WHEAT PROTECTION IN ENG LAND.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1979, 14 March 1885, Page 4

WHEAT PROTECTION IN ENG LAND.

Torn Sums o:' tut Quintion. Thii im|ioitaiit subject was nicidintnllj di-eusscd l>y a fe*v well Known «i»i 1 uiltmists at the Hist annual meeting an 1 dinner of the Dailmgton, Unih.im, and Xoith Riding Chambers of Agiicultuie, held at Dailington in Januaiy. The Kail of Zetland said not many yeats ng<> tin y weie told that it would be peifeet Ik ioy to siy that a Btitish farmer could glow wheat less than oOs per qr., but now tli.it our inaikots had become glutted he hal to accept 325. With wheat atj this tiijuie he was unable to see how the puiMiit of agriculture could be male to jield lent to the landlord, profit to th" occupier, and wages to the labourer. Nor could he see how arable farming, under the pies ent system, could be any exception to the economic law, which invariabiy displ .ced industries which useil to be profit illicit was, he held, for the people of England to decide whether arable farming should be allowed to decay, or w hether it might not be ad\ isable to im pose a small duty upon wheat to keep the price up to 4os or 50s. Mr (!uy Daw nay, M.P., held that it would be impossible to put a duty on corn in the way mentioned without increasing the cost of living to the working population. At the sune time, the difference it would make to the farmer, of 7s 6tl an acre on com land, would at least suffice te keep arable land in cultivation, and to letain a laige amount of the agricultural population on the soil, instead of allow ing them to swell the lists of paupeiism and mi-eiy in the squalid slums of the big towns. MrLowther, M P., spoke in fa\our of a sliding duty bting imposed on foreign corn when the pru-o reached a'oout 4.~h per qr. This question, when first put foiward by himself and others, was legarded as a fad and a ciotchet, but it had now come to be regarded by ncaily every man engaged in agricultural puisuits as one of the chief questions of the day. A tax such as was ad located would be scarcely perceptible upon the price of bread. By increasing the bieadbill one fat thing per head wages would go up to a considerable extent in agriculture. He advocated a shdingscale basis as a method of paying aimcultural labourers wages, based on the selling price of the produce of the land. When they went through the painful pioce^s of reducing labourers' wages it should be shown to the men that it was on account of corn being at an unremunerative rate. A searching inquiry into the depression was needed. Mr J. E. Thorold Rogers, M.P., in a paper on ' The British Farmer : His Rivals and his Foes,' disputes the tnith of the assertion that the farmer and the labourer would be benefited by a small duty on grain. He says :— ' Mr. Chaplin tells \ou that if you put a shilling or two the quarter on foreign corn no one will find it out. He will, I wan ant, very soon ; for he will look out for fiom 4s to 8s an acre moie lent. The people who eat bread will find it out, for if the miller pays one or two shillings more on his qtiaiter of wheat he will charge two or tour shillings to the baker, and the baker will charge four or eight shillings moie to the custo.ner ; for even Mr Chaplin knows that initial taxes on law m.iteiials are multiplied in proportion to the number of hands they go thiough befoie they leach the consumer. But the poorest world find it out tlio soonest. Their condition may be bad now. It was far worse when the Corn Laws weie in existence. Working men must bo fools indeed if they believe that they are better off when prices arc high. When prices are high, especially when food prices are high, every one is obliged to stint. When the consumer stints, the is le3s work for Mie producer. And if three people are seeking employment for two only, the dealer m labour is sure to get the best of the bargain. Agricultural wages are low at present because the farmer has lost the money with which he could have paid the labourer. It has gone into the landowner's pocket, who has sppnt it, not on his land— the farmer would soon ha\e found this out— but in places wheie it is no good. It is high time that the property of the occupier should be respected. It has been systematically and successfully pillaged — pillaged in country, pillaged in town. No other nation, as w e learn, puts up with the system under which we live, i.e. one in which the pioperty of the impiover is at the mercy of the non-improter. It does not follow, says a high newspaper authoi ity, that we should follow the. practice of other nations. I suppose, if other nations say that two and two makes four, or that if you take two from two nothing remains, we should therefore decline on giounds of British independence to agree with them. Now theie is no way in which pioperty can bo respected except by seeming it, as far as law can secure it, to the lightful owner. To this form of protection, and to this alone, the occupier is entitled.' _________ Tun widow of Balfc, the composer of the "Bohemian Girl," has been gi anted a pension of £80 a year by Mr Gladstone. At the end of ISB3 there were 270,000 miles of railway in the world, which would make a line from the earth to the moon, with 20,000 miles to spaie. A Mormon conference at Sheffield was recently broken up by a gang of roughs. Sheffield being noted for its wife-beateis, one would think they would have favored Mormonism as giving them more scope for their talents. HoKSL-BntKDiNO ix Italy.— Accoi ding to a recent bulletin of the Ministry of Agiicultuie, Rome, it appears that during theyear ISB4 there have been 330 stallions iv the Government service, of which number ,S4o were actually serving. These were tlisti ibuted betw een se\ en pi incipal depots and sub divided still fuither, for the convenience of rural inhabitants. Certainly, the amounts charged for service in the majority of cases was low enough, varying from about £4 to 10s. Each horse on the average served 39 35 mares dining the season, the highest a\eragein a particular district being 43 40, vi/., in the Pisa district, in which case the fees were all high. The amount returned to the Government from the services effected by each stallion is stated to be £4 10s. The Bad and Worthless are never imitated or cotnitn f< itid. This is especially true of a family medicine, and it is positive pi oof that the remedy imitated is of the highest value. As soon as it had been tested and proved by the whole woiid that Hop Bitters was the purest, best and the most valuable family medicine on earth, many imitations sprung up and began to steal the notices in which the press and the people of the country had expressed the met its of H. B , and in every way trying to induce suffering invalids to use their stud instead, expecting to make money on the credit and good name of H. B. Many others started nostrums put up in similar style to H. 8., with variously devised naims in which the word " Hop" or " Hops" weie used in a way to induce peoplo to believe they were the same as Hop Bittf r-t. All such pretended remedies or cures, no matter what their style or name is and especially those with the word " Hop" or " Hops" in jheir name or in any way con nectcd with them or their name, are imitations or counterfeits. Beware of them, louch none of them. Use no thing but genuine American Hop Bitteis, with a bunch or cluster of green Hops on the white label, and Dr Soule's name blown in the glass. Trust nothing else. Druggists and Chemists are warned against dealing in imitations or counterfeits.