'ST. L FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE x"^ THE LESSONS OF THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS APPLIED TO THE UNITED STATES. BY SAMUEL S. COX For ivliat avail the plough or sail, Or land, or life, if .freedom fail? EMERSON. NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 27 AND 29 WEST 23D STREET 1834 COPYRIGHT BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 1880. CONTENTS, CHAPTER I. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK. PACK Increasing surplus of production in the United States Need of foreign markets Predominance of our agricultural interests Freedom for land and trade demanded Teaching of the English corn laws I CHAPTER II. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CORN LAWS. Five centuries of blundering Fostering industry by restricting exports Class legislation Patriotic taxation The bounty nostrum Local protection and its failure The logic of starvation Revolution 7 CHAPTER III. THE HEROIC METHOD AND THE HEROES. The men who fought the fight Sir Robert Peel Charles Vil- liers Richard Cobden John Bright Daniel O'Connell Ebenezer Elliott 18 CHAPTER IV. ORGANIC PRINCIPLES OF THE CORN LAWS. The logic of restriction on export Alternate abundance and scarcity High profits and ruinous losses Bounties and who pay them Diversion from profitable to unprofitable indus- try Nature's provision against fluctuations 25 Vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. INDEPENDENCE AND INTER-DEPENDENCE. PAG 8 War and home supplies Independence a vagary Foreign expe- rience and the coast line of the United States Independ- ence and unfruitful labor Results of free trade in England Comparison with American system 31 CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CORN LAWS. Impoverishment of the wage class Increase of pauperism and crime Physical deterioration Corruption of public morals Disintegration of the state 40 CHAPTER VII. PLEAS FOR THE DEFENSE. Protection due to particular classes Plundering customers to stimulate trade The revenue pretext Hundreds to the government, millions to the monopolists Application to United States Vested rights and vested wrongs 47 CHAPTER VIII. ENGLAND'S PRESENT LAND TROUBLES. Rise of new conditions since the repeal Enslavement of the land Relics of the feudal system The cultivator barred from ownership in the soil American competition An un- certain future 54 CHAPTER IX. IRELAND ; HER LAND TROUBLES AND THEIR ORIGIN. Early Irish tenure Plunder of the land in the Elizabethan wars The Cromwellian settlement Religious persecutions England's oppressive trade policies Suppression of Irish industry and commerce 62 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER X. IRISH LAND WRONGS AND REMEDIES. PAGE The land monopoly Absenteeism Primogeniture and settle- ments Insecurity of tenure Discouragement of improve- ments Barriers against alternative industries Free land the radical remedy ... 7 CHAPTER XI. LEGALIZED ROBBERIES. Theft and reprisal "A free breakfast table " Mutual brigand- age Pauper labor Protection against the sun Terrible evils of foreign water power 78 CHAPTER XII. PANICS AND CRISES AS AFFECTED BY FREE TRADE. Causes of England's misfortunes Queries for the American pro- tectionist England's speculative fever The tariffs of the United States, Germany and Holland Agricultural dis- tress 35 CHAPTER XIII. OUR AGRICULTURAL OPULENCE AND DOMINANCE. Our increasing exports The protectionist argument not borne out by the facts Our surplus comes from the land No thanks to protection America's opportunity (,8 CHAPTER XIV. FREE TRADE FOR THE UNITED STATES. The needs of other lands Our ability to supply them Who the the tariff tinkers are Inconsistency of protectionists The patient taxpayer Conditions of reform ;o; CONCLUSION. THE FUTURE OF FREE LAND FREE TRADE 11 J FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. CHAPTER I. THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK. " The request of Industry to the government is as modest as that of Dio- genes to Alexander ; Stand out of my sunshine." BENTHAM. INCREASING SURPLUS OF PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES- NEED OF FOREIGN MARKETS PREDOMINANCE OF OUR AGRI- CULTURAL INTERESTS FREEDOM FOR LAND AND TRADE DE- MANDED TEACHING OK THE ENGLISH CORN LAWS. THE thesis of this book is, the necessity of en- larged foreign markets for the surplus of pro- duction from farm and factory in the United States. We are rapidly out-growing the notion that a monopoly of the home market is all we need ; and that it would be as well for us if our borders were surrounded by oceans of fire. The fatness of the land is forcing us to broader views, our amazing natural wealth is compelling us to the alternatives of yielding the policy of selfishness or being choked with our own abundance. Subordinate to this chief theme part and parcel of it really is that of the land and the danger of shackling in any way the wealth-producing forces that lie within it. Slight as has been the attention 2 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. thus far given this subject, it is bound to press more and more upon the thoughts of the country. What does the Granger movement signify, what do the in- vestigations into railway discriminations and combin- ations mean, but that the pressure of chains on the land are beginning to be felt both on the farm and in the busy centres of trade ? Is it not high time to take a new horoscope from the facts presented in these broad fields ? The fail- ure of the bread and meat stuffs of the trans-atlantic countries ; the providential increase of our own pro- duction from the land ; the condition of land tenure in Great Britian and Ireland ; the unproductive con- sumption and exhaustien of the products of the soil by the large standing armies of Europe ; the progress of this country in almost every line of industrial effort, give vital interest to the discussion proposed. The forces of production are labor, capital and land. The census of 1880 will show at least 49,000,000 inhabitants in the United States. It will reveal a less rate of decennial increase than in former periods ; but much greater than between 1860 and 1870, when it was only 22^ per cent. Immigration is increasing from causes set forth in the volume. We shall not want therefore for the first factor of wealth. As for our capital, we have an assuring in- dication in the fact that New York has long been the second money centre of the world, and its rivalry with London grows keener year by year. Then as to the land, it is no mere a priori guess that while we have an area of territory larger than any Euro- pean state, except Russia, and a greater number of THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK. 3 people of one tongue than any other nation, our three millions square miles are cultivated as yet only in the proportion of one fourth. But we are enlarg- ing that proportion rapidly. We are moving west- ward with giant strides, to the rich alluvial soils whence come our wealth. Our wealth is not in our mines of silver, gold or coal. These may be inexhaustible ; yet they are only auxilliaries to our fruitful and boundless acreage. The magnitude and variety of our soils, ranging from the colder to the warmer latitudes, embrace every kind of grain and food ; while the garden and or- chard are as abundant as our sugar and vine fields. Our energy and skill harness every appliance of mechanical force to plant, gather, and garner the amazing result. And it is no exaggeration to say that the value of the direct product aggregates two thousand five hundred millions of dollars per year. Compared with our other industries how immense are those which deal with the simple fruits of the soil! Even in regard to cotton, if the statistics of manufacture show anything as in 1878 they show that we export nearly two thirds of our cotton in the lint, leaving about one third for home manufac- ture, Of the latter, ninety-six per cent is used at home for clothing our own people. The native wealth of our soil is inexhaustible, yet we shall be foolish if we therefore suffer our indus- trial system to " take care of itself" i. e., be shaped by those who have their own designs to further. Other countries have been richly endowed ; yet aristocratic privileges, landlordism, primogenitive 4 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. succession and other forms of monopoly have been suffered to fix themselves upon the land, and its richness has been pressed out of it. Is the danger for us a mere vagary ? What of the railroad mono- poly ? Can any one affirm that the land in the United States is free, when so much of the profit in remunerative prices is absorbed by transportation charges ? Are not freight combinations and the like only a change in the form is it not feudality and landlordism still? the conspiring of class in terest against the common weal? This evil, however, has been held in check to a considerable degree. The source of the injus- tice, when injustice is done, is so obvious, that the rebellious sufferers at once attack the real op- pressor. The people are waking up in all the States, and the railways are on the defensive. But there is another danger which does not approach so openly. Briefly stated, it is this ; that we are rapidly out- growing the market to