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perhaps four years. If we assume that our Agriculturists annually sell produce to the amount of two hundred millions, it would reduce this amount to one hundred and fifty millions. The case would stand thus,-By buying the six millions' worth of foreign corn, our agriculturists would have annually, for four years, fifty millions less than they now have for buying of the merchants and manufacturers. The latter, by selling the six millions' worth of commodities abroad, lose the sale of two hundred millions' worth at home. Every one is ready to declaim against over-trading, and to enlarge on the ruinous nature of gluts. Ministers and Parliament, at this moment, are pouring the most bitter execrations on those who, by their speculations, have brought a superabundance of various commodities into the market. Now, if the buying of that which we do not want, which in effect we can neither consume nor sell again, and which will cause a glut in articles on which half the population depend, be not overtrading, what is? Yet this overtrading is to be created by Parliament and the Ministry.

But then we are told that our light lands ought to be put out of cultivation to enable us to consume the foreign corn. How, and when, are they to be put out of cultivation? Is our agriculture a thing so manageable, that Parliament can guide it with a finger and thumb? Are the ministers to ramble through the country with the surveyor's chain and offset-staff, to point out the acres that are henceforward to be sacred from the inroads of the plough? Will the owners and occupiers of the light lands voluntarily cancel leases, and sacrifice rent, profits, and livelihood, for the benefit of the community? These lands can only be put out of cultivation by the distress of our whole agriculture; nothing else could accomplish it.

A vast quantity of nonsense is put forth touching these light lands. We have, in England, some land which is radically bad, and which no culture could materially improve. When corn was at the highest, no great portion of this land was put under any regular system of cultivation; and we imagine that not much of it is at present under the plough. Generally speaking, the light lands which are under regular cultivation, are capable of very great

improvement. If they yield less produce than the richer ones, they are cultivated at much less expense; they are, with good management, yearly increasing in fertility, and it requires no long period of time to raise them to fair average quality. If they be not so suitable for the growth of some kinds of produce as the richer lands, they are more suitable than the latter for the growth of other kinds. Excellent management, and plentiful manuring, only keep the best land at about the same point of fertility and value; but they keep increasing the fertility and value of the light, until they render it good land. The Economists, however, assume that the light lands can never be rendered any better, and that the return for manuring must all be made by a single crop

but what falsehood do they leave unpublished touching agriculture?

During the war, an immense quantity of waste and light land, which had previously been almost worthless, and which, to use a country phrase, had scarcely been capable of maintaining a goose on an acre, was brought under regular cultivation. No little of this is now excellent, and a large part of the remainder yields good crops, and is still improving.

If none but our rich land is to be kept under the plough, a vast portion, some say two-thirds, of our whole arable land, must be thrown out of cultivation. The fact that our richest soils at present leave only moderate profits, may convince any man that we cannot have any large portion of bad land under culture. It is preposterous to imagine, that by ceasing to cultivate a trifling extent of unproductive land, we should create a sufficient vacuum in the market for foreign corn. To do this, we must render waste an immense portion of land which is reasonably fertile, which is improving in fertility, and which enables its cultivators to live comfortably, when those of the best soils are only receiving moderate gains. Everything in experience, and argument, proves that this land can only be forced out of cultivation by a glut, and the consequent distress of our whole agriculture. Every farmer will extract the greatest quantity of corn possible from his land, until he is disabled by losing prices.

But then, it is said that agriculture

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will be amply protected. How will it be protected? A duty is to be imposed on foreign corn, which, in the present state of the market, will admit it from all the corn countries in the world, and which would admit it from some of them, if wheat here were reduced to forty shillings per quarter. What does agriculture want protecting from? A glut-the thing that would inevitably flow from the importation of foreign corn-the very thing that this protection" would create! If our agriculturists and manufacturers were unable to supply us, then a proper duty on foreign corn and manufactures to meet the deficiency, would be in reality a "protecting duty;" but when they can supply us abundantly, a duty to admit the foreign articles must yield, not protection, but ruin. It is one of the hateful characteristics of the "new system," that, while it pretends to give, it destroys protection; it removes every security against gluts, and, by augmenting supply, or diminishing consumption, subjects everything to their ravages. It professes to give protection to the silk manufacturer, at the moment when it is plunging him into bankruptcy with foreign silks; and to the farmer, at the very moment when it is preparing his ruin, by bringing foreign corn into the only market that he has, and which he can fully supply. This system has nothing open and straightforward about it-it is one of pitiful delusions from beginning to end-whether it have originated with Jew or Frenchman, we know not, but it certainly shows few marks of English parentage.

