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 LETTERS 
 
 CORN LAWS, 
 
 \Nn t»N*„T(?E 
 
 RIGHTS OF THE WORKINiG CLASSES, 
 
 OKIGINALLY INSERTED IN 
 
 THE MORNING CHRONICLE, 
 
 THE INJUSTICE, AND ALSO THE IMTOLICV OF EMPOWERING THOSE AMONG 
 
 A PEOPLE, WFIO HAVE OUTAINED THE PROPRIETARY POSSESSION OF 
 
 THE LANDS OF A COUNTRY, TO INCREASE, ARTIFICIALLY, 
 
 THE lyXONEV VAIiVE OF THEIXt EXCXiITSIVE ESTATES, 
 
 BY MEANS OF ARBITRARY CHARGES, MADE ON THE REST OF THE 
 PEOPLE, FOR THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE. 
 
 By II. B. T. 
 
 " Cursed be he who movetli his neighbour's landmark.' 
 
 THERE IS A LANDMARK BETWEEN THE OWNERS OF THE LAND AND THE 
 PEOPLE OF THE LAND. 
 
 THE CORN LAW MOVES THIS LANDMARK. <( 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY W. CLOWES, 14, CHAKING CROSS. 
 
 1834.
 
 HO 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 These letters have already appeared in ihe Morning Chronicle at 
 the respective dates affixed to them, and in the precise words in which 
 they are now reprinted. The first of the number — for they are not a 
 series — was the produce of a sudden thought suggested by the 
 circumstance to which it refers : those that follow bespeak the manner 
 of their growth, and evince too, in that growth, the danger of launth- 
 vj ing an extensive topic. If the efforts of an humble individual like 
 myself could turn into a legitimate course the struggles, which the 
 working classes are making in search — as I would say, rather than 
 in defence or in assertion — of their rights, I should highly value my 
 success. There is really nothing wanting to complete all the attain- 
 able comforts of which their situations are susceptible, except the 
 free exercise of their rights ; and if they could be brought to claim 
 that freedom, with half the zeal and energy with which they follow 
 fA phantoms or invade the freedom of others, they would soon expe- 
 '^ rience the advantage of coming before the tribunal of public opinion 
 r\y with a good cause. 
 
 "^^N- The plain and strong truths with which these letters might arm 
 them, whenever they should be disposed to employ such weapons, 
 must escape from view and pass out of remembrance, if they have 
 no other depository than the fugitive columns of a newspaper; and 
 perhaps the same fate may await them in these pages: but I am 
 urged to afford them this second chance. If 1 had not believed that 
 I could place before the public, in new and useful lights, some of 
 i those important subjects which have so much agitated the country at 
 J various times, and which are still far from being at rest, neither those 
 ~^ columns nor these pages would have been incumbered with my 
 thoughts; and every reader will allow, that I could have had none of 
 that temptation to write which often kad'^ men, who are masters of 
 composition, to indulge their pens, while they have really no new mat- 
 ter to communicate. I shall be disappointed if such pens be not 
 employed in giving force to the propositions with which, in homely 
 strain, these letters may supply them. Both writers and speakers 
 may here find materials which they may turn to much better account 
 than I have. 
 
 The subject is left in an incomplete state, but none of the leading 
 features are wanting. If hereafter it should appear necessary to 
 follow out, to their more perfect conclusions, any uf the propositions 
 which the letters contain, the columns of the Morning Chronicle will 
 be again open to me. I am indebted to the editor of that paper not 
 only for the space he has adbrded me, but also for many accompany- 
 ing leading articles, in which he has proved — what I have above 
 intimated — that my pro])ositions will gain strength in other hands. 
 
 The idea that it is either just or politic to "protect" land, while 
 by " protection " is meant, the taxing of the great body of the people 
 who have no land, for the private emolument of the small number 
 
 202937 
 
 4
 
 who hold against the rest, in exclusive proprietary right, the whole 
 superficies of their common country, is so erroneous, that its preva- 
 lence would excite the greatest wonder if the history of the human 
 mind did not give ample proof, that fallacies can be established and 
 long maintained by the mere effrontery of continual assertion. The 
 idea, also, that a country can possibly be benefited by propping up 
 with extraneous funds any losing trade — and every trade which requires 
 support is a losing one to the country — involves an error equally 
 surprising and in most respects of a similar description. But the 
 climax of fallacies is that which proceeds upon the assumption that 
 "taxation" is a reason for "protection." What would be said of 
 the head of a house who increased his allowances to some of the 
 favorite members of his family, only because his estate had become 
 involved in debts? All these errors have, here, been pretty closely 
 sifted, — they are to be traced to the want of a just conception in 
 men's minds of the aoo-reffate character of a " Public.'' 
 
 No man can take a comprehensive view of the affairs of England 
 without embracing the subject of currency. I have not been able to 
 keep clear of it ; and as it has long been evident to me that the 
 habit — useless if not dangerous — of constantly referring to the high 
 price of gold during the last five or six years of the war, either as 
 accounting for our difficulties or as pointing to a desperate remedy 
 for them — tended at least to divert the minds of the people from the 
 consideration of measures which might be beneficial, I have endea- 
 voured to show, that the doctrines of the bullionists of that era — in- 
 fallible as they are in all the cases assumed in the illustrations of 
 them by their expounders — are amenable to physical impossibilities, 
 and were therefore quite inapplicable to the events of the times m 
 which those persons wrote, but upon which they were totally and 
 most strangely silent. 
 
 H. B. T. 
 
 The following is a copy of the article in the Morning Chronicle 
 which gave rise to these letters : — 
 
 Morning Chronicle, Saturday, 1th December, 1833. 
 
 " RIGHTS OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 " We copy from CohhetVs Register of this day the following 
 strange article, which bears the above title. The matter appears to 
 us in a very serious light ; but at present we cannot offer any remarks 
 on the subject. The Manchester Paper of this day will probably 
 notice it. 
 
 " Prince's Tavern, Princess-street, Manchester, 
 "Monday, Nov. 25, 1833. 
 •' At a meeting called, at the above time and place, of the Working 
 
 People of Manchester, and their Friends, after taking into their 
 
 consideration — 
 
 " That society in this country exhibits the strange anomaly of one 
 part of the people working beyond their strength, another part
 
 5 
 
 working at worn-out and other employments'for very inadequate wages, 
 and another part in a state of starvation for want of employment ; 
 
 " That eight hours' daily labour is enough for any human being, 
 and under proper arrangements, sufficient to afford an amply supply 
 of food, raiment, and shelter, or the necessaries and comforts of life, 
 and that to the remainder of his time every person is entitled for 
 education, recreation, and sleep ; 
 
 " That the productive power of this country, aided by machinery,\ ^ ^^ 
 is so great, and so rapidly increasing, as from its misdirection, to\ 
 threaren danger to society by a siill further fall in wages, unless^ 
 some measure be adopted to reduce the hours of work, and to main-j 
 tain at least the present amount of wages : — 
 " It was unanimously Resolved, 
 
 " 1. That it is desirable that all who wish to see society improved 
 and confusion avoided, should endeavour to assist the working 
 classes to obtain ' for eight hours' work the present full day's wages,' 
 such eight hours to be performed between the hours of six in the 
 morning and six in the evening ; and that this new regulation should 
 commence on the first day of March next. 
 
 " 2. That in order to carry the foregoing purposes into effect, a 
 society shall be formed, to be called ' the Society for Promoting 
 National Regeneration.' 
 
 " 3. That persons be immediately appointed from among the 
 workmen to visit their fellow-workmen in each trade, manufacture 
 and employment, in every district of the kingdom, for the purpose 
 of communicating with them on the subject of the above Resolutions, 
 and of inducing them to determine upon their adoption. 
 
 " 4. That persons be also appointed to visit the master manufac- 
 turers in each trade, in every district, to explain and recommend to 
 them the adoption of the new regulation referred to in the first 
 Resolution. 
 
 " 5. That the persons appointed as above shall hold a meeting 
 on Tuesday evening, the 17th of December, at eight o'clock, to re- 
 port what has been done, and to determine upon future proceedings. 
 
 " 6. That all persons engaged in gratuitous education on Sundays 
 and during the week days, be respectfully invited to make arrange- 
 ments for throwing open their school-rooms to the working classes 
 for two hours a day (say from one to three o'clock, or from six to 
 eight, or any other two hours more convenient), from the 1st of 
 March next, and that all well-disposed persons be invited to assist 
 in promoting their education when time for such purpose has been 
 secured to them. 
 
 " 7. That subscriptions be now entered into in aid of the fund to 
 be raised by the working classes for the execution of their part of 
 the proposed undertaking. 
 
 " 8. That another and distinct subscription be also entered into 
 for defraying the expenses of the persons appointed to visit the mas- 
 ter mamdacturers, and for other general purposes. 
 
 " 9. That the workmen and their friends use their utmost efforts
 
 to obtain further subscriptions, and that all well-disposed females be 
 respectfully requested cordially to co-operate in this undertaking. 
 
 " 10. That a Committee of workmen and their friends be now 
 formed*, with power to add to their number, and to appoint a secre- 
 tary and treasurer for the Manchester district of the Soiuety, described 
 in the second Resolution. 
 
 "11. That this Committee be instructed to procure as soon as 
 possible a convenient office in Manchester, which shall be called 
 'The Office oftlie Society fo r National Re g eneration ^.' 
 
 " 12. That circulars reporting the proceeding's of this Meeting be 
 immediately printed, and sent to the masters in every trade in the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 " 13. Tiiat such masters as may be disposed to adopt the proposed 
 regulation for reducing the hours of work, and paying the same 
 wages, are hereby respectfully invited to signify their consent by 
 letter (postpaid), addressed to the Office of the Society in Manchester. 
 
 " 14. That the Catechism now read, entitled 'The Catechism of 
 the Society for Promoting National Regeneration,' be adopted. 
 
 " 15. That Messrs. Oastler, Wood, Bull, Sadler, and others, be 
 urgently requested to desist from soliciting Parliament for a ten 
 hours' bill, and to use their utmost exertions in aid of the measures 
 now adopted to carry into effect, on the 1st of March next, the 
 regulation of ' eight hours' work for the present full day's wages.' 
 
 " 16. That the thanks of this Meeting are hereby given to the 
 aforesaid gentlemen, for their long-continued invaluable services in 
 the cause of the oppressed of the working classes, and especially in 
 the cause of the children and young persons employed in factories. 
 
 " 17. That Mr. Owen be requested to establish Committees of 
 the Society for National Regeneration, in every place or district 
 which he may visit, especially in the Potteries, Birmingham, Wor- 
 cester, Gloucester, Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, and London ; 
 and that he be also requested to report to the Office of the Society 
 at Manchester, the names of such individuals as will assist in the 
 present undertaking. 
 
 " 18. That in the first week in January next, the working men 
 in every district throughout Great Britain and Ireland shall make 
 application to their employers for their concurrence in the adoption 
 of the regulation of ' eight hours' work for the present full day's 
 wages,' to commence on the 1st day of March next. 
 
 " 19. That this Meeting earnestly appeal to their fellow-men in 
 France, Germany, and the other countries of Europe, and on the 
 continent of America, lor their support and co-operation in this 
 effort to improve the condition of the labourer in all parts of the 
 world. "JOSHUA MILNE, Chairman." 
 
 * The following is a list of the Committee: — John Fielden, Esq. M.P., Joshua 
 Milne, Esq.. George Condy, Esq , Messrs. John Travis, jun., I. W. Hodgetts, (jebrge 
 Marshall, William Clegg, .Joshua I'"ielden, Thos. Fielden, John Doherly, Geo. Higgiti- 
 boltoiii, James Turner, Win. Taylor, Piiiiiip Grant, John Wyatt, George Scott, John 
 Scott, Joseph ScotI, Henry Greaves, John Broadie, Wm. Wills, and Robt. Owen, Esq. 
 
 f The Office of the Society is No. 48, Pall-mall, corner of King-street.
 
