134 LandcA Impfrovfrntnts. 



provided for full justice being done to the land by the 

 landowners, for the conditions throughout the world are 

 such that, taking into consideration the immense foreign 

 competition, and the heavy burdens imposed on land, it 

 is certain that no tenant will embark on those landed 

 improvements which are so necessary for the welfare 

 of the country. And even if the capitalist tenants were 

 inclined to lay out money in landed improvements, the 

 possibility of having their farms wholly or partially 

 seized for the creation of small holdings, would be 

 a suflScient check to any tendency they might otherwise 

 have to lay out money on the land. I have said that 

 there never was a time when more attention was 

 required to be bestowed on what is still the biggest 

 industry in the kingdom, and if we look forward to the 

 progress of manufactures and mining in Asia, we shall 

 find that the development of our agricultural resources 

 is a subject which must be one of ever-increasing 

 importance to our national welfare. People generally, 

 and Englishmen in especial, have seldom any inclina- 

 tion to look ahead (as Cobden did when he said, " I have 

 often thought what ugly ruins our mills will make "). 

 more especially when doing go is at all likely to disclose 

 a rather disagreeable prospect, but if it is desired to 

 attract attention to the necessity for following American 

 lines as regards state aid to agriculture, we should take 

 into careful consideration our manufacturing and mining 

 prospects. To look forward here with accuracy, it is 

 both advisable and interesting to look back to the 

 beginning of our manufacturing progress — ^to the time 

 when machinery was introduced, and when, with the 

 aid of protection (which levied import duties so high 

 that we find the weavers of Bengal petitioning the 

 English Government to be allowed to compete on 

 equal terms with English manufacturers) the skill and 

 capital of the West overcame the cheap hand labour of 

 the Bast. Having established our manufactures with 

 the aid of protection we then called out loudly for free 



