LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 **...... M.851M1 , I8 ...... 
 
 Accessions No. ..f/. Shelf No. ... 
 
RECIPROCITY, BI-METALLISM, 
 
 AND 
 
 LAND-TENURE REFORM. 
 
RECIPROCITY, BI-METALLISM, 
 
 AND 
 
 LAND-TENURE REFORM. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER J. WILSON, 
 
 \> 
 
 AUTHOR OP "THE RESOURCES OF MODERN COUNTRIES, "BANKING REFORM, ETC. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 [WI7BRS1T7] 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1880. 
 
 The Riylit of Translation and Reproduction is Rcserreti. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 
 BREAD STREET HILL, B.C. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE greater part of the following chapters on 
 " Keciprocity " appeared in Macmillaris Magazine 
 early in the year. Want of space then prevented 
 the writer from discussing the question of land 
 reform, and an attempt is now made to fill the 
 gap thus left. It is still however but an outline ; 
 the writer naturally feeling that a subject so 
 thoroughly handled in all its bearings by the many 
 competent writers who have preceded him gave no 
 excuse for detailed reiteration of threadbare argu- 
 ments. The chapter on Bi-metallism has been 
 added for the sake of completeness. That remedy 
 for dull trade has been nearly as much in vogue as 
 " reciprocity " with many people, and, along with 
 " reciprocity " and the re- imposition of corn duties, 
 it exhibits that curious outburst of trades-unionism 
 among the moneyed classes which a time of languish- 
 ing trade has produced. There is consequently a 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 unity of design in the following pages which may 
 not at first blush appear. The subjects treated in 
 it are either various phases of one and the same 
 disease, or the remedies which that disease requires. 
 For much that the writer has put forward under 
 the latter head he expects little thanks from many. 
 Although conscious of a desire to suggest the means 
 of averting revolution he will probably be told 
 that his remedies are worse than the disease. 
 
 But if the existence of the disease be recognised 
 much will be gained, and should what follows help 
 to quicken public apprehension on that point, the 
 writer will be well satisfied. The diseases of the 
 body politic, once recognised and understood, will 
 themselves force the application of remedies ; and 
 however much in love with an abstract theory he 
 may be, yet on the question of practical remedies 
 the writer is quite content to take his stand amongst 
 the opportunists. 
 
 LONDON, December, 1879. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US 1 THE GENERAL ANSWER TO THE 
 
 QUESTION . . . . . '., . . . ."" . '. - * . . . ; 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FUTILITY OF THE RECIPROCITARIAN PROPOSALS . . . 51 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOME MINOR LESSONS OF THE PRESENT TRADE DEPRESSION . 7 
 
 CHAPTER IV." 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM ... . . ' * ; . . 106 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION ON BRITISH AGRI- 
 CULTURE AND BRITISH LAND LAWS 153 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM . 193 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE .... 232 
 POSTSCRIPT 253 
 
;iTrj 
 
 RECIPROCITY, BIMETALLISM, 
 
 AND 
 
 LAND-TENURE REFORM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US'? THE GENERAL ANSWER 
 TO THE QUESTION. 
 
 FEW things have lately been calculated to oppress 
 the mind more heavily than the troubled state of 
 English industries and the confused ideas to which 
 that state has given rise. Men wont to face their 
 difficulties manfully, seem to have given way to a 
 kind of despair, and clutch wildly at whatever 
 promises a quick and easy way out of their dis- 
 tress. Prominent and influential sections of the 
 nation are to all appearance disposed to apply 
 palliatives to the situation, which can only aggra- 
 vate their difficulties. If there be a principle of 
 political economy which one might have sworn was 
 fixed in the English mind never to be shaken, it 
 
 B 
 
2 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 is the principle of "free trade." Men of all shades 
 of political opinion vied with each other in its 
 praise. Free trade was like a new revelation, and 
 the very squires themselves hesitatingly joined in 
 boasting of what it had done to make England 
 great. They might not, any more than the 
 masses, have other than the haziest conception of 
 what the words "free trade" meant, or of why 
 the thing they represented should be so good; but 
 the cry was fashionable, and more than that, the 
 rents of land had risen in an unprecedented de- 
 gree since the new era began. So dinners were 
 given in honour of the new faith, and the flow of 
 eloquence heard at these dinners and on all public 
 occasions indicated clearly that free trade was 
 firmly rooted in the- hearts of the people. With 
 that faith held high, we should yet subdue the 
 earth. Already the triumphs to which it had led 
 us exceeded those of ancient Kome. We had an 
 empire on which the sun never set, and our ships 
 traded to every known region of the globe. Before 
 our merchants and manufacturers, opponents melted 
 away like snow at the touch of spring, and all by 
 the might of free trade. Listening to paeans chanted 
 in a lofty strain like this, a stranger might have 
 been forgiven for thinking that to an Englishman 
 " free trade" was something holy a faith never 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? :-J 
 
 to be parted with dearer to his heart than all 
 the Christian creeds. 
 
 Less than three years ago he was a bold man 
 who would have dared to doubt the absolute 
 soundness of this mercantile principle ; and the 
 man who could sneer with effect at our neighbours 
 still in the bonds of protectionism was always sure 
 of applause. Three short years ago ! and now what 
 do we find ? We find that a large and increasing 
 section of the working classes and of the trading 
 community, as well as a most important proportion 
 of the owners of land, are roundly asserting that 
 this free trade has been all a mistake. "We have 
 gone on the wrong principle altogether, and shall 
 be ruined if we do not retrace our steps/' When 
 you ask these people what they want, they do 
 not speak very clearly, it is true, but that pro- 
 bably arises from shamefacedness. Many of them 
 have been such ardent wordy free-traders in the 
 past that they cannot at once veer round and 
 loudly abuse their old love ; so they prevaricate. 
 They declare that "in theory, you know, free 
 trade is an excellent thing so excellent, that 
 practically it will only work in the millennium ! 
 In these merely human days the world must con- 
 tent itself with something less perfect, lower if 
 you will, but more practicable and handy." The 
 
 B 2 
 
4 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 cry, in short, is "Free trade in theory, but in 
 practice Eeciprocity ! " That is the new word which 
 is going to charm back to us all our waning pros- 
 perity. As yet only a word, we may soon expect to 
 find it a political cry, and unless the country is wiser 
 than it has lately shown itself to be, from a cry it 
 will probably pass into a living, working policy. 
 
 Many things combine to make this contingency 
 less remote than it seemed but a few months ago. 
 
 o 
 
 First of all the Government wants money a great 
 deal of money, as is the custom of Tory Governments ; 
 secondly, the landlords want to maintain their rents, 
 at last threatened by the action of free trade, super- 
 added to bad harvests ; thirdly, many of the farmers 
 are not unlikely to say that they want the same thing 
 as the landlords ; and, finally, the manufacturer and 
 shipper want a larger foreign trade, which they seem 
 in many cases to imagine "reciprocity" will give 
 them. The change that a few years of dull business 
 has wrought upon the ideas of the trading and 
 moneyed classes is indeed astounding. Men now 
 advocate what they before cried down, and as beaten 
 children run to their mothers for shelter and comfort, 
 these " reciprocitarians " come running to parliament 
 for assistance against the aggressive foreigner. In 
 this feeling the workmen join the manufacturers much 
 as the farmers join the landlords. A well-informed 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 5 
 
 correspondent, writing to me from Manchester that 
 cradle of the free-trade movement gives the follow- 
 ing account of the state of mind existing there now 
 upon this question : 
 
 "It is a great mistake to suppose that the mass 
 of the people of this country are free-traders from 
 intelligent conviction. They are nothing of the sort. 
 The bulk of the working men, whatever they may 
 call themselves, are protectionists. So also are very 
 many of the merchants and manufacturers. These 
 latter almost all say that they are free-traders, but 
 when they come to explain, they are. not free-traders, 
 unless ' the people we deal with are free-traders too/ 
 I talk with no end of such people. ' You see/ they 
 say, 'what your free trade has brought us to at last.' 
 ' And are you not a free-trader ? ' I ask. The usual 
 reply is, ' Oh, yes ; I'm a free-trader in the abstract 
 of course everybody is that now ; but I don't think 
 it works well all round/ 
 
 " This is the state of mind very common at present 
 among the younger merchants and manufacturers here, 
 and it will certainly be turned to account at the next 
 general election. Of course nobody will go in for 
 ' protection in the abstract ; ' but there will be much 
 sneering at 'ultra free-traders' at 'men who, not 
 content with ruining our industry and prosperity by 
 over-production at home, insist on exposing us to the 
 mad and reckless competition of the whole world/ 
 &c., &c. That such talk is meaningless, or destitute 
 of definite meaning, instead of being any objection to 
 
6 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 its acceptance, is only a ground for believing that it 
 will go down the more sweetly." 
 
 This is a very disturbing account of the thoughts 
 prevailing in the leading manufacturing centre of the 
 country. The " hard times " are obviously producing 
 an unlooked-for effect upon the weaklings of the 
 present generation, and the nation may yet have to 
 fight its free-trade battles over again. To a free-trader 
 by intelligent conviction that seems hardly possible, 
 but we must never forget that the world is not 
 governed by intelligent convictions. Stupidity is 
 still, alas ! a most powerful factor in mundane affairs, 
 and the more stupid a people is, the more easily 
 will it follow a mere sound. You might turn 
 "Tweedledum" into a capital political cry if you 
 contrived to make believe that it meant higher 
 wages and more beer. 
 
 It was shrewdly remarked by Mr. Horace White, 
 of Chicago, at the recent Cobden Club dinner, that 
 the English had been converted to free trade through 
 their stomachs, and the remark was only too true. 
 For a while it answered most marvellously in filling 
 empty stomachs, but a new generation has grown 
 up, crowding the towns ; new conditions are coming 
 to the fore such as try the feeble faith of those who 
 thought that the summit of human progress had been 
 attained. In spite of free trade, " hunger " has once 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 7 
 
 more appeared among us, and what its presence may 
 convert us to Heaven only knows. 
 
 It is therefore time to take a look at this genera- 
 tion's new pet trade-reviver. What do these adversity 
 and hunger-driven people mean ? They say, " Love 
 free trade platonically, but use something else for 
 every- day purposes." We must seriously endeavour 
 to discern what that something is. Eor fear one 
 might be accused of misrepresentation, it will be best 
 to give the description in the words of some of those 
 who obviously consider themselves chosen apostles of 
 the new sect. Take this as a first sample : 
 
 "The most ardent free-trading theorist would, I 
 suppose, be ready to agree with me that the protec- 
 tive tariffs of foreign nations and in some of our own 
 colonies are injurious to the manufacturing interests 
 of Great Britain. But I am prepared to go much 
 further than this, because I entirely believe that those 
 protective tariffs, if continued long enough, are not 
 merely injurious to our home industries, but will 
 come to mean the absolute extinction so far as 
 manufactures are concerned of our export trade. 
 Nor do I think that foreign nations or the colonies 
 are at all likely, of their own accord, to modify those 
 tariffs to our advantage. I say deliberately ' to our 
 advantage/ because I believe that protectionist nations 
 are not such fools as our British political economists 
 would have us believe them to be. It seems to me 
 that these foreign and colonial gentlemen for the most 
 
8 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 part understand" their own interests perfectly, and 
 that we may reason with them until Doomsday with- 
 out any result so far as the advancement of free-trade 
 principles is concerned. They will adopt free trade 
 if free trade suits them ; and, for the most part, our 
 friends are perfectly able to judge, without any 
 assistance from us, whether free trade does or does 
 not suit them. In plain truth, our British political 
 economists those who are our teachers fail to 
 understand that the laws of trade include elements 
 which their theories have not yet grasped. Certain 
 things ought to be, according to theory, which never- 
 theless are not, so-called political economy to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. Our teachers have, I 
 think, still something to learn ; but, as it seems to 
 me, it is at least quite clear that free -trade theories 
 have in practice completely broken down. My busi- 
 ness friends tell me it is not the fact that American 
 commerce is as depressed as our own. I am assured 
 also that French commerce is fairly prosperous, and 
 that even in Kussia trade is better than with us. I 
 know of no British industry that is really active 
 except the making of machinery for export to those 
 who find it more remunerative to manufacture 
 abroad. 
 
 " I am not against free trade. I want to see 
 reciprocity in trade ; but I do not believe we shall 
 ever get it by talking- political economy to our trading 
 competitors. Foreign nations have less to gain from 
 free trade than we have. It is a matter of business ; 
 and if we want real free trade as assuredly we do- 
 we must go beyond the present teaching of British 
 
j.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 9 
 
 political economy and make it the interest of those 
 who now exclude our manufactures to adopt a different 
 policy. Our foreign friends who decline to understand 
 the advantages that free trade offers would under- 
 stand at once the disadvantages under which a British 
 retaliatory tariff would place them. Those to whom 
 I am opposed on such questions say sometimes, I 
 think unreasonably, that retaliatory tariffs to be 
 effectual must be prohibitory. They say also, but I 
 think only with partial truth, that we could only levy 
 duties upon articles of food ; and they put forward 
 as an axiom, I think upon insufficient data, that the 
 entire cost of all such taxation would be borne by 
 the British consumer. But it can easily be shown 
 that retaliatory tariffs far short of anything prohi- 
 bitive would, in many instances, ' turn the scale ' in 
 favour of purchasing from such nations as might be 
 willing to accept British manufactures in payment 
 for their productions. I think, also, that we are none 
 the richer as a nation by continuing to import inferior 
 French watches in Hall-marked cases, although the 
 vendors who sell them as of British manufacture may 
 become so ; nor are we much the better for getting 
 such things as French silks free of duty when we 
 cannot export woollens or cottons or anything else 
 of home manufacture in return, And if, in the 
 absence of a retaliatory tariff, we do get some of our 
 sugar a little cheaper than would otherwise be the 
 case, we are, I think, paying too dearly for such cheap- 
 ness in submitting to the extinction of British sugar- 
 refining. But even a tax upon imported grain, unless 
 universal, need not injuriously affect the consumer. 
 
10 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 Some portion of the burden would no doubt fall upon 
 him, but some also upon the foreign producer. The 
 foreigner would have to content himself with smaller 
 profits ; our untaxed grain-exporting colonies would 
 be gainers in finding a better home market for their 
 wares ; and the consumer, able to pay in kind, could 
 better afford to buy. 
 
 " We ought, as it seems to me, to face our national 
 position in a business-like way, as any business man 
 would in his own affairs ; to realise that in adopting 
 free trade without reciprocity, a mistake has been 
 made, and that our path cannot be too soon retraced. 
 Once admit the principle that retaliatory tariffs 
 may lawfully be used ' as a means to an end/ and 
 there need be no difficulty in again finding markets 
 for British manufactures, nor in so working our fiscal 
 system as to strengthen the commercial ties with 
 those magnificent colonies which I trust may long 
 form with Great Britain one great united Empire/' 
 
 So says Mr. David Maclver, M.P. for Birkenhead, 
 in the Times of 16th Nov. 1878. We cannot com- 
 plain that his utterance is hesitating. He laughs 
 the theorists in political economy to scorn, tells them 
 that they have yet something to learn, that free trade 
 has completely broken down in practice ; and, not 
 content with that, boldly announces that reciprocity 
 is the sovereign remedy for the decline of our trade. 
 We want real free trade " assuredly," but we cannot 
 have it till other nations come to think as we do, and 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 11 
 
 in order that they may speedily so come, we must 
 punish them a little. "Our foreign friends who 
 decline to understand the advantages that free trade 
 offers would understand at once the disadvantages 
 under which a British retaliatory tariff would place 
 them." Here you have the whole secret. Eeciprocity 
 means retaliation. We are to preach free trade as 
 the followers of Mahomet preached Islamism, by a 
 little forcible persuasion. If nations became converts 
 to a new creed by the power of the sword, why not 
 to a new political idea by the might of retaliation ? 
 According to Mr. Madver's policy and he expresses 
 the feelings of thousands of influential people at this 
 moment we are to say to our colonies, " Give up 
 your protective tariffs, or we will shut out your raw 
 produce/' To the French we must say, " None of 
 your wines can come here unless you take in exchange 
 our linen, woollen, and cotton goods, to any extent 
 we choose to send them." To the United States the 
 message would be, "Take our iron and machinery, 
 our manufactured tissues and our ships, or keep 
 your bread and cotton to yourselves." One can 
 imagine under this retaliatory system our customs' 
 officers telling the people of Victoria, say, that they 
 must remove their 505. duty on iron under pain of 
 having to submit here to a duty of 105. an ounce 
 on their gold, or 2s. a cwt. on their wool. And so 
 
12 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 it would be all round. The customs' tariff that 
 would meet on their own ground the various nations 
 with whom we are thus to trade would be the 
 most remarkable ever devised. It would embody 
 a sliding scale on a new principle, according to which 
 duties would be high or low in proportion as those 
 of the countries upon whom we were " retaliating " 
 were high or low. 
 
 This I take to be the meaning of these " recipro- 
 city" ideas, and that I have given no travesty of 
 them is proved by the utterances of another pro- 
 minent exponent of the new faith. Lord Bateman, 
 who has written and spoken more on the subject than 
 even Mr. Maclver, managed to get a debate raised 
 in the House of Lords, in April last on our free- 
 trade policy. In opening that debate he delivered 
 a clever and very ingenious speech couched in terms 
 of a much less hoity-toity tone than the letter just 
 quoted. But substantially it came to the same 
 thing. His plea was that we could have no " one- 
 sided " free trade. Such a thing was a delusion and 
 and a misnomer, and we were therefore all on the 
 wrong tack. "We had," he said, "for a long time 
 past been throwing away in the most gratuitous 
 manner many millions sterling of customs' duties 
 which had been either repealed or reduced simply 
 as sops to the free-traders or as occasional sops to 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 13 
 
 disarm opposition." And then he proceeded to give 
 his definition of reciprocity, which is as follows : l 
 
 " His own definition of reciprocity was that it was 
 
 not necessarily protection, and that it was in reality 
 
 mutual interchange and barter for the benefit of both 
 
 parties. They had reciprocity of feeling in love 
 
 (laughter), and the only thing in which there was not 
 
 reciprocity was in commercial affairs. He did not 
 
 ask for protection, but he contended that if there 
 
 were no reciprocity there could be no free trade. 
 
 Eeciprocity ought to be regarded as the coping-stone 
 
 of the free-trade system. It was the one thing 
 
 wanting to the establishment of that universal free 
 
 trade which every one desired, but which had not yet 
 
 been secured. He would illustrate the meaning of 
 
 reciprocity by referring to the duties on tea. Out of 
 
 the four millions raised by the duties on tea, one 
 
 million was derived from our own Indian empire. 
 
 Now, the other day we had remitted 200,000/. of 
 
 cotton duties that is to say, we made the Indian 
 
 empire pay 1,000,OOOZ. on tea and 200,OOOZ. for the 
 
 cotton imported from this country. This was unfair. 
 
 If we had done away with the 200,OOOZ. on cotton 
 
 and had at the same time relieved our empire from the 
 
 million that was derived from tea, we should have 
 
 been illustrating the principle of reciprocity. But it 
 
 might be asked, what was his idea of reciprocity 
 
 how did he propose to carry it out \ (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Well, in the first place, he would propose a close 
 
 federation between England and her Colonies in all 
 
 1 Vide Times report, April 30th, 1879. 
 
14 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 parts of the world, establishing between them free 
 trade in the most unrestricted sense. In New Zea- 
 land there were hundreds of thousands of quarters of 
 wheat annually used as manure or thrown into the 
 sea simply because California being nearer to this 
 country than New Zealand, the New' Zealand er found 
 it impossible to send his wheat to us under present 
 circumstances at a profit. That was not a state of 
 things which ought to exist. Again, could anything 
 be more disastrous or more painful to witness than 
 the position occupied by Canada at the present 
 moment ? There was no doubt that the Canadian 
 tariff would act most injuriously on the trade of this 
 country, and it was by no means certain that the 
 colony of Victoria would not follow suit. There was 
 no cohesion between the Mother Country and its 
 dependencies such as ought to exist. We relied upon 
 foreign imports and shut out entirely our own 
 colonies from trading with us. Under the system he 
 proposed every scrap of import duty on colonial 
 produce would be abolished, and the result, he 
 believed, would be that we should be able to snap our 
 fingers at all foreign countries, being no longer 
 dependent upon them. A small deficiency of revenue 
 would, of course, have to be met, but it might easily 
 be made up by a tax upon intoxicating liquors, which 
 would at the same time have a beneficial effect upon 
 the country by diminishing drunkenness. If that 
 were not enough, some other small indirect tax might 
 be levied. He was advocating, not protection, but 
 reciprocity, which meant a mutual exchange of 
 benefits. They should urge it upon all foreign 
 
i] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 15 
 
 nations, and if those foreign nations accepted it they 
 would enter into the federation of which he had 
 spoken. If they refused it, the question of import 
 duties would of course arise. But he did not wish to 
 talk about protection. He did not wish to mention 
 the word. At the same time he would admit that, in 
 his opinion, if foreign nations would not accept the 
 principle of reciprocity, we ought, by way of inducing 
 them to do it, to impose a certain small restriction 
 he did not care how small on foreign imports." 
 
 The childlike hopelessly muddle-headed adroitness 
 of this is most admirable. There is no thought of 
 protection, of course not ; " we only want a free- trade 
 federation. First, between this country and her 
 dependencies ; then, between ourselves and foreign 
 countries." And no dream could be more beautiful. 
 But supposing the colonies and these other countries 
 refuse to listen to the voice of the charmer ? Ah I 
 then a little gentle pressure must be put on, just 
 a pinch of customs' duties by way of reminder and to 
 further conversion. Thus it comes in the end to 
 the same thing as the fisticuffs and swagger of the 
 other apostle, or of the German Bismarck. If mutual 
 free trade does not spring up at our bidding, then we 
 must win.it by force the force of persuasive retalia- 
 tory tariffs. We must, in short, give blow for blow 
 and triumph by a process of exhaustion. Such ideas 
 as these surely require only to be brought to the test 
 
16 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 of practical life to stand revealed in their natural 
 absurdity. The promulgators of these notions of 
 course disclaim so rough an interpretation. They tell 
 us that they want nothing so extravagant, only, as 
 Lord Bateman gently puts it, just a taste of what 
 protective tariffs mean, administered as a wholesome 
 corrective all round. If they mean that, why not 
 say so at once, and honestly ? Why wrap up protec- 
 tion, under the guise of ' ( reciprocity " or " retalia- 
 tion," trying thereby to palm off on the people as a 
 new and sovereign specific what is really an old 
 and exploded quack dodge? Protection is at least 
 something tangible, which "reciprocity," whether 
 in its maudlin or its truculent guise, is not. 
 You could no more punish other nations for not 
 adopting free trade, by treating each according 
 to the measure of its protectionist iniquity, on its 
 refusal to re-arrange its fiscal system at your 
 bidding, than you could prevent the earth turning 
 on its axis. The world has grown too big for such 
 nonsense, and were powerful nations to be treated in 
 this fashion by us, they would simply laugh at us, 
 and take their trade elsewhere. America, for 
 example, would find no difficulty in disposing of its 
 cotton in Europe were we to shut it out from our 
 ports by a retaliatory duty. No doubt Europe 
 would be very happy to take our place in supplying 
 
i.] CAN RECIPKOCITY HELP US? 17 
 
 the eastern and other markets with the manufactured 
 tissues made from that cotton. 
 
 We must not, however, dismiss these notions 
 lightly because they are nonsensical, for the circum- 
 stances of the time favour the ascendancy of folly. 
 There is no denying that the country has lost some 
 of its foreign trade, that competition increases 
 abroad and misery at home. These facts are patent 
 enough, and the distress of many here makes the 
 wildest proposals of relief find eager acceptance. The 
 new " reciprocity " cry is therefore a serious affair, 
 and must be treated seriously. 
 
 The " retaliation " people are mostly to be found 
 amongst the trading and manufacturing classes, while 
 the protectionists proper are mostly in the ranks of 
 the landowners. These two classes may possibly join 
 their forces with a view to obtain legislation in the 
 direction of their fancied interests ; and as a practical 
 outcome of their agitation we may live to see pro- 
 tection once more established at first, perhaps, 
 tentatively, but possibly with increasing vigour, as its 
 mischiefs develop themselves. 
 
 Mr. Maclver's letter to which I revert because 
 it is so frank and clear indicates with a brusque 
 contemptuous definiteness the line of argument which 
 is likely to be adopted by such a reactionary party, 
 and the sophistry of it is in a measure sheltered 
 
 c 
 
18 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 behind the self-assurance with which assumptions 
 .are stated as axioms. He denies boldly, for example, 
 that the only taxes we can impose would be on raw 
 materials and food, and is equally sceptical of the 
 effects which import duties on manufactured articles, 
 supposing them effective, would have on the British 
 consumer. He even goes so far as to assert that a tax 
 on imported grain need not injuriously affect the 
 consumer ; and, in short, throughout his letter, laughs 
 the accepted and proved maxims of political economy 
 to scorn. 
 
 Political economists will no doubt say that argu- 
 ment is wasted on such peoople. And so it is : but 
 still the nonsense has to be faced, for the sake of 
 those who, though ignorant, are open to reasonable 
 conviction, and for the sake of the nation which may 
 be led astray by this will-o'-the-wisp. And I take 
 Mr. Maclver's letter as the most pronounced and 
 conspicuous type of the stupidity which prevails on 
 this subject. His assertions are useful, in so far as 
 they give a clue to the mischiefs which foolish people 
 would bring down on the nation if they could. 
 
 There are several ways by which the core of the 
 question may be reached, and the difficulty is to 
 choose the simplest. On the whole, it seems best 
 that the subject should be met less by the advance of 
 theoretical propositions than by an appeal to facts, 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 19 
 
 and to the facts I shall therefore as much as possible 
 address myself. Those who wish for a clear state- 
 ment of the principles of free trade as applied to the 
 present situation of affairs cannot do better than read 
 Mr. Fawcett's recent volume on Free Trade and 
 Protection. 1 Protectionists, too, might be much 
 benefited by a perusal of Chapters V. and VI. of that 
 work, which deal specially with the evil effects of high 
 tariffs and with the causes that produce hostility to 
 existing commercial treaties. 
 
 Mr. Maclver touches with very great skill upon 
 those few facts which seem most to favour his 
 notions. He mentions, as I shall show, only those 
 industries which bulk largely in the figures of our 
 import trade, and those nations alone who claim to 
 be prosperous. In so doing, however, he omits some 
 most essential considerations, and in order to bring 
 the points of the debate sharply and clearly before 
 the mind of the reader, it will be well so to divide the 
 subject as to secure a fair review of the facts. Admit- 
 ting to the full the recent decline of our trade, it shall 
 be my object to show by citations of facts regarding 
 the industries of other countries that protective duties 
 give no security against decline or stagnation in their 
 case. The ground to be gone over in this way is very ex- 
 tensive, but the investigation need not be very minute. 
 
 1 Macmillan & Co. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 Enough is known about the general condition of foreign 
 countries to make the task of determining the eco- 
 nomic value of this trade policy comparatively easy. 
 This part of the subject may be termed the negative 
 demonstration of the folly of protection, or its twin 
 sister reciprocity. But the negative demonstration is 
 not sufficient. It will likewise be necessary to prove 
 that the remedy for our distress advocated by the 
 reactionaries is one that we could not apply, however 
 legitimate it may be. We must show that the nation 
 has taken a step which cannot safely be retraced. 
 Under free trade a form of national existence has 
 grown up in these islands which we cannot with 
 impunity now cut down or train into new forms 
 not only so, but the characteristics of our foreign 
 trade may now be such as to make any attempt at 
 throttling other nations by a retaliatory tariff on 
 their manufactures ludicrously impotent. While 
 dealing with this part of the subject it will also 
 be useful to examine the proposals and theories of 
 those who find the cause of all our present ills in the 
 state of the currency. Bi-metallists are not exactly 
 protectionists, but they advocate a peculiar form 
 of reciprocity, and are therefore within the scope 
 of this discussion, and it shall be my task to try 
 and prove that their what may be called homoeo- 
 pathic cure is as little likely to help us as any other. 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 21 
 
 But supposing all this proved, the reciprocity 
 party may fairly say, "How then will you deal 
 with the national distress ? " That it exists is ad- 
 mitted on all hands, and it must certainly be 
 alleviated ; and I shall be prepared to suggest a 
 remedy. Instead of deserting free trade at the first 
 pinch of adversity it may be well to consider how 
 much more widely the principle can be applied at 
 home. The landowners and many foolish farmers, 
 want, for example, to re-impose taxes on food. Sup- 
 pose that instead of doing so we were to remove 
 the obstructions from our land, and so increase 
 its cultivation and yield. That is an ultimatum 
 no doubt dreaded by the land-owning class, but 
 its interests are remote and insignificant compared 
 with those of a work-needing and perhaps hungry 
 nation, and the alternative is therefore one that 
 the reciprocity party and their allies must face. 
 We must discuss it therefore, and with it sundry 
 subsidiary remedies, all tending, as I hope, to aid 
 the nation in bearing its present strain. 
 
 The range of inquiry thus briefly indicated is tole- 
 rably extensive, and its parts are not easily separated. 
 To some extent they may overlap each other, but 
 it shall be my effort to avoid both repetition and 
 tediousness as much as possible. With this by way 
 of introduction we shall now proceed. 
 
22 
 
 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 A review of the prevailing state of manufac- 
 tures all over the world must necessarily be very 
 brief, but I hope it may not prove less conclusive 
 upon that ground. The thing to do, however, is to 
 exhibit in all its naked significance the alarming de- 
 cline in the value of our own export of manufactured 
 goods, and this will be done most readily by the 
 following table, which gives the average figures of 
 these exports at three distinct periods, beginning 
 with 1863-65. The first two periods may be con- 
 sidered periods of inflation, and the last one of 
 depression : 
 
 EXPORTS. 
 
 Average of years 
 18631865. 
 
 Average of years 
 18711873. 
 
 Average of years 
 1875-1877. 
 
 Cotton yarn 
 
 9,163,000 
 
 15,884,000 
 
 13,383,000 
 
 ,, manufactures .. 
 
 44,082,000 
 
 60,898,000 
 
 56,831,000 
 
 Linen manufactures 
 
 7,946,000 
 
 7,678,000 
 
 6,243,000 
 
 Steam engines and other 
 machinery 
 
 4,831,000 
 
 8,062,000 
 
 7,664, OOO' 
 
 Iron and steel 
 
 15,127,000 
 
 33,284,000 
 
 22,199,000 
 
 Silk manufactures 
 
 1,429,000 
 
 2,041,000 
 
 1,658,000 
 
 Woollen and worsted yarn 
 
 5,054,000 
 
 5,868,000 
 
 4,375,000 
 
 Woollen and worsted 
 manufactures 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 18,076,000 
 
 28,305,000 
 
 19,202,000 
 
 105,708,000 
 
 162,020,000 
 
 131,555,000 
 
 ' 
 
 If we take the figures of our total exports of 
 home produce nearly all of which, except coal and 
 coke, represent manufactures of some kind the re- 
 sults are not much more cheering, the averages 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 23 
 
 being 157,000,0002., 245,000,0002., and 208,000,0002., 
 for the respective periods. There is thus, however 
 we take it, a heavy falling off in our export trade, 
 and the year 1878 even gave no indication of im- 
 provement. On the contrary, the figures were lower 
 than the average of the previous three years or than 
 that of 1877, being only 193,000,0002. And the 
 current year (1879) tells almost the same story. 
 Trade has shrunk more, and the credit' of our mer- 
 chants has become strained to an extent that has made 
 a few American iron -orders like gifts from Heaven. 
 
 The full weight, however, of these figures, and of 
 this steady decline in the export of British and 
 Irish produce, cannot be estimated without taking 
 into account the import trade. That up to 1878, 
 instead of decreasing, increased at a very rapid pace. 
 And in 1878 itself the excess of imports over ex- 
 ports of home produce was about 181,000,0002., or 
 82*3 per cent, although the imports exhibited a 
 falling fall amounting to 7*2 per cent, compared 
 with the total of 1877. After deducting the value 
 of foreign goods re-exported, there was still a differ- 
 ence apparently against this country of 128, 185, 000 2., 
 or an excess of 47 per cent of imports over the 
 total exports, bullion included. 1 Such a huge diver- 
 gence would seem to afford grounds for the alarm 
 
 1 Vide the 23rd Report of the Commissioners of H.M. Customs, p. 8. 
 
24 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 excited in the breasts of the reciprocity party, and 
 justify the cry that the country will be ruined by 
 buying too much, if something is not done to re- 
 strain it. To such a cry it may well be replied (1) 
 that the country is in no great danger of con- 
 tinuing long to buy what it cannot pay for, and 
 (2) that within limits the apparently excessive 
 buying may in the circumstances be the most 
 profitable trade we can do. 
 
 Still the divergence between the values of our 
 import and export trades has been increasing in 
 recent years, and must be taken note of. Had 
 there, however, been no severe and persistent de- 
 cline in the values of our exports, it is not likely 
 that the cry of distress would have been raised by 
 the reciprocitarians on this or any other ground. 
 That is where the shoe really pinches. 
 
 Ever since 1873 prices have been falling, from a 
 variety of causes, until they are in some instances 
 upwards of 50 per cent lower than they then were. 
 In 1873, for instance, the average value of pig-iron 
 was nearly 6l. 5s. per ton. It was lately below 21. 10s., 
 and some kinds of Cleveland brands were selling at 
 less than 40s. per ton. This is an extreme instance, 
 approached only by the fall in coals and copper ; 
 but we must make allowance for a more or less 
 analogous fall in prices all down the list before we 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 25 
 
 can definitely estimate how we stand. Quantities 
 have in some cases fallen severely, undoubtedly, 
 but not as a rule to the degree which the fall in 
 values would lead us to suppose ; and great as the 
 relapse has been, we are not yet, as regards even the 
 value of our exports, nearly down to the level of 
 the early part of last decade. 
 
 A paper lately read by Mr. Kobert Giffen before 
 the Statistical Society deals very ably with this 
 point. 1 I am quite unable to endorse all that he 
 says, because I think he allows mere figures and 
 isolated facts to sway his judgment to the exclusion 
 of many other important considerations. Still there 
 is a great deal in what he urges, as I shall have 
 occasion to try to explain. He makes, it appears 
 to me, far too much of the functions of the precious 
 metals in the present crisis ; and in dwelling on 
 the fact that our export trade, measured by its bulk, 
 has been stationary rather than declining, he seems 
 to miss the full force of one highly important charac- 
 teristic of the troubles through which we are passing. 
 The present trade crisis has not been of that abrupt 
 continuity-breaking type with which previous crises 
 have made us familiar. Partly, perhaps, because of 
 the enormous reserve wealth possessed by our manu- 
 facturing classes, there has been a continuance of 
 
 - l Vide Journal of the Statistical Society, for March, 1879. 
 
26 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 production in many departments of trade long after 
 the returns obtained might have warned producers 
 to stop. We are thus probably suffering from a slow 
 exhaustion of our manufacturing capital, instead of 
 a sudden collapse ; and the continuance of heavy 
 exports in the face of steadily diminishing prices is, 
 from this point of view, a far worse sign than a 
 sharp general contraction would have been. So, 
 doubtless, the protectionists interpret it. They feel 
 that the maintenance of trade under present condi- 
 tions is steadily leading to ruin, but instead of 
 pausing, they continue both production and con- 
 sumption upon an excessive scale, and turn round 
 on the nation, demanding that it should tax itself 
 to secure them profits in spite of their own folly. 
 The grievance is not what Mr. Maclver repre- 
 sents it to be. We are not, except in the particular 
 direction where his experience lies, exporting less ; 
 our export trade gives no signs of dying out. On 
 the contrary, its volume is nearly as large as ever, 
 but its profitableness has nearly disappeared. 
 
 When prices give way rapidly, as those of the 
 iron and coal trades have done since 1873, while 
 production at the same time continues on a large 
 scale, the result is almost sure to be a steady accu- 
 mulation of losses. Year after year weak firms 
 which have struggled against adverse fates, pro- 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 27 
 
 ducing what they could not sell at a profit or at 
 all, and thereby increasing the depression of a 
 market overweighted without them, see themselves 
 forced into bankruptcy. They go on and on till 
 debt and ruin overwhelm them. This is what has 
 been done in' this country, and we saw last winter 
 part of the results of it in distress or starvation 
 throughout the land. What then grieved and 
 alarmed many may be again upon us in a form yet 
 more alarming, because the same process of ex- 
 haustion has continued. Social want and misery 
 still exist to an extent probably never before 
 known in this country at a time when bread was 
 cheap t It might have been better for the capi- 
 talist, and better for the bankers who have too 
 frequently taken the place of the capitalist, had 
 the prolonged crisis, marked by the downward 
 course of prices, been sharper, for then it would 
 perhaps have been over long ago. But it has not 
 been sharp. On the contrary, it has dragged us 
 slowly downwards, till many have been ready to 
 despair because of the suffering which a lengthened 
 period of trade depression has entailed. 
 
 From one point of view therefore the fact that 
 quantities and values have shrunk in very unequal 
 degrees, rather aggravates than lessens the discomfort 
 and loss of the " dull times." We have been in some 
 
28 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 cases generously enriching our neighbours by selling 
 them goods under cost price. That is clearly very bad 
 business ; but admitting it to be so, what has that 
 to do with protection, reciprocity, or anything else 
 except a natural and inevitable law ? The tendency 
 of mankind is to run to extremes ; and some years 
 ago we ran to an extreme of production and of cost 
 of production which has now brought its legitimate 
 and inevitable reaction. A man opened a coal-mine 
 and found it pay. Forthwith he mortgaged it and 
 opened with borrowed money half-a-dozen more. 
 While the years or months of an inflated prosperity 
 lasted he called himself rich, and perhaps bought 
 himself a landed estate which he also mortgaged. 
 This went joyously forward till prices shrank and 
 demand fell off, when he at once found himself over 
 head and ears in debt, without a farthing in the world 
 that he could call his own. So with manufacturers 
 of all kinds. They rushed deeper and deeper into a 
 career of unlimited production on borrowed capital 
 thus artificially stimulating consumption and must 
 now sadly learn the lesson that the sole duty of 
 mankind is not to buy china-clayed cottons, "shoddy 
 woollens," or steam-engines " at maker's prices," with 
 other people's money. 
 
 This kind of business enterprise has gone on here, 
 and has gone on more or less abroad ; but we must 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 29 
 
 not confound it with the " over-production " com- 
 plained of by the working classes. Inflation, in the 
 sense of enormous extension of credit ventures, has 
 too often been accompanied by actual reduction in the 
 amount of work done by a given number of hands. 
 This point will, however, be more appropriately 
 discussed at a later stage. It is in the meantime 
 necessary to find out how other countries fare who 
 " protect " themselves from the evils of free trade. 
 
