Mr. Hoover's Campion Speech
WHILE it is no concern of ours whether the American Presidential election ends in favour of the Republican or the Democratic candidate, it is of interest to watch the development of the campaign which will absorb the attention of 120,000,000 people for the next three months. Mr. Hoover's speech at Stanford Uni- versity on Saturday last has indicated the issues on which, in the view of the Republican party managers, the election should turn, and Governor Smith will in due course set forth the Democratic view of the contest. We may note at once that Mr. Hoover addressed himself mainly to America's domestic problems and not to international affairs. But he made one notable reference to the world outside America, and America's domestic affairs cannot be a matter of indifference to the other English-speaking countries.
The Republican candidate said nothing new in declaring that his foreign policy would be one of peace, outside the League of Nations but in co-operation with it. Doubtless his Democratic opponent would make a similar statement. But it is none the less encouraging to. have the assurance of co-operation from the great American people in the very arduous task of keeping an uneasy world at peace. Many good people assume all too easily that Geneva and Locarno, and now Mr. Kellogg's Treaty for the Outlawry of War, have made wars for ever impossible. The truth is that the mainten- ance of peace can only be assured by continual watch- fulness and unceasing effort on the part of the pacific nations, and we can never be reminded too often that America shares with us a detestation of international mischief-making and 'a resolve to promote good will among the nations by every possible means. Mr. Hoover's reference to American co-operation with the League in scientific, economic, and social enterprises was significant. Such co-operation has* been bountiful and beneficent already and tends to increase. America's " observers " at Geneva are not delegates, in the strict sense, but they are helping in many ways to create a better and happier world. It is well to know that in the opinion of a Presidential candidate all this kind of inter- national policy has the warm approval of the American public.
Another feature of Mr. Hoover's address, which has a marked interest for ourselves and for Europe, was his assertion that the relief of the farmer constituted America's most urgent economic problem. It is a reminder that, in the richest country in the world as in the poorest, the actual tiller of the soil—the man on whose efforts the food supply of all depends—is discontented and unprosperous. We have heard much in this country about agricultural depression, though at the moment our farmers have good hopes of a fine harvest, and are too busy to complain. But the cry of the distressed farmer has been far louder and more acute in the United States for several years past, and it is well known that the Middle West looks for Government action on a large scale, to prevent wholesale bankruptcies among the grain-growers and the virtual abandonment of the less fertile lands. President Coolidge twice vetoed a very ambitious measure passed by Congress for the stabilization of grain prices with the help of a vast Federal fund, and the farming population in the Middle West resented his action so keenly as to threaten secession from the Republican Party, to which most of them tradi- tionally belong. Consequently, the Republican candidate has found it necessary to placate this opposition by offer- ing a higher tariff on farm products, and lower railway rates, with aid from the Federal Treasury. Whethet or not such measures would be effective is a question for the future. The significant thing is that what seems to us the very high measure of Protection enjoyed by the American farmer has not availed him much.
Those who talk of imposing a tariff to help the British farmer would be well advised to consider how it is that their remedy has failed in America. In that vast and rich country the farmer has a virtually closed market, with three times as many potential customers as the English farmer. Foreign foodstuffs that might compete with his are heavily taxed or excluded. A benevolent Government provides him with educational facilities, technical assistance, wireless reports, a network of post. offices, and cheap mails. Moreover, it is always ready to spend money on roads, canals, irrigation schemes, and other public works for the farmer's benefit. America ought to be the farmer's paradise, and yet it is beyond question that many thousands of American agriculturists are on the verge of ruin, and that large districts, once populous and well tilled, even in New England, have reverted to the wilderness. It is not unreasonable to infer that, whatever may be the causes of agricultural depression, Protection affords no sure remedy, and that in any case we shall not cure the British farmer's ills by trying to follow the example of America, even if we could afford to do so. It may be conjectured that, with the very rapid growth of industry in all civilized countries, and of the organized political power of the towns, the old balance between industry and agriculture has been tilted unduly against the farmer. But to restore the equilibrium is no easy matter, and merely political remedies seem to be of little use, even where, as in America, they have been applied with a sublime disregard of the cost. Probably no country acting by and for itself can materially improve the lot of its farmers. The prices of grain and meat are fixed in the world-markets, and it is these prices which ultimately determine the farmer's profit wherever he happens to be, whether behind a tariff barrier or not. Hereafter, perhaps, inter- national action may be taken to make the production of food everywhere reasonably remunerative. That seems a somewhat remote ideal, but we need not be sur- prised, now that the matter has assumed such urgency in America, to find a Federal Government raising the question to the international plane within the next few years,
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