296 LAND REFORM 



The question is, how can this increased cultivation 

 of wheat be secured? It could be effectually secured 

 by a bounty of, say, thirty shillings per acre on 

 the 7 million acres named, which would mean an 

 annual outlay of loj millions sterling of public 

 money. On the question of bounties Adam Smith 

 makes the following important remarks, which directly 

 bear on the suggestion here made : " To encourage," 

 he says, " the production of any commodity, a bounty 

 upon production, one would imagine, would have a 

 more direct operation than one upon exportation. It 

 would, besides, impose only one tax upon the people, 

 that which they must contribute in order to pay the 

 bounty. Instead of raising, it would tend to lower 

 the price of the commodity in the home market ; and 

 thereby instead of imposing a second tax upon the 

 people, it might, at least in part, repay them for what 

 they had contributed at first. Bounties upon pro- 

 duction, however, have been rarely granted. The 

 prejudices established by the commercial system have 

 taught us to believe that national wealth arises more 

 immediately from exportation than from production."^ 

 One important result of this system would be that 

 the foreigner would no longer be able to rule our wheat 

 markets. We should be free, as countries with fixed 

 duties are free, from sudden and rapid fluctuations in 

 price caused by speculation in grain. If the foreigner 

 came in at all, he would have to pay the charge out of 

 his own profits, because the prices here would be fixed 

 for him and not as at present by liim. Further, no 



years in succession, and some farmers do it. Mr. W. A. Prout, Chairman 

 of the Farmers' Club, has grown wheat on the same soil continuously for 

 above forty years. For the methods adopted see " Journal of the Farmers 

 Club," October, 1905. 



' "Wealth of Nations,'^ Vol. Ill, chap. v. 



