TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



487 



of capital will again flow towards it, and we may again confidently expect a renewal 

 of our export trade. It is impossible the people of the United States can long con- 

 tinue to supply the world with food and take nothing in return for it. On the other 

 hand, all past experience shows that in spite of high duties and protection rates, a 

 great import trade may exist, and may find the means of overcoming all the impedi- 

 ments of hostile tariffs. Within the last few weeks we have heard of an order for 

 20,000 tons of rails, to be manufactured in this town, and to be delivered at New 

 York, where the duty payable will be more than the cost price at Sheffield. The 

 trade returns of the last few months likewise show that in every item enumerated 

 there is a great increase of exports to America. As the United States, therefore, 

 have been the main cause of the past depression, so they may in the future be the 

 main cause of a reaction ; and the reaction which will tell first in trade and manu- 

 factures will certainly later reach the agricultural interest. 



It appears to me, then, that it would be a most useless waste of time and energy to 

 expend efforts in trying to reverse the commercial system established by Sir Robert 

 Peel in 1846, or in making inquiries with a view to a return to exploded fallacies 

 and obsolete systems ; but it is a time, when attention having been so much directed 

 to the condition of agriculture, we may with great advantage inquire whether the 

 conditions under which it is carried on in this country are such as to attract and 

 encourage to the utmost the application of capital and labour to the land ; whether 

 a system of tenure which seems calculated to forbid the combination of ownership 

 and occupation, to prevent security for improvements effected by the occupier, and 

 to accumulate land in the hands of persons who are frequently unable to afford 

 capital for its improvement, is the best suited for the development of agricultural 

 industry. Although changes in such a system may not be fraught with imme- 

 diate remedies for present depression, and may not affect the price of produce, yet 

 they may tend ultimately to place the cultivators in a better position to meet the 

 varying conditions of the future ; which in agriculture, as in other trades, must be 

 expected to present alternate periods of prosperity and loss. 



APPENDIX. 



