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 INFLUENCES 
 
 THE COEN LAWS
 
 INFLUENCES 
 
 THE CORN LAWS, 
 
 AS AFFECTING 
 
 ALL CLASSES OF THE COMMUNITY, 
 
 AND PARTICULARLY 
 
 THE LANDED INTERESTS. 
 
 JAMES WILSON, Esq. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND 
 LONGMANS. 
 
 1840.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, 
 
 Staiut'ord Street.
 
 <: 
 
 QQ 
 
 
 (T> 
 
 •a; 
 
 3S 
 
 ^044 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In offering the following remarks to the public, 
 on a subject which at the present moment de- 
 servedly attracts so much attention and excites so 
 much interest, I am fully aware of the difficulties 
 by which it is surrounded, which have been 
 increased in no small degree by the determined 
 and often violent spirit in which all parties have 
 conducted their arguments ; and, in consequence 
 of which, society ijiay be said to be now divided 
 into two great sections, having equally, deeply- 
 rooted and extravagant prejudices on this import- 
 ant question. 
 
 Disclaiming any participation or fellowship with 
 the popular views on either side, uninfluenced by 
 any private or party considerations, prompted only 
 by a desire to arrive at a just and true view of so 
 important a question as the supply of the first 
 necessaries of life must ever be, I have approached 
 the subject without reference to the generally 
 existing opinions, and carefully endeavoured to 
 consider it simply on its own merits. 
 
 ■.J^4:1
 
 VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To those, therefore, who are in search of argu- 
 ments for the purpose of supporting the partial 
 views of either side, which have hitherto prevailed, 
 I can hold out no encouragement to take the trouble 
 of perusing the following pages : they will not 
 there find one single word declaiming the land- 
 owners as selfish, monopolizing law-makers, or the 
 manufacturers as sordid, avaricious beings, grasping 
 at the riches of the great, and treading on the rights 
 of the poor : the subject has already been handled 
 too much in this way. 
 
 But to those who know no distinctions in the 
 true interests of different portions of society, who 
 feel and believe that the whole community can only 
 be prosperous in pro])ortion to the prosperity of its 
 different parts, and that all these parts can only 
 derive their individual prosperity from the well- 
 doing of each other ; who know no principle by 
 which the operation of a law could benefit one im- 
 portant portion of society, and injure the remaining; 
 or that could injure one important portion, and 
 benefit the remaining, — to such, if a perusal of the 
 following pages prove of any service in reconciling 
 the facts of this subject to these principles, then 
 will my chief object be accomplished. 
 
 The subject being essentially an agricultural one.
 
 INTRODUCTION. VU 
 
 I have considered it chiejly and 'particularly in 
 relation to that chiss, and generally in relation to 
 the niannfacturing, mercantile, and other portions 
 of society ; and, ^vhile I have endeavoured to re- 
 concile into one general policy the best interests 
 of all parties, I have not done so by requiring any 
 compromise whatever at the hands of any one : 
 but, on the contrary, only by sustaining and in- 
 creasing all our present sources of national wealth 
 and greatness ; for on such broad and enlightened 
 principles alone can this great question ever be 
 satisfactorily adjusted. 
 
 Dulwich Place, Surrey, 
 March 1, 1839.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 In presenting this edition to the public, the author 
 has taken the opportunity of explaining, in an Ap- 
 pendix, two objections -which have been raised to 
 the principles and views contained in this work : — 
 first, that the extreme low price at which Conti- 
 nental wheat has sometimes been sold in this mar- 
 ket appears incompatible with the estimate given 
 of the charges necessarily incurred in importing it ; 
 and, secondly, that, from the admitted and well- 
 ascertained fact, that the prices of wheat have 
 fluctuated even more in the Continental countries 
 where there are no corn-laws, and on the Conti- 
 nent generally, than in England, the fluctuations 
 liere cannot be attributed to the existing corn- 
 laws. 
 
 As the consideration of these two points adds 
 material strength to the general views of the 
 author on this important subject, he is glad of the 
 
 a 3
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 opportunity afforded of showing still further the 
 mischievous tendency of these laws. In a short time 
 he hopes to present to the public a second series of 
 this work, pursuing the consideration to the in- 
 fluences whicii these laws exercise over the cur- 
 rency, the commerce and manufactures, and the 
 moral and physical condition of the country, and 
 the general influence which they exercise over the 
 Continent of Europe.
 
 INFLUENCES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CORN LAWS, &c. 
 
 Notwithstanding the immeasurable importance which 
 must necessarily attach to every principle and circum- 
 stance which tends to regulate the production and price of 
 the- first necessary of life, it is to be feared that no subject 
 lias suffered more than that which is proposed to be em- 
 braced in the present inquiry, for want of a patient inves- 
 tigation of the real facts connected with it, and the appli- 
 cation of such principles, to which a knowledge and due 
 appreciation of such facts must necessarily have led; in 
 place of which, certain opinions and principles have been 
 received and adopted by all parties, and have been tacitly 
 admitted as the foundation of all reasoning on the sub- 
 ject, but which, I believe, I shall be able to show, in the 
 course of the following investigation, to have very little or 
 no foundation in reality, and that the conclusions derived 
 therefrom by all parties must be correspondingly in- 
 correct. 
 
 The two great parties with opposed views respecting 
 the laws which regulate the production and supply of 
 corn are, 1st., the landed and agricultural interest gene- 
 rally, who, from the commonly admitted opinions, could 
 
 B
 
 not sustain the present value of their property, pay the pub- 
 lic burthens which the wants of the country and the state 
 entail upon them, or maintain with integrity the existing 
 contracts among themselves in the character of leases, 
 &c., or with others, in the character of mortgages, loans, 
 &c., unless the law afforded them a strong protection 
 against the competition of the foreign landed interest, by 
 high and almost prohibitory duties on all foreign agricultu- 
 ral produce : — and, 2ndly, the mercantile, manufacturing, 
 andmechanical interests generally, who, from thesame ad- 
 mitted opinions, have been impressed with the belief that, 
 but for this protection extended to the landed interest, the 
 price of the first necessaries of life, which must tend con- 
 siderably to regulate the value of labour, and conse- 
 quently the cost of their productions, would be greatly 
 reduced from the present rates, and which, in that case, 
 could not fail to exert a most beneficial influence on their 
 different pursuits. 
 
 To find two opposing parties so well agreed as to the 
 grounds of their dispute is a very uncommon circum- 
 stance : indeed, it would be difficult to say which of the 
 two has been most industrious in circulating and insisting 
 on the same facts in support of their different views and 
 claims. At every agricultural meeting the greatest in- 
 fluence and talent have been exerted to show that, but 
 for this prohibitory protection, and the consequent remu- 
 nerating prices, the country must soon cease to produce 
 food sufficient for one-half of its population, the value of 
 property would vanish like a dream, the treasury would 
 become an empty name, and famine and bankruptcy be 
 the lot of the nation : while, on the other hand, it has
 
 been insisted that this protection has been the chief cause 
 of almost every difficulty that has clouded our manufac- 
 turing prosperity ; that to it alone may be ascribed every 
 effort at competition and advance in the manufacturing 
 arts which have been made by our continental neighbours 
 since the peace ; that by a removal of this protection the 
 value of food and the price of labour would be reduced 
 one-half, and the demand for it doubled ; and it has even 
 been stated that a free trade in corn would produce 
 a saving to the country, by the reduction in prices, equi- 
 valent to one-half of our entire taxation. Thus, between 
 these two parties, and on these grounds, equally admitted 
 by both, the question has hitherto been chiefly confined; 
 and the only point to determine has been, whether or 
 not it was justice or good policy to afford the protection 
 required by the one, to the apparent injury of the other. 
 
 I have, however, long been convinced that the com- 
 mon opinions, thus generally received and admitted by 
 all parties, have either no foundation at all in truth, or so 
 little, as to exert the most insignificant influence on the 
 subject; and that, consequently, the fears and appre- 
 hended dangers on the one hand, and the continued irri- 
 tating and inflammatory discontent on the other, are 
 equally groundless: but that, nevertheless, the interfer- 
 ence of the legislature, with the intention of accomplishing 
 the wishes and objects of the landed interests, has had 
 the most baneful tendencies on all classes of the commu- 
 nity, beginning with the wealthiest landowner, and 
 running through every grade and profession of life, down 
 to the meanest labourer ; and that the whole are conse- 
 quently deeply interested in laying aside all party feelings 
 
 b2
 
 on this important subject, and undertaking its considera- 
 tion in a spirit of fairness, having no other desire than 
 to arrive at the truth; as I behove I may safely say, that 
 every interest has in its turn experienced and acknow- 
 ledged the baneful influence of the present state of the 
 laws, and perhaps none with so nuich reason as the agri- 
 cultin-al interest itself. To collect all the facts connected 
 with this interesting subject, and to combine them in such 
 a way as to show the operation and tendency of the present 
 laws and regulations affecting the price and production 
 of wheat, as proved by the experience of the past, is the 
 object of the following pages. 
 
 We cannot too much lament and deprecate the spirit 
 of violence and exaggeration with which this subject has 
 always been approached by each party, which no doubt 
 has been the chief cause why so little of real truth or 
 benefit has resulted from the efforts of either : the argu- 
 ments on either side have been supported by such absurd 
 and magnified statements of the influences of these pro- 
 hibitory laws on their separate interests, as only to furnish 
 each other with a jjood handle to turn the whole argu- 
 ment into ridicule. It therefore appears to be necessary 
 to a just settlement of this great question, that these 
 two parties should be first reconciled to a correct view of 
 the real influences thus exerted over tlieir interests, and 
 the interests of the country at large; to a conviction that 
 the imaginary fears of change on the one hand, and the 
 exaggerated advantages expected on the other hand, are 
 equally without foundation; that thei'c are in reality no 
 diflcrcnces in the solid interests of either party; and tiiat
 
 individnals, co^nmnniliefi, or countries can only be pros- 
 perous in proportion to the prosperity of the whole. 
 
 To attempt this important object I do not propose to 
 spent! much time in abstract reasoning on the subject, 
 which has been nearly exhausted by a succession of able 
 productions from the days of Adam Smith to the present ; 
 but I propose to proceed at once to an examination of the 
 matter practically, as shown by the statistics and his- 
 torical facts of the operation of the Corn Laics, chiefly 
 confining my considerations to the period from 1815 to 
 the present day -, and I will here remark that, through- 
 out this inquiry, I shall have recourse only to the well- 
 authenticated government returns, when they can pos- 
 sibly be applied, and in other cases to the best authorities 
 extant on the subject. 
 
 I propose to confine this inquiry chiefly to the period 
 above-mentioned ; first, because during that time the 
 greatest effort has been made by the law. to regulate and 
 control the subject : secondly, because during that period 
 we have had uninterrupted peace ; and thirdly, because 
 going further back would lead into many considerations 
 which influenced the prices and production of corn, not 
 necessarily connected with itself, such as long and pro- 
 tracted wars, changes in the value of money, &c., &c. 
 
 I shall now proceed by dividing the subject into the 
 following distinct propositions : first, that the present 
 Corn Laws, as well as those which existed from 1815 to 
 1828, have been productive of consequences most preju- 
 dicial to all classes of the community, but more especially 
 so to the landed and agricultural interest generally ; in
 
 the course of which I propose to show in what maimer 
 they have been injurious to each separate interest, and to 
 the country at large. 
 
 Secondly, that the agricultural interest has derived no 
 benefit, but great injury, from the existing laws ; and that 
 the fears and apprehensions entertained of the ruinous 
 consequences which would result to this interest by the 
 adoption of a free and liberal policy with respect to the 
 trade in corn are without any foundation ; that the value 
 of this property, instead of being depreciated, on the ag- 
 gregate, would be rather enhanced, and the general in- 
 terests of the owners most decidely benefited thereby. 
 
 Thirdly, that, while incalculable benefit would arise 
 to the manufacturing interest and the working popula- 
 tion generally, in common with all classes of the com- 
 munity, from the adoption of such policy, nothing can 
 be more erroneous than the belief that the price of pro- 
 visions or labour would on the average be thereby 
 cheapened but that, on the contrary, the tendency ^vould 
 rather be to produce, by a state of general increased 
 prosperity, a higher average rate of each ; — and. 
 
 Fourthly, a consideration of what change in the pre- 
 sent laws would best suit the interests of all parties at 
 this particular time; and an examination of the benefit 
 which would be derived by the establishment of a govern- 
 ment institution for the purpose of collecting and fur- 
 nishing periodically to the agricultural interests all the 
 statistical facts connected with their pursuits, similar to 
 those which the Custom House documents furnish to the 
 mercantile interests.
 
 PROPOSITION THE FIRST. 
 
 That the present Corn Laws, as well as those which existed from 
 1815 to 1828, have been productive of consequences most 
 prejudicial to all classes of the community, but more especially 
 so to the landed and agricultural interest generally, &c. &c. 
 
 In taking a general survey of the history of wheat during 
 the period proposed, from 1815, to this time, the most 
 striking feature is the great inequality and fluctuation of 
 price, the average of some years being double that of 
 others. This feature is not, however, more striking in 
 the great extent to which it exists than it is remarkable 
 at first sight that it should exist at all. Although long 
 habit and experience may have caused us to cease to feel 
 wonder at an event so common, very little consideration 
 will, however, suffice to show that no article of extensive 
 consumption in this country ought to'be, from the nature 
 of its production and consumption, so free from fluctua- 
 tion as wheat. Natural fluctuations in the prices of 
 commodities of any kind can only be the result of great 
 and frequent changes in the relation of the supply of, and 
 demand for, the article ; and this may be eftected in 
 two ways, — either by a variation in the former or the 
 latter. 
 
 It is very plain that the consumption and consequent 
 demand of no article can possibly be so equal as that of
 
 8 
 
 wheat, the chief and first necessary of hfe. As far as re- 
 gards the whole of the upper and middle ranks of life, 
 and even a large portion of the lowest orders, the same 
 quantity of wheat would be consumed at all times. The 
 great bulk of the population will eat the same quantity 
 of bread at all times : when it is cheap other articles are 
 cheap in proportion, they therefore eat no more ; when it 
 is dear, it is the last article the consumption of which 
 can be abridged : a thousand articles of comparative 
 luxury will be given up before the first great necessary. 
 There is, no doubt, a portion of the lowest orders which 
 can command bread when cheap, that is obliged to exist 
 more on lower fare, such as potatoes, &c., when it is 
 dear ; but this proportion is extremely small, and smaller 
 now than at any former period of the history of this 
 country. 
 
 It has consequently been remarked by many observers 
 on this subject, that, owing to this necessary equality of 
 consumption, the //w/#* between surplus and deficiency are 
 not far apart : that surplus stock and lower prices do not, 
 to the same extent as other articles, stimulate increased 
 consumption, and that a deficiency, with higher prices, 
 docs not like other articles materially abridge the con- 
 sumption. It is, therefore, quite plain that inequahty of 
 demand cannot be the cause of the fluctuation of price ;* 
 
 * It may be said by this reasoning that the very equality of 
 consumption is one of the causes of the extreme prices ; for if, with 
 lower prices, the consumption increased, it would tend to maintain 
 prices, and if, with higher prices, the consumption diminished, it 
 would tend to keep prices down. This is true ; but this is first to 
 suppose that the supply is necessarily fluctuating. It is only an 
 aggravated effect, and not a cause of fluctuation.
 
 9 
 
 for, should any difference have existed in this respect, the 
 consumption must certainly have been largest in years of 
 tlie greatest cheapness and plenty, and least during the 
 year of the highest prices : it therefore could not be di- 
 minished demand which produced the low prices, or in- 
 creased demand the high prices. 
 
 It becomes obvious, therefore, that the inequality must 
 have arisen in the supply ; but at first sight this seems 
 almost impossible. When we consider that a chief cause 
 of an equal supply of any article is an equal and un- 
 varying demand ; that for the supply of this article we 
 are dependent, almost exclusively, on our own home pro- 
 duction, with a climate comparatively so equal, and a soil 
 which is not only highly cultivated, but is sufficiently 
 varying in its character, as to be adapted to any little 
 variation of season ; with a greater amount of skill and 
 capital, to avert the consequences which even the slight 
 fluctuation of seasons might produce, than is enjoyed by 
 any other country, or the cultivation of any other article ; 
 — when we consider such a combination of causes to pro- 
 duce supply equal to the demand, we cannot but feel 
 surprised that it should prove so varying as to cause 
 such extreme fluctuations — fluctuations much greater 
 than have been experienced in any of the chief products 
 of our distant colonies, notwithstanding they are subject 
 to the influence of climates and circumstances much less 
 certain, to hurricanes and disasters, to droughts and inun- 
 dations, and to a train of vicissitudes, natural and poli- 
 tical, w holly unknown in the production of wheat. 
 
 We are induced to dwell thus minutely on this feature of 
 the subject of our investigation, for we believe it to be the
 
 10 
 
 secret source of the whole mischief of the present system. 
 We therefore think it of the greatest importance to dis- 
 cover the real cause of serious facts so well established, 
 but differing so essentially from that course which all 
 general and admitted principles would have led us to 
 expect. In order to show what these fluctuations really 
 have been, and at the same time to show that they have 
 been regulated by some general and uniform principle, 
 we submit the following table, divided into distinct pe- 
 riods, of rising and falling prices : — showing, first, the 
 quantity of home-grown wheat which has arrived at 
 Mark Lane, the chief market in the kingdom ; secondly, 
 the average prices of wheat in the whole kingdom ; 
 thirdly, the quantity of foreign wheat entered for home 
 consumption ; fourthly, the average prices of wheat at 
 Dantzig; and fifthly, the average price of South Down 
 wool, — in each of the last twenty-one years : —
 
 11 
 
 FIRST PERIOD.— 1817 to 1822. 
 Increasinj^ Supplies and falling Prices. 
 
 
 Qrs. of wheat. 
 
 Average 
 
 Quarters of Foreign 
 
 .\\orage 
 
 
 British and 
 
 price m 
 
 and Colonial wheat Average 
 
 price i>l 
 
 Years. 
 
 Irish, arrived 
 
 Great Bri- 
 
 and flour entered , price at 
 
 South 
 
 
 atMarkLane. 
 
 tain. 
 
 for consumption in Dantzig. 
 Great Britain, j 
 
 Down 
 wool. 
 
 1817 
 
 290,479 
 
 94/ 
 
 1,020,949 
 
 75/8 
 
 19./. 
 
 1818 
 
 205.907 
 
 83/8 
 
 1,593,318 
 
 64/7 
 
 24 
 
 1819 
 
 257,951 
 
 72/3 
 
 122,133 
 
 43/9 
 
 24 
 
 1820 
 
 395,889 
 
 65/10 
 
 34,274 
 
 33/3 
 
 17 
 
 1821 
 
 443.803 
 
 54/5 
 
 2 
 
 31/7 
 
 141 
 
 1822* 
 
 512,152 
 
 43/3t 
 
 
 29/1 
 
 13 
 
 SECOND PERIOD.— 1822 to 1829. 
 
 
 Diminishing Supplies and rising Prices. 
 
 
 1822* 
 
 512,152 
 
 43/3t 
 
 
 29/1 
 
 1 3d. 
 
 1823 
 
 393,177 
 
 51/9 
 
 12,137 
 
 26/8 
 
 14i 
 
 1824 
 
 348,007 
 
 62/ 
 
 15,777 
 
 22/9 
 
 12 
 
 1825 
 
 413,171 
 
 06/6 
 
 525,231 
 
 23/3 
 
 16 
 
 1826 
 
 271,120 
 
 56/11 
 
 315,892 
 
 23/1 
 
 10 
 
 1827 
 
 241,729 
 
 56/9 
 
 572,733 
 
 22/5 
 
 9 
 
 1828 
 
 312,610 
 
 60/5 
 
 842,050 
 
 24,4 
 
 9 
 
 1829+ 
 
 , 188,150 
 
 66/6§ 
 
 1,364,220 
 
 36/10 
 
 8 
 
 THIRD PERIOD.— 1829 to 1835. 
 
 
 Increasing Supplies and falling Prices. 
 
 
 1829J 
 
 188,150 
 
 69/6§ 
 
 1,364,220 
 
 36/10 
 
 8^. 
 
 1830 
 
 224,887 
 
 64/3 
 
 1,701,885 
 
 34/3 
 
 10 
 
 1831 
 
 208,329 
 
 66/ 
 
 1,491,631 
 
 37/3 
 
 12 
 
 1832 
 
 300,073 
 
 58/8 
 
 325,435 
 
 37/7 
 
 18 
 
 1833 
 
 388,171 
 
 52/11 
 
 82,346 
 
 29/4 
 
 16 
 
 1834 
 
 418,431 
 
 46/2 
 
 64,653 
 
 25/5 
 
 17 
 
 1835* 
 
 468,338 
 
 39/4t 
 
 28,483 
 
 23/ 
 
 18 
 
 FOURTH PERIOD.— 1835 to 1839. 
 
 
 Diminishing Supplies and rising Prices. 
 
 
 1835* 
 
 468,338 
 
 39/4t 
 
 28,483 
 
 ^3/ 
 
 ]8d. 
 
 1836 
 
 414,145 
 
 48/6 
 
 30,534 
 
 28/7 
 
 19 
 
 1837 
 
 321,735 
 
 55/10 
 
 244,619 
 
 29/ 
 
 14 
 
 1838 
 
 296,500 
 
 , 64/7 
 
 *1,853,018 
 
 .. .. 
 
 174 
 
 • Maximum Supply. 
 X Minimum .Supply. 
 
 t Minimum Price. 
 § Maximum Price. 
 
 * It must be borne in mind that these quantities include the Colonial 
 Imports, which in many years constitute by far the greatest portion.
 
 12 
 
 In framinfj this table wc have been desirous first to 
 ascertain the annual supply of home-grown wheat from 
 year to year. In the absence of any knowledge on this 
 important and vital subject, beyond vague report and con- 
 jecture, we have, after much consideration, taken the arri- 
 vals at Mark Lane, as the most accurate criterion of the 
 progress of cultivation and supply from year to year; 
 not that these quantities bear in themselves any fixed 
 projoortion to the whole amount produced, but that they 
 furnish the best index of the general progress of pro- 
 duction. Being the chief market in the kingdom, sup- 
 plying not only by far the largest and the wealthiest po- 
 pulation in its own immediate vicinity, but also being the 
 channel through which the surplus produce of one part 
 of the country is sent to another part in want of it, we 
 have selected it as the most satisfactory evidence on this 
 point. In the next place we have shown in what way 
 the average prices for the ichole kingdom are influenced 
 by the supply from year to year, which, corresponding so 
 accurately with the index of the general supply which 
 we have selected, proves that it is not far wrong. In the 
 third column we have examined the quantities of foreign 
 and colonial wheat and flour cleared for consumption (in 
 each year) in the whole kingdom, in order to show how the 
 great apparent deficiency in some years has been sup- 
 plied. In the fourth column we have furnished the 
 average price at Dantzig, the chief continental market, in 
 each year of the same period ; — and in the sixth column 
 we have furnished the average price of South Down wool, 
 as a criterion of the value of British wools, generally, and 
 which appears to boar some relation to the production of 
 wheat.
 
 13 
 
 In the first years of the period, while tlie price of 
 wheat was very high, it will be observed that wool was 
 also dear, in relation to its general average price in after 
 years : — but it will be remembered that at that time a 
 considerable duty was paid on the importation of foreign 
 wool, which tended to keep prices higher here ; and when 
 that duty was repealed, and the present small duty sub- 
 stituted, the relative value of the article was thereby 
 lowered. It will however be remarked as an interesting 
 fact, that from 1822 to 1S29, as the production of wheat 
 gradually fell off and the price advanced, the production 
 of wool appears to have increased, and the price conse- 
 quently diminished: so that in 1829, when wheat had 
 reached the highest point, wool was at the lowest point ; 
 and that, from that period forward, as wheat gradually 
 declined in price, wool gradually advanced. — There can 
 be no doubt that these two subjects have some relation 
 to each other, and that the increased cultivation of wheat 
 from 1829 forward was greatly aided by the reduction of 
 extensive sheep-walks particularly in the southern and 
 western counties, into wheat- fields. It is at the same 
 time evident that the prices and consumption of wool 
 must depend on so many other circumstances, such as 
 the general state of trade, the amount of the supplies 
 from other countries, &c., quite distinct from any relation 
 that it may bear to wheat, that no great practical result 
 can be gathered from this comparison. — It is worthy of 
 observation that, notwithstanding the crisis of 1836-37, 
 and notwithstanding the immensely increased supplies 
 of foreign and colonial wool, the prices have not fallen, 
 while wheat has been rising so rapidly; — which is a 
 cheering evidence of the rapid increase of our con- 
 sumption of wool since the former period.
 
 14 
 
 With this explanation of this table we will proceed to 
 examine how far the statistical facts which it exhibits 
 will enable us to discover a satisfactory reason for the 
 fluctuations which, we shall hereafter show, are so preju- 
 dicial to the interests of all. — In looking at this table, it 
 will be seen that a regular operation of increasing sup- 
 plies with falling prices, and of diminishing supplies and 
 rising prices, have been going on during the whole four 
 distinguished periods. 
 
 The following are the extreme points, between which 
 however the operation is gradual and regular to a won- 
 derful degree : — 
 
 Sttpplij. Price. 
 
 1817 . . 290,479 . . 94.?. 
 
 1822 . . 511,152 . . 43*. Sc^., a fall of 54 per cent. 
 
 1829 . . 188,150 . . 66*. 6c?., arise of 53 „ 
 
 1835 . . 468,338 . . 39*. 4(/., a fall of 41 „ 
 
 1838 . . 296,500 . . 64*. 7c?., a rise of 64 „ 
 
 We cannot view this table without at once arriving at 
 a conviction that changes so uniform have been brought 
 
 o ft 
 
 about by some cause as uniform and unerring as the 
 effects produced, and must at once banish from our mind 
 the commonly-received opinion that the fluctuations of 
 prices are caused by favourable and unfavourable sea- 
 sons, or any other accidental reason. To suppose this 
 would be to believe that from 1817 to 1822 the seasons 
 were every year rapidly and uniformly improving, and 
 that from that year till 1829 they were as rapidly and 
 uniformly becoming worse, and so on during the whole 
 period. As it is therefore plain that these fluctuations of 
 supply cannot arise from the accidental variations of the 
 seasons (though upon some occasions the natural opera-
 
 15 
 
 tion may be aggravated by this cause), it follows that they 
 must arise from an increased or diminished cultivation, 
 either in the extent of surface or in the amount of capital 
 and labour employed thereon ; and we believe the whole 
 cause will be most satisfactorily explained by a considera- 
 tion of the natural and imperative influence of the Corn 
 Laws which have been in operation during this period;* 
 
 From 1810 to 1813 inclusive the average price of 
 wheat for the four years was 106*., being in 1812 as 
 high as 122*. 8c/. per quarter; in 1814 the average fell 
 down to 72*. Id., and in 1815 to 63*. 8d.: — these re- 
 duced prices created so much alarm amongst the agri- 
 cultural interest, that they procured a parliamentary 
 inquiry in 1814 as a preliminary to some enactment for 
 the purpose of reviving and protecting their sinking 
 interests. The evidence given before this Committee of 
 the House of Peers, by Mr. Arthur Young and several 
 eminent agriculturists, went to show that, in order to 
 retain the cultivation of Great Britain in the extent in 
 which it then was, it would be necessary that the average 
 price of wheat should be 90*. to 100*. per quarter, barley 
 40s. to 45*., and oats 30*. to 35*. On this evidence the 
 Corn Laws of 1815 were founded, which entirely prohi- 
 bited the import of foreign wheat until the aggregate 
 average of the whole country for three months had 
 reached 80*. per quarter. The low prices (comparatively 
 for that period) in 1814 and 1815 had the effect of ma- 
 terially discouraging production, and this cause, followed 
 by the unparalleled bad season of 1816, produced the 
 high price of 1817, with which we commence our periods 
 of fluctuations. In this year the average price, for the 
 
 * See Note 1, at the end.
 