 The United States, Mr. Maclver hears, are pros- 
 perous, and his news is, in a general way, correct. 
 But in what are they prosperous ? Certainly not in 
 their manufactures. They have been feeding us 
 while we laboured at forge and weaving-frame ; and 
 we have bought their corn and cotton so lavishly, 
 that all United States agriculturists are in a fair way 
 to be rich ; but the manufacturing industries of the 
 Union have been struggling for years under depres- 
 sion as deep as our own. I find, for instance, by a 
 recent report of the American Iron and Steel Asso- 
 ciation, that in the year 1877 the number of old blast 
 furnaces abandoned almost equalled the number of 
 new ones constructed, and that of 716 furnaces in 
 existence, only 476 were in blast. There was no 
 sign of improvement during 1878, and I believe that 
 a still further reduction then took place. Capital 
 continued during that year to be lost in these 
 
30 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 undertakings a good deal of it English capital ; prices 
 continued to sink, and wages have been so reduced 
 that ironworkers and miners have the greatest diffi- 
 culty in maintaining existence. The home make of 
 pig-iron has fallen off almost uninterruptedly since 
 1873, and the disorganisation of the American iron 
 trade has been fully as great as our own. In spite of 
 a protective tariff of unusual severity, the prices of 
 American pig-iron have sunk as steadily as ours. In 
 1873 the average price per ton was about 8Z. 125. ; in 
 1877 it was only 3l. 165. ; and in the end of last year 
 it was barely 31. There have, no doubt, been special 
 causes at work in the States inducing a fall in 
 quotations, amongst which we must give the chief 
 place to the gradual " appreciation " of the paper 
 dollar ; but we cannot be sure that the rise in value 
 of American paper has not affected this country also 
 to a very large extent, and, whether or not, this one 
 fact stands out prominently, that the iron trade of the 
 States has not been made profitable by means of a pro- 
 tective tariff. At the date of this writing steel rails can 
 be bought in Middlesborough for 4 155. per ton, while 
 their price in the States is about Si. 145. The duty 
 charged on English rails imported is 51. 10 5. per ton, 
 or about 120 per cent on the lowest English prices, yet 
 that duty barely saves the makers of the States from 
 being beaten by us, and while it prevents the United 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 31 
 
 States consumers from benefiting by our lower prices, 
 does not render their native trade prosperous. It 
 may be said that the iron trade is no fair criterion, 
 since it has been revolutionised by the invention of 
 new and simple processes for making steel. These 
 inventions no doubt complicate matters, but the com- 
 plication affects us just as much as it does the States, 
 and their tariff does not help them one whit. Their 
 manufacturers get nearly twice the prices current at 
 Middlesborough for their steel rails, and yet cannot 
 make a profit. As for having an export trade of large 
 dimensions to relieve the internal pressure, that is 
 clearly an impossibility ; we can undersell them to 
 any extent. It may, however, be urged that since the 
 end of last year this industry has greatly improved 
 within the Union. Glowing accounts come to us 
 through the newspapers, setting forth the renewed 
 prosperity which has arisen in the industries of the 
 country. And in a certain sense these statements 
 are of course true. There has been renewed activity 
 during 1879 in the American iron trade, but that 
 renewal does not imply prosperity by any means. On 
 the contrary, it is merely the sign of a fresh outburst 
 of speculative inflation. Such inflation has overtaken 
 everything American since the New Year, and the 
 secret of it is to be found in the legal resumption of 
 specie payments. There has been no actual, or only 
 
32 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 a very microscopic actual, return to specie payments 
 under the resumption law, and its main effect has 
 therefore been to distend credit. As soon as this 
 distension has reached its limit, reaction, and not 
 improbably collapse, will again set in, and we shall 
 then see what the " revival of activity in the United 
 States iron trade' 7 really means. In the meantime, 
 and to be generously fair, let credit be given for 
 what has actually been accomplished. 
 
 There has been recently a considerable revival of 
 trade and speculation in the States, and the prices and 
 production of pig-iron have both increased. Already, 
 in fact, theirs have risen to the competing level, and 
 English iron and steel are being imported into the 
 States at a profit, tariff notwithstanding. The tariff 
 thus protects only up to a certain point. Directly 
 this point is passed foreign competition becomes again 
 effective, and paves the way for a renewed collapse in 
 the native industries by presently underselling native 
 producers in their own markets. The tariff sends up 
 cost of production at home until the home industries 
 become choked thereby. 
 
 The condition of the United States cotton and 
 woollen manufactures is not any better secured. 
 Throughout we have the same story, dragging prices, 
 and either no profit at all, or very reduced profits. 
 More money has been lost in the United States in 
 
i.J CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 33 
 
 efforts to develop these industries, than would have 
 sufficed to develop the agricultural resources of one 
 of their largest Territories. People embark in mills 
 and machinery, lose their money, and sell their 
 property to a fresh set of adventurers at ruinous 
 loss. These, in turn, struggle for a few years, and 
 then, in a great number of instances, also succumb. 
 It is true that there are a few conspicuous exceptions, 
 but these have either remarkable advantages in the 
 shape of special machinery or water power, or they 
 make a kind of cloth which the Americans put up 
 with as the best they can afford while debarred from 
 importing better goods. The ordinary American 
 manufactures, both cotton and woollen, are far inferior 
 in quality to the higher makes of English goods, 
 while the isolated position of the industry, coupled 
 with the disastrous competition within a limited 
 area, inevitably tends to lower the standard of busi- 
 ness honesty. In this respect the woollen trade 
 seems to be worse than the cotton, though by far 
 the most "protected" of the two. But all these 
 American industries are highly " protected," and as 
 a result their " prosperity," when it does fully come, 
 is of a very precarious kind, as it surely must be 
 so long as the cost of every manufactured article 
 is higher than it is here by from 50 to 150 per 
 cent. In other words, the American people pay this 
 
 D 
 
34 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP 
 
 tax for the privilege of wearing home-made goods 
 of inferior quality, but costing extravagant sums, 
 and in order that a few persons in the States may 
 have a precarious chance of making a fortune. 
 
 This, without exaggeration, is the net upshot of 
 protection in the United States, and as a proof of 
 its futility against the industries of England it 
 should be stated that the Americans infinitely prefer 
 the fine English woollen cloths to those of their own 
 country. They still import English broad cloths, for 
 example, although they pay about 140 per cent, duty 
 on them ; and no American comes to Europe without 
 taking home as many clothes of English make as 
 he can decently smuggle through the Custom-house. 
 Add to this the fact that, as we shall see later on, 
 protection has never enabled the States to build up 
 an export trade worth mentioning in manufactures, 
 and we have a tolerably strong practical proof that 
 retaliation is not the potent medicine for the dis- 
 tressed manufacturers of England which reciproci- 
 tarians make it out to be. The fact of the matter 
 is, that we have been hearing a great deal too much 
 of late about the wonderful progress of the United 
 States as a manufacturing country. Its prosperity 
 is based almost entirely on its marvellous agricul- 
 tural development. Stop that development, and 
 reduce the profits of American agriculturists by 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 35 
 
 keener competition or greater production in Europe, 
 and above all in England and the manufacturing 
 industries of the States would, if still protected, 
 almost perish. As it is, they languish rather than 
 flourish. With all the aid of a rigorous tariff, the 
 States are not yet self-contained, nor have the 
 numerous advantages secured by the invention of 
 ingenious machinery placed them in a position to 
 be our rivals outside their own borders. To under- 
 stand fully the actual state of the textile and other 
 industries of the Union, we must remember that 
 the economic conditions of production are not alto- 
 gether the same there as they are in this country, 
 or in Europe. By reason of the extent and richness 
 of their soil, and of the ease with which its cultiva- 
 tion can be taken up, the people of the United States 
 can at present afford to pay for the luxuries of 
 native industries a price that no old European 
 country can stand. Viewed in relation to her 
 capacity in this direction, the marvel is, not that 
 the States have not yet established their textile 
 industries on a secure basis, but that they have not 
 swept us from the field. Their cheap food alone 
 should have given them an inestimable advantage 
 over us, but it has not yet done so. Their progress 
 has in short been in spite of their tariff, not because 
 of it, and the position now gained can only be kept 
 
 D 2 
 
36 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 at a sacrifice which the people of the States are every 
 year growing less willing to bear. More than once 
 since the Civil War, want has overtaken the indus- 
 trial population of the United States in spite of 
 cheap food and an almost limitless territory, and had 
 Europe had the happiness of enjoying bountiful 
 harvests instead of bad ones since 1875, there would 
 have been a condition of prostration manifested 
 to-day by the United States that would have 
 been a spectacle to the world. Her tariff would 
 have disappeared before the clamours of a needy 
 democracy. 
 
 We must therefore treat the United States as 
 in some measure a country apart. For a time the 
 inevitable effects of a selfish, grasping, and exclusive 
 trade policy may be obscured there by exceptional 
 circumstances. An internal prosperity may be visible, 
 and industries appear to flourish, but sooner or 
 later the true effects will reveal themselves. But 
 even if they did nothing of the kind, granting that 
 the spurt visible in the Union since January 1879 
 has an enduring character, it would not avail the 
 " reciprocitarians," for the simple reason that it is 
 not based on prosperity in the export of manufac- 
 tures. That is the source of our prosperity, not 
 selfish exclusiveness ; and if the United States tariff 
 proves anything, it surely proves to demonstration 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 37 
 
 that articles manufactured under it are sure of 
 no extensive market outside the tariff " ring 
 fence." 
 
 Proof of this statement will be given when we 
 come to deal with the question of the practical 
 application of retaliation by England. In the mean- 
 time we shall find fully as strong evidence of the 
 futility of the tariff remedy for bad trade, or its 
 uselessness as a trade creator amongst nations, at 
 our own doors. 
 
 France, for example, has had for nearly twenty 
 years a comparatively mild import tariff, but before 
 1860 it was one of the most cumbrous and exclusive 
 in Europe. It was nearly as bad, in short, as the 
 United States tariff is now, and, but that the French 
 navigation laws were less barbaric than those of the 
 States, would have been quite as bad. The French 
 ought therefore to have then felt the blessings of 
 retaliation or protection, and to be now lamenting 
 their folly in becoming less exclusive. They are, in 
 fact, lamenting ; and at the present time the cry of 
 many French manufacturers is that they are being 
 ruined by English competition. For instance, Messrs. 
 Ellison and Co. state in their annual review of the 
 cotton trade, published in October, 1878 (a most 
 admirable publication), that their French corre- 
 spondent writes to them as follows : " If England, 
 
38 RECIPEOCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 in the face of the development of the cotton industry 
 in all parts of the world is not able to find a new 
 outlet for her manufactures, and does not reduce her 
 immense production, our industry is destined to be 
 ruined next season." That is a most alarming pre- 
 diction, and we are happy to say that it has not 
 yet been fulfilled. Yet there can be no denying 
 that the values of French exports of manufactured 
 goods do not tend to increase any more than our 
 own. On the contrary, they have of late years been, 
 like our own, steadily diminishing. The figures are 
 of course not nearly so low as they were before 
 1860; but they are lower for cotton, silk, and 
 woollen manufactures than they were on the average 
 in the first half of the decade following that date. 
 The inference of the French manufacturer therefore 
 is, that France has not enough protection. Her 
 general trade has benefited prodigiously by the 
 loosening of her bonds in 1860, but certain special 
 manufactures have not of late years maintained their 
 earlier level. Hence many of her manufacturers 
 want to revert to the old policy of exclusiveness, 
 and this just raises the point which I should like 
 our reciprocitarians to settle. Where is the line of 
 retaliation to be drawn ? If a little pinch of imposts 
 does not revive trade, can a big dose thereof be 
 guaranteed to do so ? The United States, with a 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 39 
 
 monstrous load of protective and prohibitory duties 
 on their back, do not get along so well outside their 
 own borders as France with a much lighter burden ; 
 but France also, though less weighted, feels the back- 
 wardness of the times where in these circumstances 
 is the happy mean to be found ? Will special 
 remedies cure an evil that pervades the trade of 
 all countries in a great measure irrespective of their 
 tariffs ? Do we want to shut ourselves within our 
 own borders ? and if so, who will then feed us ? If 
 not, what on earth are we to do ? I confess questions 
 like these puzzle me much. For it is notorious that 
 France has taken immense strides as a manufacturing 
 country since she adopted a comparatively liberal 
 policy in 1860. That unfettering was like a resur- 
 rection to her, and all the losses caused by the 
 accursed war of 1870-71 have not been able to 
 destroy the good thus obtained. Are we in the face 
 of a broad fact like this to accept the new cry of 
 the distressed Frenchman suffering from the same 
 blight as ourselves, and believe that what was so 
 good during the last seventeen years is now to be 
 instantly discarded ? This is what Lord Bateman, 
 Mr. Maclver, and their followers apparently want 
 us to do. But can they explain why a good which 
 everybody recognised yesterday should to-day have 
 become an evil ? 
 
40 KECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, that we have had far 
 more to fear from French competition since 1860 than 
 we ever have had to fear from America. And in spite 
 of bad times we shall continue to have more to fear so 
 long as France does not follow the example of the 
 "blood and iron" campaigner of Germany and go 
 groping for help and wisdom among the dead and 
 buried fallacies of a barbaric past. We must not, in 
 plain terms, disguise from ourselves the too obvious 
 fact that the French are still prosperous, notwith- 
 standing the wailings of a few Frenchmen who may 
 not be making the profits they would like. Their 
 agricultural interests are on the whole flourishing, 
 and their export and import trade has increased very 
 much since 1860. They have of late years bought 
 more raw material for making up at home, and 
 have sold enormously increased quantities of home 
 products for consumption abroad. In spite of their 
 tariff we are, it seems, able to beat them in some 
 kinds of cotton goods, but they hold their own 
 against us arid against the world in the manufacture 
 of the finer kinds of light woollen fabrics. This 
 superiority may be due to their merino wool, and 
 the skill which long custom has given to their 
 artisans in weaving it ; but whatever its cause, the 
 fact must be acknowledged. Yet their trade has, it 
 seems, lately paid badly in these fine fabrics as well 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 41 
 
 as in silk goods. These latter, however, they have 
 adulterated to an extent which puts the feats of 
 our enterprising cotton-spoiling rogues quite in the 
 shade, so that we might, in this instance, say the 
 tariff had nothing to do with the decline. But in 
 other cases the comparatively light tariff which for- 
 .merly acted like a charm in extending French trade 
 has clearly not prevented temporarily reduced prices, 
 losses, and so forth, and if it cannot prevent a fall 
 in France, how is it to induce a recovery here ? 
 
 A most remarkable fact in connection with the 
 lamentable prophecy of Messrs. Ellison & Co.'s French 
 correspondent deserves to be noticed before we go 
 further. He wants " more protection " against these 
 terrible English ; but when we turn to the figures 
 of English exports of cotton goods to France, we 
 find that they have actually been falling off for some 
 years, both in quantity and value. This applies not 
 only to cotton piece goods, but likewise to woollen 
 piece goods, and, in a less degree, to silk and woollen 
 yarns. The only articles of British manufacture 
 which are sustained in quantity are cotton yarn, 
 and linen yarn, and piece goods. The values of 
 machinery and of wrought and unwrought iron are 
 also pretty well sustained, but in the one class of 
 article against which we have quoted so strong an 
 outcry for more protection, there is decidedly less 
 
42 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 trade doing than there was in 1874, or for that 
 matter five years earlier. The higher import of 
 cotton yarn, perhaps, explains this anomaly, for the 
 French spinners have a special grievance against us. 
 In a memorial which they recently presented to a 
 commission appointed by the Chamber of Deputies 
 to examine into the state of French industries, they 
 tried to make out that the cost of producing French 
 yarn was about double that of English yarn 
 89 centimes per half kilo against 46 centimes and 
 they accordingly demand a " countervailing " duty. 
 This estimate is, I believe, a pure work of the imagi- 
 nation, and the real cause of the steady import of 
 English yarn into France is to be found in our 
 superiority as spinners of cotton. We can beat the 
 French in the finer kinds of that product, just as they 
 beat us in certain departments of woollen manufac- 
 ture ; so they buy our fine yarns notwithstanding the 
 present duty of 15 or 20 per cent. I shall touch on 
 the " cost of production " question further on, but 
 in the meantime it may be sufficient if I support 
 my assertion on this point by pointing to the fact 
 that the French imports of raw cotton have of late 
 years been largely on the increase. This proves that 
 their spinning must be on the increase also, as in fact 
 it is. They have become able to supply the home 
 market with the commoner kinds of cotton fabrics, 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 43 
 
 which they can manufacture throughout at home. In 
 time, perhaps, their increased skill and improved 
 machinery may enable them to overtake us in the 
 production of the finer qualities of thread and webs, 
 but their tariff is certainly no help to them in the 
 race. Even now it does not cause an increase in their 
 trade abroad, and all practical experience teaches 
 that the higher you raise a protective tariff, the more 
 surely you prevent the growth of an export trade 
 in large industrial products. 
 
 Much might be said about the industries of other 
 European countries, but the reader would weary of 
 the same story over and over again. The briefest 
 possible summary must therefore suffice. Mr. 
 Maclver very cleverly cited Eussia in support of 
 his thesis, and there can be no question that the 
 industries of Eussia have lately been in a way pros- 
 perous, and that too after a great rise in her customs 
 tariff. But if you examine the facts you will find 
 that it has been an entirely delusive prosperity, due 
 to the enormous depreciation of the paper rouble, a 
 depreciation which makes the trader think he is 
 realising large profits. By and by he will find out 
 his mistake, just as the United States manufacturers 
 have done, high tariffs and government bonuses not- 
 . withstanding. Germany has a considerable export 
 trade, but it is of a very fitful, disorganised, and 
 
44 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 altogether muddled kind, owing to the burst of 
 insanity which came over the German race after its 
 successes in the war with France. So unsatisfactory 
 and unprofitable has German foreign trade proved 
 in recent years, that the German manufacturers have 
 petitioned Prince Bismarck to give them what the 
 manufacturers are clamouring for here. Ever since 
 January 1877, to take but one example, the German 
 iron producers have been moaning out the familiar 
 song, " We are ruined by English competition," 
 and all because the small import duty on pig-iron 
 had been abolished. That song is a favourite one 
 everywhere abroad just now, and is set to precisely 
 the same music as the English dirge, " We are ruined 
 by foreign protection/' The facts are oddly against 
 the Germans in this instance, for we have not sent 
 them so much iron since the duty was taken off as 
 before. They suffer from their poverty, their miser- 
 able resources, and their wild ambition ; but England 
 makes a good scapegoat, and Prince Bismarck decided 
 to gratify the wishes of the clamourers in the true 
 spirit of Lord Bateman and Mr. Maclver. At one 
 time this brilliant political campaigner leant to the 
 free traders, but that mattered nothing. Principles 
 have nothing to do with government in the mind of a 
 man like Bismarck, for to him politics are a game. 
 There are " points " to win, enemies .to crush, personal 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 45 
 
 aims to be gratified, and from before these public 
 right quite as much as true economic principles must 
 perforce stand aside. For my part I am delighted 
 to think that Prince Bismarck, in his anxiety to 
 consolidate his spic-and-span new German empire, has 
 decided to try a protective tariff as the cure for its 
 languid industries and socialistic troubles. "Better 
 Germany than ourselves," even if for no other reason 
 than that in some respects the Germans are further 
 from freedom than we are. The scorpion's whip 
 of protection applied to the people there is likely to 
 hasten the breaking of the chains which Bismarck 
 and his master have ingeniously forged for the pur- 
 pose of keeping the nation in their grasp. I antici- 
 pate, in short, some curious manifestations of social 
 disorder and political impatience as an early fruit of 
 the Prince's new departure. That he is marching 
 straight to destruction, though with the confidence 
 of a man of many victories, I make no doubt. The 
 condition of Germany, before the imposition of this 
 grotesquely-conceived tariff of Prince Bismarck's, 
 proves, in spite of drawbacks, that more was to be 
 gained by free trade than by protection. Under a 
 liberal tariff some of her industries were slowly re- 
 covering. What they will do under the new law 
 is not difficult to guess. 
 
 Trade has been dull in Germany from causes 
 
46 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 easy to specify and unconnected with tariffs, just 
 as in other European countries. Trade, in short, 
 has been dull everywhere, tariff or no tariff; wages 
 have fallen, strikes have broken out, banks have 
 failed more or less frequently, in all countries pos- 
 sesed of industries worth naming. Even quiet- 
 going Sweden has not escaped a crisis, loss, and 
 much depression. Wander were you will the story 
 is the same, and it would be the height of folly 
 not to recognise the universality of the facts. The 
 recognition, however, is fatal to the assumptions of 
 reciprocitarians. And so is the other broad fact, 
 that on the whole those nations whose tariffs are 
 as a rule the lowest, are the best able to compete 
 against the manufactures of England in neutral 
 markets. As I shall have to show in the next 
 chapter, countries with prohibitory tariffs do not 
 compete in any real sense at all, whereas a country 
 like France, whose woollen manufactures alone 
 are estimated to be worth about 50,000,000^. a 
 year, has increased in competing power more or 
 less steadily for years. And so it has been with 
 other countries, such as Germany, Holland, and 
 Belgium. 
 
 The converse of this is also true, viz., that high 
 tariffs do not mean the effectual exclusion of foreign 
 manufactures from the countries where they exist. 
 
i.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 47 
 
 As examples of this we may take the figures re- 
 lating to the United States and Spain given in 
 the excellent annual statement of trade issued by 
 our Custom House. These tell us that in 1877, 
 in spite of the high tariffs, we sent to the States 
 cotton fabrics to the value of 2,447,000?., and 
 woollen fabrics to the value of 1,728,000?. True, 
 these figures show a great falling off compared 
 with those of five years before, especially as re- 
 gards woollen goods ; but that is no proof that 
 the tariff per se is beating us, for the tariff was 
 just as high when we sent 6,000,000?. worth of these 
 goods as when we sent less than 2,000,000?. worth. 
 It would be just as legitimate a conclusion to say 
 that the States must have been very much poorer 
 in 1877 than in 1873, or that prices must have 
 been very much higher then than now, as to say 
 that protection is destroying the English power of 
 competition. Our real power of competition with 
 the States is in point of fact greater now than 
 it was five years ago, and should trade recover we 
 ought to beat them as they never yet have been 
 beaten. 
 
 Our trade with Spain is far more insignificant 
 than with the States, and her tariff has been re- 
 cently raised very much to our disadvantage ; still 
 the old one was rigorous enough, and in spite of it 
 
48 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 our export of cotton cloths and woollens to Spain has 
 been year by year increasing. The export of silks 
 also increased materially in 1876 and 1877, and our 
 hardwares, linens, and metals have been, all things 
 considered, wonderfully well sustained. So much is 
 this the case, that comparing 1877 with 1873, the 
 total export of home manufactures to Spain shows a 
 falling off of only 100,000?. on a total of 3,637,0002., 
 and that notwithstanding the severe fall in prices 
 which has occurred in the interval. 
 
 These are but one or two examples of the futility 
 of protective tariffs as a means of excluding foreign 
 goods ; they might be multiplied almost indefinitely. 
 
 Can we say that these facts go to help the pro- 
 tectionists ? our revengeful distressed capitalists ? 
 I repeat that I should like them to tell us how. 
 Without some higher aid than has been yet developed 
 there is no discovering the advantages of reciprocity. 
 But ample evidence is to be found that protective 
 tariffs always mean diseased industries. In a time of 
 inflation they fail to keep out foreign goods ; they 
 merely raise the cost of production, and also perhaps 
 though that by no means follows the profits on 
 production, to a fabulous level. High profits and 
 wages induce altogether abnormal developments of 
 particular industries. Capital and men rush into the 
 favoured trade, and then when reaction comes, and 
 
L] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 49 
 
 there are no more high profits or wages to be 
 had, they find themselves stranded. Their commit- 
 ments and the high cost at which they produce 
 effectually shut them out of neutral markets, and 
 so they set about preying upon each other within 
 their own borders. " Protected " manufacturers 
 thus become the " Kilkenny cats" of trade, and 
 consume each other unpitied. 
 
 Are we going to enter upon such a career for the 
 sake of giving immediate relief to our distressed 
 capitalists ? Is the nation as a whole to be ex- 
 pected to pay higher prices for its clothes, its 
 tools, its locomotion, its almost every " necessary," 
 in order to save capitalists who may have plunged 
 too deeply into a career of adventure and reckless 
 outlay from the effects of their own imprudence ? 
 I trust not ; but at all events we may be sure, 
 that whether the nation consents to do this or not, 
 we have no ground in the experience of other 
 nations for supposing that the last state of the 
 manufacturers under protection would be better 
 than the first under free trade. There is no 
 evidence that high custom tariffs help weak in- 
 dustries to make a profit in time of general 
 depression, still less that they contribute to the 
 maintenance of a competitive trade. Negatively, 
 therefore, the case against reciprocity seems to me 
 
 E 
 
50 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CH. i. 
 
 to be complete. When we ask what good tariffs 
 in protection of manufacturers have done, there is 
 no satisfactory answer. The highest tariffs in ex- 
 istence do not prevent competition from without, 
 or stave off ruin from within. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE FUTILITY OF THE RECIPROCITARIAN PROPOSALS. 
 
 IN a general and negative way the futility of pro- 
 tective tariffs as trade' revivers has been proved in 
 the previous chapter. We examined there the 
 position of industries in some of the principal 
 manufacturing countries of the world, and found 
 nowhere proof that they had got any good by their 
 tariffs. In each instance where a certain kind of 
 prosperity was visible notwithstanding those tariffs, 
 it could easily be traced to special circumstances 
 wholly apart from anything a protective tariff could 
 do. Thus in the case of the United States we found 
 that the misfortunes of Europe had been a source of 
 great gain to their agriculturists, and that artificial 
 resumption of specie payments had led to a burst of 
 wild speculation, so producing a temporary glare of 
 prosperity. In France and Germany both, dull trade 
 had come when tariffs were low, and yet both were 
 more prosperous than when tariffs were high. Special 
 
 E 2 
 
52 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 causes were likewise at work in Bussia, and there was 
 therefore fair ground for coming to the conclusion 
 that fiscal legislation, designed no matter how cun- 
 ningly, could not help our own country out of her 
 troubles. So, too, customs duties, however high, had 
 no distinct power even to destroy competition from 
 without. All depends on the capacity of the buyer 
 to pay. If that is small, high customs duties will 
 extinguish home industries as well as crush out 
 foreign competition ; while, if it be high, foreign 
 goods will be just as readily bought at high prices as 
 home-made. In this way the conclusion is reached 
 that, however help may come to us, it cannot reach us 
 through a customs tariff drawn up in imitation of 
 that of the United States or of Prince Bismarck, or 
 even of Canada. 
 
 That, however, is but one side of the question. If 
 we turn back to the utterances of Mr. David Maclver, 
 or listen to those of his way of speaking, we find that 
 the immediate object of the imposition of reciprocity 
 duties in this country is not the improvement of our 
 own trade so much as the economic well-being of our 
 neighbours and rivals. Our new economic sect is filled 
 with an overmastering pity for the benighted heathens 
 of protection in other lands, and they propose that we 
 should convert them to free trade by means of a pro- 
 tective tariff of our own. That looks like a quixotic 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 53 
 
 kind of operation at the best, but we must nevertheless 
 accept the statement. Eeciprocity in self-torture must 
 be adopted till the nations learn to make free trade 
 " work well all round." 
 
 So only half the case has been proved by a demon- 
 stration of the futility of protection as a trade 
 reviver. We are going to set an heroic example in 
 order that our neighbours may learn ; and what 
 matters it if, in punishing them for their obstinate 
 heresy, we ourselves suffer loss ? For the general 
 good much ought to be endured. The question 
 comes then to be To what extent can we in the first 
 place punish the adventurous competitive manufac- 
 turers of other countries by the imposition of duties 
 on such of their goods as find their way here ? 
 
 To answer this question briefly I must inflict on 
 the reader a few more figures. The extent of our 
 import of foreign manufactured goods must be 
 ascertained before we can judge of the force and 
 efficacy of the punishment which the reciprocity 
 people propose to administer. It is the foreign 
 manufacturer who is our great enemy, and in all 
 fairness he ought to be the first to suffer punishment 
 We shall therefore take the figures of the imports of 
 foreign manufacturers over the same period as shown 
 in the previous table, and see where the lash of 
 retaliation can be successfully applied. The last 
 
54 
 
 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 year indicated in this table is the maximum point of 
 our import trade : 
 
 IMPORTS OF FOREIGN MANUFACTURES. 
 
 
 Average of years 
 18631865. 
 
 Average of years 
 18711873. 
 
 Average of years 
 1875 1877. 
 
 Stearine candles . . . 
 Clocks 
 
 166,000 
 248,000 
 
 348,000 
 413,000 
 
 362,000 
 453,000 
 
 Cotton manufactures . 
 
 876,000 
 
 1,496,000 
 
 1,618,000 
 
 Artificial flowers . . . 
 Glass 
 
 305,000 
 540,000 
 
 409,000 
 1,221,000 
 
 542,000 
 1,462,000 
 
 Leather gloves . . . 
 
 990,000 
 
 1,340,000 
 
 1,930,000 
 
 Iron and steel, manufac- ) 
 tured or wrought . . \ 
 
 389,000 
 
 948,000 
 
 1,462,000 
 
 Zinc manufactures . . 
 Paper 
 
 197,000 
 368,000 
 
 301,000 
 526,000 
 
 422,000 
 558,000 
 
 Silk manufactures of ) 
 Europe \ 
 
 7,420,000 
 
 9,036,000 
 
 12,068,000 
 
 Refined sugar and candy 
 Watches . 
 
 1,147,000 
 250,000 
 
 3,319,000 
 409,000 
 
 4,750,000 
 468,000 
 
 Woollen manufactures . 
 
 1,851,000 
 
 4,174,000 
 
 4,822,000 
 
 Woollen yarn for weaving 
 
 973,000 
 
 1,325,000 
 
 1,469,000 
 
 TOTAL . . . 
 
 15,720,000 
 
 25,265,000 
 
 32,386,000 
 
 Taken as they stand, these figures, which include 
 almost every article of importance, certainly show 
 remarkable progress. The second period, as compared 
 with the first, exhibits an increase of fully 60 per 
 cent. The last period, as compared with the second, 
 gives an increase of only 28 per cent ; but then the 
 lapse of time between the two is much smaller. 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 55 
 
 Altogether, in comparing the first period with the 
 last, the increase in our imports of foreign manufac- 
 tures here enumerated has been fully 105 per cent. 
 Nor is this all. There is a large number of small 
 articles not distinguished separately which have also 
 to be counted. The exact value of these articles 
 cannot be given, but the total of unenumerated 
 articles imported has risen in value from 17,227,000^. 
 in 1865, to 37,954,000^ in 1877, and it is therefore 
 fair to assume that whatever proportion of manufac- 
 tures may go to form this total has contributed its 
 full share to the increase. 
 
 In many instances also values are now much lower 
 than they were five years ago, or twelve years ago, so 
 that the figures here set forth the only ones we can 
 give do not, as a rule, really show the extent to 
 which foreign manufactures are competing with our 
 own. Just as our own exports have not fallen away 
 in bulk nearly so much as they have in value, so our 
 imports of foreign manufactures have not increased in 
 value at the same rate as they have increased in bulk. 
 This may be proved by one or two percentages. 
 Woollen yarn, for example, has risen in the quantity 
 imported by fully 189 per cent since 1863-65, while 
 the value has only grown about 163 per cent. We 
 have no means of comparing the quantities and 
 values of silk manufactures imported, but from the 
 
56 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 great amount of cheap or adulterated silks which 
 have lately been sent to this country, it is fair to 
 assume that the same divergence, or even a much 
 greater divergence, is also to be found in these. And 
 we can, at all events, note this fact that while 
 the value of silk manufactures imported has been 
 steadily augmenting of late years, our imports of raw 
 silk have with equal steadiness fallen away. In 
 1863-65, we imported on the average 7,603,000 Ibs. 
 of raw silk per annum ; in 1871-73, this average had 
 fallen to 7,333,000 Ibs. ; and in 1875-77, to 4,982,000 
 Ibs. Here again, however, we must observe that our 
 export of raw silk has been very much less of late 
 years than it used to be, so that the actual consump- 
 tion of silk in this country would not appear to have 
 fallen off to the extent these averages would lead one 
 to suppose. It has fallen off nevertheless, and the 
 falling off must be faithfully recorded. Still even 
 here we must not forget that special causes are at 
 work. Fashion, and the debasement of silk manu- 
 facturing by the French system of adulteration, have 
 doubtless much to do with the disorganisation of 
 our home manufactures, and so far it is certainly not 
 a matter for remedy by the imposition of duties. 
 
 Turning next to refined sugar, we find that the 
 average imports of the three periods we have chosen 
 for comparison are respectively, 688,000 ewts., 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 57 
 
 1,881,000 cwts., and 3,029,000 cwts. This gives 
 an increase in the first period as compared with 
 the last of 340 per cent, while the values for the 
 same periods give an increase of but 314 per cent. 
 The contrast is greater still between the figures of the 
 second and third periods, during which the quantity 
 has increased by 64 per cent, while its value has 
 risen only 43 per cent. Our import of refined 
 sugar is therefore increasing at a very rapid rate, a 
 rate that much outstrips the increase in the import 
 of raw sugar, which has barely been 53 per cent 
 since 1863-65. Here again there are special cir- 
 cumstances to be taken account of in the shape of 
 foreign bounties, by means of which France and 
 Holland in particular are, now that no duty is 
 imposed by us, able to beat English refiners in this 
 country, and the sugar-refiners here have been 
 agitating, ever since Sir Stafford Northcote abolished 
 the sugar duties, for special protection against these 
 bounties. They call their remedy " countervailing " 
 duties, and seek to pass it off as something altogether 
 different from either "protection" or "reciprocity," 
 although it is designed to do exactly the same for the 
 refiner that either of these quack medicines is upheld 
 to do for other distressed industries. Its object is to 
 make refined sugar dearer in order that English 
 refiners may live, and it is therefore protection. As 
 
58 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 protection, it would be just as useless and just as 
 mischievous to the country as any other provision 
 to secure a monopoly. If the French and Dutch are 
 foolish enough to tax themselves heavily in order to 
 supply other nations with cheap sugar, I do not see 
 why they should not be allowed to reap the fruits 
 of their folly to the full. A few people in this 
 country suffer in a temporary way because of that 
 misplaced generosity, but the nation as a whole gains 
 something by the bounty which French and Dutch 
 tax-payers choose to put in the pockets of a few 
 wealthy refiners. Probably the best way to cure 
 these nations of their folly is to let them enjoy the 
 payment of this half million or million sterling 
 nobody is quite sure of the exact amount for a few 
 years longer. We certainly could not cure them by 
 the imposition of a countervailing duty, because 
 excluding the probability that the interested parties 
 in these nations would in return seek revenge on us 
 the stoppage of the import of refined sugar would 
 at once reduce the burden of bounties on the French 
 and other foreign tax-payers. Until our sugar duties 
 were abolished, they did not know what these 
 bounties meant, but they are beginning now to do 
 so, and will feel the pinch increasingly with every 
 increase of the export of refined sugar from France 
 and Holland. Therefore even these special circum- 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 59 
 
 stances do not justify a recurrence to protection in 
 the shape of " countervailing " sugar duties. It may 
 possibly have been a mistake although I by no 
 means grant that it was so to sweep the old duties 
 away, but there is no ground for their re-imposition 
 in the circumstances urged by our sugar-refiners ; 
 and if they are re-imposed it must simply be on the 
 ground that Tory extravagance has left the nation no 
 alternative. 
 
 Now in the table given above, there are but three 
 articles woollen and silk manufactures and refined 
 sugar which bulk largely enough to be worth taxing 
 at all. Of what use would it be to put a tax on 
 any article of import which does not stand for 
 2,000,OOOZ. a year in accounts which have amounted 
 in the aggregate of late years to from 370,000,0002. 
 to 395,000,0002. 1 For the purposes of protection 
 such duties could be of little avail, and for pur- 
 poses of punishment or retaliation they would be 
 ludicrously inefficient. And in these three articles 
 there are actually but two countries whose commerce 
 would be affected by the imposition of duties here. 
 France and Holland might be "punished" if we shut 
 out their woollen and silk fabrics and their sugar, 
 but no other country would be sensibly touched. Is 
 it worth while to embark upon a course of retaliation 
 for the mere purpose of whipping one or two nations 
 
00 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 into the sound free-trade faith ? Or could the whip- 
 ping thus bestowed be warranted to produce that 
 effect ? The present tendency of the trading classes 
 in France is perhaps rather towards protection than 
 towards free trade, and there is every reason to sup- 
 pose that any adoption on our part of a protec- 
 tive tariff would intensify that tendency. The two 
 countries might very soon come to hurl import duties 
 at each other in the same spirit which dictated the 
 First Napoleon's edicts for the exclusion of England 
 from the commerce of Europe, and who could say 
 that we should be the gainers in the strife ? Those 
 who argue for strife in trade between nations cer- 
 tainly overlook the influences of those natural causes, 
 already spoken of, which may always be trusted to 
 cure excessive profusion as well as excessive de- 
 pression. For a number of years, ever since 1873, 
 the United States, to take the most conspicuous 
 example, have been buying less and less of foreign 
 manufactures. The increase in home producing 
 capacity was, I must again point out, not alone the 
 cause of their doing so. They were pinched by 
 a poverty which told on home industries far more 
 disastrously than on foreign. But of late they have 
 grown passing rich both naturally and through 
 distension of credit. And, as an immediate conse- 
 quence of this augmentation of wealth, they have 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 61 
 
 begun to be again greater buyers of foreign goods. 
 They first of all took home, and often at high prices, 
 large amounts of their debts, corporate and national, 
 held abroad ; and that accomplished, they have now 
 begun to buy more foreign, and especially British, 
 manufactures. This must obviously be the result of 
 the possession of more means, no matter how acquired, 
 for when all goods, home or foreign, are dear to them 
 through the action of the tariff, it is a matter of com- 
 parative indifference to the wealthy whether they buy 
 home-made products or foreign. Quality, not price, 
 will then guide their selection. 
 
 What is thus true of the United States is equally 
 true with ourselves, only we are getting rather poorer 
 instead of richer. Our poverty will therefore tell, 
 and is even now telling, in our imports of foreign 
 manufactures and luxuries. We are perforce driven to 
 buy larger quantities of foreign food, and these cause 
 the totals of our imports to foot up to very high 
 figures ; but we bought over 3,000,000 gallons less 
 wine last year than in 1877, and although the import 
 of tobacco was krger, the increase all went into stock, 
 our actual consumption having been less. So also 
 with regard to foreign refined sugar. The bounties 
 paid by France and Holland cannot force us to go on 
 buying augmented quantities which we are unable to 
 pay for, and we accordingly find that the imports of 
 
62 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 1878 fell back nearly to the level of 1875 were, in 
 other words, 1,015,OOOZ. less in value than in 1877, 
 the last year of our comparative table. In a smaller 
 degree the same is true of silk goods. A process of 
 restriction natural in our circumstances has begun, 
 and may be expected to go on. The figures for the 
 current year prove, indeed, that it is going on. In 
 other manufactures of foreign origin this restrictive 
 tendency has not yet, it is true, become very marked, 
 but it may very safely be expected to do so should 
 our poverty increase, unless foreign goods are better 
 and cheaper than those produced at home ; should 
 they be so, the fault must lie with our producers, or 
 with the disabilites under which they may lie, and our 
 clear duty is to remove these disabilities should they 
 exist, not to compel the nation to tax itself in order 
 that they may continue to oppress the country. This 
 is the only sound principle on which to proceed as far 
 as we ourselves are concerned. 
 
