The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-12-20 00:00:00

THE AGRICULTURAL COMMISSION.

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Writing on Nov. 28 the Philadelphia Correspondent
of The Times says :—" There arrived in Philadelphia
this week the members of the Agricultural Commis-
sion sent by Her Majesty's Government to spy out
the land and see how the Americans do things in the
way of raising and transporting food. They spent
two days in examining these matters—mainly in the
way of transportation—in Philadelphia, and then
continued their journey southward to Baltimore
and Washington. Both Commissioners are in excel-
lent health and none the worse for their fatiguing
rambles over the United States, which they are
ready to admit is what the Yankees are fond of
calling a 'great country,' especially in the attri-
bute of magnificent distances. Arriving in Sep-
tember, they have not let the grass grow under
their feet, but have travelled an average of 110 to
120 miles a day since landing, and will have probably
reached the magnificent total of 17,000 miles by the
time they get back home again on the eve of Christ-
mas. Their clothing has suffered, but their knowledge
has improved by the friction. They have gone to work
as intelligent business men, and gathered a mass of
facts and figures about American agriculture and
transportation systems which will make one of the
most interesting blue-books ever issued by Her
Majesty's printers. They have, in fact, reached a
point of skill in extracting information and cross-ex-
amining American experts on these subjects which
would entitle them to high rank in the guild of
'interviewing reporters' should they join the profes-
sion of journalism.
"The Commission is composed of Messrs. Clare
Sewell Read, M,P., and Albert Pell, M.P., practical
agriculturists, and having a thorough knowledge of
the points of American competition with the English
farmer which it is desired to have elucidated. They
have been all over those portions of the United
States were corn, provisions, and cattle are grown,
and have investigated not only the farming operations,
but also the methods of transportation and transfer to
vessels for shipment across the sea. They have been
in the New England States; in New York, Pennsyl-
vania,Ohio, Indiana, Wino* Kentucky, Missouri, and
lowa, in the centre • in the great regions of the North
West—Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska,
Dakota, and Manitoba; in Kansas and the adjacent
regions of the West; and in the South-West as far as
Texas. •. . _ _

_ . .
It is probable that their report will be confined to
facts and figures, and the direct inferences deducible
therefrom without going beyond this to suggest
remedies ?or agricultural depression in England. They
find in the United States and Manitoba an immense
area of land producing and capable of producing corn
and cattle. The crops now yielded are capable of con-
stant expansion as additional surface is brought into
employment. Farming is not so close as it is in
England, for this is not made necessary by restrictions
of surface; therefore the wheat yield per acre is not
so large. But they find that the farmers and their
families, when necessary, can live as cheaply as the
peasants of older countries, and that it is impossible to
underbid them in the first cost of production, while, as
they generally own their own land, they have no rent
to pay, There is no question about the ability to raise
wheat and cattle cheaply, and the question of trans-
portation to market therefore becomes Important, In
examining this the discovery is made that everything
is sacrificed to cheapen the cost of the corn and cattle
when landed in England or on the Continent. The
growers of the Atlantic seaboard of the United
States wbmplain as bitterly of Western competition
do Those of England. Freight discriminations
are all made in favour of the foreign market. In-
qniries in the retail markets of Philadelphia deve-
loped that buyers were paying for their beef, muttons
cheese, butter, &c„ for good articles, about as much
as buyers in London. The transatlantic traffic taking
nearly all the best beef was the universal excuse
given by the butchers for keeping up the prices of the
good cuts. Flour is no cheaper in Philadelphia than
in London; for exactly the same reason. The enormous
foreign demand has got these trades into the habit of
supplying that first and looking to the local trade
afterwards, Therefore, corn and cattle start from St.
Louis and Chicago on through bills of lading' to
Liverpool and London, and all the traffic arrange-
ments are made to cheapen the cost ot transportation
and handling for these through shipments. The same
car into which they are first loaded carries them along
side the steamer at the Atlantic seaport, and thus
with but one transhipment they are taken to the
European consumer. The question of freight is an
important element, but the freight is thus cheapened
by being stripped of unnecessary auxiliary expenses.
, The cattle and meat trades naturally attracted much
of the Commissioners' attention, and they closely exa-
mined the far-western stock-yards where cattle are
loaded on the cars, and the Philadelphia stock-yards
and abattoirs whence they are shipped to Europe as
live or dead meat, as the case may be, and also the
methods of preparing the dead meat and refrigerat.
big' and packing it on the steamers. They were
charmed with the facilities given for this traffic in
Philadelphia, describing the arrangements as com-
plete, and the abattoirs and yards as the most
systematic and cleanly they have ever seen on either
side of the ocean. The trade is a large one here—live
cattle from April to September, and dead meat the
rest of the year. It is a new business, being all the
growth of the past four years. Martin Fuller and
Co., the chief shippers from Philadelphia, select the
finest cattle in the country for this trade, refrigerate
the meat for 48 hours, so that the temperature is
reduced to about 36 deg. or 38 deg., keep it at this
temperature on the ocean voyage, and deliver it in this
condition in the great English markets. Their ship.
ments average 300 cattle or carcases on each steamer,
the dead meat being sent in quarters. They have
sold it delivered in the English markets as low as scl.
per pound all round, and as high as 60. If it
realizes 6d, per pound, this they say will pay all
exßensleisenansduc is he
give
h ttemconadliitvioinngol3 frigatirB it will be seen
how readily the Commissioners can ascertain and re-
port facts and statistics, and how difficult it will be
for them to report remedies, But upon one thing
England may depend. The Government has sent out
for this purpose men who will ascertain all that can he
learnt on these important subjects. They have found the
Americans courteous and anxious to aid them in every
possible way in the matters of inquiry, this being the
case wherever they have gone and made the object of
their visit known. They regard Philadelphia as
rather the cheapest port for foreign shipments, the
elements conducing to this being a shorter railway
line from the West, a more complete terminal system
for transfer between railway and steamer, and lower
port expenses for vessels. But they are lost in ad-
miration at the vastness of everything in the United
States and the enormous male on which traffic is
done and will go home with a very favourable im-
pression not only of American kindness, but also of
American ability to maintain competition." . . .

