FISCAL POLICY AND AGRICULTURE 355 



" We have obtained enough Free Trade to enable 

 our upper and middle classes to acquire more wealth 

 than, with their present education, they can either 

 employ wisely or spend innocently, and to stimulate 

 unproductive consumption in vulgar luxury and waste- 

 ful charity ; but we have not obtained enough Free 

 Trade to feed, and clothe, and house our people, or to 

 inspire confidence in other countries, and to establish 

 those international relations without which all hope of 

 internal progress is a foolish and idle dream." ^ 



With regard to agriculture, Cobden calculated on 

 the continuance of the " natural protection " to the 

 British farmer in the form of freight and other ex- 

 penses connected with foreign imports. This protec- 

 tion he reckoned at from eight to ten shillings per 

 quarter of grain. His confidence in the later pros- 



^ Free importers forget that the French treaty itself was a refutation 

 of their poHcy. Cobden was enabled to make the treaty simply because 

 he had something to give, some duties to surrender. No treaty is possible 

 now, because we have made the foreigner free of our market by abolish- 

 ing all duties except the few which we are obliged to keep for the purpose 

 of revenue. At the expiration of the treaty France — with good reason from 

 her point of view — refused to renew it on the same terms. Instead of doing 

 so, she steadily increased her tariffs against British goods. In essence we 

 are a highly protectionist nation, but our protection is for the foreign work- 

 man and producer against the British workman and producer. The farmer 

 in this country has to pay probably ten per cent on the value of his output 

 in the form of rates, taxes, and other charges, which must all be added 

 to the cost of production. It is true that the foreigner has to pay similar 

 charges in his own country, but that only affects the question in a small 

 degree. Those charges, besides being much lighter, are for his home 

 trade, in which he is well protected by tariffs and often by bounties and 

 drawbacks. England is for him an extra free market for his regular and 

 his surplus productions. He has practically two markets at the cost ot 

 one, seeing that to the expenses of the English Government, whether 

 national or local, he contributes not a farthing. The British farmer, 

 while not seeking for protection in any form, might fairly ask to be put 

 on the same level as his foreign competitor by means of an import duty 

 equal in amount to that of the burdens levied on his own produce. 



