The daily gazette. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1874-1883, 1881-09-07
SHALL WE HOLD THE TRADE WITH


ion from Great Britain Of the best
class of small farmers has, during the
last two years, been enormous and
the cry from that country to this, of
GLOW much grain can you send u.s."
is caused not more by the bad year of
cold, wet weather, chilling and kills
ing the crops as they stand or lie afeld,
than by the loss of acreage in plant
ing, a loss resulting almost wholly
from the flight of the native agricul-
turalists to America. The Pail Mall
Gazette-which is as conservative, in
the sense of being carefully edited, as
any Of its contempOraries-laJely pub
lished the results of an exhaustive in
quiry it had instituted in connection
with the abandonment of farms by
tenants. To say that the report it
made was astonishing even to Eng
lishmen is to express the case very
mildly; for we doubt if tho best in-
formed of their public men had any
idea of the extent to which emigra-
ton to the States, caused by American
competition, had depleted the farm
lands of Old England. The report of
the Gazette showed that, in some of
the most bounteous of the English
grain-raising counties, one-half the
farms were tenantless, and that Of
those tenanted, new methods and new
sorts of crops had been introduced.
Even the stranger in England is
struck with the large number of I'M
titled fields, and the absence of the
golden grain crops, to which, during
the visits of earlier years, his eyes had
been accustomed. A great change
has been wrought in English agricul-
ture by the competition of the farm
ers of this country, to whom each new
autumn the demand Is made by Eng
land, with greater emphasis, slow
much grain can you send us ?'
They can answer that demand now,
despite the summers drought and a
winter of most extraordinary rigor, as
satisfactorily to themselves and Eng
land as could be desired. The harvests
are less than they were last year, but
still they have been bountiful enough
to enable our farmers to send enough
to satisfy not only England, but all of
Great Britain and all of Europe, too.
America has become the granary of
the world, just as England long was the
workshop of the world. The colonies
that hundred years or SO ago were
rejected have become the feeders of
the Mother Country that rejected
them /; and while they advance stead
lily and rapidly upon golden road to
prosperity, England sinks deeper and
deeper In national distress. 1t is not
only that go many of her fields which
q while ago were beautiful with yell
low grain and crimson peoples are now
lying fallow, but her great industrial
works, which were the admiration of
the whole world, are also silent and
idle and unproductive. 1t Is not only
the farmer who, is abandoning his
farm because of American competition,
but the manufacturer also is abandon.
ing his mills and furnaces, bringing to
.this country his capital and plant, and
becoming a competitor with Manches-
ter and Leeds and Sheffield. Nc
greater contrast could well be pre-.
sented than that OF the British farmer
to-day with that of the American
farmer. Upon the bearthstone Of the
one sits the skilled, intelligent, frugal
man, ruined and beggared while in
the home of the other there is pros
perity and plenty"
The picture drawn of the condition
Of our country now is very pretty
one but we cannot say that it is sub
stantial. Even now there are doubt,
Of our being able to supply near 81
much from our farms as we had hoped
a month ago we could.
We should remember that it is no
more than two years since that we at
tributed our ability to resume and con
tinue specie payment in great mea
sure TO the Providential circumstanc
that the British farmers crops ha,
failed in time of scarcity in Europe
and the crops of the American farme
were immense. The sale of the crop
of our farmers enabled us to deman
the return of most of our bonds anc
heavy balances in gold also.
1t will be well for this country t,
act upon facts, and be wise in time
The present offers an opportunity tina
may never occur again to make al
effort to keep the trade Of England ant
Europe. Should the United Kingdom
be favored with heavy crops over pres
emit position would hardly be tenable
They would not want our grain, an
might be able to undersell US in manu-
features also.
| If we could modify our tariff law
to enable US 80 trade In class {
articles that we have no need to los
anything upon while we might thu
retain the sale of our surplus graf
and farm produce. If we maintain a
attitude of opposition to trade we ma
force the people of Great Britain I
extend their farming operations, whe
in fact it is our policy TO lead them I
depend upon US for grain and all oths
farm supplies. If we can do this an
get rid Of our surplus grain, we ma
: turn all the fertile lands of the Wei