They, and they alone, had enabled it to bear up so long against calamity.

They had resources; the agricultural class, as a rule, had none.

Those resources were the manure they had put into the soil, the deep ploughing they had accomplished, the great head of stock they had got together, and so on.

These enabled them to weather the storm.
The cry for a reduction of rent was an irresistible proof of what he had put forth--that it was the farmers themselves who were to blame.

This cry was a confession of their own incompetency.