I04 AMERICAN FARMS. 



transportation, by the removal of difficulties to naviga- 

 tion, and by securing every market, in all lands, for the 

 cheapest and most desirable articles as agents in repro- 

 duction, or for unproductive consumption ? 



It is also true of our legislators as it was with the 

 legislators of Bastiat's time, that though obstructionists 

 in public policy \yhen looking to their own interests, they 

 show that they recognize the advantages of their procur- 

 ing for themselves the largest returns by their endeavors 

 to escape the friction between effort and reward they 

 place against others. Is it not a common occurrence for 

 legislators to favor friends and corporations by the 

 removal of obstructions to the effectual disposal of the 

 results of labor and to the receiving of the results of the 

 labors of others ? What is all this for but to increase the 

 margin of gain between effort and result ? In Canada a 

 great transcontinental railway has lately been built with 

 free foreign material, and is now disbursed and repaired 

 with stock disencumbered from the taxation burdens 

 which most of other productive enterprises have to bear. 

 What has this been for but to secure to the stockholders 

 the benefits of a great result in return for their efforts ? 



We are told that the success of such enterprises is a 

 boon to the whole people. But is it not so with most 

 enterprises ? Should not the success of agriculture be a 

 boon to the country ? Can a nation afford that the 

 farmers above all others shall not have effort crowned 

 with rich result ? Or is it wisdom to see, without regret, 

 the agricultural population obliged to absorb the stored- 

 up capital of the past in order to cancel the deficit 

 between the effort and result of the present ? 



What sort of a national policy is it that takes no heed 

 to these, when it is so jealous of the interests of others ? 



