148 AGRICULTURE AND TARIFF REFORM. 



We are not a people who by nature desire to 

 quarrel. On the contrary, we desire peace. We 

 are, however, a practical people ; and we are be- 

 ginning to see that foreign nations, whilst they 

 are undermining us in our own home market — by 

 fair means or foul — are in some cases likely before 

 very long to be unable to supply us Avith the 

 cheap food about which so many are most anxious. 

 The United States, for instance, by the time our 

 children are middle-aged or are old men, will, 

 if the progress of that country goes on as of late 

 years, have very little corn to spare for export 

 purposes ; and this, coupled v/ith a declining 

 export trade from ourselves to the States, to Ger- 

 many, and to other foreign lands, is a fact which 

 ought not to give Lord Eosebery or others " re- 

 pose," but rather to cause them to see how we 

 can turn our Colonies to account to feed our 

 people, if for nothing else. 



Perhaps, however, we cannot do better in 

 closing these remarks than to quote the following 

 extract from a leading article in a New York 

 paper, the writer of which sees clearly enough 

 what Mr. Chamberlain saw before him. The 

 extract, and the other facts of the situation, make 

 us wonder how it is that with such a splendid 

 prospect before the British people, it should be 

 necessary for any one of us even to argue the 

 question of preferential trade with our Colonies 

 at all ; especially, too, when Cobden declared, 

 when negotiating the reciprocity treaty with 

 Erance in 18G2, that " we cannot fight against 