which our tariff walls practi- cally limit us. Here is the question : When our land really shows its splendid opulence, when our acreage is increased both for cattle and grain, is the inevitable surplus over the home and foreign demand to remain with us to glut the market ? I say nothing now of our manufactures. These have risen from $44 per capita in 1850 to $111 per capita in 1870, and there can be no doubt that the want of an outlet for the heavy surplus was one of the leading causes of the industrial distress which began in 1873. With scarcely any increase in the THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK. 5 plant, the mills of the country might turn out dou- ble and triple their present product. But it is not necessary to debate this point ; as to the soil there can be no dispute. What is to be the result here of the rapid opening up of the rich farm- ing and grazing lands of the West and Southwest ? Our export of wheat in 1879 figured in value to no less than $160,000,000; corn, $40,000,000; hams and bacon, $51,000,000 ; lard, nearly $23,000,000 ; cheese, $12,000,000; butter, $5,000,000. What will be the end of this amazing development of our native riches? Will our surplus go to other nations, carrying bene- fits and bringing benefits in return, or for lack of those mutual conditions which make trade possible, is the flood of good things to be dammed in its passage and flung back upon us to destroy and be destroyed ? These are questions which vehemently press for answer. Every farmer from the Red River of the North to the Teche is interested in them ; and not less if he realizes the true relations of his trade every manufacturer who has not the fortune to pos- sess a monopoly. We must have the opportunity and privilege, the liberty, to trade. We cannot sell, without buying. Our crude product is now nearly ninety per cent of our exports ; but will even that continue ? If England should place restrictions on the importa- tion of our cereals and beef, reenact her corn laws, what would be the effect on us ; and especially in case the good years for crops should return to her and the continent ? Where then would be our market ? 6 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. This book proposes to consider these problems in the light of experience. Political economy, both as an inductive and as a deductive science, sur- vives the sneers of the ignorant and the satire of the selfish ; but of all the weapons which its armory fur- nishes, the argument from completed results seems most effective. Writers of other countries, notably France and Germany, have given studies of compara- tive statistics from the ground of international econ- omy. The author proposes one simple text: the corn laws of England. The history of their enact- ment, their application and their repeal, is a presenta- tion at once compact and exhaustive of the protec- tive theory in its practical working. There is noth- ing new to be added to the story. But in the belief that a study of this theme in relation to land and manufactures in the United States may be of genu- ine service, I submit these pages to an intelligent public. CHAPTER II. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CORN LAWS. " Careless of mankind They lay beside their nectar, and the clouds are curled, Round their golden houses girdled by the gleaming world ; But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song, Like a tale of little meaning, tho' the words are strong : Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil." LOTUS EATERS. FIVE CENTURIES OF BLUNDERING FOSTERING INDUSTRY BY RE- STRICTING EXPORTS CLASS LEGISLATION PATRIOTIC TAXA- TION THE BOUNTY NOSTRUM LOCAL PROTECTION AND ITS FAILURE THE LOGIC OF STARVATION REVOLUTION. LET us begin therefore, at the alphabet. What is corn ? To the American it simply means maize, and to the unsophisticated it may be sup- posed that the corn laws of Great Britain pertain to our Indian corn. But corn is a generic term, signifying the grain or seed of plants, separated from the spike or ear, and used for making bread. There are different species of corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats and maize. These constitute the chief necessaries of life in all countries. The corn laws, therefore, were laws which regulated trade in corn. The history of the corn laws of England covers nearly five centuries. It will be convenient to study 8 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. it in periods ; of which four may be carved out with sufficient definiteness, each marked with its distinct characteristic. I. 1360-1688. Restriction of Exports. Doubtless the first regulations about corn in Great Britain were well intended. Their purpose was to procure abundance and cheapness. In the earliest eras of that legislation, England was more of an agricultural, than a mauufacturing country, she raised all the corn she consumed and had a surplus. Hence any laws at that time against the importa- tion of corn would have been inoperative. But they were not enacted. On our federal statute book we have, strange to say, with our millions of surplus, a tariff ostensibly designed to restrict the. importation of corn. Of course it is an unsubstantial sop to Cerberus. Eng- land was not as foolish as that in her corn legisla- tion. Her policy at this early period was to restrict exportation and thus make the food supply plentiful and cheap. Imagine an American statesman, in our Congress, introducing a law to make bread cheap by forbidding the surplus of California or Minnesota from going abroad ! The world does move. The first English statute was in the time of the third Edward, in 1360. It forbade exportation. In 1394 exportation was allowed on conditions. In 1436 an act was passed permitting, exportation of wheat whenever the price should fall to 6s. 8d. per quarter, and of barley whenever the price should HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CORN LA WS. g drop to 33. 4d. It was not until 1463 that the first glimpse of -the protective policy dawned, in a legis- lative effort to ward off the competition of the conti- nent. Importation was prohibited unless the domes- tic prices should exceed those named in the law of 1436. In 1562 the price at which exportation could take place was extended. In 1571 duties were im- posed on exportation. This act gave some freedom to the trade, although it was limited. These regula- tions were variously modified at different times, but not essentially altered. In 1670 the export duty was reduced to encourage cultivation, while a heavy duty amounting to prohibition was imposed on imported corn. Now while we see in all this shifting legislation, under our present lights, a few gleams of good sense, "Little gloomy lights, much like a shade," we perceive, through all, that England was sowing the seeds of future misery. She was teaching her- self that the natural forces of industry and trade could not be trusted to bring about the best devel- opments; she was forming the habit of meddling and tinkering with the delicate growth of the indus- trial system ; she was accustoming herself worst of all to the spectacle of a favored class manipulating the capital and labor of the entire country for its own ends, yet in the name of the country and on pretext of the highest patriotism. Everything was done at the behest and for the aggrandizement of the landed proprietors. Destructive as that legisla- IO FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. tion has proved to be to this very landed interest, it is nevertheless true that the self-seeking of the great families was the source of its inspiration. The lesson of the corn laws, therefore, up to 1688 (in which year England taught so many truths of civil and political freedom), is the lesson which is taught us, or which would be taught us if we would open our eyes, by the similar supremacy of a class in this country, and the course of legislation enforced under their domination. The manufacturers of the United States are not a powerful order in point of numbers, yet they have been powerful enough, by their combinations and through the opportunity of the common blindness and indifference, to throttle both commerce and agriculture, and keep the whole people under tribute to their alleged necessities. As with the English landed proprietors, also, their selfish efforts, however successful in putting money into the pockets of a few, have resulted in crippling the in- dustries they were designed to make strong. II. 1688-1773. Fostering by Bounties. The next era may be called the bounty era run- ning from 1688 to 1773. The plan of protecting the favored interest by direct payment from the public treasury was the feature of the legislation of this period. Before detailing it, however, it will be worth while to notice the course of a subsidiary movement, which at once illustrates the selfishness and the short- sightedness of class government. The country gen- try, herding around such ministers as Walpole, and themselves the lords of their several groups of " corn HISTORICAL SKETCH. OF THE CORN LA WS. \ i fed yeomanry," were never, perhaps, more grasping than then. One of their efforts to enrich themselves, was an internal protective system, based on the notion that if the consumer cquld be forced to buy directly from the