If we turn to France, we see that a different result from a similar agitation was secured, solely because the land tenure of that country differed from that of ours. During the period of the Corn Law agitation in England, a sliding scale of duties existed in France. The French Cobden of the time, Bastiat, and his school, preached the doctrine of free imports with an earnestness equal to that of Cobden and his colleagues, but their preaching was vain before above five millions of proprietors. From the same cause, the able speeches of the modern "Free Trader," M. Yves Guyot, are received with acclaim in England, while his arguments fall on deaf ears in France. There is nothing whatever surprising in all this. The owner of ten acres of land is as keen on the rights of property, and as watchful of the interests of his industry, as the owner of ten thousand acres. We see a landed aristocracy, in continental countries, which is not exposed to the disfavour and hostile criticism to which that order in England is subjected. The reason is, that it is not a class apart, separated from other classes of cultivators by a gulf which, under our present system, is well-nigh impassable. In these countries the landed aristocracy is intermingled with a landed democracy, and the two interests are not antagonistic, but identical. Hence it is that the rural economy of these countries is in the hands of a body diverse in character, but united in interest. Even the comparatively few labourers who are simply wagereceivers are in the same boat, because they can get land if they like to save and strive in order to do so. These classes, as a body, came to the conclusion that it was necessary to defend agriculture from foreign attacks, and for that purpose they not only proposed, but were strong enough to carry, legislation which imposed duties on imports of foreign corn. It must be remembered, however, that these duties were not put on, as they were with us in 1815, in the interests of a small territorial class which was able to control legislation. They were put on by the voting power of the great mass of the people, urban and rural, a majority of whom regarded agricultural prosperity as synonymous with the prosperity of the nation. For the foregoing reasons it would seem wise for landlords to support the proposed reform. Agriculture is in such a state of depression that capital is no longer attracted to the land, but is leaving it for foreign and other investments. The direct political power of landlords is mostly gone. The disposal of the tenant's vote is no longer a condition of letting a farm. Feudalism has passed away, though no doubt its influence lingers to a large extent among the rural population, with whom that influence is hereditary, and will take a generation or two to die out. The advent of the commercial classes into the ranks of large landowners still further destroys the special characteristics of the old system. These men, though they may acquire lands, can never in the eyes of the rural people acquire the same status as that of the old school. The peculiar relationship, so attractive in many ways, which existed between the owners of estates and the dwellers thereon, was the outcome of ages of habit and use, and cannot continue in the same spirit under a new class of owners and under modern conditions. It would be well perhaps to conclude this chapter These remarks specially apply to the action of the agrarian party in Germany, with regard to the recent tariff legislation of that country. by quoting the weighty words of one who was among the ablest members of the diplomatic service, whose exhaustive and masterly reports on the Land Tenure of Germany have been the source of the information used by many who have written on the subject: "The maintenance of agriculture," he writes, "must ever be the solicitude of the statesmen, even of an industrial country like England. Moreover, there are not wanting signs, looming it might be on the far horizon, that two great dangers are menacing England. The one is the disproportionate unlanded or unpropertied class. The statesman who shall pass measures for removing that disproportion will indeed deserve well of his country. The other is a possible decline of manufacturing industry. If the possibility should assume the portentous shape of a probability, the statesman who shall pass measures to facilitate and provide for the transfer to agriculture of any capital which may be liberated from manufactures will indeed deserve well of his country. The names of such statesmen, and of him, too, who shall content the discontented cultivators of Ireland, will be handed down to posterity as household words and will be passed from generation to generation with, if it be possible, a yet greater renown and yet greater national gratitude, than the renown and gratitude with which the names of Stein and Hardenberg are being passed from generation to generation, as household words of the great Prussian people."1 The late J. P. Harris-Gastrell, Secretary to the British Embassy Berlin. CHAPTER XVIII THE HOME MARKET AND THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES "THE Home Market is first in order and paramount in importance." Thus said Henry Clay when in 1844 he stood as candidate for the Presidency of the United States and was beaten. At that time the Anti-Corn Law agitation in England was at its height. Cobden, always apt to enlist public occurrences into the service of his cause, spoke of Clay's defeat as follows: "He stood as a candidate for that high honour at the hands of three millions of citizens on the ground of his being the author and father of the protective system in America. . . . The speeches of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster might have done credit to the Dukes of Buckingham and Richmond themselves. All the banners at their processions were inscribed with such mottoes as, 'Protection to Native Industry,' 'Protection against the Pauper Labour of Europe,' 'Stand by the American System,' 'Henry Clay and Protection to Native Industry.' Yes, all this was said to the American democracy. And what said three millions of the American people, voting in the ballotbox? Why, they rejected Henry Clay and sent him back to his retirement. "1 Sixty years have passed away since then, and in the light of this long experience it may well be asked, 1 "Cobden's Speeches." Edited by John Bright and J. Thorold Rogers (Speech, 11 December, 1844). Which of the two policies has been found to be right, the policy of Cobden or that of Henry Clay? The great patriotic man who is now President of the United States, who presides over eighty millions of people, mostly of the English race, has answered the question. "Our present phenomenal prosperity," he says, "was won under a tariff made in accordance with certain fixed and definite principles, the most important of which is our avowed determination to protect the interests of the American producer, business man, wage-worker, and farmer alike." The manner in which British agriculture has been treated during the past two generations may be aptly likened, so far as folly and short-sightedness go, to the action of the man in the fable who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Commercialism has for so long a time governed the policy of the country, the people have for so long a time been used to look to trade and manufactures for their livelihood, that agriculture has gradually taken an inferior place, if it has not dropped out of sight altogether. It is simply astonishing to note the indifference shown by the manufacturing and trading classes to the condition of this the greatest of all industries. The importation of a few steam-engines, or some tons of iron girders, is noted with alarm by our Chambers of Commerce and by trade journals; but the importation, say, of cheese to the value of above seven millions sterling per annum excites little or no attention. We pay without a murmur this sum, which is about equal to the value of our exports to Norway and Sweden put together, for an article which this country is as fitted to produce as it is to manufacture steam-engines and girders. |