AMERICAN COMPETITION AND BRITISH AGRICULTURE.

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1527, 18 April 1882, Page 4

AMERICAN COMPETITION AND BRITISH AGRICULT URE.

A LONDON correspondent writes that the Agricultural Commission had before them Mr' jolm Clay, son of Mr Clay, Kerchestbrs; who waB asked to prepare a report dealing with the present position and the future prospects of Canadian agriculture. The evidence given to-day by Mr Glay, in supplement to his report, was of the utmost value. Speaking from a large knowledge of Canada, where he has been resident for some considerable time, Mr Olay gave it as his opinion that with railway freights at their present rates, wheat grown in the great corn-growing districts of the North-West cannot be sold at Liverpool with a profit to the importers at less than 45s or 465. At present the price is 48s, and this figure leaves as will be seen, a considerable margin of profit ; but how long the existing conditions as to freight may continue Mr Clay professed himself wholly unable to say. It is with the railway companies on the other side of the Atlantic that the control of the trade really lies ; and in attempting to forecast the future it is impossible to predict, Mr Clay thinks, what policy these companies may pursue. Three years ago the freights were about 206 per cent, higher than they are now, the present low rates having been brought about by the keen competition, or the railway war, as it is called, that is in the meantime going on. Until this element in the calculation is much more a settled matter, Mr Clay points out that it is impossible to say what may be the ultimate effect on home agncultuie of transatlantic competition. Another point as which a deal of examination took place was that of the profit realised by fanners who go from this country to Canada. On this subject Mr Clay showed that w hile it may be true that these settlers do not, in the first instance, make large moiietaiy profits, they are enabled in the course of a year or two to add to their holdings, so that a man starting with IGO acies may soon become the actual poosessor of a holding three times, that size—in other words, that a farmer there, if ha does not grow rich in money, grows rich in land. On being askod to explain ccitain passages in his report, in which an opinion was expressed unfavourable to the land laws in this country, Mr Clay submitted that there can be no doubt that the more the burden of the existing system makes itself felt in this country the greater will be the emigration to Ameiica ; and further, he maintained that it is impossible to explain the depression complained of in England and Scotland wholly by the bad seasons. — N.B. Ay mult toed Gazelle.