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CHAPTER XVIII. 



SELF-HELP NOT PROTECTION. 



Legislation and financial reform may, and, it^'is hoped, 

 will, do something for agriculture ; but it can, and must, 

 do most for itself. State aid may be a good crutch ; it is 

 certainly a bad leg. The only certain and immediate assist- 

 ance comes from self-help. When the situation is looked 

 fairly in the face, foreign competition in corn is seen to be, 

 for the present at least, a fixed quantity. If agriculturists 

 expect foreign wheat supplies to cease, they may starve 

 where they stand, like Horace's rustic waiting for the 

 river to cease to flow. It is true that American or Indian 

 grain production and population will some day run neck 

 and neck ; but few of the present generation of men will live 

 to see that agricultural millennium. It is so inherently 

 improbable that import duties on wheat will ever be 

 imposed, that farmers only follow the will-o'-the-wisp of 

 Protection to be lured still deeper into the Slough of De- 

 spond. Agriculturists must therefore revise their practical 

 ideas, if they cannot, in this respect, revise the fiscal sys- 

 tem. From other sources relief will be but infinitesimal. 



AVhere, then, are agriculturists to look for a livelihood ? 

 In 188G the total value of imports of agricultural produce' 

 amounts, in round figures, to 113 millions of pounds. Of 

 this total value, 62^ millions consisted either of grain, not 



' See Appendix VIII., Values of Imports of Agricultural Produce. 



p 2 



