Chapter VI (7)

The great danger is the present state of our relations with the United States. When I acceded to office, I did so, so far as regarded the United States of America, with some advantage. During the whole of the civil war in America both my noble friend near me and I had maintained a strict and fair neutrality.[60] This was fully appreciated by the government of the United States, and they expressed their wish that with our aid the settlement of all differences between the two governments should be accomplished. They sent here a plenipotentiary, an honorable gentleman, very intelligent and possessing general confidence. My noble friend near me, with great ability, negotiated a treaty for the settlement of all these claims. He was the first minister who proposed to refer them to arbitration, and the treaty was signed by the American Government. It was signed, I think, on November 10th, on the eve of the dissolution of Parliament. The borough elections that first occurred proved what would be the fate of the ministry, and the moment they were known in America the American Government announced that Mr. Reverdy Johnson [the American Minister] had mistaken his instructions, and they could not present the treaty to the Senate for its sanction—the sanction of which there had been previously no doubt.[61]

But the fact is that, as in the case of the Crimean War it was supposed that our successors would be favorable to Russian aggression, so it was supposed that by the accession to office of Mr. Gladstone and a gentleman you know well, Mr. Bright, the American claims would be considered in a very different spirit. How they have been considered is a subject which, no doubt, occupies deeply the minds of the people of Lancashire. Now, gentlemen, observe this—the question of the Black Sea involved in the Crimean War, the question of the American claims involved in our negotiations with Mr. Johnson, are the two questions that have again turned up, and have been the two great questions that have been under the management of his government.

How have they treated them? Prince Gortschakoff, thinking he saw an opportunity, announced his determination to break from the Treaty of Paris, and terminate all the conditions hostile to Russia which had been the result of the Crimean War. What was the first movement on the part of our government is at present a mystery. This we know, that they selected the most rising diplomatist of the day [Mr. Odo Russell, later Lord Ampthill], and sent him to Prince Bismarck with a declaration that the policy of Russia, if persisted in, was war with England. Now, gentlemen, there was not the slightest chance of Russia going to war with England, and no necessity, as I shall always maintain, of England going to war with Russia. I believe I am not wrong in stating that the Russian Government were prepared to withdraw from the position they had rashly taken; but suddenly her Majesty’s Government, to use a technical phrase, threw over the plenipotentiary, and, instead of threatening war, if the Treaty of Paris was violated, they agreed to arrangements by which the violation of that treaty should be sanctioned by England, and, in the form of a congress, they showed themselves guaranteeing their own humiliation. That Mr. Odo Russell made no mistake is quite obvious, because he has since been selected to be her Majesty’s ambassador at the most important court of Europe. Gentlemen, what will be the consequence of this extraordinary weakness on the part of the British Government it is difficult to foresee. Already we hear that Sebastopol is to be refortified, nor can any man doubt that the entire command of the Black Sea will soon be in the possession of Russia.[62] The time may not be distant when we may hear of the Russian power in the Persian Gulf, and what effect that may have upon the dominions of England and upon those possessions on the productions of which you every year more and more depend, are questions upon which it will be well for you on proper occasions to meditate.

I come now to that question which most deeply interests you at this moment, and that is our relations with the United States. I approved the government referring this question to arbitration. It was only following the policy of Lord Stanley. My noble friend disapproved the negotiations being carried on at Washington. I confess that I would willingly have persuaded myself that this was not a mistake, but reflection has convinced me that my noble friend was right. I remember the successful negotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty by Sir Henry Bulwer. I flattered myself that treaties at Washington might be successfully negotiated; but I agree with my noble friend that his general view was far more sound than my own. But no one, when that commission was sent forth, for a moment could anticipate the course of their conduct under the strict injunctions of the government. We believed that commission was sent to ascertain what points should be submitted to arbitration, to be decided by the principles of the law of nations. We had not the slightest idea that that commission was sent with power and instructions to alter the law of nations itself.[63] When that result was announced, we expressed our entire disapprobation; and yet trusting to the representations of the government that matters were concluded satisfactorily, we had to decide whether it were wise, if the great result was obtained, to wrangle upon points, however important, such as those to which I have referred.

Gentlemen, it appears that, though all parts of England were ready to make those sacrifices, the two negotiating states—the government of the United Kingdom and the government of the United States—placed a different interpretation upon the treaty when the time had arrived to put its provisions into practice. Gentlemen, in my mind, and in the opinion of my noble friend near me, there was but one course to take under the circumstances, painful as it might be, and that was at once to appeal to the good feeling and good sense of the United States, and, stating the difficulty, to invite confidential conference whether it might not be removed.[64] But her Majesty’s Government took a different course. On December 15th her Majesty’s Government were aware of a contrary interpretation being placed on the Treaty of Washington by the American Government. The Prime-Minister received a copy of their counter case, and he confessed he had never read it. He had a considerable number of copies sent to him to distribute among his colleagues, and you remember, probably, the remarkable statement in which he informed the House that he had distributed those copies to everybody except those for whom they were intended.

