The Ruin of British Agriculture.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 165, 14 August 1886, Page 4

The Ruin of British Agriculture.

It seems now to be settled that Under existing conditions it does not pay to grow grain or raise cattle in the beat part of the Continent and the British Isles. For this carious and alarming state of things the world is indebted to the extension of steam navigation to ail parts of tbeearth. Wheat, "barley* oats, etc., can be grown on almost any arable land. It followe that wherever the factors are most favourable that region gets the benefit of this cheap access to the consuming market. A few years ago India contributed but 90,000 bushels of wheat to countries outside of the peninsula. Its export supply^is now about 50,000,000 bushels and with the extension of the railway system it will have fully 100,000,000 for outside consumption. The secret of India's ability to sell in distant markets is the extraordinary cheapness of labour, which does not command more than ten cents a day of our money. The United States, Australia and New Zealand can produce wheat and lay it down in Liverpool at a price which is simply ruinous to the English and European wheat- grower. This is because of cheaper rod more fertile land, and the use of machinery on the broad prairies and plane, which dispenses with costly labour, Recent statistics show that tenant farmers in the British Islands who confine thomselvea to cereals and cattleraising cannot make both ends meet if they undertake to pay their rent. This accounts for the distress among the agricultural classes in the Old Worldj and more especially for the abject misery of the Irish people, who have no diversified industries becaues the isiand is without coal or iron, and British laws discourage manufactures of any kind in that unhappy country. The inability to raise grain is affecting a eocivl revolution. It has struck a fatal blow at the authority and prestige of the peers, who are the great land-omners, and ft will end in agricultural land being trans-. f erred thepeasaats, in England and Scotland as well as Ireland.' These agricultural workers, having no rents to pay, 'will be able to make a living out of the soil,' for (bey can r»U« perishable vegetable*,, poul-

try, eggs and dairy products, as these are safe from foreign -competion. In thet meantiqae^he ; ctyTes oohf h Europe, pre growing! rapidly, and are yearly consuming more and '■ moraj ipotfonly of -the grains, and cattle raised in distant regions, but also of the vegetables; poultry, fruit and dairy pioducts of near*dy production.. t ;Thi8 4 expi%naUon q{ .the agricultural situation throws a[ good deal of Heht upon the political and social change now taking^ place in the* old world.— VDempregtj Monthly.". ( „ . , •