 To revert however to the main point now under 
 discussion, if further proof be required of the 
 absurdity of an attempt to teach foreign nations the 
 blessings of free trade through penal enactments 
 against their manufactures, it will be found in 
 abundance by looking a little more in detail at what 
 a few of them now send us. Our ironmasters declare, 
 for example, that the United States are beating us 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 63 
 
 in our home markets. They must be in a wretchedly 
 weakened state if that be true, for the total value 
 of our imports of iron and steel (wrought or manu- 
 factured) from the United States never exceeded 
 241,0002., and was only 200,0002. in 1877, while 
 last year it had actually faUen to 177,0002. The 
 distress of our tool-makers must be even greater, 
 for they have lately complained with much fervour 
 that American makers are beating Sheffield. They 
 have in fact cried out so bitterly that I turned to 
 the United States official tables, expecting to find 
 there signs of a magnificent and growing export 
 trade in all kinds of cutlery. Great was my astonish- 
 ment on seeing that for the year ending 30th June, 
 1878, the total value of the export from the United 
 States to all countries of cutlery, edge-tools, files, 
 and saws together, was only about 200,0002. That 
 sum, distributed as it is over all the world, can 
 hardly be said to afford much room for a retaliatory 
 duty here. Nor would there be much room were 
 we to tax every scrap of manufactured iron which 
 the States export, including machinery and steam- 
 engines. It is a trade which is certainly increasing 
 in a small way, but the gross value of it for the 
 year ending 30th June 1878 was only 2,100,0002. 
 Of United States cotton and woollen manufactures 
 we get none worth mentioning. I have seen it stated 
 
G4 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 somewhere that 16,OOOZ. worth of United States 
 "woollens" were sold in Manchester in 1877, but 
 there is no indication in the United States returns, 
 or our own, that the least progress is being made 
 in the introduction of American woven tissues here. 
 There is consequently no room in this direction for 
 teaching the United States a lesson in free-trade 
 principles. We must find some other way both for 
 fulfilling that charitable object, and, if it must be, 
 for checking the daring competition of the United 
 States cotton cloth weavers in neutral markets. That 
 competition is also a dreadful bugbear to many 
 amongst us, and I am almost afraid to give the 
 figures lest they should haunt our manufacturers in 
 their sleep. Yet the venture must be made, for 
 facts ought never to be blinked, and I have therefore 
 to state boldly that in the year ended 30th June, 
 1878, the United States exported altogether no less 
 than 126,291,000 yards of cotton goods, value rather 
 less than 2,500,OOOZ. sterling. I hope Lancashire 
 will survive that fact, notwithstanding the decrease 
 of its exports from 63,500,0002. to about 48,000,000?. 
 within four years. 1 If our industrial distress is, to 
 
 1 A favourite boast of late with writers in the United States has 
 been that they are ousting the English from the Chinese trade. You 
 could not take up any United States newspaper or review of the state 
 of manufactures there without meeting with some snatch of a song of 
 triumph over the great future in store for the manufactures of the 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 65 
 
 be measured by this terrible competition we must 
 be indeed weak and in need of artificial stimulants. 
 
 country in those regions, and I am bound to say that the reading of 
 these had a depressing influence on the mind. There are, however, 
 always two sides to a story, and for the comfort of English manu- 
 facturers I give the other version as furnished by the Shanghai corre- 
 spondent of the Times in a letter dated November 14th, 1878. He 
 writes as follows : 
 
 " The discussion in England as to whether the decay of our empire, 
 commercial and otherwise, has not begun, and the confident assertion 
 of the future supremacy of America by an eminent statesman, have 
 caused some amusement here, as well they might. So far as regards 
 China the decay is qitite the other way; the position and trade of 
 American firms here seem yearly to decrease, their local carrying trade 
 is extinct, and their import of cotton piece-goods small, unprofitable, 
 and much less significant than certain rhetorical statisticians would 
 have us believe. In order that the commercial position of our country, 
 so far as regards China at least, may be removed from the sphere of 
 argument and lifted into that of fact, I have extracted the following 
 telling figures from the valuable reports on foreign trade for the year 
 1877 published 'by the Imperial Maritime Customs. Of the percentages 
 of the imports and exports carried in British and American bottoms 
 the fluctuation of late years has been as follows : 
 
 Per cent of whole. 
 
 ^1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. . 1876. 1877. 
 
 Great Britain .... 77'96 ... 7671 ... 76-30 ... 73'93 ... 71 '25 ... 74-39 
 United States of America 6'45 ... 5'10 ... 4'55 ... 4'54 ... 2'42 ... T49 
 
 " The share taken by the two nationalities in the coast trade during 
 the same years as represented by the percentage of the values of the 
 goods conveyed under the various foreign flags, is thus shown : 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 
 
 Great Britain .... 33-58 ... 37'29 ... 40-25 ... 46'39 ... 40'65 ... 4572 
 United States of America 56'81 ... 5276 ... 45-02 ... 34 '49 ... 33'64 ... 5'80 
 
 " The decline in the local carrying trade in American bottoms in 
 1877 as compared with 1876 was caused by the transfer of the steamers 
 of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company to the Chinese flag. That 
 
 F 
 
66 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that the United States 
 have now a smaller export trade in cotton and other 
 manufactures than they had before the Civil War. 
 Their vaunted progress in the export of machinery 
 amounts to no more than this, that the figures of value 
 are now little more than they were fourteen years 
 ago, and as to their exports of raw and manufactured 
 iron, they are now less than they were between 
 1860 and 1867. How in the world then are we 
 
 there are other causes at work is shown by the fact that of the old- 
 established world-famous American hongs in China only one remains. 
 Of the transit trade up country the British percentage had gone from 
 50-57 per cent in 1876 to 62-11 per cent of the whole in 1877; the 
 American from 25*04 per cent in 1876 to 11'38 per cent in 1877. 
 With regard to the imports of piece-goods into China from Great 
 Britain and America it should be generally known that the total 
 importation was, in 1877, 11,570,000 pieces, valued at Tls. 19,000, 000, 
 of which 612,000 pieces, valued at Tls. 1,600,000, came from the United 
 States. As the whole of the balance came from England, it is idle as yet 
 to speak of competition in this market with America. Experience up to 
 the present time goes to show that, without exception, the efforts made 
 to supplant the English sized light-weight manufactures with pure 
 goods from American mills has resulted in a serious loss to the im- 
 porters. The present state of the English cotton trade and cotton 
 manufacture is, of course, bad perhaps about as bad as it possibly can 
 be but from among the causes which have brought about the present 
 state of things the competition of America in Eastern markets may 
 safely be eliminated. So far at least the problem is simplified." 
 
 These statements are exactly what we should expect, and accord 
 fully with the conclusions arrived at in the opening chapter. Much of 
 the export of manufactured goods which United States writers boast 
 about is just forced sales of bankrupts' stock, and nothing else. That 
 also will continue to be the characteristic of it while the present trade 
 policy of the Union is persisted in. 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 67 
 
 going to punish these people by attacking their 
 manufactures ? We may cry out against their selfish 
 determination to close their doors on us, and " do 
 for themselves," as the Scotch phrase it ; but we 
 need not add to the folly of weeping the further 
 folly of empty threats. 
 
 When we look at the figures of other countries we 
 find the signs of effective competition with our own 
 industries either here or in neutral markets abroad 
 marvellously small considering the disturbance which 
 our merchants and manufacturers are making. Out- 
 side her woollen and silk manufactures, already 
 dealt with, France does not send us 1,000,OOOZ. worth 
 per annum of any single manufactured article. The 
 highest figure is about 700,000?. for cotton manu- 
 factures, but that is by no means a steadily growing 
 item, although it was rather larger in 1878 than 
 in 1877. As one would naturally infer also, the 
 same conditions which we find to be generally 
 prevailing in the industries of the leading manu- 
 facturing nations are seen in the totals of their 
 exports. They have declined in recent years like our 
 own. The total exports of manufactures from France 
 have been falling off since 1875, when they reached a 
 total of 89,000,OOOZ. For last year (1878) the returns 
 give a total of only 75,000,OOOZ. These figures do 
 not indicate that France is beating us in the markets 
 
 F 2 
 
68 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 of the world. Neither are the Germans beating us 
 in any sense. We ourselves import from Germany 
 no manufactured articles except refined sugar and 
 woollen yarn to the extent of anything like 500,000?. 
 a year. Of cotton manufactures we have never 
 taken more than 226,000?. worth, and now take 
 considerably less. And as to the total export trade 
 of that mushroom empire, what do we find ? Accord- 
 ing to the last figures available in the new number 
 of the Statistical Abstract for the Principal and 
 other Foreign Countries (a valuable annual which 
 has been greatly improved by Mr. Giffen), there 
 is very little indication that Germany is seriously 
 competing with us in a manufacturing sense. Her 
 exports of cotton manufactures are utterly insigni- 
 ficant worth only 665,000?. altogether in 1877, 
 or 246,000?. less than in 1875. Her exports of pig- 
 iron were worth only 1,740,000?. and of machinery 
 only 1,000,000?. Even in woollen yarns, certain 
 makes of which Germany is .supposed to produce 
 in perfection, the trade is a dwindling one, and was 
 worth only 6,900,000?. in 1877, which was less by 
 2,700,000?. than in 1875. Yet Germany, as we 
 have seen, had all through that period protective 
 duties on every one of her manufactures, except 
 pig-iron, and the duty on that was removed only 
 about three years ago. It appears, however, that 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 69 
 
 she has not been protected enough no country 
 with a dragging and forced trade ever is, if the 
 reckless speculative manufacturers are to be believed 
 and so Prince Bismarck has come to the help of 
 the poor distressed industries by bestowing on the. 
 empire a tariff that is not unlikely to complete 
 their ruin. But though forced through by the 
 domineering energy of the German Chancellor, aided 
 as it always is by his expert and altogether un- 
 scrupulous parliamentary tactics, this new drag on 
 German industries has not been unopposed. A strong 
 section of the mercantile community in the country 
 has protested against it without avail, and in the 
 leading ports it has been thoroughly unpopular. 
 Even in the case of the iron industries its probable 
 disastrous effects have not gone unrecognised by 
 manufacturers. They will suffer for the benefit of 
 the producer of the raw material. But on the 
 whole the new law will do good, although not in 
 the direction that Prince Bismarck calculates. The 
 misery it will cause to the poorer sections of the 
 population by its restrictions, not only on a free 
 interchange of manufactures, but likewise on free 
 imports of food, is likely to breed that discontent 
 with the regime of grinding, mock-divine imperialism, 
 which may result in the formation of a true and 
 enlightened reform party. 
 
70 KECIPKOCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 In the meantime, our protectionists and perfervid 
 retaliators might do worse than note the already 
 visible effects of Bismarck's policy on surrounding 
 nations. He is a true retaliator, and carries the 
 doctrine out so consistently that his new tariff 
 imposes discriminating duties on goods coming from 
 countries with high tariffs or with shipping laws 
 considered inimical to German interests. An addi- 
 tional 50 per cent of duty is to be levied on the 
 goods of such countries at discretion of the supreme 
 authorities. Here, therefore, we have reciprocity 
 in full bloom, and if there is any pity under Heaven 
 for the weavers of gaudy cobwebs shot with pretty 
 fancies, the immediate effect of this policy ought 
 to be a general humiliation and repentance on the 
 part of all Germany's neighbours. They are to taste 
 the sweet influences of the lash, and ought forth- 
 with to show signs of reverence to "true free-trade 
 principles." That is the outcome which our trucu- 
 lent " free-traders " tell us to expect ; but alas for 
 them ! human affairs seem once more in the world's 
 history likely to refuse to be so bound down by fine- 
 spun brain cobwebs. Instead of humbly submitting 
 to Bismarck, the surrounding nations laugh him to 
 scorn, and seem determined to return blow for blow. 
 " German industries shall be self-sustaining and 
 independent," says the Prince, and he hurls his 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 71 
 
 tariff at the heads of all foreigners. "Be it so/' 
 reply those more immediately concerned, "we also 
 shall be independent. You cannot shut us out 
 more effectually than we you. Indeed, Germany is 
 a miserably poor country, whose products are of so 
 little use to us that she may just as well keep them 
 at home, and in future it shall be our endeavour 
 to see that she does so." In this spirit, France, 
 Austria, and Eussia, are not merely bent upon doing 
 without German goods, but likewise upon depriving 
 Germany of the large transit trade which her rail- 
 ways now enjoy. A result of this kind is what 
 every one, except dreamers of dreams and persons 
 of natural or assumed stupidity, would expect. 
 
 The volume of the present trade of Germany is 
 to some extent obscured by the fact that much of 
 it passes through Holland, and some of the new 
 duties do not come into force till the new year ; but 
 we shall not then have long to wait for the visible 
 effects of the tariff. A tariff comprising nearly 275 
 different duties, ranging from a straw-hat to a suck- 
 ing-pig, cannot but disorganise German commerce. 
 Even as matters stand, how great is the contrast 
 between Germany and Holland. Our total imports 
 of all kinds from that little country show a 
 remarkably steady increase over the last half- 
 dozen years, and amounted to 20,000,OOOZ. in 1877, 
 
72 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 as compared with 13,300,000?. in 1873. But reci- 
 procitarians had better not run away with these 
 figures as helping them in their outcry, for the 
 increase is due to two causes, not altogether pleasant 
 for them to contemplate. One is our growing 
 dependence on foreign food supplies, and the other 
 the extreme lightness of the Dutch import tariff. 
 As to the first, more than one-third of our total 
 imports from Ho] land may be set down to food 
 products alone. Holland sends us every year, for 
 instance, about 2,000,OOOZ. worth of butter, and 
 nearly 1,000,OOOZ. worth of cheese. And as to the 
 second well, what have the reciprocitarians got to 
 say to it ? We enjoy, with Holland, a greater degree 
 of reciprocity than with any other Continental 
 country, and we find her trade with us fully more 
 expansive than that of any other country. True 
 our exports thither have been lower of recent years 
 than they were five or six years ago, but the falling 
 off is not serious, and we find that her low import 
 tariff enables her to sell us more. Her exports of 
 manufactures keep up, and her exports of food 
 grow larger. What can our reciprocitarians say to 
 this ? Will the imposition of duties on our side mend 
 
 matters, do they imagine ? If the greater the free- 
 
 i 
 
 dom of trade the greater the danger of competition 
 from Holland, how is the restriction of freedom 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 73 
 
 here likely to improve our competitive power against 
 her ? Kemember we live by our foreign trade ; 
 without it we should starve ; and whatever weakens 
 our power to maintain it brings starvation nearer 
 our doors. Shall we say that the example of 
 Holland, which admits many of our goods free, 
 and most at a duty of from 3 to 5 per cent ad 
 valorem, encourages the belief that competitive 
 force is increased by retaliation ? It will be best 
 I fancy to leave the reciprocitarians to answer 
 these questions, and they had better not do it too 
 hurriedly. 
 
 This line of inquiry might be pursued to great 
 lengths, but surely enough has been said. If facts 
 have any meaning they distinctly prove that the 
 salvation of the distressed English manufacturer 
 does not lie in the way of retaliatory duties on foreign 
 manufactures. There is no room for their application 
 for one thing, and for another their effect would be 
 to hit hardest just those one or two nations which 
 have advanced farthest on the road towards free trade 
 that goal which our Platonic free-trader professes 
 to desire that all nations should reach by the appli- 
 cation of his reciprocity scourge. Benighted com- 
 munities like Eussia, Spain, or the United States, 
 would laugh at our attempt at revenge, on this line 
 in any case, and Holland, Belgium, and France might 
 
74 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 also crow over us, for they could steal a march on 
 us with ease if we took to their fetters. 
 
 Let reciprocitarians also consider this one other 
 question. How would they propose to deal with the 
 " Most Favoured Nations " Clause, used in nearly all 
 our commercial treaties ? Could they insist upon its 
 retention if customs duties were re-imposed here? 
 or have they ever considered what a leverage we have 
 in that clause alone when we come to deal with 
 reluctant foreign protectionists ? By being free- 
 traders in greater degree than any other people we 
 can now insist upon the insertion of this clause almost 
 everywhere ; but could we do so if we were to try 
 punishment of other nations instead of example? 
 Let the behaviour of Spain on her last revision of her 
 tariff be the answer to that question. Spain has a 
 grievance against this country about her wine duties, 
 and a very just grievance too, and in " revenge " for 
 the non-redress of that grievance she has excluded 
 us from the most favoured position, with the result 
 that the French manufacturer amongst others has a 
 great advantage over us in trading with her. Would 
 not that prove to be a common mode of treating 
 us were we ever to step down from our secure posi- 
 tion and higgle over halfpence in the arena of petty 
 national jealousies and childish national spites ? Most 
 assuredly it would, and therefore I say there is no 
 
II.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 75 
 
 room for retaliation in our commercial policy towards 
 foreign manufacturers. Germany, for example, could 
 and probably would at once impose her " extra 
 50. per cent" were we to try issues with her on 
 this ground. A practical illustration of the value 
 of these " Favoured Nation " Clauses was given the 
 other week by the lapse of the treaty between France 
 and Austria. Under that treaty we enjoyed a lower 
 scale of import duties in France than under the 
 Cobden treaty, and now that we have to fall back 
 on the Cobden tariff there is bitter outcry. What 
 should we do were there no more " Favoured Nation " 
 Clauses for us in the future ? Community of inte- 
 rests between us and other nations would be abolished 
 for one thing, and our trade would degenerate into 
 mere Ishmaelism. This was very clearly brought 
 out by Mr. Forster in his Bradford speech last spring. 
 Eeciprocity means for us tariff wars and nothing 
 else, whereas if we stick to our free trade, and allow 
 other nations to taste the bitterness of their folly 
 to the full, as France and the United States are now 
 doing, and as Germany means to do, we shall triumph 
 in the end. 
 
 And even supposing the policy could be adopted, 
 it has now surely been demonstrated that the field 
 over which we could exercise our talents at retalia- 
 tion against daring foreign manufacturers is a very 
 
76 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 limited one, and that the countries which that retalia- 
 tion would affect are quite as few as the varieties of 
 articles which could be taxed. 
 
 In regard to raw materials the same conclusion 
 must be come to, although partly on different 
 grounds. Were we to tax raw cotton, flax, hemp, 
 or wool, we might perhaps put some of our colonies, 
 Germany, France, and the United States, to con- 
 siderable temporary inconvenience, but a few years 
 of that retaliatory policy would see us denuded of 
 our manufacturing industries. To these industries 
 nothing is more essential than cheap production, and 
 to have cheap production we must have absolutely 
 untaxed raw materials. That at least we now have, 
 and it would be suicidal to deprive ourselves of that 
 advantage for the sake of an impotent desire k for 
 revenge. Surely this conclusion is self-evident. The 
 stupidest person can see that if we are to sell cheaply, 
 we must buy cheaply, and that a tax of say \d. 
 per Ib. on cotton, or 2d. on wool, would be a clog 
 on the productive powers of the nation, just because 
 by at least so much our powers of selling as cheaply 
 as other nations would be taken away* If notwith- 
 standing such taxes we still competed, it would be 
 at the expense of the working classes, who are already 
 reduced to the greatest straits by the diminution 
 which has been of necessity made in their wages, and 
 
ii.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 77 
 
 by the hardness of the struggle for existence which 
 our forms of social life entail upon them. Workmen 
 coaxed to give ear to the protectionist piping of their 
 masters had better ponder that consideration. The 
 tune is not one they can dance to with safety. We 
 may therefore decide, I hope, that there is no refuge 
 in retaliation as applied to raw materials any more 
 than as applied to manufactures. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 
 SOME MINOR LESSONS OF THE PRESENT TRADE 
 DEPRESSION. 
 
 WE are now in a manner half way through, the 
 discussion raised in these pages. It may therefore be 
 appropriate to pause here, and try to deduce the 
 lessons which the conclusions thus far reached appear 
 clearly to enforce. There lie still before us the dis- 
 cussion of the reciprocity of bi-metallists, and the 
 yet more important subject of our domestic clogs on 
 industry, involving the question of land-law reform 
 and the capacity of this country to bear taxes on 
 imported food. But in the meantime, the lessons 
 specially applicable to manufacturers and artizans, 
 and fairly deducible from what has been said, may 
 be appropriately enforced. 
 
 We can now, in short, proceed to estimate the value 
 of the reciprocity cry and its motives, so far as the 
 trading and industrial classes are concerned, and to 
 point out to them their true policy. The reciprocity 
 
CH. in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 79 
 
 wail appears, I think, in the light of the facts to be 
 nothing else than an exhibition of trades-unionism 
 amongst employers and traders. The profits of the 
 master manufacturer have been of late reduced, and 
 he wants to combine with his fellow capitalists for the 
 purpose of forcing the nation to restore those profits 
 by artificial means. That is the spirit of trades- 
 unionism in its basest possible form, and it is a spirit 
 which every intelligent citizen should oppose with all 
 his might. The spirit of the masters is indeed far 
 worse than that of the men when we come to analyse 
 it, and I never see the latter reviled and blamed for 
 their rapacity by the self-righteous opponents of 
 trades-unionism without a certain amount of scorn. 
 The ordinary trades-unionist may be selfish and often 
 ignorant, but neither in selfishness nor ignorance does 
 he reach the standard of his master, who would not 
 scruple to fine the whole nation, if so be that he 
 might in this way make a " profit ;" who is so 
 ignorant that he would for the sake of a passing 
 benefit gladly abandon the future to his rivals. We 
 have heard lectures without number regarding the 
 blindness and rapacity of the working man. Will 
 the same rigid moralists now address a few words of 
 admonition to the man's master ? I doubt it much. 
 The master wraps up his selfishness in fine phrases 
 about " reciprocity," or in truculent John Bull 
 
80 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 bluster about retaliation, and the ruck of those who 
 hound down the labouring classes will probably often 
 be found eager encouragers of those blusterers who 
 would bring the whole nation into subjection to their 
 interests. The combination of the few against the 
 many is, it would seem, a good and proper thing ; but 
 no curses can be too loud for the masses of work 
 people who try that other combination of the many 
 against the few. To the capitalist, in short, all things 
 are both lawful and expedient ; but to the workman 
 and the people the only course open is submission. 
 This doctrine will not, I fear, hold water long, but 
 there may be very bitter struggles to go through 
 before conflicting interests as between capitalists and 
 the people get adjusted. Workmen, too, are every 
 day growing in intelligence and appreciation of the 
 position they hold, and if not misled by the miserable 
 cry of protection, reciprocity, or retaliation, will in 
 turn assert themselves in a fashion likely to disturb the 
 faith of the capitalist not a little. He sets such a 
 good example of fine thorough-going self-seeking, that 
 I confess pity for his case is not the deepest feeling 
 excited. This new phase of trades-unionism -amongst 
 masters is at all events likely to alienate from them 
 the sympathy of all thinking minds. 1 Outsiders feel as 
 
 1 Mr. W. E. Forster summed up at Bradford the reciprocity argu- 
 ment in the following terse sentences : " The argument for reciprocity 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 81 
 
 the employers of labour themselves must feel, that 
 nothing good can come of this reciprocity cry, whether 
 it be got up to apply taxes on foreign manufactured 
 goods or on raw materials. It is not a cry with any 
 meaning in it at all as an economic remedy for the 
 present stagnation, nor can it be of the least use as 
 a means to induce other nations to adopt free trade. 
 We should not consider that man an object of admira- 
 tion for his wisdom who chopped off his own right 
 hand in order to teach a neighbour anatomy ; but he 
 would not show greater folly than the people who cry 
 up reciprocity as a palliative for trade distress, or 
 as a sovereign tutor of free trade to other nations. 
 "When brought face to face with the facts, we at once 
 see that we are dealing with a barefaced imposition, 
 a fevered dream of minds warped by selfishness 
 and fear ; that the men who have taken up this cry 
 are men blinded by a kind of despair, and whom 
 ignorance or passion drives to clutch at the wildest 
 absurdities for relief. Eeasoning is probably as much 
 lost on such people as a Latin sermon would be on a 
 Hottentot ; but because they are blind or stupid in 
 their selfishness, it by no means follows that they may 
 
 is this : You rob the consumer. You are thieves, and persistent thieves. 
 Therefore we shall follow your example and rob your consumers." 
 And he says with great force that were a doctrine like this to prevail 
 the cause of free trade all the world over would be lost. 
 
82 RECIPKOCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 not temporarily lead the ignorant masses of the nation 
 astray. 
 
 Nor must we, because reciprocity is an absurdity as 
 applied to manufactured goods imported by England, 
 be blind to the fact that foreign competition on 
 neutral ground does grow considerably, and foreign 
 self-dependence a very great deal. There is no dis- 
 puting these facts. Only one or two nations are in 
 any way formidable as yet outside their own borders, 
 but nearly all are seeking by every means in their 
 power to obtain a trade-independence of this country. 
 These facts are extremely depressing, too, especially 
 as we see at present little hope of a speedy return 
 towards free-trade principles in any quarter. Trades- 
 unionism rules abroad as well as here, and the popu- 
 lation of other countries, never having known by 
 experience what free trade really implies, or the 
 wonders it works, are still safe in the hands of 
 the dominating manufacturing interests everywhere. 
 Cunning men manage to imbue the popular mind 
 with the notion that the interests of the nation lie 
 in the direction of filling the pockets of a select few, 
 and the patient stupidity of the popular mind gets 
 quite heated with a patriotic desire to uphold at the 
 nation's expense Mr. So-and-So's ironworks, and this 
 or that cotton-mill, as something glorious to the 
 country. One is amazed at the- depths of human 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 83 
 
 gullibility visible on all hands, but in nothing is it 
 more manifest than in the clinging to " protection," 
 visible even in such countries as the United States. 
 A recent writer in Macmillans Magazine expressed 
 himself sanguine that the Western farmers of the 
 States would soon cause the policy of the Union 
 to become free-trading. I think he was in that 
 over-sanguine. The farmers will do nothing of the 
 kind till they have found out that protection prevents 
 them from exporting their produce at a profit, and 
 it will depend greatly on the harvests of Europe, 
 and, so far as we are concerned, on our treatment 
 of our own farming interests, whether they find that 
 out soon or late. As long as they are not pushed 
 for money they will be supine. 
 
 " Oh, then," the protectionist reader may say, 
 "you admit that it would be a legitimate thing to 
 tax foreign corn, say, or foreign beef and mutton \ " 
 I do nothing of the kind. There are other ways of 
 convincing the foreign farmer of the folly of pro- 
 tection than by taxing his corn. That might 
 perhaps bring him to his senses, but as it would 
 bring us meanwhile to misery, there would be little 
 profit in it. On this part of my subject, however, 
 I shall have more to say in succeeding chapters. 
 
 For the present it will be well to confine the 
 attention to the palliatives which it may be in our 
 
 G 2 
 
84 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 power to apply to the existing state of our manu- 
 facturing industries. I say " palliatives " because 
 the radical cure of the evils from which the country 
 now suffers cannot be brought about without much 
 suffering and perhaps a complete revolution in the 
 habits and social laws of the people. There are, 
 however, certain palliatives of the most homely and 
 simple kind which might go a certain way towards 
 mitigating that ultimate contraction of our foreign 
 trade which must, I fear, be considered inevitable, 
 unless the radical changes I speak of do in time 
 come about. In the first place I would recommend 
 our manufacturers to try a little honesty for a 
 change. As a class they have not of late years 
 been distinguished for that quality. The English 
 manufacturer has gone from bad to worse in the 
 adulteration of his cotton and woollen goods, just 
 as the French have done with their silk, until our 
 name has become seriously discredited in all our 
 principal foreign markets. Naturally our rivals in 
 these markets make the most of our defects and 
 probably exaggerate them ; but they exist, and, if 
 they are not cured, they will do more to ruin our 
 manufacturing trade than all the prohibitory tariffs 
 that foreign jealousy could devise. In the long run, 
 quality commands the market. If the buyer can 
 be sure of the excellence of an article he will, in 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 85 
 
 nine cases out of ten, higgle little over its price. 
 But, as Mr. Carlyle said years ago in his Shooting 
 Niagara : and After ? it is just on this one point 
 of quality that English manufacturers, not of tissues 
 merely, but of all kinds, now fail most uniformly. 
 We have acquired the fatal art of " putting a 
 gloss " upon our productions, of turning out things 
 that look well but wear badly ; and this art is 
 displayed in everything, from a steam-engine to a 
 pocket-knife. There are still many firms in the 
 country too proud of their good name to make bad 
 steam-engines, and build ships warranted to sink 
 in the first gale. Our Spitalfields silk- weavers still 
 make the finest and most durable fabrics in the 
 world, and there are weavers of broadcloth, as well 
 as of other woollen fabrics, and likewise spinners 
 and weavers of cotton, whose productions no country 
 in the world can equal, whose honourable business 
 repute is above suspicion. All this and more is true, 
 and should gladly be acknowledged ; and yet when 
 all is said, the general tone of English business men, 
 and the general quality of English manufactures, 
 have sunk of late years with alarming rapidity. 
 The one aim of the bulk of our merchants and 
 traders has been to make and to sell goods at any 
 price, utterly regardless of honesty or anything else. 
 A race for wealth of the most immoral description 
 
86 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 has gone on for years, and, becoming keener and 
 more desperate every year, has at length led men 
 to fling behind them everything in the shape of 
 moral rectitude. The very idea of such a quality 
 has been almost forgotten by many, and our " smart " 
 adulterators of goods, our " scamping " manufac- 
 turers and dishonest traders, are elevated into a kind 
 of heroes because they have " made money." Epochs 
 in our mercantile history are dated from the occur- 
 rence of some huge credit collapse, or from the 
 bursting of some gigantic fraud, the perpetrators of 
 which usually escape all punishment, and even win 
 considerable admiration ; they were the unlucky 
 ones where all played the same game. Our trade 
 is thus pervaded with deceit, and has grown rotten 
 and unhealthy in all departments, and unless a better 
 spirit comes over us it must decay and die, coddle 
 it how we may. The more it is coddled, in fact, 
 the more will its rottenness hasten dissolution. 
 Therefore it is that one sovereign remedy for the 
 present depression, and against the disastrous effects 
 of foreign and colonial competition, is a return to 
 the simple sturdy honesty of our fathers. If we 
 cannot so return, the sooner we give place to more 
 honest men the better. The collapses of banking 
 and mercantile credit which we have recently had 
 to mourn over, have lifted a corner of the veil and 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 87 
 
 revealed what is going on beneath. Banking credit 
 and honesty stand or fall together, and the people 
 who can engage in systematic deceptions or frauds 
 for a series of years in the matter of banking, are 
 not likely to be scrupulous about the quality of the 
 goods they make or sell. 
 
 Honesty, however, is not all that we require to 
 help us to overcome the troubles by which we are 
 beset ; there must be a return to hard work as well. 
 The French mill-hands work as a rule 72 hours a 
 week against our 56|, and this is a discrepancy which 
 no advantages enjoyed by us in the shape of better 
 machinery or higher skill can bridge over. Prac- 
 tically we have in many, perhaps in most cases, no 
 large advantages of this kind. In cotton and woollen 
 weaving or spinning, the . probabilities are that we 
 have now almost none. Some very interesting par- 
 ticulars on this point were lately collected by 
 delegates from British Chambers of Commerce who 
 went to France to report on French industries in view 
 of a prospective adverse revision of the French tariff. 
 The reports of these gentlemen cover a variety of our 
 leading manufactures, and the consensus of testimony 
 is to the effect that the industry, thrift, and per- 
 severance of the French workpeople are rapidly 
 enabling them to make goods as cheaply as we can, 
 or cheaper. In regard to Bradford woollen goods, for 
 
88 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 example, Messrs. Godwin and Ilingworth, the dele- 
 gates, make out that French mills can be erected for 
 less money than English, that land costs at least as 
 little, and that though machinery and fuel may still 
 be dearer, the mode of working is much more econo- 
 mical. Less fuel is consumed, and a greater use is 
 made of the abundant water-power. And in the 
 matter of wages the advantage is nearly always on 
 the side of France. In some cases we pay as much as 
 200?. for every 100?. paid in France, and from 140?. 
 to 160?. per 100?. is a common enough difference. 
 This, too, while the French work 15| hours per 
 week more than our mill-hands do. Much the same 
 testimony is given by Mr. Joseph Wrigley, of 
 Huddersfield, and Mr. C. E. Bousfield, of Leeds. 
 The average wages paid in those towns is, they say, 
 25 per cent higher than in Prance, and the French 
 are little, if at all, behind in their machinery, most of 
 which they now make for themselves. It has been 
 commonly assumed that the English mill-hands are 
 capable of doing more work than the French or any 
 foreign hands, but this seems to be by no means 
 proved. On the contrary, apart from heavy work, 
 such as that of the navvy, or from work requiring 
 great force and energy of body and mind, there is no 
 reason to suppose that the French are behind our- 
 selves. A slightly greater number of workpeople are 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 89 
 
 employed in French woollen-mills than in English, 
 but the delegates say that they " are not disposed to 
 make as much of this point as the French, for this 
 increase in the hands gives the advantage of closer 
 inspection of work, and greater freedom from 
 damage." 1 In the matter of managers, overlookers, 
 dyers, and foremen, the French are said to have the 
 advantage of us. Those at the head of their mills 
 are better educated and of more cultivated taste than 
 the generality of English managers and designers. 
 They are so because in France the State provides 
 better for the primary and technical education of the 
 people than we have hitherto done in this country. 
 
 These facts all point a serious moral for the work- 
 people of England. We have strayed into extra- 
 vagance on all hands, shortening unduly the hours of 
 labour, increasing wages, increasing the consumption 
 of drink, and have trusted to traditional superiority, 
 or to a fetish belief in the mysterious power of free 
 trade per se, rather than to diligence, perseverance, 
 and thrift to maintain our position at the head of the 
 manufacturers of the world. Without copying the 
 better industrial habits of our rivals we could, to say 
 the least of it, do nothing to revive our trade by 
 imitating their confessedly bad fiscal policy. 
 
 Try the increased industry and economy first at all 
 
 1 Commercial Papers, No. 18 (1878), p. 80. 
 
90 KECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 events. France has gained by these more than ever 
 she did by protection, nay, in spite of protection. 
 The gains she has secured already, where not obtained 
 by hard work, may indeed be all ascribed to the feeble 
 and uncertain steps which she has already taken in 
 the direction of Free Trade. In the Blue Book 
 already quoted, we get some remarkably striking 
 testimony upon this very point. Mr. Frederick 
 Brittain, of Sheffield, in reporting upon the state of 
 the iron and hardware industries of France, has 
 gathered together a great deal of most important 
 information, which I can only in the briefest way 
 allude to. Amongst other things, he states that 
 English ironworkers earn as a rule about 20 per cent 
 more money for nine hours' work than French work- 
 men get for eleven, twelve, or even thirteen hours 
 per day, and that in a large number of cases the 
 difference is as much as 50 per cent. But his most 
 remarkable testimony has reference to the wonderful 
 effects of the Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1860. 
 Previous to that date the French ironmasters had no 
 incentive to exertion, Protected by duties in some 
 cases as high as 130 per cent, they worked lazily on 
 in their old-fashioned ways, recouping themselves for 
 bad work and wasteful methods by exorbitant prices. 
 Thus it happened, that the French railways were 
 equipped for the most part by English iron. But 
 
HI.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 91 
 
 since 1860 all this has been changed. Keener com- 
 petition roused the French to adopt improved 
 methods of manufacture, and so to extend their 
 production that they soon required no foreign aid 
 to enable them to supply their domestic demand for 
 manufactures. They even developed foreign com- 
 petition; and no wonder, when we consider the 
 meaning of such a history as the following : 
 
 " During the epoch of commercial activity which 
 followed the Franco-German war, the manufacturers 
 and the working men in England and France pursued 
 two opposite systems. In England the colliery pro- 
 prietors took advantage of the opportunity to raise 
 their prices prodigiously ; the ironmasters followed, 
 and a general very heavy augmentation took place 
 in the prices of articles made of iron. At the same 
 time the workmen were able to obtain increased 
 wages, in order to maintain which they manifested 
 a desire to restrict production by diminishing the 
 hours of work. The steel-melters of Sheffield refused 
 to work more than two rounds on Saturday, and the 
 consequence was deplorable waste. While coke cost 
 405. per ton, the manufacturers saw their half- used 
 crucibles thrown upon the rubbish heap, although the 
 third round would not have cost half so much time, 
 or half so much fuel, to produce as the first. Sheffield 
 goods were urgently required for every market in the 
 world, and it would have been difficult, by dint of 
 the greatest industry, to supply the abnormal de- 
 mand ; but, unfortunately, English artizans declined 
 
92 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 to reap the golden harvest, and lost an opportunity 
 that may never return. The conduct of the French 
 was entirely different. Although the prices of coal 
 and iron were affected by what took place in England, 
 the augmentation was not relatively great ; and while 
 some of the English workmen were seeking to keep 
 down production, the French were toiling with re- 
 doubled energy, and gaining an entrance into markets 
 where they will be henceforward our redoubtable 
 competitors " (Report, p. 99). 
 
 Could anything show more vividly the terrible 
 dangers to which the conduct of our English work- 
 men has subjected the country? Or is there any 
 conceivable folly greater than that which would cap 
 this extravagance and sloth by the imposition of 
 those very duties whose partial removal has been so 
 beneficial to France ? The question needs no answer. 
 These facts are a sermon on thrift and sobriety, which 
 no sensible man can fail to lay to heart. They speak 
 to masters and men alike. The former must restrain 
 their lavish extravagances, in which they have been 
 fatally imitated by their men, and the men must 
 make up their minds to work harder and drink less, 
 and to take lower wages than they have been accus- 
 tomed to do in the years of fatness now passed away. 
 As Mr. Forster justly observed at Bradford, the well- 
 to-do " Jeshuruns " have waxed fat and kicked quite 
 as much as the poor ones. It has been like master 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 93 
 
 like man, and more energy must be thrown into 
 work on all sides. The young generation of our 
 manufacturers has accustomed itself to a slothful, 
 luxurious I might even say a diseasedly civilised 
 life which must, if persisted in, lead it to destruction. 
 
 This topic might be enlarged upon to an indefinite 
 extent. Other countries have in other directions 
 advantages which we have let slip. Wages and 
 cost of capital are in our favour as against the United 
 States, but their machinery has been in some respects 
 improved to points far beyond our own. The world 
 has gone on while we have slothfully sat still in our 
 arrogance and pride of wealth, and there must now 
 come repentance, humility, and mended ways. The 
 cry for reciprocity is the cry of those who refuse to 
 see the real facts of the situation. Let them con- 
 sider this one other point mentioned by Mr. Brittain, 
 that the revenue from our excise and customs rose 
 9,000 ,00 OZ. in seven years, and say whether they do 
 not think that mending our ways in the matter of 
 drink alone might help us to increase our competing 
 power abroad. Here also master and man have 
 played wanton together in the merry career now 
 rapidly coming to an end. 
 
 The chief economic lesson of all such facts as 
 these about wages and long hours of work, or such 
 as those about United States superiority in labour- 
 
94 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 saving machinery, is, however, this that nothing 
 can be more hopeless as a means of stimulating pros- 
 perity in trade than restrictions of any kind upon 
 producing power. Taxes upon foreign manufactures 
 would not help us in any case, and taxes upon raw 
 materials would merely throw an increased strain 
 upon our labouring poor, just as they throw increased 
 strain on the French or Belgians. Whatever raises 
 the fixed cost of production throws additional burden 
 on labour. This applies with equal force to the 
 mistaken ideas which prevail among workpeople about 
 the limitation of production. Their cry has been 
 " Work less, and prices will rise to paying point." 
 There could be no greater fallacy. Eeduction in the 
 hours of labour, and in the resulting out-turn of 
 work, at once makes the profit- earning power of 
 capital less, and does not necessarily raise prices. 
 Prices might possibly be raised did this reduction 
 become universal among all nations, but even that is 
 doubtful, for higher prices at once reduce consump- 
 tion, and in the end the restrictive policy is beaten by 
 the economy of the consumer. A striking instance of 
 this is seen in the combination entered into last year 
 by the coal-owning railway companies of the United 
 States. These agreed to restrict out-put so as to 
 make higher profits by bigger prices. In the result 
 the combination was a complete failure. Prices did 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 95 
 
 not rise as expected, the only result being that less 
 coal was consumed. The largest of these companies, a 
 company overweighted by inordinate issues of capital, 
 had accordingly to confess a deficit on the year's 
 operations of 2,672,182 dollars, after paying the 
 interest on its bonds, and was driven to the expedient 
 of paying the arrears of its servants' wages in paper, 
 redeemable five months after date. Accordingly the 
 " coal roads " have now adopted the opposite course 
 of unlimited competition. That will no doubt cause 
 great waste of capital for a time, because the coal 
 industry in the States is a huge bubble at best, but 
 when the weakest concerns are ruined, the trade will 
 become healthier. 
 
