Images de page
PDF
ePub

not dwell greatly on hypothec, because that, I think, we are all agreed upon, as far as the merits of the measure are concerned. I will not dwell upon the subject of game, which deeply interests the Scotch farmers in many portions of the country, because on that subject, by the exertions of Mr. M'Lagan, a Bill has been passed (cheers), which, I believe, has done very considerable good, and it, perhaps, renders it unnecessary, at any rate for the moment, to enter further into the consideration of the matter under the pressure of so many subjects. Neither will I dwell on what is commonly called security of tenure, because, happily, in Scotland the education of the country is so far advanced, both among landlords and tenants, that to a certain extent that security is attianed by the system of leases, and no desire exists to disturb the system either on the part of the landlord or on the part of the tenant. There are other matters, however, upon which it may be well to say a few words. One of them is the practice of inserting in leases a number of covenants which direct particular modes of cultivation, and by directing particular modes restrain its freedom. A good tenant, a good farmer, feels that, after all, he is the best judge of the mode of conducting what is his own business. Every one will agree with that. On the other hand, there is something, I think, of equity in the statement of the landlord that during the closing years of a lease, if a tenant means to remove, it is difficult for him without covenants of this kind to prevent the wasteful use of the farm. Now, it is not for me to offer instructions, perhaps not even to offer suggestions, to you; but there is a method in use with some landlords in England who have leases that I confess appears to me to be not without wisdom. I will just take the suppositious length of a lease, because that is not material; it will only serve to enable me clearly to explain the nature of the expedient by which it is endeavoured to do full justice to the interests of both landlord and tenant-that is to say, to leave the tenant entirely free in the prosecution of his business, but at the same time to secure the landlord against the particular, though perhaps rare, instances-as I should. think, very rare in Scotland-in which a tenant intending to leave might leave the farm behind him in a worse. state than that in which he had received it (cheers). The method is this:-We will say the landlord gives his tenant a lease for 21 years. In the lease are included a number of provisions directing, and therefore restraining cultivation; but there is also a clause that these provisions shall not operate during the first 17 years of the lease. At the end of 17 years the tenant is to declare whether he wishes to renew his lease or not. If he exercises his option to renew his lease, be receives another lease, which immediately comes into operation, with similar provisions. If he says he means to leave, then the provisions directing and restraining the method of cultivation come into operation for the last four years of the lease only, so that the landlord is secured against the dilapidation of the farm (cheers). Now, I know that that method of proceeding is approved by many men of good judgment. It is not for me to pronounce upon it. confess there appears to be much equity in it. I hold as strongly as you can hold that it is most important to rid the tpants of the country from all unnecessary fetters on the freedom of their action (cheers). We are engaged in a great struggle. Time forbids me at this moment to enter on the particulars of that struggle and the character of that struggle. I shall endeavour to do it elsewhere if I am unable to do it to-day, but I wish you to believe I am heartily and cordially with you both in my capacity as a landlord and also in my capacity as a candidate before you, not only for the sake of gaining your suffrages, but upon higher and national grounds (cheers)-to give all possible freedom to the cultivation of the soil, in order that the agriculturists of Eugland may have full and fair play in competition with the Agriculture of the world. That is a point, gentlemen, from which I will pass on to another subject of great importance, the law of entail and settlement (Hear, hear). I believe you view that law with disapproval as being itself one of the most serious restraints upon the effective prosecution of the agriculture of the country. Gentlemen, I need not dwell upon the matter. I heartily agree (cheers). Yes, I am in favour of the abolition of that law. I disapprove it on economical grounds, and I disapprove it on social and moral grounds. I disapprove the relations which it creates between the father and the eldest

[ocr errors]

1

I disapprove the manner in which it makes provision for the interest of the children to be born.

