With an open trade in corn and a fixed duty we should have every man in the country fully fed and happy, instead of our present situation in which so much distress exists - distress of our own producing.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Corn is a greedy crop, as farmers will tell you.
I maintain that the existing corn laws are bad, because they have given a monopoly of food to the landed interest over every other class and over every other interest in the kingdom.
The advantage to Great Britain of a regular free trade in corn would, therefore, be more by raising the rest of the world to our standard and price, than by lowering the prices here to the standard of the Continent.
In the Depression we had to divert corn acreage.
Our farmers round, well pleased with constant gain, Like other farmers, flourish and complain.
Agrarian reform should not merely subdivide misery, it must raise living standards. Ownership raises the farmer from his, but productivity will keep him on his feet.
The duty of the individual farmer, at this time, is to increase his production, particularly of food crops.
We function in a pack mentality. This is our tribe. And this is how we are exploited - sold a bill of goods and a household of products.
We have had a great depression in agriculture, caused mainly by several seasons of bad harvests, and some of our traders have suffered much from a too rapid extension in prosperous years.
It is plainly evident that, in a country where land was to be had for the asking, fuel for the cutting, corn for the planting and harvesting, and game and fish for the least expenditure of labor, no man would long serve for another, and any system of reliable service indoors or afield must fail.