We say that, putting out of sight bad harvests, the expectation of which is not made the pretext for opening the ports, the importation of foreign corn must inevitably cause a glut, and plunge our agriculture into ruin. The importing of not quite four millions of quarters of foreign corn, previously to 1819, caused a destructive glut, which only began to disappear in 1824. During the long term of its continuance, there were, we think, two short harvests, and land in general, from the diminished means of the farmer, kept regularly falling off in fertility. We conceive that, in the last year, far more corn was consumed in this country than in any former year. Every one who is acquainted with the variety of uses to which flour is put, and

who has seen the household management of people of moderate income, and the working classes, must be aware that the consumption of flour fluctuates very greatly. In 1825, general income was very good, while the price of wheat was only in proportion to that of other things, therefore the consumption of flour must have been exceedingly large. A vast additional quantity of other grain must have been consumed in the keep of horses, distilling, malting, &c. Yet notwithstanding this, we have now plenty of corn, with the exception of barley, of which the last crop was a bad one. The last crop of wheat was an abundant one, and when the harvest was secured, we had a large quantity of old corn in the markets. In our judgment, the glut was got rid of, and room was made in the market for the bonded foreign wheat, in the last summer, much less by the increase of population and consumption, than by the falling off of production. We believe that considerably less corn will be consumed in the present year than was consumed. in the last one, and that we have much more wheat than we shall be able to consume before harvest. Our farmers, in the last two years, have recovered their means; much land that had been thrown out of cultivation has been again brought into it; land, in general, has had its fertility greatly restored; and we are pretty sure that our produce of corn will, with the same seasons, be now greater by oneeighth than it has been for some years. We have just opened our ports to the farmers of Canada. If land will yield at present only one-eighteenth or onetwentieth more than it yielded two or three years ago, the increase in wheat will be as much as can be consumed by an additional million of inhabitants. When we look at all this, we are convinced that this country must at this moment, with an average season, produce as much corn as it can consume. For the first few years of the future, the increase of population cannot, we presume, be taken at so much as 300,000 yearly; and this can be abundantly supplied by the increased produce of our inferior soils, the new land taken into cultivation, and the importations from Canada.

It is avowed that the protecting duty is to be such as will considerably sink the present price of corn-as will

admit foreign corn from all parts so long as prices remain what they are. If the ports were now opened, what would follow? The speculators in English corn would entirely forsake the market, and the factors, millers, &c. would hold the least portion of it possible: all, not wanted for immediate use, would lie wholly on the hands of the farmers. The latter would have the utmost difficulty in effecting sales; they would obtain bad prices; they would sell as little as possible, with the view of sustaining prices, and in the hope that a bad harvest, or some other cause, might give a turn to the market; they possess the means of holding for a season, and many of them could obtain a short postponement of the rent-day. While everything, on the one hand, would thus conspire to keep the English corn from sale, the production of it, for at least the first year, would go on as vigorously as ever. On the other hand, foreign corn is a favourite article with the merchants-the first at market would be pretty sure to pay well, and abundance of it would be eagerly shipped from all parts in the first moment. For some time, the holders of it would regularly undersell our own farmers, and still get good profits; it would therefore be forced into consumption, to the exclusion of English corn; and the importations would continue to be large. The English corn would thus be preserved from consumption, on the one hand, and excluded from it, on the other, to the amount of a few millions of quarters; and then the farmers would break down under their burden. The new crop would be approaching, payments could no longer be deferred, and they would come into the market in a body to force sales at almost any price. Agriculture would then exhibit only a frightful mass of ruin.

This is merely a description of what took place in this country a few years ago; it must, by the laws of nature, inevitably take place again if our market be constantly open to the foreign

er.

A bad harvest or a heavy duty might defer the glut for a time, but come it would, to the ruin of English agriculture. The most common understanding in the nation may discover, that if we grow as much corn as we can consume, if we regularly import corn, and if we cannot export it,

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we must soon have a superabundance that will reduce our corn-growers to bankruptcy.