Was there ever, gentlemen, in the history of legislation a stranger expedient ? Let us consider what takes place in England habitually, and I believe in Scotland also, but I am less conversant with the actual daily practice of this country. The possessor of an estate in England having sons in this position, that if he dies intestate, his estate goes bodily to his eldest son. That law, gentlemen, is not just, and it ought to be altered-this law of intestacy (cheers). But, setting aside the question of intestacy, let us take the ordinary case. The ordinary case is this:-The son is going to marry. When he marries (because under that law, supposing he does not marry, and his father dies, he becomes absolute owner)-when he marries his father gives him an income for life, and he, the son, in consideration of the income, re-settles his estate on his issue to be thereafter born. Now, what is the meaning of the process? It is that the actual owner of the estate induces the son to make provision for his own children by giving him an income for his life. Provision for the children is not made by the free will of the father, but by the free will of the grandfather (laughter), in order to secure the further tying up of the estate. It appears to me that there is one law written more distinctly than any other on the constitution of human society by the finger of the Almighty, and that is that the parent is responsib'e for a sufficient provision on behalf of the child. But the law of England is wiser than the Al mighty; it improves on Divine Providence; it will not trust the father to make provision for the child; it calls in the aid of the grandfather, and commits to him the functions of the parent, introducing a false, in my opinion an unnatural relation into the constitution of that primary element of society the sacred constitution of the family (loud cheers). Not only to liberate agriculture, gentlemen, but upon other grounds, and I will say upon what I think still higher grounds, I am for doing away with this law of settlement and entail (cheers). Now I have gone through, I think, all the questions except one that greatly affect the interests of occupiers of the soilalmost all the interests capable of being dealt with by legisla tion. I am not speaking now of the great question of competition which foreign countries, to which I must revert elsewhere; but there is one that yet remains, and that is the que tion of local and county government (cheers). It is a strange anomaly that in this most important matter of local government we, who have representative institutions everywhere else, have been content that counties down to the presert time should remain without them. This is one of the greatets subjects that await the consideration of a future Parliament (cheers), and I hope that it will receive that consideration so soon as those immediate and pressing impediments I have referred to can be by care and skill got out of the way (cheers). Gentlemen, there was no question upon which the last Government was more severely criticised than the treatment of the subject of local government. Now what did we do in regard to it? We avowed from the beginning that the stats of our county government was wholly unsatisfactory and must be radically reformed (cheers). We thought the law of liability in England which threw the whole re-ponsibility for the rates upon the tenant was an unjust law, and we proposed to divide it, as it is divided in Scotland (cheers). We knew that there was a great desire in the country to relieve the ratepayers from the Consolidated Fund; we saw in that desire and in that power to relieve the ratepayers from the Consolidated Fund a strong leverage placed in the hands of the Executive Government to induce all the local interests to come freely into the changes that must be made in order to establish a sound system of county government, and to give you, gentlemen, the free and thorough control over the disposal of your own local taxation that you have over the disposal of Imperial taxes (cheers). We therefore said we would not give this money away till we were able to make it the means of bringing parties to cope with the difficulties of establishing a new system of government, and so to come into the enjoyment of whatever aid it might be right to give from the Imperial treasury on behalf of the ratepayers (cheers). That, gentlemen, was our position. We were severely censured for it; but we were not able to depart from it. Before it was in our power to deal thoroughly and effectively with the subject we were removed from office. Our successors took an entirely opposite view. In their view the only thing material was to relieve the ratepayers; so they hauded over year by year large sums from the Consolidated Fund, and made no

other change whatever; they left the present irresponsible,
authority in possession, and continued five years in office
before they produced even the phantom of a Local Govern-
meat Bill, and when they produced it they contrived to frame
i in such a way that no party or section of a party in the
House of Commons showed the slightest desire to have it.
The consequence is that your local government remains in the
unsatisfactory position in which it formerly stood, whereas the
Imperial Government, which is the only propelling power
that can cause legislation of that kind, has moved onwards
and has gratuitously and prematurely parted with the great
inducements which they held in their hands of bringing all
parties into a reasonable sentiment, of inducing the magistrates
to come in, and of inducing all constituted authorities to come
is and to state their respective pretensions. They have given
up every lever by which they ought to have propelled the
question, and the question remains in that neglected and in
that abandoned state in which they have left almost every
o her subject (cheers). Now, gentlemen, I have detained you
long enough (Cries of "No, no "). I have endeavoured to be
practical and intelligible in my remarks. I have endeavoured
to show you that subjects of local and domestic interest do
not escape my attention (cheers). I have warned you of the
immense difficulties we have to contend with, and have not
held out to you too sanguine expectations. I have told you
that when you succeed in returing a more-what shall I say-
enlightened parliament than the present (laughter), and in
obtaining an administration better qualified to give effect to
your convictions, there will be much to do-much cause for
patience and forbearance-before we can see the peaceful
course of legislation which had been the pride of former
alministrations in many cases that I could name, and certainly
in at least one Conservative Administration-I mean the
administration of Sir Robert Peel (cheers)-betore that course
of pe iceful and use al legislation can be resumed. Let me
say that, in my opinion, these two great subjects of local govern-
ment and the land laws ought to occupy a foremost place in
the thoughts of every man who desires to be a legislator.

