54 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



Townshend and " Coke of Norfolk," when they wanted to 

 induce their tenants to adopt their own more advanced 

 methods of cultivation, putting more back and brains 

 into their work, so as to produce more food, did not offer 

 them a monopoly of their land or other preferential terms, 

 but, on the contrary, raised their rent, so as to compel 

 them to farm better. And that remedy had the desired 

 effect. Now, is there not a lesson in all this ? 



And now let us look at home ! We have had Protection. 

 And we have had guaranteed prices. And how have they 

 worked ? 



No one surely will quarrel with emergency measures such 

 as have had to be taken during war-time. War-time is an 

 altogether exceptional period. The dominating factor, while 

 it lasts, is, not general principle but momentary expediency. 

 The country is in the case of a besieged city in which, 

 figuratively speaking, " an ass's head is sold for fourscore 

 pieces of silver." The people must be fed. We are not 

 mad enough under present circumstances to talk of Pro- 

 tection for foodstuffs. Rather should we be glad to pay a 

 good fat bounty upon imported corn. However, to stimu- 

 late our farmers, beginning, as it were, afresh, we have 

 rightly guaranteed prices. Aux grands maux les grands 

 remedes. But that is one of the exceptions which prover- 

 bially prove the rule. We have had guaranteed prices 

 before, when there was no war and no emergency. And 

 they have done anything but answer. We have also had 

 Protection before — at a time when it was not, as it must 

 be under present conditions, complicated with necessary 

 consideration for friendly neutrals and our corn-exporting 

 Colonies, whose bottoms submarines respect as little as 

 they do our own, and who have had a sort of promise given 

 them by Mr. Chamberlain that they are to form our grana- 

 ries. Are such friendly bottoms to be ruled out, or are we 

 by a discriminating tariff to make their importation need- 

 lessly costly to ourselves — without even being asked for 

 such a favour ? And, in view of all such considerations, 

 one feels inclined to ask : is the submarine danger after all 

 really only a pretext ? Is it only a mask put on by an 