Time went on, and the adverse interpretation of the American Government oozed out, and was noticed by the press. Public alarm and public indignation were excited; and it was only seven weeks afterward, on the very eve of the meeting of Parliament—some twenty-four hours before the meeting of Parliament—that her Majesty’s Government felt they were absolutely obliged to make a “friendly communication” to the United States that they had arrived at an interpretation of the treaty the reverse of that of the American Government. What was the position of the American Government. Seven weeks had passed without their having received the slightest intimation from her Majesty’s ministers. They had circulated their case throughout the world. They had translated it into every European language. It had been sent to every court and cabinet, to every sovereign and prime-minister. It was impossible for the American Government to recede from their position, even if they had believed it to be an erroneous one. And then, to aggravate the difficulty, the Prime-Minister goes down to Parliament, declares that there is only one interpretation to be placed on the treaty, and defies and attacks everybody who believes it susceptible of another.

Was there ever such a combination of negligence and blundering? And now, gentlemen, what is about to happen? All we know is that her Majesty’s ministers are doing everything in their power to evade the cognizance and criticism of Parliament. They have received an answer to their “friendly communication”; of which, I believe, it has been ascertained that the American Government adhere to their interpretation; and yet they prolong the controversy. What is about to occur it is unnecessary for one to predict; but if it be this—if after a fruitless ratiocination worthy of a schoolman, we ultimately agree so far to the interpretation of the American Government as to submit the whole case to arbitration, with feeble reservation of a protest, if it be decided against us, I venture to say that we shall be entering on a course not more distinguished by its feebleness than by its impending peril. There is before us every prospect of the same incompetence that distinguished our negotiations respecting the independence of the Black Sea; and I fear that there is every chance that this incompetence will be sealed by our ultimately acknowledging these direct claims of the United States, which, both as regards principle and practical results, are fraught with the utmost danger to this country. Gentlemen, don’t suppose, because I counsel firmness and decision at the right moment, that I am of that school of statesmen who are favorable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. I have resisted it during a great part of my life. I am not unaware that the relations of England to Europe have undergone a vast change during the century that has just elapsed. The relations of England to Europe are not the same as they were in the days of Lord Chatham or Frederick the Great. The Queen of England has become the sovereign of the most powerful of Oriental states. On the other side of the globe there are now establishments belonging to her, teeming with wealth and population, which will, in due time, exercise their influence over the distribution of power. The old establishments of this country, now the United States of America, throw their lengthening shades over the Atlantic, which mix with European waters. These are vast and novel elements in the distribution of power. I acknowledge that the policy of England with respect to Europe should be a policy of reserve, but proud reserve; and in answer to those statesmen—those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of England and the decline of its resources, I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so vast and inexhaustible.[65]

And yet, gentlemen, it is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit on which I so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which I believe was never prouder of the imperial country to which they belong. Gentlemen, it is to that spirit that I above all things trust. I look upon the people of Lancashire as a fair representative of the people of England. I think the manner in which they have invited me here, locally a stranger, to receive the expression of their cordial sympathy, and only because they recognize some effort on my part to maintain the greatness of their country, is evidence of the spirit of the land. I must express to you again my deep sense of the generous manner in which you have welcomed me, and in which you have permitted me to express to you my views upon public affairs. Proud of your confidence, and encouraged by your sympathy, I now deliver to you, as my last words, the cause of the Tory party, the English constitution, and of the British empire.

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.

Mr. Gladstone, the fourth son of the late Sir John Gladstone, a prominent and prosperous merchant of Liverpool, was born in 1809. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where his scholarship was at once so thorough and so comprehensive as to win for him at his graduation in 1831 the great distinction of a double first-class. Having spent nearly a year in a continental tour, he was elected to the House of Commons in December, 1832, at the election which immediately followed the passage of the great reform bill. In political sympathies he ranked with the Tories, and followed with little reserve the leadership of Sir Robert Peel. The great reputation he had acquired at the university, his mercantile habits, his high character, and his manifest abilities as a speaker, recommended him at once to the favor of the Premier, who admitted him to the ministry as Junior Lord of the Treasury, in December of 1834, and as Under-Secretary for Colonial Affairs in February of the following year. In 1841 Mr. Gladstone became Vice-President of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, and in the same year was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council. In the position now held it devolved upon him to explain and defend the commercial policy of the government. The revision of the tariff in 1842 was entrusted to his energy and industry, as a part of this duty, and so admirably was the laborious task executed, not only in its mastery of general principles, but in its command of details, that the bill received the sanction of both Houses with scarcely an alteration. Gladstone’s great abilities as a financier were at once universally recognized; and, accordingly, his appointment as President of the Board of Trade and his admission to the cabinet in 1843 were generally approved.