 RIGHTS OF THE WORKING CLASSES. 
 
 No. I. 
 Morning Chronicle, \^th December, 1833. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, December 13, 1833. 
 
 In yourpaper of last Saturday (December 7) under the above title 
 you give from Cobbett an account of a meeting at Manchester, held on 
 the 25th November, and convened for the purpose of forming a Society — 
 of a most extensive description — for the benefit of the working classes. 
 This Society, it appears, is to be named the " Society for jDromoting Na- 
 tional Regeneration," and the nature of the regeneration proposeJts, an 
 allevation 'of Ihe severity of the labour with which, alone, even the most 
 successful portion of the working classes are now enabled to obtain the 
 necessaries and comforts of life ; while the other portions waste their 
 existence in toil and privations, or in idleness and want. 
 
 At this Meetino; a string of resolutions, nineteen in number, professed 
 to be founded on three premised axioms, were passed, for the purpose of 
 oriiiinating such a Society; and upon those axioms, from which the views 
 and expectations of the parties are to be learned, I propose to offer a few 
 observations. 
 
 And, first, with reference generally to the " Rights of Industry," I will 
 state my opinion, that the object propounded in these axioms is laudable, 
 though not so for the reasons they contam. I think, too, that the object 
 is attainable, though not so by the means intended to be used. The par- 
 ties have a good cause, which they are ruining from want of judgment 
 in the management of it. They are seeking that which is justly their right ; 
 but, by a strange perversion, they are not seeking it as a right — they have 
 not even attempted to show a right. They are, in my honest opinion, 
 pressed down by grievous wrongs, and yet they have not attempted to 
 point out a single wrong. The grievances they complain of may be, for 
 aught they show, the uneontrollalole effect of natural causes, and they 
 may be upbraiding heaven when the profess only to censure man. 
 
 The state of society, described in the first of these axioms, is not ne- 
 cessarily the "anomaly*" which the propounders of it, without proof or 
 explanation, pronounce it to be ; but still it is very anomalous, and I have 
 long thought it so, upon grounds which I will presently state. 
 
 In their second axiom they assert that "eight hours" daily labour is 
 sufficient to provide an ample supply of food, raiment, and shelter, or the 
 necessaries and comforts of life." It is evident that this, which professes 
 to be an estimate, is founded upon no calculation whatever; and I sus- 
 pect that the propounders of the axiom believe that the success of the 
 measure depends solely upon the unanimity of the workmen in resolving, 
 at all hazards, right or wrong, to work no more than the time proposed. 
 
 * If ihe writer of this axiom would either place himself in some country, which is 
 in a far less advanced state than England, — or place himself back a century or two, 
 in England itself, he would sec that the evils he speaks of may be the natural efl'eC 
 of the actual condition of a people.
 
 I am sure that no man can, before the trial, tell with exactitude what 
 quantity of human labour may be sufficient, sypposing that no labour 
 were wasted, and that every man were left at liberty to enjoy the fruits 
 of his labour. But although I would not pretend to give a specific esti- 
 mate, as these parties have done, it is nevertheless manifest to my mind, 
 that much less human labour than is now bestowed would, in the case of ihe 
 economy and liberty here supposed, be sufficient for the purposes desired. 
 But this liberty, which is the only means by which this object can be 
 attained — by which wasteful labour may be avoided* and the fruits of 
 judicious labour dispensed — this liberty they have not even demanded, 
 neither have they so much as hinted at the privation of it, under which 
 they suffer. Surely they are not, all the while, hankering each after 
 his own petty and fallacious share of the supposed advantages of our 
 present wretched system ; and yet, I am sorry to say, that I can extract 
 nothinir from their scheme except a cry of "good wages and little work." 
 
 The third axiom evinces the utter misconception of the matter at issue, 
 which pervades the minds of the propounders. What does their scheme 
 propose? Is it not "an ample supply of all necessary and cumfortable 
 commodities, the produce of human labour, in return for little human 
 labour ?" And yet they point to " productive power," and the " aid which 
 machinery gives to that power,' as the impediment to their obtaining that 
 supply, except by the exertion oi much human labour. Ttiere is ground 
 for suspecting some of these parties of a selfishness kirkintr at the bottom 
 of the scheme, a want of intention to render the proposed benefit univer- 
 sal. A cry of " high wages and little work," accompanied by a complaint 
 against "productive power," implies that some must still work hard for 
 poor remuneration. And this suspicion is a little increased by the con- 
 sideration of another error in this axiom, which is, that they shift their 
 case from a demand for the " necessaries and comforts of life," to a de- 
 mand for a certain rate of wages as a minimum, that is to say, " the 
 present rate of wages at least." So that, if it sliall turn out that in 
 consequence of their working less, and of a check to " productive power," 
 the prices of commodities, from scarcity, shall rise, their wages are to 
 rise in proportion. These incongruities are pointed out only as a friendly 
 warning, and with a view to direct the Society in a right course, not to 
 deter them from proceeding. 
 
 It is impossible to say what wages would be effective for the object in 
 view, either in the case of its being pursued in the manner I would re- 
 commend, or in the manner obviously contemplated by the promoters of 
 the Society. Neither the exact quantity of labour nor the exact exchange- 
 able value of labour for labour, expressed in money, can be told before- 
 hand ; it is enough to be confident, as we well may be, that an increased 
 quantity of the necessaries and comforts of life is obtainable for a reduced 
 quantity of human labour. 
 
 The Society must change their line of tactics: they must distinctly 
 exhibit and simply demand their natural rights ; and, those once obtained, 
 the particular benefits sought for will so surely follow, that they will be 
 within the reach of every discreet and industrious man. I trust that they 
 will cheerfully assent to the exclusion of the idle and the dissolute. 
 
 What is the great desideratum? It is abundance upon easy terms. 
 What are the sources of abundance? They are rich soils — favourable 
 climates — skill in cultivation, and facility of conveyance, in respect of the 
 
 * If it were possible to make a calculation of the quantity of human labour that is 
 wasted — positively thrown away — in consequence of ditVerent countries striving to pro- 
 duce commodities for which they have not the best facilities, the mind of man would 
 turn with disgust from the contemplation of protective systems.
 
 products of land, whether they be for the food of man, or of animals for 
 the service of man, or be the materials of manufactures. And in respect of 
 other commodities, the sources of abundance are — raw materials, derived 
 from the most productive places — skill in convertincr those materials into 
 the articles wanted — machinery for saving human labour in the process, 
 and strength for setting that machinery in motion, drawn by science from 
 some power of nature which never wearies. These are the sources from 
 which abundance is to be obtained by the least possible exertion of human 
 labour. If we refuse to apply to these sources, with what pretence can 
 we complain of want ? If we resolve to employ labour to waste, with 
 what pretence can we complain of toil ? 
 
 The extent to which, in the last half century, mankind have acquired a 
 knowledge of the means of rendering these sources available, is very 
 great. The inventions and improvements of machinery, and of its mov- 
 ing powers, are too notorious to need more than to be mentioned ; but, to 
 the minds of many persons, those in agriculture may not be equally 
 palpable. I shall, therefore, just say, that the extensive introduction of 
 the turnip and the clover, and the invention of hollow -draining, have 
 been, in husbandry, scarcely less operative than machinery and steam 
 have been in manufactures. By means of these two esculents, vast 
 tracts of light land, which were formerly deemed of insignificant value, 
 have not only produced abundance of food for animals ; but have also 
 been thrown into a course of crops by which they have been qualified for 
 the growth of corn ; and by the invention of the hollow drain, a very 
 great quantity of good lands, which could not before be cultivated on 
 account of their springs and under-walers, have been reclaimed from a 
 state of useless swamp. If, in consequence of bringing two very exten- 
 sive descriptions of land into productive cultivation, which had previously 
 been unproductive, another description, the " stiff clays,'' have become 
 less protitable than before, we must bear in mind that similar vicissitudes 
 have occurred in other interests. It is probable, no doubt, that some 
 lands, which can be worked only with extreme labour, must now be appro- 
 priated to permanent crops of some description ; for the progress of the 
 country cannot be arrested for the sake of attempting to prevent this con- 
 sequence of improvements in agriculture. Such an attempt would amount 
 to an open avowal, that the public shall derive no benefit from such im- 
 provements. What, indeed, could we do? Would we prohibit turnips 
 and clover, or give a bounty for cultivating " stiff clays," or would we 
 raise the price of corn grown upon all lands, the fortunate as well as the 
 unfortunate, until it can be profitably grown on those which alone are in 
 the difficulty ? 
 
 Putting aside, therefore, the lands unfit, under present circumstances, 
 for corn, as we would discard old machmery, I repeat, that in agriculture 
 as well as in manufactures, there has been a great access of productive 
 power in the last half century*. Had this not been the case, it would have 
 been the extreme of folly to have talked of obtaining " an ample supply of 
 necessaries and comforts for a small quantity of labour." 
 
 The Society invite " their fellow-men in France, Germany, and the other 
 countries of Europe, to give their support and co-operation." My scheme 
 embraces Ihem also; it is not even practicable without them, nor, indeed, 
 
 * In comparing the prices of corn of llie present times with the prices of former 
 times, we must make the same allowance for improvements in agiiculture, as we do 
 for improvements in machinery with respect to manufactures. In such comparisons 
 the progressive depreciation of the value of inotiey is one consideration; but we are 
 apt to forget, that the progress of art is another, which is lo be placed in the oppo- 
 site scale.
 
 10 
 
 without ray "fellow-men" in Asia, and Africa, and America too. Abun- 
 dance is my end, mutual consumption is my means ; but I must have the 
 world for my workshop, and the world for my customer. Let any man 
 compute the productive powers of the world in the present state of know- 
 ledge, and then refuse, if he can, to rely on the sources of abundance; — 
 let him reflect on the appallinff extent of human wants unsatisfied, and 
 then doubt, if he can, the efficacy of consumption. There is scarcely a 
 civilized spot in the globe in which the now impoverished labourer cannot 
 produce, in excess of his own wants, some peculiar commodity with which 
 he could provide himself with those other commodities he so sjreatly needs, 
 if his right of exchange were not denied by the interposition of some 
 arbitrary power. Mutual supply by means of such exchange is the 
 scheme, and it is the law of nature, loudly proclaimed by the diversities 
 of climate, soil, and capacities — it is the manifest design of a beneficent 
 Providence for the benefit of the human race. But what is the law of 
 man ? — an impious prohibition of the law of God. I figure to myself the 
 family of a Manchester, or Birmingham workman contemplatiner, on a 
 Saturday night, the true exchangeable value of their week's work ; and 
 computing how much food, as well as other commodities, it would supply 
 them with, under the free operation of the scheme of Providence and of 
 the law of Nature. I also figure to myself the family of the Polish 
 husbandman longing to doff their miserable dresses of sheep-skin, and to 
 exchange their corn for fabrics of the spindle and the loom. A greater 
 offence can hardly be committed than to obstruct the mutual dealings of 
 such parties, except it can be justified as a necessary national sacrifice. I 
 stoutly deny the nationality of the object: the restraint is nothing less 
 than a taking of the necessaries of lite from those who have nothing to 
 spare in order to increase the luxuries of those whose command of them 
 would bear reduction — supposing, but by no means admitting, that any 
 reduction would ensue. 1 cannot find room here to establish this pro- 
 position before those to whom it may not be sufficiently self-evident ; 
 upon another occasion, if necessary, I may perhaps do so; but at present, 
 assuming the admission of the truth — that there is no national ground 
 for an)' protection to our home productions beyond that which may 
 incidentally arise out of duties imposed for the sake of revenue — I earnestly 
 advise the members of the proposed society, if it be eventually formed, to 
 apply themselves, with singleness of purpose, to all fitting efforts for 
 obtaining their right to the fruits of their labour; — a right wliich no man 
 can be said to enjoy, vinless he be at liberty to make the most advanta- 
 geous exchange he can of the product of his own labour for that of the 
 labour of others. Let them pursue this course, and, if they succeed, the 
 agricultural and landed interests will be among the first to acknowledge 
 the merits of the " Society for promoting National Regeneration." 
 