grower, the profits of the middle- men would fall to the land. It was made a penal offense to buy corn in one market to dispose of it in another. The system was like that of the octroi duties prevailing in certain countries of Europe ; where every locality had its tax, against the income of the surrounding, and the outgo of the local pro- duct. The regulations worked only ill, of course. The crowding out of middle men by some better method of discharging their functions is one thing; the attempt to anihilate them by law is quite another. I have seen a law passed in Congress, to prevent traffic in gold. It was offered by Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, the first year of the war; but it was repealed, even before it was printed, in a few days after its en actment. . We need not to be too critical upon the men of that early English period. It is strange, indeed, that the agriculturist could not at once see how insignificant were the profits to be screwed out of the local consumers, compared with the freely given remuneration of a greater market. But is the blind- ness which exists to-day less strange? The octroi system was only broken by the logic of events. The truth became more and more ap- parent under actual experience figured in pounds, shillings and pence, until, in 1773, every vestige of internal restriction was effaced from the English 12 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. statute book. In other words, the protective system failed ; free trade was established within the circuit of the country's borders. We pass now to the bounty element which dis- tinguished this period. The era was a revolutionary one. William III had ascended the throne through the powerful interests of the agriculturists. The land owners were prompt to get their advantages. They procured the bounty act of 1689 ; which provided that wherever wheat should be at or below forty-eight shillings, there should be a bounty of five shillings allowed on its exportation. What was the effect of this bounty on exportation ? It led to extensive cultivation, and hence lowered the price. Wheat sold lower seventy years after the bounty than it had seventy years before. Expor- tation largely increased and the tax-payers made good the loss ! This is the protectionist plan of prosperity. In ten years, 1740 to 1750, the bounties amounted to $7,500,000. Of course this came from the people. It could come from no other source. In most of our tariff discussions in Congress, during and since the war, those of us who took part in the debates, fixed this one fact, eo nomine, as to bounty, indelibly upon the record. It was the price which the people paid for the lush growth of unre- munerative labor. In our case, agriculture paid the most of it, to the " splendid paupers " who grasped it in their enormous duties on manufactured ar- ticles. The simplest query which can be asked of the protectionist is : Why should one man in one trade HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CORN LAWS. 13 have a bounty given to him for his encouragement, and not another man in another occupation ? Why should that other be compelled to pay that bounty to his neighbor, when his neighbor pays no bounty to him ? And if his neighbor does pay an equal bounty to him, where is the benefit ? The hatter gives a dollar a year to the shoemaker to foster the shoe trade, and the shoemaker responds with a dol- lar a year to the hatter to foster the hat trade. Where is the gain, where is the sense? Is it not obvious that a tax to be protective must be unjust ; / it must take from one class to give to another with- \/ out return. That is what protection means ; and that is what bounties signify. After 1769, the agriculturist was still waxing greater and greater in English politics, but the manufacturing and commercial interests were ex- tending also. The peace of 1763 with France had increased the English colonial possessions. New avenues of wealth began to open on every side. Commerce begat capital ; capital was invested in manufactures; and population increased in an un- precedented way. The nation received a tremendous impulse of prosperity. How was corn affected in trade and legislation by this new era of prosperity ? Consumption increased enormously, and prices rose in corresponding measure. Importation of grain was prohibited. The corn monopoly was complete, and the door of opportunity opened the way to un- bounded wealth. Did it ? The monopolists surely thought so, and the wheat price-list seemed indis- putable evidence. But they deceived themselves, 14 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. even as the protectionists of this enlightened age de- ceive themselves. The price list is an elastic meas- ure. The swollen figures on it may be coincident with poverty. The land owners were not as well off as they thought they were, and they were pre- paring for themselves bitter revenges. III. 1773-1815. Protection and Starvation. The next era is from 1773 to 1815. At the be- ginning of this era the tide had turned somewhat in the direction of less restricted trade. In 1773 the city of London offered a bounty of four shillings for twenty thousand quarters on im- portation a local but very significant effort to counteract, for the benefit of the people, the influ- ence of the monopolists. In 1774 a more generous national policy was adopted. The duty on importation was fixed at six shillings for wheat above forty-eight shillings, and when the price exceeded forty-four shillings, expor- tation was forbidden and bounties withdrawn. The design of this complicated law was to prevent such great fluctuations as had taken place. It succeeded. Corn became practically free, from 1773 to 1790, and prices were steady to an unprecedented degree. Agriculture was not injured. On the contrary, five hundred thousand acres of waste lands were redeemed during this period. Still agriculturists were dissatisfied, and unhap- pily for themselves and the country, they were the ruling interest in legislative councils. Their sup- HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CORN LAWS. 15 port was necessary not only to Lord North's Ameri- can policy, but to all his other policies." They began to meddle with the sliding scale tariff for their own advantage, promising meanwhile prosperity to the whole nation. The corn laws were subjected to a variety of manipulations, each altera- tion marked with the feature of a rise in the pro- tective price. The effort to outwit the natural laws of trade failed, as it must always fail. Food became dear, but dear food did not bring high wages. The economic forces worked on resistlessly despite the suave promises of the protectionists. Riots were common in the agricultural districts. The laboring masses were ground harder and harder. The war with France, the derangement of the currency, Napoleon's commercial code, natural scarc- ity, and other causes, had combined to keep up the high price of food ; but when all this was changed, when food might have been plentiful before hungry mouths, the monopolists only fought the more for their baneful privileges. A flood of corn in 1813 was the signal for a most bitter contest between the producing or landed in- terest, and the consumer of grain. As a politico- economic battle it was unexampled for its fierceness. It had almost the vivacity of melo-drama, and, in many of its scenes, the agony of tragedy. The toil- ers paraded their gaunt, famine-wasted skeletons among them even the laborers and tenantry from the very farms whence came the rich livings of the landlords calling upon all to witness what the greed of the wealthy was doing for them. The strife seemed 1 6 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE, vain. Wages declined; rents advanced. The rich grew richer, the poor grew poorer. Yet the revolu- tion was coming on irresistibly. IV. 1815-1846. Revolution. The last period may be taken from 1815 to 1846, when the corn laws were abolished. This period began in desperation ; but it ended in the brightest hope ! It was a night, but a night thick with stars, and it ended with the morning! The success obtained by the opponents of protec- tion was at first limited and temporary. In 1815 the landed interest was still dominant in Parliament. Under great excitement, that body dared to permit freedom from duty to warehoused corn, while it for- bade importation for consumption, except upon a fixed average price. The hungry population were roused to fury. Parliament was menaced. Its halls had to be protected by a military force. This law marked the culmination of the protective corn legislation. From this time, each succeeding step was an approach toward genuine principles of economy. But the protectionists did not know that they had overstepped the limit of toleration. The usual jargon was still talked to pacify the outraged people. The new law would keep up prices, and thus enable the farmer to pay good rents and high wages. The same tale that is told to-day ! Make the necessaries of life scarce and dear, and the working people will somehow be entirely happy. The law did not keep up prices. The fluctua- HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CORN LAWS. \j tions ran violently through a scale covering two hun- dred per cent. Renewed distress was the conse- quence, and the