Against Local Producers.

Time will only permit me to give a few examples. From Paris to London, 270 miles, the railway companies will take a ton of foreign grown hops for 28s., and from Boulogne to London for 17s. 6d. These charges include transit across the Channel. The charge for carrying a ton of English hops from Ashford to London, 54 miles only, is 35s., or just double the price charged for the 105 miles from Boulogne.

They will carry a ton of fruit from Boulogne to London for 20s., while they charge from Ashford 25s.

For English meat, from Wolverhampton to London, 124 miles, the charge is 45s. per ton, while for American meat the charge from Liverpool to London, 198 miles, is only 25s. Then, foreign wool is carried from London to Bradford, 200 miles, for 37s. 6d., while from Banbury to Bradford, 142 miles, they charge for English wool 40s. per ton.

I have given these few instances to illustrate a principle which pervades every branch of commerce in which foreign goods enter into competition with local products; and you will see that if this sort of thing is to be allowed to continue much longer, it will only be a question of time as to when the foreigner shall take complete possession of English trade and commerce.

It has been said, and, I think, truly said, that the military sceptre follows the commercial sceptre; and if so, how necessary that all this should be speedily altered.

This differential rating system is the silent, unseen, and stealthy, but sure and certain agency, that is at work sapping the very foundation of England's prosperity—gradually reducing her people to poverty, and thus lowering them in the social scale.

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It is however to its effects in