 I am, Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 H. B.T. 
 
 No. II. 
 Morning Chronicle, 3c/ January, 1834. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, ZQth December, 1833. 
 
 I THANK you for the insertion of my former letter in your paper of 
 the 18th iniitant, and also for the excellent leading article with which at
 
 11 
 
 the same time you supported the object of it. If you can again spare me 
 a httle space in your columns, I will endeavour, more pointedly than 
 before, to show to the memViers of the "National Regeneration Society," 
 that their distresses consist in their being compelled, by natural causes, 
 to seek a foreign market as sellers of the goods they produce, while they 
 are prevented, by artificial causes, from going into that market as buyers 
 of the goods which they want. 
 
 Few people are aware of the relative positions in which our manu- 
 facturing interest and our landed interest are practically placed towards 
 each other, by reason of the different proportions which the gross quan- 
 tities of their respective productions bear to the consumption of the 
 country ; and consequently few persons perceive the degree in which this 
 natural inequality of advantaues is aggravated by the interposition of a law . . 
 
 ■which throws its weight to the side which already preponderated. If any^ *» 
 interference between these two interests could be justified, a far betteij^ i^i'f^ 
 case could be made out in favour of a bounty to increase the importation N *.«*">^ 
 of corn, than of a duty to restrain it. 
 
 My first position is, that the agriculturists have, under any circum- r 
 stances, the enviable advantage of always seUing their goods at home in \X^^ '^'■- 
 a market insufficiently supplied. ^ <<iJlV' 
 
 My second position is, that the manufacturer, when he sells any of his 
 goods at home, always sells them in a glutted market. These are facts 
 which can readily be ascertained by referring to the accounts of imports 
 and exports. 
 
 The average annual quantity of foreign corn, chiefly wheat, imported 
 into England during the last seven years, was very nearly two million 
 quarters ; besides which, we imported large quantities of seeds, and of 
 butter and cheese. One-third, at least, of all the tallow we use ccmes 
 from abroad ; and we import vegetable oils as a substitute for tallow in 
 making soap, and fish oils as its substitute in lieu of candles. This ac- 
 count might be considerably extended, without includina: any product 
 which is not suitable to our soil and climate ; but it is sufficient, for the 
 purpose of showing that the agriculturist has the advantage of a home 
 market, in which the demand is much greater than the supply. 
 
 The amoirnf in reaT (not'official) value of British manufactures exported 
 in each of the two last years was rather more than 36,000,000/., and nearly 
 the whole of this sum is constituted of labour. Cotton wool, fine sheep's 
 wool, flax, and dyeing drugs, are the chief of those raw materials of our 
 exports, which we do not produce : the metals and the coals are in our own 
 mines, till labour extracts them. Making, therefore, ample abatement 
 for foreign materials, the quantity of surplus labour in the country — that 
 which must seek a foreign market — may be roundly estmiated at thirty 
 millions sterling a year. The home market of the manufacturer, there- 
 fore, is always a glutted market. 
 
 These are the relative positions of the two interests ; and I beg the 
 " Society" to mark the practical effect of those positions upon tiieir 
 mutual dealings— first, as buyers respectively, the on& from the other ; 
 and next, as sellers respectively, the one to the other. For the sake of 
 perspicuity I must be allowed, here, to use a little personification, and to 
 concentrate, in the proceedings of two imaginary individuals, the course 
 of transactions which do actually take place between the two masses. A 
 landowner and a manufacturer are the parties. Wheat may i)e the 
 representative of agricultural produce, and cottons the representative of 
 manufactures. 
 
 The landowner has 100 quarters of wheat to sell, the whole of which, 
 and more, is wanted by the manufacturer. The manufacturer has '200
 
 12 
 
 pieces of cotton to sell, half only of which is wanted by the landowner. 
 As the quantity of one is deficient, and the quantity of the other is exces- 
 s ve, in iheir mutual liome market, the prices of boih must he (governed 
 by the foreign market, the influence of which upon tliem will be manifested 
 by inverse consequences — the case of the one being tiie reverse of that of 
 the other. The (question between them shall be tried under the assump- 
 tion of a state of perfect freedom of trade to both. 
 
 When the landowner is seller, he is enabled, in fixing the price on his 
 •wheat, to add, to the amount of the foreign price, all the expense which 
 must be incurred in bringing wheat from abroad. He stands firm in the 
 market, and says to the manufacturer— reject my wheat, if it please you 
 to do so, and go a thousand miles by v/ater and by land to fetch the cheap 
 wheat you speak of. 
 
 But when the landowner changes his position, and becomes the buyer 
 of the manufacturer's cottons, he reverses his calculation, and he deducts 
 from the price which they would fetch in the foreign market all the 
 expenses of sending them thither. Nor is his language less changed, 
 though it is equally peremptory. He now says to the manufacturer — 
 there is my offer, leave it if you like, and carry your cottons half round 
 the world, in quest of that better price which you say will be given for 
 them in other countries. 
 
 Whether as buyer of the wheat, or as seller of the cottons, the manu- 
 facturer submits to this dictation of the landowner; for it is he, and not 
 the landowner, who is, in both cases, subject to the control of the foreign 
 prices ; and the result is, that he gives 100 pieces of cottons for 50 quarters 
 of wheat. But this is only half the story; and the picture here drawn gives 
 a very inadequate representation of the natural advantage which the land- 
 owner has over the manufacturer, and of the consequent injustice of in- 
 creasing that advantage by artificial means. 
 
 We have seen that the first use which the landowner makes of his power 
 over the manufacturer is, to supply himself with home commodities to his 
 heart's content in exchange for a moderate quantity of his corn. He has 
 got, for instance, 100 pieces of the cottons for 50 of his 100 quarters of 
 wheat; and now, feeHng himself still rich with 50 quarters more at his 
 command, a desire comes over him for the enjoyment of foreign luxuries 
 also ; and he is anxious, therefore, to make his remaining stock of wheat 
 available for the procuring of them. But when he contemplates the 
 sending of this wheat to the foreign market, he is quickly struck with the 
 reflection, that, if he does so, he must not only submit to take the foreign 
 price for it, but he must also deduct from that price the charges of ex- 
 portation, instead of adding the charges of importation, as he had done in 
 the case of the first 50 quarters. After some deliberation upon the 
 course he should pursue, he comes to the following conclusion; — I re- 
 member, he says, that the manufacturer, of whom 1 bought ray hundred 
 pieces of cotton, had another hundred for which he could not find a pur- 
 chaser, and I well know that he was sorely in want of more wheat than 
 the 50 quarters I have sold to him. I will e'en carry to him the residue 
 of my wheat, and offer it for the residue of his cottons; in his double 
 distress, with glut on the one side and deficiency on the other, he will 
 gladly come into my terms ; and then I shall get possession of a descrip- 
 tion of goods which I can use, as an advantageous medium, for the acquire- 
 ment of the foreign commodities I am so desirous of obtaining. 
 
 Tliis is the true working of sale and purchase in a home market, where 
 diff'erent local commodities are produced in very unequal qiiantities ; and 
 it might have been thought that the fortunate party would have been 
 contented with his natural advantage. But the English agriculturists.
 
 13 
 
 like their fabled prototype, to whom Jupiter gave the treacherous power 
 of regulating his own weather, had, as unhickily for themselves and the 
 country, the power of regulating their own corn laws; and, not being able 
 to look forward beyond half a dozen Mondays in Mark-lane, they sought 
 to increase Iheir advantage by imposing duties and restraints on the im- 
 portation of foreign corn. And although the scheme has signally failed 
 to assure to them the prices they expected, or even the jmces they would 
 have had, if they had wisely suffered commerce to take the lead, it has, 
 neverthelt'ss, enabled them to exchange small quantities of their corn 
 for large quantities of home manufactures, which they employ partly for 
 their immediate consumption, and partly to exchange again for foreign 
 commodities, in the manner which has been described. So complete a 
 case of Sic vos non vobis was perhaps never reduced to actual practice 
 upon so large a scale in an enlightened country ; and I think that the 
 members of the " Society" must clearly see, how truly it accounts for the 
 great quantity of labour they are compelled to perform, and the privations 
 they nevertheless suffer, while, to all outward appearance, they are sur- 
 rounded by the elements of plenty obtainable upon easy terms. 
 
 I am quite sure that many a high-minded land proprietor, if he could 
 be brought to perceive the relative positions in which the agricultural and 
 manufacturing interests are placed, would be the first to denounce the 
 system as the most abominable piece of subtle and refined oppression he 
 had ever met with. Yet so it is ; the manufacturer stands over those 
 very goods which are destined for a foreign market, which he knows 
 will go to a foreign market, and for which foreign goods will assuredly 
 be received in return ; and yet he is not permitted to send them to the 
 foreign market on his own account, nor to receive in return for them the 
 description of foreign goods he wants for himself. The landowner is 
 both exporter and importer; for the operation of the Corn Act is to give 
 him a right of pre-emption of our manufactures at a maximum price. 
 
 I have examined this proposition with an honest intention to abandon 
 it if it be wrong ; but I cannot find in it a failing point. It is true that, 
 of agricultural produce, we chiefly import wheat ; but that is only because 
 wheat is the most concentrated form in which a given quantity of agricul- 
 tural produce can be imported, and the price of it has its influence over 
 all other produce of the land. It is also true that our exports consist 
 chiefly of cottons and hardware; but the prices at which they can be dis- 
 posed of abroad must necessarily govern the prices of our other manufac- 
 tures. The magnitude of the exports proves that their influence over the 
 whole industry of the country must be overpowering. While the Corn 
 Act lasts, the landed interest must have the power of dictating prices 
 both as seller and as buyer. The only way to effect the "national rege- 
 neration" which the Society desire is, to place all sellers and all buyers 
 upon an equal footing. 
 
 If I should be i)ermittedto trespass again upon your papei-, I will avail 
 myself of your indulgence, in an endeavour to convince the landed interest 
 that they have mistaken their policy quite as much as they have mistaken 
 their rights. 
 
 I am, Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 H. B. T.
 
 14 
 
 No. III. 
 Morning Chronicle, January Wth, 1834, 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, January 10 fh, 1834. 
 
