CHAPTER XXVI.

ENGLAND'S FUTURE IN RELATION TO THE UNITED

STATES.

"The students of the future, in the department of political philosophy, will have much to say in the way of comparison between American and British institutions. The relationship between these two is unique in history. . . . The American Republic has, taking the capacity of her land into view, as well as its mere measurement, a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever established by man. . . . The development which the Republic has effected has been unexampled in its rapidity and force.”GLADSTONE.

ALREADY, in the course of this work, we have had occasion from time to time to make comparisons between the two greatest industrial nations of either modern or ancient times-the United Kingdom and the United States. But the effect of the growth and competition of these two countries upon each other, and upon the rest of the world, is so potent as to require that we should examine somewhat more minutely both the comparative and the relative conditions of their supremacy.

Those conditions are at the very outset rendered vastly unequal by the differences that distinguish the two countries in respect of extent of territory and natural resources-so much so, indeed, that we are called upon to make a contrast rather than a comparison.

The territory of the United States extends over an area of more than three millions of square miles. That of the United Kingdom is limited to 120,000 square miles. Texas alone embraces as large a territory as the German

Empire, England, and Wales combined, and it is claimed that the cultivable land possessed by that single State is fully equal to the area of good land in Germany and Great Britain. Then, again, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, combined, more than equal France in area, and are said to contain a larger proportion of fertile land. But while the four States named have a population of but little more than five millions, the three European powers whose territory they rival have a united population considerably exceeding a hundred millions!

These figures need no comment. They show in the most vivid and unmistakeable light the infinitely greater resources of America relatively to population. So great is that capacity that it has been calculated by a writer of authority that the United States, which now contain nearly 60 millions of people, could readily sustain a hundred millions" without increasing the area of a single farm, or adding one to their number, by merely bringing our product up to the average standard of reasonably good agriculture, and then there might remain for export twice the quantity we now send abroad to feed the hungry in foreign lands."

The enormous extent of the recent development of the agricultural resources of the United States has already been referred to. There is no question about the dimensions of the national estate. It is vast to an extent of which we in Europe can form but a feeble conception. But this very vastness may possibly come to be a serious drawback, so far as the relations of America and Europe are concerned. At the present time the tendency of events is not altogether favourable to the future of American agriculture. The best land in the Eastern States has been taken up, and much of it has been so far exhausted as to render the European system of farming necessary that is, careful attention to manuring, which is expensive, the observance of a rotation of crops, and the substitution, to a considerable degree, of green crops

for cereals. Concurrently with these processes of change, the value of land has been greatly increased, and the prices of agricultural products have been largely reduced.1 In some districts, as in the State of Oregon, which is mainly devoted to wheat-growing, the cost of land has risen from 2.50 dols. to 25 and 30 dols. per acre. In Illinois, again, lands that were sold in 1873 at 1.25 dols. an acre, have since risen to from 5 to 15 dols. an acre, mainly through the facilities afforded by railroad construction. It has been much the same in Nebraska and the adjoining States, where, until the advent of the locomotive, the land generally sold at the Government price of 1.25 dols. an acre, while it is now worth from 5 to 10 dols. an acre, when within ten miles of a railway. When we come to add to such an increase in the cost of the land, a decrease to the amount of fully one-half, or even more, in the realised selling prices of the principal agricultural products, the first reflection that occurs to the mind is that the main source of American supremacy -that of agriculture-can hardly be in so satisfactory a condition as it was a few years ago.

There is, however, another side to the question. It is perfectly true that, in the most desirable localities, the land of America is worth to-day two or three times as much as it would have sold for ten or a dozen years ago, and that the tendency of prices of agricultural produce has been steadily downwards over a considerable period.

1 A recent official document shows that as between 1870 and 1880 the following changes have occurred in prices :

Commodity.

:

Indian corn, per bushel

1.068

121

It is also true that much of the virgin soil, especially in the Eastern and Middle States, has become exhausted, and now requires to be farmed on European methods, which entail greatly more cost. But the American farmer has meanwhile gone on reducing the cost of cultivation in every direction. His labour bill is lighter, and he now applies machinery to a much larger extent than formerly. Even where he is compelled to nurse an almost exhausted soil, he is largely rewarded for his extra outlay by a heavier crop. And, finally, as a consequence of the improved value of his land, he is able to borrow money, where he requires it, on easisr terms than formerly, which is also a substantial gain.

The absence of an industrial census in European countries renders it much more difficult to compute their progress in agricultural improvements than in the case of the United States, where statistics of this kind are collected and collated with great fulness. The report of the tenth census of that country (1880) makes it apparent that no effort is spared to substitute laboursaving appliances for hand-labour, which, as M. Michel Chevalier truly says, is the only thing that can enable dear labour to compete with cheap. Look only at agricultural implements, which are, more than anything else, necessary to the development of the chief interest of the United States. There were, in 1880, 1943 separate establishments devoted to this industry, having an aggregate capital of 62 million dollars, employing over thirtyeight thousand hands, and using raw materials to the value of over 31 million dols. per annum. With these means of production, over a million different machines were produced, valued at 68 million dollars, including about 20,000 required for cotton-planting. In this enormous number of agricultural implements, we find over 68,000 corn-planters, 43,000 grain-drills, 20,000 seed-sowers, and so on. The total number of separate farms in the United States is estimated at over four

millions, so that, even at this rate of supply, the average number of implements supplied to each farm would only be at the rate of one in four years. And this process is continued from year to year in a constantly increasing degree. The value of the farm implements of the United States in 1880 is stated in the census report at 406 inillion dollars, being an average of over 100 dollars per farm.

It is not alone in the United States that agricultural land has greatly risen in value within recent years. The same movement has been characteristic of our own and other European countries, and has had to be met in the same way, namely, by endeavouring to reduce the other items that enter into the cost of husbandry. The increased value of land in the United States has been mainly due to the development of railways, which have afforded to the agricultural interest better facilities for marketing their produce.

In England, the unearned increment of land, of which we are accustomed to hear so much, has been due, partly to the same cause, but principally to the greater demand for a very limited commodity, arising out of the great increase of population. And what is the extent of this unearned increment? It has already been stated that the average agricultural value of land in England was 13s. per acre in 1770 and 30s. per acre in 1880.1 Now, if we multiply the fifty million acres of land under cultivation in the country by the difference between these two sums, we get a total of about 38 millions sterling a year, as the increased amount of rental passing into the hands of the landowners, by the unearned increment of the

1 It is possible to go much farther back than 1770, but for all practical purposes that date affords a sufficient basis for comparison. In 1100 the rent of land in England was Is. 6d. per acre; in 1410, the rent of arable land was Is. 1d. and of meadow 11 d. per acre; and from 1692, when a land-tax of 4s. in the was imposed, the rent of land rose largely.