REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 6i 



children by starving them, how Httle she has succeeded. 



Where France and Germany have failed, under so much 

 more favourable conditions, how are we, with our limited 

 acreage and our teeming population — and our larger 

 wants in respect of other foodstuffs besides corn — to 

 succeed ? Our protectionist friends are shooting at the 

 moon. 



But, if we cannot make ourselves absolutely independent, 

 at any rate, so it is argued, we shall be able to stimulate the 

 cultivation of wheat by a duty or a bounty, and so make our 

 land produce more than it did before. That effect must 

 appear extremely problematic. For in ordinary times the 

 sensible farmer is " out " for making money. It will take 

 a high duty indeed to make wheat growing in ordinary times 

 more profitable than other forms of husbandr}^ Between 

 1874 and 1885, writes Mr. Prothero, landlords and tenants 

 became '' convinced that Protection of food produce can 

 never be revived on a scale which can really help corn 

 growers." And then, what will the consumers saj^ ? It 

 is they who rule the roast. 



But, so it is urged. Protection will " steady " the market. 

 Will it ? " Now, in times of scarcity," so writes Mr. Prothero, 

 " they (that is, the Corn Laws) only increased the range of 

 fluctuation in rise and fall by excluding alternative supplies." 

 That was our experience in England. Now look at Ger- 

 many ! At the time of its Fiscal Controvery — which coin- 

 cided with our own — a chart was circulated among our 

 Members of Parliament showing the difference in the price 

 of wheat as between our free trade country and protec- 

 tionist Germany. That chart was telling in its way. But, 

 as it happened, it only told half the tale, which was at the 

 same time placed before the German public by Professor 

 Conrad — not a Free Trader — in his well-known " Jahr- 

 biicher fiir Nationalokonomie und Statisch." His chart 

 showed how very great were the fluctuations and also the 

 variations of price in Germany herself as between one part 

 of the country and others. We in Great Britain have 

 practically one price at all places. At any rate differences 

 are only slight. Mark Lane rules the market. Under 



