RUINED TRADES.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE “ SPECTATOR:1
STR,—You do not fairly answer the important point in Mr. Elwes's letter in the Spectator of August 1st, the question of the displacement of the rural population. It is quite true, as you say, that a large part of the arable land of England is more fit for sheep pasture than for growing corn. During the Just thirty years more than seven million acres of arable land have been converted into grass or gone out of cultivation; that means at least twelve million labourers with their families migrating to the towns because they are no longer wanted on the land, and this still goes on, and will do so. I have myself laid down to grass a good deal of arable land because it pays better in grass than in tillage, and I shall con- tinue to do so, although I know that every acre so laid down means driving labourers into the towns, just as I know that every quarter of Russian or Argentine corn which I buy is promoting the increase of the rural population of those countries and lessening that of England. But this is what Mr. Elwes and those who think with him really mean to object to; and I know one farmer in this neighbourhood who has actually ploughed out grass land, because it would employ more hands in arable than in grass. Of course that is just as much Protection, and therefore 418 uneconomical, as growing corn when you can buy it cheaper and better elsewhere. But you will not promote Free-trade by asserting that bad farming is the cause of agricultural depression. A hundred and fifty years ago the Yorkshire Wolds—that is, the largest part of the East Riding—was sheep pasture; then Sir Tatton Sykes and other landowners enclosed and cultivated it, so that it produced four or five quarters to the acre, in spite of all the disadvantages of English climate, &c., wholly as the result of very superior farming. Of course, in spite of good farming, it does not now pay, and it will by degrees go back to its more natural condition of sheep pasture; but to say that this is the result of bad farming is a misstatement which can do no good to the cause of Free-trade. Of course Free-trade is the common-sense of all commercial questions ; but it is not, and never will be, popular. Your friend Demos always has been, and always will be, rank Protectionist.—I am, Sir,
A YORKSHIRE SQUIRE.
P.S.—Mr. Elwes doubts about the number of acres laid down to grass during the last thirty years. I took the above figure from an abstract of the agricultural returns, which I have not at hand, but I think it is correct. Many reasons are given why the labourers flock to the towns. The simple reason is that they are not wanted on the land.
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