"TIIE TRIUMPH OF FREETRADE."

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8933, 15 November 1890, Page 2

"TIIE TRIUMPH OF FREETRADE."

Part 11. i As a contiast to the picture drawn in Mr Medley's address before the Cobden Club of the marvellous progress mad 6in Great Britain during the last thirty year 3 under Freetrade, let us take the present condition of the United States under Protection. " Agriculture there," says our author, "is in a state ol deep depression. Our Protectionists have so dinned into our ears that we have ruined our agriculture (in Great Britain) by Freetrade, whilo the Americans have caused theirs to flourish by Protection, that many of us believed it was true. . . . It is British agriculture which is looking up; it is American agriculture which is in desolation." In proof of this, to many, it may be imagined, startling statement, Mr Medley brings forward the following facts and figures: — " Since 1883, the average farm value of the wheat crop, as estimated by the Department of Agriculture, has only once been as high as 10 dollars, or £2 (sterling), per acre, and has been between 8 and 9 dollars for four years. . . - As to cattle, prices have been ruinous to breeders and feeders for several years, and have only just begun to show signs of improvement." From the Report of the United States' Agricultural Department of March last ( 1890) , it appears that in spito of the large increase of the total number of stock of every description, over the preceding year, there has been an enormous fall in value. In the year 1889, the total number of horses, cows, cattle, pigs, etc., is set down at 159,152,581. In the present year, 1890, the total number is 165,335,623, being a total increase in numbers of 6,183,042. In spite of this veiy large increase in numbers, there is a decrease in the tokd value of all classes of live slock (excluding poultry, etc.) in tho United States of no less than £17,65G.500 (pounds sterling !). From this general dccli jo in value, sheep, it appears, are the only exception. The desertion of farms in some of the Eastern States hag been so common that it has been made the subject of Congressional inquiry. Mortgaging of farms and crops has largely extended, and in some oi the States foreclosures have become common. The President of the Farmers' Alliance of Kansas not long ago addressed an open letter to the members of Congress from that State, in which he calls to their minds that they are occupied in Congress with the consideration of almost all classes of questions except those bearing on the condition of the agricultural population. He draws attention to the fact that " a single law firm in one city in Southern Kansas has a contract for the foreclosure of 1,800 mortgages." The farms are said to be so heavily mortgaged that there is slight hope of tho peop'e keeping their homos, and the profits of farming are said to be nil in consequence of the cost of getting the produce to market. Tho foreclosure of these 1,800 mortgages is said to mean 1.800 homesteads transferred from the hands of so many industrious families to the hands of native, or foreign, capitalists. Evictions were taking place in every part of Kansas, and, says the President, they need not go all tho way to Europe to witness scenes of cruelty in matters of this kind. And this state of affairs is not confined to Kansas. Now maik what Mr L. L. Polk, President of the National Farmers' Alliance said on 22nd April, 1890, before the Senate Committee on Agriculture :—": — " Retrogression in American agriculture moans national ruin. The power and grandeur of this great country cannot survive the degradation of the American farmer. Struggle, toil, and suffer as he may, each recurring year has brought to him smaller reward for his labou s, until to-day, surrounded by the most wonderful progress and development t c world has ever witnessed, he is confronted and appalled with impending bankruptcy and ruin. We prute&t, and with all reverence, that it is not God's fault. We protest that it is not j the fanners' fault. We believe, and so j charge, solemnly and deliberately, that it is the fault of the financial system of the Government — a system that has placed on } agriculture an undue, unjust, anJ intoler- /' able proportion of: the burdens of taxation."; i Nor does the condition of the labouring) classes in the large cities seem one whjft bolter. The repoit of the American Co;-ru. mittee of Inquiry into this matter iufo'hus us that tho .state of the children of; the poor in the United States is far wors'ethau it is in the worst places iv England*: or tho Continent ; that in social ./progress Monarchical (and Freetrade) E/ngland is, on the whole, a long way/ ahead of Republican (and Protectionist) America ! "Nowhere is the situation, more serious than in great American cities, and nowhere has .so little been done 10/emedy it." "In Chicago," the report proceeds, "From thirty to forty 'thousand employes are compelled to work sco-m day i in each week." The minority report of 'he United States Senate Committed on tl.e new Tariff Bill, subsequently i asset! , declares that "Tho protected ii> 'd&lrics of the country have never be v at any time in our history in such .''depressed and discouiMgiug condi'J' as they aie now.^' If we turn next to Canada, another country under the policy -f Protection, we lind thai the amount of mortgages on farms in the pnnince ( Ontaiio is estimated at Jfnmi two o) tljK-e hiniilred millions of do! tans o:i an a.ssesMiient of under four hundred and thirty millions ! Yet Ontario is by far the richest and wealthiest province in the Dominion. "After eleven years of Protection it is found that one or two large plena have yrpm (W4 thrivettf but the condition pg tljf

vast majority of the onco thriving small imam and villages is that of utter stagnation, and an almost complete stop has been put to the settlement of the Province." Again, to quoto from this same speech of Sir Richard Cartwright, in the course of ' the recent Budget debate in the Dominion Parliament, Ottawa, " A very largo pro- \ portion of the farmers of Ontario have sunk below the level of tenants at will, and aro in a worse position to-day in Canada than if they held their property at a landlord's caprice." Once more, in France, under Protection again, the value of her exports during the last twelve 3'ears has declined no less than £7,500,000 ! In the rlecado from 1878 to 1887, her national debt has, on the other hand, increased by 5,083 millions of francs, and is now estimated at from 1,280 to 1,440 millions pounds sterling! (Twelve to nearly fifteen hundred million pounds, English !!) In Germany, lastly, (i.e., tho Empire of Germany,) the Economist of the 27th July, 1889, states that while tho export trade (under Protection) increased from 1879 to 1887 at the rate of 13 per cent, only, Rritish export trade increased during that period at the rate of 15 per cent., whilst from the latest statistics it would seem to be since steadily declining, whereas, in Great Britain, as we have seen, it has been steadily and even rapidly rising. With the observation of Mr J. Schoenhof's, (United States Consul at Burslem, a large town in the Staffordshire Potteries), this notice of tho remarkable address of Mr Medley's may be well concluded :—": — " The manufacturer could not have Protection and at the same time have full scope to compete in the markets of the World. Tlie farmer is seeing himself caught between the devil of farm viortgagts, coupled with high rates of interes', and Protection prices for what he has to buy, and the deep sea of Free Trade prices for what he has to sell." The sentence in italics may be, I think, sir, safely commended to the serious attention of our farmers in New Zealand, not least in i'aranaki, at the present crisis. Egmont.