Political Economy and the Land 



from Canada, a perfectly workable ideal ! 



But in general terms it seems to me that a 

 5% duty, in the case of many articles, will 

 simply mean transferring 5% of the middleman's 

 tariff to the Government, where it will be under 

 more scientific control and will be used to the 

 benefit of the whole nation and not to that of 

 one class only. 



But let us suppose that a 15% tariff were 

 imposed instead of a 5%, even then it appears 

 to me that so long as our present system of 

 marketing — of exchanging goods — remains as 

 it is, the agricultural producer would not benefit 

 to any great extent. For though the middle- 

 man would most probably forego 5% of his 

 tariff from considerations of general expediency, 

 he certainly would not forego 15% thereof. 

 And by far the simplest way for him to meet 

 the situation would be to raise the price for 

 the consumer. Theoretically any impost of 

 15% ought to increase the producer's prices 

 hy I5/0, but in practice the middleman's tariff 

 interposes so large a " nonconductive " zone 

 that the 15% would certainly be greatly reduced 

 before it reached the producer. 



All this surely points to the necessity of re- 

 organising our system of markets at the same 

 time that we reorganise our fiscal system. 



The whole class of middlemen would un- 

 doubtedly rise in wrath to resist such a whole- 



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