In 1846, Sir Robert Peel, who up to this time had been regarded as the most strenuous opponent of free trade, announced his intention of bringing in a bill to modify the existing Corn Laws. The announcement created great popular agitation. Gladstone determined to support Peel; but holding his seat from Newark, the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who sympathized strongly with the Opposition, he was unwilling to appear to be in a false position, and accordingly he resigned, and remained out of Parliament for about a year. This voluntary withdrawal from the House is worthy of note, not only on account of the honorable motives which prompted it, but also as the only interruption of a parliamentary career of more than half a century. His parliamentary abilities, however, were not long permitted to be idle, for in 1847 he was returned as one of the members for the University of Oxford.

Up to this time he had appeared to sympathize strongly with the principles of the Tory party. His work on “The State in its Relations with the Church,” published in 1838, had not only proved him to be, even when still a young man, a deep and original thinker, but had also shown that his sympathies were unmistakably with the Tories and the High Church. Macaulay, in his elaborate and critical review of the work, introduced Gladstone to his readers as “the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor.” But if the “stern and unbending Tories” had any such “rising hope” in Mr. Gladstone, they were destined to be disappointed. In the four years that followed 1847 the member for Oxford found himself frequently opposed to his former friends; and in 1851 he formally separated himself from the great body of the Conservative party. He was re-elected for Oxford, though as the result of a very bitter contest; and on the defeat of the Derby-Disraeli ministry and the succession of the “Coalition” under Lord Aberdeen in 1852, he was appointed to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, where his thorough knowledge of finance was of the greatest assistance to the government during the Crimean War.

In the fifteen years that followed, Mr. Gladstone came to be more and more generally recognized, not only as one of the ablest, but also as one of the most influential members of the House of Commons. Meanwhile his reputation was considerably advanced by the numerous literary productions which came from his pen. On the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, he became leader of the House of Commons, retaining the Chancellorship of the Exchequer in the second administration of Earl Russell. It was at this time that Gladstone’s career as the leader of the great reformatory movement may be said to have begun.

Early in the session of 1866, he brought forward a reform bill designed to extend the franchise substantially on the line of advance that had been adopted in 1832. On the 18th of June, the measure was defeated by a majority of eleven votes, and Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues at once resigned. During the next administration, the ranks of the Liberal party, however, were divided, and therefore it was found impossible to defeat the Derby-Disraeli reform bill, which Mr. Gladstone strenuously opposed. The Conservatives, however, were unable to hold their position, and when the Ministry resigned, in December of 1868, Mr. Gladstone succeeded Disraeli as Prime-Minister.

And now began that remarkable series of legislative enactments for which Mr. Gladstone’s career will be remembered. In 1869 was passed the Irish Church Disestablishment Act; in 1870, the Irish Land Act; in the same year, the Elementary Education Act; in 1871, the Abolition of Purchase in the Army Act; in 1872, the Ballot Act; and in 1873, the Supreme Court of Judicature Act. In 1873 the country seemed disposed to call a halt. The government was defeated on the Irish University Education Bill; and, in consequence, Mr. Gladstone tendered his resignation. The Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli, but as the defeat had been occasioned by a temporary union of the Roman Catholics with the Conservatives, Mr. Disraeli saw no hope of commanding a majority, and therefore declined to attempt to form a ministry. Mr. Gladstone was recalled, and reluctantly consented to reconstruct a cabinet. He was unwilling, however, to go forward in any uncertainty, and accordingly, in January of 1874, he surprised the country by announcing an immediate dissolution of Parliament.

The result of the ensuing canvass and election was most disastrous to the Liberal party. The returns, completed in February, showed that 351 out and out Conservatives had been elected; while the Liberals, including the Home Rulers, who, in fact, declined to identify themselves with the party, numbered only 302. Mr. Gladstone, of course, resigned at once, and Mr. Disraeli, for a second time, was appointed Prime-Minister in his place.

During the next two years, Mr. Gladstone, though retaining his seat, was not often seen in the House of Commons. In January of 1875 he announced his determination to retire from the leadership of the Liberal party, and the Marquis of Hartington was accordingly chosen to act in his place. For a time he gave himself up to authorship, and published a considerable number of controversial articles on Church and State. As Disraeli’s ministry, however, became involved in the entanglement of Eastern affairs, Gladstone was more and more drawn back into something like his old parliamentary activity. In 1879 was invited to become the candidate for Mid-Lothian, and the canvass that followed was perhaps the most remarkable exhibition of energy and oratorical skill that the history of British eloquence has to show. He set out from Liverpool on November 24th, and from that date, with the exception of two days’ rest, till his return on December 9th, his journey was a long succession of enthusiastic receptions and unwearied speech-making in condemnation of the Conservative government. The addresses delivered in the course of this canvass were printed in all the leading papers of the kingdom, and were subsequently brought together in a volume. As a whole, they form what is probably the most remarkable series of political criticisms ever addressed by one man to the people of his country. The result was not only the election of Mr. Gladstone, but also, when in the following spring a general election took place, the triumphant return of the Liberal party to power. While the Conservatives had only 243 seats, the Liberals had 349, and the Home Rulers, 60 in number, were quite likely, in all general measures, to ally themselves with their old friends.