 16 
 
 whole kingdom;, of wheat was 94s. This extreme price, 
 supported by a Uuv which was intended and supposed 
 would at least have the effect of preventing wheat from 
 sinking below 80a\ per quarter, could not fail to have an 
 important eftect in stimulating a general increased pro- 
 duction. Tliis was effected in all possible ways. A 
 larger breadth of land in cultivation was diverted to 
 W'heat, new lands were called into cultivation moors and 
 morasses were reclaimed, and capital was in every way 
 most lavishly expended to secvu-e the glittering advan- 
 tages of such high prices. To use the expression of an 
 eminent person of the day, the surface of the land was 
 strewed with guineas to reap wheat. Eighty shillings 
 per quarter was the standard of all calcidations, and 
 therefore every piece of ground which could be brought 
 into cultivation to raise wheat at this price was submitted 
 to the plough. At this period a similar process was 
 going forward on the Continent, caused by the high 
 prices which resulted from the extensive supplies to 
 this country in 1817 and 1818. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, be surprised that each year suc- 
 ceeding these efforts we should find a rapid increase of 
 supply. J. H. Von Thuenen of Tellow, an eminent 
 'Continental agriculturist, in a letter addressed to Mr. 
 Jacob, and presented in his rejwrt to the Board of Trade 
 in 1827, states, "The harvests of 1821, 1822, and 1823 
 were so abundant, that history scarcely accords the like 
 for a single year, much less for a series of three years ; 
 the increased production of the soil by the apj^dication of 
 marl, combined witli the fertility of the seasons, yielded 
 such rich harvests, that the cost of production was much 
 less than in former years."
 
 17 
 
 This Increased production and supj)ly could not fail to 
 affect prices materially, and consequently we find that a 
 gradual decline took place, until the whole average price 
 of 1822, with a supply at Mark Lane of 512,152 quarters, 
 was only 43s. 3(/. per quarter — less than half the price 
 in 1817, when the supply was only 290,479 quarters. 
 It is extremely worthy of remark that this change was 
 caused only by the competition amongst our own home- 
 growers, as it will be seen that from 1818 forward for 
 some years the most trivial quantity of foreign wheat was 
 imported ; and it is impossible, dierefore, to say that the 
 great depression had any connexion with foreign supplies 
 or competition. 
 
 It is evident that the influences which induced such 
 an extended and forced cultivation, viz., the high prices 
 of 1817, and the prohibitory law, which had for its only 
 object the maintenance of these high prices, were the 
 real and only cause of the ruinous prices which ensued in 
 1822 ; and it is as evident that great loss must have 
 been sustained by those who, in the delusive hope of 
 reaping the advantages promised by these prohibitory 
 laws, had been thus induced to expend so much capital 
 and labour in the improvements which took place, and 
 who thus found that, just when the invested capital began 
 to show its fruitful results, the prices began proportionally 
 to diminish, until at length they did not receive one-half 
 of the rates which had induced them to expend so much 
 money, notwithstanding the promise of protection which 
 the law held out. 
 
 But no article can long remain below the cost of pro- 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 duction: we accorclin<jly find, immediately after this year, 
 evidences of the contrary tendency. We see that low 
 prices did not fail to produce the exactly opposite tendency 
 of the high prices — a curtailment of cultivation in every 
 way in which it had previously been extended. Many of 
 the inferior soils, which had been dragged into cultiva- 
 tion, were now abandoned for this purpose ; and we con- 
 sequently find that the supply diminished every year, 
 and the average price gradually improved. This process 
 went forward until 1829, when we find that the quantity 
 of home-grown wheat brought to Mark Lane had fallen 
 from 512,152 quarters, in 1822, to 188,150 quarters in 
 this year, and the price had in the same time risen from 
 43,5'. 3d. to 66^-. 6c?. per quarter. There can be no doubt 
 that this change was only the natural reaction which fol- 
 lowed the glut at the former period : such a course was 
 quite im^iorative, by the fact that over-supply had pressed 
 prices below the cost of production. The cause, there- 
 fore, which influenced the over-production must neces- 
 sarily be deemed the original cause of the ensuing scarcity. 
 We now find that we have, consequently, three years of 
 high prices, but, unfortunately for the home-grower, he 
 had an extremely limited quantity to sell : his large bulk, 
 512,152 quarters, was sold at the minimum price, 43s. 
 3c/. ; and now his minimum bulk, only 188, 159 quarters, 
 secures the maximum price, 6G^. 6d. ; and it will be seen 
 that during these three years nearly double the quantity 
 of foreign wheat was imported and retained forcorisump- 
 tion of that in the whole preceding ten years : the quantities 
 being 4,5.59,736 quarters in 1829, 1830, and 1831, while 
 only 2,440,229 quarters had been thus imported in the 
 whole preceding ten years : showing an average of
 
 19 
 
 1,519,245 quarters annually in the former case, and only 
 244,022 quarters annually in the latter case. 
 
 The ruinous consequences of these fluctuations became 
 at this period the subject of general remark and attention, 
 and the government, acknowledging the failure of the law 
 of 1815, its inadequacy to produce the intended effect, 
 and its general baneful influence, admitted that some 
 change was needful, chiefly for the object of producing a 
 greater equality of prices, and preventing such ruinous 
 fluctuations. It still, however, appears not to have been 
 clearly understood from what cause these fluctuations 
 had really arisen; and, therefore, on the consideration 
 of the question, they were treated more as the result of 
 natural accidents, to which the cultivation was neces- 
 sarily liable, than really as solely the consequence of the 
 protective enactment. 
 
 To accomplish the two-fold objects of giving protection 
 to the landed interest and of maintaining prices more 
 equal, two modes were proposed: one, that of a fixed 
 duty at all times ; the other, a fluctuating scale of duties, 
 which was adopted, and has since been the law. 
 
 The latter theory was received with great favour, and 
 much lauded as possessing the important element of 
 steadying prices : for, as it was urged, the principle of 
 ascending duties as the price fell, and of diminishing 
 duties as the price rose, must have the effect of equalizing 
 the supply, and consequently prices, by gradually 
 excluding foreign grain, when our stocks or production 
 were increasing, and by gradually admitting it when 
 
 c 2
 
 "20 
 
 our stocks or production were diminishing ; and thus that 
 prices could not sink very low, or rise very high. At first 
 sight, this enactment looked most ingeniously calculated 
 for the intended purpose. 
 
 Provided there were in the nature of the article itself 
 the necessary elements of fluctuation, wliich it has 
 been shown do not exist, then such a regulation might 
 possibly have been useful ; but if, instead of such a tend- 
 ency, it is found that, if left to itself, it has the directly 
 contrary tendency, that of maintaining an equality of 
 value ; that this ingenious device was only an attempt to 
 cure an evil wliich would not have existed but for the 
 interference of the legislature ; that this attempted cure 
 was not only a sufficient cause for the creation of the evil, 
 but must exercise an infallible effect in prolonging and 
 extending it, — then nuicli of its beauty and ingenuity, 
 acknowledged at first sight, must vanish. 
 
 Without apparently referring to what the home com- 
 petition in the production of wheat, luiinfluenced as has 
 been shown by any external competition, had produced 
 as an average price, the government aimed at again 
 securing to the growers prices which they could never 
 maintain; and then it was considered, very falsely, that 
 the continental farmer could really pay a considerable 
 duty, even 20*. per quarter, and successfidly compete 
 with the home-grower ; and, therefore, this scale of 
 duties was fixed throughout at such rates as to pro- 
 vide for this. For example, suppose the average price 
 to be 53.S. per quarter : if the foreign grower could 
 profitably send his wheat at that price, and pay, as
 
 21 
 
 niriny supposed, a duty of 20^-., the government, as a 
 protection to the English grower, made the duty 
 14s. Sd. higher, viz., 34.y. 8(/. ; and so on. It was, 
 therefore, quite evident that prices might be main- 
 tained at a very high average without admitting any 
 foreign competition : for example, when the average 
 price was GO^-. per quarter, the duty fixed was 26s. 8(/. ; 
 and when the average price rose to 66^-. 6(1., the 
 highest average which it has ever reached for any 
 one year since 1819, the duty was fixed at 20s. 8d. So 
 great an encouragement and apparent protection to 
 maintain the high prices of the time could not, therefore, 
 fail to produce a repetition of what had occurred from 
 1817 to 1822. If it had been understood that these 
 consequences had arisen only from the previously at- 
 tempted protection of high prices, we cannot believe 
 that these rates would ever have been fixed ; but there 
 was one other great error in the principle of this fluc- 
 tuating scale of duties, which must also have rendered 
 them of no benefit in effecting their professed object. 
 
 If such a principle were applied to regulate the supply 
 of an article which could be produced instantly, when re- 
 quired, and the production of which could, without loss, 
 be instantly abandoned, then it might have a tendency to 
 keep a very uniform supply and price ; but when it is 
 considered that the arrangements for the production of 
 wheat require two or three years to come into full opera- 
 tion, either in extending or diminishing the cultivation, it 
 is quite clear that any influence which could be given to 
 production by the operation of this principle would not 
 come into etfect until the whole face of affairs might be
 
 22 
 
 changed, and its supposed adaptation to provide against 
 famine or extreme liigli prices on the one hand, or a ghit 
 on the other, would entirely fail. For example, from 
 1833 to 1837 the average price for any one of the three 
 years never reached 49^., at which price the duty is 38^-. 
 8d., leaving only a dilierence of 10*. Sd. per quarter be- 
 tween the duty and the whole price ; and in one year, 
 1835, the whole average price was only 39s. 4d., at 
 which rate the duty is higher than the whole pi'ice ob- 
 tained. The influence which such a state of the market 
 was likely to produce on those growers, on whom the law 
 supposes we must depend in case of necessity, is obvious. 
 All cultivation must cease beyond their own wants, and 
 in the course of two or three years after, as soon as the 
 arrangements oame into operation, their production would 
 only be adequate thereto ; but, in that time, the average 
 price may have risen in this country, and a foreign supply 
 become necessary, as has really been the case in the 
 present instance, just at the moment when our own acts 
 had annihilated the supply : or, to take the reverse case, 
 at the present moment, o\ir free admission of wheat to 
 meet the scarcity which exists has raised the price to 65^^. 
 per quarter in many parts of the Continent, where the 
 usual price is about 33*. ; but it is clear that even this 
 high price cannot instantly call production into existence 
 to meet the urgency of the case, though it were ten times 
 greater than it is : still it cannot fail to stimulate every 
 effort to increase supplies as soon as possible, not only by 
 the encouraging prices, but, also, by the additional capi- 
 tal which is thus unexpectedly put into the hands of the 
 growers for their present crops. But these efforts will not 
 produce their full effects till perhaps the end of two or
 
 23 
 
 even three years^ by which time the urgency of the de- 
 mand has passed away, and increased cuhivation at iiome 
 has lowered the vahie and raised the duty ; but, as this 
 impulse to production on the Continent has caused a 
 supply far greater than is required for themselves, the 
 markets are glutted, and prices forced far below the cost 
 of production ; and thus the operation of our own Corn 
 Laws is the chief cause of the extreme low prices which 
 sometimes prevail on the Continent, and serve to excite the 
 fears and astonishment of the growers in this country ; 
 which low prices, it ought to be borne in mind, are no 
 more remunerating to them than the prices of 1822 and 
 1835 were to the English grower, pressed down as they 
 were by similar causes. It thus appears that the very 
 nature of the production of wheat must ever have excluded 
 any benefit which was anticipated from this apparently 
 ingenious contrivance. 
 
 By reference to the table we find (not to our astonish- 
 ment) that the same process went forward fi-om 1829, 
 under the influence of the new law, as had done from 
 1817, under the influence of the law of that day. The 
 supplies gradually increased and prices gradually fell ; 
 until, in 1835, we find a supply at Mark Lane of 
 468,338 quarters, with an average price, of the whole 
 year, of 39*. 4id. against the supply in 1829 of 188,150 
 quarters, and an average price for the year of (jQs. Gd. 
 
 Then again, true to the principle already explained, tlie 
 tide once more turns, and we find supplies each year dimi- 
 nishing and prices increasing, until, in 1838, the former 
 has fallen down to 296,500 quarters, and the latter
 
 24 
 
 risen to G4.y. 7d. It is really most curious and interest- 
 infj to observe in the table with what strict uniforniily 
 and regularity these changes take place; and it is just as 
 certain that the same uniform changes must lake place 
 for the next twenty years, should the same causes con- 
 tinue in existence, as if the period had passed over and 
 the figures stood recorded on the same table extended 
 over that time. 
 
 We will just shortly glance at one of the causes which 
 have often been urged for the variations in the prices of 
 grain : — viz.. 
 
 The changes in the value of money, by an extended or 
 restricted circulating medium at ditferent times. There 
 can be no doubt that an extension of the currency, either 
 paper or metallic, must at all times tend to enhance the 
 general money value of all property, and that, on the con- 
 trary, its restriction cannot fail to reduce the money 
 value ; but apply these vmdoubted truths to the subject of 
 our investigation, and let us see how far they will assist us 
 in accounting for the strange fluctuations we have pointed 
 out. From 1822 forward to 1824 a considerable de- 
 preciation took place in the currency by an inordinate 
 issue of country one-pound notes, which produced the 
 panic of 1825. Prices of wheat ought, therefore, by 
 this law, to have risen ; instead of that, they remained at 
 the lowest rates. From 182G forward to 1829 the cur- 
 rency was greatly curtailed by the withdrawal of all one- 
 pound notes from circulation, and property of almost all 
 kinds suffered an immense depreciation ; but wheat, on 
 the contrary, was highest throughout the very year when
 
 'Jy 
 
 this depreciation m.ny be said to liave reached the 
 chmax— 1829. Well, then, from 1830 to 1835 the cur- 
 rency again experienced a great extension by the esta- 
 blishment of joint stock banks, and the value of money 
 fell in 1835 to the lowest point experienced for many 
 years, and credit and speculation were equally rife, 
 which led to the panic of 183G. 
 
 Property and produce generally assumed then a very 
 liigh relative vahie, but wheat still, unlike all other 
 articles, was at the lowest point in 1835, in the very year 
 it ought by this rule to have been highest — the Gazette 
 average price for six weeks having at one period in that 
 year sunk down to 355., and for the whole year to 39,y. 
 4d. per quarter. We do not say that wheat is unlike all 
 other articles, and not subject to these influences of the 
 currency — we know it is ; but, because it is and must be, 
 it only affords an additional proof that the fluctuations 
 which have really taken place were not caused by that 
 agency, but some other principle, which proved strong 
 enough to reverse entirely the otherwise natural effects of 
 these influences. 
 
 We, therefore, submit that we have shown suflflcient 
 to prove that these rapid changes in price have only 
 arisen from the necessary tendency of an attempt to foster 
 and protect high prices by restrictive laws ; and we think 
 we have shown the principle sufficiently to prove that 
 just in proportion to the extent of the protection which 
 might be aimed at would be the fluctuation : for example, 
 had the law, instead of fixing 80j. as the price below 
 which wheat could not be imported, been pleased to
 
 26 
 
 make it 100^., it is quite clear that, that standard being 
 taken instead of 80*. by the growers, they would have 
 brought as much more land into cultivation, and spent as 
 much more capital on that already in culture, as had 
 promised remvmeration at this price : this increased in- 
 ducement to produce could not fail to call into existence 
 an over-stock proportionably greater, and prices corre- 
 spondingly depressed. The reaction of this greater 
 depression must also have been in exact relation to its 
 cause, and in the proper time have produced a still greater 
 scarcity than did actually ensue, so as to have reached the 
 price supposed, or perhaps higher. In like manner, had 
 the price been fixed at 60s. instead of 80*., the induce- 
 ment to over-produce being abridged, depression to the 
 same extent could not have followed, and the reaction 
 would have been correspondingly less ; but in a relative 
 degree they must still exist, and it would not be until 
 the attempted protection was altogether abandoned that 
 this necessary consequence would become extinct. 
 
 We have been thus particular in endeavouring to prove 
 that the extraordinary fluctuations which have taken 
 place of late years in the price of wheat, which, as we 
 have shown, ought to be the least fluctuating of all 
 commodities, have been, and must ever continue to be, 
 the result of protective and prohibitory laws; because 
 we believe that from this necessary tendency the whole 
 of the evils of the present system have arisen. 
 
 We shall therefore now proceed to examine the conse- 
 quences which these fluctuations must entail generally 
 on the interests of the whole community ; and then more
 
 27 
 
 particularly, first, on the agricultural, and secondly, on 
 the mercantile interests. 
 
 Many will be apt to think that, if fluctuation is the 
 only result, the evil of the Corn Laws must have been 
 most extravagantly exaggerated ; for they may think 
 that the high and low years may make a fair average 
 both to consumer and producer, and what is lost by 
 either party at one period is made up by the reverse 
 period. Nothing can be more fallacious, which, we 
 think, can be easily shown by a close examination of the 
 subject. 
 
 No principle is better understood among political 
 economists than that an over- abundant use of capital 
 and labour, in any one pursuit or direction, must not 
 only be in itself a waste and loss to the community, but 
 must also be prejudicial by withdrawing these elements of 
 national prosperity from other objects where their appli- 
 cation would produce a positive benefit ; and that it must 
 therefore ever be of the greatest importance to a com- 
 munity that its capital, skill, and industry shall be 
 directed in a way exactly apportioned to all the wants of 
 the public, which could not fail generally to be very 
 nearly the case, were all production left to regulate itself 
 by the natural effect of competition and self-interest, but 
 which must always run a great hazard of misdirection by 
 the interference and attempted protection of government 
 to partial objects. 
 
 It has been shown that the influence of protective 
 duties must always be to induce a great excess of capital
 
 28 
 
 and labour to be for a time employed in tho cultivation 
 of grain, and that therefore, in this respect alone, they 
 must be injurious to a great extent. 
 
 In the first place, a great excess of production and 
 stock is the consequence, accompanied by extreme low 
 prices, ruinous to the growers. It never can be advan- 
 tageous for the community at large that they should 
 consume the produce of any one party below the cost of 
 production, for a period is not very far distant when the 
 consequences must react and infallibly produce very 
 high prices and great scarcity ; and we will show that 
 the evils of the reaction are far greater than any advan 
 tage derived from the low prices. 
 
 We find that from 1829 till 1835 the supply at Mark 
 Lane increased from 188,150 quarters to 468,338 quar- 
 ters ; and that the prices fell from GG*. 6d. per quarter 
 to 39s. 4c?. per quarter. During this period there was evi- 
 dently too much capital and labour employed in the 
 production, and a great excess of supply ensued. If, 
 therefore, such a quantity of wheat had been produced 
 as could not be consumed in the proper period for which 
 it was intended, but a large ])ortion must be kept over 
 for the consumption of future years, it follows, as a 
 matter of course, that the value of that surplus stock 
 (and which woidd consequently fix the price of the whole 
 by the common laws of competition), which must, there- 
 fore, be held over for the chance of future demand, must 
 be sold as much below the cost of production (which 
 wo\d(l, in all likelihood, regulate the prices in the future) 
 as would pay the interest of the capital invested in it.
 
 20 
 
 the expense of keeping it, the deterioration in quantity 
 and quality, and a profit to the holder. 
 
 Tlie producer, by thus submitting to a great loss, is 
 deprived of the indiicement and the means to continue 
 the same extent of production ; the supply gradually 
 dwindles below the quantity required for consumption, 
 and the surplus held over from former years has at 
 length an opportunity of coming into consumption by 
 the high prices occasioned by restricted production. 
 
 But was the loss thus occasioned to the grower a 
 gain to anyone? It seldom occurs, such is the enor- 
 mous cost and waste of holding grain, that, if bought 
 in the low'est years and sold in the highest years, much 
 if any profit attends it. — It will therefore appear that the 
 great losses submitted to in low years are wasted in the 
 interest of money, the cost of keeping, turning, &c., the 
 support of vermin, and the natural decay of time. No 
 one therefore can fail to see how great a general loss 
 must be thus entailed on the whole community by dimi- 
 nishing the aggregate amount of its capital ; and when 
 it is considered how huge is the amount implicated in 
 this important article, the loss thus sustained must be 
 of a fearful magnitude. But many will say it is far 
 from beinof all loss : — one man receives interest for the 
 capital, another a rent for the granary, another the wages 
 for turning and keeping, &c. ; but these being all unpro- 
 ductive applications alike of labour and capital, must, 
 notwithstanding this distribution, be a total loss to the 
 community.
 
 30 
 
 By way of illustration, suppose that in a certain town 
 a great demand had existed for habitations. Streets 
 were erected to supply the demand, but when the de- 
 mands ceased the erection of new streets was still going 
 forward ; — a builder, finding himself with an elegant 
 range of houses without a single tenant, applies to a ca- 
 pitalist to purchase his property. — The capitalist has no 
 more chance of finding immediate occupants than the 
 builder, and he therefore says, " Yes, I will purchase your 
 houses, but only at such a price as will remunerate me 
 for the interest of my money, and the expenses of keeping 
 the buildings in repair, until such a time as I can hope to 
 obtain suitable tenants to occupy them : because I see 
 no reason to suppose that the expense of erecting such 
 buildings will be greater some years hence, when they 
 may be required, than at this moment." No one can 
 therefore suppose that this loss, which would thus fall on 
 the builder in the first place, notwithstanding the whole 
 of the difference between the cost and the price paid by 
 the capitalist might ultimately be paid to the slater for 
 repairing the roofs, to the glazier for repairing the win- 
 dows, to the painter and the plasterer for their necessary 
 assistance to keep these tenements in repair, till required 
 for habitations, would nevertheless to the full amount be 
 a loss to the whole community by so much abridgment 
 of the general stock. 
 
 So it is exactly with grain or any other commodity ; 
 and the case is not altered one whit though the farmer 
 should be the holder of the wheat, or the builder the re- 
 tainer of his houses : — in the first case the rents of gra- 
 naries, or his own building must still be paid, the labour
 
 31 
 
 of turning and keeping must still apply, time would still 
 continue to decay, and vermin would still continue to be 
 created and fattened by that which was destined as the 
 best support of human life : — in the last case, the roofs 
 would still require the slater, the windows the glazier, 
 the whole the painter and the plasterer to preserve the 
 buildings ; and in both cases the capital would be locked 
 up and remain dormant, which might otherwise have 
 been usefully engaged in the reproduction of other things 
 required by the community. 
 
 But, besides this, such extreme excess of stocks and of 
 low prices cannot fail to produce a lavish and inconsider- 
 ate use of this great necessary of life : — waste and 
 profusion must ever accompany such a state of things. 
 Who has forgot the numerous inferior uses to which 
 wheat was applied in 1835 ? It was employed for dis- 
 tilling to a great extent ; and in many places to no less an 
 extent in feeding cattle ; for which purposes much inferior 
 articles, of much less prime cost, would have been more 
 suitable; but which had been partially pressed out of 
 cultivation by the over-production of wheat. Barley, for 
 example, which, by the law of cost, ought to rule about 
 half the price of wheat, was at that period nearly the 
 same price. Green food in Ireland was in like manner 
 dearer in proportion than wheat even for the purposes of 
 feeding cattle ; and therefore in many places wheat was 
 used as a substitute for these products. In like manner 
 the range of elegant houses, with their fluted and jiil- 
 lared porticoes, with their marble halls, and their richly- 
 corniced rooms, suitable only fur the occupation of the 
 rich and the great, arc used as the deposits of lumber or
 
 32 
 
 merchandise^ or cut up into small tenements for the 
 occupation of tlie poor, who would be more comfortable 
 and more at home in neat ten -pound cottages. 
 
 A great part, therefore, of the surplus is wasted and 
 imappropriately applied ; the time of reaction, of 
 scarcity and high prices, is thereby accelerated, and then 
 the whole community are to suffer a period of want 
 and extreme prices. 
 
 But if such are the baneful consequences to the 
 community at large, with what a fearful degree must 
 they apply to the landed interests, who must not only, in 
 common with all, share in the losses thus sustained, but 
 who are in themselves the individual objects through 
 whom the whole evils reach the community ; and who 
 therefore j'je?-jowf///7/ and particularli/ incur all the /esses 
 which the public does generally. 
 
 This point, being one of the most important in our in- 
 vestitjation, deserves close attention. 
 
 We have already seen how the high prices of 1817 
 and 1818, of 1828 and 1829, accompanied by prohibitory 
 enactments to secvu'e their continuance, had the effect of 
 increasing the production and supplies : now it is clear 
 this increase could only have been accomplished by a 
 greatly-increased application of labour and capital, in 
 reducing poor lands into cultivation, and in forcing 
 the productiveness of those already in cultivation. 
 This was all done by the farmer, stinudated by the 
 natural hope of securing the high prices which the
 
 33 
 
 legislature in ofiect promised should be permanent ; a 
 natural competition arose ibr farms, and the rents 
 accordingly advanced ; — the farmer went on year after 
 year improving and cvdtivating, but he found that year 
 after year the prices were lowering. With a view of pay- 
 ing his enhanced rent and his increased expenses, he 
 pressed his production further and further, to make up in 
 quantity what he lost in price. His efforts, however, 
 only recoiled upon himself; his increased qiuintity only 
 produced greater and greater depression, until he arrived 
 at the points of 1822 and 1835. He now found that all 
 along the object of his pursuit had eluded his grasp, and 
 that to go on wovdd only have sunk him deeper and 
 deeper in losses ; that the investment of capital, — that the 
 extraordinary application of skill and labour, to seciu'e 
 what had been held out to him at the commencement of 
 his efforts as the sure reward of his industry and enter- 
 prise, — had all ended in losses and disappointment^ and, 
 in many cases, in utter ruin and despair. 
 
 He has arrived at the period when his surplus stock 
 presses severely on the mai'ket ; he has, in fact, not only 
 produced for the wants of the present, but has anticipated 
 the consumption of the future : he must, therefore, as be- 
 fore shown, sell his commodity as much below the cost of 
 production as will enable the buyers to hold it over till 
 the time it is required for use, and pay all the necessary 
 charsfes in so doin<r. 
 
 It is therefore evident that the farmer })ersonally 
 suffers the whole loss of capital stoc-k wliicli the com- 
 numity does generally, iucurrcnl in llio interest of capital 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 necessary to hold this surplus till it is required, of the 
 whole expenses of granary-rent, of turning and keeping 
 in order, of producing and fattening the vermin which 
 swarm amongst his produce, and of whatever profit may 
 attach to the merchant by the operation. The whole of 
 these charges and losses are only a part of the capital 
 and industry which the farmer had been induced to invest 
 upon the soil. Just as the difference between the cost 
 and the diminished price which the builder received for 
 his range of elegant houses waa to him alone a personal 
 loss, so the diminished prices paid for wheat in years of 
 excessive supply must alone be the personal loss of the 
 grower ; and with the producer there is this greatly aggra- 
 vated fact: — he is obliged not only to accept the reduced 
 and ruinous price for the surplus quantity which must be, 
 held over for years, but he is obliged also to accept the 
 same low prices for the whole of his produce, — not only 
 for that which is in excess, but also for that which is ab- 
 solutely required for consumption. The natural compe- 
 tition which prevails among all the growers to have their 
 produce bought and consumed must always have this 
 natural tendency. They cannot receive one price for that 
 which is to be kept, and a higher for that which is to be 
 consumed the following day. 
 