experiments made to relieve it in 1822, 1825 and 1826 proved all unavailing. Starvation has a cold, sharp logic, which cuts like steel. It began to be questioned whether all kinds of legislation upon bread taxing were not fruitful of misery. Men gathered at ale houses, corners, and in factories, and wondered why they had been so long blind. The pressure of public opinion was seen in a mul- titude of legislative make-shifts, acts and orders. The clamor of the people rose louder and louder. They felt, they saw that their very lives were at stake. To save them, there appeared in the lists no feudal knight surrounded by gorgeous pageantry; only the genius of Scotch economy, directed by the benevolence of pure reason ! The end began with a new sliding scale system championed by Canning and Grant. The aristocracy prophesied the ruin of the country. They were ignored. The great Duke of Wellington threw his sword into the scale. In vain ! A new class of men now come upon the English forum. They penetrate St. Stephens. They agitate on the hustings. They move parliament. They are led in song by Ebenezer Elliott, in oratory by Cob- den and Bright, and in legislative warfare by Mr. Villiers of Wolverhampton, the most princely of all the princely knights who broke lances with landlord- ism for repeal ! CHAPTER III. THE HEROIC METHOD AND THE HEROES. " I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honorable motives, clamors for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit ; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labor, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by the sense of injustice." SIR ROBERT PEEL. THE MEN WHO FOUGHT THE FIGHT SlR ROBERT PEEL CHARLES VILLIERS RICHARD COBDEN JOHN BRIGHT DANIEL O'CON- NELL EBENEZER ELLIOTT. men who fought the fight for the repeal of 4- the corn laws make up a singularly notable company. There is a long roll of these worthies, and some of them are not Englishmen. The anti-slavery men here, as well as the free-traders on the continent sympathized with the movement. Cobbett was not less enthusiastic than Archibald Prentice, the League's historian. W. J. Fox, Hume, Dr. Bowring, Sir Thomas Potter, Earl Ducie and Brown of Liver- pool, but why make the catalogue ? Is it not enough to say that Cobden was its chief orator and THE HEROIC METHOD. 19 that Carlyle was one of its heroes? A few peaks stand out, " in mien and gesture proudly eminent." Sir Robert Peel, the potential head of the gov- ernment, with one courageous stroke, ending with the splendid sentiment at the head of this chapter, carried free trade. He destroyed himself politically and made his name forever great on the scroll of the world's benefactors. His action in the crisis was a fitting crown to his noble career. A man as re- served as he was profound, he had reasoned his way through traditional bondage to an enlarged belief, but he had not impressed the fact of his change of opinion upon his conservative constituency. Nor had the circumstances called for any declaration. But suddenly, the stress of events forced upon him the alternatives of sacrificing his convictions or abandoning a famine-stricken land ; of playing with the truth and mocking at suffering, or alienating the constituency that honored him and laying himself open to the charge of political treason. He rose a hero to the test. He stood for right and humanity ; he became a " traitor " and is forever blessed. Mr. Charles Villiers worthily stands by the great prime minister. It was his persistent urgency, ses- sion after session, that renewed the contest until its consummation in triumph. I saw him in England in 1851, fresh, gallant, industrious and persistent. He has died recently, and the constituency which he represented so long and so ably have honored them- selves and him by erecting a monument to his mem- ory in Wolverhampton. To him, more than to Cob- den or to Bright, or even to Sir Robert Peel, is due 20 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. the long, patient, successful warfare, which led to the repeal of the corn laws. He was a member of the aristocratic class. In his advocacy of the lib- eralities and humanities of free commerce, he ran counter to his order and braved the stigma which attached to him for his revolutionary principles. Bringing in bill after bill while others were lethargic or weary, he never suffered the Commons to rest until the great end was accomplished. It was his motion, on the Monday night in February, 1846, for immediate repeal, that gave the last blow to the greatest wrong in English history. Richard Cobden, it need not be said, was the leader among the people. He was of the people ; the son of a yeoman and brought up to trade. His thorough business training and his wide knowledge of business needs, acquired in travelling, while part- ner in a Manchester cotton mill, naturally made him a dangerous opponent in debate on such a theme. His style was simple, earnest and crystalline. He was not ostentatious ; yet none the less powerful. The tide was not more irresistible. John Bright survives, in all his early vigor. He was at this period in the first flush of his splendid powers. His commanding presence, resonant voice, Saxon speech, and virile logic brought a strength to the cause whose value it is not easy to estimate. Nor was it any injury to the influence and future prospects of the coming leader that, while his father was a Quaker manufacturer of carpets, he was made independent of political gains by his wealth. What a splendid career he began with this Liberty of Trade, THE HEROIC METHOD. 21 which he is now illustrating with the Liberty of Land! Nor ought it to be forgotten that such men as Daniel O'Connell contributed their aid to the great result. Speaking in 1840, at Manchester, O'Connell boldly stated the question thus : " If the corn laws are good to rescue the people from wretchedness, why do they not rescue the people of Ireland ? Are there not sixty or seventy thousand Irish in Manchester, driven there by desti- tution in their own country? If the corn laws give employment and high wages, why do they not give them in agricultural Ireland ? " Subsequently he asked what the corn laws were for ? " To put money into the pockets of the landlords not the money of the Russians, the Danes or the Swedes, but that of their fellow-countrymen." When such a heroic statesman could forget all other antagonisms to join with those I have named, need we marvel that the victory, begun in 1832, was achieved at last against such tremendous forces ? It ought not to be forgotten that the hymns and rhymes of the blacksmith poet, Ebenezer Elliott, had their marked and popular effect. His muse, smutched though it was by his smithy, had all the ruggedness of the blows on the anvil. He regarded his poems as weeds ; but, as he said, they sprang out of existing things. His indignation at wrong could not be restrained. He did not pre- tend to argue. He denounced with vigorous prose and stalwart style. Yet, as his verses show, he had 22 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. a tender heart for flowers and children, and abound- less love of nature ; but the sight of his class suffer- ing from cruel extremes, because of such God and man offending laws awakened all the powers of his mind and genius. No one, however honored or titled, if in favor of class distinctions, and chronic wrongs, is exempt from the fury of his ireful pen. Wellington, is not to him, the Great Duke ; he is, because a Bread Taxer, by a witless paraphrase, called Blucherloo. The aristoc- racy of the land have no respect from the poet, be- cause they are palaced almoners, living off of Bread taxes. With no end of dogmatic iteration, he per- sonifies this class, as " Sir Bread Tax Pauper, and Lady Betty Pension." They are, in the nomencla- ture of his invective, slaves and robbers despicable creatures, Landlord Devils, who tax the British cake and mix the bread with bran, and lacking- bran, with tears. I have said that he had a tender heart under his brawn. Some of his poems were in an ambitious vein, and give glimpses of that fairy light that never was on sea or land the consecration and the poets dream ; but even when he sings of dew-glistening Al- bion, with its woods and dropping caves, its linnet, red breast, lark and wren, there appears the gaunt skeleton of " blasted homes and much enduring men." Then taste and propriety give way before his trucu- lent and oracular utterances. Passion lifts the arm of strength, and the anvil chorus drowns the spirit ditties of his gentler Muse. You then feel the enor- mous power with which he hates those who made THE HEROIC METHOD. 