 The reception which you have given to both mj' two former letters 
 has convinced me, not only that you fake the same view that I do of the 
 true interests of the working- classes, but also that j'ou are willing: lo 
 afford me opportunities of advocating tlieir cause in my own way. It is 
 apparent to you, as it is to rae, that the working classes have only to ob- 
 tain the restoration of their natural rights — "the rights of industry" — the 
 liberty of exchanging, in the most advantageous manner they can, the 
 products of their own labour for those of the labour of others — and they 
 will gain all they seek. By the simple exercise of those rights, under the 
 free play, in all other respects, of the ordinary rules, habits, and maxims 
 of civilized society — without asking favour of one body of men, or at- 
 tempting to enforce their purposes upon another — without any combina- 
 tion, except that insensible self-combination of all the parts of national 
 association which takes place when their affinities are left to their natural 
 action — by the simple exercise, I say, of the indisputable rights of indus- 
 try, the working classes will obtain that full measure of the " necessaries 
 and comforts of life,'' which is appropriate to the existing state of the 
 sciences, in agriculture and mechanics ; and they will also acquire a 
 direct interest in every fresh addition to those sciences ; because each ad- 
 vance and improvement will enable them to employ the increased means 
 of production, either to the purposes of more leisure, or to the purposes of 
 more emolument, according to their respective desires. When industry 
 shall have recovered its rights, all jealousies between the rich and the 
 poor — all invidious distinctions between the productive and the non-pro- 
 ductive — all cant about the useful and the useless — will cease ; and in 
 their place will be revived the older and better sentiment of the sacred- 
 ness of property and of respect for superiors. Let property withdraw 
 itself into its proper limits, and relinquish all its usurpations ; and let there 
 be nothing factitious in superiority of station, and we shall see physical 
 power and moral power always harmonizing with each other. If the 
 working classes shall be thought to have lost any portion of their accus- 
 tomed respect for the rights of property, it is solely in consequence of the 
 unintelligible difficulties in which they find themselves placed by the 
 attacks which property makes upon the rights of industry. Their. under- 
 standings are perplexed and mystified by their situation ; and, as the 
 blows they receive are inflicted by property, they are almost led to attri- 
 bute to it an inherent evil quality. But the property of one man cannot, 
 under equal laws, operate any injury to another. It can be no injury to 
 me that a particular man is owner of a particular part of my country as 
 his exclusive estate, provided he be contented with it for its true worth, 
 and leave me in quiet possession of any property which I may happen to 
 own. But if he tell me, that his property is of so peculiar a nature that it 
 entitles him to take from me some of mine, in order to make his the more 
 valuable ; and, above all, if my property consist solely in my labour, then 
 there may be some risk that I may be seduced into an opinion, that pro- 
 perty is a sort of noxious matter, and a nuisance which I may fairly 
 endeavour to abate. 
 There is nothing in Mr. Owen's scheme of society which is not of the
 
 15 
 
 very essence of society, in its national form. He proposes that a large 
 body of people shall agree together to employ themselves in the manner 
 which shall produce the greatest quantity of ease and comfort for them 
 all. Tlie people of this country would spontaneously fall into the very 
 division of employments which would produce this consequence, if they 
 were left to themselves. It is only because the pictured results of Mr. 
 Owen's plan are the proper results of a well-constituted society as a 
 nation, and therefore natural to the imagination, that it has attracted any 
 attention. There is a consciousness of the perfection to which common 
 society might be brought, if all men would perform their respective parts ; 
 and the mind dwells with pleasure on descriptions of new arrangements 
 that are to produce a degree of happiness which it feels ought not to be 
 unattainable. The wild schemes, which are occasionally proposed for 
 removing the evils of society, are generated by that wildest of all, by 
 which those very evils are produced — the scheme of officious legislative 
 management of men's affairs in their private, and not their public, 
 capacities. It is by such a system, and by that alone, that industry is 
 deprived of its rights. It is not by such a system that the rights of pro- 
 perty are maintained ; perhaps they are endangered by it. 
 
 I have indulged in these general observations out of the great anxiety I 
 feel that the " Society for promoting National Regeneration" should have 
 a just conception of that true "regeneration" which the simple reduction 
 to practice of sound principles of trade must produce. It is necessary 
 thus to keep before them the end and object of these letters ; but the 
 manner in which that object will chiefly be pursued will be, by bringing 
 out into prominent view some of those strong features of the question 
 at issue, which, as it appears to me, have been much overlooked in all the 
 discussions upon it. 
 
 There are parts of the subject of taxation which stand in the obscurity 
 alluded to, although bearing strongly upon the question of protection. 
 The magnitude of the National Debt, and the necessity it creates of rais- 
 ing a large revenue by taxes, is constantly assigned as the principal rea- 
 son — and often as the only reason, for our protective system. By none 
 more than the landed interest is this plea advanced ; and as the various 
 trades, which continue to call for protection to themselves, often declare 
 that they do so solely because of the protectionconceded to agriculture, the 
 subject may be examined with reference to the land alone. The plea for 
 the Corn Act is, the great amount of the taxes levied for the purpose of 
 paying the interest on the loans raised during the late war to defray the 
 expenses of it : for it is not pretended that the debt, as it stood before the 
 war, would furnish any ground for such a plea. Why, under any circum- 
 stances whatever, the landed interest is not to pay any part of these 
 taxes, or to be indemnified for what they do pay, I am wholly at a loss 
 to conjecture ; but when the real circumstances of the case come to be 
 investigated, it will be found, that if it can be fair for any interest of the 
 country to be invested with a power of indemnifying itself for its own 
 portion of that burden, by making surcharges upon another interest, then, 
 I say, that the trading interest would be entitled to throw their share of 
 the burden upon the land; and I am not afraid of establishing this pro- 
 position, supposing that such a species of favouritism could be allowed. 
 The efforts made, and the adroitness employed by every branch of trade 
 to throw off from itself the burden of any tax affecting its transactions, 
 are the subject of common observation ; and provided that none be armed 
 against their neighbours with any law for that purpose, the various parties 
 may be left to adjust the matter among them as they can. But, even in 
 the absence of any such law, there is one most important interest in this
 
 16 
 
 country, on whose back some of the burden, beyond its own share, after 
 it has been shifted from shoulder to shoulder a dozen deep, must ulti- 
 mately fall, and there rest. I allude to our export manufactures. This 
 country, as compared with any other in the world, is a rich, high-priced 
 country. The parties, therefore, who raise, or make the commodities, 
 which are wholly consumed at home, may measure their respective exac- 
 tions by the scale of English prices * ; but they who make the surplus 
 which must be exported, are forced to conform to the scale of foreie;n 
 prices. When, therefore, the burden has reached these parties it will 
 remain upon them as the last in the rank, having none beyond them upon 
 whom they can throw it. But although they cannot throw on the 
 foreigner any portion of that burden, they can receive from him the succour 
 and support which will enable them to bear it, if they are not precluded 
 from doing so by any arbitrary restraint — such as that which they suffer 
 under the Corn Act. Thus it appears, that in the absence even of all 
 protection to agriculture, the landed interest have not only the advantages 
 pointed out in my last letter, as sellers of their own goods, and as 
 buyers of the goods of others, but they have also the advantage of being 
 able to shift from themselves a large part of the burden of the taxes which 
 they appear to bear. Unless, therefore, it can be broadly propounded as 
 a principle, that the landed interest, like the old privileged classes in 
 France, whom they would do well to remember, ought to be relieved from 
 the fiscal burdens of the State, it will be impossible to maintain that the 
 National Debt can be a plea for the Corn Act. 
 
 And here I must explain the peculiar difficulty which I have in dis- 
 cussing this great subject. I consider the Corn Act to be the most 
 signal failure that can be found in the domestic history of the country ; 
 because I entertain no doubt, that if the ports had been thrown open at 
 the end of the war for the admission of corn, duty free, or at a moderate 
 duty, for the sake only of revenue, the prosperity of our trade would have 
 been such as to have secured to the farmers a much better price for their 
 produce than they are now obtaining. To say, therefore, as I distinctly 
 do, that the Corn Act raises the price of agricultural produce suflBciently 
 to indemnify the landed interest for all the taxes which fall, in the first 
 instance, either upon their trade or upon their personal consumption, 
 sounds like a contradictory assertion. But still such is the case ; because, 
 taking the trade in its present depressed and limited state, and taking the 
 prices of agricultural produce at what they would be without a Corn Bill, 
 if trade still remained in that state, the Corn Bill does add to those prices 
 a sum which, in the aggregate, is more than equal to all the state taxe^ 
 paid in any shape by the landed interest. In saying this I say no more 
 than they say themselves; the protection they cling to reaches them only 
 in the form of increased prices of corn and meat ; and as we may almost 
 despair of their discovering that they might have those prices, and better 
 too, without protection, it is necessary to try the justice of their claims 
 upon their own showing, lest we fail of convmcing them of their impolicy. 
 
 Upon the commonest principles of justice, and even supposing that 
 there had been nothing peculiar to the case of the landed interest in the 
 circumstances under which the national debt accumulated during the 
 late war, they can have no claim to be exonerated from payment of their 
 share of the interest of it, by means of a law which should enable them to 
 make heavy surcharges upon the other branches of the community. Upon 
 a little examination, however, properly directed to the true points of the 
 
 * These parties, at all events, think so, which is enough for the present argument ; 
 but they will find themselves mistaiien in the long run.
 
 17 
 
 question, it will be seen that the landed interest is the very last in the 
 coinitry which should object to bear its portion of that burthen. 
 
 My proposition is this. — The expenses of the state during tlie war v" ere 
 enormously incrtased l)y a coiileniporaneous enhancement of the prices 
 of all agricultural produce ; the loans raised to defray those expenses 
 were proportionately the larger ; and in the expenditure of those loans, a 
 very great part of them passed into the pockets of the landed interest in 
 the shape of extraordinary profits. 
 
 I shall conclude that the two first branches of this proposition will need 
 no proof. Neither can it be doubted that a large portion of the loans 
 was paid away in extraordinary prices for corn, meat, timber, &c., or 
 that the general expenditure of the Government, as well as that of every 
 individual in the country, was greatly increased by the high prices of 
 agricultural produce. The only question therefore is, whether those 
 prices gave extraordinary profits to the landed interest ; or, in other 
 words, whether the cause of those high prices lay in the cost of produc- 
 tion, or in some incidental extraneous circumstances. 
 
 The war broke out in 1 793 — and in 1792 we had exported a consider- 
 able quantity of corn — the average price of wheat being then under 44s. 
 the quarter. The war, therefore, Ijegan upon low prices and a surplus 
 produce : and as the era of peace had closed with a year of exportation, 
 we have pretty good proof that, previously to the war, British and foreign 
 prices could not have widely differed from each other. In a short time 
 afterwards importation upon a large scale commenced, accompanied by 
 a great rise of prices, and by every other indication, that a demand had 
 sprung up which our home agriculture was totally unable to satisfy. 
 That this demand was real and permanent is proved by the quantities 
 imported during a long series of years ; that it was an efficient demand 
 is proved by the prices given : — that it was caused by an increased con- 
 sumption and not by any falling off of our home produce, is proved by 
 the whole history of our agriculture during the war, which gives one con- 
 tinued account of agricultural success and proclaimed improvements. 
 
 With a demand so urgent, and with a power of purchasing so effectual, 
 the consumption price of the corn derived from abroad would depend 
 solely upon the amount of the charges of importation which were to be 
 added to the foreign cost. By reason of circumstances peculiar to the 
 late war, as distinguished from all former wars, those charges were ren- 
 dered particularly heavy ; and as there could not, of course, be two prices 
 for the same commodity in one market, the amount of those charges was 
 added to the natural price of English corn, although not one shilling of 
 them was incurred upon it. 
 
 This was the sole cause of the "war prices" of our agricultural 
 produce; and when we consider that upon the strength of those prices 
 rents were doubled, and in many cases trebled, while the affluent ciicum- 
 stances of the tenantry was the subject of general remark, I think that 
 we need have little dltliculty in deciding, that the cause of those prices was 
 wholly independent of the cost of production, and that they did confer 
 on the Landed Interest an enormous amount of extraordinary — that is, 
 of unusual and unearned — profits. If any further proof of the true cause 
 of the high prices of British corn during the war were wanting, it might 
 be found in the fact, that the fall in those prices which took place irinne- 
 diately after the war was accurately measured by the reduction of the 
 charges of importation ; and, what is very remarkable, and must throw 
 some doubt over the opinion that the high prices were materially attribu- 
 table to the depreciation of our ciUTcncy, is, that as the price of foreign 
 corn fell, and with it the price of British corn, the prices of all our manu- 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 factures and colonial produce, although we held of them enormous stocks, 
 erreatly rose, and together with them, the value of our paper currency 
 rose also, in the face of an increased issue to a considerable amount. 
 These are undisputed facts. I cannot here undertake to reason upon 
 them, but I think it so necessary to divest the corn question of all the 
 false colouring under which it has been constantly presented to public 
 view, that if you will permit me, I will at another time endeavour to show, 
 that however much embarrassed other interests might have been by the 
 high price of gold in the last years of the war, the effect of that price was 
 beneficial to the landed interest ; it worked/or them, while it was work- 
 ing against all the other interests of the country. 
 
