The Victorian Review December 1, 1879 Classic Reprint

Excerpt from The Victorian Review: December 1, 1879

Yet it is Obvious to any intelligence capable Of realising the fact, that two and two make four, that if the result of free trade is to keep down the price Of bread when the harvest is bad in England, it must follow that the farmer is deprived thereby of the power Of recouping himself for the deficiency Of his crop by raising the price Of his produce. We have now had a long succession Of bad harvests, and yet the price Of bread remains substantially unaltered. The explanation is that our markets have been deluged with foreign corn, and that therefore the British grower has been unable to sell at an advance. In other words, unrestricted competition has given the British workman cheap bread by forcing the British farmer to sell corn at cheap prices. What the country gains the farmer loses. There is no disputing this conclusion. As things are, farming - in as far as it is identical with corn growing - is not atrade which can be carried on at a profit. In the halcyon days which followed the repeal Of the corn laws, a vast amount Of land was converted from grazing into corn land. Now, however, corn land is almost unsaleable. TO reconvert it into pasture is an expensive process, and requires an outlay which no tenant is likely to incur. Besides this, farmers are dismal as to the future. N O doubt they can still raise stock to advantage, and can make a fair profit by p'asturage. But already American meat is beginning to compete with home grown meat in our own markets, and a very little improvement in the means Of transport might enable. The foreign grazier to undersell his British competitor as successfully as the foreign corn grower has undersold the British farmer.

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