£8 10s. Whoever may be right there is less of it now than there used to be; the land has become less productive we are told by Sir James Caird.[1]
The use of guanos, superphosphates, &c., &c., may have impoverished the earth whereon so many millions of tons of inorganic matter have been deposited, or the weather may be in fault. Moreover, diseases have carried havoc and devastation through our herds. Deficient harvests caused by "want of sun" inflicted a loss for three consecutive years, 1878—1880, estimated by three distinguished authorities in three following months at one hundred million pounds (Mr. A.), at two hundred million pounds (Mr. B.), at three hundred million pounds (Mr. C.); so far apart are the doctors in their calculations.[2]
As regards our internal industry for the home consumption, there is no disputing this has wonderfully developed during the quarter-century starting from the epoch of the second French ^
- ↑ Address to the Statistical Society on November 15, 1881.
- ↑ "A lately published letter from Mr. Bright estimates the actual national loss occasioned since 1878 by 'the reduction in the produce of the soil' at two hundred millions sterling. Of course these are not random figures, they can be justified by proper data. If so, the actual loss of a sum equal to one fourth of our National Debt ought not to be passed over quietly. A political notice of the fact is not enough. A national effort surely ought to be made to repair the great calamity. Not to dwell upon this, let me contrast the estimate of, say, sixty-five millions positive annual (mean) loss arising from deficient crops of food which manifestly was wanted for the subsistence of our population, and therefore must have been replaced by an average annual importation of food from abroad, equal in value, with the assertion made on the 12th of August last by Mr. Chamberlain, that, 'it was not a matter for regret the imports should largely exceed the exports. The increase in the balance of trade was partly freight, which was almost wholly profit to this country—, but the greater portion was, the nett profit of our external commercial transactions.' Here are two contradictory declarations. The adverse 'balance of trade' during each of these last three years would, according to Mr. Bright, necessarily have been sixty-five millions sterling less than it really amounts to, if British land had not suffered from want of sun. But, according to Mr. Chamberlain, our 'profits' would in that case, have necessarily been nearly as much less! Without more closely scrutinising these antagonistic statements, one may safely conclude that the President of the Board of Trade will, now that they are noticed, confer with the Right hon. gentleman who is so certain we have lost two hundred millions sterling in consequence of being obliged to buy from foreign countries food that has been consumed, owing to our own deficient harvests, although he does not say whether the whole nor how much of this prodigious sum was paid out of the pockets of farmers. For, should it turn out that Mr. Bright is mainly accurate, Mr. Chamberlain will, in that case, find that he could not possibly have taken the right side in the House of Commons in the controversy concerning our exports and imports" (Letter to the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., in St. James' Gazette of September 22, 1881). Since then Mr. Goschen, who, as an economical authority, is quite equal to Mr. Chamberlain, deplored the fact that the imports largely exceed the exports! On this subject there is contradiction all round.