 The true cause of such " over-production " as now 
 distresses artizans and labourers in the United States 
 as well as in England, is inflation of consumption 
 through abuse of credit. Much of the progress 
 so-called, about which -we have been so accustomed 
 to boast, has not, in other words, been fair legitimate 
 progress at all. It has been an eager passionate 
 effort to, as it were, forestall and overreach the 
 future. There has been accordingly lavish waste of 
 capital in promoting both the production and con- 
 sumption of articles beyond natural or prudent 
 requirements. For this waste, capital must ultimately 
 suffer more than labour, and the true way to throw 
 
96 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 the burden upon capital is not to restrict the amount 
 of labour, but to increase it, for by increasing labour 
 the quantity of product exchangeable at a cheap 
 rate is increased, and that increase is, except in very 
 exceptional circumstances, fatal to concerns which 
 exist exclusively on credit. 
 
 The error of the working classes regarding the effec- 
 tive recuperative power of restriction upon out-put or 
 manufacture arises in part from ignorance of the 
 actual position of capital in relation to trade profits. 
 Capital is an excellent servant, but a most imperious 
 master, and the immediate effect of a limitation of 
 production is to make the imperious claims of capital, 
 and, above all, of borrowed capital, instantly para- 
 mount. Take the case of a cotton-mill, with a 
 mortgage debt of say 30,OOOZ. at 5 per cent. The 
 owners of this mill have to find 1,500Z. a year to pay 
 that interest, and they may have to find in addition 
 rents and taxes amounting to. say 1,500Z. more before 
 they can earn a penny towards the return of legiti- 
 mate interest on their own capital, which we might 
 put at say 10,0002. Assuming that maintenance of 
 machinery and minor fixed charges are fully another 
 3,OOOZ., we have a total fixed charge of 6,000?. which 
 the mill must earn if it is to pay its way at all, 
 and without making any return on the owner's own 
 capital. Now, if the price of the goods made at this 
 
HI.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 97 
 
 mill is very low, the obvious inference is that, for one 
 thing, the cost of production must be reduced if the 
 mill is to pay. But restriction in manufacture does 
 not tend to reduce this cost. It may reduce the 
 amount paid away as wages, although it can only do 
 that within a sharply-defined subsistence limit ; but 
 all other charges for maintenance of works and 
 interest press with increasing heaviness on the 
 owners of the mill. If they sell goods up to only one 
 half the capacity of the mill, and get a slightly 
 higher price for them, their position will still be 
 worse than if they sell up to full capacity at a lower 
 figure. And even if production at a given rate is 
 carried on at a dead loss, the only means of restoring 
 the balance consists in lowering the earnings of the 
 hands, and increasing the amount of work turned 
 out. Stopping the mill altogether involves the 
 complete loss of the capital invested ; and every 
 reduction of output, even if accompanied by lower 
 wages, brings the owners nearer and nearer the point 
 of total loss. The results would of course be the 
 same in a case where no debt existed. The owners 
 would lose by restricting production, although the loss 
 would not ruin them so suddenly as if they were 
 loaded with debt. i 
 
 In short, nothing is more clearly taught by the 
 example we have given, and by all sound economic 
 
98 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM, [CHAP. 
 
 precepts, than this truth that incessant and increased 
 labour, and ever-increasing economy of production, 
 will alone suffice to enable the nation to come out of 
 the present industrial struggle victorious. And there 
 is but one mode by which production can be lessened, 
 if that is a necessity. The works and institutions 
 which are unable either from disadvantage in position, 
 or from dead weight of fixed charges, to carry on the 
 .struggle to the point of victory, must give place 
 altogether. This weeding process is now going on, 
 and a most painful process it is ; but the fact that 
 mills, collieries, and iron- works have been compelled 
 on all hands to stop is only a testimony against the 
 inflation of credit, not a ground for generally restrict- 
 ing production. Those who can stand must do so by 
 working more, not less. Industry and thrift are the 
 true means for conquering foreign tariffs and foreign 
 competition, not retaliatory tariffs, whose effect would 
 be to increase the burdens of the community, and to 
 fetter still more industries already overburdened by 
 fixed charges and by the effects of a disastrous 
 extension of credit. In short, there must be a 
 migration of industry, not a partial cessation of work, 
 along the whole line if wages are to be raised. 
 
 We may, indeed, be said to suffer at the present 
 time much more from the effects of over-consumption 
 than from over-production. There has been an 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 99 
 
 excessive consumption of capital for one thing, as well 
 as an excessive diversion of it into channels where it 
 could yield no sure return. As a result, labourers and 
 capitalists alike suffer from the excess of burdens laid 
 upon them, and they must both either work harder 
 or succumb. No royal road out of the difficulty is 
 possible. I say this without prejudice to the hours- 
 of-labour question. It may be that very long hours 
 of labour do not pay in the end, that men who work 
 twelve hours a day wear out sooner than those who 
 work only nine. In some kinds of employment that 
 is probably the case, in others not. But true as that 
 may be, it is also true that we have grown idler of 
 late years. Eelaxation has been pushed to an 
 extreme, and luxury and extravagance have grown 
 with the thirst for leisure. 
 
 But while thus seeking to enforce the lesson of 
 industry and thrift upon masters and men, while 
 warning the latter that industries which cannot 
 support 100,000 men working to their full capacity, 
 can by no possible device be made to sustain 
 200,000 working only to half that capacity, it is 
 but fair to admit that there may be general causes at 
 work whose tendency is to make the situation of the 
 working classes of the country one of serious hard- 
 ship, apart altogether from the troubles besetting 
 particular industries. That there are such causes no 
 
 H 2 
 
100 RECIPEOCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 one can deny who has taken the trouble to trace with 
 any closeness the actual circumstances in which our 
 working classes are compelled to live. I have insisted 
 on the fact that the working classes of France live on 
 less wages than our own, and, within limits, that is a 
 fair enough ground upon which to urge a reduction 
 of wages here. But it must not be forgotten that 
 the subsistence point is probably much higher in this 
 country than in France. Head for head we are not 
 apparently so heavily taxed as the French, but the 
 incidence of taxation is in this country fully heavier 
 on the poor than it is in France, and our food is very 
 much dearer. I am strongly disposed to agree with 
 Mr. Cliffe Leslie 1 in the opinion that taxes in this 
 country, even when nominally paid by the wealthy 
 classes, really often fall with crushing weight on those 
 below them. No question is probably more difficult 
 to settle than the question of the incidences of local 
 rates, of income- and property-tax, or of stamps and 
 succession duties, and I shall not attempt to settle it 
 here. What little I have to say upon it will, more- 
 over, be more appropriately said when we come to deal 
 with the land laws. But besides this class of taxes, 
 there is the much simpler class of indirect imposts 
 upon articles of consumption, wine, spirits, beer, tea 
 
 1 See his Essay on the Incidence of Imperial and Local Taxation on 
 the Working Classes. 
 
m.J CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 101 
 
 and tobacco, and that these press far more heavily 
 upon the poor than upon the rich does not admit of 
 a doubt. It is usually said that the poor have the 
 remedy in this case much in their own hands, but that 
 is only partially true. They might, no doubt, restrict 
 their use of articles of consumption bearing customs and 
 excise duties, and so pay less taxes, but the ultimate 
 result of such restriction is a falling off in the demand 
 for our manufactures on the part of those countries 
 which supply most of the articles thus taxed. That 
 falling off must in its turn cause further distress, and 
 so in reality we are driven round to the conclusion 
 that these fiscal burdens ought, in the interests of the 
 country at large, to be reduced or removed. That 
 further step in the direction of free trade is the true 
 course to take, in order to relieve our oppressed 
 industries, and in order to increase the adversity 
 bearing capacity of our working men. The imperial 
 taxation of this country in its present form is, from 
 this point of view, in great need of a reform directly 
 contrary in spirit and intention to that advocated 
 by our protectionists. Our local taxation is even 
 worse, and no one can contemplate the steady 
 increase in the burdens of the lower classes for 
 poor-rates alone without very serious misgivings for 
 the future. When to this is added the steadily 
 growing charges on account of local debt, the 
 
102 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 prospect becomes more than alarming. Of the 
 burden imposed by this rapid growth of mortgages 
 on the future, the working classes bear more than 
 their full share. 
 
 Consider, for example, what the mere subsistence 
 difficulties of our working classes are in the large 
 towns. In the single matter of a roof over their 
 heads, they are driven almost to despair. At the very 
 best, they have probably, as a rule, to live far from 
 their work for the simple reason that there are 
 either no suitable houses near it, or because com- 
 petition, and the mania for " improvements " have 
 raised rents far beyond their ability to pay. It is 
 hence no uncommon thing for artizans in a large 
 town to have miles of travelling to do every working 
 day of their lives, and that travelling usually costs 
 money, which must be taken as addition to rent. 
 The penny railway ticket which an artizan obtains 
 from the suburban railways lines of London, and by 
 means of which he often travels from one side of the 
 vast city to the other in the early morning and late 
 at night, costs him 6d. a week or 1Z. 65. per annum. 
 So with Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, or Birming- 
 ham, the frequent omnibus ride is an addition to rent. 
 The fatigue also, and the shortness of the time for 
 rest, must all be taken into account ; men, having 
 ofttimes to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning six 
 
Hi.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US? 103 
 
 days in the week in order to be at their work in 
 time. This also involves either poor and insufficient 
 feeding, or additional expense for coffee-house meals, 
 all of which go to impair the capacity of the work- 
 men to endure adversity. Of course this last 
 difficulty hardly applies to factory hands, to colliers, 
 or to the employes of great iron works, but it 
 reaches a vast number of the ordinary artizans and 
 workers at miscellaneous industries throughout the 
 country. And all clogs put on by our taxation, by 
 unfair incidence of taxation, by increased burdens 
 for local improvements, by augmented house-rents 
 and dearer food, apply with much the same force 
 to every poor man throughout the land. Therefore, 
 I think, that some national reform is needed to 
 supplement personal endeavours. We must econo- 
 mise as a nation, and by curtailing the national 
 expenditure for public purposes, acquire the ability 
 to remit more taxes. In short, it is essential to 
 our existence that further progress be made in the 
 direction of complete free trade. 
 
 If this conclusion be admitted, and surely it is 
 a rational one, the nervousness of the reciproci- 
 tarians at the prospect of augmented foreign tariffs 
 must seem unreasonable. These increased tariffs can 
 only hurt us for a brief period, and in all com- 
 petition in neutral markets they will not injure us in 
 
104 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 any shape. On the contrary, they must help us in a 
 very material way, by augmenting the difficulties with 
 which our foreign competitors will have to contend. 
 They will be an increased tax on home consumption, 
 and ultimately on home production, wherever im- 
 posed, and must therefore tend to reduce the 
 capacity of the Americans, French (supposing they 
 increase their customs duties), Germans, and others 
 to struggle against us. 
 
 The French, however, appear to be beginning to 
 realise something of this since the lapse of the Austro- 
 French Commercial Treaty ; and it would not be 
 surprising if a short experience of the higher tariff 
 now in force in France had a wonderful converting 
 influence on French manufacturers and their people. 
 Quite apart from the free-trade convictions and pro- 
 clivities of several members of the French Cabinet, 
 there are influences at work through the present 
 state of the tariff that may soon bring the French 
 nearer to free trade than they have ever yet been, 
 although for the present the reactionaries may 
 triumph. So also with Germany. Prince Bismarck's 
 folly may end in an irresistible free-trade agitation 
 throughout the Empire, if we will only keep quiet 
 and work hard for a little time. Our direct trade 
 with such countries may doubtless be temporarily 
 further reduced while their protectionist tariffs 
 
in.] CAN RECIPROCITY HELP US ? 106 
 
 continue in force ; but if we are not seduced into a 
 foolish imitation of their short-sighted policy ; if, 
 instead, we are stimulated to increased exertions, 
 increased economies, and further removals of burdens 
 on industry our own home markets, our Colonial 
 and Indian markets, and, in short, every neutral 
 ground will fall more exclusively into our own hands. 
 We shall therefore do well to forbear from folly, 
 and meanwhile to put our shoulder to the wheel. 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLTSM. 
 
 BEFORE passing on to discuss the question of our de- 
 pendence on foreign supplies of food, and the effects 
 of our system of land tenure upon the trading 
 capacity and staying power of the nation, it is well 
 that we should dispose of another section of the reci- 
 procity party. They are known as the "bi-metallists." 
 The leaders of this party, or at all events the most 
 prominent men in it are, in this country, Mr. Ernest 
 Seyd, Mr. Langley, and Mr. Williamson, of Liver- 
 pool, but the most assiduous expositor of the theory 
 is, without doubt, Mr. Seyd. He is a man of pro- 
 found knowledge on the subject, and from his position 
 as an eminent bullion broker in the city and a careful 
 trade statistician, has opportunities of gathering facts 
 together which are enjoyed by few. Chiefly, there- 
 fore, from his numerous pamphlets, and from Mr. 
 Williamson's article published in the Contemporary 
 Review for April last I have gathered that conception 
 
CHAP, iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 107 
 
 of the theory which I shall now lay before the 
 reader. 
 
 Ignoring all the chatter about tariffs and the effects 
 of this or that element favourable to competition 
 against England, enjoyed by other nations, Mr. Seyd 
 and those who think with him lay the whole blame of 
 the present trade depression on the error of England 
 in blindly adhering to " single standard" money. 
 Their theory on this point is in short the same as- 
 that of many Erench economists ; and the latest 
 French expounder of it, M. Henri Cernuschi, has 
 probably done more to re-unite the ranks of bi- 
 metallists in this country by his earnest advocacy 
 of "the cause" than even Mr. Seyd. Briefly put, 
 their position is as follows : 
 
 All economists are in error who talk of monetary 
 standards, inasmuch as there can be no arbitrary 
 distinction drawn between gold and silver as media 
 of exchange. Both from time immemorial have been 
 used by the world as money, i.e. as the commodity 
 universally exchangeable into other commodities. 
 Both metals thus play a most important part in the 
 commerce of the world, and that nation commits a 
 grievous mistake which ignores the one metal through 
 a sentimental preference for the other, which erects 
 one into an arbitrary "standard" of value to the 
 exclusion of the other. England, the bi-metallists say, 
 
108 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 made that mistake in 1816 by erecting gold into an 
 exclusive standard of value and condemning silver to 
 a subsidiary position, but she was saved for nearly 
 sixty years from the consequences of her folly by, as 
 Mr. Williamson phrases it, a "practical equilibrium 
 maintained by other countries." All the East, in- 
 cluding our own possessions in India, the German 
 agglomeration of states, Austria, Kussia, and latterly 
 the Latin monetary union, either used silver in pre- 
 ference to gold, or used both indifferently, with the 
 result that the natural (or artificial) balance of values 
 was not disturbed. Silver-using India and China 
 always absorbed the excess supplies of Europe and 
 America, and England was never, therefore, incom- 
 moded by the inability of her debtors to pay her save 
 in silver, because she was always able to exchange 
 their silver for gold at the recognised equivalent value 
 when necessity demanded it. If the East did not 
 want it, the states of the Latin monetary union 
 perforce took it, and by this means the ratio of value 
 between the two metals was kept steady all through 
 the period of greatest gold production without strain 
 or trouble. Such was the position down to 1873, 
 when the gold coinage project of Prince Bismarck 
 began to upset the balance, and since that date, owing 
 to the foolish German imitation of England's policy, 
 everything has gone wrong. Silver has fallen in 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 109 
 
 value, not so much owing to the large amount which 
 Germany has sold, for altogether her sales have been 
 comparatively insignificant, but because of the scare 
 which the demonetisation project caused ; still more 
 because of the narrowed market for silver which 
 followed the carrying out of this project. The balance 
 which had practically subsisted since 1816 was, in short, 
 overthrown, and so great was the effect of this over- 
 throw, that it completely demoralised our own Eastern 
 trade, practically dissolved the Latin monetary union, 
 by causing it, and France in particular as the leading 
 member of it, to suspend the free, coinage of silver, 
 and threw all silver using countries into a kind of 
 semi-insolvency. 
 
 Having demonstrated by this line of reasoning and 
 to their own satisfaction the causes of the present 
 discredited position of silver, it becomes, of course, 
 the easiest thing in the world to indicate the remedy. 
 In one word it is to " restore the balance." If 
 Germany's secession from the silver users has upset 
 the artificial equilibrium, England's accession to the 
 bi-metallic ranks would at once restore it, or at most, 
 the accession of England and the United States. 
 Therefore the bi-metallists urge the institution of a 
 kind of bullionists' propaganda for the rehabilitation 
 of silver as legal tender money in this country ; and 
 so enamoured are they of their theory that they 
 
110 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 predict an outburst of prosperity and splendour for 
 England and for the world such as it never saw before, 
 if only we consent to take the discredited metal into 
 our pockets at a fixed equivalent value with gold. 
 New life will be infused into the commerce of India, 
 the excessive drafts of the Indian council will no 
 longer trouble Eastern merchants ; banks trading in 
 that region will no more hang over the bottomless 
 gulf of bankruptcy, trembling lest one more puff of 
 adversity should send them whirling into the abyss. 
 The picture is most attractive and cannot fail to heat 
 the chilled imaginations of traders so familiar all 
 these years with the wintry winds of adversity. 
 
 This fairly, though briefly, stated, is the skeleton of 
 the theory of the bi-metallist. Logically it is not at all 
 a weak theory either, if you grant their premises, which 
 I do not. I admit that there is much incoherent 
 nonsense in the customary talk about gold standards 
 and silver standards of value. In a purely artificial 
 sense it is competent for any nation to erect one or 
 other, or both, of these metals into " standards " for 
 itself at fixed ratios of value, but when men proceed 
 to argue as if these artificial creations were products 
 of nature they appear to me to commit a great 
 blunder. 
 
 On this point the facts are, I think, dead against 
 the contentions of the bi-metallists. If there be a 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. Ill 
 
 varying and natural value for the precious metals, de- 
 termined by the extent of demand for them by popular 
 fancy and by the cost of production, it must be fully 
 more unwise to fix the value of both by law than to 
 fix the value of one. In other words, if the " standard 
 of value " superstition be given up, the equivalent 
 values theory on which the bi-metallists base their 
 argument for legislative action in England cannot be 
 sustained. It rests on a pure assumption, to wit, that 
 the customary relation of silver to gold has for a long 
 period of time been as 15 to 1. The further back 
 you go in the history of the precious metals the less 
 tenable will this assumption prove to be ; and ordinary 
 common sense must enable any one to see, that if left 
 to themselves the precious metals would almost con- 
 stantly vary in their value relations with each other. 
 And they do actually so vary, as it stands to reason 
 that they must. On this point, however, I shall not 
 enlarge. Those who desire to follow it up will find 
 the proof in figures appended to the valuable report 
 of the committee of the House of Commons on silver, 
 which sat in 1876, and also in a more condensed and 
 instructive form in a recent number of Petermann's 
 Mitiheilungen which contains a monograph written by 
 Dr. Soetbeer on the production of the precious metals 
 since the discovery of America. The figures he gives 
 are of necessity to a considerable extent guesses, but the 
 
112 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 general knowledge which he has of the facts attending 
 the enormous production of silver in Spanish America, 
 and later of the equally enormous production of gold 
 in Australia and California, is enough to convince 
 any one that the relative value of gold and silver 
 must vary, and vary too from causes apart from the 
 consumption of them. Hence when the bi-metallists 
 say, " You must legalise in England the value of silver 
 in relation to gold which obtained before the late 
 disturbances began," they are making a demand en- 
 tirely contrary to the spirit of their argument. To 
 be logical on this point they ought to demand the 
 abolition of all legislative enactments in regard to 
 silver or gold, and allow complete free trade to 
 obtain in the metals. They cannot cure the evil of a 
 single standard by adopting a double one, but logically 
 by the abolition of all standards. 
 
 An admission that much of the current talk about 
 standards of value may be incoherent nonsense, does 
 not therefore in my view help the bi-metallist argu- 
 ments. In the practical affairs of life it may be wise 
 on the part of nations to erect such standards single 
 or double, but they must be recognised as purely 
 artificial, and therefore liable to be upset, as they 
 are now utterly upset in France, by changes in the 
 relative value of the metals. 
 
 My admission that the other leading argument of 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 113 
 
 the bi-metallic party is " logical " amounts to even 
 less than what I thus admit on the " standards " 
 controversy. The theory as to the terrible conse- 
 quences arising from the demonetisation of silver in 
 Germany is based on entirely false premises, and the 
 " perfect chain of reasoning," by which I have been 
 told it is sustained, consequently goes for very little. 
 In its narrowness of view it reminds me of nothing 
 so much as the dictum of the proverbial tanner, whose 
 opinion that there was " nothing like leather " may 
 have been strictly in accordance with his own experi- 
 ence, but yet argued a singularly limited acquaintance 
 with the complex affairs of the world. That bullion 
 dealers or mine owners should fondly imagine gold and 
 silver to be the life-blood of the world, the fountain 
 of weal or woe for all mankind, is probably natural ; 
 but it surprises me to find leading men amongst our 
 merchants meekly accepting such opinions as a kind 
 of indisputable authoritative gospel of commercial 
 salvation. 
 
 A very summary review of the more conspicuous 
 facts surrounding the silver question, will, I trust, 
 be sufficient to prove that those who go about crying 
 " woe " because Germany has taken to wasting her 
 substance in buying gold are making a great mistake. 
 To begin with, could there, for example, be any more 
 far-fetched or untenable proposition than that urged 
 
114 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 by Mr. Williamson, in what he calls his diagnosis of 
 the present situation ? He says, " The world of late 
 years traded on an effective metallic capital estimated 
 at 1,400,000,000?. Of this we have good evidence for 
 believing that about 750,000, 000?. were gold coins and 
 bullion, and 650,000,000?. silver coins and bullion. 
 Now we assert that the world of late has been com- 
 mitting the suicidal act of discarding, discrediting, 
 and cutting off from performing its wonted functions 
 one of the two agents or solvents for the liquidation 
 of balances of international indebtedness ;" and further 
 down his essay he asserts that the "hard money 
 capital of the world has been practically reduced 
 from 1,400,000,0001 to 800,000,000?.," all, it would 
 appear, by the action of Germany and the foolish 
 obstinacy of England. Wilder or more unsubstantial 
 ideas it would, I submit, not be possible to put into 
 words. For one thing, it is an almost inconceivable 
 blunder to confound "money" with "capital." It may 
 represent capital, it may be the quickening agent 
 whereby capital is made productive ; as the universal 
 medium of exchange it performs a high function in 
 commerce, without which much capital might never be 
 called into being ; but that money is not itself capital 
 in any higher sense than corn or potatoes, is proved by 
 the simple fact that the demand for it rises and falls 
 with the rise and fall in the producing capacity of 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALL1SM. 115 
 
 nations. It is even possible to have much money 
 and little floating capital, for that is exactly the 
 position of England at the present moment. The 
 vaults of the Bank of England have been bursting 
 with gold and silver for many months, and yet, judged 
 by the condition of our trade, the capital of the country 
 (its exchangeable wealth) has been steadily diminish- 
 ing. This new heresy is not Mr. Williamson's alone. 
 The assumption that money gold and silver, either 
 as coin or bullion is in some sacred, mysterious, 
 and altogether exceptional way capital, lies at the 
 root of all the reasoning of the bi-metallists, and 
 also informs much of that of their opponents and 
 a pretty dance the fallacy has led them. 
 
 But even were it true that money was in a special 
 sense capital, it would be absurd to assume that the 
 folly of Germany had destroyed half the available 
 " hard money " capital of the world. Gross exaggera- 
 tion of that kind cannot surely do the bi- metallic pro- 
 paganda any good. Granting which is much that 
 the huge amounts mentioned by Mr. Williamson are 
 in actual existence, they must include the subsidiary 
 internal coinage of all the countries owning metallic 
 money ; a large percentage, perhaps two-thirds, of 
 which cannot be considered part of the available 
 international stock in any definite sense whatever. 
 
 At the very worst the necessary internal coinage of 
 
 I 2 
 
116 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [OHAP. 
 
 the silver-using countries has not been demonetised. 
 The rupee, for example, still circulates in India, and 
 has a functionary power there nearly, if not quite, as 
 great as it had before the Germans began to upset 
 the world's equilibrium. Where its buying power is 
 less, the reduction is due to the smaller supplies of 
 the commodities to be bought, rather than to the 
 shrinkage of the inherent value of the metal. Con- 
 sequently the sweeping assertion that half the reserve 
 capital of the world has been lost is not merely 
 nonsense, it is an absurdity. 
 
 It is time, however, that we should examine the 
 question in its broader aspects, for only in this way can 
 we assign the true causes which have brought about the 
 prolonged trade stagnation from which we still suffer. 
 
 In addition to assuming that money cash is in 
 a special sense capital, the bi-metallists hold that the 
 isolated action of a single state has done all the 
 mischief. This position is a logical enough deduction 
 from their premises, and it is one held by them in 
 common with many mono-metallists ; such, for ex- 
 ample, as Mr. Giffen, who, in his paper read before 
 the Statistical Society early in the year, decidedly 
 held that the fall in prices was due to an ' appre- 
 ciation' of gold brought about by the enlarged 
 consumption of the metal at a time when the supply 
 was diminished. Now I in great measure dissent 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 117 
 
 from this view of the case. It is a view which I 
 think could never be held by men who chose to 
 examine thoroughly the complex elements of our 
 modern credit, modern trade, and modern production. 
 By looking exclusively at the movements of the pre- 
 cious metals, at the amount of them produced, and 
 at the figures often most inaccurate of their con- 
 sumption, writers on money and the functions of 
 money too often come to have an altogether exag- 
 gerated conception of what these metals do. Mr. 
 Giffen, for instance, holds that the world has not 
 enough gold, and that therefore prices have fallen ; 
 its buying power has increased by reason of its 
 scarcity ; yet there was hardly a state bank in Europe 
 which was not, when he wrote, overstocked with the 
 metal. On the same grounds the bi-metallists hold 
 that prices have fallen measured by the precious 
 metals standard because one metal has now to do 
 the work formerly done by two. And both these 
 classes of reasoners, strange to say, are familiar with 
 modern banking. They know, as a matter of fact, that 
 by means of the refined adjustments of banking, espe- 
 cially as it prevails in England, and as it increasingly 
 prevails abroad, a bale of cotton or a cental of wheat 
 is as good for purposes of exchange, of buying and 
 selling, as their money or cash equivalent. The 
 business of this country and of the world is at the 
 
118 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 present day, and through the developments of 
 banking, more completely a business of " barter" 
 than it ever was in the world's history. Commo- 
 dities buy commodities, and the actual floating capital 
 of a nation is its banking deposits, its productions, 
 and its bills created thereon. From a person with 
 a " balance at his banker's " a cheque a mere 
 order to pay is as good a means of liquidating a 
 debt as a bagful of sovereigns. And such an order 
 may be based, not upon a direct right to a store of 
 hard cash at the debtor's credit with the banker, but 
 on bills which represent goods sold. The amount of 
 these bills has been placed at the credit of its 
 customer by the bank, and he draws against that 
 amount. Eeceipts and payments thus become matters 
 of book-entry, and the floating capital of the world 
 is commensurate with the aggregate amount of its 
 exchangeable commodities. 
 
 " But gold and silver are still the universal 
 measure of value for these commodities. Your sack 
 of corn is a pound's worth, or more or less, as the 
 case may be." I do not deny that at all. On the 
 contrary, I say nothing can be truer in fact only 
 we must not draw a wrong inference from it. I 
 merely wish to point out that the functions of 
 the precious metals are much circumscribed by the 
 modern system of exchange. It is the abundance 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 119 
 
 or otherwise of the thousands of articles exchanged 
 which determines not merely their relative values 
 towards each other, but towards gold or silver. In 
 other words, the functions of these metals are so much 
 circumscribed by modern practices and systems of 
 credit that variations in the supply of the metals 
 cannot have the same direct and marked effect on 
 prices that they may formerly have had. And this 
 being so, those bi-metallists who would correct the 
 troubles of commerce by a partial or complete re- 
 monetisation of silver in England are like nothing 
 so much as a homoeopathic doctor who should try 
 to mend a broken leg by doses of arnica globules. 
 
 Now it surely follows that if the determining 
 causes of value be much broader to-day than they 
 formerly were, if bank credits and book entries, if 
 cheques and bills of exchange, have increasingly taken 
 the place of hard cash or bank-notes in liquidating 
 debts, the causes of the present industrial distress 
 must also be wider. There must be more in it than 
 either gold or silver can account for. Most assuredly 
 there is and what the " more " may be is not very 
 difficult to discover. For example, it is just as easy for 
 a time to pay by borrowing as by cash under the 
 modern system ; in fact, far easier. Should I wish to 
 carry on an extensive business, I may either do so 
 by borrowing direct from bankers, or I may create 
 
120 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 fictitious documents of indebtedness in the shape of 
 bills drawn as if in payment of goods, although no 
 goods exist. By discounting these the means for doing 
 business may be obtained. In a hundred ways, in 
 short, credit can be got by individuals and as with 
 individuals, so with states and public companies. 
 They can borrow on bonds or shares, and these bonds 
 and shares become just like private bills, media for a 
 further extension of credit. They are called " wealth," 
 and in more or less limited degrees can be made to 
 perform the functions of money or cash. 
 
 And what flows from this refined system of bor- 
 rowing and lending ? One thing most assuredly, and 
 that is a far more potent influence upon the prices of 
 commodities than the direct influence of the produc- 
 tion or consumption of gold. The borrower obtains 
 money to spend, and in spending creates a demand for 
 commodities, which demand raises their price. Push 
 this description of progress to extreme, carry it on, 
 with but slight breaks, for a generation or so, then 
 behold the fabric thus raised slowly crumbling to 
 pieces before your eyes, and say whether the great 
 wave of depression which is now passing over 
 this country may not have something in it far more 
 important, far more full of warning for the future, 
 than anything that monetary disturbances can mean ? 
 We have created a fictitious buying power, no 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 121 
 
 doubt in the first instance by the aid of the outpour 
 of gold from Australia and California, but going far 
 beyond the scope of that supported by our huge iron 
 production, our enormous manufactures, and above all 
 by the ever-swelling credits based thereon, and this 
 buying power is now threatening collapse. Nay, it 
 has already largely collapsed, bringing down with it 
 the prices of all goods which it had previously 
 inflated. The " book entries," in short, which have 
 more and more come to represent the wealth of the 
 country, have grown in many . instances hollow and 
 unreal ; and we not only find the spending and 
 producing capacity of this and other countries cur- 
 tailed, but " trust " that confidence which lies at the 
 root of all willingness to take payment in paper for 
 goods purchased terribly shattered. 
 
 How inadequate, then, in the face of a review of 
 facts cited is the explanation that the demonetisation 
 of silver by Germany and the extraordinary demands 
 for gold have ruined the world and lowered prices. 
 Before the mighty effects of " credit and discredit/' 
 the " appreciation " or " depreciation " of the precious 
 metals becomes comparatively insignificant. 
 
 Still, it may be urged, the action of Germany began 
 the recurrent wave. After all cash hard money is 
 the ultimate settler of debts, and therefore it must 
 always be in some definite sense the ruler of credit 
 
122 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 and prices. That is quite true, but not in the sense 
 usually adopted. Modern banking has so widely 
 extended the effective force of floating capital, and 
 so multiplied its reproductive capacity, that the 
 precious metals usually act rather in a mediate than 
 in an immediate manner upon credit and prices. 
 This is illustrated by the history of our modern 
 commercial panics which did not arise from the 
 actual scarcity or abundance of gold and silver in 
 the banking centres of the world, but from an ex- 
 tension of credit beyond the limits of our producing 
 capacity. We, in one form or other, forestalled and 
 mortgaged our resources to other countries and to 
 each other so rapidly that we came in time to have 
 no means of paying our debts. We could not give 
 " value" in goods for what we had bought, or to 
 cover the promises to pay we had granted. Then 
 our bullion came into play, and had to be parted 
 with, in order to fill the gaps recklessly created. The 
 foundation of credit became shaken, and panic ensued, 
 with its accompanying fall in prices. The movements 
 of gold are thus the barometer of credit ; but the gold 
 need not directly control prices. They are ruled by 
 the wise or unwise use of the capital-utilising or 
 wasting agencies of modern banking. This kind of 
 control is a very different thing from that usually 
 attributed to gold and silver. The refinements of 
 
iv. J THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 123 
 
 modern credit, in short, have relegated the precious 
 metals to a comparatively secondary place in the 
 number of agencies utilised for furthering the inter- 
 change of commodities between nation and nation, 
 and they only assume the first place when other 
 agencies have been either forestalled or exhausted 
 by reckless speculation and extravagance. Hence it 
 follows that we may have an actual superabundance 
 of the precious metals in our bank coffers, and yet 
 have falling prices, or that in a time of good credit 
 and widespread business confidence, we may have a 
 falling off in the supply and in the actual store of 
 gold accompanying an advance in prices. 
 
 I do not of course assert that were the production 
 of gold to be doubled within the next few years, its 
 effect would not be visible in all the money markets 
 of the world, but so to a much greater extent would 
 the effects of five years' overflowing harvests. 
 
 It is time now that we should glance at the history 
 of the past thirty years or so from the point of view 
 suggested. In this way it may be possible to arrive 
 at the true conclusion as to the causes of the present 
 industrial disorganisation. It might be too much to 
 hope that by this means the bi-metallic heresy will 
 be finally disposed of; but sensible men, whose 
 minds are not prepossessed, may perhaps be helped 
 to escape contagion. 
 
124 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 At what date the troubles from which the com- 
 mercial world suffers did actually begin it is im- 
 possible exactly to state. But we are at all events 
 safe in going back as far as the gold discoveries of 
 Australia and California, or nearly a generation. 
 These discoveries form the most striking landmark, 
 although the true point of departure for an inquiry of 
 this kind is probably the beginning of the railway- 
 building era. The new gold had, however, a most 
 potent influence upon the development of that and 
 cognate modern industries. In the old-fashioned 
 world the gold discoveries would have produced an 
 instant effect in upsetting values everywhere. Prices 
 would have been forced up as the quantity of gold 
 and silver increased, and modern Europe would have 
 been as much impoverished by the influx of precious 
 metal as old Spain was said to have been by the silver 
 and go]d of Mexico and Peru. 
 
 But the gold came at a most opportune moment to 
 be of great use in aiding an outburst of commercial 
 activity such as the world has never before seen 
 within the same brief space of time. When the great 
 rush to California took place in 1848, England was 
 labouring under a fit of exhaustion consequent on 
 her first wild construction of railways, by which her 
 available capital had become locked up. Men's minds 
 however were filled with new projects for extending 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 125 
 
 these iron roads to the rest of the world, for opening 
 up new mines and new lands, and all that was wanted 
 was the means to develop the wealth which lay in the 
 bowels of the earth. The gold of California, and some 
 three years later that of the British colony of Victoria, 
 furnished this means. It was poured into this country 
 by successful miners, flooding our banks with deposits, 
 affording them a credit-giving capacity never before 
 equalled ; it was exchanged for our coal and iron, for 
 our machinery, for railway materials, and for every 
 description of manufacture. India partook in the 
 benefits which this golden rain brought, and, especially 
 after the Mutiny, became a field where immense sums 
 were spent on railways and other public improvements. 
 Through having the start of all other nations in the 
 supply of the great modern needs represented by 
 railways, steam ships, steam machinery and manu- 
 facturing gear, England thus utilised for her own 
 purposes and in the first instance the purchasing and 
 credit-making power of most of the new gold. We did 
 not keep the enormous quantities which reached the 
 country idle. On the contrary, as fast as they were 
 received in exchange for our manufactures, coal, &c., 
 from one buyer, they were freely lent at good usury 
 to other buyers, to enable them in turn to pay for 
 more of our goods. A brisk barter on a credit basis 
 was thus kept up, and we grew inordinately rich, both 
 
126 RECIPEOCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 by the profits of trade and by usury. To add to the 
 advantages of our position, and, as it were, clinch our 
 supremacy, other countries got by turns into trouble. 
 First, the United States had their Titanic civil war, 
 the cost of which not only compelled them to part 
 with nearly all the precious metals to foreign 
 countries, but forced them also to contract a huge 
 debt, of which we became large holders. Then 
 Prussia and Austria followed suit, with results dis- 
 astrous to the latter country perhaps to both and 
 the struggle for freedom in Italy in like manner 
 compelled the export of her precious metals and 
 recourse to paper money. So with wars more recent 
 still, they impoverished those engaged in them, and 
 deepened their indebtedness, principally to foreigners. 
 There has accordingly been a twofold process going 
 on in the world since the modern golden age began, 
 the end in both instances being the same, viz. : to 
 divide mankind into two classes, those of debtor 
 and creditor. As purveyors-general for all nations 
 in the matter of iron roads, tools, and clothes, we 
 have, in the first place, drawn to ourselves the 
 surplus wealth of most of them to an enormous 
 extent ; and this wealth we have lent to others, 
 or to the same nations, to enable them either to 
 buy still more of our goods, or to help them to 
 pay for the wars into which they have been drawn 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 127 
 
 or driven. Whether the borrowing was due to the 
 one necessity or to the other, the result has been 
 practically the same impoverishment for the bor- 
 rower and enrichment for the lender. We stand 
 to-day in spite of all our reverses in trade as 
 the chief tribute-receiving power in the world. All 
 nations pay us, in one shape or other, on account 
 of debts contracted in the strifes or in the pro- 
 gress fever of the generation now passing away. 
 A most abnormal and, I will venture to say, un- 
 natural and temporary state of international relation- 
 ship has thus been created; 'and out of this has 
 grown the present "silver difficulty/' as well as 
 many others. The rejection of that metal by the 
 spick-and-span new German Empire in her pride, 
 is but one element, though a very serious element, in 
 the case. Silver has depreciated because nations 
 have everywhere got so deeply in debt that they 
 cannot employ even this metal in their ordinary 
 business affairs. If you go into France you will 
 find her flooded with the subsidiary silver coinage 
 of Italy, because Italy is so poor that' she has been 
 forced to use paper instead of metal. Paper, for 
 the same reason, has been for the past seventeen 
 years almost the exclusive currency of the United 
 States. Even for small change silver has been 
 nearly altogether disused. So with nearly all the 
 
128 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 South American communities. Brazil, the Argentine 
 Confederation, Chili, and Peru it is paper, paper, 
 on all hands ; and now Eussia has come in to swell 
 the host of those who cannot help themselves. 
 She certain]y has for long been a very sparing user 
 of silver, but not until the recent war with Turkey 
 could it be said to be altogether driven from 
 common use. That war, with its accompanying 
 issues of depreciated inconvertible paper roubles, 
 has completed the disaster which has overtaken silver. 
 So long as it is unused by nations for internal 
 day-to-day transactions, the mere saving of waste 
 materially lessens the consumption. Hence the dis- 
 credit of silver, in spite of the fact that its supply 
 is not excessive in relation to that of gold, but the 
 reverse; 1 and it is to this state of affairs that the 
 
 1 The following figures, extracted from the annual Circular of 
 Messrs. Wells, Fargo, and Co., the well-known express carriers of the 
 United States, gives the estimated production of gold and silver there 
 in recent years : 
 
 TEAR. 
 
