Ii.—: Free Trade and Cheapness.

The opponents of the Cobden Club, in spite of all their efforts to prove that its optimism has not always been justified, have not been able to fasten upon the promise that Free Trade would abolish bad harvests or charm away spring frosts, droughts, excessive rains, and other meteorological accidents, against which, as Galiani puts it, the farmer stakes his all. But Free Trade has allowed the English to buy foodstuff in any market and get it cheaper than any other nation in the world.

According to the Report on Agricultural Returns the price of wheat in 1839, 1840, 1841, was more than 8s. a bushel. In 1846 the Corn Laws were repealed; in the famine year which followed wheat rose 8s. and 8s. 6d.; how high would it have risen if the Corn Laws had not been repealed? In 1848 it fell to 6s. 33/4d., in 1849 5s. 61/4d., 1850 5s. 01/4d., 1851 4s. 93/4d., 1852 5s. 1d.; rising again during the war with Russia—at that time the great centre of the wheat supply—only to fall immediately afterwards to 5s. 61/4d.; and except for one year, 1867, it never rose again to 8s. In 1894-5 it fell to below 3s., and since then has varied between 3s. and 4s. a bushel. The Returns give a table showing the monthly prices of home-grown and imported wheat in England, compared with the prices in France, where it pays a duty of 2s. 10d. per cwt., and Belgium, where it is admitted free.

In 1904 in England the price of a quartern loaf was:—

This is white bread made of the best flour.

Mr. Chamberlain, however, calls the cry of dear bread “an imposture,” the Times “an appeal to ignorant prejudice.” M. Méline used the same sort of language in 1887 when he taxed wheat but not bread; afterwards seeing that there is a relation between the price of a product and that of its raw material, he put a duty on bread equal to that on wheat.

Mr. Ritchie replied to those who said that the duty of 3d. per cwt. on wheat which he had repealed, did not affect consumers, by saying, “It is very extraordinary that two and a half millions can be collected without any one’s feeling it; it is a political economy that I cannot comprehend.”