The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-01-03
England's Panic.

Ine reports OF commercial ana INDUS
trial disasters in England begin to come
thick and fast Failures of great
houses, the closing of great manufactur-
ing establishments, strikes, restitution
and suffering among all classes-this is
the burden of the song of the telegraph
and the correspondents. Itwould seem
as if the whole fabric of British indus
try is about to tumble in pieces. Many
causes are assigned for these disasters
Mr. Philip ID. Armour, of this city, who
has just returned from Europe, declares
that the prime cause is competition with
our cheap provisions. He says that the
English farmer is paying rent-$10 to
$15 per acre-on land valued Mt $500
per acre, while our farmers produce
crops from land valued at $50 per acre.
1t follows that when we lay down wheat
in Liverpool at $1.0S per bushel, and
pork at 81 cents per pound, we drive the
English farmer to bankruptcy and the la
borer to starvation. 1t has ever been
cardinal point of England's policy to
cultivate foreign markets. Her whole
colonial system was based upon the
theory of merchandising. When she
sent out colony she expected them to
become purchasers of British goods.
Thus the island became huge workshop
for the fashioning cunning contrivances
for the comfort of mankind. BY the
hand Of her artisans she transmitted the
worlds crude produces into articles of
use and virtu, embellished to the high
est degree, and offered them in every
market on the face of the earth. And
for long period British manufactures
have held these markets. To achieve and
maintain this supremacy it was necessary
to depress the labor market to the lowest
living limit. In word, England has
built up her commercial class mt the ex-
pense of her industrial classes. The
policy of catering solely to foreign mar
kets has operated to restrict home con-
sumption to the minimum, because the
consumption of a people must be in the
proportion of its scale of labor prices.
If the yield of labor is great, consump-
ton will be large, but if the yield of
labor is small, consumption will hold
strict relation to it, Until the Western
lands of this country were brought I'M
der cultivation to an extent which fur
nished vast surplus for expectation,
the prices of farm products in England
were easily sustainable at a fair price.
But the cneapness of this surplus oper
ates, as Mr.. Armour Justly says, to crush
the farming interest of England. And
the agricultural interest cannot be
crushed without producing great crisis.
But cheap food in this country produces
another disastrous effect in England.
Our manufacturing interest has become
an important one, and cheap food means
the cheapening of manufactures. Hence
our manufactures begin to find their
way not only to foreign markets former
ly supplied by England but to England
itself. The conclusion is perfectly logi-
cal that if we can greatly undersell the
British farmer in the Liverpool wheat
market, we can eventually undersel the
British manufacturer in all the markets
of the world. For food is the one great
staple that enters most largely into the
wool of every fabric and into the fash
ioning of every article of use or orna-
ment. Cheap food is, then, the key
with which our manufacturers will ulti-
mately open The door for their wares to
all the markets of Christendom.-Ch
cd1o Tribune.