The American Experiment LAND & LIBERTY MONTHLY JOURNAL FOR LAND VALUE TAXATION AND FREE TRADE Fortieth Year.-No. 474. NOVEMBER, 1933. Id. By Post. 2s. per annum. Mr Baldwin on the Government's Record. Back to Handwork. The first of a new series of political talks on the The new government of Germany appears to be wireless was opened by Mr Baldwin on 12th October. carrying the principle of protectionism to its logical It was mainly a panegyric on the tariffs, quotas, trade conclusion. By an Act of 15th July it has prohibited agreements and other restrictive devices introduced by the installation of any further machines for rolling the National Government. According to Mr Baldwin, tobacco leaves and the restarting of any established our export trade has held its own and our industries machinery which had stopped working. A still more are in a far better position to compete with the foreigner drastic step has been taken by the Commissioner for than they were two years ago, thanks to tariffs. It Economy in Thuringia in prohibiting the installation of may therefore be of interest to give the Board of Trade new machinery likely to take the place of glassblowers, figures of imports and exports for the first nine months and in restricting the time during which machines may of this year as compared with previous years (in be worked to 48 hours per week although many under- millions of £) :— takings had been working three shifts. Net Imports The American and the British and other governments First Nine (Re-exports British are committed in one form or another to the same form months. deducted). Exports. of lunacy. It only remains for someone to suggest that 1928 794-5 5350 the problem of unemployment is to be solved by going 1929 812-8 543-4 back to the hand-loom and the stage coach, and that 1930 ... 717-5 4411 the land should be cultivated with spades, or, even 1931 573 1 292-4 better, with toothpicks. 1932 ... 481-2 271-1 1933 ... 4507 268-4 The Government's Policy injures the Farmer. We can understand why Mr Baldwin selected 1931 In an interesting letter in the Glasgow Herald as his basis for comparison, though even on that basis (14th October) Capt. Arthur R. McDougal points out the figures are depressing. So far as the principle of that the actions of the Government absolutely ignore Free Trade is concerned there is no reason why the the fact that the vast majority of farmers are tenants, comparison should not extend further back than 1931, and the net result of the quotas, subsidies, tariffs and in which case it is still more detrimental to the pro- marketing schemes is to maintain or increase rent. tectionist standpoint. The only thing that can help the farmer and farm worker As far as quotas are concerned, we published recently is a heavy reduction of rent. He goes on to say :— figures showing the effect of the wheat policy in Scot- " It is interesting to note that in 1833 a Government land, where although the area under wheat had gone inquiry was held on the agricultural distress then up, the area under oats and barley had gone down. No prevalent under the Corn Laws, which prohibited the extra labour had been employed, but the subsidy import of wheat if under 70s. a quarter. Mr R. Hope, amounted to about £350,000. of Fenton Barns, East Lothian, stated in evidence that In short, the policy of the National Government is the cause of the distress was ' that they were paying in to increase costs, not to increase wealth. rent what they ought to have paid in wages.' He further said : ' The present duty gives the farmers an The Effect of Tariffs on Cost of Production. expectation that something is to come to their relief that The object of tariffs is to raise prices. Increase of can never arrive, and on that account it holds up the prices means increase of costs of raw materials, of value of land fictitiously. Since farmers cannot turn machinery and tools of production and ultimately of themselves to other occupations, the competition for finished articles. In some cases the rise in prices has farms has kept up rents. .' been masked by the world fall in the price of raw " Exactly the same thing is happening now, one materials. Where external prices have not fallen the hundred years later. The hope or prospect of benefits rise in internal prices has already been apparent. Mr to flow from the Government's policy of restriction and Ranald M. Findlay, in a recent article on this question, tariffs is being used as a reason for refusing reduction mentions that " timber, rope, iron and steel materials, of rents and is misleading farmers into offering impossibly chemicals, paints, papers, wire, tin, lead, copper, wood- high rents, and the Government hope to make the con- work tools, machine tools and parts, and apparatus of sumer pay. In other words, the hardship of the farming various kinds, specialty products of the foreigner, are community and the consuming masses is to be the price among the goods which have cost users more as a result for maintaining fictitious land values. of the new tariffs." " The Farmers' Union ought to have stressed these He also points out that although employment in the points, and would have done so ten years ago. But the June quarter was alleged to be 400,000 more than in Farmers' Union now is almost completely dominated the same quarter of a year ago, the volume of production by the occupying owner and has ceased to represent was the same. " Is it possible that under tariffs it the plain tenant-farmer. The cry of ' Help the Farmer ' takes 400,000 more hands to produce the same amount is hypocritical and misleading. The present policy only of goods as formerly 1 Is there any other conclusion to uses the farmer as a stalking horse or catspaw in order be drawn ? " to cover the Government's appalling policy of food 306 LAND & LIBERTY SEPTEMBER, 1933 taxation SQ that the bondholders may be safe. It is The number of persons displaced would be 6,740. The clear that the position of the farmer who buys or rents Report says :— land on the faith of fictitious values produced by " A real difficulty has been encountered in finding restriction, tariffs and subsidies will be very dangerous and unstable. The plain tenant-farmer, then, is really land for rehousing purposes. Land in Stockport is seriously injured already by the Government's scarce, and is also expensive. A most important part agricultural policy." of slum clearance is the rehousing of displaced tenants as near to their work as reasonably possible, and at rentals they can afford. Recent investigation into the Slum Clearance "Ten Years Too Soon." circumstances of rehoused tenants has suggested that Speaking at Morley College (London) on 12th October, the increased rents of Council houses may have a most Sir Ernest Simon said that although two million houses undesirable effect on the health of the family, as the had been built in England and Wales since the War family budget is lowered at the expense of food. the pressure on the slums had not been reduced. There Possibly a partial solution of the rent problem is the were not enough new houses yet, and they were not relaxation of the standard of twelve houses per acre. cheap enough for working-class people. Owing to the high cost of land, of street works and The number of families had increased at a greater sewering, it is cheaper to build 16 houses to the acre rate than the number of houses. Statistics showed that than 12, and therefore it is possible to let them at a in 1931 there was a shortage of 800,000 houses, in more economic rental." addition to which the probable growth of families in As to the scarce and expensive land in Stockport, we the next decade would require another 700,000 houses look to the White Paper 119, published in 1913, to find by 1941. that there were then no fewer than 2,650 acres of " agri- There were a million families who could not afford cultural land " in Stockport out of its total area of 5,485 an inclusive rent of more than 7s. a week. The objection acres. It is evident that a very large portion of this to concentrating on slum clearance was that, since over- land must still remain unbuilt upon, and does not now crowding was as great as ever, when a slum house was pay even the modicum of rates it paid in 1912. Hence pulled down there was no alternative accommodation the dearness, if not the scarcity. for the tenants. He said that the energy of the Minister of Health Trinity College (Cambridge) Land Purchase. was being tragically misdirected, doing what would only be valuable in ten years' time. What is described as one of the most important Sir Ernest Simon's criticism is so far valuable and transactions in English landed property this year is effective. The problem is one of low wages and high the purchase by Trinity College, Cambridge, of nearly rents, but for that he offers no constructive remedy, 4,000 acres, six miles from Ipswich. It is the Trimley but only a plea for more subsidies to artificially reduce and Walton portion of Mr Pretyman's Orwell Park rents and palliate poverty. estate, and includes 17 farms and many small holdings and houses and cottages, and there are many miles of Happy Penryn—No Borough Rates.