23 bread dear, and labor cheap, and recognize him as a factor in the struggle for Repeal. I would not, out of mere romantic sentiment to- ward this poet of iron, this laureate of a fiscal revo- lution overate the influence of his character, or derogate from the influence of others, less stalwart and stern. He must have been a man of rare clev- erness, since he was the friend of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer who though a tory Statesman was an ad- mirer of this poet of Nature ; and at the same time, a friend of Jeremy Bentham, whom he calls " our second Locke," and to whom he dedicated his Corn Law Rhymes. Nor is it just to aggrandize too much the labor of Sir Robert Peel, so as to detract from others who labored in this League of Love. Sir Robert was not the only hero of this bloodless revolution. The proposition of Sir Robert Peel in 1842, a compromising measure was as vehemently attacked upon the hustings by Mr. Cobden and his indefatiga- ble league of eloquent orators, as it was denounced by Mr. Villiers and his coadjutors in Parliament. From that time forward the shibboleth was total ab- olition. The proposition of Peel, in 1842, and its impolicy was discussed, and its injustice stigmatized in every form, in hymns and songs, as well as in the forum and press ; and by every mode of inspiring and enlightening public opinion. The law was assailed for its intrinsic badness. No compromise was to be discussed. The inde- scribable distress of the operatives and laborers of England appealed to the humanities of man's nature. 24 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. The fearful statistics of crime and poverty were col- lected and fired with burning eloquence. Other poetry than that of Ebenezer Elliott bewailed the misery and woe of the poor, as the fell consequence of these laws. Every imaginable device was called into requisition to move the public mind to demand, at once and forever, the abolition of restrictions upon the prime necessary of life. The agitation threatened the fabric of society. But the year 1842 was as May sunshine to the hurricane of 1846. Sir Robert Peel had been the staunch friend of protection hitherto, and always, but he was not vain enough to be consistent when such excesses ap- peared. How courageously he yielded to the de- mands of that public opinion, which had been created through so many throes! Is not this the proudest part of his biography? " The time is ripe and rotten ripe for change," he exclaimed, and amid the jeers of his own friends, he gave to England the cheap loaf, which is the sweetest immortelle to his memory. Comparative quiet followed the victory. A fear that the future would prove less favorable to the consummation of that progressive policy which had so long been advancing toward free trade, crept quietly over England. Men sat in trembling lest their prophecies might fail, and all the resources of their statesmanship and sagacity be dissipated. We now know what gigantic consequences have followed. It is for us to apply the lessons to our own land. CHAPTER IV. ORGANIC PRINCIPLES OF THE CORN LAWS. " Of seeds and plants, and what will thrive and rise, And what the genius of the soil denies, This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres, suits ; That other loads the trees with happy fruits ; A fourth, with grass unbidden, decks the ground. Thus Tmolus is with yellow saffron crown'd ; India black ebon and white iv'ry bears, And soft Idume weeps her od'rous tears. Thus Pontus sends her beaver-stones from far ; And naked Spaniards temper steel for war ; Epirus, for the Elean Chariot breeds. (In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds. This is the original contract ; these the laws Impos'd by Nature, and by Nature's cause. Virgil Georgics Lib. I. 54-61. THE LOGIC OF RESTRICTION ON EXPORT ALTERNATE ABUNDANCB AND SCARCITY HlGH PROFITS AND RUINOUS LOSSES BOUN- TIES AND WHO PAY THEM DIVERSION FROM PROFITABLE TO UNPROFITABLE INDUSTRY NATURE'S PROVISION AGAINST FLUCTUATIONS. H E principles of the corn laws, so far as they affected foreign trade, had reference to expor- tation and importation. The laws regarding exportation were of two kinds ; those which prohibited exportation, and those which encouraged exportation by bounty. The Prohibitory Policy. The plausible notion that the way to make an 26 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. abundance is to keep at home all home production, was the ground of the policy of prohibiting expor- tation. What is the fallacy of this ? For a season it may answer to prohibit exportation, and thus pro- duce plenty ; but for a steady and bountiful supply, the merchant must have the liberty to export his surplus. If he is not allowed this privilege in abun- dant years, what will be the effect ? The market will be glutted, and the growers will be injured. On the following year, less land or less of a pecu- liar crop will be cultivated ; scarcity and high prices will follow. If, on that following year, when little is harvested, that little should fail, starvation is the consequence. Ruinous fluctuations, therefore, are the consequences of legislative intermeddling with exportation. The effects of this system, as we have seen, were such as to work its own abrogation. The Bounty Juggle. As to the bounty policy : Its object was to create an extension of the market. But did this encourage or affect agriculture ? How does it extend the mar- ket ? What kind of extension is that which pays a bonus in order to create an artificial demand ? The consumer will give for corn just what it is worth. The bounty comes from the government. Whence does the government obtain the bounty? From the people. Then the people pay for the encouragement they desire ? Whence came the im- mense amounts that were paid from 1768 to 1773 on account of bounties ? From the tax-payers. Who ORGANIC PRINCIPLES OF THE CORN LA WS. 2? are they? Why, most of them were the corn growers themselves. The agriculturists paid for their own protection. Make the application to this country, and the result is even more ludicrous. To suppose that a nation can increase its capital and production by bounties, is to suppose that a man may get rich by changing his money from one pocket to the other. Bounties temporarily raised the price of corn. They gave a fictitious stimulus to agriculture, and brought under cultivation a great quantity of bare land, such as bogs and fens, which required a great deal more labor for the production of the same quan- tity of corn, than the good land. Now the average price of corn, like that of any other commodity, is regulated by the quantity, more or less, of labor, necessary for its production. Hence, if a people in- vest their capital and employ their labor in producing upon bad land, when they might employ that labor and capital in departments of industry which would produce at a higher rate, that people are wasting their resources by just the difference between the cost of the two separate products. Until England set the example of protection, most countries favored importation ; at least, they did not discourage it. That England should have led in the self-de- structive movement seems most strange ; that the fulcrum she chose was corn could hardly be believed now, were it not written down in indelible history. Do not the great body of the English people depend for their daily bread on other than agricultural in- 28 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. dustry? They manufacture for the world. The statistics of one week's work in Manchester, with its tons and tons of production, confound the marvels of magic. What more obvious than that England's road to prosperity was in developing her extraordi- nary manufactures, and buying from abroad the cheap food with which to sustain the armies of her mills and furnaces? She learned the lesson in 1846, and is not likely to forget it. Nature s Provision against Scarcity. But without reference to the peculiar talents or resources of any community, how unwise is the policy of rejecting the good things which other com- munities would send to us? It may be asserted as a general principle that the wider in extent the surface of a country, the less it is exposed to fluctuations and scarcity in the supply, especially of the life ne- cessities. Nature, in her entirety, is not fluctuating and uncertain. To the observing and thoughtful, she is uniform in this raising of grain. This is a promise made by Jehovah after the Deluge: " while the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest shall not cease." A general failure of crops may occur in a small area like Great Britain; but in a country as large as Russia or the United States it seldom or never occurs. So it has been remarked that in the United States, when large crops are not harvested east of the Mississippi, the farther West teems with lavish abundance. If the South with- holds, the North gives back. When applied to the ORGANIC PRINCIPLES OF THE CORN LA WS. 29 whole world the principle is absolute. History has no example of universal scarcity. The reason is ob- vious. The weather that is unfavorable to vegeta- tion in one species of soil, is frequently advantageous to it in another. If moist soil follow from a wet summer, dry rocky districts make luxuriant crops. One country like one district is peculiarly fitted for the growth of maize, like our Mississippi Valley ; another for the grape, like France or California; a third abounds in minerals like Australia or Ne- vada; a fourth has inexhaustible forests, like British Columbia, or Wisconsin. Virgil has beautifully de- scribed this harmonious and varied dispensation of nature in the significant lines at the head of this chapter. His ceterna feeder a was not a corn-law league, nor a zoll-verein. The eternal laws and cov- enants to which the poet refers, were laid by nature on certain places, ever since the flood ; Imposuit natura locis. Out of this deference to natural federa- tion, the poet