The present writer ventures to suggest that under a general scheme of
Tariff Reform, the home-grown food supply of the United Kingdom might be
generally increased and cheapened, and Ireland, along with the other
agricultural districts of the United Kingdom greatly developed, by an
extension of the principle of the Parcel Post, and the constitution of a
great Home-Grown Commodity Consignment Service worked through
arrangements between the Post Office, the Railway Companies, the
Agricultural Departments and Farmers' Co-operative Associations. The
railways already provide special rates for farm produce. But if the
system were organised by the State in connection with the Railways and
Agricultural Associations, and the parcel post expanded from the
carriage of parcels of eleven pounds weight to the carriage of
consignments of a tonnage limit to be delivered on certain days at
depots in the large cities and centres of population, great national
interests might be served.
The value of proximity to the Home Markets which has been so depreciated
in favour of foreign supplies by modern transit methods and quick sea
passages, would be restored to the British and Irish farmer. If this
were accompanied by a tariff system which would secure a preference for
home-grown cereals such as oats and barley, a direct effect in
stimulating agriculture, and an indirect effect in increasing winter
dairying, cattle feeding and poultry rearing, would be produced. The
country would become more self-sustaining. The peace food supply would
be cheapened and the food supply in time of war augmented. The defensive
power of the realm would be increased. If, under the new Tariff system,
it seems not inexpedient to reimpose the small registration duty on
imported foreign as contrasted with colonial wheat and flour, the
revenue thus produced might, without exactly earmarking it, be applied
partly towards encouraging and advancing agriculture in the United
Kingdom, and partly towards financing such a Commodity Post as above
suggested. This subvention to domestic, agricultural and pastoral
industries would balance the tariff on foreign manufactured goods, and
the farmer of England, Scotland and Ireland would share amply in the
stimulus of a new fiscal policy. Tariff Reform may assist the
manufacturer and artisan by imposing duties at the ports, and the farmer
and agricultural labourer by cheapening transit and encouraging food
production within the United Kingdom.