The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-05-13
Grent Britnin's Food SunpIN

Great Britain's Food Supply.
Since the passage of the Corn Laws
nearly forty years ago the population
of Great Britain and Ireland has praC-
tically depended for its breadstuffs on
the importation of corn from the
United States supplemented by small
if not comparatively insignificant
quantities exported from Russia
Egypt and India. Wheat has practi-
Cally gone out of cultivation in Great
Britain and Ireland. Lands from
which crops Of wheat were systemati-
cally raised fifty years ago In great
abundance have been turned into pas
ture or cultivated on general produc-
tive principles. When the duties on
imported wheat were removed, the
price of home grown cereals became SO
low as to become ruinous to the far
mer. SO long as the United Kingdom
remained at peace with her European
neighbors the policy of free trade in
corn admirably suited the interested
commercial position of England. She
developed her vast industrial resources
at the expense of her agricultural in
dustries. The cry of the distressed ag-
riculturist was unheeded by the British
artisan. Agricultural laborers flocked
into the great Ccnters of population,
became absorbed in the seething mass
of unemployed or partially employ
ed and by their votes and clamor
helped to keep the cheap loaf" the
ideal n nd al &c,
goal of British statesmanshp. From
this abuse of the principles of free
trade which has been invested in the
mass of urban population the rural
community and the landed arstocratic
interests have no appeal.
a reversion to protection i'm any
shape or form is impossible, and would
be impracticable if it were desirable
in Great Britain. The wheat bearing
lands in that country have been eX-
hausted Of their fertility through CEN
turtles of highly artificial husbandry.
Wheat is an exhaustive crop, and if
the whole available area Of England
We're placed in cultivation under wheat
alone it would produce barely sufficient
to sustain the population for two
months out Of the twelve. English
men are, OF course, aware of this. What
the most thoughtful among them adVo-
cate is such protection to home agri-
culture in normal times as would pre-
clude famine in case of war or under
any unforeseen contingency which
might cut off foreign supplies. But
even such tentative measure Of pro-
lection as this is looked upon with
suspicion and is not likely to be adopt-
ed. The nearest approach TO such pre-
vision that Englishmen will tolerate is
the establishment of granaries where
quantity Of corn hypothecated to be
sufficient to ward off a famine during
some critical period may be preserved,
The project has been seriously discuss
ed for some time past, receiving
much favor at the hands of practical
men. Theoretically it seems feasible
enough. But the formidable questions
are raised, Who is to purchase this
corn? Where is it to be purchased? Z?
Corn is perishable; when and how is it
to be replaced?
These are supreme difficulties which
statesmen and economists will have to
solve. A demand for double the uuan-
tity Of wheat in the year in which the
granaries are to be stored will natur-
ally create famine prices for that to
be consumed. A patriarchal and
primitive society such as that which
existed in Egypt when Joseph and his
brethren sojourned in that land is not
quite the same thing as the society ex-
isting today in modern England with
its population Of thirty-two millions
OF inhabitants and its complex social
| and industrial life. With a geometri-
cal rate of progression in our own pop-
ulation every twenty-five, thirty, or
forty years: with the sterilization of
our virgin soils and an increased home
demand, the pressure Of our own pupu-
Iation on the resources of exister ce
Will become more exaCting and the
United States will continue to export
less and less. This is an inexorable
law of the development Of the earth
and the development of life on its
surface, and it adds to the complexity
! of the problem with which English
| craftsmanship is coming face to face