Part 16

Here is the state of the case. I will not go back any further than 1851. I might go back much further; it would only strengthen my case. But for 1851 I have a statement made by French official authority of the agricultural income of France, as well as the income of other real property, viz., houses. In 1851 the agricultural income of France was £76,000,000. It was greater in 1851 than the whole income from land and houses together had been in 1821. This is a tolerable evidence of progress; but I will not enter into the detail of it, because I have no means of dividing the two—the house income and the land income—for the earlier year, namely, 1821. In 1851 it was £76,000,000—the agricultural income; and in 1864 it had risen from £76,000,000 to £106,000,000. That is to say, in the space of thirteen years the increase of agricultural values in France—annual values—was no less than forty per cent., or three per cent. per annum. Now, I go to England. Wishing to be quite accurate, I shall limit myself to that with respect to which we have positive figures. In England the agricultural income in 1813–14 was £37,000,000; in 1842 it was £42,000,000, and that year is the one I will take as my starting-point. I have given you the years 1851 to 1864 in France. I could only give you those thirteen years with a certainty that I was not misleading you, and I believe I have kept within the mark. I believe I might have put my case more strongly for France.

In 1842, then, the agricultural income of England was £42,000,000; in 1876 it was £52,000,000—that is to say, while the agricultural income of France increased forty per cent. in thirteen years, the agricultural income of England increased twenty per cent. in thirty-four years. The increase in France was three per cent. per annum; the increase in England was about one half or three fifths per cent. per annum. Now, gentlemen, I wish this justice to be done to a system where peasant proprietary prevails. It is of great importance. And will you allow me, you who are Scotch agriculturists, to assure you that I speak to you not only with the respect which is due from a candidate to a constituency, but with the deference which is due from a man knowing very little of agricultural matters to those who know a great deal? And there is one point at which the considerations that I have been opening up, and this rapid increase of the value of the soil in France, bear upon our discussions. Let me try to explain it. I believe myself that the operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the distribution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those economic laws will allow it to remain cut up into a multitude of small properties like the small properties of France. As to small holdings, I am one of those who attach the utmost value to them. I say that in the Lothians—I say that in the portion of the country where almost beyond any other large holdings prevail—in some parts of which large holdings exclusively are to be found—I attach the utmost value to them. But it is not on that point I am going to dwell, for we have no time for what is unnecessary. What I do wish very respectfully to submit to you, gentlemen, is this. When you see this vast increase of the agricultural value of France, you know at once it is perfectly certain that it has not been upon the large properties of France, which, if any thing, are inferior in cultivation to the large properties of England. It has been upon those very peasant-properties which some people are so ready to decry. What do the peasant-properties mean? They mean what, in France, is called the small cultivation—that is to say, cultivation of superior articles, pursued upon a small scale—cultivation of flowers, cultivation of trees and shrubs, cultivation of fruits of every kind, and all that, in fact, which rises above the ordinary character of farming produce, and rather approaches the produce of the gardener.

Gentlemen, I cannot help having this belief, that, among other means of meeting the difficulties in which we may be placed, our destiny is that a great deal more attention will have to be given than heretofore by the agriculturalists of England, and perhaps even by the agriculturalists of Scotland, to the production of fruits, of vegetables, of flowers, of all that variety of objects which are sure to find a market in a rich and wealthy country like this, but which have hitherto been consigned almost exclusively to garden production. You know that in Scotland, in Aberdeenshire—and I am told also in Perthshire—a great example of this kind has been set in the cultivation of strawberries—the cultivation of strawberries is carried on over hundreds of acres at once. I am ashamed, gentlemen, to go further into this matter, as if I was attempting to instruct you. I am sure you will take my hint as a respectful hint—I am sure you will take it as a friendly hint. I do not believe that the large properties of this country, generally or universally, can or will be broken up into small ones. I do not believe that the land of this country will be owned, as a general rule, by those who cultivate it. I believe we shall continue to have, as we have had, a class of landlords and a class of cultivators, but I most earnestly desire to see—not only to see the relations of those classes to one another harmonious and sound, their interests never brought into conflict; but I desire to see both flourishing and prospering, and the soil of my country producing, as far as may be, under the influence of capital and skill, every variety of product which may give an abundant livelihood to those who live upon it. I say, therefore, gentlemen, and I say it with all respect, I hope for a good deal from the small culture, the culture in use among the small proprietors of France; but I do not look to a fundamental change in the distribution of landed property in this country as a remedy for agricultural distress.

