AMERICA AND RETALIATION.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE 'SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I observe that you suggest (Spectator, December 19th, 1903, p. 1066), that one of the possible methods of retaliation by this country if Great Britain should commit economic suicide under the lead of Mr. Chamberlain would be an export-duty on cotton. That is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States, fortunately for the whole country. It formed a part of the policy established under the Constitution of absolute Free-trade throughout the national domaiu, and absolute freedom of exports ; it would have been well had they also provided for the taxation of imports only up to the necessity of public revenue. But while we cannot put an export-duty on cotton, we may retaliate if the food-supplies from Canada were admitted free of duty, and our supplies were taxed. It is very true that Canada can provide all the wheat that Great Britain consumes if emigrants can be in- duced to settle the lands of the far North, where their sole money crop would be wheat grown in a short, hot season, coupled with a long, dreary, and monotonous winter. These conditions are not attractive to the great mass of emigrants. Possibly forty or fifty thousand have migrated from the Northern wheat section of the United States into Canada within a recent period. But during a period not much longer over six hundred thousand active, energetic emigrants have moved southward from the Northern wheat section into Oklahoma, where wheat, maize, cotton, fruit and vegetables of every kind can be grown almost throughout the year, a. very short interval of not very cold weather scarcely preventing work upon the fields for more than a few weeks, if at all. Close by is another great section in Texas of similar potentialities settling up in the same way. The entire supply of wheat required for the United Kingdom can be grown on unoccupied land in this section, close to a great navigable river, leading to New Orleans and thence to Liverpool. Suppose the impossible folly of taxing food from the United States imported into England while admitting Canadian wheat free, what would be the immediate retaliation ? It would be the instant withdrawal of the courtesy now extended to Canada, permitting her products to be carried free of duty in bond across the railroads of the United States, practically the only outlet for these products during the five most important shipping months of the year, when the canals and rivers of Canada are closed. It would be well for your readers to bear in mind that the centre of political power in the United States has passed from the seaboard to the great grain-growing district of the Mississippi Valley, where there are five million well-bred, intelligent freehold farmers, practically free of debt, well organised, and closely studying the conditions of trade. They are slow to move, but sure to control any Administration whenever they do move. Agriculture and the arts which depend upon agriculture give employment to one-half the population" of the United States that is listed as being occupied for gain.
As these farmers think, so will the policy of the United States be in the next decade. They are now thinking, but have not yet concluded that an open door to imports, subject only to revenue duties, is vital and necessary to the open door to exports. When they reach the logical and necessary con- clusion, the commerce of the United States, to the mutual benefit of those with whom they deal and of ourselves, may advance by leaps and bounds, as the commerce of Great Britain advanced after the shackles were taken from it by Peel and Gladstone.—I am; Sir, &c.,
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. EDWARD ATKINSON.
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