IV. 



The Consumers' Interest. 



Fiscal Policy. 



The main interest of the community in agriculture is as 

 consumers. They desire to get the food they require 

 produced in sufficient quantity and as cheaply as possible. 

 If that can be done by the producers in this country on 

 more favourable terms than it can be secured from abroad, 

 they will buy the home produce, but if the home producers 

 cannot compete with overseas supplies, the community is 

 not likely to penalise itself in the interest of the agricultural 

 industry. This is a common ground of complaint by 

 farmers against the people of this country. They inveigh 

 against the cry for cheapness and plead that in the national 

 interest the consumers ought to be prepared to forego the 

 advantage of free trade prices so as to maintain a larger 

 production in this country and a larger rural population. 

 At the same time they show no desire to give up the 

 advantages of free trade in the commodities they consume 

 themselves, either in the course of their business or as 

 citizens. This weakness they share with most advocates 

 of a system of protection. 



There is nothing sacrosanct in the policy of free trade. 

 It is a policy and there is no reason why we should elevate 

 it to the rank of a principle which must be accepted on 

 any ground other than that of expediency. If it could be 

 shown that on the balance the national advantage lay in 



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