“They are protected now,” the stranger repeated slowly. “And I’ll tell you what one of them said to me last year. ‘I be protected,’ he said, ‘and I be starving!’”
“Dang his impudence!” muttered old Hayward. “That’s the kind of thing they two Boshams at the Bridge talk. Firebrands they be!”
But the shot had told; no one else spoke.
“That man’s wages,” the Manchester man continued, “were six shillings a week—it was in Wiltshire. And you are protected too, sir,” he continued, turning suddenly on the Duke. “Have you made a fortune, sir, farming?”
“I don’t know as I have,” the farmer answered sulkily—and in a lower voice, “Dang his impudence again!”
“Why not? Because you are paying a protected rent. Because you pay high for feeding-stuff. Because you pay poor-rates so high you’d be better off paying double wages. There’s only one man benefits by the corn-tax, sir, there’s only one who is truly protected, and that is the landlord!”
But to several in the room this was treason, and they cried out upon it. “Ay, that’s the bottom of it, mister,” one roared, “down with the landlords and up with the cotton lords!” “There’s your Reform Bill,” shouted another, “we’ve put the beggars on horseback, and none’s to ride but them now!” A third protested that cheap bread was a herring drawn across the track. “They’re for cheap bread for the poor man, but no votes! Votes would make him as good as them!”
“Anyway,” the stranger replied patiently, “it’s clear that neither the farmer nor the laborer grows fat on Protection. Your wages are nine shillings——”
“Ten and eleven!” cried two or three.
“And your farmers are smothered in rates. If that’s all you get by Protection I’d try another system.”