- PROTECTION IN ENGLAND. 13I 



lings a week, and that no blame attaches to the farmers, 

 who are unable to afford more." In Berkshire ** the 

 weekly payment to able-bodied men who could find 

 employment is stated as being in some places so low as 

 two shillings and sixpence" A Buckingham petition in- 

 formed Parliament that " many persons commit depreda- 

 tions and misdemeanors to get into prison, thus to 

 preserve themselves from lingering starvation " ; that 

 "many have contracted disorders by eating the flesh 

 of animals that die naturally, and other unwholesome 

 food." The Bishop of Bath and Wells, in presenting 

 one from Frome, in Somersetshire, said, in support of it : 

 " I have been a witness to the most afflicting distress, 

 which I could not, if I would, describe." 



Sir James Caird, a very high authority on these mat- 

 ters, recently stated before a committee in England 

 that the spendable income from the landed interests 

 fell off $114,000,000 in 1885. And yet it is evident 

 that the mere day laborer was in no such deplora- 

 ble condition in 1885, as is related of sixty years ago in 

 the foregoing paragraph. Evidences clearly indicate 

 that the land-owner, and tenant paying rents upon a 

 basis of former values, are those of the landed interests 

 which are feeling the depression most. 



Finally, we arrive at the conclusion that, in all our com- 

 parisons as to the condition of agriculture in England to- 

 day with former times and with othei' countries, we should 

 keep the fact well in view that its congested state is due 

 to the evil results of protection in the past, and a bad 

 system of land-holding opposed to the best use of land. 



Germany, France, and Italy, all having high protective 

 tariffs, are each contending with most perplexing agri- 

 cultural difficulties. 