MR. GLADSTONE ON AGRICULTURAL

DEPRESSION.

Mr. Gladstone delivered at West Calder, on Thursday, November 27th, his third address to the electors and non-electors of Midlothian. He said :

well know, is as well qualified as any man upon earth for accurate and careful investigation. It says the point at which the competition of the Western States of America is most severely felt is in the Eastern States of America. Whatever be the agricultural distress in Scotland, whatever it be where undoubtedly it is more severely felt-namely, in England-it is greater by far in the Eastern States of America. In the States of New England the soil has been to some extent exhausted by careless methods of agriculture, and these are the greatest of all the enemies with which the farmer has to contend (cheers). But the foundation for the statement I make, that the Eastern States of America are those that most severely feel the competition of the Western States, is to be found in this fact above all. They are not in Ameica, as we are here, talking about the shortness of the annual returns, and in some places having much said on the subjects of rents-their temporary remission or permanent reduction. That is not the state of things. I say that the foundation for my statement is to be found in this fact-that, in addition to this state of things, the Eastern States of America have actually got to this point-that the capital values of land as tested by sales in the market have undergone an enormous diminution. Now I will tell you something that has happened, on the authority of our friend Mr. Lyon Playfair. I will state to you what actually has happened in one of the New England States; not, recollect, in the desert or a remote country, but in an old cultivated country, and near one of the towns of these States-a town that has the honourable name of Wellesley. Mr. Lyon Playfair tells me this. Three weeks ago-that is to say, about the first of this month, so you will see that my information is tolerably recent -three weeks ago a friend of Mr. Lyon Playfair bought a farm near Wellesley for 33 dols. an acre being £6 12s, an acre; that is for agricultural land in an old settled country. That is the present condition of agricultural property in the old States of New England. I think that by the simple recital of this fact I have tolerably well established my case, for you have not come in England and you have not come in Scotland to the point at which agricultural land-not wild land, but improved and old cultivated land-is to be had for the price of £6 12s. (cheers). He mentions that this is by no means a strange case, an insolated case-that it fairly represented the average transactions that have been going on, and he says that in that region the ordinary price of agricultural land at the present time is from 20 dols. to 50 dols, an acre, or from £ to £10. In New York the soil is better and the population is greater there, but even in New York, even in the State of New York, land rauges for agricultural purposes from 50 dols. to 100 dols.-that is to say, from £10 to £20. I think those of you, gentlemen, who are farmers will perhaps derive some comfort from perceiving that if the pressure here is heavy the pressure elsewhere, and near to the seat of the very abundant production, is greater, and far greater. Still it is most interesting to consider how we can meet this pressure. There has been developed in the astonishing progressive power of the United States a faculty of producing corn for the subsistence of men with a rapidity and to an extent unknown in the experience of mankind. There is nothing like it in history. Don't let us conceal from ourselves the fact. I shall not stand the worse with any of you who are farmers if I at once avow that this greater and immense comparative abundance in the prime articles of subsist

Mr. M'Lagan and Gentlemen,-In addressing you to day, as addressing other like audiences assembled for a like purpose in other places in the county, I am warmed by the enthusiastic welcome which you have been pleased in every form to accord to me (cheers). I am, on the other hand, daunted when I think, first of all, what large demands I have to make upon your patience, and, second, how inadequate are my powers and how inadequate almost any amount of time that you can grant me to set forth worthily the whole of the case which ought to be laid before you in connexion with the coming election. To-day, as I know that many among you are inte Teated in the land, and as I feel that what is termed agricultural distress is at the present moment a topic too serious to be omitted from our consideration, I shall say some words apon the subject of the agricultural distress (cheers), and particularly because in connexion with it there have arisen in some quarters of the country proposals which have receivedence for mankind is a great blessing vouchsafed by Providence a countenance far beyond their deserts to reverse or to compromise the work which it took us one whole generation to achieve, and to revert to the mischievous, obstructive, aud impoverishing system of protection (cheers). I speak of agricultural distress as a matter undoubtedly serious. Let none of us withhold our sympathy from the farmer, the cul'iVator of the soil, in the struggle that he has to undergo. His struggle is a struggle of compe ition with the United States; but I do not fully explain the case when I say the United States. It is not with the entire United States; it is with the western portion of those States, the portion remote from the seaboard. I wish, in the first place, to state to you all a fact of very great interest and importance, as it seems to me, relating to and defining the point at which that competition of the Western States of America is most severely felt. I have in my hand a letter received recently from one well and honourably known in Scotland, Mr. Lyon Playfair, who has recently been a traveller in the United States, and who, as you