 I have now delivered in my "Bill of Charges" against the Landed 
 Interest, upon account of the National Debt; and I debit them with 
 some hundred millions. They have had the money; had they taken care 
 of it, it would have been better for the country as well as for themselves ; 
 for, by their extravagant expenditure as income of such immense sums, 
 which were more properly of the nature of principal, they unwholesomely 
 increased the whole scale of our transactions, both public and private ; 
 and they raised the interest of money against the State by a constant 
 dispersion of capital, after it had actually collected itself in their hands. 
 The great body of landowners ought at this day to be the principal stock- 
 holders. The two terms should be almost synonymous ; and instead of 
 the word "mortgage," being the echo of the word "land," the posses- 
 sion of an estate of " five thousand a year" should imply the accom- 
 paniment of " fifty thousand consols." All mortgages ought certainly 
 to have been paid off during the prevalence of " war prices ;" but, instead 
 of seizing so fair and unlooked-for an opportunity of clearing their estates, 
 the landowners exhibited their enlarged rentals only as security for more 
 advances ; and they became competitors with the state in the money- 
 market as borrowers, when they ought to have entered it as the principal 
 lenders. 
 
 I am. Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 H. B. T. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Morning Chronicle, \^th January, 1834. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, Januarrj 15, 1834. 
 
 The more particular purpose of my last letter was to show that 
 the landed interest was the very last interest in the country which should 
 pretend to found a claim to protection upon the magnitude of the National 
 Debt. I then proved, first, that it was their inability to supply the country 
 sufficiently with agricultural produce during the war that caused the debt 
 to become so large; and next, that all the excess so created went into 
 their pockets, in the shape of extraordinary and unearned profits upon 
 the quantity of agricultural produce which they did supply. In following 
 out this subject, I was naturally led to the confines of the bullion question 
 — in which the landed interest discover fresh grounds for relieving them- 
 selves from the public burdens — and towards the close of the letter I 
 asserted, that the high price of gold, during the last years of the war, 
 worked for the landed interest, while it was working against every other 
 interest in the country. I now propose to prove the validity of this 
 assertion.
 
 19 
 
 The subject is peculiarly relevant, not only because of the nature of its 
 facts, but also because of the conduct of the landed interest themselves, 
 and of the o;eneral tenor of the observations upon it, which we have been 
 occasionally hearincj from them, ever since the war was over and the time 
 of borrowing had ceased. There is no distinguishable body of tlie people 
 from whom, so much as from the landed interest, has proceeded a strain 
 of insinuations dangerous to the public creditor, and injurious to the 
 national faith. Language, not merely pointing to resistance, but even of 
 opprobrium and contempt has been used by them towards the fundholder, 
 who, though he has escaped their direct plunder, has not escaped their 
 abuse. When the failure of the first extravagant Coin Act became 
 apparent, was not the sponge plainly hinted at as the next remedy ? Did 
 we not hear it said in absolute allusion to insolvency, that " the country 
 was not to be expected to perform impossibilities ?" Were we not also 
 frequently asked, whether the old families of the kingdom were to sit 
 quiet until a parcel of sordid, upstart money-lenders should push them 
 from their paternal seats ? And, next, when the honourable feeling of 
 the country revolted at such suggestions, what was then their selfish 
 schemes? who so strenuous as the landed interest to force upon us a 
 base currency, in order that they might pay both the fundholder and 
 their own mortgagee in false money? While such sentiments co-exist 
 with political power, the country is hardly safe. The French nation, after 
 a long and patient second trial of their old dynasty, drove them at length 
 from the throne, solely because they proved to the last to be irreclaimable 
 pretenders to divine rii^ht. Had the French family and their personal 
 adherents been faithful to the conditions of their return, and renounced in 
 their hearts as well as in their words pretensions wholly disowned by the 
 people who received them, Charles the Tenth v/ould now have been 
 reigning — a popular monarch over satisfied subjects; the King of the 
 Netherlands would have still had an undivided kingdom under his sway, 
 and Poland woidd have remained quiet under institutions which, what- 
 ever might be the theoretical objections to them, were working much 
 practical good towards a population deficient in the arts of industry and 
 commerce. These are serious lessons, and it is always useful to practise 
 the mind in conceiving what different turn affairs v/ould have taken, under 
 the supposition of the reversal of some event of powerful influence which 
 had occurred. It certainly seems plain that all the political mischief we 
 have witnessed in the last three years may be traced to that single folly of 
 the French family, in perpetually harbouring hopes and betraying desires 
 and intentions of re-establishing, by the first opportunity, the principle 
 of divine right ; and if our aristocracy think that, in virtue of some analo- 
 gous hereditary claims, as lords of the soil, they are to perpetuate their 
 families and their patrimonies by any other means than their own pru- 
 dent management of their estates, according to their intrinsic values, they 
 may some day be repudiated for sentiments equally inconsistent with the 
 natural rights and the common sense of mankind. They have the good 
 fortune of being placed among a people strongly attached to them by dis- 
 position and by habit, and who are sensible of the advantages, while they 
 delight in the splendour, of a high and hereditary nobility ; and, thereibre, 
 if disagreement ensue, there can be no doubt as to the side on which the 
 fault, as well as the chief suffering, must lie. But the people delight in 
 the splendour of their nobility, only in the contemplation that it is main- 
 tained by the intrinsic resources of their own broad possessions. If the 
 -people, rich or poor, are made to support that splendour from their own 
 means, they must cease to respect it. The landed interest, to be secure, 
 must not touch either the poor man's loaf or the rich man's consols, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 
 
 neither may Ihey resort lo the expedient of clipping and coining. No- 
 thing short of some mental inflation, similar to notions of divine right, 
 could suggest the absurd as well as monstrous idea, that the monied inte- 
 rest should be cut down, lest they should have the means of purchasing 
 land when the pecuniary situation of the owner made him desirous of 
 selling it. 
 
 The national debt is set forth as the reason for a Corn Act, upon two 
 separate grounds. First, its quantity alone is advanced as aground for 
 j)rotection : this I have already dealt with. Next, its quality, the nature 
 of its composition, is objected to ; and into this 1 am about to inquire. 
 
 It is charged against the monied interest by the landed interest, that 
 the fundholder lent only depreciated bank notes, and that, therefore, he 
 has not any just claim to be repaid in sterling money. This argument is 
 chiefly founded upon the very high price of gold, computed in bank notes, 
 which prevailed during the last five or six years of the war; and my 
 answer to it, for them at least, is, that that high price of gold was, to 
 them, a fertile source of extraordinary profits, such as must form, in 
 their case, an ample set-off against the evil consequences they point out. 
 The subject lies in a small compass. It has been shown that the price 
 of English corn was raised, during the war, pa7'i passu,wi[h the expenses 
 attending the importation of foreign corn. Now one of the most material 
 ingredients of those expenses was the high price of gold. If we examine 
 the question with the illustrative aid of assumed sums, in figures, the 
 amount will stand somewhat in the following manner: — The depreciation 
 of the currency may be taken at twenty-five per cent, ; the finance minis- 
 ter, therefore, must be supposed to have raised a loan of twenty -five 
 millions, when twenty millions would otherwise have been sufficient for 
 him. But then, if this additional five millions went, as I contend it did, 
 directly into the pockets of the landed interest, without any equivalent 
 consideration from them, they received their indemnification for the 
 excess; the account, upon the score of the depreciation, was settled with 
 them at the time, and they can have no after claim upon that ground. 
 The question then is, whether this five millions did go into their pockets 
 in the manner I have stated. 
 
 Every merchant remembers the great difficulty which, at the time re- 
 ferred to, attended the remittance of funds to the Continent to pay for 
 our imports ; and that, to exorbitant freights and heavy insurances, 
 which, under the circumstances of the intercourse, were well earned by 
 the parties who received them, there was to be added the loss on the 
 foreign exchanges, or, in other words, the diflPerence between the Mint 
 price and the market-price of gold, in making up the amount of charges 
 upon foreign corn. But although, in respect of English corn, which was 
 already at home, there was of course no freight, no insurance, no remit- 
 tance, still all the charges ujjon foreign corn under those heads, including 
 the difference between the Mint price and the market-price of gold, were 
 simultaneously added to every quarter of English corn, as fully and 
 specifically, shilling for shilling, as if the identical quarter had formed 
 part of the cargo of the " Vrouw Wilhelmina, Jansen, Master, from 
 Dantzick," 
 
 Let the market-prices of gold from 1797 to 1815 be examined, and an 
 account be made out of the sums by which the respective loans, received 
 in bank notes, were greater than they would have been if received in 
 gold; and then compare, year by year, the ascertained excess of those 
 loans with an equal per centage increase upon the prices of all the agri- 
 cultural produce of the country computed m gold. If a debtor and cre- 
 ditor account of this nature were made out, the landed interest would be
 
 21 
 
 chargeable with a heavy balance, because it will be found that the prices 
 of agricultural produce, even when computed in gold, were enorraously 
 high. By an irresistible operation of commerce it must have occurred, 
 that the necessity we were under of importing large quantities of foreign 
 corn, which could not be obtained without indemnifying the foreign 
 seller for any depreciation in our currency, that is to say, for any difference 
 between the market and the mint price of gold with us, would enable the 
 home-grower to demand the same indemnification for himself. When one 
 foreign hand was held out to receive the computed sum, twenty English 
 hands were thrust forward at the same time, with the same demand, and 
 the same sum was put into each of them. 
 
 The immense importance to us of the single fact, that the national 
 agriculture proved to be inadequate to the feeding of the people during the 
 war, has never been properly adverted to ; and, consequently , the true cha- 
 racter and operation of that fact has escaped observation. Strange to say, a 
 case of absolute want and palpable distress was mistaken for prosperity. 
 To a portion of the people, no doubt, it brought great prosperity, but to 
 the nation it was positive loss, the amount of which is now represented 
 in the form of perhaps a full fourth of our present national debt. To 
 the makers of gunpowder, the manufacturers of muskets and cannons, 
 and to the holders of saltpetre or naval stores, the breaking out of a 
 war is the legitimate promise of a new harvest of profits ; but not so to 
 the farmer. The prices of the peculiar materials of war may naturally 
 rise with the occurrence of war, but the general food of a people need 
 not rise also*, unless, indeed, their country should become the seat of 
 hostilities. If we were to trace the occurrences of the war, and test 
 them by the supposition that the agricultural produce of the country — 
 which was abundant up to the commencement of it — had continued to 
 be equal to the demand, or nearly so, we should see that some of the 
 greatest difficulties of our situation would have been avoided, or much 
 alleviated. By nothing was the country more embarrassed than by the 
 necessity we were under of placing large funds on the Continent, both 
 for state and for commercial purposes, during the war, and particularly 
 in the last five or six years of it, when our merchants were prevented, by 
 the Berlin and Milan Decrees, from rendermg their merchandize — as it 
 always ought, alone, to be — the medium of remittance : and it will easily 
 be comprehended, how greatly their difficulties must have been increased 
 by the additional necessity of making remittances in payment for foreign 
 corn. The landed interest cannot suppose that I am upbraiding them 
 for this deficiency of their produce, or that I insinuate blame to (hem 
 for accepting the enormous profils which, from such causes, incidentally 
 fell into their hands. But I charge them with ridiculous arrogance, for 
 boasting that they mainly assisted in carrying the country through the 
 war; and with the blackest ingratitude for turning round upon the 
 country, in the manner they did, as soon as it was over. If the true 
 nature of the case had been understood at the time, nothing could have 
 been more just than to have restored, or ratiier preserved, in some degree, 
 the proper balance between the different interests of the country, by the 
 imposition of a very heavy tax upon land. Any charge that was clearly 
 less than the unusual portion of the expenses of importation on foreign 
 corn, would have been easily borne without the least derangement of our 
 agricultine. The only effect wovdd have been to have prevented a most 
 uncalled-for increase of rents. The country might, with great propriety, 
 have held this language to the agriculturists; the calamilies of war ,and 
 
 ■■^ III the American war the value of land was very much depressed.
 
