Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/443

Rh  outside of Europe is 60 centimes, and on flour If. 20c., per 100 kilos, and from countries in Europe on grain 3f. 60c., and on flour 4f. 20c., per 100 kilos. These duties on import have accompanying drawbacks on export when the grain has been converted into flour, or the flour into n. biscuits. In Belgium the export and import of grain are alike free of duty, and, as far as we have ascertained, this remark applies also to flour and other manufactures of grain. The policy of the Netherlands, which was formerly favourable to import and export of grain from the advantages possessed by Rotterdam and Amsterdam as international entrepots, has undergone some change in recent times. For some years prior to 1845 there was a moderate sliding scale of import duties on grain in Holland, and this gave place, on the ravages of the potato disease which fell on many parts of that country with only less severity than in Ireland, to a low fixed duty which proved satisfactory in its operation. At the present time the import duties on grain, beans, pulse, &c., are 1 50 guilders (2s. 6d.) per hectolitre, or 2 8 Winchester bushels, and on bread, biscuit, flour, 40c. (8d.) per 100 ft&amp;gt; ; these exhibit, more especially in the case of raw grain, a considerable increase on the duties which were deemed sufficient and expedient about the period of the repeal of the English corn laws. In Italy there are no duties on the export of grain, which, though extremely irregular in one season as compared with another, shows a remarkable progressive increase within the last fifteen years. Flour does not figure largely in the list of Italian exports, and for this there may be some reason in the peculiar tax which the Italian Govern ment levies on the milling of all grain, whether of domestic or foreign produce, and which can hardly be compensated even &quot;by drawbacks on export as long as the domestic industry of flour-making is cramped by a severe excise. This is the more worthy of being remarked, because the commerce of Italy includes a great portion of the very best qualities of wheat from the Black Sea ; and in her flour, and macaroni, and vermicelli preparations, so highly prized in her domestic consumption, she has a basis of what might become a considerable foreign trade. The duties on import of grain and flour in Italy are not high 75c. on wheat and other grain per 100 kilos, and l 25f. on flour and 75c. on bran for the same quantity. The franc and centime, being received in the Italian custom-houses in the paper. money of the country, is of lower value than the franc and centime in France, though of the same denomination in metallic coinage. From Austria and Hungary the export of grain is also free of duty ; and in the internal corn trade of the Austrian empire, important measures of improvement now pending are likely to be accomplished. The great countries, famous for a production of raw materials much beyond their own means of consumption, are favourable, of course, to the utmost freedom of export. The empire of China itself was never unwilling to sell to foreigners tea, for which there was no domestic use. The United States promote transit and export of corn, internally and externally, with all the intelligence and resources of a civilized people. If the shareholders in railways r.nd canals and steam-boat lines in the United States were consulted, they would probably say that this policy of freedom of export had been promoted beyond due bounds cf equity. But on the other hand, the protective and prohibitive tariff of the United States on necessary supplies to agriculturists must be held to be equivalent to an embargo on the export of American corn, as well as cotton, tobacco, and other raw products of the soil. The same remark applies to Russia, which, while expediting her export of raw produce with help of borrowed capital, as much as possible, maintains a high tariff against foreign commodities, and lays the foundation even of her conquests in. the interior of Asia, by decreeing that nothing shall be sold within her territories but what is of Russian manufacture or Russian merchandize.

The facility with which the soundest views of the efficacy of freedom of trade in corn, as a permanent policy, may be called in question under circumstances of extremity, was shown in the course of the recent famine in Bengal. A cry arose in India for a prohibition of the export of rice, and was supported by some of the most enlightened organs of public opinion at home. The governor-general, Lord Northbrook, who had taken a different view of the situation, was subjected to severe rebuke ; but the more the reasons were examined the more clear it became that the wisdom was on his part and the imprudence on the other. Mau ritius, for example, almost wholly tilled not only by subjects of Great Britain but by natives of India, would have been reduced by prohibition of export to almost- as great starvation as the poor people in the districts where the harvest had failed. The rice of India, moreover, ex ported to Europe, was of a quality seldom or never used by the common people of India, and its arrest could have been of the slightest possible utility in relieving the famished districts. Besides the whole internal trade and movement of rice in India had to be taken into considera tion. There was extreme scarcity in several provinces of Bengal, but there was the usual abundance in many other parts of India. A decree prohibiting export would have stopped the customary movement of rice in Hindustan, diminished the supplies in all the central markets, and both aggravated the calamity and put difficulties in the way of its being overcome. The sound policy was to allow scope to all effective demand for rice in India according to the ordinary course of trade, and as there were some tens of thousands of people in a certain quarter of India who had no effective demand to offer, to bring the help of the Government to their relief. This was the policy pursued, and the result was that the famine in Bengal was relieved, as no famine in India had been before, with the least avoidable disturbance of the markets on which India is dependent for the sale of her surplus produce.  CORN TRADE. The effect of the opening of the ports of the United Kingdom freely to the agricultural produce of all parts of the world has been to extend the foreign trade in corn, both more rapidly in point of time and more largely in measure than could have been pre-conceived. This result was promoted by the more liberal policy which began at the same time to be generally adopted with respect to the export and import of grain, and by the active efforts of the great corn-producing countries not only to extend their cultivation, but to increase the facilities of transport both inland and seawards. The consequence is that a commodity which, though of the first necessity, had long been the most difficult to move under the prevailing laws and conditions of trade, has become one of the princi pal articles of commerce. It is carried as far as any other article of merchandize, and yet is greater in bulk and in difficulty of transport than any other principal commodity with which it may be compared in value. It may be said, indeed, that if the immense imports of foreign grain into the United Kingdom, during the last thirty years, could have been foreseen when the British corn laws were repealed, the most ardent believer in the creative and compensatory resources of free trade could scarcely have reconciled the figures with anything short of an overwhelming decline of British agriculture. Yiitthe home production and trade of com have not lost ground during this period, while agricul tural improvement lias made more progress, and the total value of the products of the soil been more signally increased than in any previous thirty years that could be named. We propose in this notice to show the progress of the 