But I go on to another remedy which is proposed, and I do it with a great deal less of respect; nay, I now come to the region of what I have presumed to call quack remedies. There is a quack remedy which is called Reciprocity, and this quack remedy is under the special protection of quack doctors, and among the quack doctors, I am sorry to say, there appear to be some in very high station indeed; and if I am rightly informed, no less a person than her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been moving about the country, and indicating a very considerable expectation that possibly by reciprocity agricultural distress will be relieved.[70] Let me test, gentlemen, the efficacy of this quack remedy for your, in some places, agricultural pressure, and generally distress—the pressure that has been upon you, the struggle in which you are engaged. Pray watch its operation; pray note what is said by the advocates of reciprocity. They always say, We are the soundest and best free-traders. We recommend reciprocity because it is the truly effectual method of bringing about free trade. At present America imposes enormous duties upon our cotton goods and upon our iron goods. Put reciprocity into play, and America will become a free-trading country. Very well, gentlemen, how would that operate upon you agriculturists in particular? Why, it would operate thus: If your condition is to be regretted in certain particulars, and capable of amendment, I beg you to cast an eye of sympathy upon the condition of the American agriculturist. It has been very well said, and very truly said,—though it is a smart antithesis,—the American agriculturist has got to buy every thing that he wants at prices which are fixed in Washington by the legislation of America, but he has got to sell every thing that he produces at prices which are fixed in Liverpool—fixed by the free competition of the world. How would you like that, gentlemen—to have protective prices to pay for every thing that you use—for your manures, for your animals, for your implements, for all your farming stock, and at the same time to have to sell what you produce in the free and open market of the world? But bring reciprocity into play, and then, if reciprocity doctors are right, the Americans will remove all their protective duties, and the American farmer, instead of producing, as he does now, under the disadvantage, and the heavy disadvantage, of having to pay protective prices for every thing that constitutes his farming stock, will have all his tools, and implements, and manures, and every thing else purchased in the free, open market of the world at free-trade prices. So he will be able to produce his corn to compete with you even cheaper than he does now. So much for reciprocity considered as a cure for distress. I am not going to consider it now in any other point of view.

But, gentlemen, there are another set of men who are bolder still, and who are not for reciprocity; who are not content with that milder form of quackery, but who recommend a reversion, pure and simple, to what I may fairly call, I think, the exploded doctrine of protection. And upon this, gentlemen, I think it necessary, if you will allow me, to say to you a few words, because it is a very serious matter, and it is all the more serious because her Majesty’s government—I do not scruple to say—are coquetting with this subject in a way which is not right. They are tampering with it; they are playing with it. A protective speech was made in the House of Commons, in a debate last year by Mr. Chaplin, on the part of what is called “the agricultural interest.” Mr. Chaplin did not use the word protection, but what he did say was this: he said he demanded that the malt tax should be abolished, and the revenue supplied by a tax upon foreign barley or some other foreign commodity. Well, if he has a measure of that kind in his pocket, I don’t ask him to affix the word protection to it. I can do that for myself. Not a word of rebuke, gentlemen, was uttered to the doctrines of Mr. Chaplin. He was complimented upon the ability of his speech and the well-chosen terms of his motion. Some of the members of her Majesty’s government—the minor members of her Majesty’s government—the humbler luminaries of that great constellation—have been going about the country and telling their farming constituents that they think the time has come when a return to protection might very wisely be tried. But, gentlemen, what delusions have been practised upon the unfortunate British farmer! When we go back for twenty years, what is now called the Tory party was never heard of as the Tory party. It was always heard of as the party of protection. As long as the chiefs of the protective party were not in office, as long as they were irresponsible, they recommended themselves to the good-will of the farmer as protectionists, and said they would set him up and put his interests on a firm foundation through protection. We brought them into office in the year 1852. I gave with pleasure a vote that assisted to bring them into office. I thought bringing them into office was the only way of putting their professions to the test. They came into office, and before they had been six months in office they had thrown protection to the winds. And that is the way in which the British farmer’s expectations are treated by those who claim for themselves in the special sense the designation of his friends.

