28 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



with a dreadful fear. A great cry arose on both sides of 

 St. George's Channel for the opening of the ports, and a 

 letter from Lord John Russell to his constituents publicly 

 committed his party to that proposal. The result is 

 well known. Sir Robert Peel bowed to what he deemed 

 to be the necessities of the case, and boldly went to the 

 root of the matter by accepting the policy of the repeal 

 of the Corn Laws, and introducing the measure to which I 

 have previously referred. By the abolition of the duty 

 on corn and of the duties on the importation of foreign 

 cattle and wool, Protection, so far as it affected agricul- 

 ture, was swept away. 



The extraordinary changes in the condition of the 

 country, and of all the circumstances under which every 

 kind of industry is carried on, which have taken place 

 during the last half century, have been so lately recalled 

 to us in connection with the Diamond Jubilee, that I need 

 not allude to them at length. I will only remind you of 

 one or two pregnant figures. In 1841 the population of 

 the United Kingdom was 26,700,000 ; in 1891 it was 

 37,800,000. The number of consumers of agricultural 

 produce, therefore, has increased by over 42 per cent. 

 The trade of the country has increased enormously. 

 Going back only to 1854, the- first year for which 

 we have comparable figures, I find the total net imports 

 amounted to £133,000,000, and the total exports of 

 British and Irish produce to £97,000,000. In 1896 the cor- 

 responding figures were : imports, £442,000,000 ; exports, 

 £240,000,000. Again, in 1855 (in which year the official 

 returns commence), the total annual value of property and 

 profits assessed to income tax was £317,000,000 ; in 1896 

 it was £710,000,000. Under Schedule A the figures are : 

 J 855, £125,000,000 ; 1896, £210,000,000. Under Sche- 

 dule D : 1855, £91,000,000, 1896, £351,000,000. These 

 facts alone suffice to indicate the extent of the progress of 

 the nation commercially and industrially. 



Let us take now a few agricultural figures, and here we 



