Production in the Colonies would be stimulated, and the amount of foreign wheat available for export to this country would have nowhere else to go, the tariff against it being fivefold as high in all other wheat-consuming markets of consequence. The food-supply could not be restricted, and might be sensibly increased. No competent economist will declare that under these circumstances any rise of price whatever is certain. No competent economist will say that the rise could be in the worst case serious or more perceptible than those trivial fluctuations due to varying harvests and freight-rates which are of constant occurrence. In the end, the colonial producer, having a constant relative advantage, would drive all alien competitors well-nigh out of the market. But this adjustment would be gradual, and need have no particular effect upon prices. Reference to p. 122 will show that the process of substituting Imperial wheat for foreign wheat is actually taking place now without exerting any particular effect upon prices. In 1900 the Colonies and India supplied no more than a sixth of our food-supply. Last year they supplied nearly half. But the cry of dear loaves, though heard from political platforms, was not otherwise audible.
We can only gain by a preference which will accelerate this process—securing colonial produce in the Mother Country and British manufacture in the Colonies. The orthodox importers, who may perhaps be called so without offence, have already half surrendered the position which it was originally thought might be defended by sangars of dear loaves. Lord Rosebery and Lord Ripon do not now expect little loaves to occur under preference. They warn the farmer that the cheapness of wheat under preference will accomplish his ruin. When casuistry becomes so flexible, honest minds will agree that, although the effect of a two-shilling duty upon that moiety of our food-supplies coming from foreign sources may be an interesting speculation, nobody can seriously expect that the loaf in the worst event, so far as the working classes are concerned, will be smaller by any visible fraction of an ounce.