to man. In part I believe the cheapness has been increased by special causes. The lands from which the great abundance of American wheat comes have been very thinly peopled; yet, they will become more thickly peopled, and as they become more thickly peopled a larger proportion of their produce will be wanted for consumption and less of it will come to you and at a higher price. Again, if we are rightly informed, the price of American wheat has been unnaturally reduced by extraordinary depression in recent times of trade in America, and especially of the mineral trades, upon which the railroads are dependent in America, and with which railroads are connected in America in a degree and manner that in this country we know but little of. With the revival of trade in America it is to be expected that the freight of corn will increase, and of all other freights as well, because the employment of the railroads will be a great deal more abundant and they will not be content to carry corn at nominal rates. In some respects, therefore, you may expect a mitigation of the pressure, but in

B

other respects is is likely to continue. Now, not long ago the Prime Minister, who ought to have the best information on the subject (laughter)-1 h ok so, undoubtedly, and I am not going to impeach in the main what he stated-gave it to be understood that there was about to be a development of corn production in Canada which would entirely throw into the shide this corn production in the United States. Well, that certainly was very cold comfort as far as the British agricu!turist is concerned (laughter and cheers), because he did not shy and could uot sav ti at the corn production in the United States was to fall off, but that there was to be added an enormous corn production from Manitoba, that great province which now forms part of the Canadian Dominion. There is no doubt, I believe, that it is a current expectation that vast or very large quantities of corn will proceed from that province, and therefore we have to look forward to a state of things in which for a considerable time to come large quantities of wheat will be forthcoming from America, probably larger quantities and perhaps at frequently lower prices than those at which the corn-producing and corn-exporting dis tricts of Europe have hitherto been able to supply us. That I believe to be on the whole not an unfair representation of the present state of things. Now how are you to meet that state of thing? What are your fair claims P I will tell you. In my opinion your fair claims are in the main two. Oue is to be allowed to purchase every article that you require in the cheapest market (cheers). There should be no needless burden laid upon anything that can come to you and that can assist you in the cultivation of your land. But that claim has been conceded to the full, and I don't know whether there is an instrument of any kind, an auxiliary of any kind that you want for the business of the farm, that you do not find at this moment in the cheapest market. But beyond that you want to be relieved from every unjust and unnecessary legislative restrain'. I say every unnecessary restraint, because taxation is, unfortunately, a restraint upon us all. We cannot say it is always unnecessary, and we cannot say it is always unjust. Yesterday 1 ventured to state, and will therefore not now return to the subject, a number of matters connected with the state of legistation on which it appears to me to be of vital importance, Both to the agricultural interest and the entire community, that the occupiers and cultivators of the land in this country should be relieved from restraints under the operation of which they now suffer considerably. Beyond these two great heads, what you have to look to is your own energy (hear, har) your own energy and thought and action. You care not to undertake to pay rents greater than with reasonable lculation you think you can afford. I am by no means sure, though I speak subject to the correction of higher authority, that in Scotland, within these last 15 or 20 years, something of a speculative character has not entered into rents, and particularly, perhaps, into the r-ns of hill farms. I remember hearing of augmentation, which were being made, I believe, all over Scotland, and I verified the fact in a number of counties about 12 or 14 years ago in the rents of the hill farms, which I confess appeared to impress me with the idea that the high prices which were ruling for meat and wool, and ruling increasingly from year to year, were for once leading the wary and shrewd Scottish agriculturist a little beyond the mark in the rents he undertook to pay. But it is not in this only; it is undoubtedly in a series of manful struggles in which you are engaged, in which you will have to exert yourselves, in which you will have a right to claim everything that the Legislature can do for you (cheers). And I hope it may possibly be my privilege and honour to assist in some of these provisions of necessary liberation from restraint (cheers). But beyond that it is your energies of thought and of action to which you may trust. Now, having said this, my next duty is to warn you against quack remedies, against delusive remedies, against the quack remedies that some people are found to propose, not so much in Scotland as in England. But, gentlemen, from Midlothian at present we are speaking to England as well as to Scotland (cheers), and let us give a friendly warning from this northern quarter to the agriculturist of Eng. land not to be deluded by those who call themselves his friends in a degree of special and superior excellence (laughter). Let us warn him not to be deluded into hoping for relief from sources from which it can never come (cheers). There are three of these zemedies which I will speak of but the first of which I shall not call a quack remedy at all; but I will speak of it not