 22 
 
 the difficulties under whidi the nation is labourinG:, Iiave an incidieTrlzfl 
 tendency to tlirow great and most unnecessary profits, at the public cost, 
 into your hands; it is, therefore, only an act of justice to the pubhcto- 
 eall upon you to restore some of those profits to the nation, for the 
 purposes of that state of warfare which is the sole cause and source of 
 them. Nothing of this kind was attempted, nor is any sort of restitu- 
 tion desired ; Ijut when the benefitted party complains, the losing j)arty 
 may well desire an investigation of the accounts between them. It is 
 the particular purpose of thiese letters to examine those accounts, in 
 order that the relative situations of the several great interests of the 
 country — the agricultural, the trading, and the moneyed interests — may 
 be thoroughly understood, 
 
 I am confident that I cannot be wrong in saying, that the agriculturists 
 were mderanified, in the price of their i)roduce, for every shilling by 
 which the National Debt v/as increased in consequence of the difference 
 between the Mint price and the market price of gold, and that therefore 
 they, of all people, alioiild be the last to object to bearing their share of 
 the common taxation out of which the interest of the debt is paid. 
 Nor was this advantage confined to the landed interest, although few 
 others had the opportunity of enjoying it; but every trade which raised 
 er manufactured an article, of which the home supply was so much below 
 the demand that the consumers were compelled to have recourse to- 
 importation, was enabled to add to the price of that article all the extra- 
 ordinary charges of freight and insurance, as well as the loss in pur- 
 chasing gold for remittance, which were necessarily incurred in bringing 
 the like description of goods from abroad. 
 
 The difficulties which the merchants were under in making foreign 
 payments were peculiar to the description of warfare we were carrying 
 on. It was not that they were deficient in exportable commodities 
 suitable to the purposes of remittance, both in quality and in price ; but 
 solely that they could not obtain admission for their goods into the con- 
 tinental ports, by reason of impediments of a warlike, and not of a com- 
 mercial nature. 
 
 This, however, is a different subject, worthy perhaps of more consider- 
 ation than has been bestowed upon it in any of the discussions upon our 
 currency. I am not now investigating the cause of the high price of 
 gold during the war, but the effect of it upon the prices of our own 
 agricultural produce ; and I trust I have shown, that in those prices the 
 landed interest were amply indemnified for all the increase which may 
 have been made to the National Debt in consequence of the difference 
 between the Mint price and ihe market price of gold. They were 
 indemnified in the most direct and most perfect manner that can be 
 imagined ; they received the money itself, and more than the money. 
 The rate of the indemnification was exact; and the sufficiency of the 
 aggregate amount of it will never be doubted by any man who will only 
 ask himself the question, whether one-fifth of all our agricultural pro- 
 duction was not, as prices at that time were, represented by a much 
 larger sum than the amount of one-fifth of the contemporaneous loan. 
 
 But this is not all — there is another point of view in which the picture 
 is to be seen, where it will disclose fresh advantages enjoyed by the 
 landed interest at the period of our greatest difficulties, not only exclu- 
 sively, but derived directly — though incidentally, still positively derived — 
 out of the very misfortunes which those difficulties brought upon other 
 interests. 
 
 The foreign adventurer came here with a cargo of corn, for which he 
 considered himself amply remunerated by the clear intrinsic sum of
 
 23 
 
 £800, that is to say, for example, £500 for the shipping price at Dantzic, 
 and £300 to cover freight and insurance fo London. He demanded, 
 however, and did receive. Bank notes to the amount of i^l,000, which he 
 converted into £800 in gold, and witli that gold he returned to his own 
 country. This he did, not because he could not, with even £800 in 
 Bank notes, have purchased colonial produce and English manufactures, 
 which would have made him a much richer man when he got back than 
 he would be with his gold, but simply and solely because he knew that 
 he would be prevented, by military force, from introducing those goods 
 into the Continent. Not only, therefore, did the £200 additional money 
 vanish from him in consequence of his returns being confined to gold, 
 but, when he got home, he was forced to give for such goods five 
 times as much in gold as he could have purchased them for, when he was 
 here, in Bank notes. 
 
 Now we are to observe, that it was precisely because the foreigner was 
 placed in this situation that the English agriculturist received £1,000 for 
 the like quantity of his corn : let us then see how he was circumstanced 
 in his expenditure of that sum. I appeal again to the recollections of 
 our merchants, whether our warehouses were not, at the time in question, 
 groaning with sugar and coffee, and all manner of our own colonial produce, 
 as well as with foreign tropical productions, remitted as payments to 
 some unfortunate exporters of British manufactures ; and, also, whether 
 those manufactures were not held here in immense quantities, for want 
 of their natural markets, and at prices ruinous beyond measure to the 
 makers and holders of them. Every man who had any acquaintance 
 with our commercial affairs in the last five or six years of the war, knows 
 well that such was the ease. Into so depressed a market, therefore, for 
 all such commodities did the English agriculturist go as a purchaser, 
 supplied with funds extravagantly enlarged, not only incidentally while 
 that market happened to be so low, but positively rendered large by the 
 very cause which made it so low- An idea, and a most mistaken one 
 it is, very generally prevails, that during the high price of gold all com- 
 modities were dear ; but the mercantile and manufacturing interests 
 knew, but too well, that nothing scarcely was dear at that time, with 
 reference to the cost of production, except agricultural produce, and 
 those other commodities which, if imported, were imported solely for 
 consumption; and also, that the cause of that dearness lay in the 
 expenses of importation, and the loss in remitting money to the Continent 
 occasioned by the impediments to exportation. If we set aside the 
 medium of money, whether in paper or in gold, and measure the prices 
 of our manufactures and colonial produce by the quantity of agricultural 
 produce, for which they could be exchanged at that time, we shall see, 
 that the degree in which the landed interest revelled, both in the dis- 
 tresses and because of the distresses of the manufacturing, colonial, and 
 commercial interests— all except the shipping interest — was so great, 
 tliat it is now a matter worthy of astonishment how the country was able 
 to support the burthen of the war and the burthen of the land at the 
 same time. 
 
 Still I say and repeat, that these are no grounds of complaint or re- 
 proach against the landed interest, nor would they be adverted to, except 
 as curious historical and statistical facts, exhibiting the vicissitudes of 
 good and bad fortune to different classes of society, if, when the war was 
 over, and the cause of such derangements had ceased, the fortunate class 
 had been contented with what had passed, and had not refused to loosen 
 their grasp, and let go their hold of the unfortunate classes. The various 
 schemes and expedients to which the landed interest have re&orted, ox
 
 24 
 
 entleavonred to veso'.t, in order 1o avoitl bcariiiir any share of the public 
 burthen wliich the war iias left upon tlie country, render it absolutely 
 necessary that their pretensions to exemption should be sifted tothe bot- 
 tom. Perhaps they have never comprehended l heir real position — perhaps, 
 when they do comprehend it, they will relent and be just. 
 
 I am. Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 H. B. T. 
 
 No. V. 
 Morning Chronicle, 27th January, 1834. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, January 25, 1834. 
 
 The working classes, who are the great body of the people, are, 
 because they are the great body, more interested in the establishment of 
 sound principles, upon extensive subjects, than the other and far less 
 numerous portion of society can be. The distinction between the two 
 classes, with reference to the several effects upon them of good or bad 
 general systems, is somewhat liUe that which exists between the extensive 
 productions of the field and the limited productions of the garden with 
 reference to the influence of the weather ; the first are openly exposed to 
 the effects of the prevailing season, while the latter may be sheltered in 
 a variety of ways. So long as the faults in the political economy of a 
 great nation are confined to trifling objects, they are like the little indis- 
 cretions of diet committed by persons of strong constitution — they do 
 harm, no doubt, though it passes by unheeded. But when an extensive 
 subject, like that of Corn, or like that of Currency, to which I am about, 
 to advert, is wrongly treated, the evil consequences will break out ; and 
 then, the great body of the people — the working classes — will be the chief 
 sufferers. My friends of the " Society for promoting National Regene- 
 ration" must not think that I am forgetting their cause, while 1 am only 
 trying an "issue out of Court," upon which much of their cause depends. 
 They have escaped great peril in the attempts which have been made to 
 debase our currency ; but although those attempts have hitherto failed, 
 through an opposition highly creditable to the honour of our country, still 
 we must renaember that the project was not rejected upon any disproof of the 
 grounds upon which it was proposed, and that the fact of a former depre- 
 ciation seems now to be admitted on all sides. If the validity of that 
 admission is to remain an undisputed record, future assaults, made in limes 
 of pecuniary pressure, may prove too strong for our viitue; and I shall, 
 therefore, offer in this letter the sugijestion of some doubts upon the 
 subject, which may, perhaps, be thought worthy of serious consideration. 
 
 The proposition in my last letter did not depend upon the hypothesis of 
 depreciation. I was content there to assume the fact, or even to admit 
 its truth ; all 1 had to prove was, that the landed interest were fully in- 
 demnified for tiie difference between the market-price and the mint-price 
 of gold, let the cause of that difference be what it may. I now shall 
 examine the question of depreciation itself. 
 
 In order that we may bring the question at issue before us in as plain 
 and succinct a manner as possible, a few matters must be premised — a 
 lew definitions settled — and a few admissions agreed upon. But first I 
 must make a declaration of faith. I am a true disciple of the school of
 
 25 
 
 Currency, of which Mr. Huskisson may he deemed the leader* ; I swear 
 by the principles of his celebrated work, and I pledtre myself to advance 
 no theory' — to employ no doctrine, except such as it was the object of his 
 labours to establish. We shall differ only upon facts. The prmciples of 
 the writers who opposed him in the heat of the controversy I totally reject. 
 It is not, however, for the sake only of making this declaration that I draw 
 attention to that treatise ; — I do it chiefly for the advantage of the brevity 
 and distinctness, with which I may be able to place in a prominent point 
 of view the proposition I hope to establish, if I lay its foundation upon the 
 details of a work which has long been before the public, and from which the 
 public may be said to have chiefly drawn the opinions upon currency they 
 now universally entertain. Mr. Huskisson's pamphlet was published 
 shortly after the delivery of the Bullion Report of June, 1810. He had 
 been a member of the committee by whom that report was made, and he 
 wrote wilh the avowed purpose of supporting its doctrines with a sort of 
 supplement of details, such as could not well be introduced into the par- 
 liamentary document. 
 
 Let us, then, consider what the doctrine of depreciation is, according 
 to these authorities. 
 
 Depreciation of a local currency is an effect of which a redundant quan- 
 tity of circulating medium is the cause. The test of the redundancy, and 
 the measure of it, are to be found in the course of mercantile transactions 
 with foreigners. 
 
 ^ - When a local currency is redundant, it causes the prices of commodities, 
 in the country where it occurs, to be raised above their proper level with 
 relation to other countries. 
 
