MR. LOWTHER'S DUTY ON CORN.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Yon unconsciously misrepresent an eminent statesman. Speaking at Haxey in the autumn of last year, Mr. James Lowther vehemently denied that he had ever proposed a five. shilling or any other fixed duty on corn. He had proposed, and would still propose, a sliding scale, and this, he said, would really lessen, rather than increase, the cost of the labourer's loaf, for it would cause such a rise in his wages that he would be better able to pay sixpence then than fivepence now. The argument, though fallacious, is, nevertheless, intelligible, and it was, I suppose, to this that Sir Stafford Northcote referred in the speech you criticised. It is, at any rate, pretty certain that this is the attitude Conservative candidates in agricultural districts will assume towards this question. Mr. Winn spoke in the same sense at Epworth on May 28th, proposing, however, nothing more than a Commission of Inquiry with a view to ascertain whether Mr. Lowther's forecast was not likely to
prove a true one. Thus would they "catch men," but not
yours, &c., AXHOLMIENSIS.
[We are sorry to have misrepresented Mr. Lowther, but the sliding scale which, according to our correspondent, he does advocate, seems to us far more mischievous than the small fixed duty with which we bad credited him.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
