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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 64

A Radical Difference Between England and America

A Radical Difference Between England and America.

In the discussion of the question of Protection and Free Trade, your people do not take into consideration the difference between our country and yours with regard to land and population. You have a scarcity of land and a redundancy of population, and in consequence cannot raise sufficient food to feed your people. We in the United States have a redundancy of land and a scarcity of population, and in consequence can not only raise sufficient food to feed our own people, but a very large surplus for export. There is scarcely one article of food that you can raise or produce in sufficient quantity to supply or feed you own people, while with us there is not one of the staples which we cannot raise in abundance, and with a large surplus. Of course I do not mean to include in this category articles of foreign production, such as tea and coffee, but domestic articles, and in most instances those common to both countries. It is admitted that your agricultural production varies in quantity in different years; a good harvest yields more than a bad; but there is no year when your produce is sufficient to feed your people. You do not and cannot raise enough. Now let us look at this for a moment, and see to what extent this deficiency exists, and we will take as an example the year 1878, which is not an exceptional one. You paid during this year as follows for the following articles:—
Cattle, calves, sheep, and lambs alive £ 7,252,606
Meat, including beef and pork, &c. 12,838,898
Butter 9,954,053
Cheese 4,946,686
Breadstuffs, including corn, flour, wheat, &c: 59,064,875
Eggs 2,511,09 6
Fish 1,541,830
Lard 1,787,874
Potatoes 2,386,143
Rice 3,200,843
Total £105,484,905

This table shows for the ten articles above-named, in our money, over 510,000,000 dol. Now, this being your condition, and since you have every year to buy these staples and indispensable articles of food, it is your interest to get them as cheaply as possible; hence your policy is to induce other nations, including the United States, to devote themselves to agricultural pursuits; for the more foreign nations you can persuade to engage in this industry the cheaper the food will be which you are compelled to buy, and to this extent you are, or will be, the gainers by the operation.