 The general level of prices in the world is determined by the totalstock - 
 of the precious metals. The proper level in each particular country de- 
 pends upon the proportionate share of that stock, which it is able to com- 
 mand, by means of its relative power of producing, cheaply and abun- 
 dantly, commodities which are desirable in other countries. 
 
 Although the total stock of the precious metals governs the prices of 
 commodities, so that those prices are always reckoned or expressed in the 
 precious metals; still, that stock may be economized, and in effect expanded, 
 either by means of direct barter, as in some cases ; or, as in other cases, 
 by trustings, and by transferable credits, so managed as to be indirectly 
 equivalent to barter — since, by such methods of dealing, men are enabled 
 to pass commodities from one to another, to a very great amount, with- 
 out the intervention of the precious metals. These transferable credits 
 have come in time to assume the form of " bank notes," actually perso- 
 nating the very metals themselves, and performing the functions of coins 
 in the country in which they circulate ; and their operation upon prices is 
 the same as that of an increase of the stock of the precious metals. 
 
 But as bank notes are always local, if they be anywhere issued in an 
 undue quantity, the prices of commodities in the country where they 
 circulate will be raised above their proper level; that is, above the level 
 at which they ought to be in that country, in due relation to the prices in 
 other countries, with reference to its own power of commanding a supply 
 of precious metals, by means of its surplus productions, suitable, in 
 description and in price, to the markets of other countries. •' 
 
 A country having such an excess of circulating medium loses its com- 
 mand over the precious metals in its coin ; and it is only enabled to 
 obtain those metals, for the purposes of commerce, by the same means 
 
 * I would here include Mr. Ricardo and Mr. Mustielt — they will be siiflficient 
 representatives of acodeof doctrines which they assisted in advocating with great skill.
 
 26 
 
 RS il obtains other articles of merchandize — namely, by paying for it an 
 tidviinced price proportioned to the redundancy of its local currency: and 
 the price so given is the measure of the depreciation. 
 
 This is a sufficient exposition of the principle of currency and of the 
 first cause of depreciation, and it is perfectly consistent with the doctrines 
 of the buUionists. We now come to the practical operations, or secondary 
 causes ; and in describing them the bullionists again shall be my guide. 
 
 When the prices of all commodities have been raised in a particular 
 country by a redundant quantity of circulating medium, its markets 
 become attractive to foreigners as sellers, but repulsive to them as buyers ; 
 and importers return home with gold instead of goods, because they can 
 purchase no goods in that country at a price for which they will be reim- 
 bursed in their own country. If the issuing bank could continue to pay 
 its notes on demand, these importers would continue to drive a most 
 profitable trade ; but, as this is impossible, we will at once suppose — 
 what was our own case — that the paper currency is not convertible into 
 coin ; and then the two following consequences will shortly ensue : — 
 first, the stock of gold in the market will be sensibly reduced ; and next, 
 the stock of those goods which are produced for the export trade will 
 accumulate. In a little time after this the price of gold will have risen 
 so much as to destroy the profits apparently gained on the sale of the 
 foreign goods ; and then a third consequence will follow — namely, that 
 there will be a considerable check to importation. 
 
 This is a state of things which cannot be permanent. Trade never 
 stagnates long, and some part of such a combination must in time give 
 way. The manner m which the struggle will end, will determine the 
 extent of the depreciation, by fixing the terms on which the foreigner will 
 be willing, once more, to carry on commercial dealings with the country. 
 Either the distress, which the holder of exportable goods begins to feel, 
 from the want of a sale, will make him disposed to lower his prices ; or, 
 the want of importable goods will make the consumer ready to give the 
 foreigner a better price for them than he did before : or, few goods being 
 imported, gold will be less in demand for returns, and will become 
 cheaper ; and thus, the party who is wrong yielding in the contest, the 
 true relative values, computed in the local currency, of imports, of exports, 
 and of gold, will be ascertained ; commerce will resume its functions 
 upon an agreed basis, and goods, once more, will go in return for goods, 
 let the ascertained amount of the depreciation be what it may. The 
 foreigner cares nothing about the depreciation of your paper, provided 
 you allow him the proper discount. If you give him five-and-twenty per 
 cent, more than he wants for his goods, he will give you five-and-twenty 
 per cent, for your goods more than he considers them to be worth. But if 
 you ask him twenty- six per cent., he will leave them, and will buy gold 
 at twenty-five per cent, instead. In this way the value of the local paper 
 currency comes in time to be measured, side by side, with the intrinsic 
 metal currencies of the rest of the world ; and the degree of the deprecia- 
 tion is proclaimed in the public market-price of gold. 
 
 The moving cause of this result may be stated in a very short axiom, 
 which is this — that if you depreciate your currency by an excess of circu- 
 lating medium, the foreigner will give a preference to your gold over your 
 goods, up to the rate of the depreciation. It is not a preference to gold 
 over paper, for, were it so, he would barter his own goods for gold when 
 they came in ; but every merchant sells his goods, first, in the currency 
 of the country he carries them to ; and then he considers what he shall 
 buy with that currency to take back with him. This forces him to deter- 
 mine whether lie shall buy gold or goods ; and the terras upon which he
 
 prefers one to the other, evinces his estimation of the currency in which 
 he had sold his own sjoods. A mercantile preference can have but one 
 guide, and that is, a comparison between the respective prices of different 
 articles at the place where they are to be bought, with reference to their 
 respective prices at the place where they are to be sold. This is the 
 preference intended in the axiom ; and I request the reader's attention to 
 it, because it is the key to the question of depreciation, and we shall have 
 much use for it in the sequel. It is this description of preference which 
 was intended by Mr. Huskisson and all the bullionists. 
 
 Before I proceed to give to the foregoing observations that application, 
 for the sake of which they have been made, I shall take a short retrospect 
 of the period during the suspension of cash payments, in order that the 
 extent of the subject matter, as well as the question at issue upon it, may 
 be well understood. 
 
 The Order in Council, directing the suspension of cash payments, was 
 issued in February, 1797. No immediate rise, however, in the price of 
 gold succeeded that order; and in 1799 the Bank had so completely 
 recovered itself from the effects of those state measures which had, 
 indeed, alone brought it into difficulty, that they not only then proposed 
 to resume their payments, but solicited permission to do so, Mr. Pitt, 
 however, conceiving that the country might be called upon to make 
 exiraordinary efforts against the enemy, in which a command of the 
 specie might prove useful, resolved to continue the suspension upon po- 
 litical grounds ; and it must be acknowledged that the country was will- 
 ing to leave the management of its circulating medium to the discretion 
 of the Bank. In 1800, the market price of gold rose about three or four 
 per cent, above the Mint price ; but this was mainly caused by the " great 
 scarcity" consequent upon the bad harvest of the previous year, which led 
 to extensive and unusual impoitations of corn, at very high prices, and 
 requiring extraordinary remittances to foreign countries. In 1801, the 
 exchanges righted themselves as:ain, and little more was thought on the 
 subject till about the beginning of the year 1809. The Bullion Report 
 •was made in June 1810, and the Committee give no quotation of the 
 price of gold further back than the year 180G. They say that from 180e 
 till about the close of 1808, the price was 4/. the ounce, or about 1h per 
 €ent. above the Mint price; that it then begun to rise rapidly, until it 
 became about 15^ per cent, above the standard; and there it continued 
 up to the time of their Report. We know that there was, afterwards, a 
 considerable further rise, the excess being at, times even above 30 per 
 cent. ; but the average, from the close of 1808 to the close of 1814, may 
 be fairly taken at 2.) per cent. In the autumn of 1814, the exchanges 
 rose with great rapidity ; and, notwithstanding the fresh breaking out of 
 the war, which caused a relapse for a short time*, they recovered so 
 effectually soon after tlie final peace, that by the middle of 181G the 
 exchange upon Paris was a quarter per cent, in favour of London. The 
 fresh armaments all over Europe, which the return of Napoleon to 
 France gave occasion to, mnst have caused a most urgent demand for 
 gold for the supply of the various military chests ; and, added to the 
 general dismay of the time, may well account for the relapse in the price 
 which occurred in 1815. But the progress which had been made before 
 the end of 1814 in levelling tiie exchange, followed by the consummation 
 in the middle of 181(3, notwithstanding such a powerful interruption, is 
 
 * Upon the mere news of Napoleon's escape from Ellja the exchanges fell 10 
 per cent, in one day. This could be nothing but mercantile speculation, excited by 
 a recollection of what had been the state of things so recently before.
 
 28 
 
 sufficient to show, that if that interruption had not occurred, the level 
 would, in all probability, have been effected a full year the sooner. For 
 these reasons I divide Ihe term of the suspension into the three following 
 periods : — 
 
 The first period embraces about twelve years, viz. from February, 
 1797 to the close of 1808. During this time the market price of gold 
 was above the Mint price, on the average rather less than 2 per cent.; 
 and, when all the circumstancesof that period are considered, particularly 
 the irreatj occasion which Government had for placing funds in foreign 
 countries, the public will not quarrel much with the Bank for that small 
 excess. Indeed, it never would have been seriously thought of, if it had 
 not been for the great subsequent rise ; but the subject is usually argued, 
 as if gold had been exceedingly dear all through the term of the sus- 
 pension. 
 
 The second period in the division is one of six years, from the end of 
 1808 to the end of 1814, during which time the excess of market price 
 over Mint price may be computed, on the average, at 25 per cent. 
 
 The third period is that from the end of 1814 to the resumption of 
 cash payments, with which I have not any intention of meddling, although 
 I may illustrate my views of the general question by reference to some 
 of its features. 
 
 I now return to the discussion of that question, with reference to fhe 
 price of gold from the close of 1808 to the close of 1814. I should, 
 however, here remark, that the Bullion Report of 1810, and Mr. Huskis- 
 son's pamphlet which followed soon after, as well as the works of the 
 other writers alluded to, must be deemed, notwithstanding their earlier 
 dates, to be applicable to the whole of this period ; because the members 
 of the Committee and all other buUionists always gave them that sub- 
 sequent application. 
 
 1 have now faithfully stated the doctrine of the BuUionists, in which I 
 entirely agree, and I have truly related their explanation of the manner 
 in which an excessive issue of paper terminates in a high price of gold, 
 firmly believing that the effect whichthey predicate will always follow the 
 cause which they deprecate. We have now to apply that explanation 
 to the facts of the period we are about to examine, in order to see whe- 
 ther such a cause had then any existence. Let us then recur to our test. 
 — Was the price of gold raised above the Mint price, in consequence of 
 a preference given by foreigners to gold over our goods? In other 
 words, did the foreign merchants at that time tind, that the prices of the 
 goods we produced for exportation, or acquired in the way of our natural 
 trade for exportation, were raised so much above their value abroad, that 
 they thought it more to their interest to sacrifice 25 per cent, upon the 
 Bank notes they had received for their imports in purchasing gold, than 
 to layout those notes in purchasing cottons, hardware, sugar, or coffee? 
 This is a question of fact ; and unless it can be answered in the affirma- 
 tive, the charge of depreciation brought against our currency must fall 
 to the ground, and a verdict of acquittal be entered up ; for, certainly, 
 there is not a single " count " in the indictment — as it has been framed 
 by the authorities I have spoken of — that can be substantiated, if the 
 proof of high prices of goods should fail, 
 
 Wliat was the language of advice, and of injunction too, which Mr. 
 Huskisson distinctly addressed to the Bank of England in his treatise, 
 when he meant to give to the proceedings of the Directors a practical 
 application of his doctrines ? " Reduce your issues," he said to them, 
 " you will thereby lower the prices of our goods, which will then be 
 made once more the chief, or even only, medium of remittance to foreign
 
 29 
 
 countries, as Ihcy ous;ht to be, not only to pay for foreign goods, but also 
 for the recovery of the gold, whicli the redundance of your notes has 
 driven out of the country. By your excessive issues you have so raised 
 the price of the goods which we ought to exi)ort, that foreigners are 
 compelled to leave them behind and take away the gold." This was the 
 purport of the language of Mr. Huskisson, addressed to the Directors of 
 the Bank of England ; and such language, added to the whole tenor of 
 the reasoning in his work, as well as to that of the reasoning of all the 
 able men who took the same side of the Bullion question that he did, 
 can leave no room to doubt, that proof of a high price of goods, as well 
 as a high price of gold, computed in a local currency, is necessary, in 
 order to establish a charge of depreciation against that currency. "Cash 
 suspension" alone is clearly not enough, because, during suspension, the 
 Bank might, from a morbid caution, so stint the circulation as that, for 
 purposes of occasional convenience, a premium in gold should be given 
 for notes: and ao;ain, if we would suppose that clipping, melting, and 
 exportation, could really be prevented by a law — an intrinsic metallic 
 currency might be so improvidently extended, that uncoined gold might 
 be considerably above the Mint price in gold standard money, and even 
 although there were no notes in circulation. It is only by supposing 
 extreme cases of this nature that principles can be tried. 
 
