government, however, resolved upon a policy of laissez-faire. Caird, therefore, during the recess visited Algeria, Italy, and Sicily, with a view to ascertain their capabilities for growing cotton. After his return he resumed his parliamentary activity, constantly speaking on subjects connected with agriculture and occasionally on India and Ireland, but abstaining from debates on foreign policy. In June 1865 he was appointed enclosure commissioner and vacated his seat in parliament. This office he held until the constitution of the land commission in 1882, of which he then became senior member. He published in 1868 'Our Daily Food, its Price and Sources of Supply,' being a republication of papers read before the Statistical Society in 1868 and 1869. The book passed through two editions. In the following year he revisited Ireland. The outcome of this tour was a pamphlet on 'The Irish Land Question' (1869). He was created C.B. in 1869. His exertions upon the sea fisheries commission and his eminence as an agriculturist and statistician procured his election as a fellow of the Royal Society on 3 June 1875.
As president of the economic section of the social science congress held at Aberdeen in 1877, he delivered an address published in the Statistical Society's 'Journal' for December of that year on 'Food Supply and the Land Question.' After the great Indian famine of 1876-7 Caird was appointed by Lord Salisbury, then secretary of state for India, to serve on the commission instructed to make an exhaustive inquiry into the causes and circumstances of that calamity. He was specially marked out for the post as well by his interest in the agricultural resources of India while in parliament as by a recent work, 'The Landed Interest and the Supply of Food,' published in 1878. This work was 'prepared at the request of the president and council of the Royal Agricultural Society of England for the information of European agriculturists at the international agricultural congress' held at Paris in that year. It was translated into French and published in Paris, as also in the 'Journal' of the Royal Agricultural Society, and towards the close of 1878 as a separate volume. As famine commissioner he left England 10 Oct. 1878 and returned in the early summer of 1879, after having travelled over all parts of the country. A narrative of his experiences and observations was published in four successive parts in the 'Nineteenth Century' review of the same year. It was reprinted in an extended form in 1883, and during that year and 1884 passed through three editions under the title of 'India, the Land and the People.' In 1880 Caird became president of the Statistical Society, delivering his inaugural address on English and American food production on 16 Nov. (Statistical Society's Journal, xliii. 559). He was re-elected president for 1881, when he took for his subject 'The English Land Question' (15.Nov.) (ib. xliv. 629). This was reprinted in the same year as a pamphlet with the title 'The British Land Question,' and had a wide circulation. In 1882 he was created K.C.B. In 1884 (17 April) the university of Edinburgh, on the occasion of its tercentenary conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. He was nominated by Lord Salisbury in 1886 a member of Earl Cowper's commission to inquire into the agricultural condition of Ireland. On the formation of the board of agriculture in 1889 Caird was appointed director of the land department and was elevated to the rank of privy councillor. He retired from the board in December 1891.
Caird had in 1887 contributed to a composite work entitled 'The Reign of Queen Victoria,' edited by Mr. T. H. Ward, a review of English agriculture since 1837. On the attainment of its jubilee by the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1890, he revised this essay and published the revision in the society's 'Journal' for that year. His last communication to the society was 'On the Cost of Wheat Growing' (Journal, 1891). He died suddenly of syncope at Queen's Gate Gardens, London, on 9 Feb. 1892.
Sir James Caird was a J.P. for Kirkcudbrightshire, and D.L. and J.P. for Wigtownshire. He married, first, Margaret, daughter of Captain Henryson, R.E.; secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Dudgeon of Cleveland Square, London. He had issue, by his first wife only, four sons and four daughters, of whom three sons and two daughters survived him. Although during the latter years of his life necessarily resident for the most part in London, he continued to take a keen interest in practical agriculture. He introduced the system of Cheddar cheese-making into the south-west of Scotland with great success. At his own expense he furnished a water supply to Creetown, a village adjacent to his estate. His society and advice were sought by the leading agriculturists of the kingdom.
There is a portrait in oils at Cassencary by Tweedie, painted about 1876. A photogravure hangs in the Reform Club, London.
