I stated, that our Colonies and Dependencies could supply us with all the wheat we require, and that we could do without any foreign supply. Do you doubt this statement? If so, the doubt is scarcely creditable to your intelligence, or to your industry in making yourself acquainted with the facts. You may fix yourself on the horns of which ever dilemma you please, but the public will hold you guilty of a want of information, which is unpardonable, or else of a desire to mislead. Happily, our Colonies are not foreign powers, however much the policy of the government of which you are a member has recently tended to drive them to become such. Hence my statement holds good. I can only imagine that you presumed upon the scanty information of many of your constituents as to the difference in the meaning of the two words “Foreign” and “Colonial,” and trusted to throw dust in their eyes by this means. If your opinions require to be supported in this dishonourable manner, I can only say that they are manifestly unsound, and the sooner they are renounced the better for your political reputation. The position you hold in Her Majesty’s Government, although a lucrative one, is generally regarded as a sinecure, and, therefore, I fail to see how you can plead want of time as an excuse for writing a discourteous and contemptuous letter to one of your constituents, who wrote you in perfect good faith. But I shall leave it to public opinion to judge as to whether such conduct is worthy of the prefix of “Right Honourable” which is now generally attached to your name.

It is scarcely necessary to add that no one proposes to tax the imports of Colonial wheat to the same extent as that of foreign growth, and for this reason; the Colonists are willing to adopt a differential duty,—that is, to trade with us on something like reciprocal terms. The foreigner will take no steps towards meeting us fairly; hence the difference between the two cases is apparent at once. Supposing a duty of 20 per cent. were imposed on Foreign, and 10 per cent. on Colonial, wheat, it is well known that this would not increase the price of the four-pound loaf more than a half-penny. To an average working man’s family this would not enhance the cost of living more than fourpence a week, and as it can easily be shown that increased employment for labour would follow on the judicious adoption of import duties, the working classes would be large gainers, especially as the revenue derived from these duties would enable us to reduce our other taxation.

In a former letter to me you stated that the price of the loaf would be doubled if we had not Free Trade in corn. It would be interesting to know how you arrived at this conclusion. I fear your usual method of assertion, without any endeavour to arrive at the truth, was at the bottom of it. The statement was altogether without foundation, although, no doubt, many people who have no time to think out the matter for themselves were influenced by it. You are now legislating for the people of Ireland, but has it never struck you that the immense flood of importations from America, which has been poured upon Ireland, has been the cause of much of the suffering which that country has endured? It has rendered agriculture unprofitable both in Ireland and in England, and therefore labourers have been thrown out of work, while farmers, especially the smaller ones, have been steadily impoverished. The natural result of poverty is sedition. The agricultural classes having no money to spend, all classes have suffered. Just now there is a cry for fostering manufactures in Ireland, but how many manufactures can you foster in which foreign competitors cannot undersell you in the streets of Dublin? If matters go on, they may perhaps eventually end in an attempted revolution, and if not put down with the strong arm of force, there will be a separation. How long in that case would Ireland, under the rule of her own people, allow America to drain away her wealth and prosperity? The foreign competition, against which agriculturists have to contend, will shortly be intensified by increased importations of beef and mutton from Queensland and other parts of Australia, and the struggle in England will become keener, while Ireland will find it impossible to continue any of the small exports of cattle and food she now sends us, except at still more unprofitable prices.

This letter is somewhat lengthy, but the abrupt and discourteous nature of your communication has led me to write more fully than I should otherwise have done.

Yours faithfully,
FREDERICK BLOOD.

P. S.—As this is solely a public matter, I shall send my letter to the Press, and shall be glad to take the same course with any reply you may favour me.

[ APPENDIX No. II.]
UNHEEDED WARNINGS.

The three F’s: Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rent, Freedom of Sale.

Contemporary Review, February, 1881.