withstanding in the tone of rational and dispassionate di cussion. I am not now so much upon the controversial portion of this question. The field-which Heaven knows is wide enough-is matter of deep and universal interest to us in our economic and social condition. There are persons, for some of whom I have considerable respect, who think that the differences of our agriculturists may be got over by a fundamental change in the landholding system of this country. I do not mean a change in the laws of entail and settlement and all these restraints, which I hope were tolerably well disposed of yesterday at Dalkeith; but I mean that there are those who think that if you can cut up the land of the country into a multitude of small properties, that of itself will solve the difficulty, and that everybody will be started in a career of prosperity. To a proposal of the kind I am not going to object on the ground that it would be inconsistent with the privileges of landed proprietors. In my opinion if it is known to be for the welfare of the community at large the Legislature is perfectly entitled to buy out the landed proprietor. It is not enti led morally to confiscate the property of the landed proprietor more than the property of any other man; bat it is perfectly entitled to buy out the landed proprietor if it may please for the purpose of dividing property into small lots. I do not wish to recommend it, because I will show you the doubts in my mind about the proposition. But to the principle no objection can be taken. Those persons who possess large portions of the spice of the earth are not altogether in the same position as possessors of mere personalty, for personalty does not impose the same limitations on the action and industry and the well-being to the community in the same ratio as does the possession of land, and therefore I hold that compulsory appropriation, if for an adequate public object, is a thing in itself admirable and even sound in principle. Now, gentlemen, this idea of small properties, however, is one which very large bodies and parties in the country treat with the utmost contempt, and they are accustomed to point to France and say, "Look at France, there you have got 5,000,000-I am not quite sure whether it is 5,000,000 or even more, I do not want to go beyond the mark in anything-you have got 5,000,000 of small proprietors, and you do not produce in France as many bushels of wheat per acre as yon do in England." Well, now, I am going to point out to you a very remarkable fact with regard to the condition of France. I will not say that France produces-for I believe it does not produce-as many bushels of wheat per acre as England does; but I should like to know whether the wheat of France is produced mainly on the small properties of France. I believe that the wheat is produced mainly upon the large properties, and I have not a doubt that the large properties of England are, on the whole, better cultivated and more capital is put into the land than on the large properties of France. But it is fair that justice should be done to what is called a peasant proprietary. A peasant proprietary is an excellent thing to be had, if it can be had, in many points of view. It interests an enormous number of the people in the soil of the country and in the stability of its institutions and its laws. But now look at the effect it has on the progressive value of the land. I am going to give you a few figures, which I will endeavour to relieve from all complications, lest I should unnecessarily weary you. But what will you think when I tell you that the agricultural value of France-the taxable income derived from the land, and therefore the income to the pro prietors of that land-has advanced during our lifetime far more rapidly than that of England ? When I say England, I use it in short. I believe the same thing is applicable even to Scotland, certainly to Ireland; but I shall take England for my text, because the difference between England, Scotland, and Ireland is not so great, and because it so happens we have some means of illustration from England from former time s which are not equally applicable for all three kingdoms. And here is the state of the case. I will not go back any further than 1851. I might go back much further-it would only strengthen my case-but in 1851 I have a statement made by French official authority of the agricultural income of France as well as the income of their real property-namely, houses, &c. In 1851 the agricultural income of France was £76,000,000, It was greater in 1851 than the whole income from land and houses together had been in 1821. That is tolerable evidence of progress; but I will not enter inte details of it, because I have no means of dividing