says that a laborious race of men was produced. Thus Rome grew great. Modern pro- gress, by telegraph and steam, has given- miraculous meaning to these lines. They are an illustration, for all time, of the liberty of land and trade ; and an in- centive to the utility and dignity of the labor and manhood which they magnify and exalt. Suppose, therefore, that there are no restrictions. Then the law obtains, that the wider the extent of surface, the less danger is there of scarcity, and the greater is the supply of the necessaries and conveniencies of life. Why should England with her inestimable and 30 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. peculiar advantages, have been restricted in the supply of corn to her own soil ? Why should there have been embarrassment, scarcity, or starvation there ? Had she not in superfluity the advantages for producing what other countries wanted, and did not other countries teem with what she wanted ? Why should she, or any other country, counteract, by restriction or prohibition, the manifest benevo- lence of Providence, whereby the excess of one land compensates for the deficiency of another? CHAPTER V. INDEPENDENCE AND INTER-DEPENDENCE. " Heaven formed each on other to depend Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all, Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally The common interest or endear the tie." POP. WAR AND HOME SUPPLIES INDEPENDENCE A VAGARY FOREIGN EXPERIENCE AND THE COAST UNE OF THE UNITED STATES INDEPENDENCE AN.D UNFRUITFUL LABOR RESULTS OF FREE TRADE IN ENGLAND COMPARISON WITH AMERICAN SYSTEM. IT was said that the corn laws rendered the coun- try independent of foreign supplies. Now in the first place, why was it necessary to render the country independent of foreign supplies? Is this only an ebullition of patriotism ? Is it a sage argument in economy? Economy has reference to cost. It has no elements kindred to patriotism. The fallacy deserves consideration, not so much from its force, as because its refutation enables one to make plain the principles of unrestricted interchange. This argument is most strenuously urged in con- nection with the contingency of foreign war: " Sup- pose we are dependent upon another country for our supplies. We fall into a war with that country. Where are we then ? And does not common sense 32 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. enjoin us to be prepared always to provide for our wants from our own soil ? " The answer is an entirely practical one. The ac- cusation of" mere theory" cannot be brought against it. It has received again and again the demonstra- tion of historical events. Even in a time of war, it is as much for the in- terest of the foreigner to sell to the enemy, as for the enemy to buy. Holland was fed by foreign grain through peace and through war, and her sup- plies were always abundant and her prices steady. When the continental system of Napoleon was at its height, when it was screwed up to the snapping limit, when the magnificient arbiter disposed of his own brother, because that brother did not act up to his principles England imported i ,600, ooo quarters of corn, with 800,000 of this from France, and the rest from countries then provinces of France. This was during England's war with France, with the most "implacable and powerful enemy that ever chal- lenged her arms. Napoleon, with all his codes and powers, was impotent to choke the natural channel of products to the best market and is it probable that in the future, a greater than a Napoleon will arise ? Is it likely that any war can so blockade the vast coast line of the United States, as to shut off the supplies we may wish to purchase from those who will certainly wish to sell ? When it comes to the necessaries by which mil- lions live, no engines of war and no codes as to con- traband can stop their influx. God never made an independent nation, any more than an independ INDEPENDENCE, INTER-DEPENDENCE. 33 ent man. England cannot be independent of foreign supply ; nor can America, until we forget our habits, and learn to raise tea, coffee, sugar and cocoa nuts. Change the zones, and we may be independent in these things. We can never be independent, how much so ever we may manufacture or raise. Does not England import her raw cotton, and other mate- rials, which employ millions of her population? Upon their supply hangs the existence of a large part of her people. Did the raising of cotton in Egypt, India and in Central America, during our civil' war, make her independent of the United States for that staple ? If it be independence to raise corn at a greater expense than it can be raised abroad, why may not England raise cotton also ? Why import tea, sugar, coffee and timber ? Why not be absolutely independent and at the same time open up to the people infinite fields of labor? Why not, indeed ? Abundant labor is what we all wish, is it not ? The protectionist assures us that this is the fact, and do we not endorse his words ? We want unlimited work. We pray for labor. Why should the economist say to us that we are mis- taken that we want, not abundant toil, but abun- dant products? Do we not know our own minds ? And have we not set them down in the black and white of our tariff laws ? Give us independence and our fill of strain and sweat ! The English reformers did not thus reason, how- ever. They were anxious that the fruitfulness of labor should be increased, not that the toil itself should be made greater and harder. Have their ex- 34 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. pectations been realized ? Let the unimpassioned voice of the statistician reply. England has met with reverses since the corn- law repeal. That is true. Her misfortunes in trade, manufacture, agriculture and finance have been many and severe. Yet with all, the fortunes of the masses of her people from 1846 to the present, afford an illustration of the benefits of the repeal and of the policy of international dependence and reciprocity which the veriest caviller will hesitate to attack. Giving the corn laws only three years to make their effects felt, an analysis of the general trade statistics of Great Britain yields such significant results as these : During the twenty years preceding 1849, the ex - ports of British and Irish productions had increased 33i P er cent for each decade. From 1849 to 1859, the increase was 105 per cent ! It is fair to presume that by 1859 English industry had become adjusted to the new conditions. Nevertheless, for the period up to the Franco-Prussian war, there was an increase of exports of 45 per cent. The value of the exports per capita in 1849, was $10.93 ; in 1859, it had more than doubled, being $22.11. In 1869, it had risen to $29.79. In 1878, while we Americans were making great boast of our exports, their value per capita was only $12. The expansion of the tonnage of the British mercantile marine is not pleasant reading for Amer- icans ; but it belongs to the story. The figures in 1840 were, 2,720,000 tons. In 1860 while yet INDEPENDENCE, INTER-DEPENDENCE. 35 the war which " gave the carrying trade of the Uni- ted States to the greedy British " was but a threat the total was no less than 4,586,000 tons. Ten years more of free trade made it 5,617,000 tons. And in 1878, the sum was a magnificent 6,198,000. During these forty years, the protecting naviga- tion laws of the United States fostered her foreign carrying trade into the grave ; while her unparalleled opportunity for coast-wise efforts brought her ton- nage laboriously up from 2,180,000 to 4,2 12,000 tons. Nor have the working people of England been routed out of the mills by foreign pauper labor. In cotton manufacture, the number of hands employed increased from 330,924 in 1850, to 479,519 in 1874. The woolen trade for the same period nearly doubled its force. So also the flax industry. Among manufactures of more recent growth, jute reported 5,967 operatives in 1861, and 37,920 in 1874. And the tale might be continued indefin- itely. If the industrial troubles of Great Britain were as severe as they are commonly portrayed, nothing is more certain than that striking results would ap- pear in the statistics of the savings banks, the char- ities and the police courts. Striking results do, indeed, appear, but not on the side which some would expect. Between the years 1871 and 1877, the amounts deposited in the savings banks have increased by steady additions, from ^55,843,667 to ^"72,979,443 ; the number of paupers relieved in England and Wales has steadily decreased from 1,081,925 to 742,703 ; the convictions for criminal 36 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. offences in the United Kingdom have declined from *6>3$7> with a population of 31^ millions to 16,255, with a population of 33 millions. The sophism as to national independence loses somewhat of its cunning in the light of facts like these. The truth is coming more and more into the light. Nation must lean upon nation. The dispensa- tions of Providence which have varied the growth of every clime, and the staple of every soil, make it as much the duty of men to exclude monopoly from the family of nations, as selfishness from the family of individuals. They make patriotism and philan- thropy work hand and hand, and peace and plenty to kiss each other. The doctrine of national independence by virtue of a contravention of nature's order sounds strangely enough when translated into plain speech : " You, who are fit to be a manufacturer for the world, must turn plowman, and you, plowman, must turn, against your will, into a manufacturer. Artisans of England, starve! that the rich lands may be worked at un- profitable outlay and the barren lands yield an im- mediate crop to their insatiate owner! You, agri- culturist in America ! with your free homestead, and cheap acres, outvying in fatness the fabled vales of the classics, instead of supplying the English artisan with food, must turn a manufacturer of dear fabrics, for a home market or your own use ! " By the same logic, dispense with the sun and soil of. Florida, and raise oranges in New Hampshire ; grow lemons in the conservatories of Fifth Avenue ; plow up the INDEPENDENCE, INTER-DEPENDENCE. 