As Mr. Gladstone had for some years not been at the nominal head of the Liberal party, it was not certain what policy would be pursued. The Marquis of Hartington was the leader in the Lower House, and Earl Granville in the Upper. Either of these might have been called to the head of the ministry by constitutional usage; but the natural primacy of Mr. Gladstone was so universally acknowledged that the Queen decided to hold a consultation with the chiefs of the party. The conference resulted in recommending the Queen to entrust the forming of a cabinet to Mr. Gladstone; and accordingly the great leader entered upon the work of Prime-Minister for a second time in April, 1880. It is a proof of his extraordinary vigor that at the age of seventy-one he should choose to superadd to the duties of First Lord of the Treasury, those of Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position which he continued to hold till, in 1883, the multiplicity of his duties led him to turn it over to Mr. Childers.

His second administration will probably be remembered for the disturbances in Ireland, and the consequent Irish Land Act of 1881; the Municipal Corporation Act of 1882; the difficulties in Egypt in 1883 and 1884; and the Extension of Suffrage Act, introduced in the spring of 1884. His career as a whole may be considered as perhaps the most remarkable illustration of a system which, whatever its faults, brings the most eminent men into power, and gives them a wide field in which to exert their continuous influence and power.

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.

ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS; DELIVERED AT WEST CALDER, NOVEMBER 27, 1879.

The following speech was the third of the series delivered by Mr.
Gladstone in the course of his Mid-Lothian canvass, extending from
November 24th to December 9th. These assaults on the policy of Lord
Beaconsfield had not a little to do with the triumph of the Liberals
and the return of Gladstone to power in the following spring.

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:

In addressing you to-day, as in addressing like audiences assembled for a like purpose in other places of the county, I am warmed by the enthusiastic welcome which you have been pleased in every quarter and in every form to accord to me. I am, on the other hand, daunted when I recollect, first of all, what large demands I have to make on your patience; and secondly, how inadequate are my powers, and how inadequate almost any amount of time you can grant me, to set forth worthily the whole of the case which ought to be laid before you in connection with the coming election.

To-day, gentlemen, as I know that many among you are interested in the land, and as I feel that what is termed “agricultural distress” is at the present moment a topic too serious to be omitted from our consideration, I shall say some words upon the subject of that agricultural distress, and particularly, because in connection with it there have arisen in some quarters of the country proposals, which have received a countenance far beyond their deserts, to reverse or to compromise the work which it took us one whole generation to achieve, and to revert to the mischievous, obstructive, and impoverishing system of protection.[66] Gentlemen, I speak of agricultural distress as a matter now undoubtedly serious. Let none of us withhold our sympathy from the farmer, the cultivator of the soil, in the struggle he has to undergo. His struggle is a struggle of competition with the United States. But I do not fully explain the case when I say the United States. It is not with the entire United States, it is with the Western portion of these States—that portion remote from the seaboard; and I wish in the first place, gentlemen, to state to you all a fact of very great interest and importance, as it seems to me, relating to and defining the point at which the competition of the Western States of America is most severely felt. I have in my hand a letter received recently from one well known, and honorably known, in Scotland—Mr. Lyon Playfair, who has recently been a traveller in the United States, and who, as you well know, is as well qualified as any man upon earth for accurate and careful investigation.[67] The point, gentlemen, at which the competition of the Western States of America is most severely felt is in the Eastern States of America. Whatever be agricultural distress in Scotland, whatever it be, where undoubtedly it is more felt, in England, it is greater by much in the Eastern States of America. In the States of New England the soil has been to some extent exhausted by careless methods of agriculture, and these, gentlemen, are the greatest of all the enemies with which the farmer has to contend.

But the foundation of the statement I make, that the Eastern States of America are those that most feel the competition of the West, is to be found in facts,—in this fact above all, that not only they are not in America, as we are here, talking about the shortness of the annual returns, and in some places having much said on the subject of rents, and of temporary remission or of permanent reduction. That is not the state of things; they have actually got to this point, that the capital values of land, as tested by sales in the market, have undergone an enormous diminution. Now I will tell you something that actually happened, on the authority of my friend Mr. Playfair. I will tell you something that has happened in one of the New England States,—not, recollect, in a desert or a remote country,—in an old cultivated country, and near one of the towns of these States, a town that has the honorable name of Wellesley.