 The huge loss which is thus entailed on the farmer de- 
 prives him of the means and of the inducement to go on 
 producing at the same rate. His cultivation consequently 
 becomes curtailed, tiie amount of laboiu' and capital which 
 he expends is greatly lessened, his lauds fall into a com- 
 parative state of unproductiveness, and become applied 
 to other purposes, requiring much less capital than that of
 
 35 
 
 raising wheat. This operation goes on for some time, 
 until his production gradually sinks below the average 
 rate of consumption ; the old surplus stocks become 
 gradually, and silently, and unwittingly consumed, as the 
 prices advance ; and, before long, the diminished cultiva- 
 tion and exhausted stocks are brought to view by rapidly- 
 enhancing prices and increasing scarcity, which only a 
 short time before were little apprehended, and for which, 
 therefore, no provision had been made. This brings the 
 grower to the points in the table of 1828 and 1838, when 
 the prices rose so high as to admit foreign wheat without 
 any duty, or only a nominal one. 
 
 It is true the farmer now participates in these high 
 prices, — but to what extent ? Refer to the table, and it will 
 be seen that in 1822 the English grower receives at 
 Mark Lane for 512,152 quarters of wheat only 43s. 3d. 
 per quarter; and in 1835, for 468,338 quarters, only 
 39.9. 4d. per quarter ; while in 1828 he receives 66s. 6d. 
 per quarter for only 188,150 quarters, and in 1838 he 
 receives 64*. 7d. for only 296,500 quarters, the difference 
 of these being supplied by the accumulated surplus pro- 
 duce of the Continental grower. Thus, for example, the 
 supplies of wheat at Mark Lane were as follows in the 
 last three months of the following years : — 
 
 Supplied . . . . 
 
 1835. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1838. 
 
 British . . . . 
 Foreign . . . . 
 
 Total 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 124,871 
 
 None 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 102,109 
 
 16,450 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 84,902 
 24,287 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 56.283 
 94,433 
 
 124,871 
 
 118,559 
 
 109,189 
 
 150,716 
 
 Average price of 
 three months 
 
 35*. 6d. 
 
 53«. 
 
 bis Ad. 70s.9d. 1 
 
 D 'J,
 
 36 
 
 It will be scon, therefore, that while the English grower, 
 by the operation of these laws, secures to himself the sup- 
 ply of the w hole of Great Britain when the prices are 
 ruinously low, he compels the foreign grower to 
 hoard up his surplus produce until a scarcity arrives ; 
 and then the English farmer, having only a very limited 
 quantity to sell, allows the foreign grower to participate 
 in all the advantages of the high prices. It is, therefore, 
 so ingeniously contrived, that, when prices are high, the 
 English grower shall be only to a very limited extent ad- 
 vantaged thereby, and when prices are low the whole 
 loss and ruin shall devolve upon him. 
 
 But, not knowing or not acknowledoinjr the secret and 
 real cause of all his misfortunes, little dreaming that the 
 very laws which have been enacted for his protection are 
 the real causes of his misfortunes, we see that he again, 
 as recklessly as ever, enters the arena of competition to 
 produce : the high prices of two or three years furnishing 
 him with more capital, he is again tempted to a similar 
 operation as that which before brought him to the brink 
 of ruin. And thus we see that, notwithstandinof the 
 effects which were produced from 1817 to 1822, the same 
 race was as eagerly run from 1828 to 1835; and thesamc 
 race is now with as (jreat eagerness at this moment com- 
 menced, which, if things remain unaltered, will end in the 
 same results some three or four years hence. 
 
 Notwithstanding the depression only three years ago, 
 the competition to take farms is so great, that at this 
 moment some land, which only a year ago was worth 
 25.S-. per acre, has let ibr 44.v. By a careful inquiry we 
 fnid that the demand throughout the country for manure
 
 37 
 
 of every description, to force cultivation, is so great, that 
 the produce of the government horse-barracks is engaged 
 for many months forward at high prices ; and in some 
 cases we have found that it has been engaged for farms 
 at a distance of fifteen and sixteen miles from the spot ; 
 whereas, in many instances, three years ago, it was with 
 difficulty disposed of. 
 
 This shows the expensive mode which is used to force 
 production; but such is the natural and vmavoidable re- 
 sults of the present system, and will continue as long as 
 the delusive cause continues. Yet it cannot fail to pro- 
 duce the most painfid feelings to any one taldng an ac- 
 curate view of the subject, to contemplate the necessary 
 results which must attend these eflbrts, dictated by 
 motives so fair and so natural, the loss of capital and 
 labour Avhich will be experienced, and the severe disap- 
 pointments which must again for a time wither the hopes 
 and destroy the energies of the honest and laborious cul- 
 tivator of the soil. 
 
 While this train of cruel effects is experienced by the 
 farmer, the landowner, contrary to a general opinion, 
 does not escape a large share of the evil. 
 
 In the first place he lets his lands at comparatively 
 high prices, and for a year or two, while the high prices 
 continue, he may obtain them ; but he soon finds a di- 
 minishing ability to pay the rents : he is obliged to make 
 deductions from year to year, to make a merit of necessity, 
 and accept a fourth, a third, or even a half less than con- 
 tracted for : he must do this or breakup and ruin his tenantry 
 
 4241.1-1
 
 38 
 
 without any hope of replacing them. It must be still 
 fresh in the recollection of every one that from 1821 to 
 1823, and again from 1832 to 1836, the greatest portion 
 of the landed proprietors were obliged annually to give 
 a reduction of twenty, thirty, or forty per cent, of the 
 stipulated rents, or submit to ruin and lose their occupiers ; 
 and even then many estates were with the greatest dif- 
 ficulty tenanted in those years, and some were obliged to 
 become the occupiers themselves of large districts. All 
 lands that are newly let at such times are let at rates 
 corresponding with the low prices of the day : the culti- 
 vation is only suited to these prices ; their productiveness 
 is thereby materially diminished, the intrinsic value 
 of the property is proportionably reduced, and thus the 
 loss which is sustained by the landowner by this reduc- 
 tion of rent, being sunk in a lessened productiveness, is 
 gained by no one, but, so far as it runs into excess in pro- 
 portion to the wants of the community, must be a general 
 and national loss. As with the farmer, the first and par- 
 ticular loss falls on the landowner, but the general loss 
 reaches the whole community, not only by the deprecia- 
 tion of the income which it involves, but also in the high 
 range of prices which must succeed such depreciation. 
 
 So exactly as was the case with the farmer in 1817 
 and 1818, and in 1828 and 1829, when the landowner 
 was promised, by all apparent causes, and by the most 
 binding contracts, a long range of high rents, he very 
 soon discovered that, from some secret cause, his rea- 
 sonable expectations were disappointed, and his contracts 
 of no avail. The interests of his tenants were drooping 
 so fast, and their means of fulfilling their engagements
 
 39 
 
 vanishing so rapidly, that to have insisted, in the years 
 which followed the above periods of promise, on the full 
 payment of rent would have been to have untenanted his 
 whole estate, become the cultivator himself, and thus 
 put himself in the same unfavourable position as the de- 
 parted tenant, or allow his lands to run into barren 
 waste. It became as much a necessity for the landowner 
 to accept a greatly diminished rent in one form or 
 another, as for the farmer in the same years to accept a 
 price for his produce far below the cost of cultivation ; 
 and thus the landowner is obliged, like the farmer, to 
 accept a low price in the very years of the greatest pro- 
 ductiveness, which ought to yield the highest rent, only 
 because by false hopes and promises this productiveness is 
 pressed too far, so as to svipply not only the wants of 
 the present, but to anticipate those of the future, in the 
 ruinous consequences of which, already pointed out, he is 
 thus compelled to share. 
 
 The new and reduced value which his property now 
 assumes continues for a number of years, as has been 
 shown by its depreciated productiveness ; and so as the 
 times of high prices arrive in 1828-29 and 1838-39, 
 which alone could afford him the high rent for which he 
 had originally stipulated, he reaps none of the advan- 
 tages to which such prices would appear to entitle him ; 
 for the same reason that his tenants reap so little of the 
 advantage of these prices : his lands at this period can 
 only bear a value corresponding with their productive- 
 ness, which by the necessary consequences of these fluc- 
 tuations is now at the lowest ebb ; and then the interest 
 of the Continental landowner, which has been most care-
 
 40 
 
 fully excluded during the whole period of depression, is 
 introduced in the accumulated form which its surplus 
 I)roduce for many years has acquired, and a large por- 
 tion of the advantages of the high prices paid by the 
 community is thus contributed, as before shown, to this 
 interest. As the farmer partially/ and to a small extent, 
 participates in the advantages of the high prices, so now 
 the landowner participates likewise by a fresh promise of 
 high rents, which he will receive as long as the farmer 
 can pay them, but which he will soon find is no less de- 
 lusive tlian the similar hope he formerly entertained, and 
 which, if the same ctiuses continue, will end in the same 
 disappointment. 
 
 It is, therefore, clear that all the causes which influence 
 the prosperity of the farmer must correspondingly apply 
 to the landowner, and wo must for ever dismiss from our 
 considerations the notion that a policy which can be de- 
 trimental to one can be beneficial to the other. 
 
 If, therefore, the landowner has the merit of making 
 these protective laws, it is curious with what ingenuity 
 he has discovered a principle which secures to himself 
 only the rents yielded by the lowest prices, and by the 
 lowest or most depreciated state of cultivation and con- 
 sequent productiveness, while he seciu'es to the foreign 
 grower a full participation in the highest prices, and thus 
 affords him, or the intermediate speculator, a high remu- 
 neration for holding his surj)lus produce of the years of 
 low prices here until the arrival of high prices,
 
 41 
 
 It. would be satisfaclory could wo arrive at any accu- 
 rate mode of ascertaining the loss to which these fluc- 
 tuations have thus subjected this country. In the 
 absence of correct information as to the exact produce of 
 each year, and the whole quantity entering into con- 
 sumption in each year, this is impossible; but we can 
 arrive at an approximate estimate of it by using as a 
 criterion the operations of Mark Lane ; and we see every 
 reason for thinking that the result of this test must bear 
 a close comparative relation to the whole kingdom. 
 
 As we shall afterwards show, we take b2s. 2d. to be 
 the proper price for Avheat, at which an exactly sufficient 
 amount of production would be kept up, it having been 
 the average price for the last seven years : we therefore 
 take it as the standard price at which wheat can be sold to 
 the consumer. It must be clear that whatever ave- 
 rage annual price the farmer receives in any year above 
 that price, he obtains so much profit beyond the average 
 rate ; and that whatever average annual price he receives 
 in any year less than that standard price, he makes so 
 much distinct loss ; and therefore the difference between 
 the profit derived from the higher prices and the loss 
 from the lower prices must show the balance in favour or 
 against the home grower. We therefore present tlie fol- 
 lowing tables, showing these results for the last seven 
 years : —
 
 42 
 
 Years ia the last Seven when Wheat sold above the Average Price of 
 the period. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Quantity 
 
 blOllLlllt to 
 
 Mark Laue. 
 
 Price sold 
 for. 
 
 Average 
 Price. 
 
 Gain. 
 
 
 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 
 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1832 
 
 300,073 
 
 58/8 
 
 52/2 
 
 6/6 
 
 97,523 14 6 
 
 1833 
 
 388,171 
 
 52/11 
 
 . 
 
 /9 
 
 14,556 8 3 
 
 1837 
 
 321,735 
 
 55/10 
 
 . 
 
 3/8 
 
 58,984 15 
 
 1838 
 
 296,500 
 
 64/7 
 
 ese Years . 
 
 12/5 
 
 184,077 1 8 
 
 Total Gain nf <Vl 
 
 £355,141 19 5 
 
 
 
 
 Yeaks in the last Seven when Wheat sold below the Average Price of 
 the period. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Quantity 
 brought to 
 Mark Lane. 
 
 Price sold 
 for. 
 
 Average 
 Price. 
 
 Lose. 
 
 
 1834 
 1835 
 1836 
 
 Qrs. 
 418,431 
 468,348 
 414,145 
 
 Total L 
 
 46/2 
 39/4 
 48/6 
 
 52/2 
 
 6/0 
 12/10 
 
 3/8 
 
 £. s. d, 
 
 125,529 6 
 
 300,516 17 8 
 
 75,926 11 8 
 
 C501,972 15 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 Amount of loss in three years, when wheat sold below 
 
 the average price £501,972 15 4 
 
 Amount of gain in four years, when wheat sold above 
 
 the average price 355,141 19 5 
 
 Balance of loss £146,830 15 11 
 
 These tables show a clear balance of loss against the 
 landed interest of nearly 150,000/. on the operations of 
 Mark Lane alone. Now, when it is considered that the 
 average quantity included in these calculations is only 
 372,486 quarters annually, to what a fearful amount
 
 43 
 
 does this balance of loss point, when taken in relation to 
 the whole kingdom^ — the annual consumption of which 
 cannot be estimated below 16,000,000 quarters ! And it 
 must be borne in mind that, whatever this loss may be, 
 huge as it may appear, the whole of it must first attach 
 to the landed interest, and through them to the com- 
 munity at large. 
 
 At the hazard of being very tedious, wc have dwelt 
 thus long on the influences exerted by these laws on the 
 agricultural interests, because we believe them to be 
 chiefly interested therein, if not wholly so, speaking par- 
 ticularly of different sections of the community : — though 
 nothing can possibly injure one portion without injuring 
 the whole, as nothing can benefit one part without bene- 
 fiting the whole. 
 
 In this view chiefly we are to consider it in relation to 
 the mercantile and manufacturing interests : we are only 
 to consider them in this place as generally interested, as 
 we shall hereafter treat of their supposed personal or par- 
 ticular interest therein. Nothing can be more clear than 
 that the manufacturing industry of the country depends 
 entirely on the ability of our home population to consume, 
 and of our merchants to export, and that the latter abi- 
 lity must greatly depend on the home demand for the 
 products of foreign countries. Any cause, therefore, 
 which diminishes our internal ability to consume 
 either the manufactured products of this country, or the 
 imported products of others, cannot fail to operate in a 
 double capacity on the manufacturing interests, and in the 
 same double capacity on the mercantile interests : for
 
 44 
 
 with regard to the former, our own immediate consump- 
 tion being lessened, as well as the consumption of those 
 articles of foreign produce, by the importation of which 
 alone we enable many distant countries to consume our 
 manufacturing products, must act, not only on the home 
 demand immediately, but also on the foreign demand 
 ultimately : and, with regard to the latter, their ability 
 or interposition to import for the home consumer of 
 foreign products, and export for the producer of our ma- 
 nufactures, must greatly depend on our internal' means 
 of consumption. In short, the whole chain of mutual 
 interests is so perfect and so complete, that one single 
 link cannot break without injuring the entire frame; that 
 a loss, however trifling, can be experienced nowhere 
 Avithout reaching the whole, and nothing can give gain to 
 one without advantage to the whole. 
 
 Any system, therefore, by which a huge and important 
 portion of the community is impoverished, and that only 
 by sinking and waste, by which so fearful a sum as we 
 have shown is annually lost to themselves first, and the 
 community secondly, in the iniproductive application of 
 capital and labour, in the creation and feeding of vermin, 
 and in the natural decay of time, cannot fail to produce 
 a most important restriction on the ability of this portion 
 of the community to consume not only the articles manu- 
 factured here, but the articles imported in exchange for 
 oiu' manufactures; and so likewise on the mercantile 
 interests, by restricting the amount both of exports and 
 imports comparatively. 
 
 I'herc is, however, one view in which we may consider
 
 45 
 
 the result of these lasvs in this place as bearing materially 
 on the mercantile interests. In consequence of om- 
 demand for foreign supplies of grain being only occa- 
 sional and accidental, no regular mode of exchange 
 exists by which the payments can be made, and it 
 therefore becomes necessary 1o send the amount ni 
 bullion for whatever we take. 
 
 Strong cases are justifiable to elucidate principles. — 
 Suppose that the wheat crisis of 1828-29 had been si- 
 multaneous with the money crisis of 1825-6, or that the 
 late money crisis of 1 836-37 had been simultaneous with 
 the present condition of wheat ; — and there is no reason 
 why such corresponding similar circumstances should not 
 occur at the same time ; on the contrary, there are many 
 reasons why they should so occur simultaneously: for if, 
 from its own position, the money-market at any time had 
 a tendency to derangement and pressure, it is clear that 
 the demand for bullion to import wheat at such a moment 
 could not fail to accelerate the difficulties of such deranofe- 
 ment. Well, then, suppose that in (the winter) 1830-37 
 we had required to import two millions of quarters of 
 wheat, as we are doing at this time, at a prime cost of 
 upwards of 606-. per quarter, landed on our shores, which 
 Avould have therefore involved a sum of six millions of 
 pounds sterling for the payment, — in what position would 
 the Bank of England have found itself, with its stock of 
 bullion already reduced from other causes to an amount 
 far below that sum ? Under such circumstances, to have 
 derived such a supply had been an impossibility ; and the 
 distress which must have ensued from the money crisis 
 and the scarcity of wheat at the same moment must have 
 been of a most fearful and alarming de.sciipfion.
 
 46 
 
 Those who are familiar with these subjects can well 
 
 suppose what the condition of this country would have 
 
 been, had we been called upon for such a sum at that 
 time. 
 
 Fortunately, however, the present difficulty has not 
 arisen until just a sufficient time had elapsed to bring 
 about the effects of the reaction of the crisis of 1836-37, 
 and to fill the coffers of the Bank fuller than she could 
 profitably retain them ; and therefore this evil has assumed 
 the most mitigated form it could have done. We may 
 not always be so fortunate ; and, if these two circum- 
 stances should ever occur together, in such forms as they 
 have individually assumed in the two periods alluded to, 
 that moment would indeed long continue a marked and 
 mournful page in England's history. 
 
 There remains one more effect of these fluctuations to 
 which we must briefly allude : that is, upon the moral 
 and political condition of the labouring population of all 
 kinds — particularly the agricultural. 
 
 It must be obvious that the tendencies experienced b^ 
 the farmer must immediately influence the labourers he 
 employs. In his successful or advancing years, a good 
 demand exists for labour, and either attracts or retains 
 more to this pursuit than on an average it is capable of 
 maintaining ; and thus we find, when the period of 
 diminished cultivation arrives, the strongest evidences of 
 surplus labour, as of surplus stock ; distress to a painful 
 deofree becomes the lot of the hard-workingf tiller of the 
 ground, whose only desire is for " leave to toil f^ but, like
 
 47 
 
 his master, he has ah'eady toiled too much, and too 
 unprofitably. Ignorant of the real causes of his distress, 
 driven to pinch and want, he becomes too readily the 
 victim of vicious and designing men, and has recourse 
 to many acts of violence and injustice, which, instead of 
 mending his case, can only tend to make it still worse. 
 
 No one can have forgot the terror and dismay which, 
 from this cause, spread through our usually quiet and 
 peaceful rural districts a few years ago, when the agri- 
 cultural interest was severely depressed ; the awful and 
 mysterious midnight fires, which frequently lighted up a 
 whole district at the same moment, consuming the very 
 means of subsistence ; anonymous letters followed up by 
 all their threatenings ; secret societies to fan and inflame 
 the worst passions ; highway robberies and personal at- 
 tacks ; outrages of every description ; and all perpetrated 
 by men whose ignorance and misery (from causes over 
 which they had no control) were really much more apt to 
 excite our pity than our blame. But how insensibly all 
 these evidences have vanished with a return to prosperity, 
 although it is impossible that they have not left behind a 
 population of a lower and more debased standard of 
 morals! They are now as quiet as ever, but the return 
 of distress to their employers will not fail to reduce them 
 once more to a similar condition. 
 
 It should also be remarked that this distress cannot 
 fail materially to increase the poor-rates, and the charges 
 of maintaining good order, which must act as a distinct 
 cause of reducing the rents and income of both farmer 
 antl landlord. In some instances those charges have
 
 48 
 
 pressed so heavily at particular times as to consume the 
 whole rent, and to render land of little or no value, which 
 would otherwise have let at a fair average rate. 
 
 With the manufacturing: laboiu'ino- classes similar 
 cfTects occur at opposite periods, when the necessaries of 
 life are pressed to the highest point : they are introduced 
 in the years of ruinous cheapness to habits of comparative 
 luxury, and consumption which their labour cannot on an 
 average command; and they therefore feel much more 
 the want occasioned by extreme high prices, when they 
 cannot command so much as their labour should pro- 
 duce to them. So the eifect is that in cheap years his 
 labour commands too much agricultural labour, and he 
 then anticipates a part of what should be the con- 
 sumption of a future day; and in dear years his labour 
 commands too little agricultural labour, and he is obliged 
 to receive proportionally as much too little as before 
 he received too much. It is, however, no answer to a 
 half-fed and distressed population, that they must be 
 patient inider the cravings of nature now, because two 
 or throe years ago they had more than was necessary. 
 It cannot, therefore, be a matter of surprise, that the 
 worst consequences should often result from this distress: 
 there can be no doubt that to this alone may be traced 
 many of the riotous and often murderous scenes which 
 have disijraced our manufacturine: districts, which are 
 otherwise distinguished for tlicir patient, persevering 
 industry and ingenuity, and which have won for England 
 triumphs more glorious, territories more extended, and 
 influence more respected, than she ever obtained by her 
 most irlitterino- and dazzlingf militarv achievemenls.
 
 49 
 
 PROPOSITION THE SECOND. 
 
 That the Agricultural Interest has derived no benefit, but great 
 injury, from the existing laws ; — and that the fears and apprehen- 
 sions of the ruinous consequences which would result to this 
 interest by the adoption of a free and liberal policy with respect 
 to the trade in corn, are without any foundation. — That the value 
 of this property, instead of being depreciated, on the aggregate 
 would be rather enhanced, and the general interests of the 
 owners most decidedly benefited thereby. 
 
 It is not without having very carefully considered the 
 subject, and having most minutely investigated the facts 
 bearing upon it, that we venture to undertake the sup- 
 port of a proposition so widely differing from the general 
 sentiments of the combatants on both sides of this most 
 important subject. What the landed interest claims to 
 preserve as a privilege to which it is entitled by its posi- 
 tion in the state, and liy the important innuence whicli 
 its well-being must exercise over the whole community; 
 and what the opposite interest seeks to be given up as an 
 acknowledged sacrifice on the part of the landowner, in 
 common justice to them and lh(> whole, — we seek chiefly, 
 and first, as the greatest boon to those who are called upon 
 to make the supposed sacrifice, and only througli them 
 as an untellable advantage to the general mass. We 
 adhei-e closely to what we believe the only true theory on 
 national interests : — That nothing can possibly be favour- 
 able to the whole that is detrimental to a part, and that 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 nothing can be detrimental to one portion that is favour- 
 able to another portion ; that the whole mass being made 
 up only of parts, and as each part can only be interested 
 through the medium of some or all of the other parts, it 
 follows that any one part can only prosper in proportion 
 to all the others from which it derives its support; and 
 that the whole of these parts are so linked together, that 
 no weight or pressure can apply at any one point with- 
 out bearing less or more on the whole chain of connexion. 
 
 We shall now proceed, and endeavour, by fair reason- 
 ing supported by undeniable facts, to reconcile our pro- 
 position and our theory with the interests in question, as 
 proved by the experience of the past. 
 
 One part of the present proposition, that the agricul- 
 tural interests derive great injury from the operation of 
 the present Corn Laws, or from any prohibitory law for 
 their protection, has been sufficiently considered already 
 to require any further notice ; but it remains to be con- 
 sidered whether or not they have derived any benefit 
 from the working of these laws in any way to compensate 
 for the great injury sustained. 
 
 The professed object of these laws has always been to 
 secure to the agricultural interests of this country high 
 prices, high rents, and a high value of property, by grant- 
 ing them the monopoly of solely supplying the whole food 
 necessary for the support of its population, by excluding 
 all foreign agricultural produce, except at such periods 
 as might arrive from any cause whatever, when the home 
 supply should prove inadequate thereto.
 
 51 
 
 Without, in this place, entering into any consideration 
 of the justice or pohcy of such an attempt, had it proved 
 of any practical eftect, we will at once proceed to con- 
 sider how far the intended object has been accomplished 
 in the past, or is likely to be in the future. 
 
 In order to determine this question, it is necessary to 
 ascertain what really have been the effects produced on 
 prices by these acts, what effects would have been expe- 
 rienced had they not existed, and what effects are likely 
 to be produced in the future, should they be entirely 
 abandoned. 
 
 Some of the most important effects having been already 
 fully considered, which went to prove the necessary exist- 
 ence of great fluctuations, we must now determine what 
 has been the average price which, for a period of high 
 and low years, has been received by the grower. 
 
 By taking the quantities sold at Mark Lane in each 
 year from 1829 to 1835 inclusive, which includes a whole 
 period from the highest to the lowest years, we find that 
 the average price at which each quarter of wheat sold was 
 53^". per quarter ; and we find, by the official return issued 
 from the Board of Trade on the 3rd of January last, that 
 the average price of wheat for the whole kingdom, for the 
 last seven years, had been 52a\ 2d. per quarter. 
 
 It must be clear that, however small this price may 
 appear, a very large diminution from it is required to show 
 what really the grower received. This average price neces- 
 sarily includes all expenses, of whatever nature, arising 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 between tlie grower and purcliaser — of all carriage, 
 wiiotlier by land or by water, all Ireights by sea, all com- 
 missions, intermediate profits, market dues, and all other 
 charges attending the sale ; of all interest of capital, of 
 granary-rent and waste, and whatever else may attach by 
 keeping the surplus of one year to secure a higher price 
 in another: what all these charges may amount to it is 
 impossible to calculate, but it is certain they must con- 
 stitute a very considerable total charge ; and, however 
 large it may appear, it must form a necessary deduction 
 from the average price of C)2s. 2d., to arrive at what the 
 British farmer has obtained, during the last seven years, 
 for his wheat when put into sacks and ready for market. 
 
 It must however be admitted, that., whatever may be 
 the rate to which this necessary deduction would reduce 
 the actual price obtained by the grower, it must have 
 proved a sufficient price, on this average, to support the 
 whole of the landed interests in their various connexions, 
 in the actual amount of profit or income which they 
 have derived from their property and pursuits ; and that, 
 whatever this real interest may be, it is the exact amount 
 which can be secured to them by the existence of such 
 protection ; or, in other words, this price of 52.v. 2d., 
 reduced by the whole amount of the specified ciiarges 
 paid annually to the grower, would have been exactly 
 equivalent to all tlie varying prices which he has actually 
 received, but, nevertheless, subject to all the sacrifices 
 and misery pointed out in a former part of these remarks, 
 as the necessary attendants of the iluctuating manner in 
 which he has received thus much.
 
 53 
 
 We are the more convinced that even this dimi- 
 nished rate haij been sufficient to remunerate all parties 
 to the present extent of their interests, by the facts, that, 
 while the population of Great Britain increased upwards 
 of two millions from 1821 to 1831, and there can be no 
 doubt has since that time increased in an equal ratio ; 
 the general condition of the whole population has much 
 improved, and the aggregate consumption much increased, 
 without any increased supplies from abroad as compared 
 with former years, and with an average price for the last 
 seven years lower than that of any former seven years 
 for the last half-centiny ; which proves, without the pos- 
 sibility of doubt, that the rates obtained have not only 
 served to sustain the former amount of production, but to 
 increase it in a proportion equivalent not only to the in- 
 creased rate of consumption, but also to the increased 
 number of consumers. 
 