Some of the Economists are simple enough to argue, that the foreign corn would cause an increase in trade and manufactures that would suffice for its consumption. We have already said sufficient to refute them. A large part of this corn would be brought by foreign ships, and paid for with unwrought produce. Our farmers would instantly cease buying merchandise and manufactures except from necessity, and general trade would be not increased, but greatly diminished. What effect had our former importations of foreign corn? They reduced commerce and manufactures to distress, with agriculture. It matters not how low the price of corn may be, people cannot consume if they have not money to buy it with. The four pound loaf may, in reality, be cheap at tenpence, and exceedingly dear at fivepence, to the mass of the community. Instead of the consumption of corn being increased by the importation of that of other countries, we conceive it would be reduced.

Other of the Economists, who are equally foolish, maintain, that other nations could not send corn in sufficient quantity to injure our markets. Because in former years of scarcity,-of scarcity arising from bad crops, and when crops were generally bad in other countries, we could only procure from abroad sufficient corn for a few weeks' consumption, they insist that we could never procure more in years of plenty. They protest, that the market could not possibly be injured by the importation of as much foreign corn as the whole nation could consume in a month,-of as much as would supply the greater part of two millions of the population for a year, -of as much as would render onetwelfth of our English corn wholly useless. Such nonsense is below notice, and yet it forms one of the leading arguments of the most exalted of the free-trade people. Let our ports be only constantly open to the corn of other nations, and these nations will soon be able, in good years, to supply nearly half our population. The delusion that prevails on the question is actually astonishing. The importation of foreign manufactures is a novelty to the chief part of the present

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generation, but in regard to corn the case is wholly different. In the last ten years, a free trade in corn" has been abundantly tried; it plunged not only agriculture, but manufactures and commerce likewise, into distress and ruin; it was obliged to be suspended to save the state itself from bankruptcy, and only two years have passed away since we extricated ourselves from the want and misery into which it cast us. Yet now we are assured that if we try it again it will yield prodigious benefits!

If agriculture should be thrown into ruin, commerce and manufactures would of necessity follow. The Agriculturists would buy nothing except on compulsion. They are now pretty well stocked with clothes, &c. and we conceive that in the chaos and misery of the first year, their expenditure with the merchants and manufacturers would be reduced nearly onehalf, or nearly to the amount of one hundred millions. Who will venture to say that this would be counterpoised by the purchasing of a few millions of quarters of useless foreign corn? The merchants and manufacturers would lose nearly half their business, nearly half of the latter would be thrown out of employment, and the whole would be overwhelmed with destructive gluts.

If we assume that agriculture could be preserved from ruin, still its present prices would be reduced onefourth by the opening of the ports. No permanent advance could take place in prices abroad to sustain them here. If there were any considerable deficiency of corn in our market, they might, for a year or two, be raised in other nations, without being reduced in our own; but in this case the advance could only continue for a short period, because, from the stimulus which it would give to foreign cultivation, and the abundance of uncultivated land which many foreign nations possess, a general superabundance would soon be created. But there is no deficiency in our market, prices could not abroad be above what would admit the foreign corn, and therefore they must decline here and not advance in other countries. We have at present a separate cornmarket, and if we add it to the general one of the world, we must be the

slaves of this general one, and not the rulers.

If the Agriculturists should have one-fourth struck off the prices of what they sell, they would still have to pay about the same for what they buy! The taxes would at the first be the same, and they would soon, as we shall presently show, have to be increased. Foreign produce could not be sold lower, manufacturing labour could only be very slightly reduced, and any reduction of price that might be made to the Agriculturists, would be counterpoised by increased poorrates. Let us ascertain how this clear, unbalanced reduction of onefourth in the income of the Agricul turists would operate.

It might have been expected that every one in the nation, down to the school-boy, would know, that such a reduction would inevitably compel the Agriculturists to buy at least fifty millions' worth less of goods annually of the merchants and manufacturers. This, however, is a truth too obvious to be noticed in times like these, when nothing but paradox can be looked at. The merchants and manufacturers seem to imagine, that the ability of the Agriculturists to buy of them depends in no degree on the prices of agricultural produce. The wine-merchants, grocers, drapers, and others who supply the nobleman, appear to think, that if they reduce his income from L.20,000 to I.15,000, or even L.12,000, he will still have as much money to expend among them as ever. They will soon have better information forced upon them. If arithmetic have not lost its virtue, and if the laws of nature have not been reversed by the free-trade miracle-mongers, the reduction will compel the Agriculturists to buy fifty millions' worth less of goods annually of the merchants and manufacturers. To the different classes of the latter its effects will vary very greatly.