But I go

fundamental change in the distribntion of landed property in this country as a remedy for agricultural distress. on to another remedy that is proposed, and I shall treat it with a great deal less respect. Now I come to a region of what I have presumed to call quack remedies. There is the quack remedy, gentlemen, which is called reciprocity(laughter)-and this quack remedy is under the special pro-tection of quack doctors-(laughter)-and among the quack: doctors, I am sorry to say, there appears to be some in very high stations; indeed, if I am rightly informed, no less a person than Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs("Oh, oh!")-who has been going about the country and indicating a very considerable expectation that possibly by: reciprocity agricultural distress will be relieved. Let me test, gen lemen, the efficacy of this quack remedy for your agricultural pressure-I won't call it distress, but for the pressure that is upon you and or the struggle in which you are engaged, Now pray watch its operation. You know what is said by the advocates of reciprocity. They always say, "We are the souudest and best freetraders. We advocate reciprocity because it is the truly effectual method of bringing about free trade. At present America imposes enormous duties upon our, cotton goods and upon our irou goods. Put reciprocity into. play, and America will become a Lee trade country." Very well, gentlemen, how will that operate upon you agriculturists in particular 2 Why, it will operate thus: If your condition, gentlemen, is to be regarded in certain particulars as capable of amendment, I ask you to cast the eye of sympathy upon the condition of the American agriculturist, It has been very well said, an 1 very truly said, and it is a smart antithesis, that the American agricu turist has got to buy everything that he wants at prices which are fixed in Washington by the legislation of America, but he has got to se'l everytiring, that he produces at prices which are fixed in Liverpool by the free competition of the world (cheers). How would you like that, gentlemen; to have protective prices to pay for everything that you use-fur your animals, for your implements, for all your farming stock, and at the same time to have to sell what you produce in the free and open market of the world? Bring reciprocity into play, and then if the reciprocity doctors are righ, the Americans will knock off all their protective duties, and the American farmer, instead of producing, as he does now, under a disadvantage-a heavy disadvantage-by having. to pay protective prices for everything that constitutes his farming stock, will have all his tools, implements, manures, and everything else purchased in the free and open market of the world at tree trade prices, and he will be able to produce his corn and compete with you a great deal cheaper than he does now (cheers).. So much for reciprocity considered as a cure for distress. I am not going to co.sider it now in any other point of view; but there are. other men who are bolder still, who are aot content with the milder form of quickery, but who recommend pure and simple reversion to- may fairly call it, I think-tie exploded doctrine of protec ion. And upon that I think it necessary, if you will allow me, to say to you a few words; because it is a very serious matter, and it is. all the more serious because Her Majesty's Government, I'do not scrup'e to say, are coquetting with this matter in a way which is not right; they are tampering with it; they are playing with it. A speech was made in the House of Com ons last Session by Mr. Chaplin on the part of what is called the agricultural interest. Mr. Chaplin did not use the word protection, but he demanded that the malt-tax should be abolished and the revenue supplied by a tax upon foreign barley or some other foreign commodity. Well, if he has any measure of that kind in his pocket, I don't ask him to affix the word "protection" to it; I can do that for my elf (laughter and cheers). Not a word of objection was offered to the doctrine of Mr. Chaplin. H was complimented upon the ability at his speech and the well chosen terms of." his motion; and some members of the Government-minor members of Her Majesty's Government, humoler luminaries of the great constellation-have been going about the country telling their farming constituents that they think the time has come when a return to protection might very safely be tried. Oh, gentlemen, what delusions have been practis d upon the unfortunate British farmer! (laughter). When we go back for 20 years what is now called the Tory party was never heard of as the Tory party; it was always heard of as the party of Protection. As long as the chiefs of the pro

the two-the house income and the land income-for the earlier year, viz., 1821. In 1861 the agricultural incomehad risen to £106,000,000. That is to say, in the space of 13 years the increase of agricultural values in France was no less than 40 per cent, or 3 per cent, per annum. Now I come to England. Wishing to be accurate, I shall limit myself to that with respect to which we have positive figures. In England the agricultural income in 1813-14 was £37,000,000; in 1842 it was £42,000,000; and that is what I will take as my starting point. I have given you figures from the year 1851 to the year 1864 in France. I could only give you those 13 years with certainty that I was not misleading you; and I believe I have kept within the mark, and I believe I could have pat it more strongly for France. Well, gentlemen, I have given you these figures as regards France, and I now come to England. In 1842 the agricultural income of England was £42,000,000. In 1876 it was £52,000,000—that is to say, that while the agricultural income of France increased 40 per cent. in 13 years, the agricultural income of England only increased 2) per cent. in 34 years; the increase in France was 3 per cent. per annum, the increase in England was about one-half or three-fifths per cent. per annum. Now I wish this justice to b done to a system where peasant proprietary prevails. This is of great importance; and will you allow me-you who are Scotch agriculturists-will you believe me when I say that I not only speak to you with the respect which is due by a candidate to a constituency, but with the deference which is due by a man knowing Inttle of agricultural matters to those who know a great deal? There is one point on which the considerations I have been opening up and this rapid increase in the value of the soil of France bear on our interests. Let me try to explain it. L believe myself that the operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the distribution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those economic laws will allow it to be cat up in a multitude of properties like the small properties in France. As to small holdings, I am one of those who attach to them the utmost value. I say that in the Lothians --I say that in a portion of the country where very large holdings prevail, where in some portions large holdings almost exclusively prevail; but it is not on that point I am going to dwell, as there is not time for it; but what I do wish very respectfully to submit to you is this-when you see this vast increase in the agricultural value of France, you know at once it is perfectly certain that it is not upon the large properties of France, which, if anything, are inferior to the cultiva-ton of the large properties in England, but it is upon these very peasant properties which some people are so ready to deery (cheers). What do these peasant properties mean?. They mean what is called in France small cultivation-that is to say, cultivation of superior articles on a small scale; the Cultivation of flowers, cultivation of fruits of every kind. That, in fact, rises above the ordinary character of farming production and rather approaches that of the garden (cheers). Gentlemen, I cannot help having this belief-that our destiny is to have other means of meeting the difficulties in which we may be placed; that a great deal more attention will have to be given than heretofore even by the agriculturists of England, and perhaps even in Scotland, to the production of fruits, vegetables, and flowers, of all that variety of objects which are sure to find a market in a rich and wealthy country like this, but which have hitherto been confined almost exclusively to farming production. You know that in Scotland, in Aber deenshire, as I am told also in Perthshire, a great example of this kind bas been set in the cultivation of strawberries over hundreds of acres at once. I am ashamed to go further into this matter, as I am attempting to instruct you. Lam sure you will take my hint as a respectful and friendly hint; but I do not believe that the large properties of this country can or will be universally broken into small ones, or that the land of this country will be owned, as a general rule, by those who cultivate it. I believe we shall have the two classes of landlord and tenant; but Learnestly desire to see not only, the relations between the two classes harmonize and sound, and their interests never brought into conflict, but to see both flourishing, and prosperous, and the soil of my country producing, as far as may be, under the influence of capital and skilled labour, such a variety of productions as will give abundant livelihood to those who live upon it (cheers). I say, therefore, gentlemen, but Lsay it with all respect, I do not look to a