37 granite bed about Central Park and sow it in oats and wheat ; make all other silly arrangements you will until experience teaches the sublimity of such foolery, and until your patriotism is tried in the crucible of disaster. It seems useless to argue such points. The in- compatibility between national prosperity and nat- ional independence, so-called, is manifest. Even if the theory seems true, practice will not conform to it. What was the result of the exclusive policy in England? How did it affect her relations with the world ? Did it make the nation more independent ? If it did, it was in this wise : The countries under the German league had some twenty millions en- gaged in agriculture. England, before the repeal of the corn laws, had about thirty thousand owners of the soil. It was for these thirty thousand that she would shut out the millions of Germany, and the custom that these millions would bring to her man- ufacturers. This was independence ! From 1832 to 1837, tne quantity of English goods exported to Germany actually diminished one-half. England knows better now. She has grown rich by making hers a market for all the world. To use the language of a French minister, "To get concessions from others, we ought to be in the condition to grant them," a policy, which France, now, with a prohibition of nearly all the articles of our production, might well heed. Especially should she heed it, when she complains that our silks are 38 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. taking the place of hers, and our wines sapping the product of her vineyards. To be in a reciprocal condition with other nations is to be utterly independent ; for independence in economy is to be dependent on all, thus making all dependent on us. But what, after all, is this independence which we are told is so precious ? Is it not the independ- ence of poverty ? Consider the wealth that lies in that man's hands who possesses an abounding sur- plus of the products of the soil, and is left unre- strained in the disposition of his riches. Comfort, refinement, elevation these are within his grasp. No man in the higher walks of civilization can be satisfied with the products confined within his patri- otic soil. Is he an elegant man? The roses of Cashmere give much of their attar for his boudoir. Is he a neat man ? His very neckerchief ties him to the memory of Jacquard and his loom. By the thin film of the cocoon, he is bound to the little spinner who builds his silken sarcophagus upon the mul- berries of Italy. Is he a gay man ? The jewels on his breast are picked up afar in Golconda, and polished in Amsterdam Is he a bon-vivant? The sherries of Xerrez are fabricated and flavored for the satisfaction of his palate. Would he be a witty man ? Does he not know that the camel passing amid the ruins of Baalbecand Palmyra, or the donkey trudging through the sands of the desert, are bearing the fragrant spice, to stimulate his appetite while he seasons his elo- quence ? Is he a fluent man ? Let him lubricate \i\schordae vocales with the candied fruits and " dul- INDEPENDENCE, INTER-DEPENDENCE. 39 cet syrups, tinct with cinnamon from silken Sarma- cand or cedared Lebanon." Is he a smoking man ? Does not the fragrant weed grow in Cuba and Manilla, for his special delectation ? Is he a family man ? Arabia, Java, and Brazil give him coffee ; China, tea ; and Cuba, sugar. Is he a gentleman ? He has his broadcloth from France and his wife her silk and satin from Lyons. Is he a working man ? Do not his tools come from the inventive and me- chanical skill of all lands, and his shelter, food and clothing out of the liberty of land and trade ? Is he a Christian man ? Does he not know that but for these interchanges, our cheap coal, steam and ships, the missionary would be limited to one language and one country, and the gospel never have had a chance to fill the earth with its glory ? CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CORN LAWS. The Corn Laws keep all the air hot : fostered by their fever warmth, much that is evil ... is rapidly coming to life among us. THOMAS CARLYLE. IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE WAGE CLASS INCREASE OF PAUPERISM AND CRIME PHYSICAL DETERIORATION CORRUPTION OF PUB- LIC MORALS DISINTEGRATION OF THE STATE. corn law policy doubtless bore with the -L heaviest weight upon the English laborer. It detracted from his adequate reward ; it took away his greatest stimulus to work ; it restricted supply, and lessened abundance. It was as indefensible in principle, as it was injurious in operation. Protection and Want. That labor was not adequately rewarded will ap- pear, when we consider the immense resources of England ; her civil institutions, her knowledge, her inventive genius, her morality and religion. Such a country ought to be happy. But was she happy? Why did the prayer of millions go up to Heaven, in vain, for so many long years, for daily bread ? Why did four millions live on oat meal, and six millions on potatoes; and thus ten millions lose the luxury of wheaten flour, while a virgin continent like our own was ready to supply them, under mutual SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CORN LA WS. 41 offices ? Why were the poor houses crowded ? Why in the name of that God, whose providence was counteracted so long, should England be starved, or even poor? The poor rates in the city of Lon- don in 1842, amounted to nearly 30,000,000 ster- ling. How often, in those days of sadness, the torch of the mob lit up the lurid sky ? Why did Chartism arise, in its rude strength ? Why did all the complicated ills which attend famine, fall upon England ? Why was she, at every change in the heavens which menaced her crops, threatened with misery and woe ? Was it because English indus- try was unproductive, that it received so little? Was not her industry and skill developed? Did not the gigantic forces of steam, modified and harnessed in a thousand ways, nerve and assist the arm of labor? Did not the contrivances of her genius quadruple the facilities of transportation, and render the supply of human want easy and cheap ? Yet it was that England that suffered. Let us keep in mind the parallelism of our own country, especially during the riots of 1877, and answer these singular questions with thoughtful consideration. The wages of the laborer are not raised with the price of food. His real wages are rather lowered : they lose in purchasing power. They tend to de- cline in nominal amount also; for the workman is in a poor condition to bargain with his master for wages when food is dear and work scarce. Of course there were other causes than restriction on foreign grain, to withdraw the rewards from labor ; but the great cause, without which all other causes 42 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. were of little moment, has been proved by time to have been the lack of freedom in land and trade. Free Trade and Plenty. By the repeal of the corn laws, England enlarged the area of her agricultural resources. Free inter- change annexed the food-growing acres of other nations. It was just as if so much fruitful land had risen from the sea. The United States became prac- tically a part of England ; as, by the Walker tariff of '46, England was made a part of the United States. The reward withheld from the laborer by the protective system at once began to be given to him in fuller measure. It seems as if Providence designed that new and sparsely cultivated countries, like our own, should be made valuable for the support of old and densely populated countries, like England. Those who un- dertake to contravene this dispensation of Provi- dence incur the Scriptural malediction upon those who withhold from the laborer his hire. Men follow instinctively the true law when they pray for rich harvests. Presidents and governors of states recognize it when, in their messages, they thank God for abundant crops. What mockery it is to pray for abundance, and then construct arti- ficial restrictions against using it ! Is there any dif- ference between having food scarce by a bad harvest, and making it scarce by legal means ? If any one would know the effect of restriction, as seen in the withdrawal of stimulating rewards to industry, let him look at the effect of a bad harvest. SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CORN LAWS. 43 If any one would know the result of free trade, let him regard the consequences