 PRODUCTION OF THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 SILVER. 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 1870 
 
 1871 
 1872 
 1873 
 1874 
 
 $17,320,000 
 19,286,000 
 19,924,429 
 27,483,302 
 29,699,122 
 31,635,239 
 39,292,924 
 45,846,109 
 37,248,137 
 
 $33,750,000 
 34,398,000 
 38,177,395 
 39,206,558 
 38,466,488 
 39,968,194 
 42,886,935 
 44,880,223 
 37,576,030 
 
 1875 .' 
 1876 
 
 1877 
 1878 ... 
 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 129 
 
 bi-metallist doctrinaires seek to apply the remedy 
 of causing England to decree the " re-monetisation 
 of silver." Argument and illustration are hardly 
 needed to demonstrate the inadequacy of this specific. 
 The causes of the discredit of silver being much 
 more universal than the bi-metallists admit being, 
 in fact, so altogether different from what they 
 allege, it is obvious that their proposed remedy is 
 a mere nostrum. The whole elaborate theory about 
 a "disturbed balance," which England must restore 
 at all costs, is, in short, and as put by the bi- 
 metallists, a sheer fallacy. The " disturbed balance " 
 is the result of poverty and debt, not of legisla- 
 tive action in this or that country; and to try to 
 cure the effects of inordinate extravagance, of costly 
 wars, of indiscriminate borrowings, by a legislative 
 enactment in regard to silver here, is as absurd as 
 to decree that all men shall henceforth enjoy the 
 same annual income, or that all debts shall from a 
 given date be taken as paid. Were England to 
 decree silver full legal tender for all debts, home 
 and foreign, to-morrow, the mischiefs of the present 
 time might be aggravated, not lessened. A brief 
 reference to the condition of India, and the relations 
 between that empire and ourselves, may help to 
 make this statement more evident. There is, indeed, 
 no stronger instance in support of the views I have 
 
 K 
 
130 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 here advanced, than that of India. To listen to 
 the bi-metallists, one would suppose that the only 
 thing left for us to do for India in her present 
 poverty would be to take payment of all that 
 she owes us in silver at a fixed valuation. The 
 very fact that they can entertain so preposterous a 
 notion reveals the absurdity of their whole position, 
 and the inadequacy of the causes assigned by them 
 for the present distressed state of our Indian Empire 
 as of most other debt-burdened communities. That 
 the action of Germany precipitated the recent fall 
 in the value of silver is doubtless, in a narrow sense, 
 true; but had that action been all that affected 
 Indian trade, Indian exchanges would long ago have 
 recovered, and Indian trade would not have been 
 so nearly ruined. The one fact that India is now 
 almost precluded from importing silver, except 
 when she borrows to do it, affords sufficient prac- 
 tical demonstration of the truth of this statement. 
 It was indeed clearly enough demonstrated to the 
 Committee of the House of Commons on the Depre- 
 ciation of Silver, which sat in 1876, that India 
 had become less and less able to import silver in 
 recent years. The causes of this incapacity to absorb 
 the metal are to be found in the rapidity with 
 which debt of all kinds has been piled up by the 
 Indian Government. India's present troubles date, 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 131 
 
 at the very latest, from the time of the Mutiny. 
 The suppression of that outbreak added upwards 
 of 40,000,0002. to the funded debt ; and her rulers 
 have gone on piling up burdens at great rapidity 
 ever since, until for interest on the funded and 
 floating Government debt alone she has now to pay 
 nearly 6,000,0002. a-year, as compared with but 
 about 2,200,0002. a quarter of a century ago. Side 
 by side with this debt, her obligations on account 
 of guaranteed railways have also increased ; so that 
 her total debt of all descriptions now amounts to 
 fully 237,000,0002., exclusive of the contemplated 
 borrowings of the current year. This involves an 
 annual charge of about 10,500,0002. on the revenues 
 of India. Nor is this all. Year after year the so- 
 called Home Charges of the Indian Government for 
 administrative purposes, and for the army, tend to 
 grow; and in this way the balance in favour of 
 India on her foreign trade is more and more com- 
 pletely swallowed up in mere Government and debt 
 charges. The very maintenance of many of the 
 costly public works which we have established in 
 India has, moreover, the effect of swelling the totals 
 on the import side of the trade account, and of still 
 further narrowing the ultimate available balances 
 which can command the import of silver. Those 
 who talk of the amounts which the old East India 
 
 K 2 
 
132 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 Company formerly drew every year from India for- 
 get facts like these. That Company did not much 
 trouble itself with the "development" of India, in 
 the modern sense of the term, only with what could 
 be got out of it ; and, therefore, the wants of the 
 natives being few, the value of the goods imported 
 into the country was comparatively small. For long, 
 also, after that value became large, the constant 
 stream of English capital flowing into India, and the 
 occasional help of high prices obtained here for Indian 
 produce, contributed to hide the end towards which 
 the country was being impelled under the influence 
 of the development craze. But now much of the 
 fictitious aid formerly given to the trade of India 
 has been withdrawn. The Government has to borrow 
 heavily still in this country ; but the effects of former 
 extravagance and waste steadily increase the force 
 of the adverse current. Thus the trade of India 
 has become choked by the accumulated obligations 
 of an age of reckless, though, perhaps, in some 
 instances, well-meant exploitation, and of equally 
 reckless resort to the English money-lender. 
 
 It is very difficult to obtain an exact account of the 
 various transactions between this country and India 
 over a series of years. The " Statistical Abstract " 
 which should contain complete tables of the home 
 charges, including guaranteed railway interest and 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 133 
 
 surplus profits paid by means of bills or loans, contain 
 no such statement, and an effort to compile them 
 from other sources leads to confusion, so shifting and 
 illusive are most of the Indian accounts furnished to 
 this country. We know, however, that the actual 
 charges of the Government in England have been 
 growing steadily for many years, and now amount to 
 nearly 16,000,OOOZ. a year. And it is probable that 
 in addition to these charges there are remittances on 
 private account which bring the total drain borne by 
 the trade of India up to, at a moderate estimate, 
 18,000,000?. a year. Against these figures we have 
 to place the fact that the net balance in favour of 
 India on the foreign trade has not of late years 
 averaged more than 22,700,000?. The margin of 
 indebtedness left to be discharged by the remittance 
 of silver has consequently narrowed very materially, 
 and as a natural consequence we find that the average 
 annual import of the precious metals principally 
 silver- to India has been only about 5,300,OOOZ. 
 between 1871 and 1877 inclusive, as compared with 
 an average of 16,300,000?. in the previous nine years. 
 In 1878, owing partly to the speculative operations of 
 some of the Indian banks, the import of silver to 
 India was much in excess of the average of recent 
 years ; but an exception of that kind only proves the 
 rule. 
 
134 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 During the period of greatest activity in railway 
 making, and the period embraced by the " cotton 
 famine," i.e. between 1856 and 1867, the imports of 
 treasure in India were never less than 9,500,OOOZ. 
 in any one year, and rose twice to upwards of 
 21,000,000^. As the greater portion of these large 
 imports was in silver, it is easy to see how disastrous 
 the effect of a curtailment of the demand, such as took 
 place after 1870, has had on the price of the metal. 
 That it is the cessation of demand from India and 
 from other silver-using countries which has caused the 
 collapse in the prices of silver, and not its excessive 
 supply, is moreover proved by the fact that the fall 
 has not induced increased consumption. Had the 
 absorbing power of debt-laden India, or of debt-laden 
 Eussia, Italy, or Brazil been, so to say, normal, a 
 fall in the value of silver, caused solely by German 
 sales, ought to have had the immediate effect of in- 
 creasing its shipments to these countries in exchange 
 for their produce. That would have presented itself 
 to the speculator's mind as a most profitable trans- 
 action, and till these countries became glutted with 
 the metal it would have been so ; but no such effect 
 followed, and none such could follow where whole 
 countries lay as it were under mortgage. Practically, 
 as regards India, it is coming to this that no specie 
 at all can be imported by her, except when her 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METAL LISM. 135 
 
 capacity is stimulated by the yearly borrowings of the 
 Viceregal Government in England. The net imports 
 of specie between 1871 and 1878 inclusive have been 
 at the outside 53,000,000^., and the amounts bor- 
 rowed on account of the Government and guaranteed 
 railways in this market have reached in the same 
 time, as near as I can estimate, 23,000,0002. To the 
 extent of these loans we may assume that the net 
 import of specie has been increased, and the balance 
 left, which includes 15,000,0002. said to have been 
 imported last year, is a mere fraction of the sums 
 which India formerly took. 1 
 
 What is the bearing of these plain figures and 
 perfectly familiar facts upon the bi-metallic question ? 
 They demonstrate, I think, with great clearness, that 
 the action of Germany, at all events, has not been 
 the primary cause in the' fall of silver. The fall has 
 occurred because silver-using nations have over- 
 stretched their resources and are no longer able to 
 buy silver from sheer poverty, and through pressure 
 of debt and other obligations due to foreign creditors. 
 Nor has there been any excessive supply of the metal. 
 Until 1877 the amount of silver imported into the 
 United Kingdom was little in excess of the average, 
 
 1 The argument used in this part of the essay is essentially the same 
 as that employed by me in the chapter on the Economic position of 
 India, in my book called the Resources of Modern Countries. The preva- 
 lence of the bi-metallic fallacy may, I trust, justify its repetition here. 
 
136 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 and the 14,000,0002. or so imported that year from 
 Germany would have caused but a mere passing 
 flutter in the days of progress by mortgage. And 
 according to a table compiled by Mr. J. Valentine, 
 general superintendent for Messrs, Wells, Fargo, and 
 Co., a well-known authority on this subject, the 
 total production of silver throughout the world be- 
 tween 1849 and 1876 inclusive was only 275,000,000?., 
 of which fully 149,000,000?. was sent to India and 
 China. The total production of gold, on the other hand, 
 has amounted over the same period to 643,000,000?., 
 an excess which but for the prodigious waste of 
 wealth which has gone on during the palmy days of 
 the foreign loan traffic, must have materially lowered 
 the value of gold as compared with silver. This 
 merely affords additional proof that those who 
 proclaim bi-metallism as the salvation of mundane 
 affairs are carried away by delusive reasoning. There 
 has, I repeat, been no superabundance of the metal 
 but the reverse, and its depreciation is due to the 
 poverty and extravagance of nations, a cause that no 
 legislative measure can either palliate or remove. 
 
 Eeverting once more to India, we may, I think, 
 come to this conclusion regarding her present position. 
 Apart altogether from the status of silver as legal- 
 tender money here or anywhere else, India is pro- 
 bably saved from the necessity of exporting her 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 137 
 
 present stock by two things alone. One is the facility 
 with which she is able to borrow in this country, and 
 the other is her opium traffic. This last item in 
 her trade account stands for, on the average, about 
 11, 500, 000 1. per annum. Take that item away and 
 the already imminent insolvency of India would be 
 instant and complete. We could save neither our- 
 selves nor her from a catastrophe such as the world 
 has probably never before seen. 
 
 It is, then, to this state of affairs that the bi-metal- 
 lists propose to apply their silver cure. Their proposal 
 is that England should form a kind of federation with 
 the United States, France, and other countries for the 
 purpose of putting silver on its old footing in relation 
 to gold. Were this done, they assert, the difficulties 
 in regard to the Indian exchanges would at once 
 vanish. The facts I have briefly passed in review 
 contradict that sanguine view. They do more ; they 
 prove that the adoption of such a step as this would 
 in a very short space of time destroy the trade of 
 India, and tend to bring those nations in Europe and 
 America still solvent into discredit. The reader will 
 see that this must be so if he considers for a little 
 what the bi-metallist proposals really imply. First of 
 all, they imply a proclamation on the part of England 
 that she will allow all foreign silver-using countries 
 who are in her debt to compound for those debts by 
 
138 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 paying them in a discredited metal. That is most 
 distinctly the case with regard to India. "Were we 
 to make silver "money" legal tender at a fixed 
 ratio of value with gold, India would at once ship the 
 metal here in lieu of discredited bills of exchange, in 
 order to liquidate the Government charges. In India 
 the effect of this reversal of the old current of the 
 precious metals towards the East would be in a very 
 short time the substitution of a paper currency for 
 one of silver. She would be denuded of her metallic 
 currency, and through it of much of her available 
 banking capital, even now, judging by the high rate 
 of interest charged by the Indian banks, far too small. 
 A resort to paper would not only damage the credit of 
 Indian traders, native and foreign, but sooner or 
 later produce a collapse in Indian credit institutions. 
 The Government too, were no remedy applied, must 
 in time find the greatest difficulty in obtaining ways 
 and means to carry on its ordinary business. In 
 proportion as silver became scarce through export, 
 the paper currency would depreciate, and taxes 
 become less productive. Before long it might well 
 be the case, therefore, that the Government of India 
 would lose more by converting paper into silver, in 
 order to pay its way in England, than it now loses on 
 its bills of exchange. Prices would fall likewise 
 as expressed in silver values thus causing the 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 139 
 
 exporter of goods to India losses as great as, or 
 greater than, he sustains now. 
 
 And what could we do with the metal thus brought 
 home, and taken by us at a value which it now com- 
 mands in no market of the world ? We could not 
 put it into circulation at home, for we have, as a 
 rule, more gold and notes on hand than the internal 
 trade of the country requires. It would only have 
 value if exchangeable into ordinary articles of com- 
 merce, and as we already have more currency than 
 we require for that purpose, the only way in which 
 we could utilize it would be by lending it to needy 
 countries, just as we used to lend our great supplies 
 of gold. In order to " revive " business by means 
 of silver we must in short revert to the principle of 
 the pushing tailor who lends his customer five pounds 
 with which to pay for the coat he has supplied. 
 France could not take much of the metal, being 
 already glutted with it to such an extent that the 
 paper currency is circulating on a false standard of 
 value. At the end of last year the amount of silver 
 in the vaults of the Bank of France was 42,300,OOOZ., 
 and of gold only 39,400,000^., the one metal having 
 steadily increased, while the other has decreased until 
 the gold basis on which the notes of the Bank of 
 France practically circulate is entirely undermined. 
 France therefore would be quite as eager to supply 
 
140 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 us with silver as India. The United States could not 
 take any of the metal. They also have more on hand 
 than they require, and the only result of a " conven- 
 tion " between us and them for the " re-monetisation " 
 of silver would be that they would increase their 
 shipments of it to London. And where in Europe, 
 Asia, or America, is there another country which 
 would be likely to relieve us of the tons of useless 
 metal thus forced in upon us at a fancy price ? I wish 
 the bi-metallists would tell us. They seem to look 
 upon gold and silver as a kind of " fetish " warranted 
 to induce prosperity wherever located, but the facts 
 do not bear out that view. If we make England the 
 receptacle of the available silver now held by nations 
 in her debt, we merely become possessed of so 
 much useless metal, over and above the mass of 
 nearly useless gold usually lying in the vaults of 
 the Bank of England. What we want to bring back 
 prosperity to our manufactures is renewed activity 
 in the exchange of produce, not barter of our goods 
 merely for gold and silver. By merely becoming 
 possessed of the surplus silver of India, we could 
 not insure any increase in the trade of the country 
 with India or with Brazil. 
 
 In order to get that increase it would be necessary 
 to lend the metal to India or Brazil again, so 
 that they might pay it away to traders for our 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 141 
 
 manufactures. And that would be the case all 
 round, so much so indeed that without a renewal 
 of the profuse lending of recent years our trade 
 with most silver-using nations would be likely to 
 decrease further under bi-metallism than it has 
 already done because they might strip themselves 
 of what silver they have in preference to selling us 
 goods owing to the greater profit which the sale 
 of the metal to us, at a fancy price, would yield. 
 Their "floating capital," which is often more a 
 matter of "cash," than with us, would therefore be 
 diminished, and their producing power curtailed. 
 
 So far, then, as I understand the position, the 
 discredit into which silver has fallen is neither 
 more nor less than the natural result of the extrava- 
 gance and consequent impoverishment of most of 
 the nations of the world. Through this extravagance 
 and poverty they have become less and less able 
 to employ even the cheaper precious metal in the 
 daily business of life, and this diminished employ- 
 ment has as a matter of course lowered its value. 
 Therefore, the only infallible cure for the depreciation 
 of silver is thrift on the part of the peoples thus 
 poverty-struck a cure that one cannot hope to see 
 speedily effective. In the case of India, I much fear 
 that it will never be applied at all while English- 
 men rule there, Its financial condition grows worse 
 
142 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 year by year, and no palliative that bi-metallists 
 or any one else could apply will do more than 
 stave off temporarily a catastrophe led up to by 
 generations of wasteful expenditure, and which must 
 shake some day the credit and mercantile supremacy 
 of England to their lowest foundations. We are 
 reaping as we have sown all over the world, and 
 the depreciation of silver is only one prominent 
 symptom among many that a kind of international 
 bankruptcy is hanging over many nations. The 
 weary populations cannot struggle on beneath the 
 burdens heaped upon them by wicked wars, by 
 reckless exploitations of " resources " so-called, or by 
 corrupt and expensive Governments. That is the 
 plain lesson conveyed by cheap silver and mercantile 
 decay, and it is to this much broader and more 
 serious aspect of international affairs that, in my 
 humble opinion, men should address themselves. 
 The inquiry, " How to save nations from impending 
 bankruptcy ? " would be a much more valuable one 
 than a narrow and rather foolish propaganda of the 
 wonderfully recuperative force contained in silver. 
 At the very time when the excitement on this subject 
 is drawing to a head, when high Government officials, 
 Bank of England directors, and even Cabinet 
 Ministers, are stated to have become ardent bi- 
 metallists, we are threatened with something which 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 143 
 
 looks very like a depreciation of gold. Had the 
 bi-metallist doctrines been true, had the world been 
 indeed deprived in the way asserted by Mr. "William- 
 son, of nearly half its international circulating 
 medium, the natural consequences would have been a 
 great scarcity of the metal left. It would have been 
 forced into double duties, as it were, and ought to 
 have been most difficult to come by. But nothing of 
 the kind has happened as far as England is con- 
 cerned. On the contrary, we are still suffering 
 from an excessive supply of . that metal. It in a 
 manner weighs on business. "We have got it and 
 do not know what to do with it. So much is it 
 in excess of requirements that all our banks and 
 discount houses were but lately longing to see some 
 of it leave us. How is this to be explained on the 
 bi-metallic theory ? The " commerce of nations is 
 hopping on one leg," it is said, but what if that 
 leg be more than enough for the wants of the 
 commerce ? At present it clearly is so, and while 
 it remains so, a second leg would be a superfluity. 
 We cannot at present buy up cheap silver with our 
 gold, and exchange it for the products of the silver- 
 using countries, because their producing capacity 
 has already been overstrained to exhaustion. They 
 have got to the limits of their tethers for the 
 present, and perhaps beyond them. 
 
144 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 Before finally summing up this part of the subject 
 it may be well to advert for one moment to the re- 
 markable influence exerted on "trade balances/' as 
 well as the extraordinary part played in upholding 
 and extending credit, by those bonds, &c., which 
 represent the national and corporate debts, of which 
 we have been speaking. I am quite unable to form an 
 estimate of the total debt of the world, but a large 
 part of the corporate obligations of every country of 
 importance, except India and our leading Colonies, is 
 strictly speaking internal debt, and answers in the 
 part played by it in extending credit to the " ready 
 money " of a banker's till. There is beyond this, how- 
 ever, an enormous " international " debt represented 
 by Government obligations of all kinds from consols 
 and French 3 per cents, to Turkish or Peruvian 
 bonds, and according to its market value, and to its 
 transmitability from one centre of business to another, 
 it may be used for the purpose of paying the debt due 
 by one country to another, thus economising the use 
 of gold and silver. In this fashion the heavy trade- 
 balances due by Europe, particularly by England, to 
 the United States, have all hitherto been met. We 
 have surrendered our holdings in United States 
 Government bonds, and in railway or other corporate 
 bonds and shares, to the extent of many millions 
 sterling a year for several years past, in exchange for 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 145 
 
 American provisions. But for our possession of 
 these bonds we should have had to part with all our 
 surplus gold, and our currency theorists might have 
 been seriously discussing the propriety of adopting 
 an exclusive silver standard to save the country from 
 ruin. By the sale, however, of these bonds the country 
 has been saved from such an infliction. But it has been 
 steadily growing poorer the while, and should the ne- 
 cessity for buying foreign food continue in the same 
 degree, the gold in turn will have to go. Short of 
 consols, the amount of this class of debt-liquidating 
 possession which we may now have cannot well exceed 
 500,000,OOOZ., and an accident to our credit, or to the 
 credit of any state whose people might be probable 
 buyers, could easily reduce it to half that amount. 
 Were India, for instance, to prove unable to meet her 
 debt obligations to us, what foreign country would 
 relieve us of her " securities " ? And were France to 
 have a panic, we might be unable to sell even consols. 
 Such are some of the considerations suggested by 
 this question of bi-metallism. They show us that 
 the theory on which that nostrum is based is too 
 narrow, that the causes of the present distress are 
 infinitely deeper than any currency tinkering can 
 cure, and that the true source of the existing 
 depression is credit inflation, or, in plain English, 
 excessive debt. 
 
146 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 To sum the matter up, we have seen that the 
 foolish conduct of the Germans in regard to silver 
 at the most only helped to bring to a head evils of 
 long standing, and when to that was added the 
 exhaustion of India and of other borrowing countries, 
 the elements for a world-wide catastrophe, such as 
 the fall in the value of silver actually is, were 
 complete. We are in the throes of that catastrophe 
 now. Day by day the confusion and deadlock grow 
 greater. Year by year the possibility of emerging 
 from their difficulties without a declaration of 
 bankruptcy has become more hopelessly remote for 
 almost every country under the sun dependent upon 
 silver as its basis of exchange. To such a situation 
 the bi-metallists would apply the homoeopathic 
 remedy of a remonetisation of silver in England, in 
 the superstitious belief that mere finance bills drawn 
 in liquidation of obligations which many countries 
 have neither the silver nor the general produce to 
 meet, would be negotiable at an altogether fictitious 
 value. And it is to a situation strained in the 
 manner we have shown that the wiseacres of trade 
 reciprocity would apply the strangely absurd remedy 
 of retaliatory import duties. They would, in other 
 words, restrict the import of foreign goods at the 
 very time when the continued solvency of many 
 countries depends on their power to export goods 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 147 
 
 to a great excess. Were the bi-metallist " remedy " 
 to be applied to the situation, many countries could 
 not even send us silver in payment of their debts, 
 and those who for a time could might soon be ruined 
 by its export. The only hope of such countries, 
 therefore, is to be able to send us more of their 
 general produce. " But we will not have your goods 
 either," the reciprocitarians cry, and so the poor 
 struggling countries must, it seems, be hurled into 
 bankruptcy forthwith in order to save from a like fate 
 imprudent speculators at home. 
 
 Surely there ought to be some more excellent way 
 whereby the catastrophe which this state of things 
 threatens might be avoided. Or is it best, I wonder, to 
 hasten the end, to plunge altogether into the vortex of 
 bankruptcy, red revolution, and the demolition of 
 empires? The reciprocitarians seem to think so if 
 indeed they can think at all ; but to those not yet led 
 away by their clamours the whole aspect of affairs is too 
 sad and full of distress for the rash application of 
 crude theories. If we are to face our difficulties like 
 men we ought no doubt to do something to restore the 
 value of silver. But to do so we must lighten rather 
 than augment the burdens of the nations that are our 
 debtors, and above all the burdens of India. We 
 must endeavour to draw other nations still solvent 
 into a community of interests with ourselves, so that 
 
 L 2 
 
148 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 if possible we may help those that are weak out of 
 the quagmire into which they are rapidly sinking. It 
 may be not possible for us to prevent an international 
 bankruptcy of some kind. The restoration of silver 
 to its old equivalent relations to gold may be, and I 
 Relieve is, quite beyond anything we can do, but we 
 need not therefore erect further barriers between us 
 and distressed communities. That can only hasten 
 the end and produce universal collapse. 
 
 The strain grows more severe everywhere. All in- 
 ternational commerce and much of the internal trade 
 of many nations trembles on the edge of an abyss. 
 For some countries no refuge can be said to be left 
 save the free markets of England. Through India 
 the silver difficulty touches us to the quick and makes 
 all our Eastern trade rotten ; threatening also, being 
 as it is but the outcome of our extravagance as 
 administrators of that silver country, the stability of 
 our entire Eastern empire. The Turkish war has 
 flooded Eussia with paper, depreciating the rouble 
 note by nearly 30 per cent ; Austria and Hungary 
 plunge uneasily on under an increasing load of the 
 same unbearable kind ; and nearly all South American 
 states still worthy the name draw nearer and nearer 
 to what threatens to be a period of administrative 
 chaos. Shall we turn upon these distressed countries 
 and say, "We will no longer let you sell to us 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 149 
 
 freely ; we shall add to your other unbearable 
 burdens the burden of a capricious English import 
 tariff" ? To do so would be to involve ourselves 
 to the uttermost in the financial embarrassment and 
 possible bankruptcy now overhanging half the 
 civilised nations of the globe. France, which has 
 always managed its monetary affairs more wisely 
 than ourselves, is at present flooded with the silver 
 of other members of the Latin monetary union, 
 because they in their poverty have been compelled 
 to part with it. The United States have failed to 
 grapple with the silver difficulty. They subsist still 
 upon paper money, and are working steadily towards 
 a new crisis in financial affairs, through the inflation 
 caused by their unreal resumption of specie payments. 
 The very first effect of the imposition of a re- 
 actionary import tariff in this country would pro- 
 bably be the bankruptcy of most South American 
 states, of Kussia, Italy, and India. Our imports 
 from these and other countries would instantly 
 shrink, and the recoil of the blow aimed at people 
 whom the ignorant middle-class trade-unionists of 
 this country probably consider their enemies would 
 be ruin at home. Is that what these people want ? 
 If so, let them speak out, and we shall know them 
 for what they really are foolish agitators, intent on 
 hounding the country towards destruction. 
 
150 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, much dwelt on by Mr. 
 Seyd, that the countries most oppressed by the silver 
 difficulty, in common with all those most steeped in 
 debt owed to people outside their own borders, are 
 usually most eager to shelter themselves behind high 
 Customs tariffs. These tariffs are, in fact, at the 
 present moment, to a large extent a sign and measure 
 of their inability to pay twenty shillings in the 
 pound. I am not sure that even France and the 
 United States can be placed in any other category 
 but this. At all events this is the refuge of bankrupt 
 or semi-bankrupt communities, and it is so for a very 
 obvious reason. They all wish to diminish their 
 trade indebtedness abroad in order to be able to 
 meet their foreign debt charges through a larger 
 trade balance in their favour. They think that free 
 trade puts this trade balance too much against them, 
 drains away specie, makes exchange adverse, and 
 leads to bankruptcy. Their panacea therefore has 
 its raison d'etre to a great extent in the bank- 
 ruptcy or impending bankruptcy of those who apply 
 it, and they will cling to it till they escape in some 
 way from their perilous situation. This, for example, 
 has been the real cause of the recent folly of Canada, 
 and Canada by her new tariff is hastening the end. 
 Are we to conclude that this country also is in danger 
 of falling into bankruptcy and in need of a crutch to 
 
iv.] THE GOSPEL OF BI-METALLISM. 151 
 
 support it ? It would seem so ; but if it be not so, 
 let us prove that we are still able to help the weak by 
 giving them a free market. Judging by the inven- 
 tories of our wealth to which deft romancers in figures 
 ever and anon treat us, this country ought to be able 
 to stand anything in the shape of adversity. We 
 are so rich, and take tribute from so many foreign 
 nations, that it seems a cruelty to speak of laying on 
 them additional burdens. Can it be that our wealth 
 is a dream and a delusion ? that our fabulous annual 
 income is composed largely of items like the " profits " 
 in the City of Glasgow Bank ? that our increased 
 savings are of the kind so admiringly dwelt on by the 
 First Lord of the Admiralty in his great after-dinner 
 speech at the Westminster Palace Hotel ? Mr. Smith 
 is a strictly business man, not hitherto suspected of 
 possessing a lively fancy, and yet he gravely told his 
 constituents last spring that during the terrible year 
 1878 the working classes had actually increased their 
 savings-bank deposits by 1,300,OOOZ., utterly uncon- 
 scious of the fact that this augmentation was half 
 a million less than the accrued interest at 2J per 
 cent on the previous year's deposits, or of the fact, 
 nearly as patent, that a large portion of these deposits 
 are not and never have belonged to the so-called 
 " working-class " savings. They are the moneys of 
 the lower middle-class, of young people, and of 
 
152 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [en. i v. 
 
 domestics, and last year many small depositors in 
 ordinary banks transferred their money to the Post- 
 office for greater security. Are we to conclude that 
 all the "tall talk" about our great wealth is mere 
 romancing of this kind mere increases in debt, and 
 nothing more ? It would really seem so, if the re- 
 ciprocitarians are to be believed. Whatever the 
 real position of this country may be, assuredly it will 
 not be mended by either of the quack specifics 
 under consideration. Both retaliatory tariffs and 
 bi-metallism are remedies of a kind that would 
 convert a slow decline into a " galloping consump- 
 tion." We may therefore dismiss them from the 
 mind, and try to discover what help is to be found 
 elsewhere. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION ON BRITISH 
 AGRICULTURE AND BRITISH LAND LAWS. 
 
 WE have now reached the most important division 
 of the subject in hand the subject of our food 
 supplies and their capacity to bear taxation. Here 
 certainly the taxable area is broad enough, provided 
 the nation can bear the strain which a tax upon food 
 imports would imply. Every year our dependence 
 upon foreign food grains, foreign beef, mutton, and 
 pork, and fresh vegetables and fruit, increases, and 
 the figures are now so large that the longing eyes of 
 reciprocitarians, protectionists, and distressed owners 
 of land are eagerly turned towards them. Here 
 surely relief may be found ; here, if anywhere, a 
 cure provided for the dry-rot that is threatening 
 with destruction the old land and the old institutions 
 together. 
 
 The total value of our food imports has risen in 
 twenty years time from about 58,000,000/. to over 
 
154 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 160,000,0002. In other words, we imported in 1857 
 about ISs. 3d. worth of foreign food per head of the 
 population, and we now import more than 31. worth. 
 It has been no sudden jump either, as the following 
 table relating to a few leading articles of human 
 food will show : 
 
 ARTICLES OF FOOD OB 
 LUXURY. 
 
 AVERAGE CONSUMPTION PER HEAD 
 IN THE YEARS 
 
 Cheese Ib. 
 
 1857-9. 
 
 1-5 
 11 
 
 78-4 
 
 1865-7. 
 
 3-6 
 1-03 
 112-6 
 
 1875-7. 
 
 5-3 
 
 0-78 
 1779 
 
 Coffee 
 
 Wheat and wheat flour ,, 
 
 Currants, Raisins . ,, 
 
 2'4 
 
 4-0 
 
 4-4 
 
 Raw Sugar . . . 
 
 31'9 
 
 41-5* 
 
 62-3* 
 
 Spirits . . . .galls. 
 Tea . . Ib 
 
 0-17 
 2'6 
 1-2 
 0'23 
 
 0-26 
 3-5 
 1-3 
 
 0-43 
 
 0-34 
 4-5 
 1-5 
 0-52 
 
 
 Wine . . . . .galls. 
 
 * Includes refined, not given in early returns. 
 
 Nothing could exceed the eloquence of these figures. 
 They indicate a steady and rapid increase in our 
 dependence on foreign food supplies. The table 
 might be extended, but enough is here given to 
 make plain the extent to which this country is now 
 dependent on others for the means of living. Only 
 ten years ago the value of the consumable articles 
 retained in the country was but 95,000,OOOZ. The 
 growth has therefore been much in excess of the 
 
THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 
 
 155 
 
 increase in population. That has grown only some 
 17 per cent in the twenty years, but the value of 
 the food imports has grown fully 177 per cent. 
 This table, however, contains exclusively articles of 
 human food or of luxury ; but if we go further a 
 field and include such articles as potatoes, rice, 
 barley, oats, and maize, the signs of dependence 
 become if possible still more marked and ominous. 
 Here is a table relating to these : 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 AVERAGE CONSUMPTION PER HEAD IN THE YEARS 
 
 
 1857-9. 
 
 1865-7. 
 
 1875-7. 
 
 Potatoes . . . Ib. 
 
 4-3 
 
 3-6 
 
 21-09 
 
 Maize . . . . ,, 
 
 2376 
 
 47-04 
 
 102-4 
 
 Oats 
 
 16'6 
 
 32-1 
 
 41-5 
 
 
 23-9 
 
 27-0 
 
 38-1 
 
 Hice . 
 
 6'5 
 
 3-4 
 
 11-5 
 
 
 The " per head " computation is of course in these 
 cases a very rough way of testing the shortness of 
 the home food supply of the people ; but it is the 
 only one available, and whether these articles are 
 all used for human food or not makes little matter 
 to the question in hand. The point most worthy 
 of careful attention is the remarkable one that the 
 consumption of necessary articles of food, whether 
 for man or beast, imported to supplement home 
 resources, is increasing at a more rapid rate than 
 
156 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 the consumption of purely exotic articles. How are 
 we to account for this ? The higher prosperity of the 
 nation of late years has enabled it to eat more ? 
 Probably so. A very excellent authority, Mr. James 
 Caird, computes that the per-head consumption of 
 wheat, home and foreign, is now over 340 Ib. com- 
 pared with 311 Ib. some thirty years ago, and there 
 can at all events be no question that fewer people 
 starve when wheat is cheap than when it is dear. 
 It is however more than doubtful whether this 
 satisfactorily accounts for the enormously-augmented 
 import of some kinds of articles of consumption 
 which has marked our recent foreign trade. There 
 are indications, it seems to me, that our own soil 
 is yielding much less in several respects, and that 
 we have been compelled to supplement our scanty 
 resources to a greater extent on that account. Apart 
 altogether from the question whether we have not 
 had a series of peculiarly unfortunate crops of late, 
 it is surely very striking that such an article as 
 maize, for example, should be so largely used now 
 for feeding horses, and that the import of oats should 
 have considerably more than doubled within twenty 
 years. We can hardly say that cheap food has the 
 same influence in enlarging the consumption of cattle 
 and horses that it has in the case of human beings, 
 and it is a remarkable fact that alongside the growing 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 157 
 
 imports of grains used partly or mainly as food for 
 the lower animals, there has of late years been a 
 decrease in some descriptions of our live-stock. 
 Our stock of cattle in 1876 was 2| per cent less 
 than in 1875, and 4^ per cent less than in 1874, and 
 that in 'spite of the fact that a larger area of our soil 
 seems to have been under permanent or artificial 
 grasses. This decrease was probably temporary, as 
 it has since partially disappeared, and in any case 
 it was perhaps to a small extent compensated for by 
 an increase in the number of horses ; but, for all that, 
 when coupled with the extraordinary growth of our 
 imports of food, it has an unpleasant significance. 
 
 It is of course most difficult to say how much of 
 the decreased yield of our soil may of late have been 
 due to exhaustion, to the poverty of tenants, and the 
 insane waste of natural manures produced by the 
 sewage systems of our towns, or whether it may not 
 in great measure have its origin in the weather. 
 That we have of late had very deficient harvests 
 through bad weather is too well known to need 
 demonstration ; but has this cause alone induced the 
 present distress ? We must be careful, in dealing with 
 this great question, not to confound temporary and 
 accidental causes with those of a permanent character. 
 
 Two or three broad facts stand out with tolerable 
 distinctness in addition to the fact already mentioned 
 
158 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 that our stock of cattle has been declining. One is 
 the fact that the area under grain crops has been 
 decidedly less during the last six years than during 
 the previous six. Another is that this decrease has 
 by no means been compensated for by an increase 
 in the land under green crops. And yet another is 
 that most of the decrease which is visible under the 
 various forms of tillage is accounted for by a large 
 augmentation in the permanent pasture land of the 
 country. This change has without doubt taken place 
 in deference to the belief already just giving way 
 before diminished prices for cattle that this country 
 was destined to be a meat-raising more than a 
 corn-growing country. It is, however, a change that 
 can hardly, I think, have taken place without a 
 diminution in the yield of the soil, else why should 
 an increase in the area devoted to feeding cattle and 
 sheep be accompanied by a decrease in the stock 
 possessed ? 
 
 Further, the substitution of highly stimulative 
 manures, such as ammonia, guano, and mineral 
 phosphates, for the natural manures now employed 
 in polluting our rivers and in poisoning the people, 
 must have a direct tendency to impoverish the soil. 
 They induce it to yield up its plant-feeding qualities 
 with more rapidity than due regard to recuperation 
 should permit. Thus after a few good crops the soil 
 
vj THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 159 
 
 grows more unkindly, and punishes the cultivator 
 by smaller returns. It becomes, in fact, exhausted. 
 
 And again, the course of events during the last 
 few years must have materially lessened the power 
 of the farmers of this country to do justice to the 
 soil. The very mention of artificial manures implies 
 an expensive system of cultivation. In order to keep 
 up the productive powers of the soil constant recourse 
 is had to costly stimulants, which eat in on profits, 
 and when bad years come, on capital. The farmer 
 then becomes less able to meet the wants of the land. 
 He cannot afford to go on galvanizing it into fertility 
 year after year, and a sort of enforced fallow time, 
 to say the best of it, ensues, during which the crops 
 are small, be the season good or bad, and the farmers 
 more familiar with losses and bankruptcy than with 
 profits. The trouble is intensified too by the fact that 
 the tide in prices has turned. Up to 1870 the British 
 farmer can hardly be said to have felt the effects of 
 competition from abroad. The foreign food supply 
 supplemented, but did not overpower, the home supply. 
 And long after 1870 the effects of foreign competition 
 were felt only in grain. Meat continued to rise in 
 price till within the last three or four years, and 
 gave the farmer some compensation. Still, since 1870 
 the tide has been on the whole against him, and his 
 capacity to meet the exhausting demands of modern 
 
160 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 scientific systems of cultivation has steadily grown 
 less. 
 
 That influences such as these have separately or 
 together been at work upon this country, producing 
 the present distress, is, I think, unquestionable. Our 
 agriculture is languishing to some extent because of 
 our extravagance and folly as displayed in our treat- 
 ment of the soil. It is the kind of treatment which, 
 continued long enough, would make the entire land 
 nearly barren. 
 
 But these are not all the causes of the farmer's 
 present distress. He has had to contend, in addition, 
 with advancing wages. Till very lately the wretched 
 labourer most forlorn, down-trodden, and hopeless 
 of human beings was the dumb burden-bearer on 
 whom the farmer could cast the weight of his own 
 disadvantages. If rates, tithes, and rents advanced so 
 as to interfere with the profits otherwise derivable from 
 advancing prices for produce, the farmer could take 
 it out of his slaves, either by employing rather less 
 labour, by paying lower wages, by discontinuing 
 perquisite allowances, or, in conjunction with the 
 landowner, by driving them off the land into pigsty 
 villages or towns, on whose rates they would then 
 become chargeable. The greatest injury ever done 
 by man to man was thus done to the tillers of the 
 soil by those above them. These tillers have for 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 101 
 
 generations been kept as paupers for the pleasure 
 of "my lord" and "the squire " until they have 
 sunk to the level of the helots of Sparta ay, even 
 to the extent, too often, of making them drunk as 
 a moral spectacle to drone homilies over. Their 
 corruptors have cried shame for the good of public 
 morals, and yet have made money fast by selling 
 to them the beer and spirits that wrought their ruin. 
 The beer and spirit retailers swarm over the country 
 by the connivance of, and too often for the profit 
 of, the landowners, and all classes have been de- 
 graded by the miserable helotage in which one class 
 has been kept for the profit of the rest. In truth 
 the more beer-shops and gin-palaces there are, the 
 greater the landowner's advantage in two ways. He 
 gets higher rents for his public-houses than for ordi- 
 nary dwellings, and the consequent larger revenue 
 from excise lessens the necessity for resorting to 
 taxation on real estate for ways and means to carry 
 on the Government. 
 