tective party were not in office as long as they were irresponsible-they recommended themselves to the goodwill of the farmer as protectionists, and said they would set him up and put his interests upon a firm foundation through protec tion. We brought them into office in the year 1852, and I gave with pleasure a vote to assist to bring them into office, because, I said, bringing them into cffice would put their protection to the test; and before they had been six months in office they had thrown protection to the winds (cheers). And that is the way that the British farmers aud their votes are got by those who claim for themselves the designation in a special sense of the friends of the farmers. It is the same with the malt-tax. The malt-tax is held by them to be a great grievance on the British farmer. Whenever a Liberal Government is in office, from time to time they have a great muster from all parts of the country to agitate for the abolition of the malt-tax; but when the Tory Government comes into office the abolition of the malt-tax is totally forgotten (cheers). We have now had six years of Tory Government without a word said, so far as I can recollect and my friend in the chair can correct me if I am wrong-upon the subject of the malt-tax (cheers). The malt-tax, important as it is, is small itself in reference to protection. Gentlemen, it is a serious matter indeed if we are to go back to protection, for how did we come out of it to free trade ? We came out of it after a long and prolonged struggle, which absorbed the attention of Parliaments, on which elections turned, which tok up 20 years of our legislative life, which broke up parties, and which effected a change so marked that if, after the manner in which it was effected, it was now right that we should go back on our steps, then all that I can say is that we must lose that which has been one of the most honourable distinctions of our conntry in the estimation of the worldnamely, that British legislation, though slow, is always proceeding in one direction-that our legislation never goes back Are we, then, children, that, after spending 20 years, from 1810 down to 1860, in breaking down the huge fabric of protection are we in 1879 seriously to set about building it up again? (Hear, hear). If that be right, gentlemen, let it be done; but it will involve upon our part a must humiliating confession. In my opinion it is not right. Protection, how ever, let me point out, is asked for in two forms, and I am now going to quote Lord Beaconsfield for the purpose of expressing concurrence with him (laughter and Hear, hear). I am bound to say, as far as my knowledge goes, protection has not been asked for by the agricultural interests; certainly not by the farmers of Scotland. It has been asked for by certain injudicions cliques and classes of persons, and by persons connected with the manufacturing industries, They want to have duties laid on manufacture; but here Lord Beaconsfield said, and I cordially concur with him, that he would be no party to the institution of a system in which protection was to be given to manufactures and was to be refused to agriculture." That one-sided protection I deem to be totally intolerable, and I reject it, even at the threshold, as unworthy of a word of examination or discussion. But let us come to two-sided protection and see whether that is any better-that is to say protection in the shape of duties on manufactures, and duties on corn, meat, butter, cheese, eggs, and everything that can be produced from the land. Now, gentlemen, in order to see whether we can here find a remedy for our difficulties, I prefer to speculation and mere abstract arguments the method of reverting to experience. Experience will give us very distinct lessons upon this matter (Hear, hear). We have the power of going back to the times when protretion was in full and unchecked force, and of examining the effect which it produced upon the wealth of the country. How, you will say, do I mean to test the question? I mean to test the wealth by the exports of the country; and I will tell you why, because your prosperity depends upon the wealth of your customersthat is to say, upon their capacity to buy what you produce. And who are your customers? Your customers are the industrial population of the country, who produce what we export and send all over the world; consequently, when exports increase, your customers are doing a large business, are growing wealthy and putting money into their pockets, and are able to take the money out of their pockets in or ler to fill their stomachs with what you produce. When, on the contrary, exports do not increase, your customers are poor, your prices go down, as you felt within the last few years,

