Welsh Journals

manifesting signs of prosperity.'127 This same myopic concern for farming as cheaply as possible explains the tenants' frequent unwillingness to pay increased rents upon improvements made by their landlords.128 Railways, then, did not change the mental attitudes of the Welsh peasant and for this reason, together with the hindrance of physical factors, the new marketing opportunities presented in the third quarter of the century were not fully grasped. DAVID W. HOWELL Swansea. 117 Gibson, op. cit., p. 5. Ibid., p. 4; Royal Commission on Agriculture, P.P., XV (1882), Mr. Doyle's Report on Wales, pp. 8-9, quoting a correspondent from north Wales who, after investing £ 1,800 in draining and fencing on his estate, found that his tenants 'would not pay any enhanced rent and, still worse, would not keep the mouths of the drains open'.