Mr. Bathurst's remedy is a bounty on wheat-growing. We need
hardly say that we are opposed to this, but we must add that we would far rather have a bounty than Protection by tariff, because under a bounty not only do we know exactly what we are paying, but its effect is to decrease, not to increase, the price paid by the consumer. But though we cannot agree to a bounty, and though we by no means take the view that the nation must necessarily be in peril if it does not grow its own food, but relies upon the Navy, plus a national guarantee, to keep it supplied, we are strongly opposed to the unfair extra taxation to which cornland, and indeed all agricultural land, is subject under our monstrously unjust system of rating. We would make the production of corn and other cereals no more a ground for special taxation than the manufacture of boots or pig-iron.
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