It is exactly the same with the malt tax. Gentlemen, what is done with the malt tax? The malt tax is held by them to be a great grievance on the British farmer. Whenever a Liberal government is in office, from time to time they have a great muster from all parts of the country to vote for the abolition of the malt tax. But when a Tory government comes into office, the abolition of the malt tax is totally forgotten; and we have now had six years of a Tory government without a word said, as far as I can recollect,—and my friend in the chair could correct me if I were wrong,—without a motion made, or a vote taken, on the subject of the malt tax. The malt tax, great and important as it is, is small in reference to protection. Gentlemen, it is a very serious matter indeed if we ought to go back to protection, because how did we come out of protection to free trade? We came out of it by a struggle which in its crisis threatened to convulse the country, which occupied Parliaments, upon which elections turned, which took up twenty years of our legislative life, which broke up parties. In a word, it effected a change so serious, that if, after the manner in which we effected that change, it be right that we should go back upon our steps, then all I can say is, that we must lose that which has ever been one of the most honorable distinctions of British legislation in the general estimation of the world,—that British legislation, if it moves slowly, always moves in one direction—that we never go back upon our steps.

But are we such children that, after spending twenty years—as I may say from 1840 to 1860—in breaking down the huge fabric of protection, in 1879 we are seriously to set about building it up again? If that be right, gentlemen, let it be done, but it will involve on our part a most humiliating confession. In my opinion it is not right. Protection, however, let me point out, now is asked for in two forms, and I am next going to quote Lord Beaconsfield for the purpose of expressing my concurrence with him.

Mostly, I am bound to say, as far as my knowledge goes, protection has not been asked for by the agricultural interest, certainly not by the farmers of Scotland.

It has been asked for by certain injudicious cliques and classes of persons connected with other industries—connected with some manufacturing industries. They want to have duties laid upon manufactures.

But here Lord Beaconsfield said—and I cordially agree with him—that he would be no party to the institution of a system in which protection was to be given to manufactures, and to be refused to agriculture.

That one-sided protection I deem to be totally intolerable, and I reject it even at the threshold as unworthy of a word of examination or discussion.

But let us go on to two-sided protection, and see whether that is any better—that is to say, protection in the shape of duties on manufactures, and protection in the shape of duties upon corn, duties upon meat, duties upon butter and cheese and eggs, and every thing that can be produced from the land. Now, gentlemen, in order to see whether we can here find a remedy for our difficulties, I prefer to speculation and mere abstract argument the method of reverting to experience. Experience will give us very distinct lessons upon this matter. We have the power, gentlemen, of going back to the time when protection was in full and unchecked force, and of examining the effect which it produced upon the wealth of the country. How, will you say, do I mean to test that wealth? I mean to test that wealth by the exports of the country, and I will tell you why, because your prosperity depends upon the wealth of your customers—that is to say, upon their capacity to buy what you produce. And who are your customers? Your customers are the industrial population of the country, who produce what we export and send all over the world. Consequently, when exports increase, your customers are doing a large business, are growing wealthy, are putting money in their pockets, and are able to take that money out of their pockets in order to fill their stomachs with what you produce. When, on the contrary, exports do not increase, your customers are poor, your prices go down, as you have felt within the last few years, in the price of meat, for example, and in other things, and your condition is proportionally depressed. Now, gentlemen, down to the year 1842 no profane hand had been laid upon the august fabric of protection. For recollect that the farmers’ friends always told us that it was a very august fabric, and that if you pulled it down it would involve the ruin of the country. That, you remember, was the commonplace of every Tory speech delivered from a country hustings to a farming constituency. But before 1842 another agency had come into force, which gave new life in a very considerable degree to the industry of the country, and that was the agency of railways, of improved communication, which shortened distance and cheapened transit, and effected in that way an enormous economical gain and addition to the wealth of the country. Therefore, in order to see what we owe to our friend protection, I won’t allow that friend to take credit for what was done by railways in improving the wealth of the country. I will go to the time when I may say there were virtually no railways—that is the time before 1830. Now, gentlemen, here are the official facts which I shall lay before you in the simplest form, and, remember, using round numbers. I do that because, although round numbers cannot be absolutely accurate, they are easy for the memory to take in, and they involve no material error, no falsification of the case. In the year 1800, gentlemen, the exports of British produce were thirty-nine and a half millions sterling in value. The population at that time,—no, I won’t speak of the exact figure of the population, because I have not got it for the three kingdoms.[71] In the years 1826 to 1830,—that is, after a medium period of eight-and-twenty years,—the average of our exports for those five years, which had been thirty-nine and a half millions in 1800, was thirty-seven millions. It is fair to admit that in 1800 the currency was somewhat less sound, and therefore I am quite willing to admit that the thirty-seven millions probably meant as much in value as the thirty-nine and a half millions; but substantially, gentlemen, the trade of the country was stationary, practically stationary, under protection. The condition of the people grew, if possible, rather worse than better. The wealth of the country was nearly stationary. But now I show you what protection produced; that it made no addition, it gave no onward movement to the profits of those who are your customers. But on these profits you depend; because, under all circumstances, gentlemen, this I think, nobody will dispute,—a considerable portion of what the Englishman or the Scotchman produces will, some way or other, find its way down his throat.

