40 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



long run, right or wrong, will have their will — do not 

 shrink from Protection as at any rate a possible expedient. 

 The claim set up in certain industries f or a " living wage " 

 — i.e., a fixed minimum remuneration for workers — 

 appears to involve, in the long run, protective duties. It 

 seems clear that no industry can fix the cost of pro- 

 duction — or any material part of it — and allow un- 

 restricted competition from countries where the cost is 

 lower. A return to Protection in some form by this 

 country, whether for good or ill, may well be within the 

 possibilities of the twentieth century. 



I will not, at the end of a dissertation already too long, 

 discuss the merits of Protection for agriculture. When I 

 served on the Royal Commission on Agriculture I had 

 the privilege of personally interviewing some hundreds 

 of farmers in the different districts to which I was sent, 

 and very many of them insisted on advancing arguments 

 to demonstrate to me that a duty on foreign corn would 

 be a benefit to British corn-growers. It was my duty to 

 listen, and I listened. But, if I may be pardoned for 

 saying so, it is not necessary to prove a truism. It is 

 self-evident that an import duty on a particular article 

 is, so far as it goes, an advantage to the home producers 

 of that article. People sometimes assert, with an air of 

 surprise, that the majority of farmers are Protectionists, 

 and everyone will remember the outburst of indignation 

 which was aroused at the declaration of opinion made by 

 the Agricultural Conference, at St. James's Hall, in 1892. 

 But, as I have always maintained, that declaration only 

 proved that the Conference was representative. I 

 venture to say that four-fifths of British farmers are 

 Protectionists, but I also allege that not one-fifth of them 

 believe in the present probability of obtaining protective 

 duties on food. Even those who do not think that it is 

 hopeless to expect Protection some day admit that it is 

 in the dim and distant future. 



I will conclude with a point which cannot too often be 