 So the world went well for the landowner and the 
 farmer these many years. Both were making money, 
 and between the two the labouring class was kept 
 degraded in the position of a sot and a slave. But 
 a change has come over the scene at this point also. 
 The serf woke up and demanded the right to live 
 free as other men, strange to say. He saw the men 
 
 M 
 
162 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 about him, for whom he toiled and sweated his life long, 
 able to spend, thanks to his labour, their thousands 
 and thousands a year. While the squires burst ever 
 into new fields of extravagance, new displays of 
 splendour, the farmer also grew a gentleman "re- 
 spectability " was no longer measured by a gig. The 
 landowner's political serf aped his overlord and kept 
 his hunters or his carriage. It was very pretty 
 progress all down the social scale, till the lowest grade 
 was reached ; but the effort of the others to push up 
 drove that further down, and the poor hind the 
 serfs serf at last cried out. He ventured to say, 
 {; This is not fair. Give me the same right to live 
 as you have. I want existence wages to begin with." 
 And he struck ! 
 
 Not much came of his striking directly, but in- 
 directly it has changed many things. What with 
 migration and emigration, wages have been forced 
 up, and the farmer has begun in turn to realise that 
 somehow he is being ground to pieces. 1 Why 
 is it not yet clear to him ? So far is it indeed 
 from being clear that he is strongly disposed to take 
 the line adopted by Mr. Chaplin, by certain poor 
 farmers of Essex and others, and boldly to demand 
 protection, a " sliding scale " com duty, the putting 
 
 1 The following table, extracted from a remarkable article on agri- 
 cultural depression, published in the Times some months ago, will show 
 
THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 
 
 163 
 
 back of the clock. Whether that would help him or 
 not, we shall see. 
 
 In the meantime the considerations here advanced 
 may help, in a general way, to account for the 
 
 to what extent the action of the labourers of late years has contributed 
 to the financial difficulties of the farmers : 
 
 Year ending 
 Michaelmas. 
 
 Nominal weekly 
 wages 
 
 Total amount paid. 
 
 After deducting 
 15s. per acre on the 
 grass.* 
 
 
 s. 
 
 
 
 S. d. 
 
 1866 
 
 12 
 
 943 
 
 2 i> 
 
 1867 
 
 12 and 13 
 
 1,034 
 
 2 4 11 
 
 1868 
 
 14 
 
 983 
 
 225 
 
 1869 
 
 12 and 11 
 
 982 
 
 224 
 
 1870 
 
 11 and 12 
 
 983 
 
 225 
 
 1871 
 
 12 and 13 
 
 1,065 
 
 226 
 
 1872 
 
 13, 14, 16 
 
 1,298 
 
 2 12 10 
 
 1873 
 
 14 
 
 ,230 
 
 298 
 
 1874 
 
 15 
 
 ,263 
 
 2 11 4 
 
 1875 
 
 14 and 15 
 
 ,264 
 
 2 11 4 
 
 1876 
 
 14 and 15 
 
 ,260 
 
 2 11 3 
 
 1877 
 
 14 
 
 ,278 
 
 2 12 
 
 1878 
 
 14 
 
 ,272 
 
 2 11 8 
 
 * Average per acre on the arable land. 
 
 The average for the thirteen years is 2Z. 7s. 4d an acre on the arable 
 land. The labour bill is more than the rent ; and for the last five years 
 has averaged 2Z. 11s. 6d., whereas for the six years 1866 to 1871 it was 
 2?. 2s. 6d. per acre. It will be seen that the increase in the actual cost 
 of labour is out of all proportion to the increase in the nominal rate of 
 wages. This is accounted for partly from the fact that each man does 
 considerably less work for the same money than he formerly did, and 
 partly because the prices of all piece-work now are 30 to 40 per cent 
 higher than they were ten years ago. Besides, the wet seasons of the 
 last few years have occasioned much additional labour, and a great 
 deal of the ordinary work has had to be done over and over again. 
 In 1876, 1877, and 1878, the labour account was to some extent swollen 
 by expenditure in deepening most of the outfall drains of the farm. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 remarkable fact that farmers are losing money and 
 unable to compete with those of free countries who 
 own the land they till. If the yield of the soil is 
 falling off, if methods of cultivation are costly or 
 too cumbrous, if prices are falling, or on the average 
 low, and if rents and wages have both been raised 
 of late years, the position of the farmer must have 
 become much that of the grain of wheat between 
 the millstones. 
 
 But the reciprocity party, or the " sliding-scale " 
 protectionists, totally ignore all such considerations 
 as these, and rest their case on the alarming extent 
 and power of foreign competition. It is putting 
 down prices, they say, and ruining the agricultural 
 interest in which one-third of the capital of the 
 country is invested. More than that, it is bring- 
 ing rum on the nation at large, which has to part 
 with much of its spare capital in order to buy 
 food. Our clear duty is therefore to check the mis- 
 chief ere it be too late. We must put duties on 
 foreign feeding stuffs foreign wheat and foreign 
 meat both to help the farmers and to teach other 
 countries that they had better give up their manu- 
 factures and buy ours. 
 
 This is the position of Mr. Chaplin, Lord Bate- 
 man, and others, who figure prominently before the 
 nation as preachers of the new gospel. I propose to 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 1G5 
 
 meet that position in due time, but first of all it is 
 necessary to get at the true facts. We must see how 
 far we are being beaten, and by what means. And 
 as the principal hostility of the reciprocitarians in 
 this country is directed towards the United States, 
 it will be best to look at what they are doing, or 
 likely to do. Their competitive power governs that 
 of all other countries, and we must see whether it 
 can also be said to -dominate our home production. 
 
 The larger half of the foreign supply of such food 
 as we can grow at home now comes from the United 
 States of America. Not only are they able to send 
 us almost unlimited quantities of grain, but through- 
 out the winter season, at all events, they also send 
 us increasing quantities of dead meat. They would 
 send us practically limitless numbers of live cattle 
 but for the Privy Council regulations. We also 
 receive large supplies of corn and of cured and other 
 meats, as well as of the more perishable bulbs and 
 green vegetables, from other countries. It is towards 
 the States, however, that all eyes are directed at 
 the present time. On their capacity for feeding us 
 cheaply we may be said as a manufacturing nation 
 to depend for our very existence, and yet that 
 capacity, as now displayed, is threatening to ruin 
 the British farmer. The late years of distress 
 in the States have led to an unusually rapid 
 
166 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 extension of the cultivated area. As much as 20 
 million acres of new soil are estimated to have been 
 brought into cultivation in 1878, and all over the 
 Union there is now a large surplus crop which can 
 be easily exported. We in this country place no 
 restriction whatever on the imports of all kinds of 
 agricultural produce from the States, with the single 
 exception of live cattle. It is felt therefore, and 
 justly felt, to be a most grievous hardship that 
 they should, by the application of a tariff worthy 
 of the dark ages of Spanish tyranny, almost com- 
 pletely shut our goods, in dull times, out of their 
 markets. They refuse to let us "barter" our pro- 
 ductions for theirs, and will only take from us 
 hard cash, or the equivalent of such, in the shape 
 of bonds of their debt. Their fiscal policy is thus 
 frankly one-sided and exclusive. It is unhappily 
 also so far as agriculture is concerned successful In 
 time it may not be so, but at present the disabilities 
 under which the English farmer labours far out- 
 weigh the clogs which protection puts upon the free 
 cultivator of the free soil of America. The English 
 farmer may indeed be thankful that his rival is 
 hampered by protection, for without it the battle 
 would be hopeless. As it is the cost of producing 
 food is far greater in England than in America, as 
 an analysis of the facts will show. 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 167 
 
 In one sense, nothing is perhaps more difficult 
 than the assessment of the cost of production in 
 English agriculture. Conditions of production vary 
 widely over the country, and qualities of soil also 
 vary. But it is possible to strike something like 
 an average, which shall at least give an approximate 
 idea of the cost. Two estimates of the cost of wheat 
 production are before me from different parts of 
 the country, and they may, I think, be taken as 
 a fair average. One is that given in the Times 
 of 18th January last, by Mr. Arthur H. Savory, 
 of Addington Manor, Evesham. According to his 
 figures, the net cost of producing one quarter of 
 wheat in the English Midlands is 48s. The other 
 was given me by Mr. James W. Barclay, M.P. for 
 Forfarshire, and applies more particularly to Scotland 
 and the north. According to this, the lowest possible 
 cost at which a quarter of wheat can now be pro- 
 duced is 475. 6d. In the first estimate, rent, rates, 
 and taxes are taken at 45s. per acre, and in the 
 second, rent alone is placed at 305., so that reckoning 
 taxes the same throughout, in the one instance more 
 is allowed for labour, manure, &c., than in the other. 
 Substantially, however, these estimates agree in the 
 result, and they may be taken as a fair indication 
 of the total cost of producing a quarter of wheat 
 in ordinary years, the crop in both cases being 
 
168 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 assumed as four quarters, or thirty-two bushels to 
 the acre, which is above rather than below the 
 average yield in this country of late years. 
 
 The cost of producing butcher's meat is fully 
 more difficult to estimate, but I am informed by 
 Mr. Barclay, who has closely investigated the subject, 
 that meat cannot be produced in this country under 
 67s. 6d. to 70s. per cwt. of dead carcase, or 7^d. 
 to *1\d. per Ib. 
 
 Now let us see how these figures compare with 
 estimates of production in America. The figures 
 for that country are also very scanty. In many 
 parts of the States farming is pursued with little 
 or no regard to economy, and with no attempt at 
 careful tillage. A large proportion also of the new 
 settlers have had no previous experience in farming. 
 Hence the average yield of wheat per acre in the 
 American Union is low when compared with that 
 of this country. Mr. George Osborn, of Kingston, 
 Canada, furnished the Times of February 27th, 1879, 
 with some figures upon this point, which I shall 
 here quote : 
 
 "The cost per acre in the spring- wheat States 
 Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin : 
 Ploughing, $1 50c. ; dragging and sowing, $1 ; seed, 
 $1 50c. ; harvesting, $2 5c. $6 50c. ; equal to 
 IL 6s. 9d, to which must be added 10c., or 5d. 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 169 
 
 sterling, per bushel for thrashing, &c. For new land 
 add $2, or 85. 4d sterling, for breaking. Minnesota 
 certainly raises more wheat to the acre than any other 
 State in the Union, her average for the last 10 years 
 being nearly 16 bushels per acre. Taking the United 
 States as a whole, I find the average for the last 
 five years ending 1877 to be very slightly under 11 
 bushels per acre. The spring-wheat States named 
 above have on an average for five years produced 
 a fraction over 13 bushels per acre. The greatest 
 known yearly average of Ohio, the largest producer of 
 the winter- wheat States, is 17^ bushels ; while the 
 average for 10 years, as officially shown, is 10'55 
 bushels per acre. Illinois produces year by year not 
 more than 10 bushels per acre; Iowa, 14 bushels; 
 California, 13 ; Kansas, 13 ; Wisconsin, 14." 
 
 These figures do not in all respects tally with those 
 given for the cost of production in England, but 
 making all allowance for discrepancies, they may be 
 taken as indicating that the fair average cost of 
 producing one quarter of wheat in the American 
 Union does not exceed 205. That is also the 
 estimate of Mr. Barclay. On good settled land, such 
 as a great deal of the land in most of the States 
 now is, the average yield of wheat is higher, and 
 the average cost of production of course less. 1 
 
 1 The Earl of Airlie takes exception to this statement in his able and 
 interesting article on " Agricultural Prospects," which appeared in the 
 Fortnightly Review, for July, 1879. He says : "This statement is not 
 borne out by facts. With the single exception of Ohio, which appears 
 
170 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 Against this, however, another consideration has to 
 be taken into account in the shape of interest on 
 capital borrowed. In order to exhibit with vividness 
 the actual position of the majority of American 
 farmers, and the conditions under which they work, 
 it will be interesting to place side by side with Mr. 
 Osborn's figures some data which I have received 
 from an experienced banker in Chicago. Writing to 
 me under date 31st December, 1878, he says : 
 
 " Within this territory good fertile farms sell at 
 from 20s. to 5l. per acre, averaging now probably 
 
 to possess an extraordinarily rich soil, the average yield of wheat per acre 
 is greater in the more newly settled and less in the older States. Thus 
 Illinois produces barely ten bushels per acre, Iowa fourteen, and 
 Minnesota sixteen. Not only is this the case, but it is an ascertained 
 fact that the yield has fallen off in those States which have been 
 largest settled. It is said that in California the yield has fallen from 
 twenty to thirteen or fourteen bushels. The late President Lincoln told 
 me that in his younger days winter wheat was successfully grown in 
 Illinois, but that then (1864) the land would not stand it, and they were 
 obliged to sow spring wheat." And he proceeds to point out that this 
 is due to the tendency of early settlers to exhaust the soil speedily by 
 taking crop after crop without manure. He admits, however, that its 
 productiveness may be restored by manuring and by deeper cultiva- 
 tion, and these remedies are, I am told, being at the present time much 
 more widely applied than they were a few years ago. In the nature of 
 things it should tend to be so. After the first squatter comes the 
 regular farmer, who settles on the land as owner, and strives to make 
 the most of it. Stocks of cattle also increase, and with their increase 
 comes greater ability to manure the land and to till it thoroughly. The 
 aid of labour-saving machinery is likewise called in wherever possible, 
 and the result is that the fertility of the soil is not merely restored, 
 but maintained. Nor need this restoration and maintenance involve 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 171 
 
 about 5l., and taxes are about Is. 2d. per acre. The 
 yield of corn is from twenty to seventy bushels, of 
 sixty pounds. Good farmers will average fifty, and 
 the whole would average about forty bushels per acre, 
 on good corn ground. 
 
 " To illustrate, suppose the farmer in debt for full 
 value of his land, hiring all the labour performed, and 
 selling his entire crop without feeding any part of it 
 to stock, and the account would be as follows : 
 
 "Interest one year on 51. 4s. 2d. at 8 per cent, 
 85. 4:d. ; taxes say Is. 2d. ; labour of growing and 
 harvesting, 24s. ; total 345. 6d., for which he would 
 
 the great extra cost of cultivation which Lord Airlie says must suffice 
 in time to make the position of the American farmer subject to as 
 great disabilities as farmers here, for where the soil is naturally good, 
 the natural manures, provided by good stock and careful husbandry, 
 should be almost enough to maintain its fertility. They might not 
 altogether do so because the crops are so much exported that the soil 
 must inevitably get in some degree impoverished. As to present facts, I 
 believe Lord Airlie has been misinformed on the features of the case. 
 President Lincoln's statement about Illinois when made may possibly 
 have been correct, but I am assured that it is not so now. There is 
 more winter than spring wheat produced in Illinois, and so far from the 
 fertility of the soil decreasing, it is increasing there and elsewhere. 
 Actual facts, therefore, correspond with what one would suppose to be 
 the case. There can be no doubt that the tendency of agriculture in 
 America is to improve. A first swarm of speculative cultivators may 
 partially exhaust the soil, but as it falls into the hands of steady hard- 
 working proprietors, it will be treated by them with the same loving 
 care that peasant proprietors universally exhibit in Europe. There is 
 therefore no consolation for the British farmer in the statements of 
 Lord Airlie. Cost of production will not tend to rise much in the 
 Union under existing conditions, and were the Union to reduce its 
 protective tariff, it might be so materially lowered as almost to 
 extinguish the rent-paying capacity of much of the soil in this country. 
 
172 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 have for each acre of land, forty bushels of corn, 
 costing say lid. per bushel, with ordinarily an average 
 of Is. 6d. per bushel at the farm, and now worth 
 about Is. \d. In some places as low possibly as 8d., 
 and in others as high as 2s." 
 
 The figures given in this extract apply to maize or 
 Indian corn, of which very heavy crops are grown in 
 Illinois. They show that the cost of producing that 
 cereal, now imported by us to the extent of nearly 
 10 million quarters per annum, does not amount to 
 more than 7s. 6d per quarter. But the chief value 
 of this information lies in the picture it gives of the 
 condition of the farmers. They pay no rent, their 
 land is seldom heavily mortgaged, they have not got 
 heavy manure or labour bills to pay, they till the 
 lands with their own hands, and their taxation is 
 comparatively light all circumstances in remarkable 
 contrast to the position of farmers in this country. 
 If the farmers in the wheat-growing States are in the 
 same position as those of Illinois, and there is no 
 reason to suppose that they are not, it is easy to 
 believe that 20s. per quarter is by no means an under 
 estimate of the net cost of growing wheat there. 
 
 Accepting that figure, we must next add the cost of 
 carriage to England, in order to arrive at the relative 
 positions of English and American farmers in the 
 markets here. In one sense the American farmer is 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 173 
 
 at an immense disadvantage, since he must perforce 
 pay two freights, as it were. His tariff prevents the 
 import of goods to the States, so that the ships which 
 bring corn to England from America often go there 
 empty, or with a few tons of pig-iron taken as ballast 
 at a freight of Is. per ton. Notwithstanding this 
 disadvantage, which applies in some degree to 
 American railways, as well as to the shipping trade, 
 the freight to this country is almost ludicrously small 
 compared with the charges on our home railways. It 
 does not average probably one-fifth, and in some 
 instances is less than one-tenth, of what farmers in 
 this country pay for moving their crops to market. 
 
 According to a list of through freights, kindly 
 supplied to me by a Liverpool merchant, about 
 95. 6d. per quarter appears to be the total charge for 
 carriage from Chicago to Liverpool, and rather more 
 than 8s. 6d. per quarter from Detroit to the same 
 port, If therefore we place the entire cost of carriage 
 per quarter of wheat, including terminal charges at 
 both ends, at 105., we shall be dealing liberally, and 
 that sum added to the estimated cost of production 
 brings the net cost price of American wheat delivered 
 in Liverpool up to just 305. per quarter. If that 
 wheat is sold 'at an average of 355. per quarter, the 
 American farmer and his intermediaries will have a 
 profit of 55. per quarter to divide between them. 
 
174 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 All the farmer's outlay is indeed met by the 20s. per 
 quarter. The price of 35s., moreover, is fully 12s. 6d. 
 below the net cost of production in this country. 
 Moderately stated, this therefore is the probable 
 measure of the disadvantage at which the English 
 farmer now stands in competing with the United 
 States. On 3f quarters of wheat, which is the net 
 average yield per acre in this country in good seasons, 
 after allowing for seed, this represents a disadvantage 
 of fully 40s. per acre, or more than the average rent 
 which the English farmer now pays. In other words, 
 the American producer is able to sell his wheat 
 in Liverpool at a price which must prove utterly 
 ruinous to our agricultural interests as they now 
 stand. 1 
 
 1 Here again Lord Airlie enters an objection to my estimate of carriage, 
 because I say nothing about cost of conveyance of grain to Chicago from 
 the inland regions. That cost, he says, is often heavy, and I admit 
 that to a great extent he is right. I question, however, whether the 
 general effect of the calculations given in the text is much weakened 
 by this consideration. Not only is the constant tendency of freights 
 towards greater cheapness in even the outlying districts of the west, as 
 those who have been unwise enough to put money in railways there 
 ruefully know, but throughout a considerable part of the year the esti- 
 mate given by me is itself an exaggerated one. The magnificent water 
 carriage enjoyed by the States of the lake region helps to make the cost 
 of carriage from outlying districts to Chicago or to the sea exceedingly 
 low during summer. This advantage is increased by the canal and river 
 competition to the ports. Now that the mouth of the Mississippi has 
 been deepened, so as to admit of vessels of large tonnage loading at 
 New Orleans, these advantages of the American farmer in river, 
 lake, and canal navigation will probably be still more conspicuous. 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 175 
 
 The position of the cattle-farmer in this country 
 is now not much better, and promises to become 
 rapidly worse. Of the cost of rearing cattle in 
 America there is, so far as I am aware, no ready 
 means of judging; but there is no ground for sup- 
 posing that it is re]atively greater than the cost of 
 growing corn. On the contrary, there is good reason 
 for. assuming that it is less. Pasture on the State 
 Domains is still so abundant that in many parts of 
 America young animals can be reared for an inappre- 
 ciable expense. The cost of fattening them for the 
 market is thus compressed into a very short period 
 of time, and involves small outlay. The practical 
 test, however, of the cost is the price at which 
 American beef can be sold in England. Now some 
 recent shipments of American dead meat have been 
 sold in London in excellent condition at 6^d. per lb., 
 and I am told that had it been sold at 5^d. it would 
 still have left a profit. 
 
 There is no room to doubt the accuracy of that 
 statement, for in the United States fresh dead meat 
 can, I believe, be bought freely at from 4 to 5 cents 
 per lb., or roughly at from 2d. to Z\d. At that price 
 
 Thus every year will probably see freights in America, and from 
 America to Europe, reduced lower and lower, or, at all events, kept 
 at a level which our capital over-burdened English lines cannot ap- 
 proach without courting a deeper gulf of bankruptcy than that with 
 which most American lines have at one time or other been familiar. 
 
176 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 an ordinary carcase would represent a value of from 61. 
 to 8/., which I am told is about the average price of 
 fat cattle in the "Western States of the Union. Here 
 again, however, the producer has freight against him, 
 as he must pay not only the double charges necessi- 
 tated by the one-sided character of the trade, but also 
 an additional sum for rapid transit and for scientifi- 
 cally perfected means of conveyance. My Liverpool 
 friend has kindly given me the current figures on this 
 point also, and they show that the cost of carrying 
 live cattle from Chicago to Liverpool about equals the 
 value of the beasts in Chicago. For dead meat the 
 charges are, I believe, practically the same. It will 
 be well to leave the live animals out of reckoning, 
 as the import of these will probably be much reduced 
 by the effect of the cattle-disease legislation. The 
 figures above given enable us, however, to make a 
 rough estimate of the relative positions of the pro- 
 ducers of beef in the "Western States of America and 
 in this country. We find that a Western farmer can 
 deliver fresh meat without loss in Liverpool at some- 
 thing under 5-JdL per lb., as against 7^d., the lowest 
 price endurable by the farmers in this country. 
 
 There is plenty of evidence that these estimates 
 cannot be considered exaggerated. We see it in the 
 great increase in the imports of live cattle which took 
 place last year, an increase that stimulated not a little 
 
V-] 
 
 THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 
 
 177 
 
 the activity of our legislature in taking measures to 
 guard against disease. Last year 86,600 live cattle 
 were landed at the principal ports of the United 
 Kingdom, or 67,000 more than in the previous year. 
 The imports of dead meat are equally convincing on 
 this point, as the following statement will prove : 
 
 IMPORTS OF DEAD MEAT. 
 
 1876. 
 
 1877. 
 
 1878. 
 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 
 2,810,000 
 
 2,395,000 
 
 3,467,000 
 
 Beef-Salted .... 
 
 ' 243,000 
 
 208,000 
 
 219,000 
 
 Fresh ! . . . . . 
 
 171,000 
 
 465,000 
 
 504,000 
 
 
 349,000 
 
 424,000 
 
 797,000 
 
 Pork Fresh and Salted ) 
 (not Hams) . . . . j 
 
 377,000 
 
 304,000 
 
 388,000 
 
 Meats Salted or other- ) 
 wise preserved . . . j 
 
 376,000 
 
 606,000 
 
 584,000 
 
 TOTAL . . . 
 
 4,326,000 
 
 4,402,000 
 
 5,959,000 
 
 The increase in 1878 on the figures for 1876 is 
 nearly 37 J per cent, a most startling fact in view of 
 the trade depression from which we suffer, and a 
 fact, too, of incalculable significance with reference 
 to English agriculture. 
 
 All the evidence available, in short, points to the 
 defeat of the British farmer in the competition. He 
 cannot, weighted as he is, stand up against the com- 
 paratively unencumbered Americans. A new world 
 
 1 Chiefly from the United States. 
 
 N 
 
178 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 has come into being within less than a generation, 
 and the landowners and landholders of England have 
 not yet begun to recognise what its existence means 
 for them. They accordingly dream of protecting 
 themselves by the imposition of duties on foreign 
 agricultural produce. As monopolists face to face 
 with "free trade" in their own domain, the land- 
 owners are disposed to fly to the usual refuge of such, 
 the refuge, to wit, of a protective tariff. They would 
 punish the United States by levying heavy duties on 
 the beef or grain imported thence, permitting only 
 such of our colonies as behaved well in the matter of 
 tariffs to send their produce here duty free or nearly 
 so. And the farmers appear to be only too willing to 
 join their landlords in attaining this object. 
 
 Is it a good object ? Can it be attained without 
 injury to the community? Let us see once more 
 what the facts say ; and be it remembered that in 
 all this discussion we have as much as possible kept 
 out of sight merely temporary causes of loss to the 
 British farmer. His distress is great, and it is a 
 distress which can now be mitigated only, not re- 
 moved, by " bumper " harvests. For a generation at 
 least forces at home have been at work putting 
 obstacles in his way. Without any adequate hold 
 on the land, he has seen his profits gradually eaten 
 in upon by rent and other augmenting charges. The 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 179 
 
 extravagance of the time has also told upon him ; cost 
 of cultivation has increased ; and when everything was 
 in a manner working at high pressure, new competitors 
 sprang into the field. They had him at a great dis- 
 advantage on the mere ground of tenure alone, and 
 the inflation amid which he lived only aggravated, 
 did not primarily cause, the ruin with which he is 
 now threatened. 
 
 To these circumstances the reactionary party would 
 now apply a protective tariff. They boldly say Tax 
 foreign agricultural produce for the benefit of the 
 English farmer, and this sotto voce the English 
 landlord. These distressed parties constitute a trades 
 union, in short, and demand that the nation should 
 tax itself for their benefit. 
 
 The first and most obvious answer to such a de- 
 mand is that we dare not take any step which would 
 tend to increase the cost of living to the masses of 
 the nation. The course of our history for the last 
 generation and a half has brought us to this terrible 
 dilemma. Our people must be fed cheaply or perish, 
 and the only present means we have of feeding them 
 cheaply is by the purchase of food produced abroad. 
 The nation has altogether outgrown the actual pro- 
 ductive capacity of its land. Since the beginning of 
 this century the population of Great Britain has 
 about doubled, and the whole of that increase has 
 
 N 2 
 
180 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 crowded into manufacturing cities and towns. The 
 rural population is not only not larger than it was 
 some eighty years ago, but it is absolutely smaller, 
 and tends to decrease. Thus the great masses of the 
 nation have become divorced from the soil. They are 
 cooped up in the towns, and have no means of subsist- 
 ence but the wages they earn. As towns have grown 
 in size and numbers, the cost of living within them 
 has in many ways risen, rents have advanced, taxes 
 are higher, and locomotion more expensive. I ques- 
 tion also if it does not take more to sustain life in full 
 vigour in the large cities under the artificial condi- 
 tions of existence imposed there. At all events the 
 children born and reared there are less robust than 
 their parents were who came fresh from the country. 
 A " weediness " appears about the young of the great 
 manufacturing towns that promises ill for the future 
 of our race. 
 
 But putting that aside, and looking merely at the 
 actual condition of the people of this country, it is 
 apparent that, for weal or woe, we have become a 
 nation of artizans and manufacturers which cannot 
 grow food for itself, and it is absolutely essential to our 
 existence that we should sell what we make. In no 
 other way can we live, and in order to be able to sell 
 we must be able to produce cheaply. The cost of 
 subsistence must therefore be low, because without 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 181 
 
 cheap food low wages and full working vigour could 
 not be maintained together. 
 
 Look at the condition of large sections of the 
 working classes during the past winter. Owing to 
 the stagnant position of many industries distress has 
 prevailed nay, prevails now in nearly every import- 
 ant centre of manufacture pauperism has increased, 
 relief funds have had to be instituted. Hundreds of 
 thousands of people have been living on the confines 
 of starvation, and yet wheat was cheaper during all 
 that winter than it ever was before at the same 
 period of the year within living memory. Wheat 
 was all last winter and spring from 125. to 155. per 
 quarter lower in price than it was in the winter of 
 1877-78. Still a majority of the population of the 
 country has barely, been able to exist ; large num- 
 bers cannot exist at all at any time, except on charity, 
 and such charity ! Could they have lived any the 
 more easily had the price of grain been raised several 
 shillings a quarter by the imposition of an import 
 duty ? Is there indeed any more grim commentary 
 upon the folly of those who hint at the imposition 
 of such a duty in any form than the condition of 
 large masses of the population at the present time ? 
 If that says anything intelligible to the political 
 economist it says that these people are already over- 
 burdened that they want relief from existing taxes, 
 
182 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 not the imposition of more. If to these other burdens 
 we now add a tax on bread we shall assuredly see 
 riot and bloodshed, perhaps even revolution abroad in 
 the land at no distant day. If we in normal times 
 thanks to the constitution of our society, to the mono- 
 poly of the chief sources of wealth enjoyed by the few, 
 and to our poor law have one in thirty of our popula- 
 tion absolute paupers, how many should we have were 
 bread dear and, as the inevitable consequence, work 
 scarce ? Why, at the present moment, thousands 
 upon thousands of the population of this country 
 formerly earning their livings respectably are hovering 
 on the brink of utter destitution. In all our towns, 
 in the manufacturing centres, and in the rural dis- 
 tricts of many parts of England, thousands of families 
 have been existing for some considerable time on the 
 proceeds of bills of sale granted on their house- 
 hold goods. The state of such people is growing 
 desperate beyond belief, and yet the selfishness of 
 the protectionists would increase their woes. 
 
 " But the farmers are in distress, and our agricul- 
 tural interests must be preserved and upheld." 
 Certainly, nothing can be more laudable or more 
 necessary ; the only question is, How are they to be 
 upheld ? Heavy corn duties or light for that 
 matter did not sustain the farming class in affluence 
 in past times. On the contrary, agriculture was 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 183 
 
 never in a more wretchedly backward and poverty- 
 stricken condition than when the country enjoyed the 
 blessings of the " sliding-scale " of heavy corn duties. 
 True, there was not in those times the supera- 
 bundant foreign supply which now competes with 
 the home production, but neither was there the 
 present large population to feed. To the great bulk 
 of that population cheap food is essential to existence ; 
 to all our manufacturers it is as imperatively neces- 
 sary as cheap raw materials ; and even supposing that 
 duties on corn and cattle would help the landowner 
 and farmer for a time to draw large rents and profits 
 from the soil, the ruin they would thus bring upon 
 the nation at large could not be borne. It would 
 soon recoil, too, on the landowners. As a matter of 
 fact, we are dealing here with a monopoly a mono- 
 poly of the very worst kind. At the door of this 
 monopoly, much more than anywhere else, we must 
 lay the bulk of the troubles from which the nation 
 now suffers, and all that threatens to be permanently 
 ruinous in the position of our farmers. The pleadings 
 of men like Mr. Chaplin are the cry of those who 
 possess, and who have for many generations enjoyed, 
 the exclusive benefit of this monopoly, for protection 
 at the nation's expense against forces that their own 
 selfish greed and folly may be said to have in no 
 small degree called into being. The manner in which 
 
184 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 the soil of this kingdom is held back from the 
 people is one of the darkest features in our social 
 economy and one of the greatest causes of our present 
 distress. No words can adequately depict the dangers 
 with which it threatens us. While the population 
 has been pressing into towns and outgrowing the 
 native means of subsistence to an extent which en- 
 tails an import of the necessaries of life to the extent 
 of nearly 100 millions sterling a year, and a total 
 import of articles of consumption of more than 160 
 millions a year, the landowners have done nothing to 
 relieve the pressure. On the contrary, they have 
 often aggravated it. Mr. Caird, in an essay of his 
 lately published, says that " This country is becoming 
 every ten years less and less of a farm and more and 
 more of a meadow, a garden, and a playground." 1 
 And he goes on to speak of the deer-forests, grouse- 
 moors, pleasure-commons, &c., in a tone of admira- 
 tion. A more melancholy description we have seldom 
 read. Instead of being a matter for congratulation it 
 is something to lament over with the profoundest 
 sorrow. Enriched by the labours of the multitude, 
 by the opening of railways, by the working of mines 
 whose " royalties " ought never to have been theirs at 
 all, by the extension of towns over lands whose free- 
 
 1 The Landed Interest and the Supply of Food. By Jas. Caird, C.B. 
 (Cassell, Fetter, and Galpin.) 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 185 
 
 holds are chiefly in their hands, the small group of 
 men who own most of the soil of the kingdom have 
 sought to turn it into a hunting-ground a garden of 
 pleasure. They have enlarged their vermin-preserves, 
 their deer-parks, their grouse-moors, and fox-hunting 
 districts, and set more store by the life of a rabbit 
 most destructive of land pests than on human life. 
 No liberty has been given to the cultivators of the 
 soil to put capital into their farms. Throughout 
 Great Britain the tenant has little or no hold on the 
 land, little or no security for his money. In many 
 places he is but a yearly tenant, liable to be turned off 
 at six months' notice. In short, as Mr. Bear admir- 
 ably puts it in his article on the " Liberal Party and 
 the Farmers " in the Fortnightly Review for March, 
 1878, "Our whole land system, from beginning to 
 end, is now tending to the impoverishment of land- 
 lords, tenants, labourers, and consumers alike, and it 
 is one of the most striking evidences of the indomit- 
 able energy and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon race 
 that British farming has, under such monstrous dis- 
 advantages, advanced to even its present state of 
 comparative excellence." It can advance no further. 
 If this wretched land system be not changed, and that 
 speedily, the farmers must fall back into the besotting 
 poverty of the corn duties' times, or perhaps give up 
 cultivation altogether ; an alternative which, however 
 
186 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 serenely it may be contemplated by men of the dry 
 intellectual stamp of Lord Derby, would not, I fear, 
 suit the monopolists of the soil. They could not live 
 by " sport " alone. Already there are signs on all 
 hands that the farmers' capital is becoming exhausted. 
 Their rent alone absorbs it, in many instances, and 
 they are so oppressed between the demands of the 
 landowner and the small return from their crops, that 
 they have ceased to cultivate with energy. Of what 
 use is the charity dole of 10 or 15 per cent deducted 
 from rents as a remedy for the utter hopelessness of 
 defeat which facts like those given above imply \ 
 Landlords should not deceive themselves ; such petty 
 charities will not stave off the evil day much longer. 
 They will have to assent to many reforms before 
 many years are over, under penalties. Either the 
 hungry population will give them notice to quit alto- 
 gether, or it will desert the country in such numbers 
 as to cripple our industrial forces beyond remedy. 
 When the wants of the population are considered, 
 when we look at the urgent food requirements of the 
 masses that fill our towns, or behold the soil untilled 
 or half-tilled, the rural population deserting their 
 homes because they cannot live 500 labourers of 
 Kent, for instance, going in a body to a foreign 
 land it is enough to make us despair of the future. 
 A flush of sudden wealth has blinded the landowning 
 
v.J THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 187 
 
 class, or they surely would long since have seen rocks 
 ahead threatening the ship of the State with de- 
 struction. It was Lord Derby, I believe, who some 
 years ago gave currency to the statement that, with 
 proper tillage, the yield of the soil of England could 
 be doubled, and those who know anything of agricul- 
 ture are not disposed to question the estimate. With 
 our population, the soil ought to be cultivated like a 
 garden. And what would doubling the yield of the 
 soil mean ? For one thing it would mean a power to 
 export instead of a necessity to import food. We 
 should be able then to say to the Americans with 
 effect : " Keep your food at home, we can feed 
 ourselves/' That surely would be a safer way of 
 obtaining revenge on American exclusiveness than 
 import duties would be. The American farmer de- 
 prived of our market would soon find out what 
 " protection " meant at home, and demand freedom 
 to buy where he pleased. 
 
 This in few words is the reform most urgently 
 needed in England. The land must be delivered 
 from its bondage and given back to the people. 
 Until the Liberal party is prepared to take up this 
 great question, it will fail to be the party of true 
 progress, and will deserve to continue at the mercy of 
 reactionary administrations, good only for creating 
 difficulties, for misleading the nation, for heaping on 
 
188 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 the people new burdens, and by their very folly and 
 wrongheadedness, goading the people on to demand 
 what their nominal leaders refuse to give. 
 
 It is a gigantic task no doubt, but if the land- 
 owning class wishes to escape ejectment by way of 
 revolution, it must give way in time. In no civilised 
 country in the world is there now a class with such 
 exclusive privileges and such preponderating political 
 influence as the small group of landowners, who, in 
 this country, hold the life of the nation in their grasp 
 More than half the soil of the United Kingdom is 
 nominally owned by some 2,000 persons. According 
 to a valuable analysis of the very ill-arranged and 
 incomplete parliamentary return of the landowners of 
 the United Kingdom, published in the Financial 
 Reform Almanac for 1878, 421 persons are the 
 owners of 22,880,755 acres, or nearly 5 million acres, 
 more than one-fourth of the total area of the United 
 Kingdom. The mind is unable to grasp what such a 
 monopoly costs the country, but certain features of it 
 stand forth with a prominence sufficiently notable. 
 In a most absolute sense, the well-being of the entire 
 population of some 32 million souls is placed in the 
 power of a few thousands. For these thousands the 
 multitude toils, and it may be on occasion starves. 
 Hence it is that all through rural England we have 
 continually before us that most saddening of all 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 189 
 
 spectacles, two or three families living in great 
 splendour, and hard by their gates the miserably 
 poor, the abject slaves of the soil, whose sole hope 
 in life is too often the workhouse that famous device 
 against revolution paid for by the middle class and 
 the pauper's grave. 
 
 Our landowners have not merely burdened the land 
 with their game preserves ; they have tied it up, and 
 actively conspired to prevent its due cultivation. In- 
 stead of rising to the true necessities of the case, they 
 cling to their game, make penal enactments about it, 
 and struggle to augment the intensity of the evil 
 which it is to the people, as if the very existence of 
 the country depended upon hares and rabbits. 
 
 In his absolute supremacy the landowner overrides 
 all justice, takes precedence of all ordinary creditors 
 on his helpless tenants' estates, and controls the 
 system of cultivation, often in utter disregard of 
 private rights or private judgment ; and in addition 
 secures to himself the absolute reversion of every 
 improvement which the tenant may make on the 
 land. To his exclusive privileges and overmastering 
 claims we owe it that our modern cities are built 
 well-nigh as insecurely as the " paper houses " of 
 Japan, so that three-fourths of modern London may 
 need to be rebuilt within thirty years. Add to these 
 considerations the fact that the landlord contrives 
 
190 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 to throw on his tenant, and through him on the 
 people at large, the greater part of the burden of 
 local rates and imperial taxation, and we have a few 
 of the more prominent features of the abject slavery 
 of the British people to a few thousands of their 
 number. At the present moment, for example, land 
 is assessed for imperial taxation on the basis of a 
 valuation made in the reign of William and Mary. 
 Apportioned in fixed amounts among the several 
 counties of England, that valuation is practically in 
 force to this day, except where the modified tax has 
 been redeemed. Were a 4s. tax which was the levy 
 under William and Mary to be imposed on the 
 present valuation of real property, it would yield a 
 revenue of about 29, 000, 000 1. a year ; whereas the 
 existing tax yields little more than 1,0 00, 00 OZ. 1 The 
 landowners avoid paying this tax, but make up for it 
 in part by voting for licences to public-houses on 
 each other's property so as to keep up the income 
 from excise and their own rents, and in part by 
 laying the burden of " rates " as heavily as possible 
 on their tenants. 
 