Mr. Playfair tells me this: Three weeks ago—that is to say, about the first of this month, so you will see my information is tolerably recent,—three weeks ago a friend of Mr. Playfair bought a farm near Wellesley for $33 an acre, for £6 12_s._ an acre—agricultural land, remember, in an old settled country. That is the present condition of agricultural property in the old States of New England. I think by the simple recital of that fact I have tolerably well established my case, for you have not come in England, and you have not come in Scotland, to the point at which agricultural land is to be had—not wild land, but improved and old cultivated land,—is to be had for the price of £6 12_s._ an acre. He mentions that this is by no means a strange case, an isolated case, that it fairly represented the average transactions that have been going on; and he says that in that region the ordinary price of agricultural land at the present time is from $20 to $50 an acre, or from £4 to £10. In New York the soil is better, and the population is greater; but even in the State of New York land ranges for agricultural purposes from $50 to $100, that is to say, from £10 to £20 an acre.

I think those of you, gentlemen, who are farmers will perhaps derive some comfort from perceiving that if the pressure here is heavy the pressure elsewhere and the pressure nearer to the seat of this very abundant production is greater and far greater still.

It is most interesting to consider, however, what this pressure is. There has been developed in the astonishing progressive power of the United States—there has been developed a faculty of producing corn for the subsistence of man, with a rapidity and to an extent unknown in the experience of mankind. There is nothing like it in history. Do not let us conceal, gentlemen, from ourselves the fact; I shall not stand the worse with any of you who are farmers if I at once avow that this greater and comparatively immense abundance of the prime article of subsistence for mankind is a great blessing vouchsafed by Providence to mankind. In part I believe that the cheapness has been increased by special causes. The lands from which the great abundance of American wheat comes are very thinly peopled as yet. They will become more thickly peopled, and as they become more thickly peopled a larger proportion of their produce will be wanted for home consumption and less of it will come to you, and at a higher price. Again, if we are rightly informed, the price of American wheat has been unnaturally reduced by the extraordinary depression, in recent times, of trade in America, and especially of the mineral trades, upon which many railroads are dependent in America, and with which these railroads are connected in America in a degree and manner that in this country we know but little of. With a revival of trade in America it is to be expected that the freights of corn will increase, and all other freights, because the employment of the railroads will be a great deal more abundant, and they will not be content to carry corn at nominal rates. In some respects, therefore, you may expect a mitigation of the pressure, but in other respects it is likely to continue.

Nay, the Prime-Minister is reported as having not long ago said,—and he ought to have the best information on this subject, nor am I going to impeach in the main what he stated,—he gave it to be understood that there was about to be a development of corn production in Canada which would entirely throw into the shade this corn production in the United States. Well, that certainly was very cold comfort, as far as the British agriculturist is concerned, because he did not say—he could not say—that the corn production of the United States was to fall off, but there was to be added an enormous corn production from Manitoba,[68] the great province which forms now a part of the Canada Dominion. There is no doubt, I believe, that it is a correct expectation that vast or very large quantities of corn will proceed from that province, and therefore we have to look forward to a state of things in which, for a considerable time to come, large quantities of wheat will be forthcoming from America, probably larger quantities, and perhaps frequently at lower prices than those at which the corn-producing and corn-exporting districts of Europe have commonly been able to supply us. Now that I believe to be, gentlemen, upon the whole, not an unfair representation of the state of things.

How are you to meet that state of things? What are your fair claims? I will tell you. In my opinion your fair claims are, in the main, two. One is to be allowed to purchase every article that you require in the cheapest market, and have no needless burden laid upon any thing that comes to you and can assist you in the cultivation of your land. But that claim has been conceded and fulfilled.

I do not know whether there is an object, an instrument, a tool of any kind, an auxiliary of any kind, that you want for the business of the farmer, which you do not buy at this moment in the cheapest market. But beyond that, you want to be relieved from every unjust and unnecessary legislative restraint. I say every unnecessary legislative restraint, because taxation, gentlemen, is unfortunately a restraint upon us all, but we cannot say that it is always unnecessary, and we cannot say that it is always unjust. Yesterday I ventured to state—and I will therefore not now return to the subject—a number of matters connected with the state of legislation in which it appears to me to be of vital importance, both to the agricultural interest and to the entire community, that the occupiers and cultivators of the land of this country should be relieved from restraints under the operation of which they now suffer considerably. Beyond those two great heads, gentlemen, what you have to look to, I believe, is your own energy, your own energy of thought and action, and your care not to undertake to pay rents greater than, in reasonable calculation, you think you can afford. I am by no means sure, though I speak subject to the correction of higher authority,—I am by no means sure that in Scotland within the last fifteen or twenty years something of a speculative character has not entered into rents, and particularly, perhaps, into the rents of hill farms. I remember hearing of the augmentations which were taking place, I believe, all over Scotland—I verified the fact in a number of counties—about twelve or fourteen years ago, in the rents of hill farms, which I confess impressed me with the idea that the high prices that were then ruling, and ruling increasingly from year to year, for meat and wool, were perhaps for once leading the wary and shrewd Scottish agriculturist a little beyond the mark in the rents he undertook to pay. But it is not this only which may press. It is, more broadly, in a serious and manful struggle that you are engaged, in which you will have to exert yourselves to the uttermost, in which you will have a right to claim every thing that the legislature can do for you; and I hope it may perhaps possibly be my privilege and honor to assist in procuring for you some of those provisions of necessary liberation from restraint; but beyond that, it is your own energies, of thought and action, to which you will have to trust.