 This may, therefore, be called the rate which is fixed 
 by our own internal competition and resources : 52s. 2d. 
 per quai'ter may be called the prime cost of wheat to the 
 consumer, and that sum, reduced by the charges enume- 
 rated, maybe called the remunerating price to the landed 
 interest, to the exact extent to which they have been 
 remunerated. 
 
 We believe there has been no source of error and mis- 
 conception on the subject of our inquiry generally so 
 great as the exaggerated belief, entertained and admitted 
 by all, of the ability of the Continent to supply wheat, 
 whether taken in relation to the prime cost of production, 
 or as to the quantity cypa])le of being produced. When,
 
 54 
 
 however, we consider that on this very point hung the 
 argument of all parties, and to sustain which it was 
 necessary to make it appear that this ability was almost 
 without limit; when, on the one hand, the agriculturist 
 claimed protection from a formidable and unconquerable 
 competitor, who, if allowed to stand on the same ground, 
 would annihilate his pursuits, the greater, therefore, he 
 could exaggerate the ability of the antagonist, the more 
 he considered he made out his case for protection. On 
 the other hand, the manufacturer opposed the claims of 
 the agriculturist by insisting exactly upon the same Con- 
 tinental ability. He complained of the competition which 
 resulted to himself by the extreme low- prices of labour 
 on the Continent, and demanded a participation for his 
 labourers in the cheap and abundant products of those 
 countries. The cheaper, therefore, and the more abun- 
 dant, he could make them appear, the more he showed 
 that his interests would be consulted by obtaining them ; 
 the more he proved that these prohibitory laws were made 
 as a protection to the landowner at his cost, the more he 
 proved that the manufacturing interests of the country 
 were sacrificed to the landed interests. 
 
 All parties were therefore equally interested in insist- 
 ing upon and exaggerating this point, — the question had 
 never fair play ; there was no motive, no disposition for 
 one side to discover or point out the fallacies or extrava- 
 gant statements of the other : on the contrary, they were 
 only taken as admitted facts, and, if possible, still more 
 exaggerated, to be used by each party in its turn, only 
 difl'erently applied. We thus find that, with these long 
 accumulating extravagances incorporated into the opi-
 
 55 
 
 nions and sentiments of all, a universal impression pre- 
 vails, that the Continental countries have the power of 
 producing an unlimited quantity of wheat, and of supply- 
 ing this country at prices less than one-half of the British 
 cost of production ; — that to open the door for the free 
 admission of foreign grain would, on the one side, throw 
 half our home-lands out of cultivation, ruin the farmers 
 and landowners, and, on the other hand, lower the piice 
 of provisions to half their present rate, and the price of 
 labour in the same proportion. Such are the extravagant 
 notions entertained on this subject, that we might suppose 
 we inhabited only a barren rock, without skill, industry, 
 or capital, while our neighbours, whom we feared, pos- 
 sessed a soil which required no tilling, yielding spontane- 
 ously, year after year, the richest harvests. We never 
 could dream that, co-existent with these fears, we pos- 
 sessed the finest climate, the finest and best-cultivated 
 soils, the greatest amount of skill, industry and capital, 
 of any country in the world, taken as a whole ; while 
 many of the countries whose competition we fear are 
 sunk in the most abject poverty and ignorance. What 
 are the elements of cheap production? Fertility of soil, 
 climate, skill, and capital. What country possesses the 
 whole to the same extent as this ? But it may be said 
 that our population is so large that it presses on the pro- 
 duce of the land, and that these elements have not fair 
 and extended application. We can only reply that, were 
 it so, or when it shall be so, then a stronger reason will 
 never be made out for encouraging the growth of wheat 
 for our consumption elsewhere ; but it is not so, for it has 
 already been shown that at two distinct periods within 
 the last 20 years, and the last only four years ago, the
 
 56 
 
 production of this country had hccn pressed so far as to 
 ibrcc prices much below the cost of production, and this 
 was accomphshed ahoorethcr by the etlorts of our own 
 growers, without the aid of any foreign supphes worthy 
 of notice. 
 
 Our behef is, that the whole of these generally received 
 opinions are erroneous ; that, if we had had a free trade 
 in corn since 1815, the average price of the whole period, 
 actually received by the British grower, would have been 
 higher than it has been; that little or no more foreign 
 grain would have been imported ; and that if, for the next 
 twenty years, the whole protective system shall be aban- 
 doned, the average price of wheat will be higher than it 
 has been for the last seven years, or than it would be in 
 the future with a continuance of the present system : but 
 with this great difference, — that prices would be nearly 
 uniform and unaltering from year to year ; that the dis- 
 astrous fluctuations would be greatly avoided, which we 
 have shown in the first proposition to be so ruinous under 
 the present system. 
 
 Wlien we say that we believe the price will be higher, 
 we mean relatively with the cost of production, and 
 that it will give, on an average of years, a better 
 profit to tiic farmer, and a higher rent to the landlord. 
 We know it to be an opinion held by many most in- 
 teUigent men on this subject, and in which we cordially 
 join, that, by the improvements in agriculture and the 
 economy of labour by the introduction of machinery, 
 the cost of production has been much less of late years 
 than fornierly, (which opinion is fully sustained by the
 
 57 
 
 fact noticed in another part of this proposition, that, 
 notwithstanding the great increase of our popukitioii 
 of late years, the increased productiveness of the soil has 
 supphed a sufficient quantity for our greatly increased 
 consumption, at a lower average price than at any former 
 period, without any additional foreign supplies ;) and that 
 continued improvements and application of machinery 
 in the future will more than keep pace with our increasing 
 consumption, and thus, by abridging the cost, will lower, 
 by our internal competition only, the general price of all 
 commodities. By this operation the condition of the 
 landed interest cannot fail to be improved, especially the 
 landowner (as a great proportion of the increased pro- 
 ductiveness would enter into rent), by a more extended 
 consumption and general business ; and in this case the 
 more effectually must all foreign competition be shut out. 
 
 There are two modes by which supplies of any article 
 may be materially increased : first, by an attempted pro- 
 tection and monopoly ; and, secondly, by a free and open 
 competition. In the former instance the increase is 
 caused by a feeling of security against competition, and 
 of the command, on the most advantageous terms, of the 
 whole supply : the increase therefore which is thus pro- 
 duced, is only done by greatly increased expense and 
 generally enhanced cost ; so that, as soon as a surplus is 
 felt, the inability of the producer to sell at a price to in- 
 duce the consumption of the increased quantity renders 
 it imperative that he should sell at a loss, and a conse- 
 quent reaction takes place in the supply : — this has been 
 the case with wheat. In the latter case, the increased 
 supply will only be brought about by the application of 
 more ingenuity, labour, and economy, causing altogether
 
 58 
 
 so much lessened a cost, that the lower price at 
 which the article can be profitably sold will always 
 cause consumption to keep pace with production; and 
 in this case, as the article still yields a profit at the 
 low price, no reaction will ensue. This has been the 
 case with all our manufactured goods. While cotton 
 goods have been reduced to less than half the price they 
 were a few years ago, no reaction has taken place in 
 their supply; but, on the contrary, a steady onward 
 course of increased production has been observable; 
 because that diminution of price has only taken place in 
 consequence of the greatly diminished cost by the intro- 
 duction of more perfect machinery, and other improve- 
 ments, which have greatly improved the interests of all 
 concerned in such pursuits by enlarging the field of their 
 enterprise. 
 
 In this way alone can we ever expect the prices of 
 provisions to be cheaper, and in this way they would only 
 be cheapened, by a general improvement of the landed 
 interest ; and it must be obvious to every one how great 
 are the advantages which the British corn-grower has 
 over any other in the world, in accomplishing this great 
 and desirable end, as found in the great amount of 
 chemical and mechanical skill, in the great command of 
 capital, and in the congeniality of soil and climate to his 
 pursuits, which this country possesses in so superior a 
 degree to any other. 
 
 We shall now proceed to institute a comparison between 
 the present ability of the Continent and that of Great 
 Britain to supply the population of this country with 
 wheat, both in quantity and price, taking the cost price
 
 59 
 
 of the last seven years as the remunerating price in this 
 country. 
 
 To arrive" at what is the cost of raising wheat on the 
 Continent is rather difficult, as it would be in this country, 
 if we were only to rely on the calculations of producers 
 for our information : for it is obvious that many circum- 
 stances may make it very variable ; and we are only able 
 to do so by seeing what average price has been sufficient 
 to sustain the average rate of production. 
 
 With regard to the Continent, circumstances are still 
 more variable ; but we have sufficient data, which enable 
 us to discover near enough for any useful purpose, what 
 price would be sufficient to maintain the present state and 
 extent of cultivation in these countries. 
 
 The chief and best official information that we have on 
 the cost and extent of cultivation on the Continent is to 
 be found in Mr. Jacob's report, presented to the Board 
 of Trade in 1828, subsequent to his official tour on the 
 Continent for inquiry into these subjects in 1827. 
 
 We will consider this question under two distinct 
 heads : first, the cost at which the Continental countries 
 could supply their surplus produce ; and, secondly, the 
 extent to which this supply could be furnished. 
 
 Mr. Jacob appears to have made great exertion to ob- 
 tain from the cultivators the actual cost of wheat ; and in 
 many instances they appear to have bestowed extraor- 
 dinary pains in the attempt to furnish them ; but it is 
 quite clear that, however correct any calculation may be 
 made for any one estate, it may be very different from
 
 60 
 
 the general cost of the whole country : much will depend 
 on the fertility of the soil, where, in consequence of the 
 cultivator being generally the owner, he calculates no 
 rent ; much again will depend on the skill with which 
 the whole arrangements and culture are carried on ; and 
 again much will depend on the relative cost at which 
 different men may estimate the value of the other por- 
 tions of their produce. 
 
 It may, however, be useful to quote these calculations, 
 as they appear to be near the actual general cost as de- 
 ducible from other circumstances. Mr. Jacob dwells 
 very much on the capabilities pf Mecklenburg, as being, 
 from its geographical situation and other circumstances, 
 capable of furnishing wheat to this country cheaper than 
 any other. 
 
 In the appendix to his report, Mr. Jacob furnishes 
 a copy of a most elaborate and intelligent letter from 
 J, H. Van Thuenen of Tellow% the proprietor and culti- 
 vator of one of the finest estates in Mecklenburg. This 
 letter indicates suflSciently how superior this individual 
 must be to the great mass of Continental cultivators, and 
 so far shows how little his estimate can be depended upon 
 as a criterion for the whole. 
 
 The price at which he estimates the prime cost of his 
 wheat is 26s. per quarter, allowing no profit to the farmer 
 beyond the interest on live stock and implements, or in- 
 come to the proprietor beyond the interest on the value 
 of the buildings. And then he adds that, in consequence 
 of the general inferior cultivation, the average cost of all 
 the wheat grown in Mecklenburg is fully 5j. per quarter 
 higher than this calculation, and that the average quality
 
 61 
 
 isSs". per quarter worse; and that tlie produce of Tellow is 
 in point of quality 5v. per quarter worse than tlie average 
 prochice of Great Britain. To this must be added the 
 profit of the farmer, the rent of land, the price of con- 
 veying to the port, and tiien \s\ per quarter for skreening, 
 besides the merchant's profit and expenses, to arrive at 
 the price at which it coukl be putyjee on board a ship. 
 
 Mr. Jacob gives another very elaborate statement of 
 the actual cost for an average of years on another estate, 
 fin-nished by Mr. Canning, Consul General at Hamburg, 
 which shows that, in order to pay a profit of 5 per cent, 
 on the capital invested, to be divided between the farmer 
 and the landowner, 40.v. per quarter must be obtained 
 for wheat : this price, we suppose, includes the cost of 
 taking it to the shipping port, which rises very rapidly 
 in proportion to the distance. 
 
 In Holstein and Sleswick, Sir C. Echard and Mr. 
 Iverson estimate the net cost of growth at about the same 
 as Mr. Van Thuenen ; but here the quality is still worse, 
 the best being estimated at least 6.v. per quarter worse than 
 the average of British wheat. The expense of conveying 
 wheat to market must depend entirely upon the distance ; 
 on this point Mr. Jacob furnishes a very interesting table, 
 founded on the experience of an intelligent and extensive 
 cultivator in Mecklenburg, by which it is shown that 
 the cost of land-carriajje of grain is — 
 
 For 24 English Miles 3*. Orf. per quarter. 
 
 48 „ „ 5 10^ 
 
 72 „ „ 8 G 
 
 96 „ „ il
 
 62 
 
 And so*on in the^same proportion, until the expenses in- 
 curred in moving this bulky article two hundred and 
 forty miles would absorb its wliole value. 
 
 We prefer, however, to go more fully into this consider- 
 ation, by taking the well-authenticated average rates 
 which in these countries have proved sufficient to sustain 
 the actual extent of cultivation which has of late years 
 existed, as on this result we are inclined to place much 
 greater reliance than on any private calculations. 
 
 In this inquiry our chief attention shall be directed to 
 the extended territory of Prussia, including Poland, be- 
 cause the exports of grain from that country are three 
 times larger than any other country in Europe. 
 
 Fortimately for our subject, this country has a govern- 
 ment which has had the wisdom not only to be furnished 
 itself, but also to furnish its whole population, with a more 
 accurate knowledge of their internal resources and con- 
 dition from time to time than any other country in 
 Europe, by carefully collecting and publishing periodi- 
 cally a statistical view of the progress making in their 
 different internal interests. 
 
 Since the year 1816 the Prussian government has 
 watched with great care the average prices of grain. 
 
 They are published in the Official Gazette at the end 
 of each month, from the returns made by proper people 
 appointed for the purpose throughout the different pro- 
 vinces. From these returns monthly averages are calcu-
 
 63 
 
 lated for each province ; and from these the annual ave- 
 rage is ultimately derived. They then calculate the 
 average price of each last fourteen years, in the same 
 way as we calculate the averages of each last six weeks ; 
 by every year dropping the first year, and adding the 
 newly-expired year in its place. 
 
 This appears so perfect a mode of arriving at the 
 average price for a long period, that we adopt it with the 
 greatest confidence of its accuracy. We feel that any little 
 deviations from precise accuracy, which can ever occur 
 in returns and calculations of this kind, must be so 
 equally balanced on each side, and be spread in this 
 mode of calculation over so extended a surface and 
 quantity, that they can be of no importance in the general 
 result. We therefore present the following tables, con- 
 taining the above official returns for all Prussia from 
 1816 to 1837 inclusive.* 
 
 * These tables, extracted from the ofBcial accounts, were 
 published (along with a very intelligent article on this subject 
 translated from the " Allgemeine Preussische Staatszeitung," 
 Nos. 85 and 86, 1838) in the Journal ^of the Statistical Society of 
 London, No. VIII., December, 1838.
 
 G4 
 
 Table, No. 1. 
 
 Sliowiuj^ the Annual Averaj^e Prices of Wheat per Scheffel, in each 
 Province, fur each year from 1816 to 1837 inclusive, in Silver 
 Groschen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 WHEAT. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I'oiiods. 
 
 riussia 
 Pioi.or. 
 
 Poscu. 
 
 Rraiuleii- 
 buri; anil 
 Pomeraiiia 
 
 Silosia. 
 
 Saxony. 
 
 We 
 plial 
 
 4- 
 
 ia. 
 
 Ivlipnish 
 Pioviiices. 
 
 
 Sil. s;r 
 
 pf. 
 
 Sil.gr 
 
 pf. 
 
 .Sil.gr 
 
 pf. 
 
 Sil. gr 
 
 pf. 
 
 Sil.gr.pf. 
 
 Sil. gr 
 
 .pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 ISlC 
 
 70 
 
 1 
 
 78 
 
 10 
 
 84 
 
 9 
 
 94 
 
 11 
 
 90 10 
 
 110 
 
 7 
 
 112 2 
 
 1817 
 
 100 
 
 5 
 
 96 
 
 10 
 
 115 
 
 11 
 
 106 
 
 
 
 122 6 
 
 152 
 
 
 
 165 
 
 1818 
 
 94 
 
 3 
 
 78 
 
 4 
 
 101 
 
 8 
 
 SO 
 
 7 
 
 92 4 
 
 103 
 
 1 
 
 105 9 
 
 1819 
 
 65 
 
 5 
 
 GO 
 
 5 
 
 72 
 
 11 
 
 61 
 
 10 
 
 61 5 
 
 n 
 
 10 
 
 72 1 
 
 1820 
 
 51 
 
 10 
 
 52 
 
 1 
 
 56 
 
 9 
 
 55 
 
 1 
 
 52 3 
 
 59 
 
 7 
 
 65 1 
 
 1821 
 
 48 
 
 8 
 
 54 
 
 7 
 
 54 
 
 7 
 
 67 
 
 5 
 
 48 8 
 
 62 
 
 1 
 
 56 10 
 
 1822 
 
 49 
 
 5 
 
 54 
 
 2 
 
 50 
 
 9 
 
 62 
 
 8 
 
 50 7 
 
 60 
 
 4 
 
 55 8 
 
 1823 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 2 
 
 50 
 
 10 
 
 57 
 
 
 
 51 10 
 
 54 
 
 2 
 
 58 4 
 
 1824 
 
 34 
 
 9 
 
 35 
 
 11 
 
 38 
 
 1 
 
 39 
 
 10 
 
 39 9 
 
 36 
 
 4 
 
 39 9 
 
 1825 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 32 
 
 2 
 
 33 
 
 10 
 
 35 
 
 2 
 
 33 10 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 40 11 
 
 1826 
 
 35 
 
 5 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 5 
 
 33 5 
 
 38 
 
 3 
 
 44 2 
 
 1S27 
 
 42 
 
 4 
 
 44 
 
 1 
 
 49 
 
 1 
 
 47 
 
 10 
 
 41 11 
 
 55 
 
 
 56 7 
 
 18'28 
 
 51 
 
 8 
 
 51 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 6 
 
 56 
 
 9 
 
 50 8 
 
 62 
 
 
 72 6 
 
 1S29 
 
 CI 
 
 5 
 
 60 
 
 1 
 
 66 
 
 8 
 
 58 
 
 11 
 
 65 8 
 
 75 
 
 
 78 7 
 
 1830 
 
 56 
 
 3 
 
 55 
 
 9 
 
 64 
 
 8 
 
 53 
 
 9 
 
 60 8 
 
 17 
 
 
 75 11 
 
 1831 
 
 75 
 
 5 
 
 78 
 
 2 
 
 74 
 
 9 
 
 71 
 
 9 
 
 07 
 
 92 
 
 11 
 
 91 2 
 
 1832 
 
 64 
 
 9 
 
 59 
 
 8 
 
 63 
 
 7 
 
 51 
 
 4 
 
 56 10 
 
 71 
 
 11 
 
 83 8 
 
 1833 
 
 47 
 
 6 
 
 44 
 
 3 
 
 44 
 
 9 
 
 41 
 
 2 
 
 41 11 
 
 50 
 
 
 57 2 
 
 1834 
 
 45 
 
 1 
 
 43 
 
 10 
 
 43 
 
 9 
 
 43 
 
 2 
 
 39 1 
 
 43 
 
 
 49 1 
 
 ]S3J 
 
 43 
 
 7 
 
 46 
 
 9 
 
 45 
 
 4 
 
 49 
 
 9 
 
 42 1 
 
 44 
 
 
 49 4 
 
 1836 
 
 39 
 
 8 
 
 39 
 
 10 
 
 43 
 
 6 
 
 39 
 
 9 
 
 41 2 
 
 40 
 
 
 52 
 
 1837 
 
 42 
 
 8 
 
 44 
 
 7 
 
 49 
 
 3 
 
 41 
 
 1 
 
 47 
 
 50 
 
 11 
 
 58
 
 65 
 
 Taulk, No. 2. 
 
 Showing the Average of nine Periods of fourteen years each, and for the whole 
 
 Period of twenty-two years, from 1816 to 1837 inchisive, in each Province. 
 
 WHEAT. 
 
 Periods. 
 
 Prussia 
 Proper. 
 
 Posen. 
 
 Krauden- 
 bur^ and 
 Pomerania. 
 
 .Silesia. 
 
 Saxony. 
 
 Wust- 
 phalia. 
 
 Rheuish 
 Provincos. 
 
 Average of 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr 
 
 pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 1816-29 
 
 52 3 
 
 54 3 
 
 58 1 
 
 58 
 
 9 
 
 50 1 
 
 64 10 
 
 66 7 
 
 1817-30 
 
 50 10 
 
 52 ^ 
 
 56 1 
 
 56 
 
 1 
 
 52 11 
 
 62 3 
 
 63 7 
 
 1818-31 
 
 50 10 
 
 52 
 
 5G 1 
 
 56 
 
 1 
 
 52 11 
 
 62 3 
 
 63 7 
 
 1819-32 
 
 50 9 
 
 51 11 
 
 55 2 
 
 54 
 
 6 
 
 52 1 
 
 61 8 
 
 63 7 
 
 1820-33 
 
 49 1 
 
 50 4 
 
 52 11 
 
 52 
 
 5 
 
 50 1 
 
 59 
 
 62 1 
 
 1321-34 
 
 48 4 
 
 49 7 
 
 51 8 
 
 51 
 
 3 
 
 48 9 
 
 57 5 
 
 60 6 
 
 1822-33 
 
 47 10 
 
 48 9 
 
 50 9 
 
 49 
 
 11 
 
 48 2 
 
 55 8 
 
 59 9 
 
 1823-36 
 
 46 11 
 
 47 4 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 47 6 
 
 54 3 
 
 59 4 
 
 1824-37 
 
 .Iver.ige of 
 the whole 
 Period . . . 
 
 46 7 
 49- 3 
 
 46 7 
 
 49 10 
 
 46 
 
 5 
 
 47 
 
 53 11 
 
 59 4 
 
 50. 4 
 
 53- 5 
 
 52- 
 
 7 
 
 50- 7 
 
 59- 
 
 62- 
 
 Table, No. 3. 
 Showing the Average of each of the Provinces for the nine Periods of 
 fourteen years each, as shown in Tal)le No. 2 ; and the whole Average 
 of the whole Period. To this and the following Table we have added 
 Rye, Barley, and Oats, for the information of those who may wish it 
 — calculated exactly in the same way as Wheat. 
 
 Provinces. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Ry 
 
 
 Barley. 
 
 Oats. 
 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. 
 
 pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Prussia Proper . 
 
 49 3 
 
 30 
 
 2 
 
 21 10 
 
 16 3 
 
 Posen .... 
 
 50 4 
 
 33 
 
 1 
 
 25 4 
 
 19 5 
 
 Brandenburg and Pomerania. 
 
 53 5 
 
 36 
 
 2 
 
 26 10 
 
 21 3 
 
 Silesia .... 
 
 52 7 
 
 38 
 
 
 
 29 2 
 
 21 7 
 
 Saxony .... 
 
 50 7 
 
 38 
 
 3 
 
 28 11 
 
 21 7 
 
 Westph.ilia 
 
 59 
 
 44 
 
 9 
 
 33 4 
 
 23 9 
 
 Rhenish Provinces 
 Average 
 
 62 
 
 40 
 
 6 
 
 35 5 
 
 23 3 
 
 53-11 
 
 38- 
 
 1 
 
 28- 8 
 
 21-
 
 66 
 
 Table, No. 4. 
 
 Showing the Average Prices in each of the nine Periods for the whole 
 Provinces, and arriving at the same Annual Average Price for the 
 whole Country during the whole Period, as shown in Table No. 3. 
 
 Periods. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Rye. 
 
 Barley. 
 
 Oats. 
 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Sil.gr.pf. 
 
 1816-29 
 
 58 5 
 
 41 3 
 
 31 1 
 
 22 8 
 
 1817-30 
 
 56 3 
 
 39 3 
 
 29 7 
 
 21 9 
 
 1818-31 
 
 56 3 
 
 39 3 
 
 29 4 
 
 21 5 
 
 1819-32 
 
 55 9 
 
 38 11 
 
 29 2 
 
 21 3 
 
 1820-33 
 
 53 9 
 
 37 8 
 
 28 2 
 
 20 8 
 
 1821-34 
 
 52 6 
 
 37 2 
 
 27 8 
 
 20 4 
 
 1822-35 
 
 51 7 
 
 37 4 
 
 28 1 
 
 20 8 
 
 1823-36 
 
 50 6 
 
 36 7 
 
 27 8 
 
 20 6 
 
 1824-37 
 Average 
 
 49 11 
 
 35 9 
 
 27 4 
 
 20 
 
 53-11 
 
 38- 1 
 
 28* 8 
 
 21- 
 
 It thus appears that the average price, which has 
 been just sufficient to maintain the cuhivation in Prussia 
 in its present extent, and in all the necessary ramifications 
 of landowner, tenant, labourer or serf, and whatever 
 arrangements they may have peculiar to the country in 
 their mode of cultivation, is for 
 
 Sil. gr. pf. 
 
 Wheat 53 11 per scheffel. 
 
 Rye 38 1 ,, 
 
 Barley 28 8 
 
 Oats 21 
 
 To enable us to pursue our comparison, we will re- 
 duce these rates into sterling money per English quarter. 
 Tlie average rate of exchange on London at Dantzig, for
 
 67 
 
 the last few years, has been 203^ sil. gr. per pound 
 sterling. 
 
 Then, if 203^ sil. gr. equal 20*. sterling, 53 gr. 11 pf. will be 
 5s. 3|c?. sterling per schefFel for wheat. 
 
 Again, if 203:^ sil. gr. equal 20*. sterling, 38 gr. 1 pf. will be 
 3*. Sid. per scheflFel for rye. 
 
 Again, if 203J sil. gr. equal 20*. sterling, 28 gr. 8 pf. will be 
 2*. 9|^. per schefFel for barley. 
 
 And again, if 203^ sil. gr. equal 20*. sterling, 21 gr. will be 
 2*. Old. per schefFel for oats. 
 
 An English imperial quarter is equal exactly to 5^ 
 scheffel, so that the average in imperial quarters will be 
 —for 
 
 Wheat, . .5^ scheffel, at 5*. 3|c?., is 28*. 3d. per imp. quarter. 
 
 Rye 5J ,, 3 81 ,, 19 11^ 
 
 Barley . .5^ ,, 2 9| ,, 15 li ,, 
 
 Oats ....5J ,, 2 0| ,, 11 H 
 
 These are the average prices thus obtained in a series 
 of years throughout the huge territory of Prussia and 
 Prussian Poland ; but, in looking at them in reference to 
 prices in other countries, we must bear in mind that be- 
 yond these prices must be added considerable charges, 
 before we arrive at the prime cost on board the ship in 
 any port. The great bulk of the grain grown, especially 
 in Poland, is purchased from the growers, either on their 
 own farms or at their local markets, by the merchants 
 from Dantzig, who not unfrequently make advances on 
 the crops while yet growing on the ground. It is there- 
 fore clear that the merchant's profit, as well as all the 
 charges of conveying it, first from the spot of purchase 
 to the nearest navigable river, of loading into craft, of 
 freight and dues in descending the rivers, of landing 
 and warehousing at the seaport, must, in most cases, 
 
 f2
 
 G8 
 
 require to be added to these averages. Making a 
 sufficient allowance for the fact that a portion of the 
 returns of sales which constitute these averages include 
 some of these charges, it is considered that the smallest 
 calculation on this account must be at least 6.s. per 
 quarter on wheat, 5^-. per quarter on barley and rye 
 and 4^\ per quarter on oats. We believe that this cal- 
 culation is extremely near the correct amount, because 
 we find that the average price of wheat in the port of 
 Dantzig from 1817 to 1837 inclusive is 34*. 4d., whicli 
 nearly corresponds with this additional charge of G.y. per 
 quarter, added to 28^-. od., the average of the whole 
 kingdom. — Thus the average prices in Dantzig, in the 
 following years, were 
 
 1817 . 
 