 Surely it is time that all these things should be 
 changed. While the landowners have played at 
 game-preserving the world has gone on. Free peoples 
 
 1 Vide The Financial Reform Almanac for 1878 and 1879 a 
 somewhat crotchety, but too little known publication. 
 
v.] THE EFFECT OF AMERICAN COMPETITION. 191 
 
 have sprung up in regions where English feudalism 
 is unknown, and these peoples are crushing our 
 farmers to the dust. They can feed us at prices 
 that defy competition, and many among us would 
 perish of hunger if they did not send us this food. 
 Of what use is it to erect barriers to keep out the 
 benefits which thus come to us ? Would they do 
 aught save hasten our ruin ? Alas for the folly that 
 would cling to such rotten driftwood in the storm ! 
 The true remedy for many things in England is To 
 set the land free ! Let the landlords think of it and 
 submit now, lest it soon be too late. The best 
 remedy for all our industrial distress, the best relief 
 for our overcrowded towns, is to let the people go 
 back to the soil. Free trade in other directions has 
 sealed the doom of feudalism and land-monopoly, and 
 it would be well for the nation and for the landlords 
 themselves if they could realise this now, instead of 
 going about to increase discontent and misery by the 
 application of old-world nostrums instead of harking 
 back to a fiscal policy which has perished with us I 
 trust for ever. It will at all events be a woful day 
 for the British landowners when protection comes 
 back ; for its return is the surest means of goading 
 the crowded and hungry population of our towns to 
 rise up and seize what they will consider their own. 
 God forbid that we should have revolutions here, 
 
192 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CH. v. 
 
 but they will come in spite of us if this great need 
 of our time be not met if, instead of it, deluded 
 farmers and blindly selfish owners of the land con- 
 spire together to put new burdens on the backs 
 of our already sorely overburdened population. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 
 
 THE remedy for our present distress as well as the 
 prevention of future dangers indicated at the con- 
 clusion of the previous chapter is not one that the 
 landowners of this country, as a body, like to con- 
 template. They dread what may be implied in the 
 words " set the land free," or " free-trade in land," 
 and even the most enlightened among them propose 
 palliations instead of remedies. During last Parlia- 
 mentary session a Commission was appointed at the 
 instance of Mr. Chaplin, M.P. for Mid-Lincolnshire, for 
 the purpose of inquiring into the state of agriculture in 
 this and other countries ; and, judging by the composi- 
 tion of that Commission, I should say that its principal 
 business will be to endeavour to find a justification 
 for the reimposition of import duties on foreign food 
 grains. Much attention is to be devoted to the United 
 States, no less than four deputy Commissioners being 
 sent out to gather information about all sorts of 
 
 o 
 
194 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 things, useful and of no use, relating to agriculture 
 there ; and at home the investigation is likely to be 
 devoted to showing the misery of landlords, rather 
 than to the effect of the land's bondage on the well- 
 being of the community. 
 
 Dread of revolution will, I firmly believe, prevent 
 the landowning classes from daring to go the length of 
 reimposing corn duties in any form, but that this 
 Commission will succeed in finding reasons for protect- 
 ing agriculture there can hardly be a doubt. Yet one 
 is sometimes almost driven to regret that something 
 of the nature of a revolution is not possible for us. 
 When one examines closely the position of the British 
 farmer, and observes the mischievous effects of the 
 existing land system, one is driven almost to despair 
 to find an efficient, and at the same time constitution- 
 ally-practicable remedy. The conviction forces itself 
 on the mind, that the only thorough remedy possible 
 is a revolutionary one. I mean, of course, revolution 
 strictly " limited." In other words, the true cure for 
 the existing land-monopoly mischief is one that must 
 be forced on the upper classes by the necessities and 
 miseries of the millions whom their pernicious and 
 altogether unjustifiable usurpation of popular rights has 
 forced into ill-built, over-crowded towns and made 
 dependent on industries whose prosperity can only be 
 maintained by our having the world for a market- 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 195 
 
 place. Should corn duties be reimposed, a revolu- 
 tionary upheaval of a more or less threatening 
 character is almost certain, and the landowning class 
 knows this full well. No patent poor-law device for 
 saving the upper classes will prevent trouble among our 
 crowded population if trade be chained and bread 
 made dear. On the contrary, the poor law might in 
 such circumstances well become one of the most 
 powerful incentives to revolutionary action among the 
 lower middle class. Free emigration, that best and 
 surest of all our safety-valves, cannot even be trusted 
 to stave off the evil day, for millions cannot emigrate 
 at once, and if they did the country would only be the 
 more hopelessly involved in the decay and social 
 confusion which cause evil humours to generate. 
 Therefore the reactionary landlords now intent on 
 proving that the country must perish if they be not 
 protected are beating the air; Did they succeed in 
 their objects, their selfish efforts to save themselves 
 would bring down on their heads such a freeing of 
 the soil as the wildest Irish radical hardly dreams of. 
 A new corn duty would be a notice to quit for every 
 great landowner in the kingdom before it had been 
 two years in operation. It would be their turn then 
 to emigrate after the manner pointed out by Lord 
 Derby as the one alternative left for the distressed, 
 dissatisfied British farmer. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that the bondage of the 
 people to the landowners in this country is rapidly 
 becoming intolerable under the limited free trade now 
 enjoyed, and nothing save great and lasting con- 
 cessions can long save us from internal convulsion of 
 some kind. We have been saved more by accident 
 than good management hitherto ; but the multitudes 
 whom we were content to drive out of the country are 
 now sending from their new homes messages of freedom 
 in the shape of cheap food raised on free soil. These 
 messages have a significance that no land-monopolists 
 can disregard. Our landlords may inquire, and 
 discourse, and struggle, but they will have to yield, 
 and the longer they struggle the greater the chance 
 of their ultimate destruction by the fierce hot lava- 
 outburst from below. Is it to be imagined that 
 10,000 or 100,000 men armed with parchments can 
 stand the shock of 30,000,000 of impoverished people ? 
 Before passing on to discuss what plausible or 
 practicable remedies lie to hand, by means of which the 
 landowning oligarchy which now rules, as for many 
 centuries it has ruled, England, may break their fall or 
 stave off a fate too horrible to contemplate, it will be 
 well to give the reader some idea of the nature of the 
 loads which have in some shape to be removed from 
 the soil. All that I can say here, or that mortal pen 
 could write, would give but a faint image of the 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 197 
 
 thousandfold evils which we groan under in conse- 
 quence of the existing land monopoly, but a few facts 
 may serve as rushlights to reveal the darkness. 
 
 We must first of all revert to the fact that the 
 present concentration of land in few hands is the 
 result of a gross perversion of customs and laws 
 prevalent in this country, more or less, since the 
 earliest dawn of our civilisation. Some of these customs 
 and laws, as any student of the land question well 
 knows, are founded on rights belonging, not to the 
 individual, but to the community, and so to the 
 nation, or to the " crown " as the nation's representa- 
 tive. Gradually, however, by frauds, by persistent 
 assertions of authority, by defiance of the rights of the 
 weaker, and often under a show of legality, the 
 people the nation has been deprived of its rights in 
 the soil, and they are all now practically centred in 
 the landowner. He has all the rights, and those 
 under him all the duties, and he has been able to 
 attain to this lofty position because he has been the 
 law-maker. We boast of our parliamentary system, 
 and with reason. The nation owes much to it, in that 
 it has at times when the nation has spoken out done 
 what the people wished. But on the whole, and in 
 relation to the land more particularly, this parlia- 
 mentary system has been the most costly, the most 
 dishonest, and withal the most corrupt peace -keeper 
 
198 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 with which any intelligent community was ever 
 burdened. For many a long day Parliament was in 
 no sense an assembly of the people's representatives, 
 but of the representatives of the great nobles and 
 the landowning oligarchy. And after all our reform 
 bills it is so still to a greater extent than its 
 panegyrists would have us believe. Not only is the 
 House of Lords a non- elastic self-representing body, 
 but at least four-fifths of the House of Commons is 
 directly or indirectly controlled by the landed interest. 
 While our present system of choosing representatives 
 is maintained this absurdity is likely to continue. 
 We have indeed paid dearly for the glorious British 
 election, with its accompaniment of candidates paying 
 heavily for the " honour and privilege " of " repre- 
 senting 7 ' us in Parliament. No gratuitously-rendered 
 service in this world is in the long run good for much, 
 and gratuitous Parliamentary service is about the 
 worst gift that the English common people ever had. 
 What it has cost them in land robbery alone no one 
 could calculate. 
 
 We can, however, tell with some vividness where 
 practically all this fine system has driven the nation 
 in these latter days. The effects of a class monopoly 
 lie bare to the eye in the congestion of our popula- 
 tion and the distress of our agriculturists. Lord 
 Derby and others are great on " freedom of 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 199 
 
 contract," and eloquent in deprecating any kind of 
 interference between landlord and tenant, as a breach 
 of the true principles of political economy. This is 
 very pretty language, but it has no actual relevancy 
 to the facts of the case. For to begin with, land is 
 itself something of which in one form or other certain 
 people must have in a sense a monopoly. The 
 monopoly may be modified in its injurious effects by 
 strict laws, by minute subdivision among the people, 
 by the exaction of part of the profits in the shape 
 of land-tax for the benefit of the whole nation, but 
 a monopoly it is, and a monopoly it will remain. 
 When, therefore, the landowners of this country talk 
 grandly about freedom of contract, they talk about 
 a thing which cannot possibly exist in the sense 
 usually understood by the phrase. If one party to 
 the bargain enjoys the exclusive rights involved in a 
 monopoly, it must be obvious that the other party is 
 at an enormous disadvantage, and that is exactly 
 the position as between the British landowner and 
 the unhappy man who lives by tilling the land. For 
 a time the true relations of the two may be hidden, 
 or partially disguised, but it cannot long be so. I 
 have called the farmers of this country " serfs," and 
 I will prove the title correct by examples of the 
 way " freedom of contract " is understood by the 
 landlords. 
 
200 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [<;HAP. 
 
 The chief proof will be found in the agreements or 
 " leases " which the landowning class deign at times 
 in some parts of the country to give to their tenants. 
 Such leases as I have been able to obtain a sight 
 or copy of are Scotch, and may be held inapplicable 
 as illustrations of what prevails in England. But 
 in point of fact the illustration these leases give of 
 the power of the land-monopolist is even more 
 forcible in reference to England than to Scotland. 
 Faint shadows of rights still linger in the latter 
 country, but have mostly long ago disappeared in 
 England. The tenants in Scotland, for example, as 
 a rule have leases of some kind ; but in many parts 
 of England the tenants remain on the soil, and are 
 permitted to till it absolutely and entirely at their 
 overlord's will and pleasure. He can turn them off 
 at two years' notice should they displease him, and, 
 by virtue of his exclusive rights as a creditor, seize 
 on everything the poor tenants have in defiance of 
 other creditors, if he so chooses. Quite recently, for 
 example, I read the report of a summing-up by an 
 English judge in a distraint case, which showed that 
 not only can an English landlord levy distress on 
 the goods and chattels on a farm in utter disregard 
 not merely of the tenant's other creditors, but actually 
 of whose the property may be which the bailiffs 
 may find on the land. In this instance distraint was 
 
vj.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 201 
 
 made on sheep belonging to a third party, that had 
 been put on the farm to feed, and this distraint was 
 held to be good in law. 1 
 
 In the matter of game preserving, moreover, the 
 two parts of the kingdom are much on a par. A 
 landlord in both can ruin his tenants if he chooses, 
 up to a point which will leave him safe, come of the 
 tenant's other creditors what may. On the whole per- 
 haps in this case the lease-holder has the worst of it, 
 because his farm may be nearly free of game when he 
 enters upon it, and afterwards be eaten up by the 
 vermin which the landlord fosters and rears at his 
 expense. Still he is disposed to struggle on and 
 hope against hope, while his tenant-at-will com- 
 patriot in England may fling up his holding and 
 emigrate if he be a man above serfdom, or grovel 
 along in abject dependence if he be not the mere 
 tool of his overlord, a slave of the most degraded 
 of all types. The fact that these game laws alone 
 should in any form exist in a civilised country, and 
 above all in a country crowded like ours, is the 
 strongest possible proof that the land-monopolists 
 have made laws t only for themselves, and not for 
 the people, and that the state of the British farmer 
 is a state of humiliating bondage. For the sake of 
 
 1 Vide Lord-Justice Baggallay's summing-up in the case, Lake v. 
 Duppa, printed in pamphlet form, and sold by Effingham Wilson. 
 
202 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 " sport," men's lives are sacrificed, men's characters 
 warped, our jails filled, hard-working, honest yeomen 
 and peasants robbed, the land left untilled or but 
 half-tilled, food made dearer, and all to please a few 
 thousands out of this great nation. These laws are 
 a standing disgrace to us, and are alone sufficient to 
 bring on the landowning oligarchy a terrible retribu- 
 tion when the whirligig of time brings its revenges. 
 
 But we must now revert to the character of farm 
 leases. The general principle underlying them all 
 is the summary one, that all persons and things upon 
 the land or under the land exist for the sole and 
 exclusive use and benefit of the legal owner or life- 
 renter of the soil. This general principle is illus- 
 trated by conditions such as the following, which I 
 select from the " Articles, Regulations, and Con- 
 ditions" applicable to the letting of land on the 
 Scotch estates of " His Grace the Duke of Eichmond 
 and Gordon," president of the new Agricultural 
 Commission, and a man of large territorial posses- 
 sions both in England and Scotland. As the clauses 
 are lengthy, I am compelled partially to condense 
 them : 
 
 The lease, usually for nineteen years, excludes all 
 but direct heirs, and refuses power to sublet. The 
 whole expense of the documents connected with the 
 lease falls on the lessee. Power is reserved by the 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 203 
 
 proprietor to plant trees where he pleases on the 
 land leased on giving compensation. He may open 
 mines and work them, or search for minerals at 
 pleasure, on paying surface damage only. He can 
 mark out and construct roads at will, taking the 
 materials without compensation, save where arable 
 land is broken up by quarries. Alterations in exist- 
 ing roads or public places can be made by him 
 also at will. The whole of the game of every de- 
 scription is reserved for the landowner, with full 
 power for himself to hunt and shoot over the land, 
 and the tenants are to protect the game as much as in 
 their power from poachers. All fishing in the rivers- 
 and streams on the estate is forbidden during the 
 close time fixed by Act of Parliament, under pain 
 of forfeiture of the lease and eviction. This applies 
 to the tenant or to any of his family. All corn 
 which the tenants may want ground must be sent 
 to the Duke's mills on the estate, and they are bound 
 to pay "the accustomed multures, knaveships, mill- 
 dues, and services" charged at these mills. Should 
 drainage work be carried out on the farms, the tenants 
 must always carry the materials without payment, 
 and may, at his Grace's pleasure, be made to pay 
 for the materials as well as to do the work. Should 
 he, however, elect to do the work, the tenant must 
 pay 5 per cent, on the outlay as additional rent. 
 
204 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 Under penalty of paying 6l. per acre rent for each 
 departure from the routine, the tenants are bound 
 in the customary terms to crop their land on the 
 "five-shift system," i.e. are tied hand and foot in 
 their manner of dealing with the soil, and that 
 frequently by men who probably know as much 
 about practical farming as about practical cookery. 
 Minute particulars as to quality and kinds of seed, 
 as to manuring, &c., are specified, and bind the action 
 of the tenant as thoroughly as if he were a convict 
 on the treadmill. The tenant is also forbidden to 
 burn, sell, or remove any of the straw, dung, or 
 turnips produced on the land. All must be used 
 on the spot', or sold to the owner at a valuation, in 
 the event of the tenant leaving the farm. Without 
 apparently having any opportunity for investigation, 
 the man who once signs an agreement for a lease 
 is by that act considered to have agreed to take all 
 fences and farm buildings as being in a state of 
 complete repair, and is bound to uphold them in 
 that condition throughout the term of the lease, to 
 the landlord's satisfaction. All the protection a new 
 tenant has consists in a claim against the outgoing 
 tenant, which the landlord makes over to him to 
 do his best with in the event of the buildings, 
 &c., proving out of repair. The landlord may in- 
 spect the buildings, &c., at will, and the tenant is 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 205 
 
 bound to paint the outside woodwork of the houses 
 once in three years at his own expense, as also to 
 insure the buildings and crops at their full value, 
 solely for the landlord's benefit all such charges 
 being in addition to the rent. A tenant falling in 
 arrears with his rent for one year may be summarily 
 ejected the law of hypothec, like the law of dis- 
 tress, giving the landlord full power to recoup him- 
 self out of the farm stock, and regardless of every- 
 body's interest save his own. Fencing or inclosing 
 can be ordered to be done by the landlord on any 
 part of his land, and the tenant must provide and 
 lay down the stones for such fencing, or in the 
 event of the landlord deciding to plant hedges, must 
 protect these hedges with fences. Half the cost 
 only of the future maintenance of these fences will 
 be borne by the landlord. No cottage or garden on 
 a farm can be let by the farmer without the written 
 consent of the overlord. Heather or moorland 
 grass which protects game must not be burned by 
 tenants or their servants, under penalty of an addi- 
 tional rent of 2l. for every fifty acres of holding 
 being levied for the unexpired term of any lease. 
 Written permission may, however, be given at stated 
 periods to bum such heath or moorland in limited 
 quantities. 
 
 Such are the leading provisions under which 
 
206 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 the Duke of Richmond and Gordon agrees to let 
 his Scotch lands. They accord with those of other 
 proprietors in that country. Some that I have 
 examined are more stringent and humiliating, others 
 less so ; but the above will show very well the general 
 tenor of these agreements. We need only mention 
 further that many landlords exact payment in labour 
 in addition to rent, commanding their tenants, for 
 example, to drive fuel for them gratis. Others 
 exact so many fowls or eggs at stated seasons, In 
 England, again, it is a common enough habit on the 
 part of sporting landlords to compel their tenants to 
 rear dogs for sporting purposes the dogs being of 
 course owned by the landlord, and designed for his 
 exclusive enjoyment. 
 
 Now I ask any candid, unprejudiced person who 
 reads this bald summary whether these one-sided 
 stipulations indicate that " freedom to make contracts" 
 for which the landlords of this country always plead 
 when the demand for reform is made ? Would such a 
 state of bondage be tolerated by men in any other 
 walk of life ? Conceive a shoemaker bound by the 
 man who lets him a shop to buy his leather at a 
 particular tannery, to make only one kind of boots, 
 or to sell only to customers who had boots made to 
 measure, or to supply so many days' labour a year 
 in addition to a money rent. These stipulations 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 207 
 
 would not be one whit more absurd or enterprise- 
 stifling than those contained in ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred of the leases or agreements under 
 which men in this country till the soil. And the 
 reason why these men are compelled to submit is, 
 that they have to deal with a monopoly the most 
 powerful, the most jealously-guarded, and the most 
 exclusive that can possibly exist. The owning of 
 land must confer peculiar privileges on the owners 
 in any event, for land is of limited extent, and the 
 complex arrangements of civilised communities 
 prevent all from being cultivators, even where there 
 might be enough for all. But in no country have 
 the privileges of landowning been so determinedly 
 kept in the hands of a few thousand men as in Great 
 Britain and Ireland. In no country, therefore, have 
 the effects of this monopoly been so disastrous on the 
 life and habits of the community at large. I confess 
 to a heart-sinking amounting almost to despair of the 
 future of this country when I consider but the one 
 fact of the extent to which the working of this landlord 
 power has conjested the population into huge towns. 
 I go into the " slums " of London now and then, and 
 the sights I see fill me with horror. What a herd 
 of hungry pariahs we are rearing there, and in all 
 the large cities of the kingdom. What dreariness 
 fills the life of the toiling millions who are huddled 
 
208 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 together there, breeding diseases physical and moral. 
 Some day terrible developments may come of the un- 
 natural life lived in these most desolate, though over- 
 crowded regions of great towns, into which much of 
 the best blood of the country has been driven by the 
 operation of English feudal laws and the all-grasping 
 folly of English landowners. But we have not imme- 
 diately to do with that point. The question before us 
 is, How to deal with this gigantic land monopoly ? 
 " Set the land free," we say ; but how ? It will, I think, 
 be easily comprehended that perfect free trade in land 
 is an unattainable thing. You cannot transfer it like 
 corn, or tea and sugar. There must always be some 
 class in the community which will enjoy some of the 
 benefits of its possession more than others. It is a 
 natural monopoly whose working and effects no 
 amount of legislation, however well conceived, can 
 wholly neutralise. 
 
 That being so, it has always struck me that the 
 phrase, " Free-trade in land," is to some degree 
 misleading. In a modified sense alone could it be 
 true at best, and in a country where wealth is 
 concentrated in comparatively few hands it might be 
 most difficult to make it true to any important 
 extent. Hence the remedies most commonly proposed, 
 the plans devised for breaking down the existing 
 pernicious form of the monopoly, are all more or less 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 209 
 
 inadequate. What all land-law reformers want is the 
 return of the population to the tillage and ownership 
 of the soil in much larger numbers than now. "We 
 want to put it in the power of the farmer, or the 
 peasant, or the retired tradesman with agricultural 
 tastes and who is there who does not at times 
 dream that he has such \ to buy land in patches 
 which they could cultivate in perfect security. The 
 magical effects of property in land, of complete 
 security for capital expended, the sense of living on 
 one's own land, and labouring for one's own good un- 
 disturbed by vexatious landlords, perfectly free from 
 bondage, in short, would all experience proves 
 exercise a most wonderful influence on the produc- 
 tiveness of the soil. For the perfunctory tillage of a 
 slave would be exchanged the loving, watchful 
 husbandry of a freeman, and the change would do 
 more to liberate England from its social and economic 
 troubles than all the cunning tariffs that human 
 ingenuity could frame. 
 
 The means proposed, however, for effecting this 
 beneficial change are, as a rule, inadequate, clumsy, 
 and illogical. Most advocates of land- reform confine 
 themselves to urging the abolition of the law of 
 primogeniture and the prohibition of the custom of 
 entail, coupling therewith a simple and cheap system 
 of registry for land transfers. These proposed 
 
210 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 changes are most excellent as far as they go, but they 
 would not produce nearly all the effects desired. The 
 law of primogeniture is a most unrighteous one, but 
 unless the French law of compulsory subdivision of 
 real estate is introduced in its place, its mere abolition 
 would work but little good. The estates of intestates 
 alone would be affected by the change, and so long, 
 at all events, as political power is in the hands of the 
 present landed gentry, the social custom would be 
 sure to triumph over any merely negative law of 
 that kind. So too with the custom of entail. There 
 are motives enough now in existence to make a 
 law rendering it illegal to entail land non-effective 
 through evasions, were it a justifiable law on any 
 reasonable grounds. Behind the land monopoly lies 
 the monopoly of political power, and the great 
 families will fight bitterly to retain that power. The 
 true way to destroy both primogeniture and entail 
 as harmful customs, is to take it out of the power of 
 landowners to maintain with profit the one or the 
 other. Were the elaborate provisions for the out- 
 door relief of the pauperised younger sons of the 
 nobility and gentry which exist in the public ser- 
 vices including therein the Church to be swept 
 away, I believe the law and habit of primogeniture 
 could not be long maintained. The destruction of 
 the political supremacy of the landlords should, 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 211 
 
 on the other hand, exercise a potent influence in 
 checking entail. The most powerful motive for its 
 continuance would then be withdrawn, and its 
 evil effects might be further neutralised by putting 
 real estate on the same footing as personalty in 
 regard to claims for debt. If the rights of a mortgagee 
 could not be legally barred by an entail, or if the 
 heir to an encumbered estate possessed power to clear 
 off the encumbrances by selling part of his land, 
 all private deeds to the contrary, many properties 
 now steeped in debt would inevitably come to market 
 and be subdivided. Common justice demands such 
 a reform, and were it obtained the owners of land 
 might safely be left to frame entails or not as they 
 pleased. I believe it is not by any means an 
 exaggeration to say that were lands now saleable 
 in payment of debt in the same way as household 
 furniture, one-fourth of the estates in this country 
 might be flung on the market. The extent to which 
 " settlements/' the propensity for gambling on the 
 turf, at cards, in every form, and the prevalence of 
 extravagant social vices, have burdened the soil of 
 this country is so great that many seemingly wealthy 
 noblemen and squires are mere hard-up pensioners 
 in the hands of their creditors or trustees. A 
 notorious proof of this was recently furnished by the 
 Duke of Hamilton, and he is only an extreme 
 
 P 2 
 
212 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 example of a state of things which, prevails the land 
 throughout, in quarters, too, where few would suspect 
 it. Great noblemen who make great show in " society/' 
 are often among the most pitiable debt-ridden 
 creatures on the face of the earth. They hold the 
 land in bondage, and are themselves bound to it as 
 by fetters of iron. Therefore the power of such men 
 to destroy the fertility of the soil by loading it 
 with debt, by placing their tenants in slavery, not 
 to themselves, but to creditors and trustees for 
 creditors, ought imperatively to be taken away. No 
 entail should be allowed to interfere with the right 
 of a man's creditors to sell his goods, to " realise 
 his assets," in order to pay themselves, be these 
 assets what they may. 
 
 Such changes as these, however, imply a complete 
 upsetment of the basis on which our representative 
 government now rests. So long as the land gives 
 its nominal owners the power to govern the county, 
 so long as English constituencies are content to lick 
 the dust from the feet of squire or landlord who 
 condescends to " represent them in Parliament/' or to 
 order or bribe them to choose him, just so long will 
 the landowners cling, at all hazards and costs, in spite 
 of unspeakable miseries, to their privileges. 
 
 Substantial changes in the law of primogeniture 
 and strict limitations of the power to entail would 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 213 
 
 not in themselves, and in a country like this, do 
 a great deal to subdivide the ownership of land. 
 What one extravagant owner was forced to disgorge 
 his nearest wealthy neighbour, or a new man with 
 much money, would be sure to buy, and things would 
 go on much as before. Nor would the addition of 
 a cheap land registry in every county help matters to 
 a great degree.' The monopoly is too all-absorbing 
 in its influence on men's imaginations, the wealth 
 of the land too concentrated to make the competition 
 of small and poor men effective to the extent it 
 would require to be if the soil is to be really dis- 
 tributed. Nay more, we reason within a circle, 
 so long as the attention is confined to remedies like 
 these, we may say that true parliamentary reform 
 is impossible while the land remains, or is likely 
 to remain, in few hands. Not even equal electoral 
 districts, manhood suffrage, and paid membership 
 could free the counties from the dominance of the 
 few men with the power of life and death over mil- 
 lions in their hands. The form of corruption only 
 would be changed, its substance would remain. 
 
 Therefore it is that if we are to have genuine 
 relief for the nation, genuine liberty to till the soil 
 and to enjoy the fruits of the tillage, we ought 
 logically to be prepared to go much further. 
 The true course for the land reformer is, I think, 
 
214 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 suggested by the very fact that we have to deal 
 with a natural monopoly as well as by the history 
 of the origin of our land tenures. That history 
 proves that the present overweening power of the 
 small landowning class is the outcome of a fraud 
 on the nation a fraud and an usurpation. In 
 early times the soil belonged to the people or to 
 the crown, as in a crude and inefficient way the 
 representative of the people. Certain lords, barons, 
 knights, yeomen, and others enjoyed privileges under 
 the crown, or the one of the other, or "in common," 
 and for the good government of the common weal 
 each had his appointed duty ; but absolute owner- 
 ship of the land was enjoyed by none under the 
 king. Gradually, as every student of our history 
 knows, one class in the kingdom has drawn to itself 
 all the rights and privileges pertaining to the owner- 
 ship or usufruct of landed estate. The peculiarly 
 narrow and cramped basis on which our representa- 
 tive system was framed enabled that class to do this 
 almost with impunity. It inclosed common lands in 
 defiance of the rights of the yeomen and peasantry. 
 It took advantage of feebleness in the monarch to 
 draw to itself rights and privileges vested in the crown 
 such as the power to tax land or the rights to 
 " royalties " on all minerals found under the land 
 and gradually concentrated upon itself and its 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 215 
 
 position a kind of halo of sacredness in the possessions 
 thus filched from the people. The blessings of a too 
 mercenary church, alike with the subserviency of a 
 corrupt legal body, were enlisted on the side of the 
 few who held political influence, and in the result we 
 see to-day a few thousand men nominally owning 
 England, and holding its millions under their heel. 
 A sadder, more woe-laden sight the civilized world 
 has not to show. 
 
 Surely the first step in any thorough land reform 
 should be for the " crown," the nation, in some way 
 to resume a portion of its rights. The first fruit of 
 the natural monopoly in the land a monopoly whose 
 value is determined not only by the political privileges 
 it conveys, but by the fact that cultivated land yields 
 rent ought to belong to the people at large. There- 
 fore the proper way in which to initiate that kind of 
 land reform which is essential to the well-being of the 
 community ought surely to lie in the appropriation of 
 part of the rent for the good of the state. Amongst 
 other overreachings perpetrated by the ruling class 
 on the nation is that of evasion of the burdens of 
 taxation. It is a class which has not scrupled to 
 lay all manner of burdens on the common people, 
 including the charges for our unwieldy debt, con- 
 tracted in waging many unjust and abominable wars 
 against other nations with whom we had no business 
 
216 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 to interfere, and against the cause of freedom ; but it 
 has shirked its fair share of those burdens. Political 
 economists and statists are often severely exercised 
 to determine the incidence of our clumsy system of 
 taxation, and waste much energy in the bootless dispute. 
 Whether the peasant who smokes his ounce of tobacco 
 per week, paying 2^d. to the Government therefor, 
 and %d. to the tobacco manufacturer, pays more 
 than the gentleman who puffs or gives away a pound 
 of costly cigars in the same time, each contribute to 
 the state dues in proportion to their means, is indeed 
 a most recondite question in the eyes of some, and 
 there is much solemn head-wagging over it. In like 
 manner the problem whether poor, education, or 
 other rates are borne by the occupier or the owner 
 in towns, or by the farmer or landlord in the 
 country, is a very knotty one. You can say much 
 on both sides, and it is always open to a vigorous 
 debater to floor his opponent by flinging at his head 
 Bicardo's famous " theory of rent." How that theory, 
 true, concise, and excellent though it be, applies to 
 the ground landlord in London, who lets the plots 
 to speculative builders for eighty or ninety years, at a 
 fixed rental, it might trouble the rigorous controver- 
 sialist to say, but the truth of the matter is, that all 
 these discussions are, to a great extent, empty vanities, 
 of no practical moment. They could never have had 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 217 
 
 any existence if the true principle had been all along 
 adopted of putting the taxes directly on the rent- 
 rent being the first gauge of the value of the mono- 
 poly. The landlords have avoided this ; everything 
 that can possibly be made to do so falls on the occu- 
 pier, who, if he be a leaseholder, may find his taxation 
 burdens steadily growing, without a corresponding- 
 mitigation of rent, and if a tenant-at-will is yet in 
 practically the same position by reason of the diffi- 
 culty of moving to new localities, should the landlord, 
 as is likely, take no account of the higher taxation. 
 Owing to the burdens being thus for the most part 
 laid on at the wrong end of the scale, the landlords 
 have always the advantage, and there can be no 
 practical doubt that the poor as well as the dependent 
 middle classes have in consequence been most cruelly 
 mulcted. Among all the lower classes in town and 
 country, taxation often seriously pares down the 
 means of subsistence. 
 
 Plain justice, therefore, as well as sound economic 
 precept, demands that the nation should retrace its 
 steps and begin at the right end. I see, speaking 
 theoretically, no reason at all why the system which 
 we have applied throughout the North- West Provinces 
 of India and the Punjaub should not work well at 
 home. State rent, subject to periodical revision 
 every thirty years, ought to be levied on the land- 
 
218 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 owner, leaving him to recoup himself out of his 
 tenants if he could, or to give place to those tenants 
 if he could not. In other words, the state ought to 
 claim a fixed portion of the rent of the soil from the 
 present recipients thereof, and in time will probably 
 be driven to do so should these owners remain. As 
 has been already pointed out, such a tax exists now, 
 but it is on a valuation nigh two centuries old, and is 
 merely a monument of the policy of the landowners 
 towards the people. It is, besides, in many instances 
 redeemed. A new tax ought, therefore, to be imposed, 
 and we should then see practically whether the 
 landowner has been beariDg his fair share of the 
 national burden or not. Were we to put a tax of 
 5s. per acre on all arable land bearing 205. an acre 
 rental now, of 105. on all bearing 305. rental, and of 
 155. on all bearing 405. rental, were we to tax game 
 preserves inclosed out of cultivable land at 5l. per 
 acre, and all private parks of more than fifty acres at 
 the average rate of the neighbouring arable land, more 
 would be done to make practicable that free trade in 
 land which Mr. Bright, the late Mr. Kay, and others 
 advocate, than any amount of patching, remedial, or 
 preventive legislation could do. Encumbered estates 
 would then perforce be disentailed and brought to 
 market, and the presence of the land tax in measure 
 commensurate with the nation's necessities would 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 219 
 
 effectually prevent the wealthy from seeking to 
 monopolise the soil. It would fall into the hands of 
 men who would devote themselves to its tillage, and 
 by whom alone its fertility could be increased and 
 the tillage made profitable. No fact is more 
 thoroughly established than the fact that small pro- 
 prietors make most out of the land. The peasant 
 proprietors of France, Belgium, and Switzerland, of 
 Germany and of our own Channel Islands, are 
 amongst the most diligent, the most contented, the 
 most thrifty and peace-loving, and, withal, the most 
 conservative people on the face of the earth. Where- 
 ever you find extreme poverty, sloth, drunkenness, rural 
 misery and degradation of all kinds, there you find 
 also enormous estates in land held by men who enjoy 
 commensurate privileges and immunities. Than this 
 no truth is more firmly established, and that it should 
 be so is the strongest possible condemnation of the 
 present degrading, antiquated, and brutalising land 
 system of England. 
 
 Hence, paradoxical as it appears, one may say 
 that the true remedy to begin with the true way 
 to secure free trade in land is to appropriate part of 
 the rent of it for the good of the state. This appro- 
 priation would have many advantages, besides that of 
 insuring the distribution of the land among small 
 holders, in whose hands it would rapidly increase in 
 
220 EECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 value and productiveness. It would enable us, for one 
 thing, to deal with the drink difficulty more effectually 
 than it ever can be dealt with while the government 
 of the country, now so expensive, has to be carried on 
 by means of indirect taxation ; it would enable us to 
 further remove restrictions upon our trade intercourse 
 with foreign nations by the remission or reduction 
 of tobacco, tea, wine, and other duties, and for the 
 collection of which, moreover, a most expensive 
 customs service has to be maintained. I believe 
 that 40,000,000?. to 50,000,OOOZ. a year might easily 
 be raised from the re-diversion of part of the ground 
 rent to the state, whose it is by right, and that 
 through reduction in the Customs and Excise services, 
 easily made after our fiscal laws had been reformed, 
 the expenditure of the country might be brought 
 down to within 10,000,000/. of the higher of these 
 two sums, to the unspeakable relief of the people. 
 More than that, this great reform would at once tend 
 to reduce pauperism, by giving scope for the settle- 
 ment of the people on the land as owners of their 
 holdings under the Crown, and ought thus to pave the 
 way for the total abolition of the poor-law a law of 
 most iniquitous origin, and probably the most barbaric 
 and debasing in its influence of any ever promulgated 
 in a nominally Christian land. 
 
 In order that the soil might the , more rapidly pass 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 221 
 
 into the hands of the cultivators and peasants now 
 sorely impoverished, it would probably be necessary to 
 give them the right of pre-emption, to establish land 
 mortgage banks, somewhat after the model of those 
 in Eussia and Prussia. These, however, should be 
 joint-stock enterprises, subject to state regulation and 
 supervision in certain directions only. In Prussia 
 the system pursued under the land law of 1851 was 
 such as to enable the peasants to buy up the pro- 
 prietors' rights by the payment of annuities. The 
 land-bank paid the price fixed upon to the feudal 
 lords, and gave the peasant immediate possession, 
 he in turn recouping the bank by payments extend- 
 ing over twenty or thirty years, as agreed upon. 
 This system has worked well in Prussia, and would 
 no doubt work here quite as well. Private enter- 
 prise would supply the banks, and if the Government 
 fixed the rate of interest, the terms of the advances, 
 the nature of the mortgage to be given to the banks, 
 with some minor points of administration, nothing 
 else would be required. 
 
 It may be said that if the state began by taking 
 the rent, or a part of it, to itself, there would be little 
 necessity to establish banks to find the purchase- 
 money for poor tenants. Landlords would be dis- 
 posed to abandon their land to the first comer who 
 cared to take it and its burden off their hands. But 
 
222 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 that would by no means be the result. Although 
 the fact that a heavy rent was put upon the soil 
 by the state would instantly drive all encumbered 
 and probably many overgrown estates into the mar- 
 ket, the experience of other countries leads us to 
 expect good prices for them. In France forty years' 
 purchase is often paid for small bits of soil, and in this 
 country, with the machinery here sketched in force, 
 thirty to thirty-five years 7 purchase would probably 
 be easily obtained from the tenants, including the 
 capitalised value of the state rent. Putting that 
 as equivalent to, say, from ten to fifteen years' pur- 
 chase, the sellers would still get about twenty years' 
 purchase in cash for their lands. That certainly 
 would not be confiscation, and this is probably a 
 moderate estimate. Once secure the freedom of the 
 land from feudal domination and put it in the way of 
 farmers, peasants, and small moneyed men to possess 
 each his own patch or farm, and competition would 
 drive prices up. It has done so in Ireland, and 
 would be likely to do so here, notwithstanding the 
 fact that our peasantry is so reduced and poor. 
 
 This then is the first and most important step 
 in any radical transformation of the ownership of 
 the soil. If the land reformers of the country could 
 carry it into effect they would have done a great 
 deed in aid of the redemption of the nation. Of 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 223 
 
 course any hint at such a proposal is always met 
 by a fierce outcry about confiscation, " vested inte- 
 rests," and so forth ; but such a cry bears very little 
 honest examination. In the first place, it is surely 
 time for the landlords to make some sacrifice for the 
 nation's good. The nation has long enough laid 
 its life-blood and its first fruits humbly at their 
 feet. There is no scruple made when Government 
 extravagance or the exigencies of petty wars and 
 bantam-cock struttings all over the world cause 
 additions to the people's burdens, to increase the 
 income-tax, or the duties on articles of consumption. 
 Yet these demands are as much acts of confiscation 
 on the poor as an appropriation of part of the 
 inordinate land rent would be on the rich. If I 
 pay Wl. a year income tax now as compared with 
 5l. three years ago, my income remaining the same, 
 is not the extra 51. "confiscation" within the land- 
 owner's meaning of the word ? All taxation, if it 
 come to that, is confiscation, and the only question 
 is, Who ought to have most of it ? Which class is 
 best able to bear it, and by its position in the country 
 has the most right to submit for the good of the 
 state ? Surely the landowners. Why should capital 
 invested in land be more sacred in the eyes of the 
 Government than any other kind of capital, or than 
 the wages of honest labour ? There is no reason for it 
 
224 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 except in the union of those who own the land 
 and the disorganised, ignorant indifference of the 
 multitude. The " confiscation " cry can however be 
 met on other grounds, viz. t that it really would, 
 on the landlords' own interpretation of the word, 
 apply to but few of their number. The great 
 majority of the owners of land in this country have 
 spent comparatively little capital on their posses- 
 sions, either in purchase or improvement. Some 
 amongst them now enjoy, or ought, if they or their 
 ancestors had been thrifty, to enjoy, incomes pro- 
 bably twice as large as the original capital value 
 of their estates. Those amongst them who have 
 executed improvements have, in a majority of cases, 
 done so chiefly or wholly at the tenants' expense 
 or by state aid, and the movement in their rents 
 has, as a rule, been the outcome of the tenants' 
 labours and self-denial, not theirs. In many other 
 cases that movement is due to causes which are 
 just as much outside either merit or effort on the 
 part of the landowners, such as the extension of 
 towns over agricultural land, the opening of rail- 
 ways, by selling strips of land to whom many a 
 landowner has recouped himself almost, if not alto- 
 gether, the price of his estate, and the rise in prices 
 due to the prodigious increase in population and 
 wealth. All such causes offer strong justification 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 225 
 
 for, not reason against, the reassertion of the rights 
 of the nation to a share in the direct benefit arising 
 from a natural monopoly which, in strict fairness of 
 principle, as well as legally, belongs to it, and of 
 which it has been defrauded. 
 
