CORRESPONDENCE.

HOW AGRICULTURE WAS RUINED BY PROTECTION.

[TO TRY EDITOB OP TKO " SPECTATOR."]

Sra,—People often tell us that even if the case of other industries "ruined by Free-trade" breaks down, there can be no doubt about agriculture. This, at any rate, we are assured, is a perfect example of the disastrous results of Free-trade. Yet in reality nothing of the kind can be proved. Agriculture may be a rained industry; but if it is, it certainly was not ruined by Free-trade, for we have the most absolute proof that the agricultural classes protested that they were ruined quite as loudly—nay, even more loudly—when they enjoyed Pro- tection as they do now. In the very plenitude of Protection— that is in the years 1832 and 1836, when the duty on corn was something like 50s. a quarter—agriculture was declared to be ruined, land was nnlettable, farmers were bankrupt, and land- lords had derelict farms on their hands. The facts, however, ate worth looking at a little more in detail.

From 1815-46 we had thirty years of closely protected agriculture in this country, but the results do not justify the sanguine anticipations of the farmer and his friends to-day as to the benefits of a tax on food-stuffs. During that period no less than three Parliamentary Commissions were ap- pointed to inquire into the depression in agriculture, and a perusal of the evidence given before two of them, those held in 1833 and 1836, affords a useful lesson in the practice of Pro- teetion as apart from the theory. Witnesses were examined coming from every part of the country, including among their "'limber landlords, land agents, farmers, corn merchants, and others. A few extracts from this mass of depositions may prove of interest at the present moment, for Mr. Chamberlain has told us that agriculture has "gone," and the cry is eagerly taken up by many who rashly assume that "tariff reform" gives it a sure and certain hope of resurrection.

Now for a few specimens of English agricultural conditions under a Protective system. I will give extracts dealing with various counties from the evidence before the 1836 Commission. Mr. Smallpiece, a land valuer and an occupier of five or six hundred acres of land of all sorts in the neighbourhood of Guildford, stated: "I am afraid the farmers have very little capital. I fear their capital is gone." Asked as to a farm near Guildford which forty years before had paid 14s. an acre rent, he said that recently it had been let at is. and 2s. an acre, and was then 7s., but would not go higher, as no profit to pay rent was made out of it. This, we must remember, was after two magnificent seasons such as no farmer ever hoped to see again. Asked as to improve- ment among the farmers owing to these wonderful seasons, he said "I do not think the farmers have improved as to their capital, because I do not think they have got any." With regard to another farm, formerly let at Is. 6d. an acre according to a statement he had made before the previous Commission, Mr. Smallpiece said he was informed by the proprietor that he had stated it too favourably ; in any case, "he questioned whether it was let for so much now." In answer to a question as to whether land let easily now, he replied : "We cannot find people of capital to take it; there are more farms than tenants of capital."— Q. "You think the state of agriculture is at this moment so precarious that people of capital do not like to embark on the cultivation of lands ? "—A. "Certainly." So muoh for the fanner and the land, and this, remember, after years of Protection, with a heavy duty on corn (X1 4s. 8d. a quarter when the price was 62s., and is. per quarter for every is. it fell below that), and after two magnificent harvests. The labourer was receiving is. id. to is. 2d. a day, occasionally is. ad. in a good season. Mr. Small- piece was asked as to his diet. "Do you think the labourer now subsists more upon potatoes than he did formerly P "—A. "A great deal, and his family particularly. The children live very much upon potatoes."—Q. "Do you not think that is a very precarious diet, a diet of potatoes altogether ? "--A. "They are very healthy." This was in a year when wheat was so plentiful that the farmers were feeding their animals upon it. The results of this state of agriculture and the reduction in the means of living showed themselves in an increase of crime. Q. " Do you attribute this to there being more people out of employment ? "—A. "Cer- tainly, and to their being all thrown together into stone-pits tind gravel-pits."—Q. " What drove the labourers to the use of potatoes ?"—A. "The high price of wheat." Such, then, was the condition of affairs in Surrey under Protection. Let us now turn to another county.

Mr. Bowyer, a =Aster and farmer in Hunts, told the Com- mittee that twenty years ago the farmer was much better off than in 1836, and that he no longer possessed as much capital as formerly, that corn was used for pigs, and thereby " a great quantity of the surplus had been removed." This was at a time when the poor were living on potatoes in other parts of the country. Difficulties of transit no doubt accounted for this in great measure. But the effect of the Corn-laws was to encourage production to such an extent that the result was a glut, and no real benefit to the producer. The farmer was really better off when he had a bad crop than when he had a good one. Mr. Bowyer went on to say that though, owing to good seasons, wheat was of better quality, yet prices had fallen. "The farmer is worse off; wheat is the principal article that he produces,—it is wheat he principally relies on for his rent and large payments, and that has fallen so much that he cannot make up the deficiency by any- thing else." Surely this is strong evidence of the disastrous results ensuing, and ensuing inevitably, from an attempt to encourage an artificial production of any commodity.