the prices of meat, for example, and in other things, and your condition has been proportionately depressed (cheers). Now, gentlemen, down to the year 1812 no profane hand had been laid upon the august fabric of protection. Recollect that the farmer's friend always told us it was a very august fabric, and that if you pulled it down it would involve the ruin of the country. That, you remember, was the commonplace of every speech delivered from a county hustings to agricultural constituencies. But before 1842 another agency had come into force which gave new life in a very considerable degree to the industry of the country, and that was the agency of ra lways, of improved communications which shortened distance and cheapened transit, and effected in that way an enormous economic gain and addition to the wealth of the country. Therefore, in order to see what we owe to our friend protection, I will not allow that friend to take credit for what was done by railways improving the wealth of the country. I go to the time when there were no railways, when, I may say, there were virtually no railways-that is, the time before 1830. Now, gentlemen, here are the official facts which I will lay before you in the simplest form. And remember, asing round numbers as I do, that if round numbers cannot be absolutely accurate, they are easy for the memory to take in, and involve no material error or falsification of the facts. Now, gentlemen, in 1800 the exports of British produce were 391 millions in value. I will not say anything about the population, because there are no accurate returns for the three countries, but the exports in 1800 amounted to £39,500,000. From 1826 to 1830, after a medium period of eight-and-twenty years, the average of our exports, which in the five years before 1800 were 39 millions, was only 37 millions. The currency certainly was of less value, and I am quite willing to admit that the 37 millions probably meant as much in value as the 39 millions; but these facts substantially show that the trade of the country was stationary under protection. The condition of the people, if it were possible, grew worse rather than better; the wealth of the country was nearly stationary. But now I show you what protection produced, that it made no addition and gave no onward movement to the profits of those who are your customers, on whose profits you depend, because, under all circumstances, this I think nobody will dispute, that a considerable portion of what Englishmen and Scotchmen produce will some way or other find its way down throats (laughter). What has been the case since we cast off the superstition of protection since we discarded the imposture of protection ? I will tell you what happened between 1830, when there were no railways, and 1842, when no important change had been made as to protection, but when the railway system was in operation, hardly in Scotland, but in England to a very considerable extent on the main lines. Exports which in 1830 had been somewhere about 37 millions, between 1840 and 1812 showed an average amount of 50 millions. That was due to the agency of railways, and I wish you to bear in mind the increasing benefit derivable from the agency, so that I may claim no undue credit for the freedom of trade. From 1842 onward the successive stages of free trade began; in 1842, in 1845, ia 1846, in 1853, and again in 1860 the large measures were carried which have completely reformed your Customs tariff and reduced it from a taxation of 1,200 articles to a taxation of, I think, less than 12 (cheers). Now, under the system of protection, the export trade of the country, the wealth and the power of the manufacturing and producing classes to purchase yone agricultural produets, did not increase at all. In the time when railways began to be in operation, but before free trade, the exports of the country increased, as I have shown you, by 13 millions in somewhere about 13 years-that is to say, taking it at the rate of one milion a year; but since 1842 and down to the present time we have had along with railways, increasing their henefits, the successive adoption of free-trade measures; and what has been the state of the export business of the country ? It has risen in this degree -that which from 1840 to 1812 averaged 50 millions, from 1873 to 1878 averaged 218 millions (cheers). Instead of increasing as it had done between 1830 and 1842, when railways only were at work, at the rate of £1,000,000 a year; instead of remaining stagnant, as it did when the country was under protection pure and simple, with no augmentation of the export trade to enlarge the means of those why buy your products, the total growth of the trade in a period of about 35 years was no less than 168 millions; or say taking it roughly a growth

« PrécédentContinuer »