 . 75.?. 
 
 8(/. per 
 
 quarter. 
 
 1828 . 
 
 . 24*. 
 
 4J. 
 
 pei 
 
 quarter 
 
 1818 . 
 
 . C4 
 
 7 
 
 
 1829 . 
 
 . 36 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 1819 . 
 
 . 43 
 
 9 
 
 
 1830 . 
 
 . 34 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1820 . 
 
 . 33 
 
 3 
 
 
 1831 . 
 
 . 37 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1821 . 
 
 . 31 
 
 7 
 
 
 1832 . 
 
 . 37 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 1822 . 
 
 . 2'J 
 
 1 
 
 
 1833 . 
 
 . 29 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 1823 . 
 
 . 2G 
 
 8 
 
 
 1834 . 
 
 . 23 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1824 . 
 
 . 22 
 
 9 
 
 
 1835 . 
 
 . 23 
 
 
 
 
 
 1S-.5 . 
 
 . 23 
 
 3 
 
 
 183G . 
 
 . 33 
 
 G 
 
 
 
 182G . 
 
 . 23 
 
 1 
 
 
 1837 . 
 
 . 29 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 1827 . 
 
 22 
 
 5 
 
 
 1838 . 
 
 . 48 
 
 1 * 
 
 
 
 Aveia;?e of the wliole period, 34*. 4d. per (juarter. 
 
 We thus shov/ that the prime cost, when arrived at 
 the port, before any steps arc taken for shipment, is — for 
 
 Wheat 3is. 3d. 
 
 Rye 24 11^ 
 
 Barley 20 U 
 
 Oats 15 1^ 
 
 There is another feature in these averages whicli must 
 
 * As near as has been ascertained.
 
 G9 
 
 not be lost sight of. — In Prussia and in all parts of 
 the Continent, the quality of ^vheat and grain generally 
 varies much more than it does in this country, so much 
 so of wheat, that at Danzig one quality frequently is 
 worth 50 to 75 per cent, more than others sold at tlw 
 same time; — thus in the first three months of 1837 the 
 prices were — 
 
 1st week in .January 27*. 
 
 4d. to 
 
 40*. 
 
 Oil. 
 
 per quarter 
 
 •Jnd 
 
 27 
 
 6 
 
 u 
 
 40 
 
 4 
 
 >» 
 
 3rd 
 
 ,. 27 
 
 5 
 
 I> 
 
 40 
 
 3 
 
 »» 
 
 4tli , 
 
 25 
 
 7 
 
 ,, 
 
 40 
 
 3 
 
 i» 
 
 1st 
 
 , February 25 
 
 7 
 
 »» 
 
 39 
 
 9 
 
 » 
 
 2nd 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 » 
 
 38 
 
 5 
 
 >» 
 
 3rd 
 
 22 
 
 10 
 
 „ 
 
 38 
 
 5 
 
 »> 
 
 4th 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 >» 
 
 38 
 
 5 
 
 »» 
 
 1st 
 
 March 23 
 
 9 
 
 » 
 
 38 
 
 4 
 
 «i 
 
 2nd 
 
 23 
 
 9 
 
 ,, 
 
 38 
 
 4 
 
 »• 
 
 3rd , 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 I> 
 
 36 
 
 8 
 
 )> 
 
 4th 
 
 22 
 
 11 
 
 ») 
 
 35 
 
 9 
 
 >i 
 
 And this is only a fair example of the usual difference 
 which exists in this respect at all periods. 
 
 It is therefore clear that these general averages in- 
 clude a large portion of extremely bad quality and low- 
 priced wheat, altogether unfit under usual circum- 
 stances for shipment. If therefore the average price of 
 that quality could be obtained which is fit for shipment, 
 but especially to Great Britain, where the average 
 quality is so vastly superior to that of any other coun- 
 try, we should find a large addition would require to 
 be made to 34.s. 3(/. ; but, liowever, without taking any 
 advantage of this obvious cause of additional price for 
 such quality, we will consider that we have now arrived 
 at such prime cost of wheat, ready for shipment in a port 
 in Prussia, as will enable that country to sustain its cul-
 
 70 
 
 tivation exactly in the condition in which it is, both in 
 respect to quantity, quality, and the advantages derived 
 by all those connected with its production. As 52.y. 2d. 
 per quarter has proved sufficient in England to bring 
 the quantity of wheat which has been produced to the 
 consumer, so 34s. 2>d. in Prussia has proved to be the 
 exact price to place the average quality of produce of 
 that country in her seaports ready for shipment. 
 
 The former is, therefore, the prime cost to the con- 
 sumer in England, while the latter is the prime cost to 
 the shipper at Dantzig. In order to determine how far 
 the latter could be brought into competition with the 
 former, in case we should have a free trade in corn, 
 without any duty whatever, we will now examine what 
 must be the necessary charges to bring it from Dantzig 
 to the market in England. 
 
 In this respect, we have bestowed great care, and 
 derived our information both from Dantzig and London ; 
 and, also, have calculated the precise actual charges 
 which many real shipments have shown : — 
 
 Per Qr. 
 
 Unhousing, shipping, and export-dues, at Dantzig, s. d. 
 
 paid by the shipper there 19 
 
 Freight and primage 6 
 
 Sound-dues 6 
 
 Insurance in winter £5 5 per cent. 
 
 Ditto spring 15.. 
 
 Average . 6 10 
 
 £3 5 . . at 50v. per 
 quarter to cover all charges. £100 would be 40 
 quarters, or 1 7^ 
 
 Carried forward . . . . 9 10;^
 
 71 
 
 Per Qr. 
 S. d. 
 
 Brought forward 9 10^ 
 
 Entry and lighterage 6 
 
 Metage inwards .« 06 
 
 Landing 4 
 
 Warehouse-rent, and insurance against fire for six 
 
 months, at 5*. per 100 quarters per week, or . 13 
 
 Turning for six months, at 1*. 6d. per 100 quarters 
 
 per week, or 4 
 
 Loss in quantity, and damage from the time of 
 shipment at Dantzig, until sold after lying six 
 months in granary, 3 per cent., at 5 0«. per quarter, 
 is 16 
 
 Factorage for sale, and dilcredere, is. per quarter, 
 and 1 per cent, on the sale, at 50*. per quarter, is 6d. 1 6 
 
 Metage, portion paid by seller 4 
 
 Delivering 3 
 
 Interest of money for nine months, including the 
 voyage, and the customary credit given on wheat, 
 at 50s. per quarter, at 5 per cent, per annum . . 1 lOj 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 fi 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 18 3 
 
 Of which is paid by the shipper 
 And by the purchaser . . 
 
 In this calculation we have assumed that the wheat 
 shall lie six months in warehouse on an average, which 
 must be considered a very moderate time, in the case a 
 regular trade should be carried on between the Continent 
 and this country, free at all times. We believe the aver- 
 age would be much longer, but will rather err in being 
 too moderate than in being extravagant. These chaiges
 
 72 
 
 are the nett cost without any profit to the merchant 
 shipping from Dantzig, or without any commission to 
 the merchant in London, to whom it might be consigned, 
 without which, it is quite clear, no trade would continue 
 to be carried forward. 
 
 If between the house at Dantzig and the house in 
 London, to cover their necessary expenses, and to yield 
 them a remunerating profit, we allow 5 per cent, on the 
 amount, we think we shall not be blamed for extrava- 
 gance in this respect; and those who know the risk, 
 trouble, and advance of capital, needed to conduct such 
 a business, will be convinced that, at this rate, the trade 
 would be neglected. So that, if we add to the prime 
 cost these charges, we shall bring the Prussian wheat into 
 the posture of competition with British-grown at a sea- 
 port, thus : — 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Piime cost 34 3 per qr. 
 
 Shipping, landing, warehousing for 6 mo., 
 and selling 18 3 " , , 
 
 5 per cent, profit or commission on 50*. 
 per quarter, between the merchant in 
 Dantzig and in England 2 6 , , 
 
 55 ,, 
 
 The quality of the wheat shipped from Dantzig to this 
 country may be considered as about equal in value to the 
 average quality of our home-grown wheats; but the 
 average quality at Dantzig of all the wheat, of which 
 'M.y. 3d. is the average price, must be at least Gs. to 8^-.
 
 73 
 
 per quarter worse than the average of British wlieats ; 
 for it must be borne in mind, that only the better quali- 
 ties are shipped to this country in general, and when the 
 inferior qualities are shipped, by a great pressure for the 
 article, they are not only worth much less here, but they 
 entail much greater expense, in skreening, kiln-drying, 
 «Scc. ; and they are subject to much greater decay and 
 loss. It may be remarked, perhaps, that a great number 
 of the charges to which we have submitted Dantzig wheat, 
 included in the 18.y. 3d., must also be borne by home- 
 grown wheat: true, they must; but it must be kept in 
 mind, as we have before shown, that the average price 
 of 52s. 2c?., obtained for English wheat during the last 
 seven years, not only includes all these charges, but 
 an immense train of other charges, having their origin 
 only in the existence of a prohibitory and protective 
 law. 
 
 After all the fear and apprehensions of the ruinous 
 low prices which an admittance of Continental wheat 
 would entail on this country, we find, on the average of 
 years, that the prime cost of importing it from the 
 richest, cheapest, and most extensive wheat- growing coun- 
 try on the Continent, would have been at least '2s. lOd. 
 per quarter higher than the actual average price obtained 
 in this country, with the strictest prohibitory law. But 
 we have only brought the two into competition at the 
 port of arrival. As we recede from the port into the 
 country, with English wheat, the charges become smaller 
 and smaller, but, as the foreign competitor would ad- 
 vance from the port into the interior, his charges would
 
 74 
 
 become greater and greater, and his ability to compete 
 sensibly decline. 
 
 If this be true with respect to wheat, which we submit 
 we have clearly proved, then, with respect to all the in- 
 ferior articles of produce, it must be much more true : 
 the high charges which we have pointed out would bear 
 more heavily on all the others just in ^proportion as they 
 are of lower value. If any article of agricultural produce 
 could support such taxes, wheat is that article, as bearing, 
 in a given weight and bulk, a higher value than any other. 
 It would, therefore, only be tedious to go through the 
 same calculations with rye, barley, and oats. 
 
 Thus it becomes an indisputable fact, that, had the 
 state of our laws for the last twenty years been such 
 as to have maintained the price of wheat at the actual 
 average price of 52s. 2f/. which has been received, no 
 wheat could have been grown in Prussia for this country ; 
 either must the prices have risen here above 55^-., or 
 must the cost of production have been materially cur- 
 tailed in Prussia. This, perhaps, might have been done 
 to a small extent by throwing out the worst portions of 
 land in cultivation, and retaining only a small portion of the 
 best ; but this would have curtailed their surplus quantity 
 produced, which at most is very trifling. The difference 
 of the two prices of 2?. lOd. in London, although not so 
 large apparently on 526-. per quarter, yet is very large 
 on 28.9. '2d., the original cost in the country, and, as it 
 would require to be all saved in the act of production, 
 it would be all chargeable on that low price, or even
 
 75 
 
 a lower one, — viz. the actual price received by the 
 farmer. 
 
 The result of this investigation differs so widely from 
 the generally-received opinions, that it appears needful to 
 bring not only all the facts and arguments immediately 
 connected therewith to reconcile the common prejudices 
 with the truth, but, also, whatever may remotely tend to 
 confirm our propositions so far proven, — viz.,- that no 
 part of the Continent of Europe can carry on a successful 
 competition with England in tiie growth of wheat for her 
 own home consumption, supposing the relative condition 
 and value of property, in both cases, to continue exactly 
 as they have been for some years past, fixed by the 
 combination of the laws and circumstances which have 
 existed. 
 
 Fortunately this is not an untried question : the history 
 of the past century furnishes some very satisfactory ex- 
 perience on this head. 
 
 During the first seventy-three years of the last cen- 
 tury a bounty of 5.s. per quarter was given by law 
 on all wheat exported whenever the average price was 
 at or below 48^. per quarter, and importation almost 
 prohibited. 
 
 It must be admitted that this bounty could not be 
 sufficient to pay the cliarges of taking wheat from this 
 country to the Continent, but still we find that during 
 this period England was the largest wheat-exporting 
 country in Europe.
 
 76 
 
 The following table will show the exports from Great 
 Britain and Dantzig during this period, by which it will 
 be seen how much the former exceed the latter. 
 
 
 K sported 
 
 Exported from 
 
 
 Exported 
 
 Exported from 
 
 
 from 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 
 from 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Dant/.ig. 
 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 Dantzig. 
 
 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Barley. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Barley. 
 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 
 1700 
 
 33,346 
 
 49,056 
 
 25,896 
 
 fl737 
 
 20,500 
 
 461,602 
 
 23,669 
 
 
 1701 
 
 34,626 
 
 98,. 323 
 
 21,953 
 
 n { 1738 
 
 49,901 
 
 580,599 
 
 70,689 
 
 
 1702 
 
 43,892 
 
 90,230 
 
 16,280 
 
 l [ 1739 
 
 92,192 
 
 279,542 
 
 54,447 
 
 
 1703 
 
 33,895 
 
 106,615 
 
 71,523 
 
 ri740 
 
 164.131 
 
 54,390 
 
 24,086 
 
 
 1704 
 
 52,148 
 
 90,313 
 
 30,729 
 
 1741 
 
 93.224 
 
 43,416 
 
 6,618 
 
 
 1705 
 
 64,532 
 
 96,185 
 
 21,386 
 
 1742 
 
 56,330 
 
 293,259 
 
 11,482 
 
 3 ■ 
 
 1706 
 
 73,981 
 
 188,332 
 
 10,221 
 
 . 1743 
 
 53,212 
 
 371,431 
 
 34,995 
 
 '? 
 
 1707 
 
 65,521 
 
 74,155 
 
 4,771 
 
 3 ■' 1744 
 
 53.879 
 
 231,984 
 
 20,090 
 
 
 1708 
 
 98,180 
 
 83,406 
 
 29,i)37 
 
 I? 
 
 1745 
 
 24,886 
 
 324,839 
 
 95,878 
 
 
 1709 
 
 83,173 
 
 169,679 
 
 40,512 
 
 
 1746 
 
 24.037 
 
 130,646 
 
 158.719 
 
 
 1710 
 
 38,119 
 
 13,924 
 
 5,714 
 
 
 1747 
 
 47,762 
 
 266,906 
 
 103,143 
 
 
 1711 
 
 46,429 
 
 76,949 
 
 8.412 
 
 U748 
 
 98.913 
 
 543,387 
 
 73,8.37 
 
 
 ^1712 
 
 79,2H8 
 
 145,100 
 
 19.838 
 
 f 1749 
 
 113,789 
 
 629,049 
 
 52,621 
 
 
 /1713 
 
 130,698 
 
 J76.227 
 
 52.542 
 
 . 1750 
 
 99,502 
 
 947,603 
 
 224,500 
 
 
 1714 
 
 48,816 
 
 174,821 
 
 18,579 
 
 i J 1751 
 
 202,388 
 
 661,416 
 
 32.698 
 
 
 1715 
 
 10,900 
 
 166,490 
 
 5,079 
 
 2 H752 
 
 191,307 
 
 4;! 9, 279 
 
 106,332 
 
 
 17I6 
 
 19,. ^43 
 
 74,926 
 
 14,857 
 
 =- 1753 
 
 147,286 
 
 299.608 
 
 67,049 
 
 
 1717 
 
 37,066 
 
 22,953 
 
 18,435 
 
 M754 
 
 131.118 
 
 356,270 
 
 47,776 
 
 
 1718 
 
 23,822 
 
 71.800 
 
 71,139 
 
 ( 1755 
 
 
 237,466 
 
 381,659. 
 
 
 1719 
 
 54,728 
 
 127,762 
 
 9.649 
 
 1706 
 
 82,581 
 
 102,752 
 
 269,949 
 
 X 
 
 
 1720 
 
 37,496 
 
 83,484 
 
 4,505 
 
 . 1737 
 
 183,094 
 
 130,017 
 
 57,511 
 
 rt 
 
 
 1721 
 
 59,824 
 
 81,432 
 
 11.607 
 
 SJ1758 
 
 87,451 
 
 11,119 
 
 1,504 
 
 '^' 
 
 
 1722 
 
 67,757 
 
 178,880 
 
 37,528 
 
 fe 1 1759 
 
 87,612 
 
 227,367 
 
 208,7971= 1 
 
 _ 
 
 1723 
 
 98,846 
 
 157,719 
 
 45,780 
 
 I76O 
 
 110,619 
 
 393,614 
 
 291,150 
 
 
 ij 1724 
 
 96.804 
 
 245,865 
 
 10,298 
 
 I76I 
 
 68,230 
 
 441.956 
 
 413,891 
 
 c 
 
 S\ 1725 
 
 123,270 
 
 204,418 
 
 13,782 
 
 ^ 1762 
 
 55,911 
 
 295,385 
 
 423,064 
 
 <: 
 
 ^ 
 
 1726 
 
 9.-1,018 
 
 142,183 
 
 20.017 
 
 1763 
 
 127,258 
 
 429,5;»7 
 
 215,681 
 
 S 
 
 
 1727 
 
 41,764 
 
 30,317 
 
 8.688 
 
 1764 
 
 181,299 
 
 396,858 
 
 246,891 J 
 
 
 1728 
 
 92,998 
 
 70,757 
 
 11.547 
 
 1765 
 
 190,393 
 
 167,126 
 
 2.) 1,927 
 
 
 1729 
 
 204,142 
 
 21,322 
 
 12. ,551 
 
 176fi 
 
 145,619 
 
 164,939 
 
 95.115 
 
 
 1730 
 
 113,455 
 
 93,970 
 
 14,982 
 
 1767 
 
 151,424 
 
 5,071 
 
 18.700 
 
 
 i;3i 
 
 116,315 
 
 130,025 
 
 13,562 
 
 1768 
 
 197.789 
 
 7,433 
 
 6,587 
 
 
 1732 
 
 74,476 
 
 202,058 
 
 13,874 
 
 17»i9 
 
 124,775 
 
 49.892 
 
 39,825 
 
 
 1733 
 
 115,218 
 
 427.199 
 
 37.598 
 
 1770 
 
 269,158 
 
 75.449 
 
 170,409 
 
 
 1734 
 
 103.318 
 
 498.196 
 
 70,224 
 
 1771 
 
 181,417 
 
 10.089 
 
 34,198 
 
 
 173;- 
 
 86.409 
 
 153,333 
 
 57,520 
 
 1772 
 
 159,917 
 
 6,959 
 
 11,031 
 
 \l73f 
 
 25,187 
 
 118,170 
 
 6,860 
 
 
 
 
 
 With this trifling encouragement, w^e exported more 
 wheat than wc ever importedon an average of years. There 
 is no doubt that the boiuity on export gave a great and 
 perhaps unprofitable stimulant to production, but, still, 
 during the whole period of its existence, our farmers con-
 
 tlnued to be large exporters; now, if this bounty was 
 not sufficient to pay the charges of export, it is clear 
 that, when the British wheat arrived on the Continent, it 
 had even to encounter the disadvantage of bearing a con- 
 siderable charge above the bounty given ; and, if it was 
 able to bear this charge and compete with the growth of 
 the Continent, how much more could the former compete 
 with the latter if retained at home, without any addi- 
 tional charge, while the foreign would have to come here 
 at a considerable cost. 
 
 From 1697 to 1773 only seven years occurred in 
 which England did not export more wheat than she 
 imported, by the aid of this small bounty. In four 
 years the average annual export was 1,200,000 quar- 
 ters, and in one year (1750) it amounted to I,6G7,000 
 quarters; for the whole period the average annual ex- 
 ports exceeded the imports by rather more than 200,000 
 C[uart(.'rs. 
 
 But the experiment was carried still further in aid of 
 our argument. In 1773 an act was passed abolishing the 
 bounty on export, except when wheat was under 44^. per 
 quarter, and allowing imports on the most liberal terms 
 ever acknowledged by the English law, — viz., at G(/. 
 per quarter duty when wheat should be 48j-. per quarter 
 or liiffher. 
 
 The result of this was that Great Britain was still en- 
 abled to export wheat. In ten years out of the next 
 twenty years following the enactment, our exports still ex- 
 ceeded our imports, — the following being the quantities of
 
 78 
 
 wheat and flour exported and imported in each of these 
 years : — 
 
 
 Wheat and Flour. 
 
 Barley and Malt. 
 
 Yi'ars. 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 Imported. 
 
 Exported. 
 
 Imported. 
 
 Exported. 
 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 1773 
 
 56,857 
 
 7,637 
 
 63,916 
 
 2,475 
 
 1774 
 
 289,149 
 
 15,928 
 
 171,508 
 
 2,911 
 
 1775 
 
 560,988 
 
 91,037 
 
 139,451 
 
 51,414 
 
 1776 
 
 20,578 
 
 210,604 
 
 8,499 
 
 136,114 
 
 1777 
 
 233,323 
 
 87,686 
 
 7,981 
 
 142,725 
 
 1778 
 
 106,394 
 
 141,070 
 
 42,714 
 
 103,930 
 
 1779 
 
 5,039 
 
 222,261 
 
 7,085 
 
 85,777 
 
 1780 
 
 3,915 
 
 224,059 
 
 352 
 
 191,563 
 
 1781 
 
 159,806 
 
 103,021 
 
 56 
 
 150,468 
 
 1782 
 
 80,695 
 
 145,152 
 
 13,592 
 
 127,744 
 
 1783 
 
 584,183 
 
 51,943 
 
 144,926 
 
 54,065 
 
 1784 
 
 216,947 
 
 89,-288 
 
 77,182 
 
 66,889 
 
 1785 
 
 110,863 
 
 132,685 
 
 67,212 
 
 166,448 
 
 1786 
 
 51,463 
 
 205,466 
 
 62,374 
 
 111,598 
 
 1787 
 
 59,339 
 
 120,530 
 
 43,244 
 
 135,089 
 
 1788 
 
 148,710 
 
 82,971 
 
 11,479 
 
 212,811 
 
 1789 
 
 112,656 
 
 140,014 
 
 11,128 
 
 345,685 
 
 1790 
 
 222,557 
 
 30,892 
 
 29,718 
 
 50,900 
 
 1791 
 
 469,056 
 
 70,626 
 
 61,134 
 
 41,590 
 
 1792 
 
 22,417 
 
 300.278 
 
 118,526 
 
 49,131 
 
 It will l)e observed that both these laws failed in the 
 effect intended by the framers — the object of the for- 
 mer being evidently to maintain a hio^h range of prices, 
 by not only securing the entire home consimiption to the 
 British grower, but by affording him the assistance of a 
 bounty to export his surplus stock : the object of the
 
 79 
 
 latter was as evidently intended to admit a more free 
 supply, which it was naturally expected would reduce 
 the prices; and by the opponents of the measure it 
 was strongly urged that by its operation this country 
 would be deluged with Continental wheat : but, like 
 almost every effort of government to control and in- 
 fluence such matters, the result was, in both cases, the 
 reverse of what was intended. By the encouragement of 
 the bounty production was stimulated so much, that in 
 one year, 1743, the whole average price of wheat was 
 only 24s. lOd. per quarter, and in several years it did not 
 reach 30^. Complaints at that period were greater than 
 at any other from the landed interest, and, perhaps, with 
 better reason. When this encouragement was withdrawn, 
 and the English market opened to a free competition with 
 the Continent, a more prudent cultivation appears to 
 have been adopted ; prices, instead of being lowered, 
 gradually advanced, but it was not until that advance 
 had become considerable that the Continental grower 
 was enabled to send any very important quantity of wheat 
 to this country. 
 
 It is extremely worthy of remark, that the average 
 price during the thirty-two years that this law continued 
 in operation* is shown to be 2*. 2d. per quarter higher 
 than the average of the last seven years, and ll.y. \\d. 
 per quarter higher than the average of the thirty-two 
 preceding, with the assistance of the bounty on exports 
 and prohibited imports. The following table shows a 
 comparative view of the range of prices during these two 
 periods. 
 
 * By a slight alteration in the law, in 1 791, the price of admis- 
 sion at 6d. per quarter was raised from 48*. to 54*. per quarter.
 
 80 
 
 Averaf 
 
 .', No. 1. 
 
 Avera{ 
 
 '.', No. 2. 
 
 Years. 
 
 s. d. 
 
 Years. 
 
 S. d. 
 
 1772 
 
 50 8 
 
 1773 
 
 51 
 
 1771 
 
 47 2 
 
 1774 
 
 52 8 
 
 1770 
 
 41 4 
 
 1775 
 
 48 4 
 
 17G9 
 
 45 8 
 
 1776 
 
 38 2 
 
 17C8 
 
 60 G 
 
 1777 
 
 45 6 
 
 17G7 
 
 G4 G 
 
 1778 
 
 42 
 
 17CG 
 
 43 1 
 
 1779 
 
 33 8 
 
 17G5 
 
 52 
 
 1780 
 
 35 8 
 
 17r.4 
 
 4G 9 
 
 1781 
 
 44 8 
 
 17G3 
 
 40 9 
 
 1782 
 
 47 10 
 
 17C2 
 
 39 
 
 1783 
 
 52 8 
 
 1761 
 
 30 3 
 
 1784 
 
 48 10 
 
 17(iO 
 
 3G 6 
 
 1785 
 
 51 10 
 
 1750 
 
 39 10 
 
 I78C 
 
 38 10 
 
 1758 
 
 70 : 
 
 1787 
 
 41 2 
 
 1757 
 
 GO 1 
 
 1788 
 
 45 
 
 1756 
 
 45 3 ' 
 
 1789 
 
 51 2 
 
 1 755 
 
 33 10 
 
 1790 
 
 53 2 
 
 1754 
 
 34 S 
 
 1791 
 
 47 2 
 
 1753 
 
 44 8 ' 
 
 1792 
 
 41 9 
 
 1752 
 
 41 10 ' 
 
 1793 
 
 47 10 
 
 1751 
 
 38 C i 
 
 1794 
 
 50 8 
 
 1750 
 
 32 6 ! 
 
 1795 
 
 72 11 
 
 1749 
 
 
 
 1796 
 
 76 3 
 
 1748 
 
 27 
 
 1797 
 
 52 2 
 
 1747 
 
 34 10 1 
 
 1798 
 
 50 4 
 
 I74G 
 
 39 
 
 1799 
 
 66 11 
 
 1745 
 
 27 G 
 
 1800 
 
 HO 5 
 
 1744 
 
 1 
 
 1801 
 
 115 11 
 
 1743 
 
 24 10 1 
 
 1802 
 
 67 9 
 
 1742 
 
 34 
 
 1803 
 
 57 1 
 
 1741 
 
 46 8 
 
 1804 
 
 60 5 
 
 Average of t 
 
 le whole po- 
 
 Average of 
 
 the whole pe- 
 
 riuil, 4 
 
 •2s. 5(1. 1 
 
 riod, 
 
 54s. 4(/. 
 
