LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 171 



fast growing business of supplying fresh and packed meats, our cheap ranges, 

 inventive skill, and facilities for transportation constitute a trustworthy safe- 

 guard. It is true that this trade seems to be meeting a check at the jH'esent 

 moment, but this will hardly be permanent, unless we continue too long our 

 senseless policy of commercial restriction. But so long as we put barriers in 

 the way of a free interchange of commodities, and think we can grow rich by 

 taxing ourselves to fill an overflowing treasury, there will exist a constant 

 menace of retaliation or a resort to freer markets on the part of those to 

 whom we wish to sell. 



Here arises a question as to the spirit in which our increasing agricultural 

 exports are regarded abroad. It is a question that demands careful consider- 

 ation in this country. 



FOREIGN CUSTOMERS. 



The largest purchaser by far of the exports under consideration, is Eng- 

 land. During the year ended June 30, 1882, of our total exports of commod- 

 ities amounting to ^733,000,000, $469,000,000, or sixty-four per cent, was 

 taken by England; and of the agricultural exports in that year, she took not 

 far from seventy per cent. Manifestly the attitude of England toward this 

 state of things is of the highest importance to us. The course of trade 

 between this country and England is narrowly watched there. Especially in 

 recent years have land owners and farmers felt the sharp competition from 

 this side of tlie Atlantic. English agricnltui'e is undergoing great changes, 

 and the land question is becoming more and more prominent; though just at 

 the present moment, perhaps, more attention is devoted to the proposed rad- 

 ical changes in the conditions of the elective franchise, and the basis of rep- 

 resentation in the House of Commons. It is well known tluit for several 

 years that country has suffered "bad seasons," rents have been tumbling, 

 land is a drug in the market, farmers have given up their farms, and those 

 who have been accustomed to live in luxury upon their rents, have become 

 straitened in circumstances. In former days the corn laws enabled the farm- 

 ers to get high prices for short crops, but that sort of legislation ceased forty 

 years ago. And yet, since free trade in grain was established, English 

 prices have been, upon the whole, higher than before. That was due 

 to the great stimulation of manufactures that resulted from the overthrow of 

 the protective system in England, and the consequent increase in the scale of 

 wages — an increase that more than made up for the higher price of food, and 

 which lessened the price of manufactures by increasing the efficiency of labor. 

 But within a few years American competition in breadstuffs has become more 

 effective, largely through the reduced cost of transportation, which has been 

 described. The succession of bad seasons has made things worse, and so it is 

 not strange tiiat there should have been talk of somehow trying to change 

 the state of affairs. The fact that our sales to England far exceed her sales 

 of manufactures to us, led to some talk of trying to force us to lower our 

 tariff on manufactures by retaliating duties upon our breadstuffs, and the 

 purchase of supplies more largely from her colonies. This was the Fair Trade 

 idea so much talked of two years ago. We might be greatly injured by such 

 a policy, but the difficulty is that England would certainly have to pay more 

 for her food supply, and so might harm herself quite as much as us. 



At any rate, Fair Trade is not a live issue in British politics to-day, and a 

 return to the protection policy seems as far off as ever. The remedy for the 

 distresses of agriculture will be found in other quarters. In Ireland a beginning 