Now, gentlemen, having said thus much, my next duty is to warn you against quack remedies, against delusive remedies, against the quack remedies that there are plenty of people found to propose, not so much in Scotland as in England; for, gentlemen, from Mid-Lothian at present we are speaking to England as well as to Scotland. Let me give a friendly warning from this northern quarter to the agriculturist of England not to be deluded by those who call themselves his friends in a degree of special and superior excellence, and who have been too much given to delude him in other times; not to be deluded into hoping relief from sources from which it can never come. Now, gentlemen, there are three of these remedies. The first of them, gentlemen, I will not call a quack remedy at all, but I will speak of it notwithstanding in the tone of rational and dispassionate discussion. I am not now so much upon the controversial portion of the land question—a field which, Heaven knows, is wide enough—as I am upon matters of deep and universal interest to us in our economic and social condition. There are some gentlemen, and there are persons for whom I for one have very great respect, who think that the difficulties of our agriculture may be got over by a fundamental change in the land-holding system of this country.

I do not mean, now pray observe, a change as to the law of entail and settlement, and all those restraints which, I hope, were tolerably well disposed of yesterday at Dalkeith[69]; but I mean those who think that if you can cut up the land, or a large part of it, into a multitude of small properties, that of itself will solve the difficulty, and start everybody on a career of prosperity.

Now, gentlemen, to a proposal of that kind, I, for one, am not going to object upon the ground that it would be inconsistent with the privileges of landed proprietors. In my opinion, if it is known to be for the welfare of the community at large, the legislature is perfectly entitled to buy out the landed proprietors. It is not intended probably to confiscate the property of a landed proprietor more than the property of any other man; but the state is perfectly entitled, if it please, to buy out the landed proprietors as it may think fit, for the purpose of dividing the property into small lots. I don’t wish to recommend it, because I will show you the doubts that, to my mind, hang about that proposal; but I admit that in principle no objection can be taken. Those persons who possess large portions of the spaces of the earth are not altogether in the same position as the possessors of mere personalty; that personalty does not impose the same limitations upon the action and industry of man, and upon the well-being of the community, as does the possession of land; and, therefore, I freely own that compulsory expropriation is a thing which for an adequate public object is in itself admissible and so far sound in principle.

Now, gentlemen, this idea about small proprietors, however, is one which very large bodies and parties in this country treat with the utmost contempt; and they are accustomed to point to France, and say: “Look at France.” In France you have got 5,000,000—I am not quite sure whether it is 5,000,000 or even more; I do not wish to be beyond the mark in any thing—you have 5,000,000 of small proprietors, and you do not produce in France as many bushels of wheat per acre as you do in England. Well, now I am going to point out to you a very remarkable fact with regard to the condition of France. I will not say that France produces—for I believe it does not produce—as many bushels of wheat per acre as England does, but I should like to know whether the wheat of France is produced mainly upon the small properties of France. I believe that the wheat of France is produced mainly upon the large properties of France, and I have not any doubt that the large properties of England are, upon the whole, better cultivated, and more capital is put into the land than in the large properties of France. But it is fair that justice should be done to what is called the peasant proprietary. Peasant proprietary is an excellent thing, if it can be had, in many points of view. It interests an enormous number of the people in the soil of the country, and in the stability of its institutions and its laws. But now look at the effect that it has upon the progressive value of the land—and I am going to give you a very few figures which I will endeavor to relieve from all complication, lest I should unnecessarily weary you. But what will you think when I tell you that the agricultural value of France—the taxable income derived from the land, and therefore the income of the proprietors of that land—has advanced during our lifetime far more rapidly than that of England? When I say England I believe the same thing is applicable to Scotland, certainly to Ireland; but I shall take England for my test, because the difference between England and Scotland, though great, does not touch the principle; and, because it so happens that we have some means of illustration from former times for England, which are not equally applicable for all the three kingdoms.