What has been the case, gentlemen, since we cast off the superstition of protection, since we discarded the imposture of protection? I will tell you what happened between 1830, when there were no railways, and 1842, when no change, no important change, had been made as to protection, but when the railway system was in operation, hardly in Scotland, but in England to a very great extent, to a very considerable extent upon the main lines of communication. The exports which in 1830 had been somewhere about £37,000,000, between 1840 and 1842 showed an average amount of £50,000,000. That seems due, gentlemen, to the agency of railways; and I wish you to bear in mind the increasing benefit now derived from that agency, in order that I may not claim any undue credit for freedom of trade. From 1842, gentlemen, onward, the successive stages of free trade began; in 1842, in 1845, in 1846, in 1853, and again in 1860, the large measures were carried which have completely reformed your customs tariff, and reduced it from a taxation of twelve hundred articles to a taxation of, I think, less than twelve.

Now, under the system of protection, the export trade of the country, the wealth and the power of the manufacturing and producing classes to purchase your agricultural products, did not increase at all. In the time when railways began to be in operation, but before free trade, the exports of the country increased, as I have shown you, by £13,000,000 in somewhere about thirteen years—that is to say, taking it roughly, at the rate of £1,000,000 a year.

But since 1842, and down to the present time, we have had, along with railways, always increasing their benefits,—we have had the successive adoption of free-trade measures; and what has been the state of the export business of the country? It has risen in this degree, that that which from 1840 to 1842 averaged £50,000,000, from 1873 to 1878 averaged £218,000,000. Instead of increasing, as it had done between 1830 and 1842, when railways only were at work, at the rate of £1,000,000 a year—instead of remaining stagnant as it did when the country was under protection pure and simple, with no augmentation of the export trade to enlarge the means of those who buy your products, the total growth in a period of thirty-five years was no less than £168,000,000, or, taking it roughly, a growth in the export trade of the country to the extent of between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 a year. But, gentlemen, you know the fact. You know very well, that while restriction was in force, you did not get the prices that you have been getting for the last twenty years. The price of wheat has been much the same as it had been before. The price of oats is a better price than was to be had on the average of protective times. But the price, with the exception of wheat, of almost every agricultural commodity, the price of wool, the price of meat, the price of cheese, the price of every thing that the soil produces, has been largely increased in a market free and open to the world; because, while the artificial advantage which you got through protection, as it was supposed to be an advantage, was removed, you were brought into that free and open market, and the energy of free trade so enlarged the buying capacity of your customers, that they were willing and able to give you, and did give you, a great deal more for your meat, your wool, and your products in general, than you would ever have got under the system of protection. Gentlemen, if that be true—and it cannot, I believe, be impeached or impugned—if that be true, I don’t think I need further discuss the matter, especially when so many other matters have to be discussed.

I will therefore ask you again to cross the seas with me. I see that the time is flying onward, and, gentlemen, it is very hard upon you to be so much vexed upon the subject of policy abroad. You think generally, and I think, that your domestic affairs are quite enough to call for all your attention. There was a saying of an ancient Greek orator, who, unfortunately, very much undervalued what we generally call the better portion of the community—namely, women; he made a very disrespectful observation, which I am going to quote, not for the purpose of concurring with it, but for the purpose of an illustration.

Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, said with regard to women, their greatest merit was to be never heard of.

Now, what Pericles untruly said of women, I am very much disposed to say of foreign affairs—their great merit would be to be never heard of. Unfortunately, instead of being never heard of, they are always heard of, and you hear almost of nothing else; and I can’t promise you, gentlemen, that you will be relieved from this everlasting din, because the consequences of an unwise meddling with foreign affairs are consequences that will for some time necessarily continue to trouble you, and that will find their way to your pockets in the shape of increased taxation.

Gentlemen, with that apology I ask you again to go with me beyond the seas. And as I wish to do full justice, I will tell you what I think to be the right principles of foreign policy; and then, as far as your patience and my strength will permit, I will, at any rate for a short time, illustrate those right principles by some of the departures from them that have taken place of late years. I first give you, gentlemen, what I think the right principles of foreign policy.