212 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



whose industry is exposed to extraordinary 

 vicissitudes of depression and prosperity, 

 cannot withdraw his opposition to a policy of 

 Protection. Despite the fact that agriculture 

 is our greatest industry, the landlords and 

 farmers of the country form numerically a very 

 small class of the population, and even in rural 

 districts are vastly outnumbered by the 

 agricultural labourers and other workers who 

 live hi our villages and hamlets. 



To take the latter class first. Would the 

 ordinary farm labourer be better off under a 

 fiscal system which, inter alia, raised the price 

 of agricultural produce ? The ordinary reply 

 of the more thoughtful exponents of Tariff 

 Reform would be that (a) the increased cost 

 of bread, meat, butter and so on would be 

 very small and (b) that the increased prosperity 

 of the farmer would mean increased wages for 

 the farm hand. But there is absolutely no 

 guarantee that low duties would not be raised. 

 The experience of other countries points 

 strongly in this direction, and in our own 

 midst influential agriculturists, even before 

 the establishment of a 2/- duty on wheat, are 

 declaring that nothing under 10/- or 15/- a 

 quarter would be of any practical use to the 

 farmer ! And what conceivable guarantee 

 can exist for higher wages under a system of 



