Excerpt from The Agricultural Depression, and Some Practical Measures That Would Help the British Farmer: A Lecture

America, which has been one of the most strongly Protectionist countries, and hedged itself round with import duties in every way, with a vast area of virgin soil only waiting, as one writer puts it, to be scratched and tickled to yield an abundant harvest, with every thing in its favour. How is America faring to-day? From a local paper, the Reading Observer, I take the following. It says: We recommend our friends who look to Protection as the panacea for restoring prosperity to trade and agriculture to read what the Philadelphia Public Ledger has to say regarding the business outlook in the United States, where notwithstanding the Protec tion tarifls, distress is wide spread. Even the United States Treasury is confronted with a deficit, and its balance of gold the smallest on record. The failures are 50 per cent. More numerous than they were last year, and the liabilities 400 per cent. Greater. Two-hundred and-fort banks have suspended. Seventy-five railroad systems ave gone into the hands of receivers, comprising nearly miles of road. Twenty-four per cent. Of the entire railroad mileage of the country is now in charge of receivers. Bank clearances were over 12 per cent. Less than in 1892. In the field of regular business and manufactures there have been even severer losses. The output of iron decreased 40 per cent., of wool 35 to 50 per cent., of cotton goods 25 per cent., and of leather and shoes 30 per cent. Sales of textile goods were 37 per cent. Less, of jewellery 29 per cent. Less, of furniture 26 per cent. Less, of clothing 10 per cent. Less, and it is said the only increase was in groceries, and that was very small. The number of wage-earners out of employment is estimated at two millions, with five times as many depending on them for support, and thus suffering with them. All the leaders of public thought in this country, Liberals and Conservatives, are convinced that Protection, as commonly understood, is dead, dead as Queen Anne. I will now speak of some practical measures that would help the British farmer. First.

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