AN ENQUIRY. 31 



Bread and meat, therefore, not only did not, 

 but could not have become, through our foreign 

 imports, immediately cheaper in price after the 

 adoption of Cobden's proposals for the free 

 importation of foreign corn and meat. Cheap 

 food is, in point of fact, like cheap clothing, cheap 

 iron, cheap clocks, or cheap anything else; that 

 is to say, it is a question of supply and demand, 

 aided, as they all have been, by discoveries in 

 science and art, which have enabled the goods to 

 be produced at a cheaper rate, and brought by 

 sea and land at a cheaper rate, too. In spite of 

 free imports, however, there are 916,347 less 

 labourers, farmers, &c., engaged in agricultural 

 pursuits than in 1851. 



Wheat. 

 I. — Wheat Acreage. 

 The following figures are very significant. They 

 are ofncial : — 



Whereas in 1866, the first year for which oflticial 

 figures are available, there were 3,350,394 acres 

 in wheat, there were, in 1903, only 1,497,254 

 acres ; or a decrease in 37 years of 1,853,140 acres. 



II. — Wheat Yield ijer Acre, Here and Abroad. 

 It cannot be said that the British farmer's 

 ability to grow vfheat is not equal to that of 

 foreign farmers; because the average product per 

 acre on British soil and in other countries works 

 out as follows : — 



The United Kingdom, 33 bushels per acre; 



I 