 -Average price of wheat in Great Britain in each year of the 
 thirty-two years preceding 1773, when a bounty was given on 
 exports and strict prohibition against imports. 
 
 2. — Average price of wheat in Great Britain in each year from 
 1773 to 1804, when the bounty was repealed, and imporlation 
 allowed at (hi. per (piarter duty, when the average price 
 should not be below 48*,, anil, from 1791, 54*. per quarter.
 
 81 
 
 Tlie experience of these two peilods proves not only tlie 
 total inefficacy of any government interference to control 
 or influence production or prices, but it also proves again 
 that the landed interest of this country has no compe- 
 tition to fear, except that of its own over-excited and sti- 
 mulated power put forth to an extravagant extent to 
 catch the phantom advantages held out by protective 
 laws. There never was a time of surplus stock and low 
 prices which proceeded from any other cause. During 
 the thirty-two years that our trade was free, there was 
 surely abundance of time for the continental countries to 
 take all the advantage of the privilege, if it had proved 
 really a profitable one. The prices in Dantzig during 
 this period were not higher, relatively with those in Eng- 
 land, than they have been during the last twenty years. 
 A comparison of these prices may be very useful to show 
 what really is the great difference which the mere charges 
 of transport must ever entail, and for some difference of 
 quality ; and we have every reason to believe that in the 
 case of a free trade now, the same, if not a greater differ- 
 ence, would continue to exist between the prices in Eng- 
 land and Dantzig ; for the average quality of English 
 wheat has improved during the period that has elapsed 
 since 1804, much more than the produce of Prussia. 
 This is an additional evidence of what we think we have 
 already successfully proved, that with wheat in England 
 at the average price of the last seven years, viz. 52^-. 2d. 
 per quarter, and wheat in Dantzig at the average price 
 that has ruled there of late years, no trade could be 
 profitably carried on between the two places; no 
 continental supply could to any extent come to this 
 country. 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 The following are the average prices of wheat in Eng- 
 land and Dantzig, during this period of free trade: — 
 
 Average price 
 
 of wheat 1773 
 
 to 1804. 
 
 In 
 Eiigla . 
 
 At 
 Dantzig. 
 
 Average prices 
 
 of wheat 1773 
 
 to 1804. 
 
 In 
 England. 
 
 At 
 Dantzig. 
 
 1773 
 
 51s. Or/. 
 
 35s. 8(1. 
 
 1789 
 
 51s. 
 
 2d. 
 
 43s. 8d. 
 
 1774 
 
 52 8 
 
 32 1 
 
 1790 
 
 53 
 
 2 
 
 40 4 
 
 1775 
 
 48 4 
 
 33 11 
 
 1791 
 
 47 
 
 2 
 
 00 
 
 1776 
 
 38 2 
 
 27 6 
 
 1792 
 
 41 
 
 9 
 
 29 
 
 1777 
 
 45 6 
 
 22 4 
 
 1793 
 
 47 
 
 10 
 
 32 
 
 1778 
 
 42 
 
 23 9 
 
 1794 
 
 50 
 
 8 
 
 36 
 
 1779 
 
 33 8 
 
 21 10 
 
 1795 
 
 72 
 
 11 
 
 57 9 
 
 1780 
 
 35 8 
 
 19 4 
 
 1796 
 
 76 
 
 3 
 
 54 3 
 
 1781 
 
 44 8 
 
 24 9 
 
 1797 
 
 52 
 
 2 
 
 33 1 
 
 1782 
 
 47 10 
 
 26 3 
 
 1798 
 
 50 
 
 4 
 
 32 10 
 
 1783 
 
 52 8 
 
 27 5 
 
 1799 
 
 66 
 
 11 
 
 46 10 
 
 1784 
 
 48 10 
 
 28 10 
 
 1800 
 
 110 
 
 5 
 
 73 9 
 
 1785 
 
 51 10 
 
 30 2 
 
 1801 
 
 115 
 
 11 
 
 78 11 
 
 1786 
 
 38 10 
 
 29 2 
 
 1802 
 
 67 
 
 9 
 
 53 5 
 
 1787 
 
 41 2 
 
 29 2 
 
 1803 
 
 57 
 
 1 
 
 46 3 
 
 1788 
 
 45 
 
 29 1 
 
 1804 
 
 60 
 
 5 
 
 53 3 
 
 Average of the wliole period . 
 
 
 54s. 
 
 4U. 
 
 37s. 2d. 
 
 There therefore existed during this period of free im- 
 portation an average difference of price between England 
 and Dantzig of 17.v. 2f/. per quarter; and we have al- 
 ready shown that of late years, with the strictest attempt 
 ever made to exclude continental wheat, the average 
 difference has only been 17^'. lOd. per quarter. 
 
 If any farther evidence were required to prove that the 
 continent of Europe cannot supplant our home-growers in
 
 83 
 
 the supply of grain for the consumption of this country, 
 we must claim attention to a case exactly in point exist- 
 ing at the present time, and which may be fairly cited as 
 an experiment of a free trade in corn for the whole of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 The islands of Guernsey and Jersey, ever since they 
 belonged to this country, have had the privilege of ex- 
 porting their produce, of whatever kind, to the English 
 market at all times free of any duty, and at the same 
 time of importing whatever they please, from wherever 
 they please, free of any duty whatever, except a small 
 local duty levied chiefly on spirits. 
 
 These islands, although very fertile, and producing a 
 large quantity of the finest grain, do not grow sufficient 
 for their whole consumption, and they are obliged at all 
 times to import largely of continental grain. Now if the 
 general impression had any foundation in truth, that 
 wheat could be imported so much cheaper from the con- 
 tinent than the prices paid in this country, it would follow 
 as a matter of certainty, that the sharp and intelligent 
 merchants of these islands would send every bushel of 
 home-grown corn, to secure the high prices of the London 
 market, and import from the Baltic as much more as 
 would make up this quantity. The expense of sending 
 wheat from these islands is not greater than from Lin- 
 colnshire, Yorkshire, or Northumberland ; but if to either 
 of these counties this privilege was given, with the present 
 opinions on the subject, the imaginary value of land 
 would be greatly increased; the whole of the grain would 
 be sent to London, or other parts of England not possess- 
 
 g2
 
 84 
 
 ing such privilege, and whatever was required for the 
 consumption of the county would be brought from the 
 continent : — What would be the profit ? We will consult 
 those who have long had the experience, and we will 
 consult them by the surest test ; their actions, dictated 
 by a free exercise of their own will to direct their own 
 interests. 
 
 It may perhaps be remembered that during the extreme 
 depression of the agricultural interests in the winter 
 1833-34, when the accumulating surplus stock of home- 
 grown wheat pressed with great severity on the markets, 
 those interested in its growth could with difficulty believe 
 that the home production alone could have had such an 
 influence : this gave rise to many rumours and surmises 
 that foreign grain had been introduced in large quantities 
 through the Channel Islands under an abuse of this privi- 
 lege. For political purposes this surmise was encouraged 
 by many, and a charge preferred against the government 
 of the day, of having encouraged such illicit imports. 
 During the short period that the present government 
 were out of office, in that winter the charge was again 
 and again repeated by their opponents in the agricultural 
 districts ; so much so, that as soon as parliament met the 
 matter became a subject of investigation, and the neces- 
 sary returns were ordered which could throw any light 
 on the matter. 
 
 What was the result ? These fine islands, with all their 
 privileges, had shipped between tiiem in tliree years, 
 1831, 1832, and 1833, eight thousand six hundred and 
 thirty-three quarters of wheat to all England : viz.
 
 85 
 
 1831 
 
 1832 
 1833 
 
 Giiernsej 
 aud Sark. 
 
 Jersey. 
 
 Tolal. 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 185 
 
 32 
 
 1326 
 
 Qrs. 
 1233 
 
 1873 
 3984 
 
 Qrs. 
 1418 
 1905 
 5310 
 
 1543 
 
 7090 
 
 8633 
 
 or an annual quantity of 28/7 quarters; and by reference 
 to the first table, it will be seen that the difference be- 
 tween the prices in England and at Dantzig during these 
 years, were more than usually encouraging for such an 
 operation ; but the enormous expenses attending the 
 movement of this bulky article always has, and always 
 will continue to render this privilege a dead letter as far 
 as grain is concerned, and so it would in England if the 
 same privileges were possessed, and an entirely free trade 
 in corn adopted. It may just be observed, that notwith- 
 standing the free introduction of all continental produce, 
 the value of land is higher in these islands than in any 
 part of England, the average rent being 21. to 21. \0s. 
 per vergee, or 4Z. 10*. to 5^. 12^-. 6f?. per English acre. 
 
 It has therefore only been the mere accidental chances 
 which the fluctuating effects of our Corn Laws have pro- 
 duced, that the continental countries have been enabled to 
 send their accumulated surplus produce to this country at 
 moments of extreme high prices,* and therefore what 
 
 *" The hope of admission to the English market at extreme 
 high prices induces the continental farmer to raise a greater quan- 
 tify than he would do." — Von TheuneiCs Letter to Mr. Jacob.
 
 86 
 
 little competition the home-grower has felt with the 
 continental grower may be fairly said to have resulted 
 only from the operation of the law intended for his 
 entire exclusion. 
 
 Having thus fully examined the price at which the 
 continental grower could come into competition with the 
 home-grower, we shall now, as proposed, consider the 
 extent to which he could do so, even though the present 
 relative cost of production enabled him. On this point, 
 as we have already seen with regard to price, the most 
 extraordinary exaggerations have been circulated. In 
 order to support the exaggeration of low prices, exagge- 
 rated quantity was quite needful, both parties to the ques- 
 tion have agreed thereon; the agriculturist insisted that 
 the weight would be intolerable and crushing, the quan- 
 tity inexhaustible. The opposite party saw the field of 
 plenty through an equally magnified vision : what one 
 dreaded for its abundance the other courted and sighed 
 for, as having only that quality to recommend it. Every 
 inducement which tended on both sides to diminish the 
 cost of production, tended at the same time to exaggerate 
 the quantity produced, for exactly in this proportion was it 
 to be feared by the one party or sought for by the other. 
 We shall now endeavour to arrive at the real tacts of this 
 most important part of our consideration. 
 
 On this subject Mr. .Jacob, in his Report before alluded 
 to, gives much valuable information. 
 
 In page 80 he shows that the whole export for the 
 preceding ten years, from Hamburg, had amounted to
 
 87 
 
 675,774 quarters, and that of this quantity there had 
 been imported into Hamburg — 
 
 Quarters, 
 
 By sea 51,766 
 
 By craft ascending the Elbe . . . 116,754 
 By land from Holstein 73,062 
 
 241,582 
 
 leaving 434,192 quarters as the surplus of the wheat on 
 both banks of the far-stretching Elbe above Hamburg, 
 after deducting the consumption of the city for ten years, 
 or 43,419 quarters annually. 
 
 With respect to Prussia, in page 99, it appears that, 
 independent of what is sent from the Rhenish provinces 
 to the Netherlands and there consumed, and the produce 
 of Magdeburg and the provinces adjacent to the Elbe, 
 which is sent down that river to Hamburg, and forms 
 part of the supply of that city, the whole exports of 
 Prussia in nine years amounted to 1,971,577 quarters, or 
 to 219,064 quarters annually. He says, " this amount 
 comprehends the whole of that which descends by the 
 several rivers from Poland ;" which quantity he estimates 
 at 140,000 to 150,000 quarters anrmally, as part of the 
 219,064. 
 
 From the duchies of Mecklenburg the annual ex- 
 ports in twelve years had been 66,456 quarters, through 
 the ports of Rostock, Wismar, and Boitzenburg. 
 
 From Denmark, including Holstein and Sleswick,
 
 88 
 
 the annual exports for seven years had been 104,768 
 quarters. 
 
 The exports from Bremen appear to be very trifling, 
 being only estimated at 1850 quarters annually. So 
 that the annual rate of exportation, or, in other words, of 
 surjylus 2>roduce, is thus shown to be, from 
 
 Quarters. 
 
 Hamburg 43,419 
 
 Prussia 219,064 
 
 Mecklenburg ....... 66,456 
 
 Denmark 104,768 
 
 Bremen 1,850 
 
 Total . . . 435,557 
 
 This sliows the total annual amount which these 
 countries had furnished to all parts of the world during 
 those respective periods. It must be borne in mind that 
 the surplus produce of these countries, whatever it may 
 be, is occasionally taken for every country where from 
 any cause a scarcity prevails. Spain, and the south of 
 France, take less or more every year ; Holland also 
 takes annually a portion of the shipments from the Baltic 
 ports, independent of what she takes from the Rhenish 
 provinces of Prussia. The United States and British 
 America two years ago took very largely from these 
 and other continental countries to make up the defi- 
 ciency of bad harvests and neglected cultivation. The 
 West India islands, the Brazils, and a large portion of the 
 rest of the South American continent, are dependent on 
 these countries less or more, especially in years when a 
 deficiency exists in the United States, which generally,
 
 89 
 
 when they are well supphed^ furnish these countries with 
 flour. When all these claims are considered as bearing 
 on so small a quantity, what portion could annually be 
 allotted to England ? 
 
 As with regard to price, so with regard to quantity, 
 Prussia is by far the most important country for our con- 
 sideration. 
 
 The following table, derived from the best official 
 sources of the whole exports of wheat from all the Baltic 
 ports of Prussia, in each of the following years, may be 
 relied upon as perfectly accurate : — 
 
 1819 
 
 155, 
 
 055 
 
 1820 
 
 464, 
 
 744 
 
 1821 
 
 194 
 
 840 
 
 1822 
 
 78, 
 
 316 
 
 1823 
 
 121 
 
 692 
 
 1824 
 
 93 
 
 630 
 
 1825 
 
 219 
 
 290 
 
 1826 
 
 373, 
 
 444 
 
 1827 
 
 270, 
 
 576 
 
 1828 
 
 614 
 
 453 
 
 1829 
 
 553 
 
 ,933 
 
 1830 
 
 707 
 
 ,100 
 
 1831 
 
 380 
 
 ,731 
 
 1832 
 
 362 
 
 ,177 
 
 1833 
 
 
 
 1834 
 
 107 
 
 ,341 
 
 1835 
 
 62 
 
 ,841 
 
 16 years 4,760,103 
 
 
 Report on foreign corn, ordered 
 to be printed by the House of 
 
 Commons, I4th March, 1826. 
 
 Officially communicated from 
 . Berlin to His Excellency Baron 
 Bulow. 
 
 Page 570. Part 3d of the Tables 
 compiled by the Board of Trade 
 from official documents. 
 
 1 Official reports from Danfzig, 
 } Koningsburg, and Stetin.' 
 
 297,510 quarters annually.
 
 90 
 
 This quantity comprehends the whole of the surplus pro- 
 duce of Prussia and Prussian Poland. The Prussian 
 wheat generally is inferior in quality to the English, and 
 forms about one-third of the whole quantity. The Po- 
 lish wheat may therefore be estimated at about 200,000 
 quarters annually, of which about 150,000 quarters are 
 of the finest white quality, and which alone, of all the 
 wheats produced on the Continent, is equal to our best 
 English produce. These proportions agree nearly with 
 Mr. Jacob's statement in his Report, and also with all the 
 information we can collect from practical men. 
 
 It remains that we should notice Russia as having 
 contributed in some years of scarcity to supply our 
 markets. Very little is known of the extent of cultiva- 
 tion, except that a large quantity of very inferior wheat is 
 grown, which in usual times is quite excluded from the 
 English market, for two reasons : first, on account of its in- 
 feriority in quality ; and secondly, on account of the great 
 expense of bringing it to England. These remarks apply 
 with greatest effect to the shipments from the ports in 
 the Black Sea. We find that for ten years, 1820 to 1829 
 inclusive, the whole quantity of wheat furnished from all 
 Russia to this country was 535,687 quarters, or on an 
 average annually 53,568 quarters.* 
 
 In endeavouring to form a careful estimate of the exact 
 available surplus produce of wheat in the present state of 
 European agriculture, it is needful to guard against an 
 error of confusing the amount of produce raised in the 
 countries from which the shipments are made with the 
 produce of other countries, which has been imported and 
 * See Note II. at the end.
 
 91 
 
 then re-shipped to this country. For example, consider- 
 able portions of the exports of Hamburg, Antwerp, &c. 
 are first imported from the Baltic and Black Seas, and 
 consequently enter into the computation of the respective 
 countries from which they are originally brought. 
 
 There is still a more important feature in this consi- 
 deration which claims our particular notice. We have 
 already sufficiently noticed the fluctuations in our prices 
 for the last twenty years, by which the foreign grower 
 has been enabled to send his produce to this country at 
 the high periods. At these periods prices have ranged 
 from 70^. to 80*. per quarter, and these high prices have 
 enabled us to import wheat profitably from a much more 
 extended radius of country than could possibly be the 
 case if the price of wheat were at the real average price of 
 a range of years, 52*. 2d. per quarter. We have already 
 shown that it would be with great difficulty that the 
 nearest and most productive countries could send their 
 produce to this market at this average price, much less 
 could the many distant countries from which we derive 
 large supplies at these extreme high prices. At a period 
 like the present, the demand for this country raises the 
 prices to such an unusual rate in the continental ports, 
 that supplies are procured from very distant inland 
 places, which in usual years, at usual prices, could furnish 
 nothing ; the expense of transport would absorb the 
 whole price in ordinary times. Except at these extreme 
 high prices it would, for example, be impossible to im- 
 port wheat from the ports in the Mediterranean or 
 Black Seas ; and even from the Baltic ports the quantities 
 are much increased by the same cause. It must be 
 quite clear, that just in proportion to the highness of the
 
 92 
 
 price, must the radius of country from the ports be ex- 
 tended which can furnish supplies ; and as the price di- 
 minishes this radius must also diminish. 
 
 By the present system our prices are for a period so low 
 as to admit no foreign wheat at all ; then they are so 
 high as to admit the whole accumulated surplus from an 
 immensely extended surface. If they were uniform we 
 might take annually, in regular proportions, a part of the 
 finest quality (which alone could bear the cost of transport) 
 of the produce of a limited surface, which at present 
 we take irregularly in an accumulated form, and in ad- 
 dition thereto the produce of distant districts which could 
 otherwise never reach us. As these distant supplies 
 enter, at present, into the general average consumption 
 of this country, one of the effects of the present Corn 
 Laws may, therefore, be said to bring much more ex- 
 tended and distant countries into competition with the 
 British farmer than could otherwise be the case. 
 
 But even taking all the advantages which these high 
 prices afford to very distant places to add to the quantity 
 available for this country, it is quite impossible to show 
 that the total quantity of continental surplus has reached 
 on an average 700,000 quarters annually. 
 
 If we estimate the outside average capabilities at pre- 
 sent of each count ry as follows — say 
 
 Prussia . . 
 
 . 300,000 quarters. 
 
 Mecklenburg 
 
 80,000 
 
 Denmark 
 
 . 100,000 
 
 Russia 
 
 . 100,000 „ 
 
 Hamburg 
 
 80,000 
 
 ■ 
 
 660,000
 
 93 
 
 we considerably exceed what all the official accounts 
 show them to be, and yet the aggregate amount, suppose 
 it all sent to this country, would not exceed four per cent, 
 of our annual consumption, or about the entire supply of 
 two weeks in each year. The actual average annual 
 quantity of foreign wheat and flour taken into consump- 
 tion in Great Britain for nineteen years, from 1817 to 
 1835 inclusive, and which embraces the five most exten- 
 sive years of import that have occurred in the present 
 century, was only 532,237 quarters, and this includes the 
 whole imports from our own colonies. 
 
 These facts cannot fail to show how exaggerated have 
 been the representations as to the capability of the conti- 
 nent to supply wheat, as well in price as in quantity. Sup- 
 pose the whole of the above quantity were annually 
 brought to this country, it could not in any sensible way 
 affect the general price of sixteen or seventeen millions of 
 quarters. If any difference did exist in the rate at which 
 this quantity could be brought to this market favourable 
 to the continental grower, (which we have sufficiently 
 shown does not) even then his small quantity could not 
 make the price for our large quantity, but our large 
 quantity would make the price for his small quantity. 
 
 It will appear by the whole of these arguments that, 
 compared Avith any other country. Great Britain is not 
 more extensively and strikingly a manufacturing than a 
 corn- growing country ; and that the advantages which we 
 possess in securing higher prices arise from natural 
 causes, the result of our peculiar condition, and not from 
 the attempted interference of the law. In the next pro-
 
 94 
 
 position we shall have to examine how these two leading 
 interests co-operate in favour of each other. 
 
 But it may be urged that had we a free trade in wheat 
 the small surplus quantities at present produced on the 
 continent might be increased so as to become a formida- 
 ble quantity. On this point exaggeration has done as 
 much as in the two points already discussed. 
 
 In examining the price at which continental wheat 
 could be furnished to this country, we have taken it in 
 the exact state in which production has existed in every 
 respect of late years, and we have taken the price which 
 they have actually received, as the best possible evidence 
 of the exact price which, on the average of years, has 
 enabled them to produce the exact quantity which they 
 have done : nothing can be more plain than that the 
 amount of production must in every country be determined 
 by the price received for the produce. If prices rise, an in- 
 creased production must follow ; if they fall, a diminished 
 production must be the consequence. 
 
 If therefore we have shown that in the event of sucli an 
 alteration taking place in the English Corn Laws as would 
 by free and natural competition keep prices steady at the 
 average rate of late years, 52s. 2d. per quarter, the con- 
 tinental growers could not send their produce to this 
 country at a profit on the average prices, which they have 
 received, and which average prices have determined the 
 extent of their production ; then, as before shown, the 
 surplus produce woidd necessarily be diminished instead 
 of increased. The large portion which under the present
 
 95 
 
 mode is held by speculators for the moment when 60.?. to 
 70^. per quarter is paid for it to supply a case of exigency, 
 could not be raised to be sold at a price below 34^. 3d. per 
 quarter ; which we have shown would be needful to enable 
 them to send it to England, even free of duty, to compete 
 with our average price. Either must it be shown that, 
 with our average price, the price obtained on the Con- 
 tinent would be higher than it has been, or it is evident 
 that production could not increase. It cannot, for one 
 moment, be supposed that all the lands best suited both 
 in quality and local position for raising wheat for ship- 
 ment, are not at this moment in cultivation ; there are 
 therefore only two modes by which the cultivation can be 
 increased ; first, by the application of more capital and 
 labour to force the production of the lands at present in 
 cultivation, or by taking into cultivation inferior lands, 
 either in point of quality of soil, or more distant points 
 from the shipping ports or markets : but in which ever 
 case this might be accomplished it could only be done 
 at an increased cost of production. If, therefore, an in- 
 creased price was not obtained, it is quite evident the at- 
 tempt could only be momentary. If, we again repeat, 
 the average price in England is too low to admit the con- 
 tinental grower, even though free of duty, to pay him 
 at his present cost of production, it requires no argument 
 to show that, if he attempted to increase his production 
 in the only way he could by increasing his cost, he would 
 be still farther disabled for competition with the grower 
 in this country. 
 
 The only case, therefore, in which we can suppose 
 it possible that an increased production would take 
 place on the Continent, is by supposing that their prices
 
 96 
 
 would improve, which might he effected either by a ma- 
 terial general advance on the prices in this country, or 
 by the more likely cause, an increased prosperity and con- 
 siniiption amongst themselves. 
 
 The former cause could not exist without first and 
 most particularly benefiting the English grower : nor 
 could the latter cause exist without benefitingf him in an 
 indirect manner in common with the whole community. 
 
 It must also be borne in mind, that even though an at- 
 tempt should be made to increase the production of the 
 continent, it covdd only be the surplus of that production 
 which could, at any price, be available for exportation. 
 For example ; in order to double the quantity of grain 
 available for exportation, it woidd require that the whole 
 cultivation should be doubled, or even more : for, in the 
 first place, the labour of production must be sustained, 
 which would consume as large a portion of the increased 
 produce as it does of the present quantity, and in all 
 probability a larger proportion, for such an increased de- 
 mand for labour which would necessarily be called into 
 existence by such an attempt, could not fail to advance 
 Avages so much, that not only would the labourers be 
 multiplied in proportion to the increase, but their con- 
 dition so much improved that their individual consump- 
 tion would be greater in proportion than it now is ; and 
 this circumstance in its turn could not fail agfain to add 
 to the general cost of production, and render it still more 
 difficult for the grower to send even the surplus to this 
 market. 
 
 In the former proposition we sufficiently discussed the 
 whole train of evils which attend the landed interest, by
 
 97 
 
 the operation of the present corn laws, and we think it 
 must be admitted that we have discovered no counter- 
 acting benefit in tlie second proposition. We have disco- 
 vered no real advantage or protection which has been 
 conferred beyond what the local position of the English 
 agriculturist will ever secure to him ; beyond which it is 
 utterly impossible for the law to afford him any advan- 
 tage whatever, as long as the internal resources of the 
 country are able by internal competition to supply the 
 Avhole wants of the nation. Let the imaginary price be 
 fixed by law at whatever rate it may, be it 72*., 80^-., or 
 100^. per quarter, it could have no effect in securing one 
 shilling more than the free internal competition of the 
 home-growers found to be the remunerating rate of pro- 
 duction ; to that extent it would be pushed, and by an 
 unerring law, the average price would be just sufficient to 
 produce the required quantity, but with the enormous 
 disadvantages attendant on fluctuation. The great and 
 general advantages of equal prices will only be secured 
 by a free and unrestrained trade ; when a confidence 
 can be felt by the parties interested therein, that any 
 slight fluctuations which momentary and temporary 
 causes might create, would soon pass away, and thus 
 confidence would become general to maintain an equa- 
 lity of price by fair and legitimate support, and spe- 
 culative purchases by the regular dealers, of which, in 
 the present uncertain state, the trade is entirely de- 
 prived. 
 
 The only circumstance which can ever drive wheat out 
 of cultivation in this country, will be when land shall be- 
 ll
 
 98 
 
 come too valuable for this purpose. As, for example, in 
 the immediate neighbourhood of London, Manchester, &c. 
 land is at present too valuable for growing wheat, so a 
 time may arrive when, by the increased prosperity and 
 population of the country, a larger portion may be simi- 
 larly circumstanced. 
 
 Although we have seen how expensive the transport of 
 wheat is from one place to another, yet it is the least ex- 
 pensive of any article of agricultural produce, because it 
 contains in a given weight and bulk a greater value than 
 any other article. It will therefore always be more pro- 
 fitable to remove wheat from a distance, to supply a 
 neighbourhood or district, than barley, oats, hay, or tur- 
 nips, or the first produce of the dairy. In consequence of 
 this fact, we find that while hay fields and pasture fields 
 continue round large towns, the cultivation of wheat is 
 moved to a distance. 
 
 As this movement could only take place by greatly in- 
 creasing the value of land, and more especially the rents, 
 it is one to which the landed interest could never be 
 averse, and with which the whole community covild only 
 be well satisfied, as the result of its general and extended 
 prosperity. 
 
 We have not considered it needful to allude in particu- 
 lar to the interest of the land-owners in this proposition, 
 it being so inseparably mixed up with the general consi- 
 deration of the agricultural interest. With respect to 
 rent, we would, however, just remark, that if the farmer
 
 99 
 
 is protected by natural causes and local situation alone, 
 to the extent of 18.9. 3d. per quarter for wheat, and if an 
 acre of land produces three quarters of wheat, then must 
 the landlord's interest, in point of rent per acre, be very 
 largely protected from the same cause. 
 
 h2
 
 JOO 
 
 PROPOSITION THE THIRD. 
 
