Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-01-07
Striking Incidental Testimony

James Russell Lowell. Grover Cleve-
land, Senator Morgan of Alabama, Rep
resentative Breckenridge of Kentucky.
and the English Golden Club are vocifer-
ously in favor of the blessings of Free
Trade. The great English city of Man
chester is warmly in favor of Free Trade
in the United States. We have before us
AS we write these lines the Manchester
Guardian of December 10, 1887. That is
a newspaper of commanding Importance,
and well-known organ of Free Trade.
We clip the following from a leading ed
torial of that paper of the above date.
Speaking of a recent speech of Sir Lyon
Playfair it says:
1t appears to us, he showed a want of APP
probation of the true causes of agricultural
depression, for he treated it as something
apart from the depression which has all the
while rested on our manufacturing industries.
He tells us that the main reason for the low
prices which are the source of the trouble in
agriculture is the reduction of ocean freights.
Well, how much is that reduction! The cost
of bringing wheat from New York to Liver
poor hOt many years ago, we are tOll, WAS Oh.
per bushel, and now it is only 2 I'D, the
difference being I'D. per bushel or at the
rate of rs. 4d. per quarter. But the fall in
the value of wheat during the past fourteen
years has been about 2Ss. per quarter, and
the reduction in the cost of transport, even if
land carriage in the United States be taken
into account, is wholly inadequate to account
for the decline Besides, to a large extent
the reduction in the rates of freight, whether
by sea or by land, is due to the same force
as that which has brought down the prices
not only of agricultural produce but of al
most every kind of property and merchan-
disc. Sir Lyon Playfair tells English farm
ers that they do not need to despair They
have, he says very truly, a soil superior in
productiyeness to that of their American
competitors. English soil yields from % to
80 bushels per acre. whilst American whea,
land gives less than ~ bushels. Moreover,
labour in the English agricultural industry is
cheaper than that on United States farms.
As for the disadvantages connected with the
system of land tenure in England, Sir Lyon
thinks that even when they are removed lit
will take long time to adjust British agri
culture to the changed and permanent condi-
tons of competition" He admits, however,
that agricultural depression is not confined t.
this country. In doing 50 he appears to sur
render more than half of his case for since
the trouble is widespread. and is moreover
not confined to agriculture, we are surely en-
titled to look for some other cause than thai
of reduced freights and the introduction OF
the telegraph for the general fall of prices.
The theory of modern Improvements appear.
to us, indeed, to be mhoHy insufficient to ac-
count for a oppression so Tong continued, 50
serere, and so far reaching as that through
which we have been and still are passing
withom any sign Of rtcorery. Improve
ments have always been going on, and what
ever may be their temporary effect they
ought to bring not less but more prosperity.
let prosperity is precisely what industrial
England has not known for a long time, and
ii IS not eren get wittin sight.