The evidence from Lincolnshire does not furnish much more cheerful reading. Mr. Calthrop, a corn merchant in a large way of business, said that the farmers in the Fens were "in a lament- able condition," that during the last two years the condition of even those farmers whose ploughed lands yielded thirty-four bushels an acre was lamentably bad "when they trusted entirely to the plough." Of course, the effect of the Corn-laws had been to make them so trust ; 1822 had been a "disastrous year," but there had been mere failures among farmers since 1833 than even in that year. The high prices of the war period had caused the ploughing up of rich grazing lands and over-production of wheat. This is what the Corn-laws had done for Lincolnshire in two splendid seasons !

Let us now glance at Essex. Mr. Parker, a land agent and large farmer, thought that 20s. a quarter was a fair duty and would be sufficient to protect the farmer in a reasonable fashion. Yet he had to admit that in his part of the county during four seasons running, ending about 1833, rent had been paid out of capital. Another Essex farmer gave a much more doleful account of his own part of the county. Mr. Page, of Southminster, a sub- stantial tenant, who held about eleven hundred acres altogether, deposed : "I have lost every year since I have been in business," not upon both his farms, but on one. This was owing to the price of wheat. "The outgoings for a great number of years have very much exceeded the income ; the proceeds have not been at all equivalent to the expenses of the land." He gave up some other land in 1830, and had experienced as much loss on that as on this. It was due to the low price of corn during the last two years (ex-. ceptionally good years as to production !) Wages had fallen from 125. to 9s. per week. "A great deal of land has been out of occu- pation. There is one parish within two miles of me, the parish of Maryland, which two or three years ago was almost entirely in the hands of the landlords, not out of cultivation, but farmed by the landlords." This is interesting when we remember the bitter outcry of derelict Essex a few years ago. Under stringent Protection, a whole parish without a tenant-farmer ! Does a high Corn-duty ensure, then, prosperity for him ? It seems only to have encouraged him to produce unprofitable crops of grain.

Let me give one more instance, this time from a Home County. Mr. Brickwell, a farmer in Bucks, who had cultivated a quantity of land for thirty-eight years, partly his own and pEttr) hired, deposed that he had lost during the last year, which he admitted had been "a beautiful season," .E2 an acre on growing wheat, so he had given it up. "I hear from the farmers whom I meet that they cannot pay their way." In Oxford, near Chipping Norton, rents had been reduced 25 per cent., and that alone enabled the farmers to meet their liabilities. In the neighbour- hood of Buckingham there were two farms entirely out of cultiva- tion ; one of these farms was letting at 20s. an acre some years ago. Irish competition in wheat and oats and pigs was the principal cause of the widespread distress. Wages had fallen from 9s. a week to 85. and 7s. Even the grazing business had fallen off, and the land in the county was getting foul and over-cropped. Such was the position of Bucks, a county within easy distance of the London market, under a Protective tariff.

I must apologise for the somewhat disjointed nature of this communication, but it has been necessary to give the evidence from various parts of the country in order to show that in the corn-growing districts a Protective duty was ruining the farmer and reducing the labourers' wages. The Corn-laws induced an artificial production, while the good seasons decreased the price, and as the farmers had nothing else to rely on, they were faced with rents they could not afford to pay, fixed according to the standard of a high price of corn. Duties on corn are in the long run ruinous to farmers ; they encourage hazardous speculation, and prices fluctuate much more under them than in a free market, where corn merchants have to deal with real wants and necessities, and not those artificially created. In proof of this I give the percentage average fluctuations under Protection as set forth in the table prepared for the Commission of 1833, and printed in its Report. The periods given are quinquennial :— Years ending 18171 1821 f 1822 1. 18261 1827{(Intermethateperiod

1829

pending Corn-law }24 of 19,29.)

18291 49 1833 Variation per cent.

220 100 74 183 Variation per cent.

143 81 Years ending 1797 1901 18021 1806 1907 1811 1812 i 1810 j

The conclusions of this 1833 Commission are worth noting to-day, when we are urged to embark again on a general Protective system : —" Your Committee has endeavoured to trace the injurious

effects of past legislation It should be remembered that Legislative measures once taken and long established can rarely be abandoned without danger, and to retreat is occasionally more dangerous than to advance. In conclusion, your Committee avow their opinion that hopes of melioration in the condition of the Landed Interest rest rather on the cautious forbearance than on the active interposition of Parliament."

—I am, Sir, dtc., AN IMPERIALIST FREE-TRADER.