such commodities will benefit nobody at all. 

 To begin with it is quite certain that Tariff 

 Reform would be of real advantage to our 

 landowners. The ordinary experience of 

 history shows us that in the days preceding 

 the abolition of duties on corn, our landed 

 proprietors reached a very high level of pros- 

 perity, and in fact the great majority of our 

 imposing country " Halls " were built at a 

 period when the price of corn was maintained 

 by high protective duties. Even since the 

 advent of Free Trade, while landowners have 

 in numerous cases shown generous considera- 

 tion to their tenants in years of depression, 

 rents have undoubtedly been raised when 

 agricultural prices improved. It is obvious 

 therefore that the general rise in the price of 

 wheat and other produce which would result 

 from the new duties would be the signal for 

 a general rise also in the farmer's rent. 



The support of Tariff Reform therefore by 

 our landowners is quite natural and normal. 

 There is nothing worse or better in a vote the 

 squire records for a protectionist party than 

 in his labourer's vote for an old-age pension 

 party, if both electors are thinking solely and 

 simply of their own individual pockets. A 

 very brief acquaintance with practical politics 

 proves that large numbers of our voters in all 



