Fair-Trade (Newspaper) - September 17, 1886, London, Middlesex A Weekly Devoted to Industry and Vol. 49.] SEPTEMBER 17, 1S86. One LORD Y ON AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION AND ITS Lord speeches are always lively and and on the occasion last week of his as its the toast of Prosperity to the Royal and Central Bucks Agricultural speech was no less interesting than Taking as his theme the present depressed condition of which he pronounced to be such as had never occurred before in the history of this he said If they went into the street and asked everybody his remedy for that they would find that 99 out of 100 would say they did not know what the remedy and the rooth would differ from the 101st. He thought they knew the cause of the evil as well as they knew anything in the they knew it arose the fact that boundless regions of fertile virgin were being brought into competition with our own land by an almost nominal freight to both meat and corn from and India but the knowledge of the cause did them to the discovery of the He was not he that the many remedies which were offered to ' them were remedies that appeared to be inspired by that practical ledge of the conditions of agriculture which alone could inspire conn In the agricultural classes of the Small freeholders had V as a class so utterly disappeared from the that he could not think the small holdings which some recommend would be and allotments of oyer an acre would hinder a man from doing his duty as so that beyond advising them to pay careful attention to the quality of their and to the increase in the number of their he had nothing but resignation to suggest to the ' adding that there was conceivable legislation which could compel a hen to lay an egg when she did not wish to do and after the climate have something to do with the production of as that alone could account for Italian and French hens supplying in such Concerning the great remedy of he did not believe in because it drained the pocket of the and did not benefit the and he thought that the classes interested in the land should be the greatest opponents of because Now that the power of the country passed to the working if there were a return the very last of all classes would be protected was the agricultural since the artisans would be interested in keeping up the prices of iron and coal would add to cost of the and of other commodities from which they hoped to receive high but would object to any Protection relating to the food of the There is nothing more remarkable in the present day than the general discontent which accompanied as it is on all sides by an avowed inability to suggest any The features of present are depression and we cannot but admit that Lord Rosebery was expressing a view which is very generally held by statesmen and though we are satisfied the fear of encountering is highly in supposing the working classes would object to any no matter with what end in if it should involve even the supposition of raising the price of food but surely this is a superficial if not a cowardly view to take of a question which so vitally affects the encouragement and development of The paramount interest of the working classes is that plenty of with good Wages for should be provided in this from an economical point of produced at home and in our are articles of manufacture the same as are cotton piece woollen or worsted yarns or or railroad As a matter of including all the necessities of the money which is paid in wages for the production of say 00 worth of wheat is more than that which is so expended in the manufacture of worth of cotton and the artisans in the towns are only too well aware that the consumption of food has for many years past had the effect of more and more diminishing the field for agricultural labour at and of consequently increasing the influx of rural labourers into the manufacturing which reduces their own share of employment and They better perhaps than Lord Rosebery that the competition of those boundless regions of fertile virgin soil in and elsewhere has had the effect of decreasing the area of arable land in this and especially in to such an enormous extent that unless some drastic means are speedily adopted for relieving producers in some so as to render its cultivation remunerative to the the scarcity of employment for manual labour will bring about a long-continued period of working only half-time or a general lowering of the scale of More than twelve hundred acres of arable land which were under the plough fifteen or sixteen years ago are now cither lying waste or at best producing poor crops of and we are seriously menaced with an impending cessation of wheat cultivation throughout the greater part of which would still further intensify the Lord Rosebery expressed the opinion that Protection to native of which many like himself make a terrible would drain the pocket of the but a tax on the introduction of both manufactures and foreign grown food on the reversing our present system by putting the wages into the pockets of our own who would then either at or within our own produce the greater part of instead of having to pay foreigners for that the State so that other both local and might be greatly Local which exclusively levied on occupiers of affect the working man's house rent to a far greater extent than he would be affected by a of a few pence per week on his since the aggregate sum now raised for local expenditure is double what it was twenty years and amounts to no less than millions per The revenue which would be derived from a tax upon foreign food might in part be applied to the reduction of local rates * and the onerous duties that are now levied upon and dried all of which fall heavily on the working might be or at any rate materially and shifted to such articles of food as compete most unfavourably with own Considered as an economical from the moment that it throws our artisans out of employment and our own lands out of the principle of free importation produce is utterly its infallible to cause the impoverishment and embarrassment of the By Henry from our I must beg to call attention to the extraordinary use which is made of our import and export They are very but they only relate to foreign Yet they are made to do duty as a test of our trade and to which they are no guide at as regards which exports little or they should be read the other way that the greater the imports the less its the less its the more its labour is smothered and so the less is its capacity for paying or for buying manufactured The same argument is good for manufactures in respect of things our own people can Our are used in a way effectually to mislead and throw people off the containing no returns of internal and are therefore wholly insufficient as a guide to ascertain the general prosperity of the There is nothing in all I have said to prohibit necessary checks should be introduced to prevent them from supplanting our home There would be no difficulty in finding that point of customs a general way keep all our industries in a healthy Live and let is the text that is The line of on imports which should be adopted is as easy to be ascertained by good all round as it is easy for any shopkeeper to find the proper price at which he can his It the gross misapplication of Board of Trade returns which fundamental mistake of the Cobden Club and of other quasi Free The question Can and other politicians who agree with them on this afford to imitate the example of justice For decades of years they have dinned into the public ear that these are the returns to go and there is no point whereon the public is in a more confused state of There are many who see it is and others have not the courage of their which may arise from want of a clear Men cannot be condemned because they do not at once understand and To professional who may be practical in none of they may be as sealed These though they write have to pick up their information as best they and often from people who know as little as Yet they talk the in the places which most command the public and so fulfil the scriptural illustration of blind leading the But everything has its and these statistics of commerce essentially belong to it and not to agriculture or home You might as well go to a baker's shop to inquire about the markets for or to a tinsmith to learn the price of as go to Board of Trade
