special constables against the Chartists. But the majority of the latter, however, shrank from the responsibility of appealing to force. A few thousands only assembled on Kennington Common, and, even of these, many were only attracted by curiosity. It was clear that there was no chance |