 That while incalculable benefit would arise to the manufactuiing 
 interest, and the working population generally, in common with 
 all classes of the community from the adoption of such policy 
 (a free trade in corn), nothing can be more erroneous than the 
 belief that the price of provisions or labour would, on the ave- 
 rage, be cheapened thereby, but that on the contrary, the ten- 
 dency would rather be to produce by a slate of general in- 
 creased prosperity a higher average rate of each. 
 
 Most of the considerations which arise out of this propo- 
 sition have been directly or indirectly referred to already. 
 In the first proposition, the baneful influence of the pre- 
 sent system has been alluded to; and, in the second 
 proposition, the question of cheaper provisions being the 
 result of an alteration in the system, has been set at 
 rest. 
 
 As far as the distinct benefits which would result to 
 these interests in such case are to be considered, we will 
 divide them into two heads : — first, tliat which would be 
 derived from a uniformity in the prices of provisions 
 as particularly affecting the labouring classes; and, 
 secondly, the general advantages which would result from 
 an improvement, so great in the condition and inte- 
 rests of so large and important a portion of their custo- 
 mers as the landed interest constitutes. But before i)ro-
 
 101 
 
 ceediiig to these considerations, it will be necessary to 
 notice a popular and general error, to which the exagge- 
 rated notions respecting the price at which wheat could be 
 furnished by the continent in case of a free trade, have 
 necessarily led the public. 
 
 By the whole tenour of the arguments urged by the 
 manufacturing interest against these impolitic laws, it 
 a})pears that they consider, first, that the high price of 
 labour in this country, as compared with the continent, 
 is only the result of a higher price of provisions; and 
 that the lower jirice of labour on the continent, conse- 
 quent on a lower price of provisions, is the chief cause 
 of whatever progress these countries have made in the 
 arts and manufactures. These ojoinions we believe to be 
 wrong, both as regards the facts and the principles 
 deduced. 
 
 If we have proved anything in the second proposition, 
 it is that, on the average, provisions would not be cheaper 
 if we had a free trade than the internal competition of 
 our own resources and means has furnished them, and 
 therefore, though their price did regulate the price of 
 labour, that commodity could not be cheaper. 
 
 But while we must admit that, in all cases, the price 
 of provisions enters as one of the measures of the price 
 of labour, and in some cases as the chief measure — yet it 
 is by no means the only measure ; and in respect to the 
 particular description of labour of which we now treat, 
 we believe it to constitute a most unimportant and trivial 
 portion.
 
 102 
 
 If the price of provisions were the sole or chief mea- 
 sure of the value of labour in all cases, then it would 
 necessarily follow that its price would vary in different 
 places, just in proportion as the price of provisions 
 varied. That in the same place, at the same time, the 
 price of all kinds of labour would be exactly the same ; 
 and that everywhere the real condition of the labourer, in 
 respect to the amount of the necessaries, or comforts of 
 life, which he could command, would be exactly equal ; 
 that he would everywhere receive exactly the sum of 
 money which would purchase a given uniform quantity 
 of provisions for the same number of hours' labour. 
 Now not one of these consequences accord with the facts. 
 Tile reverse will be found to exist in most cases, espe- 
 cially in this country. Wherever provisions are dearest 
 the condition of the bulk of labourers is decidedly best, 
 and their ability to command the necessaries, comforts, 
 and even elegancies of life, form a striking contrast 
 with the extreme difficulty with which even the barest 
 necessaries are obtained where they are cheapest. 
 
 Compare the condition of the working population of 
 London, Manchester, and the manufacturing districts, 
 their ability to consume articles of comparative luxury, 
 their expenditure, unfortunately sometimes of the most 
 profuse character, and the comfort of their dwellings, 
 with the mean style of diet, clothing, and habitations in 
 most of the rural districts in England where provisions 
 are so much cheaper — with the mud cottage, the tattered 
 and patched dress, and the mean fare of the labourers in 
 Ireland, wlierc provisions arc cheaper than anywhere 
 else in this country.
 
 103 
 
 Compare the general condition of the whole labourers 
 of this country with that of any of the countries on the 
 continent where provisions are at the lowest prices : com- 
 pare their diet, clothing, and habitations, with what are 
 allotted to the labouring classes in Prussia, Poland, or 
 France, and see how superior the worst classes are in 
 these respects in this country compared with the very 
 best in these lands of supposed abundance and cheap- 
 ness. 
 
 These considerations suggest to us a principle which 
 appears better to reconcile these facts, and to be more 
 applicable to the solution of the relative value of labour 
 and provisions in most cases in the present state of 
 society, viz. that the high price of provisions is rather the 
 effect than the cause of high and well-paid labour ; and 
 that low prices of provisions is, on the contrary, the 
 effect of ill-paid labour, and the consequent inability to 
 consume proportionably with the production. 
 
 Thus, for example, it can never be said that the price 
 of labour is high hi Manchester or the manufacturing 
 districts, because provisions are dear. Labour does not 
 there exist in order to consume the provisions, but the 
 provisions are brought from great distances in order to 
 supply the demand created by a given quantity of labour 
 paid at a given rate. In proportion, therefore, to this 
 rate must be the consumption, and, in proportion to the 
 consumption, must be the distance from which the 
 supply must be drawn, and consequently its price ; and 
 as the produce of the land in the immediate vicinity is of 
 equal value to that grown at the greatest distance of
 
 104 
 
 supply, its price must increase exactly in proportion to 
 the extended radius of country necessary to supply the 
 neiglibourhood ; that is, it must be worth the general 
 prime cost, and the cost of conveying the distant pro- 
 duce to the spot of consumption.* The price, therefore, 
 paid for labour, and the quantity of it employed in 
 particular spots, are evidently the cause and not the 
 effect of the high prices paid for provisions. 
 
 So, on the contrary, the low price of provisions in 
 Cumberland is not so much the cause of the low price 
 of labour as its effect. The demand for the labour of 
 that part of the country being much less, and its price 
 much lower, the ability of the neighbourhood is not 
 sufficient to consume the whole of its products, a consider- 
 able portion of wliich must, therefore, be sent to a great 
 distance to be used, and the expense of w liicli must be 
 deducted from the price ultimately obtained, which dimi- 
 nished price of the portion removed to a great distance 
 must fix the price of the portion consumed in the neigh- 
 bourhood ; and just in proportion to the distance and 
 consequent expenses thus incurred to consimie the sur- 
 plus produce of the country, must the nett value of the 
 produce on the spot, and of the land on whicli it is 
 reared be reduced. If the quantity of labour or its price 
 should be increased in the neighbourhood, then the sur- 
 plus produce would diminish and be consumed in a nar- 
 rower radius, at less expense, and the general price would 
 advance ; and, on the contrary, should the means to con- 
 sume be diminished, the surplus would increase, and the 
 general price diminish. This i)rinciple must apply in all 
 
 * See Note III. at the end.
 
 105 
 
 countries where there is a mixture of manufacturing and 
 
 agricuhural labour and pursuits. 
 
 It becomes, therefore, quite clear that some other 
 more important causes must exist to determine the 
 different value of different kinds of labour, and of the 
 labour of different countries ; which, we believe, will be 
 found to consist in the amount of skill, intelligence, and 
 ability ; in the assistance which physical exertions have 
 received from mechanical discoveries, and in the propor- 
 tion of supply and demand, as existing in different places 
 or in different countries. 
 
 For the same reason that the skill and intelliffence of 
 the physician or lawyer, and the capital or labour in- 
 vested in his acquirements, entitle him to a high reward 
 for his labour, the English mechanic is entitled to a 
 higher reward than the labourer elsewhere : for the 
 reason, that by the ingenuity of this country his physical 
 ability to produce for other countries at very low prices 
 is increased by the aid of the most perfect mechanical 
 assistance, his labour becomes more valuable ; for the 
 reason, that the country in which he lives possesses un- 
 bounded capital, enterprise, and mercantile resources of 
 every description, which necessarily create a greater de- 
 mand for manufacturing and mechanical labour than is 
 to be found in any other coimtry ; the value thereof must 
 be higher here than elsewhere. 
 
 As is the case with the physician and lawyer, the 
 English manufacturing labour generally, ofwhich wenow 
 speak, is of a higher quality than the common labour of
 
 106 
 
 this country, or the labour of any other country, and, as 
 such, commands a higher price, just in the same way 
 that the fine white wheat of Essex commands a higher 
 price than the miserably shrivelled grain imported from 
 the Black Sea. As with the learned professions, the re- 
 muneration is not only for the bare labour of the moment, 
 but for a large amount of accumulated labour and in- 
 genuity previously spent in acquiring the skill and in- 
 telligence necessary for its exercise. 
 
 The price of this labour is one of the distinct modes 
 in which a nation becomes benefited by ingenious me- 
 chanical discoveries, which tend so much to abridge the 
 total quantity of labour necessary to produce a given 
 article, and renders the portion still employed of much 
 greater value, by the increased demand and con- 
 sumption which the entire lower price secures to the 
 article. 
 
 The price of this labour is one of the distinct modes 
 by which a nation becomes benefited by the possession 
 of a large capital, industry, and mercantile enterprise, 
 which seek for profitable employment, by the exchange 
 of the skill and ingenuity of this country for the simpler 
 products of distant and dift'erent climates. 
 
 Such is the value and quality of English labour of 
 this class, that there is no country in the world, not 
 even the cheapest corn-growing countries of the con- 
 tinent, in which it does not command a higher price than 
 in this country, notwithstanding the low general rate of 
 labour. An English mechanic will command very much
 
 107 
 
 higher wages in Petersburg, Berlin, Brussels, or Paris, 
 than he usually obtains here. 
 
 From all these considerations we are induced to con- 
 sider, that there is no better evidence of a prosperous 
 community or country than the existence of a high 
 average price of provisions, when the condition of the 
 labourer, as is the case in this country, is relatively better 
 than in other countries ; and that, on the contrary, there 
 is no stronger evidence of a miserable and impoverished 
 country than the existence of low prices of provisions, 
 where the condition of the labourer is comparatively and 
 infinitely worse than in other countries where prices are 
 higher. 
 
 We are therefore of opinion, that in the event of a free 
 trade in corn, the price of labour in this country would be 
 rather increased than diminished, by the operation of the 
 distinct benefits which to the whole community would 
 result from such principles. 
 
 We will now glance at the two proposed ways in which 
 the manufacturing and mercantile interest would be be- 
 nefited by such a policy. 
 
 First, — That which would result from a uniformity of 
 the prices of provisions, as particularly affecting the la- 
 bouring classes. In the first proposition we alluded to 
 the evils which afflict this class in consequence of the 
 present fluctuation of prices, which would be entirely 
 removed by an equality of price. We cannot hold out 
 any prospect that, on the average, he would have his pro-
 
 108 
 
 visions cheaper^ but that, instead of being lavishly sup- 
 ])lie(I at one period, which leads to habits of luxury and 
 indulgence, and the niore unfit him for the period of 
 comparative scarcity and want, his condition would be 
 nearly uniform. 
 
 We have already shown that his wages are determined 
 by principles which do not necessarily fluctuate with 
 provisions, and it is therefore most desirable to him, that 
 as his wages are comparatively uniform, the amount of 
 the comforts and necessaries of life which they can pro- 
 cure should also be uniform. It is a cruel policy which 
 introduces a working population into the temporary pos- 
 session of comforts and luxuries far beyond what their 
 average condition will enable them to support, and which, 
 by a reaction, reduces their means before long as much 
 below what that average should be as it had before been 
 above it. Great complaints at present prevail, that the 
 present high price of provisions is more severely felt in 
 many places where, previous to the loiv prices and lavish 
 consumption of 1834, 1835, and 1836, a very inferior 
 scale of food and general comforts prevailed, than be- 
 came common in those years : but sweets once tasted, 
 advantages once enjoyed, are not easily relinquished. 
 In many districts, where oat meal or barley meal formed 
 a wholesome and considerable portion of diet before those 
 years, wheat-flour was substituted, as being at the mo- 
 ment from unnatural causes as cheap. In such cases, 
 the necessary return to inferior diet, and even to a more 
 limited quantity of it than on the average they are en- 
 titled to, cannot but be considered a great evil and 
 hardship.
 
 109 
 
 But these lluctviations arc apt to exercise another in- 
 fluence, in which the labouring classes, in common with 
 their employers, are deeply interested. The supply of 
 the first necessaries of life in this country has become a 
 matter of such huge extent, that any little derangement 
 therein becomes a question of much more serious extent 
 than is generally imagined, in its indirect influences on 
 commerce, by deranging the currency of this country, 
 and the courses of exchange with others. As before 
 stated, there have been, and of very late years, times 
 when the whole amount of bullion in the Bank of Eng- 
 land would not have purchased the wheat required this 
 year to make up the deficiency, which is estimated at 
 only one-sixth of the annual consumption. 
 
 To examine these influences minutely would require 
 more time and space than we can here afford, but this 
 one fact may lead to a consideration of the extent to 
 which they may be indirectly felt. 
 
 The manufacturing and mercantile interests are, how- 
 ever, more directly interested by the second mode in 
 which we propose to consider th<3ir distinct benefits, 
 viz. — In the general advantao^es which would result 
 from an improvement so great, in the condition and in- 
 terests of so large and important a portion of their con- 
 sumers, as the landed interests constitute. 
 
 If we have shown that the landed interests suffer, 
 by the present state of the law, great and fearful 
 losses in our first proposition, and if in our second 
 proposition we have shown sufficient to prove that 
 a free trade in corn would avoid these losses, and not
 
 no 
 
 submit them to any other ; — then have we shown that 
 the whole wealth of the country, both in income and 
 capital, would be much increased ; that immense sums 
 which are at present expended in unprofitable labour 
 would become applicable to general and useful con- 
 sumption ; that large amounts of capital which lie dor- 
 mant vmtil wasted and decayed, would be available for 
 the employment of useful and beneficial production. 
 
 The connexion between the manufacturer and the 
 landed interest in this country is much closer than is 
 generally admitted or believed ; not only is the manu- 
 facturer dependent on the landed interest for the large 
 portion of his goods which they immediately consume, 
 but also for a very large portion of what he exports to 
 the most distant countries. All commerce is, either 
 directly or indirectly, a simple exchange of the surplus 
 products of one country for those of another. It is there- 
 fore a first essential that we should be able to take the 
 cotton of America, the sugar and coft'ee of India, the 
 silk and teas of China, before they can take our manu- 
 factures ; and if this be necessary, then must it follow 
 that in proportion t« the extent to which we can take 
 their produce, will they be enabled to take our manu- 
 factures. Therefore whatever portion of these products 
 is consumed in this country by the landed interest, 
 must to that extent enable the manufacturer to export his 
 goods in return ; and thus any causes which increase 
 this ability on the part of the landed interest to consume, 
 must give a corresponding additional ability to the manu- 
 facturer to export. Every pound of coffee or sugar, 
 every ounce of tea, every article of luxury, the produce 
 of foreign climes, whether consumed within the castles and
 
 Ill 
 
 halls of our wealthiest landowners, or in the humble cot- 
 tages of our lowliest peasantry, alike represent some 
 portion of the exports of this country. 
 
 On the other hand the dependence of the land- 
 owner is no less twofold on the manufacturer and mer- 
 chant. He is not only dependent upon them for their 
 own immediate consumption, but also for the consump- 
 tion of whatever food enters into the cost price of their 
 goods. Although the English farmer does not export 
 his corn or his other produce in the exact shape and 
 form in which he produces them, they constitute not the 
 less on that account a distinct portion of the exports of 
 this country, and that in the best of all possible forms. 
 
 Just as much as the manufacturer exports the wool or 
 the silk which enters into the fabrics of those materials, 
 does he export the corn which paid for the labour of 
 spinning and weaving them. It would be an utter 
 impossibility that this country could consume its agri- 
 cultural produce but for our extensive manufacturing po- 
 pulation ; or that the value of what would be consumed 
 could be near its present rate. If without this aid 
 our agricultural produce were as great as it now is, a 
 large portion would have to seek a market in distant 
 countries : it would then have to be exported in the 
 exact form in which it is produced; the expenses of 
 which being so large would reduce very greatly from 
 its value and nett price, and the landed interest would 
 be immediately effected thereby. But, as it is, the pro- 
 duce of the land is exported in the condensed form 
 of manufactured goods, at a comparatively trifling ex-
 
 112 
 
 pense, which secures a hij^h vahie to it liere. Thus, lor 
 example, a few bales of silk or woollen goods may con- 
 tain as much wheat in their value as would freight a 
 whole sliip. 
 
 To this advantajje the landed interest is indebted, ex- 
 clusively, for the very superior value of property and 
 produce in this country to any other ; because, by our 
 great nianirfacturing superiority, a market is found for our 
 produce over the whole world, conveyed in the cheapest 
 and most condensed form. 
 
 While the Chinese, or Indians, buy our cottons, our 
 silks, or our woollens, they buy a portion of the grain 
 and other produce of the land of this country ; and 
 therefore the producer here, while indulging in the 
 delicacies or luxuries of oriental climes, may only be 
 consuming a portion of the golden heads of wheat 
 W'hich had gracefully waved in his own fields at a 
 former day. 
 
 Is it not, therefore, sufficiently clear that no circum- 
 stance whatever can either improve or injure one of these 
 interests without immediately in the same way affecting 
 the other ? The connexion is so close that it is impossible 
 to separate or distinguish them. Any circumstance 
 which limits our commerce must limit our market for 
 agricultural produce ; and any possible circumstance 
 which deteriorates the condition of our agriculturists 
 must deteriorate our commerce, by limiting our imports, 
 and consequently our exports. These are general prin- 
 ciples, and are capable of extension to the whole world.
 
 113 
 
 in all places, and at all times ; and the same principle 
 as is thus shown to connect and combine the dift'ercnt 
 interests of any one country, just as certainly operates in 
 producing a similar effect between different countries ; 
 and we ardently hope, ere long, to find not only the 
 petty jealousies between different portions of the same 
 community entirely removed, but that all countries will 
 learn, that a free and unrestricted co-operation with each 
 other in matters of commerce can only tend to the 
 general benefit and welfare of all.
 
 114 
 
 PROPOSITION THE FOURTH. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 A consideration of what change in the present laws would best 
 suit the interest of all parties at this particular time. 
 
 Every change of an extensive or important character, 
 however beneficial it may be in its ultimate operation, is 
 apt to be attended with considerable inconvenience and 
 partial evil in its first consequences, and it is therefore 
 an incumbent duty on the part of governments to intro- 
 duce any change with the greatest care and circum- 
 spection; and in this particular case this precaution is 
 moie than usually needed, to avoid the evil consequences 
 which might arise from the deeply-rooted prejudices and 
 ignorance so common with respect to the subject. 
 
 We have already suflSciently noticed all the different 
 fluctuations in the extent of our cultivation and supply ; 
 and it will easily be seen, that although the same one 
 \iltimate principle can alone be a cure to the whole evil, 
 yet that the particular mode in which it should be re- 
 sorted to may fairly differ, according to the particular 
 period in these fluctuations selected for the change. 
 
 The great object which is to be accomplished is to get 
 wheat fixed at the fair average price at which it can be
 
 115 
 
 produced ; and in endeavouring to do this we must bear 
 in mind, that though we may be correct in every de- 
 duction throughout these pages, yet that the generally 
 prevailing prejudices, both in this country and on the 
 continent, will not fail to have a considerable influence 
 in the first instance. Thus, in the event of an immediate 
 free trade in corn, the deeply-rooted prejudices of the 
 cultivators in this country would not fail to discourage 
 and limit their efforts of cultivation, until experience had 
 sufiiciently proved the real effects of this change ; and, 
 in like manner, the same cause would no doubt influence 
 the growers on the continent to exceed the bounds of 
 prudence in their efforts to avail themselves of this pri- 
 vilege, which when they have ever possessed it of late has 
 been only when prices have been unusually high, and 
 which has led them to form a very exaggerated notion of 
 the profit they could derive from a constant trade with 
 us. As, however, we have already shown that the whole 
 quantity which the continent could supply is, when com- 
 pared with our home production, so absolutely insig- 
 nificant, we will look at these influences chiefly in refer- 
 ence to the latter. 
 
 In lookinsf at the fluctuations which have occurred it 
 must be clear that there have been times when it would have 
 been useful to all that cultivation had been checked, and 
 other times when it would have been as useful that it had 
 been encouraged. If in 1832, 1833, or 1834, when culti- 
 vation was extending to an unprofitable degree, any change 
 in the law had been proposed, then it might safely have 
 been introduced in such a way as would have tended 
 immediately to check cuUivation and supplies; because 
 
 i2
 
 IIG 
 
 such an effect at that time would have prevented the 
 surpkis behig so great, and have maintained the price 
 nearer the proper average. But if such a change had 
 been proposed in 1837, 1838, or at the present time, 
 then we think that it should he introduced in such a way 
 as to avoid checking an increase of cultivation, when such 
 is actually required to bring the supply and price to the 
 proper average. 
 
 Considerin<j the first inliuence of such a change on the 
 fears of the home cultivators, we should have expected 
 that if, at the former period, a free and unrestricted trade 
 had been instantly introduced, the effect would have been a 
 sencral curtailment of cultivation, which at the time would 
 have been beneficial : and at that time prices being mode- 
 rate, the cultivator on the continent would not have had 
 such a great inducement to enter into a competition 
 which might afterwards prove ruinous to him ; and 
 therefore, at that period of the fluctuation, the best mode 
 of introducing the change would have been in an in- 
 stantaneous manner. 
 
 In like regard to the first influence of such a change, 
 we should expect that at this moment a similar effect 
 would be exerted over the home cullivator, which we are 
 of opinion would operate very badly for all parties to 
 the question. 
 
 Oiu" stocks are exhausted, and even with a cultivation 
 equivuleni to oiu- annual consumption, it would be a lung 
 time before prices assumed their fair average rate. It 
 could not bo mitil such a convenient slock existed as en-
 
 117 
 
 ablcd the trade to be carried on easily without pressino- 
 too much on the supply. 
 
 If, (hcrefore, our home production were cliecked at 
 this moment, the tendency would be to keep a very 
 badly supplied market for a long time, and consequently 
 high prices, and it would be much longer before the 
 price and supply arrived at the proper average. 
 
 This could not fail to be injurious to all parties. To 
 the cultivator, who, though he received a higher price, 
 would only do so on an inferior cultivation. To the ge- 
 neral community, by being obliged to pay much higher 
 prices than the fair average at which production can be 
 profitably conducted J and from the longer maintenance 
 of high prices which would idtimately give way, the con- 
 tinental growers would be induced to embark in a com- 
 petition with our home-growers to an extent ^vhich would 
 ultimately prove very injurious to them, as well as to our 
 farmers for a time. In this case it would be much 
 longer before that desirable equality of price was arrived 
 at, which should secure a regular and just sufficient culti- 
 vation. 
 
 It may, however, be said, that though an immediate 
 repeal of the present restrictions tended to curtail the 
 home growth, it would tend to give additional stimulus 
 to foreign supplies, and that thus the desirable point 
 would be only in another way arrived at. Such an effect 
 would not only fail to accomplish the object, but even 
 though it did, would do it in a manner which would ul- 
 timalcly be prejudicial to all concerned. It would fail to 
 accomplish the object, because no increase which could
 
 118 
 
 take place on the continent, with its extremely limited 
 means, could for nuiny years be equivalent even to an in- 
 considerable curtailment of the huge production of this 
 extraordinary countiy ; but even if it should prove equiva- 
 lent, it would be mjurious to our growers in the first in- 
 stance, by inducing tliem to throw the lands out of culti- 
 vation when they could have been profitably retained, 
 and 1o the continental grower by giving a momentary 
 and unnatural impulse to his productive powers, which 
 could not be maintained when our own level of cultiva- 
 tion was again restored. 
 
 It therefore appears clear, that while such an exag- 
 gerated inducement to extend cultivation in this country 
 as was given by the Corn Law of 1815 or 1828, could 
 not fail to produce the same baneful effects that they did 
 at those times ; yet that this is not the moment to in- 
 duce a curtailment of cvdtivation — on the contrary, rather 
 a gentle impvdse to extonsion. The high prices of the 
 past and present year have partly had that influence 
 already, but it should not be suddenly stopped. 
 
 Under these considerations, although we are most de- 
 cidedly of opinion, and if our arguments have proved 
 anything, it has been, that the evils resulting from tlie 
 present Corn Laws can only be altogether removed 
 by a total and entire repeal of all protective and prohi- 
 bitory laws; yet for the reasons that we have stated, 
 we think it for ihe interest of all, the producer and con- 
 sumer alike, thai this shouUl not be, under present cir- 
 cumstances, an instantaneous measure. We should sug- 
 gest that a specific duty of 10^-. per quarter should be
 
 119 
 
 fixed on wheat in the first place, and that it should be 
 reduced 1*. in each year for the first five years ; and 
 that it should remain fixed at 5s. for three years longer, 
 and then be finally and for ever abolished. 
 
 We believe that by such a measure the prices of grain 
 would not only more easily find their proper and natural 
 level, but that they would be actually considerably 
 lower during the next few years than if the present pro- 
 tective system were instantaneously abolished : for in the 
 latter case the fears of the growers could not fail to 
 abridge their efforts to produce in the first instance ; and 
 as we have before stated, we have no confidence whatever 
 in the ability of the continent to supply the deficiency 
 of even a very insignificant reduction of the cultivation of 
 this country. The experience of the present year proves 
 how well founded is our want of confidence on this point ; 
 we have felt with what difficulty the deficiency of the last 
 year (estimated at only one-sixth) has been made up, not 
 from the surplus of one year, but from the accumulated 
 surplus of many years ; and not from the moderate range 
 of country which ordinary prices would permit wheat to 
 be brought, but from the very extended range, which a 
 long continuance of extreme high prices has induced to 
 contribute to our supply. The whole that was accumu- 
 lated in bond here, and the whole of our new imports, 
 have scarcely had a perceptible effect on prices, though 
 all admitted to consumption. Does this not sufficiently 
 prove how perfectly insignificant any competition could 
 ever be between the continental and the home-grower ?
 
 120 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 An examination of the benefit which would bo derived by the 
 establishment of a government institution for the purpose 
 of collectint? and furnishing periodically to the agricultural 
 interests all the statistical facts connected with their 
 pursuits. 
 
 Although we have sufficiently proved, that the great 
 and leading cause of the extraordinary and unnatural 
 fluctuations in the price of wheat is to be attributed to the 
 necessary operation of protective laws, yet there can be no 
 doubt that fluctuations to a small extent, comparatively, 
 would ever continue to be experienced, as long as the 
 landed interest remains in its present state of ignorance 
 and uncertainty from time to time as to the real extent of 
 cultivation which is going forward, of the comparative re- 
 sult of diff'erent harvests, or of the stocks remaining on 
 hand from time to time. 
 
 The interests of the agricultural community in parti- 
 cular, and the public in general, have been injured in an 
 incalculable degree from the absence of this important 
 knowledge ; which, had it been accurately possessed, 
 would in some degree have modified the evils which have 
 attended, and must ever attend the present principle of 
 protective laws. 
 
 The statistical information acquired and collected 
 chiefly from the custom-house regulations of diflTerent 
 countries, aflbrds to the merchant in all his transactions 
 a guide and a beacon, witlioul wliich the future would 
 ever remain enveloped in mist and obscurity. They
 
 121 
 
 (each him ihe average amount, of supply, or the supply 
 in any given lime ; they teach him the rate of consump- 
 tion ; they teach him what amount of stock is needful for 
 the safe and easy supply of the demand. By them he 
 can see when the supply is increasing or diminishing as 
 compared with the past ; by them he can determine the 
 exact progress of consumption ; by them he is informed 
 from day to day whether the whole slock is increasing 
 or diminishing. 
 