In connection with the return of the Commissioners
from America, The Ti 77143 of Monday had a leading
article commenting upon the agricultural inquiry now
in progress, from which we make the following ex-
tracts :

Mr. Clare Sewell Read and Mr. Albert Pell have con-
cluded their travels and Inquiries in the United States and
are now on their way home. If the other members of the
Agricultural Commission show equal zeal with these two
gentlemen, who in three months have travelled 17,000 miles
on American ground, the country will have no cause to
complain of the constitution of that body. There is every
reason to believe that the colleagues of our two emissaries
will be found thus worthy of them. The Agricultural Com-
mission, indeed, is carrying out its multifarious design with
almost an excess of loyalty, and the aggrieved millions are
invited to pour into its willing ears their several tales of
sorrow. The heads of inquiry which it has an-
nounced may be said to be de omnibus rebus et quibus-
dam aliis. Fifty Chambers of Agriculture are preparing to
assist in the vast investigation.'the labourers are invited
by their friends to tell the world why they are suffering not
a temporary but a permanent depression. The respective
advocates of all kinds of husbandry, all tenures, and all
theories of property in the soil are already elaborating their
systems to the perfection and polish of prize essay. There
exist not a few bulky Parliamentary reports on th% burdens
on land, published at long intervals. The present Commis-
sion cannot possibly carry out its ambitious programme
without producing an encyclopedia, or national exhibition
of grievances. There really is nobody who is not con-
cerned in agricultural depression. The strictly agricultural
class may not even compare with some other clasees. It
diminishes rather than tucreases, through the substitution
el machinery and other expedients for the saving of labour.
Bat the land question affects everybody—those who have
not land as well as those who have; those who cannot rent
it as well as those who can; those who cannot work upon it
as well as those who can
Judiciously and happily the intended inquiry avoids that
retrospective character which is apt to envonom and enfeeble
all political discussion. It takes men and things as it finds
them, and proposes to ascertain all that is disputable about
them. The soil, Its varieties, its cultivation, its produce,
Its divisions and arrangements, its owners, farmers,
and cultivators, the relations between these three
classes, housing, education, local and public charges,
the interference of other objects than profit, can
all be subjected to a searching inquiry without any
chance of setting classes at variance or giving any man
a pretence for proclaiming war against a section of society.
In the long list of beads, so numerous that it would require
a whole column to reproduce them in this place, there is
hardly one that is not long antecedent to the existing con-
dition of any individual landowner, tenant farmer, or
labourer. The most important Act of Parliament af-
fecting British agriculture is the repeal of the Corn
Laws, and it takes a man of fifiy-four to have entered
on his holding or other legal engagements previously
to that date. If the same rule be applied to all the
other matters embraced, it will be found that there
can be no pretence for an allegation that the Legislature is
to blame for the cane of any individual, however bad that
may happen to be. It may be said that everybody, with
any knowledge at all, must know this. As recently as three
years ago there was the wildest competition for land. Ex-
travagant prices were paid for estates, and extravagant
rents offered for farms. The labourer, a shrewder man than
either his employer or the gentleman owning the land, was
the only one who was not cutting his own throat. He asked
for an advance of wages, got it, and keeps it. A vision
of increasing enterprise, rising prices, and unlimited credit
dazzled the eyes of the foolish Majority. Agriculturists were
everywhere going beyond their actual means, or any sober esti-
mate of their gains. Not only did they speculate on the sup-
position that prices would continue to rise, but they loosened
the reins of expenditure generally. Farms and homesteads
are always absorbent and consumptive. They are always
in need of improvments, repairs, enlargethents alterations,
asking to be done, but not likely to add much to the in-
coming. In a good time these are done either instead of
some more necessary works of draining, or on the under-
standing that the tenant shall pay in addition to the rent
five per cent, on the cost. Only three years ago it miiht be
supposed that agricultural prosperity bad found at last a
solid basis, and that the fortunate possessors or holders of