Here is the state of the case. I will not go back any further than 1851. I might go back much further; it would only strengthen my case. But for 1851 I have a statement made by French official authority of the agricultural income of France, as well as the income of other real property, viz., houses. In 1851 the agricultural income of France was £76,000,000. It was greater in 1851 than the whole income from land and houses together had been in 1821. This is a tolerable evidence of progress; but I will not enter into the detail of it, because I have no means of dividing the two—the house income and the land income—for the earlier year, namely, 1821. In 1851 it was £76,000,000—the agricultural income; and in 1864 it had risen from £76,000,000 to £106,000,000. That is to say, in the space of thirteen years the increase of agricultural values in France—annual values—was no less than forty per cent., or three per cent. per annum. Now, I go to England. Wishing to be quite accurate, I shall limit myself to that with respect to which we have positive figures. In England the agricultural income in 1813–14 was £37,000,000; in 1842 it was £42,000,000, and that year is the one I will take as my starting-point. I have given you the years 1851 to 1864 in France. I could only give you those thirteen years with a certainty that I was not misleading you, and I believe I have kept within the mark. I believe I might have put my case more strongly for France.

In 1842, then, the agricultural income of England was £42,000,000; in 1876 it was £52,000,000—that is to say, while the agricultural income of France increased forty per cent. in thirteen years, the agricultural income of England increased twenty per cent. in thirty-four years. The increase in France was three per cent. per annum; the increase in England was about one half or three fifths per cent. per annum. Now, gentlemen, I wish this justice to be done to a system where peasant proprietary prevails. It is of great importance. And will you allow me, you who are Scotch agriculturists, to assure you that I speak to you not only with the respect which is due from a candidate to a constituency, but with the deference which is due from a man knowing very little of agricultural matters to those who know a great deal? And there is one point at which the considerations that I have been opening up, and this rapid increase of the value of the soil in France, bear upon our discussions. Let me try to explain it. I believe myself that the operation of economic laws is what in the main dictates the distribution of landed property in this country. I doubt if those economic laws will allow it to remain cut up into a multitude of small properties like the small properties of France. As to small holdings, I am one of those who attach the utmost value to them. I say that in the Lothians—I say that in the portion of the country where almost beyond any other large holdings prevail—in some parts of which large holdings exclusively are to be found—I attach the utmost value to them. But it is not on that point I am going to dwell, for we have no time for what is unnecessary. What I do wish very respectfully to submit to you, gentlemen, is this. When you see this vast increase of the agricultural value of France, you know at once it is perfectly certain that it has not been upon the large properties of France, which, if any thing, are inferior in cultivation to the large properties of England. It has been upon those very peasant-properties which some people are so ready to decry. What do the peasant-properties mean? They mean what, in France, is called the small cultivation—that is to say, cultivation of superior articles, pursued upon a small scale—cultivation of flowers, cultivation of trees and shrubs, cultivation of fruits of every kind, and all that, in fact, which rises above the ordinary character of farming produce, and rather approaches the produce of the gardener.

Gentlemen, I cannot help having this belief, that, among other means of meeting the difficulties in which we may be placed, our destiny is that a great deal more attention will have to be given than heretofore by the agriculturalists of England, and perhaps even by the agriculturalists of Scotland, to the production of fruits, of vegetables, of flowers, of all that variety of objects which are sure to find a market in a rich and wealthy country like this, but which have hitherto been consigned almost exclusively to garden production. You know that in Scotland, in Aberdeenshire—and I am told also in Perthshire—a great example of this kind has been set in the cultivation of strawberries—the cultivation of strawberries is carried on over hundreds of acres at once. I am ashamed, gentlemen, to go further into this matter, as if I was attempting to instruct you. I am sure you will take my hint as a respectful hint—I am sure you will take it as a friendly hint. I do not believe that the large properties of this country, generally or universally, can or will be broken up into small ones. I do not believe that the land of this country will be owned, as a general rule, by those who cultivate it. I believe we shall continue to have, as we have had, a class of landlords and a class of cultivators, but I most earnestly desire to see—not only to see the relations of those classes to one another harmonious and sound, their interests never brought into conflict; but I desire to see both flourishing and prospering, and the soil of my country producing, as far as may be, under the influence of capital and skill, every variety of product which may give an abundant livelihood to those who live upon it. I say, therefore, gentlemen, and I say it with all respect, I hope for a good deal from the small culture, the culture in use among the small proprietors of France; but I do not look to a fundamental change in the distribution of landed property in this country as a remedy for agricultural distress.

