Representative British Orations Volume 3 (of 4): With Introductions and Explanatory Notes
History
Representative British Orations Volume 3 (of 4): With Introductions and Explanatory Notes
Speeches, addresses, etc., English
Take the article of oats. How many farmers are there who ever have oats
down on the credit side of their books, as an item upon which they
rely for the payment of their rents? The farmers may, and generally
do, grow oats for feeding their own horses; but it is an exception
to the rule—and a rare exception too—where the farmer depends upon
the sale of his oats to meet his expenses. Take the article of hops.
You have a protection upon them for the benefit of the growers in
Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; but yet the cultivators of hops are taxed
for the protection of others in articles which they do not themselves
produce. Take the article of cheese. Not one farmer in ten in the
whole country makes his own cheese, and yet they and their servants
are large consumers of it. But what are the counties which have the
protection in this article? Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire,
part of Derbyshire, and Leicestershire. Here are some four or five
dairy counties having an interest in the protection of cheese; but
recollect that those counties are peculiarly hardly taxed in beans and
oats, because in those counties where they are chiefly dairy farms,
they are most in want of artificial food for their cattle. There are
the whole of the hilly districts; and I hope my friend, the member for
Nottingham [Mr. Gisborne], is here, because he has a special grievance
in this matter. He lives in Derbyshire, and very commendably employs
himself in rearing good cattle upon the hills: but he is taxed for your
protection for his beans, peas, oats, Indian corn, and every thing
which he wants for feeding them. He told me, only the other day, that
he should like nothing better than to give up the little remnant of
protection on cattle, if you would only let him buy a thousand quarters
of black oats for the consumption of his stock. Take the whole of the
hilly districts, and the down country of Wiltshire; the whole of that
expanse of downs in the south of England; take the Cheviots, where
the flock-masters reside; the Grampians in Scotland; and take the
whole of Wales, they are not benefited in the slightest degree by the
protection on these articles; but, on the contrary, you are taxing the
very things they want. They require provender as abundantly and cheaply
as they can get it. Allowing a free importation of food for cattle is
the only way in which those counties can improve the breed of their
lean stocks, and the only manner in which they can ever bring their
land up to any thing like a proper state of fertility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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