 The information which he is thus acquiring afresh 
 every day as the facts arise, enables him not only to fix 
 the prices of his merchandise at the time, in some degree 
 in relation to the movement the article may be making 
 either towards a lower or higher value, and thus to 
 anticipate alike a period of abundance or scarcity, (by 
 which anticipation the more serious effects of either the 
 one or the other are materially prevented,) but, besides 
 this, he is enabled to direct his future transactions. 
 
 The merchant who is trading to distant parts of the 
 earth must be able to look forward along way in advance, 
 in order to direct with success operations which can 
 only be developed at a remote period. The distance and 
 time occupied in such transactions render this imperative. 
 It is only by a great amount of statistical information 
 carefully collected from day to day, by narrowly watch- 
 ing the progress of supply and demand, and by general 
 observation of the circumstances passing around him 
 which are likely to influence the future, that he can ap- 
 proximate to a correct estimate of the future, for his 
 jruidancc.
 
 122 
 
 A knowledsre of the future is so essential to the success 
 of the merchant, every act of his life being less or more 
 one of anticipation, that the extraordinary alacrity and 
 ardour with which information is sought after is easily 
 understood, as well as the deep interest felt in rapid 
 modes of communication from distant places. The ex- 
 tensive engines which are put in operation, — the pains 
 which are taken to possess early and good information, 
 and the consequent knowledge of the most trivial circum- 
 stances passing in the most remote corners of the globe, 
 are truly interesting and astonishing. 
 
 However necessary such knowledge may be for the 
 merchant, we are of opinion that it is not more so to him 
 than to the agriculturist. The result of his operations 
 are in like manner all dependent on a future time. The 
 routine of his cultivation may require one, two, or three 
 years to complete it. There is not one reason which can 
 be supposed to interest the merchant in the future, that 
 does not equally or even more affect the agriculturist ; but 
 the degree of advance and perfection to which the former 
 has arrived in this respect, is not nearly so astonishing as 
 the entire neglect and absence of such advantages which 
 exist with the interests of the latter. Tlie surprise at 
 this entire neglect is much increased by the fact, that the 
 whole of the elements of information are so near at hand, 
 and, as compared with any other pursuit, of such immense 
 importance. 
 
 It appears extraordinary that, with all the institutions 
 with which this country abounds, botii public and pri- 
 vate, no attempt has ever been made to accomplisli this
 
 123 
 
 object. When we consider the practical inconvenience 
 which has ever been acknowledged to arise from the 
 imperfect and vague conjectures (for we have never ad- 
 vanced beyond this) as to the extent of cultivation of the 
 different articles of agricultural produce needed to supply 
 the average demand; — how far this has from year to 
 year existed ; — what the actual average consumption has 
 been, and what progress the existing stocks have been 
 making towards a glut or a scarcity ; — when we consider 
 that the absence of all perfect knowledge of these heads 
 has alike bewildered the legislature, the cultivator, and 
 the dealer, it is a matter of great surprise that no attempt 
 has been made to remove so great an amount of ignorance. 
 
 An attention to this subject is absolutely needful to 
 conduct the pursuits of agriculture to a state of perfection, 
 both for the interest of those immediately concerned and 
 the public, — to secure a more perfect equilibrium of sup- 
 ply and demand, and to protect the public against the evil 
 of partially varying crops, which will, to a certain extent, 
 exist in the most perfect and equal state of cultivation. 
 
 Let us examine what would be the effects of such 
 knowledge. Suppose there were means of ascertaining 
 exactly how many acres of wheat and different other 
 grain were in cultivation in each year; at the end of 
 each year what the yield per acre had been; on the 1st 
 of each month what stocks remained in granary, and 
 what stocks remained in the stack yard : all those inte- 
 rested in these matters would watch, as narrowly as does 
 the merchant, these beacons of his future course. 
 
 It would be ascertained sufficiently near for all use-
 
 124 
 
 fill purposes, how many acres were required to be culti- 
 vated with each kind of grain, to furnish our average 
 consumption, which would also soon he clearly deter- 
 mined. The farmer woidd be governed by the facts 
 thus disclosed to him, of the progress the whole nation 
 was making, and any very important deviation from the 
 correct relative proportions would be thus obviated in 
 good time. It would soon be ascertained, by comparing 
 year after year, what amount of stock should appear on 
 the first of each different month to supply the consump- 
 tion of the remainder of the year, and, in proportion as 
 any deviation appeared between the corresponding periods 
 of one year and another, influences would immediately 
 be produced on prices as the case might be, and by 
 anticipation, avoid such extreme effects, either of a 
 superabundance or scarcity, as must occur, if the pid)lic 
 remain in Ignorance until the crisis comes unexpectedly 
 upon them. These monthly and periodical statements 
 would be consulted with as much interest and profit by 
 the farmer, the corn-merchant, and the miller, as the pe- 
 riodical publications of the stocks, arrivals, and deliveries 
 ofallarticlesof foreign produce, are by those interested in 
 them, and could not fail to direct these extensive interests 
 in a way most convenient and profitable to themselves 
 and the public, by producing and maintaining the great- 
 est possible equality of prices. If the stocks showed a 
 diminution, then dealers would anticipate their wants by 
 speculative piu'chascs : prices would be a little advanced 
 by this action on the market ; a wholesome stimulant 
 would be given to supply from a greater distance, and to 
 II more careful consumption. If, on the contrary, the 
 stocks showed a material increase, prices would decline a 
 little; a check would be given to supplies from such a
 
 125 
 
 distance as would be unprofitable, a little increased sti- 
 mulus would be given to consumption, and, in botli 
 instances, the fluctuations woidd be limited to a muck 
 narrower compass, than could be the case without such 
 timeous warning. 
 
 At first sight it may appear to many a matter of some 
 difficulty to arrive at such information, with any degree 
 of accuracy that could be relied upon. Nothing, how- 
 ever, would be more easy to accomplish, at least with 
 sufficient accuracy for all practical purposes. 
 
 Many of the continental countries, but particularly 
 Prussia, Holland, and Belgium, have set us an example 
 in the care with which they furnish information to their 
 respective countries, on all matters connected with the 
 progress of their internal interests, and amongst others 
 on agriculture ; the beneficial influence of which is much 
 acknowledged by the diflerent interests in these countries, 
 where, instead of groping in the dark, as every man 
 does who is engaged in any of the internal productive 
 resources of this country, whether it be in raising wheat, 
 iron, lead, or coals, the producer has always before his 
 eyes an exact statement of the progress of production and 
 consumption to regulate his acts. 
 
 When we consider with what a degree of accuracy the 
 productions, from year to 'year, of our most distant colo- 
 nies are estimated, not only before shipment, but even 
 while growing — productions extending over immense and 
 half-civilized countries, many of them diflicult of access 
 — throughout our Indian territory — along the banks of 
 the Ganges, stretching through the vales of Dacca and
 
 126 
 
 Jessore — in the far-west dominions of the King of Oude, 
 in the hills and valleys of Tirhoot, or the wide plains of 
 Kishnagur — we ought to find no difficulty in arriving 
 with much greater accuracy at every possible information, 
 relating to the cultivation and production of fields com- 
 paratively around our own dwellings. 
 
 When we consider with what accuracy the Government 
 can collect all the statistical information required to pro- 
 tect the revenue, how well defined is the extent of culti- 
 vation of hops, for that reason, it must at once be clear 
 that it only requires to be considered of sufficient national 
 importance, to enable us to collect, and publish accurate 
 statistical periodical statements on the whole of the leading 
 branches of internal industry. 
 
 Any one who has watched for some years the progress 
 of those interests cannot but have remarked how subject 
 they have been to extreme changes — to depression and 
 the reverse ; particularly the great leading articles of 
 iron, lead, and coal, which would, no doubt, have been 
 greatly alleviated by a better knowledge of the true rela- 
 tion of supply and demand at particular periods. 
 
 With respect to agriculture alone, we conceive that the 
 country would be so greatly benefited, that no portion 
 of the public expenditure would be more usefully applied 
 than what would be spent to procure this information. 
 
 We would propose, to effect this great object, sonic 
 plan similar to the following : — 
 
 That a Board of Internal Industry should be esta-
 
 127 
 
 blished, which should procure and pubUsh periodically 
 all information interesting to these objects. For exam- 
 ple, with respect to agriculture : at the most convenient 
 periods in each year, returns of the exact quantity of land 
 sown with wheat, with the different spring grain crops, 
 and green crops; of the yield of different kinds of grain 
 in the preceding year ; of the quantity of sheep slaugh- 
 tered and shorn (to arrive at the product of wool); of the 
 stocks of grain of all kinds in granary and stack, at fixed 
 periods ; and any other information, which, on proper 
 consideration, might appear desirable, respecting these 
 objects of overwhelming importance. Many regvdations 
 would be necessary to carry such a plan into operation, 
 but it is believed they would neither be very expensive 
 nor troublesome to the parties interested, who would soon 
 find their benefit so great in their existence, that what 
 attention was needed would be cheerfully given to secure 
 accurate returns. 
 
 A difficulty with regard to ascertaining the existing 
 stocks has been suggested ; if however all grain was re- 
 quired to be warehoused in licensed granaries, which 
 licence should be granted to every applicant at a mere 
 nominal charge, and such granaries all registered, and 
 obliged to make periodical returns of their stocks ; and 
 uniform sizes fixed for stacks, the number of which could 
 easily be returned, very little difficulty would arise in 
 gaining such approximate estimates of the actual stocks as 
 would answer every useful purpose ; — and even though, 
 from any possible reason, some parties might wilfully or 
 carelessly make erroneous returns, yet on the whole coun- 
 try these differences would so nearly be the same in differ-
 
 128 
 
 ent ycarsj and perhaps on the whole bulk would so nearly 
 balance each other, that no practical inconvenience could 
 arise from them; — in a very little lime experience would 
 teach those interested in the difterent objects to make an 
 exact allowance for such necessary deviations from exact 
 accuracy. 
 
 We believe that such an institution would confer an 
 incalculable advantage on this country, the internal re- 
 sources and productive industry of which so far exceed 
 those of any other country on the globe, and that its 
 operation and effects would be watched by all with more 
 intense interest than perhaps any institution which at 
 present exists in these kingdoms.* 
 
 * See Note IV.
 
 129 
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 The impression that the changes in the price of grain have 
 arisen from the characters of the seasons is almost universal; 
 and it has often been noticed as a curious circumstance, that a 
 number of good seasons and bad seasons followed in succes- 
 sion.* It is impossible to reconcile our mind to a belief that 
 the seasons move in these uniform cycles ; but we think the 
 circumstance capable of the most satisfactory solution by 
 the fluctuations of cultivation. We find, for example, that 
 1820-21-22-23 were extremely productive seasons: by the 
 principle we have laid down, the influence which the high 
 prices of 1817 and 1818 had, in stimulating production in 
 every way, ought to have produced this effect. Then the 
 years 1827-28-29 were remarked as very unproductive years : 
 the reaction of the previous period of abundance and low prices 
 was in these years experienced in its strongest effects. Again, 
 1832-33-34 were noticed as being most prolific and abundant 
 seasons : here we once more find the result of stimulated cultiva- 
 tion in producing extensive crops. The reaction which followed 
 the low prices again brings us to the comparatively short crops of 
 the three last years. It will be therefore observable that the 
 cycles of productive and unproductive seasons correspond 
 exactly with the necessary influences of the fluctuations pointed 
 out in cultivation. How far the increased or curtailed, the 
 
 * The history of the last half-century shows that several pro- 
 ductive and unproductive seasons have generally followed in 
 succession.— 7. and G. Sturge's Report for January, 183'J. 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 high or low state of cultivation, may influence the character of 
 the season, as far as the weather is concerned, it is difficult to 
 say ; but as it is an admitted and ascertained fact, that the 
 general state of the cultivation of a country has a material 
 influence on the climate and weather, it is not impossible that 
 even slight fluctuations, such as we have pointed out, may 
 have some influence. At all events there is one thing certain, — 
 that in years of high and rich cultivation the crops are stronger 
 and generally earlier, and much better able to resist or throw 
 off the influence of bad weather; and that, in years of weak 
 and impoverished cultivation, the crops must be more easily 
 influenced by adverse weather. 
 
 The evidence given before the Committee of the House of 
 Commons on agriculture in 1836 sufiiciently explains the 
 true cause of the enormously increased supplies of the four 
 preceding years which had so depressing an eff'ect on prices. 
 We strongly recommend a perusal of this evidence.
 
 131 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 The great bulk of the wheat shipped from Odessa is nut the 
 produce of Russia, but of Poland. It is through this port 
 chiefly that the Mediterranean islands and ports are supplied 
 with wheat. A regular and extensive trade is carried on 
 between Odessa and Malta, Leghorn, Trieste, Marseilles, and 
 other places, in this article; and in usual years, at usual 
 prices, it requires the whole quantity which finds its way to 
 Odessa to supply these places, chiefly or entirely dependent 
 thereon. 
 
 Although considerable shipments have been made this sea- 
 son from Leghorn, Trieste, &c., to this country, it by no 
 means follows that they can spare from their own consump- 
 tion the quantities thus shipped. Being so much nearer to 
 this country than Odessa, they have shipped their own natural 
 supplies to reach this country while yet the duty is low and 
 the prices high, relying upon the stocks behind them at 
 Odessa to replace the same. 
 
 The shipments from Odessa up to the 5th of January from 
 last harvest had only reached 62,85'7 quarters of wheat, and 
 there then remained in stock about 500,000 chetwarts, or 
 365,000 quarters, to supply the whole consumption and ex- 
 hausted stocks of the Mediterranean.
 
 13'2 
 
 NOTE III. 
 
 The claim wliich property has, and must ever continue to 
 have (as long as this country maintains its present condition 
 of prosperity), to a higher value in this country than in the 
 Continental countries, results chiefly from the same reascm 
 that property in the neighbourhood of London, Manchester, &c., 
 has a much higher value than in Cumberland, or throughout 
 the rural districts of Ireland. 
 
 We have already considered sufficiently the cause of the 
 diiference of the price of provisions and land in the latter 
 relative circumstances, and we do not find that the freest and' 
 most unrestricted intercourse has had any tendency to lessen 
 this difference. From what we have already said it is obvious 
 that local situation, in the precincts of populations differing in 
 their ability to consume the produce of the land, by which, in 
 the one case, food has to be brought from a greater distance, 
 and consequently at an enhanced price, and, in the other 
 case, the surplus produce has to find a market at a great dis- 
 tance, and therefore subject to considerable deductions for 
 charges, may be called the natural causes of this diiference. 
 
 In the one case, if the prosperity, and consequent ability to 
 consume, should diminish, the value of property and food 
 must fall. In the other case, if the means of consumption 
 should increase, their value must rise. 
 
 It would also appear as a law, that as greater and cheaper 
 facilities were afforded of conveying the surplus prod\ice from
 
 133 
 
 the one point to the other, a higher price in the place of pro- 
 duction, and a lower one in the place of consumption, would 
 be the result. But this has not altogether proved to be the 
 case. Of late years the facilities of steam-navigation have 
 enabled the producers in Ireland, Cumberland, and elsewhere, 
 to send the fruits of their industry at cheaper and easier rates 
 to Liverpool, Manchester, &c. ; but, while we find that in the 
 former places these facilities have tended to improve the value 
 of property and general condition of the producer, yet they 
 have in no w^ay tended to reduce the value of property or the 
 condition of the producer in the neighbourhoods of the latter 
 places. 
 
 Without these additional supplies the consuming ability of 
 the large towns would have been abridged to a smaller quantity 
 of food ; but with such additional supplies of such articles 
 as can be best brought from a distance, at a cheaper rate, 
 a larger ability to consume other articles which are not so 
 easily transported is obtained by the community, in the pro- 
 duction of which the immediate producers find an occupation 
 as profitable as before; and thus the whole community of 
 producers and consumers is equally benefited. 
 
 In such relative position may we fairly consider the Conti- 
 nental countries generally and this country in their present 
 respective conditions. The value of property is higher here 
 than on the Continent, for the same cause that it is higher 
 round Manchester than in Ireland. 
 
 The distance between those countries and Great Britain will 
 be found to be sufficient ever to maintain, as far as we are 
 concerned, the whole difference which at present exists ; or, 
 if this difference should ever be altered, it will be by a dimi- 
 nishing prosperity and ability to consume in this country, or
 
 134 
 
 by ail increasing ability on the part of the Continent to con- 
 sume their own products. To avoid the former cause we 
 cannot give too free and full an encouragement to our manu- 
 facturers ; and as to the latter cause, if it did not arise from 
 our own decline, we could not too much rejoice at its existence. 
 
 There is no more reason why the consumer in Great Britain 
 should not be benefited by the producer of the Continent, 
 without injury to our own property, than that the consumers 
 in Liverpool and Manchester should be benefited by the pro- 
 ducers in Ireland and Cumberland, as has been shown, 
 without lowering the value of the immediate neighbourhood.
 
 135 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 It was intended to have followed up these observations by 
 an inquiry into the competition, of which we have heard so 
 much of late, which has manifested itself on the Continent, 
 with the manufacturing pursuits of this country ; a consi- 
 deration of the causes by which it had been produced ; ;aid 
 an investigation of the influences which are likely thereby to 
 be exerted on these interests in this country, as having been 
 generally associated with the subject of these pages. 
 
 It has however been found, that to do justice to this most 
 important and interesting inquiry, much more time would be 
 required to collect the necessary facts in proper form to prove 
 the reasoning than was at first anticipated, and therefore, for 
 the present at least, this intention has been necessarily post- 
 poned, though not entirely abandoned.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The following two objections having been raised to the views 
 and principles contained in this work : — first, that the extreme 
 low price at which continental wheat has sometimes been sold 
 in this market appears incompatible with the estimate given of 
 the charges necessarily incurred in importing it; and, secondly, 
 that, from the admitted and well-ascertained fact, that the prices 
 of wheat have fluctuated even more in the Continental coun- 
 tries where there are no corn-laws, and on the Continent ge- 
 nerally, than in England, the fluctuations here cannot be 
 attributed to the existing corn-laws ; — the following observa- 
 tions, contained in a letter from the author, in reply to these 
 objections, will sufficiently reconcile these facts to his general 
 principles, and prove them to be part of the necessary conse- 
 quences resulting from the present laws : — 
 
 " It is a matter of great satisfaction for me that these points 
 are capable, in my views, of being made very clear, and of ad- 
 vancing the general tendency of my arguments, instead of in 
 any way interfering with them. 
 
 " With respect to the objection, that the charges attendant 
 on the import of grain from the Continent to this country, 
 being put very high, the same objection has frequently been 
 urged to me even by men engaged in that trade; but when I 
 requested them to point out in what respect, they have always 
 failed to discover one point of exaggeration when fairly looked
 
 138 
 
 into ; but many are misled at the first sight at the rates I give, 
 by their not sufficiently attending to the numerous and various 
 items which are introduced into the sum, but which are never- 
 theless quite indispensable to the operation. Of the I8s. 3d. 
 given as the total of these charges, only 65. is put down as 
 freight, but all the other charges are not less necessary to com- 
 plete the importation. 
 
 " The fact to which you refer, of wheat having been delivered 
 in London at 235. per quarter, in no way interferes with the 
 above calculations, if, as I believe must have been the case, 
 the wheat alluded to was already in London, and not im- 
 ported purposely to sell at that price. Although as a general 
 principle the cost of an article must regulate its selling price, 
 yet the exceptions are very numerous in mercantile experience 
 in which the cost has no influence whatever over the price : 
 and the present is one of these cases, the causes of which are 
 easily explained. 
 
 " In the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, e.xtensive importations 
 of wheat took place, a large portion of which, owing to the 
 high prices of those years, was cleared for consumption ; but 
 towards the end of 1831 the average prices in this country fell 
 very much, and the duty increased so much that it was no 
 longer possible to introduce the shipments then arriving, and 
 to arrive, for the consumption of this country ; the consiequence 
 was, that in 1832 a very large quantity of wheat, little less 
 than ttvo millions of quarters, existed in our bonded warehouses, 
 while our average prices were regularly falling for three or 
 four years after that period, and the rates of duty consequently 
 so high, that in some of these years the duty alone was greater 
 than the market-price of the wheat : much of this wheat, there- 
 fore, which had cost the importer 505. or 60s. per quarter, laid 
 down in London, became actually worth less than nothing as
 
 139 
 
 tar as its application for English consumption was concerned ; 
 for not only was it chargeable with heavy granary-rent, &c., 
 but the duty which must have been paid on its being intro- 
 duced into consumption was greater by far than the price which 
 could have been obtained for it duty paid. Thus the average 
 price of wheat in Great Britain, in 1835, was 'S9s. 4d., at which, 
 according to the present laws, the duty is 4^s. 8d. 
 
 " At this time much wheat was sold to pay the charges of 
 rent, &c., incurred upon it, and many, wearied of holding any 
 longer with so little prospect of relief, were desirous of getting 
 quit of so ruinous a bargain ; but it is quite clear, if they got 
 anything for it at all, it could not be given in reference to Bri- 
 tish consumption, the duty being then higher than the whole 
 price if cleared from bond. There could, at this time, be only two 
 motives in buying such wheat : — first, as a speculation, to hold 
 it an indefinite number of years, till a chance occurred of getting 
 it into consumption at a low duty, which being very remote 
 and doubtful would only be purchased at a very low price; or, 
 secondly, for exportation to other countries requiring supplies, 
 such as the West India islands, the Brazils, &c. If a mer- 
 chant required a cargo of wheat for the latter purpose, it can 
 be easily understood that he wo\ild first inquire in what market 
 he could most profitably purchase it, as it would be a matter 
 of indifference to him whether he shipped it from Dantzig or 
 London. 
 
 " In the year 1835 the average price in Dantzig was 23s. 
 per quarter, and in Sweden and Denmark, where the quality is 
 worse, it was even below that price. It is therefore evident 
 that no man would give above that price for the same article 
 in London, when it would answer his object as well to buy 
 it in Dantzig. I find, therefore, on inquiry and reference, that 
 23.y. per quarter was a common price in 1835 for fine wheat in
 
 140 
 
 bond ; and wc can easily conceive that the holders here, whe- 
 ther compelled to sell by their circumstances, or willing to get 
 rid of such a losing affair, would be glad to accept that price 
 in bond when, for the purpose of introducing it for consump- 
 tion, it was worth less than nothing. Yet this wheat had cost, 
 when landed in 1831 or 1832, 50.9. to 6O5. per quarter, besides 
 all the charges from that time, which would, in many instances, 
 be more than the price obtained. I am told by many keepers 
 of granaries that they have frequently sold grain, the price of 
 which has not paid their charges. You will therefore see 
 that the effect of the corn-laws renders the price of wheat in 
 bond quite independent of its cost. I may just add that a 
 large portion of the wheat which was cleared for consumption 
 in the autumn of last year had remained in the warehouses 
 since 1831 and 1832, and that, if even double the high price 
 of the time had been obtained, it would not have paid the ori- 
 ginal importers a profit. These circumstances constitute the 
 corn-trade into the character of the most desperate gambling. 
 
 '* With respect to the other objection to which you allude, 
 viz., that, while I attribute the great fluctuations of prices in 
 this country to the effects of our corn-laws, yet in many Con- 
 tinental countries, where there are no corn-laws, the fluctua- 
 tions are as great, I believe will be most satisfactorily explained 
 by the necessary influence which our laws exert over the whole 
 of Europe. I admit, indeed, as a necessary consequence, that 
 the fluctuations on the Continent must be much greater than 
 even here. Thus, for example, in 1834, 1835, and the begin- 
 ning of 1836, the prices of wheat were so low in this country 
 as to hold out no hope, for many years, of any foreign supplies 
 being admitted. The prices on the Continent were, therefore, 
 only established in relation to their own consumption, with a 
 larger supply than they naturally required, the production 
 having been artificially stimulated by the demand for England
 
 141 
 
 two or three years before. In the end of 183G some suspicion 
 existed that, owing to the bad weather during harvest, we should 
 require a foreign supply. This feeling caused a much greater 
 advance in foreign wheat than British. If the market-price 
 of British wheat rises Is. \)Qr quarter, the price of foreign, with 
 such a prospect, will rise 2s. ; for, while the intrinsic value of 
 the article rises Is., the duty for its admission falls Is., and 
 makes the latter 2^. more valuable. Thus, if English wheat 
 in London were worth 60^. per quarter, and foreign wheat at 
 40^., at which the duty would be 26^. 8d., if the former rises 
 Is., to ijls. per quarter, at which the duty would be only 
 25.^. 8d., there is then on the foreign l5. advance in intrin- 
 sic value, and, being then subject to Is. less duty, would be 
 equal to 42s. of a market value. 
 
 " As the price of foreign wheat advances in our market, 
 orders are sent to the Continent to buy at comparatively high 
 prices : it is therefore clear that, while we advance here, the 
 prices on the Continent must be advancing at a double rate 
 compared with British wheat, if it is expected that wheat will 
 come in duty free. In the spring of 183*7 it was discovered 
 that, instead of any deficiency, the harvest of 1836 was the 
 largest ever known : the prices of English wheat receded ; but, 
 for every l.y. it fell back, the price of foreign here, and conse- 
 quently abroad, fell back much more. 
 
 " The average price of wheat in this country is about 52^. 
 per quarter ; during the last year it has been about 70.?. to 72.f. 
 — say 40 per cent, above the average. The average price in 
 many parts of the Continent is 30.y. per quarter, where this 
 year, owing to the high prices here, by which it is not only 
 admitted free of duty, but also at the very time our prices are 
 at the extreme point, the average prices have been about 50.?. 
 to 60.?. — nearly 100 per cent higher.
 
 142 
 
 " Our duties being hit;h, when our prices are low, excludes 
 the Continent from our market at that time, and depresses 
 them to a most unnatural extent. But our duties being only 
 nominal, when our prices are double the lowest point, gives 
 them a full participation of these high rates. Thus when 
 wheat is 395. the duty 47s. 8d., and freight, &c., about 18^., 
 no operation takes place with foreign wheat at all. The Eng- 
 lish price rises to 72.?. ; the duty is Is., freight, &c., 18^. or 
 19^. : if, therefore, wheat can be bought at 53^. per quarter 
 on the Continent, it will then pay to import ; whereas, if it 
 had been got as a gift two years before, it would have been a 
 serious loss, if introduced into English consumption. It is, 
 therefore, evident that our own laws render the prices more 
 fluctuating on the Continent than even here. 
 
 *' It is not surprising, after considering these reasons, that 
 the high prices of the present year are producing a much more 
 baneful and serious effect on the general interests on the Con- 
 tinent than even in this country. 
 
 " Here the price of bread is 40 per cent, higher than our 
 average; there, 80 to 100 percent, higher: the calls, there - 
 fore, on the means of the Continental population to provide 
 food, are found to be abridging their ability to consume manu- 
 factured goods and colonial produce at the present time even 
 more than here ; their trade is, therefore, languishing as much 
 or more than ours from this cause. Hence the disturbances 
 and distress in France, in Ghent, and many other places." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Loiiilon : Printed by W. Ci.ovtbe and So.ss, Duke-stroft, Sfamfoi-d-stiwl.
 
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