of an abundant har- vest. Do wages fall? Is the home market bad? Do other branches of industry droop ? Is labor dis- placed ? We know it is not so. Abundance is a blessing. The rich blood from the fruitful land runs through every vein and artery of the industrial body, infusing life and power. The Tariff Curse. The corn laws caused destitution and scarcity. These were the forerunners of fever and revolution. All forms of disease sink into insignificance, when compared to these great predisposing agencies. It may be said, if other causes have slain their thou- sands, these have slain their tens of thousands. We talk to-day, much as they talked in England in 1846, of the hours of labor. There doubtless should be a modification of the hours and hardships of labor ; but all legislation about them is useless when such tariffs exists as those before 1846. The building of poor-houses is a mockery ; the talk about hu- manity, so glib upon the lips of some, is maudlin, and worse than mockery, while such laws as corn laws are in operation. Think of the reckless and criminal indulgence in cheap years, to balance the distress and scanty food of the dear years, and con- sider what inclination for craft and economy there is in such an arrangement of labor. The eight or ten hour rule, under such a system, would only give the operative more time to measure his despair. Poor laws may preserve him from starvation, but not from 44 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. the gnawing anxiety and distraction of the soul, from suffering cold, from insufficient clothes, from crowded tenement houses. What is milk to the child whose mother is harrassed by care, or stinted of wholesome food ? Without such aliment, there is disease and premature death. Garbage cannot stay the grievance of hunger, nor the excitement of despair give respite from anxiety. Under such conditions, affecting our kind in England, were the corn laws killed. These laws touched all the social organisms ; the number and nature of diseases and crimes depended on them ; they made increase of population a curse instead of a blessing ; they palsied every energy ; they par- alyzed every nerve. Not the eloquence of Bright nor the statistics of Cobden, nor the hymns and rhymes of Elliott, could tell half the miseries which the poor of England suffered for the ten years pre- ceding the repeal. Was there not some wilful and dangerous obstinacy in the English legislation ? Has it been transmitted to their children in the New World ? How many years did they listen to the cry of famished millions before they yielded relief? How often did they recall the statistics of starvation, crime and consumption, before they slaughtered the infamous statute? "How long, oh Lord, how long," were heard the piercing cries of the famished, and the hungry roar of the mob ; heard even across the Atlantic, and heard in vain, until Sir Robert Peel raised his voice and demanded that justice be done! Not only was the physical condition of the peo- SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE CORN LA WS. 45 pie of England rendered miserable by this unnatural legislation. Minds and morals suffered as well. It is an old argument, all too familiar, that destitution leads to crime. The statistics of crime in England before the repeal of the corn laws illustrate how weak were codes, and how little reverence for mag- istrates, or care for personal safety, remained, when despair swayed the multitude. The first change in the corn laws was made in 1842. From that date the statistics show a decrease of the number of com- mitments : in 1843, 5i P er cent; in 1844, IO I P^ 1 " cent; in 1845, 5? P er cent, on the preceding year. All this time the population was growing. In 1840-41-42, there were 1257 persons arrested on charges of sedition and riotous offences. In 1843- 44-45, when some amelioration took place in the law, only 124 persons were committed on similar charges. Transportation of criminals grew less and less. " These social advantages," said Sir Robert Peel, " are concurrent with the relations of our pro- tection to domestic industry." It was upon such facts as these that he had the courage to act. The operative who was always starved for bread, bread, bread, could not find time to devote to the improve- ment of his intellect. His body and soul were bur- dened by continual drudgery ; all that was divine was smothered, all that was wolfish leaped into hot and eager life in the miserable struggle for existence. But not alone was the working man degraded. True, the corn laws struck directly at the daily toil- ers for daily bread ; the poor and the humble were their most conspicuous victims. But are not the 46 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. toiling masses the foundation of the State ? If the foundation be insecure, is not the building itself in peril? Was ever oppression permitted that the op- /pressor did not suffer demoralization as well as him whose shoulders were bruised ? The moral sense of the whole body of the people becomes diseased at last ; civil order is neglected ; the very fabric of society is threatened with destruction. CHAPTER VII. PLEAS FOR THE DEFENSE. " There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men With most prevailing tinsel." PROTECTION DUE TO PARTICULAR CLASSKS PLUNDERING CUSTO- MERS TO STIMULATE TRADE THE RKVENUE PRETEXT HUN- DREDS TO THE GOVERNMENT, MILLIONS TO THE MONOPOLISTS APPLICATION TO UNITED STATES VESTED RIGHTS AND VESTED WRONGS. IT is much easier to overthrow the protective ar- gument, in a contest of pure logic, than it is to dispel from men's minds the vague cloud of half ideas which arise from traditional assertion or un- reasoning prejudice. The Corn Law agitation is replete with examples, and a study of one or two of them may be useful. Protection Due to Agriculture. The corn laws, it was said, fostered agriculture ; and to agriculture such care and consideration was due. The reasoning is on a par with that which sustains our protective system. To manufacturers is due a meed of protection greater than that which other classes of labor can claim. Without arguing whether protection does protect, why is it due to agriculture, any more than to any 48 FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE. other department of industry? What is protection? Explained by its advocates, it is that policy, which, by increasing the price of any commodity, gives such a stimulus to its production that it will be created where it otherwise could not be. But was it for the benefit of the agriculturists of England that their food should be high? If not, protection did not benefit in this respect. Is it for the benefit of the agriculturist that the consumers shall be compelled to purchase from him? The notion is plausible. But the facts declare the fallacy. Confine the consumer to the home market, and you practically confine the producer to it also. Instability is the direct result, and the losses by fluctuations more than destroy the extorted profits of monopoly. , Furthermore, one class cannot prey upon another without working out a retribution for itself. If the corn-growers plunder the manufacturers, they are but impoverishing their own customers. It has been reduced to a maxim, that the interests of the com- munity, in all its different parts, are not antagonistic. Manufacturers are necessary for the existence of millions, and there are millions engaged in carrying them on ; they are necessary for the support of the agriculturist. Whatever affects the one will affect O the other. There is no real competition between them. To borrow the oft-quoted, but forcible lan- guage of Sir Josiah Child: "Land and trade are twins, and always and ever will remain, and wax together; you cannot shackle land but trade will feel it, nor trade, but land will fall." PLEAS FOR THE DEFENSE. 49 Free land and free trade were " twinned and have no individual being." As to the point of enlarged production : Corn laws may indeed lead to the cultivation of more land ; but is the land worth the application of labor and capital ? Are the interests of the country to be sacrificed because certain land will not admit of a practical cultivation ? The land owners of England, previous to 1846, forbade the community its freedom not alone by tenure but by bread tax as well. They did what improvident men have often done when cheaper production was offered. They flung away the instrument of frugality and abundance. How much better or wiser were they than the mobs that have destroyed labor-saving machines? They would not suffer the cheap bread-making machines of their foreign rivals to be used. The cost of all production was increased in consequence. In every department of industry the fruits of labor were reduced. The mass suffered for the benefit of the few, and even the protected interest itself was ultimately crippled and impoverished, and those depending on it brought to distress. A Revenue is Needed. Again it was said, this protection is necessary to supply a revenue to the Government. The answer to this plea is, that the revenue of the Government must be drawn from the pockets of the people. It should be drawn, therefore, by an equita- ble system of taxation. The protective plan pro- vides a small measure of public revenue and a large measure of private plunder. 5