REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 73 



produce (in Germany) for which we can muster only forty- 

 five to fifty. Now one would like to put the question : 

 Is a bonus to be given in respect of wheat growing — no 

 matter whether it takes the form of a bounty or of a pro- 

 tective import duty — at all calculated to increase the average 

 yield per acre? If you have a workman " ca'ing canny," 

 do you tell him : ]My dear fellow, you are doing badly ; 

 I will give you a better day wage ? Or do you put him " on 

 the piece " ? We have known some working men who, 

 when they were too well off, would work only three days 

 a week instead of five and a half, because they earned enough 

 in those three days to keep them comfortably for a whole 

 week. Will not our backward farmer, " out " for no more 

 than a " living," as Mr. Hall has put it, do in substance 

 the same thing ? He produces, say, three quarters to the 

 acre. You want him to produce five. Will you tell him : 

 You shall have more money for every quarter ? " Well 

 and good," he is likely to answer, " then I can take things 

 easy ; I will only produce two in future." The West 

 Indian planter, when he found that his free negro worked 

 poorly on day wages, did not add to those wages, but put 

 his man on " cane farming " — unfortunately not without 

 in some cases grievously oppressing the labourer. But 

 there can be no doubt that the principle adopted was 

 right, and the remedy has answ^ered, so far as growing 

 goes. Antiquated milling of cane is another matter. 



Will not something analogous to " the piece " be more 

 to the point in our case ? 



Landlords, by the way, who plead, as has been done in the 

 public Press, that the " ruinously cheap price of wheat" 

 has compelled them to put their land under grass," to 

 save them from bankruptcy," practically give not only 

 their own case but incidentally the whole case for Protection 

 away. For, as regards themselves, we know that properly 

 tilled land pays a better profit than grass, while at the 

 same time also doing better for the Nation. And as regards 

 Protection, they admit that w'e are to be seriously out of 

 pocket, and tax the working men heavily, in order to abet 

 them in " ploughing the sands " of unprofitableness, when 



