SIR, — As a contributor to " The Hungry Forties," I should
like, with your permission, to say a few words in answer to Lord Colchester's letter in year issue of January 7th. It is a pleasure to find in the ranks of the Tariff Reformers one so anxious that the controversy should be conducted with accuracy. If Lord Colchester can only persuade Mr. Chamberlain and his immediate followers to act on this principle, he need not fear that Free-traders will be slow to follow their example. Meanwhile, however, what .objection can be offered to any evidence given by surviving witnesses as to the state of things prevailing under extreme Protection ? The letters are statements of facts within the experience of their writers, and do not pretend to be anything else. Each reader can make what allowance be thinks reason- able for imperfections of memory, or the different scale of duties proposed by Mr. Chamberlain. It is something to prove by snob a weight of direct evidence that the people of the " forties " were miserable, in view of the many suggestions by Tariff Reformers that, after all, they were not so badly off. No doubt Lord Colchester is correct in saying that the greater part of the difference between the present price of Wheat and that prevailing sixty years ago took place after 1880; that is to say, the reduction is largely due to improve- ments of transit and the development of the Western States of America ; but if "The Hungry Forties," or the leaflets you suggested should be taken from it, are to be developed into exhaustive studies of the subject, much more must be done than Lord Colchester appears to require. Free- traders have • considerably more to gain than to lose by such a treatment of the evidence. It is an error to suppose that repeal di I not produce an immediate reduction in price. For purposes of comparison war years should clearly be excluded, and the high prices pre- vailing during the Crimea vitiate all comparisons which fail to note the special reason explaining them. The population was rapidly increasing, but excluding the three years 1854-55-56, the average selling price of wheat during the decade following repeal was fully 10s. a quarter less than before. The yearly increase in the population of four hundred thousan" d people is an important factor in the case. Corn, Owing to a bountiful harvest, had been cheaper in 1855 than for fifty years previously; but the good crops of the early "forties" failed to cause anything like such a fall. No doubt this was due to the large increase of the population meanwhile. We were rapidly nearing the limits of people that can be fed by this country by our
methods of farming, even in years of abundant harvest ; and it seems certain that had free importation not come to redline the price of wheat, the growth of demand would soon have greatly increased the price of our limited supply. Lord Colchester appears to overlook the fact that Mr. Chamberlain not only promises the farmer a 2e. duty on wheat, he angles for his vote by promising to make wheat-farming profitable, to make it pay to enlarge again our wheat-growing area. This the duty immediately proposed will certainly not do; and were we to return a Protectionist Government to power, the inadequacy of the 2s. duty would be at once apparent. Those who voted for the Government would certainly demand that its policy should be made effective ; and it is hard to see how Mr. Chamberlain, in the improbable event of his wishing to do so, would be able to resist their pressure. The ls. Corn- tax of 1901 was an objectionable impost, but at least it was not accompanied by any promises of "Protection." A " pro- t3ctive " tax of 2s. a quarter, except as a prelude to something much more, is merely fatuous, it must soon be either aban- doned by a Free-trade, or extended by a Protectionist, Govern- ment. Which of these two things happened would not necessarily be determined by whether the small tax worked well or ill, or even by the opinion which the majority of the people came to form on that particular issue. Unless the Free-trade party were in all their doings impeccable in the eyes of the electors, their rivals would win some day on some issue or other, and every new Government of Protectionists we may be sure would give us more Protection.—I am, Sir, &c.,
BROUGHAM VILLIERS.
LANCASHIRE AND PROTECTION.
Previous page