The Economists, amidst their raving, assert, that the reduction would fall almost wholly on the landlords. It is estimated that some of the latter take what is equivalent to one-third of the whole produce; this means, that they would strike 75 per cent off their rents; that where they now take L.100, they would then be content with L.25; others are supposed to

take one-fourth, and, of course, they would be content without any rent at all. The absurdity of it needs no exposure. The landlords could not be expected to make any but proportion ate reductions, except from compulsion. If we assume that on the first rent-day they would, in disregard of leases, &c., reduce their rents, still the whole of the reduction would for some months fall on the tenants. The latter, from the want of money, would immediately employ, perhaps, one-fifth less of labour, and this would throw about one-fifth of the husbandry servants upon the poor-rates. They would gain nothing by it beyond a little momentary relief, for the land would yield so much the less produce.

When men obtain an increase of income, they do not merely buy a large portion of such articles as they had previously consumed; they buy perhaps only the same quantity of these, and they employ the increase in buying such as they had never been able to buy before. Previously to the last fifty years this country had a great superabundance of land, and this kept agriculture generally in poverty, and frequently in distress. There are many people now living who can remember the time when the mass of the husbandry servants, and small and middling farmers, used chiefly barley bread, and rarely tasted wheaten bread-when tea, coffee, sugar, spirituous liquors, silk goods, &c. &c. were seldom seen in the farmer's house-when the working orders made tea from herbs gathered in the garden if they could not procure milk-when almost every family spun its own linen and woollens, knitted its own stockings, &c.-and when scarcely anything in the shape of food, dress, and furniture, was used except the most cheap necessaries. As the value of agricultural produce increased, the inhabitants of the village became large consumers of merchandise, and manufactured goods. When the income of men is diminished, they return in the path by which they advanced; they do not consume less of everything, but they consume the same quantity of some articles, and abandon the consumption of others altogether.

If one-fourth be struck off the wages of the husbandry labourer, these wages will then scarcely supply his family with the very plainest necessaries; he will discontinue the use of sugar, and

perhaps of tea, and he will buy fewer, and still more common articles of clothing. If the farmer's income be reduced, he cannot reduce the expenses of cultivation without reducing in at least an equal degree the fertility of his land, and his family must consume the same quantity of the plainer kinds of food and clothing. He will return to the old system of having milk instead of tea, and this will exclude to a great degree tea, coffee, sugar, currants, &c. from his table. He will abandon the use of spirituous liquors, and drink much less ale. He and his sons will no longer wear superfine or fine cloth, fine Irish linen will be dismissed, the silk handkerchief will be displaced by the cotton one, the better kinds of boots and shoes must be discarded, and the common wool hat must banish the silk one and the beaver. His wife and daughters must wear no more silks and laces-the lustres, Norwich crapes, &c. must no more be thought of, and the prints must be of a very cheap and common character. If one-fourth be struck off the income of the landlord, his consumption of many things will remain the same, and the reduction will fall chiefly on those which are the most costly and the least necessary.

It is obvious that the loss of business would rest principally upon the importers of the more important arti cles of foreign produce, and the cotton, woollen, linen, and silk manufactu rers. The cessation or diminution of consumption would take effect chiefly on those articles which leave the best profits, employ the most labour, and pay the heaviest duty. The cheapest descriptions of cottons, woollens, li nens, hardware, furniture, &c. &c. in proportion, employ far less labour, and yield far less profit, than the dearer ones. Taking everything into calculation, we are pretty sure, that full one half of the manufacturing labour which the Agriculturists now employ would be thrown out of employment, and that the merchants and manufacturers would lose full one half of the profits which they now draw from the Agriculturists.

Now where are the advantages to be found which are to outweigh this stupendous loss to the merchants and manufacturers? It is perfectly clear that from the diminished consumption of the Agriculturists, the buying of the

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