The Duke of Devonshire attended the jubilee show of the
Craven Agricultural Society at Skipton. on Saturday last, and delivered an excellent speech. After an amusing autobio- graphical reference to "the intense pride and pleasure with which he achieved the honour Of getting 10s. as second prize for a pig" at a Lancashire show more than fifty years ago, the Duke discussed the value of agricultural exhibitions, and appealed to the general public outside the landlord and farmer class to show more interest in them than they had done. Turning to the question of agricultural depression, the Duke of Devonshire noted that there were some very remarkable features about it. In ordinary cases of industrial depression one of the first symptoms was that large numbers of persons wanted employment, but failed to find it. But in Derbyshire, and, he believed, elsewhere, it was not the lack of employment, but the lack of labourers, that constituted one of the chief difficulties of the farmers. For his own part, he believed that the migration of labourers from the country to the towns was not due to agricultural depression, but rather to the superior attractions of the towns. This migration he attributed in great part to imperfect and misapplied education in country schools, which he trusted the new management of elementary schools would correct and remedy. As to the various remedies for agricultural depression, he asked his hearers before putting their faith in them to look at them, not on one side, but all round and on all sides. When they were told that better prices were the only remedy, he would like to ask them to remember how far that boon might be neutralised by enhanced cost of living.
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