166 PKOTECTION AND TITHES 



farthing ; in the seventeen years that have since elapsed, 

 this economic pedantry has cost the nation nearly twelve 

 million pounds ; and once taken off it cannot be put on 

 again. It is not denied that import duties, if they are 

 high enough, would benefit farmers, or that the stimulus 

 which they would give to arable farming would indirectly 

 prove advantageous to agricultural labourers. But wheat 

 cannot, it is said, be grown at a profit under 40^. Is 

 an import duty of 20s. likely to be obtained, or, if 

 granted, is it large enough to succeed ? Both questions 

 must be answered in the negative. Fair traders are not 

 likely to embarrass the question of taxing manufactured 

 articles with the unpopular demand for the taxation of 

 raw necessaries of life. Bread is the exclusive food of 

 thousands ; its cheapness cannot be diminished in the face 

 of trade depression ; it is the very last article which any 

 Government can venture to tax, for the charge falls on the 

 very poor. Agriculturists will only prove the catspaws 

 of manufacturers if they swell the cry for Fair Trade. It 

 is useless to ask for what, in all human probability, can 

 never be granted. The consumers, and not the producers, 

 of bread and meat now govern public opinion. The 

 landed interests would, it is submitted, be wiser to 

 concentrate all their strength upon obtaining pecuniary 

 relief from foreign competition, not by raising the price 

 of bread and meat, but by shifting a portion of the load 

 of taxation which burdens real property to the shoulders 

 of personalty. The effect of an import duty is to counter- 

 balance existing taxes upon land ; if those taxes them- 

 selves are lightened, the same object is effected in a less 

 objectionable manner. 



Tithe rent-charge difficulties are less obviously, but 

 not less vitally, affected by the numerical inferiority of 