 The plea of public necessity, however, overrides 
 all others, and it is by no means improbable that 
 if the landowners of England do not give way here, 
 the present artificially degraded position of the 
 masses of the people will before so very long threaten 
 country and landlords alike with ruin. Adversity 
 is a sharp school, and adversity may carry the neg- 
 lected, ignorant, inarticulate, and hungry masses of 
 this country farther than men dream of one of 
 these days, if the landowners do not step down from 
 their Olympian exclusiveness and be as other men 
 are. Indubitably they do not now bear anything like 
 their fair share of the burdens of the country even 
 as ordinary taxpayers. While such owners of real 
 estate as railway companies, owners and also occu- 
 piers, find their mere local assessments year by year 
 creeping up and affording some measure of the 
 growth of public burdens on the people, the land- 
 owners' mansions and grounds stand where they did 
 perhaps more than half a century ago. Mr. Inglis 
 Palgrave whose monograph on local taxation is full 
 of interesting facts and painstaking labour, has 
 
 Q 
 
226 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 moreover proved that the burdens of local assessments 
 are increasing in ratio on the occupier and decreasing 
 on the owner. In towns this cannot but be so under 
 our present system, and. the very fact that it is so is 
 " grinding the faces of the poor " to an extent that 
 becomes yearly more fearsome to contemplate. The 
 proportion borne by the mere tenant is not only grow- 
 ing heavier, but the gross amount levied has been 
 steadily mounting up by the increase of expensive 
 habits, of debt charges, and of new channels of ex- 
 penditure. All the while the land goes untouched, 
 or nearly so. Not even the great endowments founded 
 on it are liberated for the benefit of the community 
 at large. An extremely limited class enjoys the 
 rent it yields, the unearned increment of that rent, 
 and the whole of the social, political, and material 
 advantages which spring therefrom. Assuredly 
 whatever may be the solution of the difficult land 
 problem which this ill-assorted state of affairs has 
 originated, this monstrous unfairness cannot last 
 so very much longer. 
 
 There is an alternative " first step " in the emanci- 
 pation of the soil, which is the favourite remedy with 
 my friend Mr. Barclay, and, failing the tax, it is the 
 one that will probably be adopted by radical re- 
 formers. Already, indeed, the farmers are beginning 
 to whisper about it among themselves in fear and 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 227 
 
 trembling as yet, but with ever-waxing courage. 
 That remedy is fixity of tenure, and it is far more 
 adapted to commend itself to the farmers than the 
 remedy of a heavy land-tax or rent-sharing policy, 
 which is more likely to find favour among the 
 crowded over-taxed masses in the towns. This 
 fixity of tenure means that every landholder, at the 
 date of the passing of the law, should at once become 
 possessed of perpetual rights in his holding, subject 
 only to the payment of a fixed rent to the landlord. 
 At one blow, in short, the landlord would be divorced 
 from the soil except as a perpetual mortgagee. The 
 tenant of whatever class, whether leaseholder or 
 tenant-at-will, would become absolutely possessed of 
 all power over the land to crop it as he pleased, to 
 plant trees or cut down trees as he pleased, to kill 
 game or preserve it as he pleased, and to sell or 
 sub-let. So long as the rent fixed upon by agreement 
 or valuation was paid by the occupier it would be no 
 business of the holder of the mortgage who that 
 occupier might be. He would have lost absolutely 
 all power over hirn and over the land he held. This 
 short and summary remedy would at once do away 
 with the necessity for elaborate provisions about 
 "compensation for improvements," with the law of 
 distress, and with all other marks of a miserable 
 feudal bondage, and would effectually prevent the 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 landowner from insidiously exerting his power to 
 compel tenants to contract themselves out of the 
 protection of such laws as there are a course now too 
 frequently pursued with a contempt for law and order 
 worthy of the great Conservative party. Many land- 
 lords, for example, try to protect themselves against 
 possible changes in the game laws by stipulations in 
 their leases, providing that all such changes shall be 
 null and void as between them and their tenants. 
 
 Game laws and everything else of the nature of a 
 clog would at once disappear under a perpetual- 
 tenure law, which would convert the present owners 
 into mere rent-receivers or mortgagees. Nor could 
 the landowners urge that such an alteration would 
 mean confiscation, for they at present do nothing for 
 the land in the vast majority of instances except at 
 the occupier's expense. Practically, too, such a law 
 would probably lead to greater subdivision of hold- 
 ings than now prevails, the so-called " high farming " 
 being excessively costly, and on the whole not the 
 farming calculated in the long run to make the most 
 of the soil, except under extremely favourable con- 
 ditions. The careful, patient husbandry of the small 
 occupier who labours on his land is the kind of hus- 
 bandry which makes the earth yield her best increase. 
 
 The only solid objection, indeed, that can be urged 
 against this proposal is that it creates a class of 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 229 
 
 people who, without having any defined place in 
 the State, will continue for all time to enjoy incomes 
 which should in great part go to relieve the burdens 
 of the community. The peers and other landowners 
 would, in short, be summarily divorced from the soil 
 and still continue to enjoy its firstfruits. TKey would 
 also, I suspect, continue to enjoy a preponderance of 
 political influence little calculated to conduce to the 
 public tranquillity or to good government. So 'many 
 difficult social problems are accumulating for solution, 
 such enormous changes are likely to be brought about 
 by the steady pressure of misery, debt, and current 
 public charges on the people, as well as by the spread 
 of education, that there might be much danger in 
 shutting one class off by itself in the way Mr. Barclay 
 proposes. To that class a real injustice might be done 
 in condemning it to a more objectless life than it 
 now leads. The nation might also suffer. What, 
 for instance, would Mr. Barclay do with the here- 
 ditary privileges of the House of Lords ? These could 
 not be permitted to remain unaltered after all inter- 
 est in specially class legislation had been taken away 
 from the lords themselves. Yet were the House 
 of Lords abolished as a self- existing body, the 
 .real difficulty would be but one degree lessened. 
 The lords and those commons who owned large 
 fixed rents from land would still constitute the 
 
230 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 most eligible class from which to draw parliamentary 
 representatives, unless the conditions of represen- 
 tation were so changed that they would not care 
 for the office. If they were also shut off from this 
 occupation, their position would be indeed pitiable. 
 Not even " sport " would be left to them, unless 
 horse-racing were considered sport. Their isolation 
 might thus cause the upspringing of political 
 dangers and social corruptions innumerable. As 
 it is, the landlord class lives under many grave 
 moral disadvantages. Looking at him as he stands 
 apart from the toiling crowd, it has always been 
 a marvel to me, not that the British aristocrat 
 should be often corrupt and debased, a poor trifier 
 or idealess Sybarite, but that he should still have here 
 and there something of the true noble about him. 
 With all his faults, our aristocrat sometimes has a 
 high nobility in him, and a few of his order adorn 
 and stimulate the race by their self-denying man- 
 hood. There is a well-defined aspect in which we 
 can look upon them all as the victims of social and 
 political tyranny, not the tyrants, and marvel that 
 they so often surmount their fate. 
 
 And if morally such men suffer much injury 
 now, what would they not suffer under Mr. Barclay's 
 law ? Considerations like these may have little 
 practical influence on the changes that are impending, 
 
vi.] RADICAL CURES FOR THE EVILS OF FEUDALISM. 231 
 
 but they warn us not to legislate hastily for the 
 benefit of one class as against another class, how- 
 ever highly privileged. The nation itself is pitted 
 against a small class, and no doubt sooner or later 
 that class will have to give way for the sake of the 
 common weal. The very influences which have for 
 generations past made this class so supreme, which 
 have lately caused it to blossom into splendour never 
 before equalled, are helping to prepare the way for 
 a new order of life. On the wisdom and prudence 
 shown by our aristocracy and by the people in facing 
 the changes at hand will depend the future of 
 England. The one thing to be remembered just 
 now is that the farmers alone are no more the nation 
 than the landlords before whom they cringe. Behind 
 both there is a great multitude whose rights, wants, 
 and just aspirations cannot be forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 
 
 THE previous chapter has. presented the reader with 
 what may be described as a simple, thorough, and 
 lasting remedy for the present agrarian anomalies of 
 England. Whether a forced subdivision of the soil 
 were brought about by a re- adjustment of taxation, 
 or by the creation of an inalienable tenant-right, a 
 complete revolution in the land customs and laws of 
 England would at once take place. Unhappily, the 
 speedy adoption of simple and effective remedies is as 
 yet by no means easy or probable. Judged by the 
 experience of the past, all great changes in the bases 
 of political power and in social laws can be effected in 
 this country only in a gradual, illogical and clumsy 
 fashion. As has been more than once said, the ideal 
 cure for landlordism, with its accompanying economic 
 drawbacks and social miseries, would probably re- 
 quire as preliminary to its adoption an entire revolu- 
 tion in our representative system, and that cannot be 
 hoped for at any assignable date unless the country, 
 
CH. vii.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 233 
 
 which Heaven forbid, be first caught in the throes of 
 a destructive revolution. There are not the necessary 
 intelligent forces as yet developed in the country to 
 effect it. Our social life is too complex, our people 
 too loosely bound together in moral or political sym- 
 pathies ; there is too much class dominance, ignorant 
 prejudice, and snobbish toadyism bred in the bone to 
 make reform easy. We have therefore to consider 
 how far it may be possible to go in the direction of 
 true reform with the means at command. Will it be 
 possible to do anything, however clumsily, by the aid 
 of existing parliamentary institutions, or must we go 
 on and face an outburst of social commotion ? 
 
 My impression is that the answer to these questions 
 will depend on circumstances. Those parliamentary 
 institutions of ours will not, of their own motion, help 
 the people in the very least, but they may be impelled 
 to do much if national calamities frighten the law- 
 makers. What real step towards reform may be 
 taken will be due to the solidarity with which the 
 people are driven, by force of circumstances, to unite 
 to demand reform. So long as the towns are supine 
 through ignorance, cheap food, or comparatively 
 easy circumstances, there will be no true land reform 
 at all, for the landowners will drive or cajole the 
 farmers to take refuge in measures calculated in their 
 imaginations to do good to the landlords alone. But 
 
234 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 should the towns be impelled by their miseries to 
 seek relief, there may be a certain forward impulse 
 given to the reluctant legislature. Bad harvests, 
 with the accompaniment of ruined tenants and empty 
 farms, may thus do much good. 
 
 To carry the ideal reforms ultimately, there could, 
 however, be no better help than a step or two back- 
 ward. The return to protection all round would 
 probably act like magic in rousing the masses to 
 make a clean sweep of all barbaric laws relating to 
 land and drink and the poor. Perhaps the landowners 
 and manufacturers may, after all, be too shrewd to 
 risk danger in this way. Their present vapourings 
 may die away when practical effect has to be given to 
 their selfish policy. One dare not predict. But 
 practical English reformers must calculate on the pru- 
 dence of the ruling classes when the crisis comes, for 
 it has never long deserted them in the past, and has 
 been the means of conserving their position time and 
 again at critical periods in our history. To the prac- 
 tical workaday world reformer the question of the land 
 laws therefore presents itself in a somewhat different 
 shape than to the idealist. He has to ask not what 
 ought to be done, but what can be done in existing 
 circumstances, and with the actual tools to hand. He 
 may not see his way to get anything like what is 
 wanted, but must be content to proceed step by step. 
 
vii.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 235 
 
 Herein lies the value of the proposals of such men 
 as the late Mr. Kay and other advocates of free trade 
 in land. They do not afford the true and abiding 
 remedy, and certainly do not secure " free trade " in 
 land ; but they present something that seems prac- 
 ticable to the compromise-loving, vested-interest- 
 worshipping English mind. And already we find the 
 more enlightened amongst the landowning class seiz- 
 ing on some of these proposals as indicating for them 
 a way of salvation. Thus Lord Airlie, in the valu- 
 able essay already quoted, puts down among the 
 reforms which he is willing to see carried out the 
 abolition of the laws of hypothec and distraint, and 
 the partial, if not complete, abolition of the custom 
 of entail. He would also provide for the better regis- 
 tration of landed property so as to facilitate its sale, 
 although he does not think that such a change would 
 lead to the subdivision of the land among a multi- 
 tude of small owners. His reason for so thinking is 
 not based on lack of men able to buy, but on economic 
 grounds; for the man who rents land, he declares, 
 makes more money out of the land than the man who 
 owns. It is not my business to dispute this point 
 with him, nor does it need disputing, for all experi- 
 ence in countries where the soil is owned by small 
 proprietors is dead against his conclusion. What 
 concerns me is the light which such, on the whole, 
 
236 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 liberal views as these throw on the land reformer's 
 path. If he works along the lines thus indicated he 
 will work on the lines of least resistance, and gain 
 something of his object. This view is strongly con- 
 firmed by the observations of Lord Hartington in the 
 debate on Mr. Chaplin's motion for the appointment 
 of a Commission on agriculture. The speech which 
 the leader of the Opposition then delivered has at- 
 tracted far less attention than it deserved. The 
 concluding portion of it in particular is so striking 
 that I cannot refrain from quoting it : 
 
 " And now let us see," he says, " what the system 
 is which is advocated by hon. gentlemen on the other 
 side of the House. It is not one ordained by any 
 natural law, nor is it one which exists, so far as I 
 know, in any other country in the world. It is a 
 system which exists where the land is divided into 
 large estates, and where the proprietors, though 
 wealthy men, are often not complete masters of their 
 own property, and not able to deal with it as they 
 may desire. It is a system under which the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil is carried on by a class of men who 
 are not the owners of the soil, and not the actual 
 cultivators of the soil ; and under which the actual 
 cultivators of the soil are never and can never hope to 
 become its owners. It is a system under which the 
 land is cultivated by men who have this one claim 
 upon it that in case of old age or absolute desti- 
 tution they should be supported without expense and 
 
vii.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 237 
 
 almost without labour on the land. Such is the land 
 system of this country, and, as I have said, it is one 
 which prevails in no other country in the world. 
 But I may be asked Why call attention to the fact ? 
 My answer is that it is you who do so, who ask for 
 a Koyal Commission to inquire into the condition 
 of agriculture under this system, and who are hinting 
 at what is, in my opinion, the wildest and most 
 radical and revolutionary remedy which could be 
 proposed for the depression of which you complain 
 a tax on the food of the entire people. I 
 am not saying that this is a system which it is 
 necessary to abolish. I am not contending that it 
 is not a system which may be best suited to the 
 circumstances of the country, but I do say that it is a 
 system which is remarkable, and one which in its 
 results has been so impeached to-night by hon. 
 gentlemen opposite as to be deserving of investigation. 
 I believe that this system is overlaid by conditions, 
 and that there are blots which are not intentional in 
 the system, which are capable of being amended, and 
 which ought to be amended if this system is to be 
 continued with advantage to the community. I 
 cannot at this hour of the night go into the details 
 which have been ably presented to the House, but I' 
 will make one or two observations. I believe that 
 one of these blots one at all events which deserves 
 the most careful and the fullest inquiry is our 
 system of entail and settlement of land. I 
 hope that in saying that I shall not be regarded 
 as saying anything very radical, even by hon. gentle- 
 men opposite. I think they, who have a practical 
 
238 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 knowledge of these things, would be the first to admit 
 that there are duties which ought to be discharged 
 by the owner of a large estate. But what if the 
 owner of a large estate has not even the inclination 
 to discharge those duties ? Is it to the advantage of 
 the land, is it to the advantage of himself, of his 
 tenants, of the labourers on his estate, of the whole 
 community that that man should by any artificial 
 system be forced to remain in a position which he 
 does not desire to occupy in consequence of conditions 
 which were imposed 50, 60, or 100 years ago, and 
 of which he cannot get rid ? I omit altogether the 
 consideration of the Act of Parliament which enables 
 limited owners to charge their estates with the cost 
 of the improvement of estates. I doubt very much 
 whether any palliative of this kind can altogether 
 override the effect of that system, which gives 
 only a limited and life estate to a man. At all 
 events, I have very strong authority for saying 
 that up to a very short time ago this Act had 
 produced very small results. Not long ago a 
 committee of the House of Lords, which was 
 presided over by Lord Salisbury, and composed 
 mainly of large landed proprietors, reported on this 
 very subject, and they stated that only a very small 
 fraction of persons interested in land had availed 
 themselves of the provisions of the Act. I think I 
 heard the member for North Norfolk say to-night that 
 the conclusions of that Committee are altogether 
 worthless. I can only wonder that such an expres- 
 sion should have been used with reference to a 
 Committee of the House of Lords presided over by 
 
vii.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 239 
 
 so eminent a statesman and so large a landowner 
 as Lord Salisbury. Well, something was said about 
 the question of small proprietors. I hope I am not 
 going to be too radical on this subject. At all events 
 I have the support of the noble lord who has just 
 spoken. The noble lord has expressed as strong a 
 wish as could be expressed by any one that the 
 number of small proprietors should be increased. I 
 do not venture to express any confident opinion 
 whether under our social system arrangements it ever 
 would be possible by any legitimate means to create 
 a large class of small proprietors. It seems not wise 
 to maintain, if you could avoid doing so, a system 
 of law which makes the transfer of land so difficult 
 and so expensive to small proprietors. That, surely, 
 is a fair subject of inquiry. I wish to say one word 
 as to the question of tenants' improvements. Free- 
 dom of contract is made the battle-cry, and I am 
 disposed to agree with it. I have always been dis- 
 posed to look with suspicion on compulsory tenant 
 right from which ever side it may come. I ventured 
 to express this view on the Agricultural Holdings 
 Bill, and I was anxious that the parties should be 
 free to make their own arrangements. Something 
 has been said about the law of distress in England 
 and the corresponding law in Scotland. I will not 
 go into this question at length, but there again is a 
 subject which seems well worthy of inquiry. The 
 law of distress is a question of the ordinary law of 
 debtor and creditor. It is contended, with a con- 
 siderable show of reason, that this law acts detri- 
 mentally not only to the landlords and tenants, but 
 
240 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 also to every one else who is concerned. I do not 
 wish needlessly to protract this debate, but I do not 
 think there will be any difference on either side that 
 at such an inquiry as is proposed questions of local 
 taxation should be discussed. That is a question 
 which we all recognise most deeply concerns the agri- 
 cultural interest. I see no just claims for the 
 exemption of the land from burdens which have 
 been acquired or inherited. I say in the case of 
 new burdens there is a case for inquiry ; and, 
 speaking for myself, I am perfectly willing to hear 
 what the tenants or landlords have to urge. All 
 these subjects are included in, or are not excluded 
 by, the motion of my hon. friend, the member for 
 Mid-Lincolnshire ; but at the same time I am able 
 to see the advantage that is likely to be gained by 
 the House acceding to the motion which has been 
 made, inasmuch as the matter for inquiry must range 
 over a great variety of subjects, and there is a great 
 difference between the powers given to a Parlia- 
 mentary Committee and the scope of those which 
 are intrusted to a Koyal Commission. We ought, 
 therefore, before agreeing to the appointment of a 
 Royal Commission, to understand clearly the nature 
 of the questions which are to be referred, and I hope 
 some explanation on the point will be given by Her 
 Majesty's Government. We on this side of the 
 House greet with the greatest satisfaction the pro- 
 spect of a full and impartial inquiry into all the 
 causes which affect the agricultural depression, which 
 we, in common with the whole country, so deeply 
 deplore." Times report. 
 
vii.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 241 
 
 If the reader will bear in mind that these words 
 were uttered by the heir of one of the most princely 
 houses in England, their significance will seem in- 
 capable of over-estimation. The germs of almost all 
 that has been asked for in the previous chapter are to 
 be found in this speech, and it lays down the lines 
 on which land reformers may work with luminous 
 precision. 
 
 Lord Hartington appears to be at one with the 
 advocates of so-called free trade in land in advising 
 the prohibition or modification of entails. He would 
 render the transfer of land cheap and easy, instead 
 of costly and liable to be tainted by frauds, and 
 he hints at hostility to the existing law of distress. 
 Not content with that, Lord Hartington is bold 
 enough to say that the land might well be made to 
 bear directly a fuller share of the burden of public 
 taxation. True, he ignores the game laws, and is 
 strong on " freedom of contract " ; but, heir as he is 
 to a great English dukedom, it must be admitted 
 that he is prepared to grant a great deal that would 
 ameliorate the position of the landholder. His words 
 prove to us that some reform may be possible without 
 revolution that the warning uttered by Mr. Bright 
 in the stately, impassioned speech delivered by him 
 on the same evening has not been without its effect. 
 Speaking on the startling fact much dwelt on in 
 
 Ji 
 
242 RECIPKOCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 these pages that a few thousand persons own the 
 land of England, he burst forth : 
 
 . " The Commission will have to inquire I tell the 
 lion, gentleman opposite that he has opened the door, 
 and it cannot now be closed the Commission will 
 have to inquire whence comes this gigantic monopoly 
 how comes it that the great bulk of the popu- 
 lation are thus divorced from the soil of their 
 native land ? They will ask how it is that there are 
 these great farms, requiring great capital, which are 
 now most disastrously affected by the distress which 
 so unfortunately prevails. They will ask and hon. 
 gentlemen opposite should put this question to them- 
 selves in all seriousness how is it that your tenants, 
 as you say, almost universally, but I hope not uni- 
 versally, but locally and partially, are coming to you, 
 owing you twelve months' or six months' rent, and 
 asking you to take 1 5s. in the pound of the debt they 
 owe you ? When these people are in debt to other 
 persons than landowners say to their saddlers, their 
 farriers, to the dealer from whom they buy manures 
 or the utensils used in farming they would not dare 
 to go to them and ask them to accept 1 5s. in the 
 pound in satisfaction of their debts. That would 
 bring them into liquidation or bankruptcy. But such 
 is their position, with regard to the landowners, that 
 they ask you to take 156'. in the pound as that which 
 they owe you. And many of you some because 
 you cannot help it, but a great number, I have no 
 doubt, from sympathy and generosity and kindness 
 

 
 vii.] KEMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE; 243 
 
 make these concessions to your tenants. But 
 I confess there is to me something terrible in the 
 idea that hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers 
 throughout Great Britain many of them, if you see 
 them, as much gentlemen as the landowners them- 
 selves ; they live in good houses, they keep hunters, 
 and they educate their children as well as their 
 means permit should be so humiliated for that 
 is what they would call it in Lancashire as to 
 ask somebody to whom they owe 10 Ol as a just 
 and lawful debt to take 75/. instead of the WOl. 
 That is the state of things in this great, paramount 
 interest which you represent ; and somehow you 
 are blind. You don't open your eyes to the fact ; 
 so usual with you is this extraordinary thing, you 
 don't appear to regard it as anything of any great 
 consequence when it periodically happens just for a 
 
 time Let the Commission inquire, if it can, 
 
 how it comes that the landowners of this country and 
 the farmers are looking, not only with alarm, but 
 with terror, to the trade in corn and in cattle which 
 have to be brought from a distance of 3,000 or 4,000 
 miles across the Atlantic. That is a question which 
 they may fairly examine." 
 
 Well, Lord Hartington at all events professes him- 
 self willing to investigate the problem with a view to 
 amendment, and it is a good augury. The people 
 have but to nerve themselves and stick to their 
 demands for the liberation of the land, and in some 
 form they will be obeyed. Complete reform may 
 
 R 2 
 
244 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 not be possible. At first only a clumsy, disjointed, 
 hardly workable kind of reform may be granted or 
 hoped for. But work well begun is half done, they 
 say, and the momentum of a crowded and needy 
 population is sure to hurry the country forward 
 faster and faster in the required direction. We 
 shall pass from carefully-guarded concessions, yielded 
 as sops to popular necessities, to the fully-acknow- 
 ledged rights of the people to share in the wealth 
 of the soil, and ultimately, I trust, reach that best 
 ideal of landownership which is embodied in its 
 distribution among a multitude of free cultivators 
 forced only to contribute out of the firstfruits of 
 their monopoly to the demands of the common- 
 wealth. 
 
 On this practical side of the subject little more 
 need be said. The course to be followed is, in the 
 main, to take the landlords' concessions and press 
 them home. This course may be roundabout and 
 clumsy, but it promises, I think, to lead to success by a 
 more sure and peaceable way than any other if only 
 there be time ! A few more seasons like the present 
 would hurry us into revolution. We may hope for 
 a better fate ; and trusting that time for reform, in 
 the slow, illogical, English way, will be given, it will 
 now be well to indicate briefly what the principal 
 points in any land-law reform worthy the name 
 
vii.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 245 
 
 must be. On the most moderate view of the neces- 
 sities of the people, the land reformer must demand at 
 least these following concessions and emancipations : 
 
 I. Modification of the custom of entail, so as to 
 permit encumbered owners to sell for their own relief, 
 or bankrupt owners to be sold up for their creditors' 
 satisfaction. 
 
 II. The abolition of the law of primogeniture, and 
 the placing of real and personal estate on precisely 
 the same footing in the eyes of the law. 
 
 III. The repeal of the right of distraint and the 
 law of hypothec in a manner so effectual as to place 
 the landlord on precisely the same footing as the 
 ordinary creditor, neither higher nor lower. 
 
 IV. The institution of a cheap and thoroughly 
 efficient system of registration of titles in every 
 county in the kingdom, so that the buyer of land 
 could, on payment of a small fee, at once ascertain 
 the condition of the property bought, its encum- 
 brances, and the nature of the title of the seller all 
 mortgages or settlements on land not indexed in the 
 registry being of course debarred their rights as 
 against a purchaser. 
 
 V. The abolition of the landlord's game monopoly 
 by a law vesting all rights to the ground vermin and 
 
246 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 winged game on the land in the cultivator. A law 
 of this kind to be effective, however, must be accom- 
 panied by such modifications in the trespass laws as 
 would materially reduce the power of magistrates 
 to punish persons, either by fine or imprisonment, 
 when caught on ground not their own. The unpaid 
 magistracy ought, however, to be abolished altogether. 
 
 VI. In the tenant's behalf, and as a protection for 
 his capital, the least reform which can be tolerated 
 is a law giving him absolute security for all im- 
 provements effected on the soil or buildings of his 
 farm, perfect liberty of cropping and to dispose of 
 his crops, and security against arbitrary re-valuations 
 of his holding for at least twenty years. That is the 
 term fixed by an enlightened landlord, the Earl of 
 Leicester, 1 and it is the shortest term tolerable. 
 Without that proviso, moreover, the tenant could 
 have little or no security in any "tenant-rights" 
 clause, for a grasping landlord might always, by 
 capricious re- valuations, draw the profits of the 
 tenant's expenditure to himself. 
 
 VII. These reforms would not be complete without 
 the institution of an encumbered estates court, and 
 
 1 See Mr. W. Howard's pamphlets, Impediments to the Development 
 of British Husbandry, Rowland Hill and Sons, Bedford ; and The 
 Tenant Farmer : Land Laws and Landlords, Macmillan and Co. 
 
VIL] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 247 
 
 without a law bestowing the right of pre-emption 
 on the tenants of estates brought under the ad- 
 ministration of that court. The abolition of primo- 
 geniture and reduction of the privileges of land- 
 owners to a point that would both allow and compel 
 them to part with portions of their land in order 
 to pay their debts, would be the means in time of 
 throwing probably fully one-half the land of the 
 United Kingdom into the market. In present circum- 
 stances that land might be bought by small owners 
 on comparatively favourable terms ; but conditions 
 might easily arise, and no doubt would arise, so long as 
 political power and territorial possession hang together, 
 wherein the competition of the small farmer 
 would be -ineffective as against the large capitalist. 
 He should, therefore, have the right of pre-emption ; 
 and to enable him to exercise that right the land 
 banks already mentioned might be established, 
 or power given to the insurance companies to act 
 as such by lending farmers the necessary capital, 
 repayable by annuities. Some such machinery is 
 needed here under any scheme of land reform, else 
 the people will not readily get back the possession 
 of the soil. 
 
 These briefly are the leading features in the 
 " reforms of expediency." In the end they come 
 
248 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 to much the same as the more sweeping measures 
 which would secure complete, absolute, and inalienable 
 tenant-right to occupiers, or which would, by the 
 appropriation of part of the rent of the land for 
 the benefit of the State, compel an instant redistribu- 
 tion of the soil. But though the ends are the same, 
 the clumsier and more roundabout method of reform 
 is probably the one most likely to be adopted. 
 It can be obtained bit by bit ; it permits of com- 
 promises, of concessions that serve to hide surrenders ; 
 the moneyed interests of the landowning class are 
 less obviously interfered with ; and rough, practical 
 concrete aims are presented to the popular mind in 
 a way that it can grasp. 
 
 Whatever course is followed, the task will be 
 no light one. Thus far, as Mr. James Howard very 
 truly says, the little band of land-law reformers 
 in their efforts to bring about needful changes have 
 received but little aid from popular support, whilst 
 they have had to contend with the opposition of 
 the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the most 
 influential class of the community. 1 This apathy 
 is born of ignorance, of that habit of bondage which 
 many generations have bred in the bone. The people 
 do not know and never suspect that the land-laws 
 of England are the cause of more than half their 
 
 1 The Tenant Farmer, &c., p. 7. 
 
MI.] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 249 
 
 misery ; that to these laws they owe it that their 
 children ofttimes can find neither rest 'nor bread in 
 their native land, are swept off the soil into the 
 unwholesome slums of our great centres of industry 
 in numbers so great that the competition for exist- 
 ence there is fast becoming an unbearable life-long 
 agony. The middle classes are almost as blind and 
 ignorant as the lower, and their consequent apathy 
 is something that makes the land-law reformer's heart 
 sink within him, not merely because he gets no 
 support, but because the apathy may be so incal- 
 culably dangerous in times of national crises. 
 
 Hitherto the landlords have taken advantage of 
 the stupidity of the people, and as they have 
 done they will continue to do, unless the public 
 be somehow awakened. The mass of the landlords, 
 too, are so wedded to the existing order of things 
 as to be utterly blind to their own pecuniary 
 interest how much more to the dangers that 
 lie before them. Were they but wise, they would 
 eagerly lead in the path of reform, eagerly obtain 
 power to sell portions of their entailed, and too 
 often encumbered, estates, of their own accord 
 afford every facility to men of enterprise, capital, 
 and skill, to peasant and yeoman, to devote their 
 money and energy to the tillage of the soil. That 
 course would be their own salvation and a means 
 
250 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CHAP. 
 
 of adding to their wealth and power. But all, save 
 an intelligent and far-seeing minority, will resist, 
 will try to impose fresh burdens on the nation, 
 rather than take off some of those it now groans 
 under, and in doing so may pave the way for 
 a very summary reform some day. Should reform 
 in some shape be denied now, a day will assuredly 
 come when all theories of reform, all partial, 
 temporising measures will be swept away by the 
 blind, mad rush of an infuriated, tax-ground, 
 hungry people. I earnestly advise the landowners 
 of this country not to court that alternative. There 
 will be no nice distinctions of property rights when 
 the angry passions of a hungry, ignorant people 
 unite them with one fell purpose. Our country 
 is full of what may be called the primary elements 
 of revolution, and they might develop themselves 
 with the devastatory rapidity of a tropical storm 
 under easily conceivable conditions. A few more 
 years of dull trade, a continuance of the declining 
 yield of the soil, the advent of new troubles in 
 India or in Eastern Europe involving us in a 
 costly and bloody war, or the temporary bankruptcy 
 of a few of our colonies, any one of these not 
 improbable events might be sufficient to precipitate 
 the avalanche whose fall would sweep, land-system 
 and landlords at once out of existence. The resisting 
 
VIL] REMEDIES OF EXPEDIENCY AND COMPROMISE. 251 
 
 privileged class forgets that an increased population 
 introduces, by itself alone, an element of danger 
 which cannot be ignored. Lord Derby serenely 
 advises the discontented to emigrate ; but there 
 are not two millions of people in the United 
 Kingdom who at the present moment could afford 
 to take his advice, however willing, whatever hope 
 other lands might afford them ; and what is two 
 millions among so many ? Shall we export our 
 paupers, or whom ? Where could masses of people 
 find work and food were they to go, and how 
 would it fare with the solitary grandees left behind 
 in their penniless, barren-acred glory ? This recipe, 
 manifestly, will not do. Game would not sustain 
 the country. No temporising, no ostrich oblivion, 
 no playing with the edge tools of sham concessions- 
 can answer long, and the sooner Lord Derby and 
 his class recognises the fact the better. The new 
 generation will not go in the steps of that passing 
 away. Those very industrial forces which the new 
 " iron age " has evoked push us steadily towards 
 changes in the modes of our national existence which 
 may turn out to be chaotic if the ablest, most 
 enduring, and most freedom- stifling knot of "ob- 
 structives" that the world has ever known since 
 the days of the old Koman senate do not have 
 a care and give way in time. 
 
252 RECIPROCITY AND LAND-TENURE REFORM. [CH. vn. 
 
 Meanwhile the Eadical party must not be dis- 
 heartened. An impression has already been made 
 in the ranks of the landowners, and for some years 
 to come fear and threatened or actual poverty are 
 likely to be the great allies of the land-reformers. 
 Let them press on steadily with practical aims, 
 content to take what is expedient sometimes, instead 
 of that which is best, and the end w y ill be attained. 
 If they work well and with a will, they may yet 
 save the nation from destruction and the landlords 
 from themselves. 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 SINCE the preceding pages were written, for the most part 
 early in the present year, several superficial changes have 
 taken place in the aspect of affairs. Trade has, it is said, 
 revived, silver has so far increased in price that the' bi- 
 metallist prophets have grown less clamorous, and, last of all, 
 the land law reform agitation has received adherents, and, 
 in Ireland at least, entered on phases little anticipated. 
 
 The fact that as regards trade prospects the country is now in 
 a more cheerful mood, may seem to suggest that much written 
 in the time of gloom should be modified ; but on full considera- 
 tion I decided to make no change. Lessons of caution and 
 sobriety are needed now as much as when every one's heart 
 was melting with dread. I am not sure that they are not 
 even more needed, for I doubt greatly the quality of this 
 trade revival. The doubt will seem reasonable when it is 
 considered that in this instance speculation, instead of fol- 
 lowing, has certainly preceded or outrun the "revival" 
 of genuine demand. Europe, and particularly France and 
 England, are much more dependent on foreign supplies of 
 food this winter than last, and the United States are in the 
 position to take full advantage of this dependence. In con- 
 sequence of this the States find themselves greatly enriched 
 by what we pay them for food, and they have begun to buy 
 recklessly. Prices have risen there until that state of things 
 has come about so much insisted on in the first chapter of 
 this book. The tariff is now no barrier fo imports, and the 
 States are once more great buyers in Europe, and especially 
 in England. Again, the action of the Indian Government in 
 Afghanistan has increased Indian orders for railway materials 
 to a very marked extent. These orders have been distri- 
 buted with judicious care in the chief centres of industry at 
 
254 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 home, and have helped to " revive trade." Some of our 
 Colonies are likewise large borrowers in aid of " puhlic 
 works/' New Zealand, the other day, taking 5,000,000/. 
 These changes all indicate more business, and they have 
 produced feverish activity in various directions, most notably 
 in shipbuilding. 
 
 But all this and much more would not constitute the basis 
 for such a trade revival as might lift the industries of 
 England up to a level of prosperity as high as that reached 
 in the period preceding 1873. The basis i^ not broad enough. 
 We are poorer at home now than we have been for very 
 many years, food is dearer, the agricultural interest is much 
 depressed, and therefore the consuming power of the people 
 is much less. This is shown in the customs and excise 
 returns, and while this state of things exists there can be 
 no solid or lasting improvement in the home trade. Specu- 
 lation will for a few days or months cast a glamour over 
 markets, but if the ultimate consumer do not in time step 
 in to buy, these markets must sink again into a worse stag- 
 nation than the first. We have no evidence that the home 
 consumer is coming forward as a greater buyer, nor is there 
 any sign that any country other than those indicated is pre- 
 pared to take greater quantities of our goods. Our pig-iron 
 even, about the demand for which so much has been said, is 
 already being produced in excess of requirement, and stocks 
 are therefore accumulating. And no wonder, since no 
 European country is able to buy from us with the freedom 
 of past years. What with costly wars and almost as costly 
 preparations for war, what with bad harvests, social disorders, 
 growing poverty, and corrupt governments, there is not a 
 nation in Europe able to become our customers to a greater 
 extent next year than in any of the last five, unless we lend 
 them the money to pay for our goods. It is against all 
 reason to suppose that nations will buy more when they 
 are suffering from increased poverty than when they are 
 comparatively rich. 
 
 The same observations apply to countries forth of Europe. 
 What South American state, for instance, is capable of doing 
 a much larger trade with us now than last year ? They are 
 all poor, many of them are bankrupt, and some have been 
 exhausting themselves in war. If they are to buy we must 
 lend them the means. And it is the same with the East. It 
 will be urged that prices have risen for their produce, and 
 
POSTSCRIPT. 255 
 
 that therefore they are richer they can barter more freely ; 
 but prices have risen here too, and this advantage is there- 
 fore neutralised. In short, except by the old way of foreign 
 loans, inflated credit, and general recklessness, I see no means 
 by which our trade is to enter on that new field of expansion 
 now so much spoken of. The lesson I have sought to enforce 
 must, therefore, stand unaltered, and the anticipations too. 
 I am, indeed, no believer in romances of statistics, and re- 
 gard the purr ings of admiration continually indulged in 
 about our marvellous wealth and power, our over-mastering 
 resources, and so forth, with a certain amazement. If the 
 strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link, surely 
 the wealth of a nation may likewise be known by the adversity- 
 bearing capacity of the lower orders, and England, great 
 wealthy England has more inhabitants either absolute 
 paupers or hovering on the confines of pauperism than any 
 country of equal civilisation on earth. These help not trade 
 revivals, neither does the distress of the genteel classes, 
 wrestling with bills of sale, mortgages, and every description 
 of debt. 
 
 Permit me, finally, to draw attention to the evidence now 
 visible on all hands that the great land question is coming to 
 the front. We shall be converted to land reform " through 
 our stomachs." The landowners are of course crying out 
 where the shoe pinches them. With Lord Carington, than 
 whom they have had no better or more outspoken repre- 
 sentative, many are now beginning to say that the time has 
 come for inquiring whether it is right that estates heavily 
 mortgaged should be left tied up in such a manner that 
 escape from debt is rendered impossible, and whether the 
 system of land transfer should not be cheapened and sim- 
 plified. Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, and other members of 
 the last Liberal Government may be classed as adherents to 
 the narrow platform of change which such questions present. 
 But there are other classes who go further. The farmers 
 are drawing together, and their " Alliance/' lately formed 
 under the leadership of Mr. Jas. Howard of Bedford, Mr. 
 Jas. W. Barclay, M.P. for Forfarshire, Mr. W. B. Bear, and 
 others well known in agricultural circles, promises to cause 
 no little trouble to Tory candidates at future elections. These 
 farmers will have their views to express about game, about 
 improvements and security for capital, widening thereby the 
 range of coming reform. Reform, however, will not come 
 

 256 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 any the sooner in England for the " agitations " of men like 
 Mr. Parnell in Ireland. He furnishes more reactionary 
 arguments to Tories in England, and does more to cripple 
 the march of true Liberalism than its bitterest professed 
 enemies. His policy is to set class against class, his cry 
 of " no rents " is the cry of one who would set the necessi- 
 ties of the poor above national unity, and the good of a class 
 above the paramount claims of a whole people. Rent cannot 
 be abolished by popular clamour. It must be paid to some- 
 body, or enjoyed by some class, if not appropriated to the 
 good of the nation ; and it is poor patriotism to hound on 
 the people against those who, the nation having put forth no 
 claim to its abstract and natural rights, have the only legal 
 claim to this rent. The very fact that I hold the claims 
 of the nation to be paramount compels me to object to 
 the policy of Mr. Parnell, and to lament over his agitation 
 as the most serious present drawback to the progress of real 
 land-law reform. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: R. CT.AY, SONS, AND TAYT.OR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
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