But I go on to another remedy which is proposed, and I do it with a great deal less of respect; nay, I now come to the region of what I have presumed to call quack remedies. There is a quack remedy which is called Reciprocity, and this quack remedy is under the special protection of quack doctors, and among the quack doctors, I am sorry to say, there appear to be some in very high station indeed; and if I am rightly informed, no less a person than her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has been moving about the country, and indicating a very considerable expectation that possibly by reciprocity agricultural distress will be relieved.[70] Let me test, gentlemen, the efficacy of this quack remedy for your, in some places, agricultural pressure, and generally distress—the pressure that has been upon you, the struggle in which you are engaged. Pray watch its operation; pray note what is said by the advocates of reciprocity. They always say, We are the soundest and best free-traders. We recommend reciprocity because it is the truly effectual method of bringing about free trade. At present America imposes enormous duties upon our cotton goods and upon our iron goods. Put reciprocity into play, and America will become a free-trading country. Very well, gentlemen, how would that operate upon you agriculturists in particular? Why, it would operate thus: If your condition is to be regretted in certain particulars, and capable of amendment, I beg you to cast an eye of sympathy upon the condition of the American agriculturist. It has been very well said, and very truly said,—though it is a smart antithesis,—the American agriculturist has got to buy every thing that he wants at prices which are fixed in Washington by the legislation of America, but he has got to sell every thing that he produces at prices which are fixed in Liverpool—fixed by the free competition of the world. How would you like that, gentlemen—to have protective prices to pay for every thing that you use—for your manures, for your animals, for your implements, for all your farming stock, and at the same time to have to sell what you produce in the free and open market of the world? But bring reciprocity into play, and then, if reciprocity doctors are right, the Americans will remove all their protective duties, and the American farmer, instead of producing, as he does now, under the disadvantage, and the heavy disadvantage, of having to pay protective prices for every thing that constitutes his farming stock, will have all his tools, and implements, and manures, and every thing else purchased in the free, open market of the world at free-trade prices. So he will be able to produce his corn to compete with you even cheaper than he does now. So much for reciprocity considered as a cure for distress. I am not going to consider it now in any other point of view.

But, gentlemen, there are another set of men who are bolder still, and who are not for reciprocity; who are not content with that milder form of quackery, but who recommend a reversion, pure and simple, to what I may fairly call, I think, the exploded doctrine of protection. And upon this, gentlemen, I think it necessary, if you will allow me, to say to you a few words, because it is a very serious matter, and it is all the more serious because her Majesty’s government—I do not scruple to say—are coquetting with this subject in a way which is not right. They are tampering with it; they are playing with it. A protective speech was made in the House of Commons, in a debate last year by Mr. Chaplin, on the part of what is called “the agricultural interest.” Mr. Chaplin did not use the word protection, but what he did say was this: he said he demanded that the malt tax should be abolished, and the revenue supplied by a tax upon foreign barley or some other foreign commodity. Well, if he has a measure of that kind in his pocket, I don’t ask him to affix the word protection to it. I can do that for myself. Not a word of rebuke, gentlemen, was uttered to the doctrines of Mr. Chaplin. He was complimented upon the ability of his speech and the well-chosen terms of his motion. Some of the members of her Majesty’s government—the minor members of her Majesty’s government—the humbler luminaries of that great constellation—have been going about the country and telling their farming constituents that they think the time has come when a return to protection might very wisely be tried. But, gentlemen, what delusions have been practised upon the unfortunate British farmer! When we go back for twenty years, what is now called the Tory party was never heard of as the Tory party. It was always heard of as the party of protection. As long as the chiefs of the protective party were not in office, as long as they were irresponsible, they recommended themselves to the good-will of the farmer as protectionists, and said they would set him up and put his interests on a firm foundation through protection. We brought them into office in the year 1852. I gave with pleasure a vote that assisted to bring them into office. I thought bringing them into office was the only way of putting their professions to the test. They came into office, and before they had been six months in office they had thrown protection to the winds. And that is the way in which the British farmer’s expectations are treated by those who claim for themselves in the special sense the designation of his friends.

It is exactly the same with the malt tax. Gentlemen, what is done with the malt tax? The malt tax is held by them to be a great grievance on the British farmer. Whenever a Liberal government is in office, from time to time they have a great muster from all parts of the country to vote for the abolition of the malt tax. But when a Tory government comes into office, the abolition of the malt tax is totally forgotten; and we have now had six years of a Tory government without a word said, as far as I can recollect,—and my friend in the chair could correct me if I were wrong,—without a motion made, or a vote taken, on the subject of the malt tax. The malt tax, great and important as it is, is small in reference to protection. Gentlemen, it is a very serious matter indeed if we ought to go back to protection, because how did we come out of protection to free trade? We came out of it by a struggle which in its crisis threatened to convulse the country, which occupied Parliaments, upon which elections turned, which took up twenty years of our legislative life, which broke up parties. In a word, it effected a change so serious, that if, after the manner in which we effected that change, it be right that we should go back upon our steps, then all I can say is, that we must lose that which has ever been one of the most honorable distinctions of British legislation in the general estimation of the world,—that British legislation, if it moves slowly, always moves in one direction—that we never go back upon our steps.