 It may be observed, that no statistical tables or accounts have been in- 
 troduced into these letters. There has been no need for them, because I 
 have founded all my positions upon great leading facts, which are noto- 
 rious to all the public. 
 
 The fact I am now about to bring to the recollection of the reader is 
 of this description — I mean the ruinously low prices of our manufactures 
 and of our colonial productions under the operation, against England, of 
 the " Continental System" during the last six years of the war. Prices 
 are high or low only by comparison ; but then it is material to consider 
 what are the proper objects of comparison, according to the purpose of 
 the inquiry. For our present purpose we are to compare the English prices 
 with the contemporaneous foreign prices* ; and in doing so, we need not 
 aim at any great accuracy, because the foreign prices of all those descriptions 
 of goods, which we held in the greatest abundance, were so much above 
 the English prices, that if we were to take them at only half the amount, 
 the excess would still be enough to have given the exporter an enormous 
 profit, over and above what he got by taking gold, even if he could have 
 bought gold with his bank notes at the Mint price. I mean to assert, that 
 the prices of sugar and coffee, for instance, on the Continent, computed in 
 gold, were four or five times higher than their prices in England, com- 
 puted in bank notes. I am speaking of the times of the " Berlin and 
 Milan Decrees," and the British " Orders in Coimcil" — of the times of 
 the "Licence System," and of the "Blockade System" — of the times 
 in which the French chemists discovered sugar in beet-root, and a sub- 
 stitute for coffee in chicory ; and when the English grazier tried expe- 
 riments upon fattening oxen with treacle and molasses — of the times 
 when we took possession of the island of Heligoland, in order to form 
 there a depot of goods to facilitate, if possible, the smuggling of them into 
 the north of Europe ; and when the lighter descriptions of British manu- 
 factures found their way into Germany through Turkey. It will be 
 remembered that the French Decrees declared on one hand, that no vessel 
 should enter a Continental port if she came from England, or even had 
 
 * No mistake can be greater than that of comparing the prices of those times with 
 subsequent prices.
 
 30 
 
 touched at Ent^land. On the other hand, our Orders in Council declared 
 that no ship should go to the Continent unless she came from England. 
 Whatever mitjht be the military merit of this mode of retaliation, its 
 commercial effect against ourselves was most pernicious. Our fleets 
 had complete possession of the seas at that time, and they compelled 
 every ship they met to make for a British port. The consequence was, 
 that almost all the merchandize of the world accumulated in our ware- 
 houses, where they became impounded, except when some small quantity 
 was released by a French Licence, forwhich the merchants at Hamburgh 
 or Amsterdam had, perhaps, given Napoleon such a sum as forty or 
 fifty thousand pounds. They must have been strange merchants, accord- 
 ing to the Bullionists, to have paid so large a sum for liberty to carry a 
 cargo of goods from a dear market to a cheap one. What was the 
 ostensible alternative the merchant had ? Literally this — either to buy 
 coffee at &d. a pound in bank notes, and send it to a place where it would 
 instantly sell at 3*. or 4*. a pound in gold, or to buy gold with bank notes 
 at 5/. an ounce, and send it to a place where it would be received at 
 3/. 175. 10:^. an ounce. A man might as well pretend to deny all 
 Bonaparte's victories, or even that there ever was such a person, as 
 attempt to deny, that such was the state of our intercourse with the Con- 
 tinent during the reign of the Decrees. It is too absurd, of course, to say 
 literally and distinctly, that the gold was remitted instead of the coffee, as 
 a preferable mercantile operation ; and yet, if it was not so, under some 
 explanation, which I am wholly unable to conjecture, what becomes of 
 Mr. Huskisson s advice to the Bank — to draw in a number of their notes 
 in order to reduce the price of the coffee to the sum at which it would be 
 a preferable remittance to gold? I have never been able to extract out 
 of all the writings of the Bullionists but one description of reasoning 
 which could even seem to approximate to the shadow of an answer to this 
 objection. I will state it, and expose its futility. They begin with show- 
 ing that all the human laws that ever were made, have proved ineffectual 
 in preventing the precious metals from finding their way out of the 
 country which del)ases its circulating medium ; or into the country, 
 which contracts its circulating medium, in even a small degree, within 
 the amount which is consistent with the preservation of its intrinsic value. 
 This is perfectly true ; and, in proof of it, it would be easy to show thatthe 
 natural tide of the precious metals did really set in strong upon England 
 through the whole of the time in question. There was not a place on 
 the globe at which we could gain access with some goods, as a valuable 
 consideration, from whence the gold and silver did not spontaneously 
 flow to us ; and there was not a country in the world in lohich so large 
 a quantity of desirable goods could be obtained, in return for an ounce 
 of gold, as in England. But the error, which those good people have 
 fallen into, is this — they are thinking of the facility of smuggling gold, 
 and forget the difficulty of smuggling goods. The gold, of course, will 
 not come if the goods cannot go ; and that the goods could not go, at the 
 time in question, is sufficiently proved by their current market prices on 
 the different sides of the channel*. The impediment was, the resistance 
 of bayonets and cannons ; and the efficacy of the impediment is undeni- 
 able. I remember well to have heard it frequently said of Bonaparte, at 
 the time when all this was going on, that he was constantly examining the 
 
 * If 60,000 tons of coffee, held here unsaleable at dd. the pound, wliile coffee was 
 4*. or as. the pound on the Continent, is not evidence that the impediment was more 
 than all the subtlety uf mercantile men could overcome, it is in vain to look for proof 
 of such a fact.
 
 31 
 
 En2;lish Price Current, in order to ascertain whether, and with what 
 degree of success, his Decrees were enforced by his own troops, and 
 obeyed by his Allies. So long as he saw that gold was dear and coffee 
 was cheap in England, he was satisfied that his "Continental System'' 
 worked well. The English could see nothing in those documents but 
 proof that the Bank was shamefully extending the issue of their notes. 
 
 It is a most extraordinary thing that the people of England should 
 have so strangely mystified themselves on the subject, as to have imbibed 
 a general impression, that all things were dear during the time when gold 
 was dear; for there never was a greater mistake, and yet no man speaks 
 ten sentences upon "The Currency Question," without talking of the 
 high " war prices," as applicable to all commodities. Some descriptions 
 of goods were, certainly, exceedingly dear ; but, then, others were most 
 oppressively cheap ; and the characteristic line to be drawn between them 
 will be found to be a very curious one, when we come to examine the 
 distinction with reference to the question at issue. The dear goods were 
 those which we raised or imported, or partly raised and partly imported 
 for consumption only, and of which, so far from having any surplus, we 
 scarcely obtained enough for our own demand. The cheap goods were 
 those which we made at home, or brought from our colonies, in quantities 
 beyond our consumption. The cause of the dearness of the first class 
 lay in the difficulties and consequent charges under which alone the defi- 
 cient quantities could be procured. The cause of the cheapness of the 
 second class lay in the impediments to our gaining admission for the sur- 
 plus quantities in the countries of their proper markets. The false idea 
 of universal dearness being thus dispelled, by reference to these facts, I 
 would ask. Which of the two classes of goods, according to the above 
 division, is the one whose prices bear most upon the Currency Question ? 
 1 have a right to receive from every Bullionist the answer, That the value 
 of the circulating medium is to be tested by the prices of the exportable 
 commodities, more than by the prices of the importable commodities. 
 The mere fact of great cheapness of the former specifically contradicts the 
 charge of depreciation ; while the dearness of the latter in no way alone 
 implies depreciation. Then arise two other questions — First, Has not the 
 dearness of the importable goods been clearly accounted for upon the 
 common principles of supply and demand*? And, next. Can the cheap- 
 ness of the exportable goods be accounted for, consistently with an asser- 
 tion, that the currency was depreciated at the same time ? 
 / There is one more point to be cleared up, and that is, in respect of the 
 quantity of exportable goods debarred exportation ; because it is necessary 
 to consider, whether the quantity was sufficient to have produced a great 
 effect upon the price of gold, under the supposition that the impediment 
 to exportation had been removed. My solution of this problem shall be 
 distinctly adapted to the purpose of the inquiry. I am confident that the 
 stocks of goods which we held, waiting a foreign market, over and above 
 the quantities of them which we should want to retain for the home con- 
 sumption, amounted in value •(• to a sum, equal to the whole quantity of 
 gold coin necessary for the ordinary circulation of the country, when the 
 Bank is paying its notes on demand. And in this valuation I don't take 
 the extravagant prices at which, during the prohibitory system on the 
 Continent, the scanty supplies, occasionally let in, under French licences, 
 were then selling ; but only the prices which, at those times, might have 
 
 * The cause of the high price of corn and other agricultural produce, was fully 
 pointed out in the ttiird letter. 
 
 t The value of the cofTee alone, at a modeiate price in open market, would have 
 given us upwards of six million sterling.
 
 32 
 
 been expected in an ordinary state of commercial intercourse with an 
 enemy's country, sucli as has been usual in other times of war. 
 
 The proposition which I would establish is, that although depreciation 
 must produce a high price of gold, a high price of gold is no proof of depre- 
 ciation, unless accompanied also by a high price of goods. It is the price 
 of goods which rises first, and the price of gold rises afterwards, only 
 because the price of goods had risen, and the foreigner is therefore willing 
 to give a high price for gold, rather than give a still higlier price for goods. 
 A low price of goods — that is, a price greatly below that for which they 
 will sell abroad — is utterly inconsistent with, and contradictory of, a charge 
 of depreciation ; and, therefore, if, when the prices of goods are low, the 
 price of gold should happen to be high, we must seek another cause than 
 depreciation for the high price of gold. Never was effect deduced from 
 its cause more clearly, than both the low price of goods and the high 
 price of gold are deducible from the French Decrees and the British 
 Orders in Council ; and yet the Bullionists so completely abstracted them- 
 selves from every existing fact, that they inferred depreciation, at once, 
 from the high price of gold. It is true that they assert that goods were 
 dear, and that the high price of gold did receive the confirmation of a 
 high price of goods. But they took the wrong goods — they took corn 
 and other agricultural produce — they took hemp, timber, barilla — they 
 took the very goods for which we had to give the gold, instead of the 
 goods which ought to have been taken instead of the gold, and in return 
 for which alone we can obtain gold itself. The only goods which can 
 affect a question of currency in any country, are those which it naturally 
 and habitually exports. In France it would be wine, in Russia tallow, in 
 Virginia tobacco, in Norway deals, and in England calicos, hardware, 
 sugar, and coffee. The price of agricultural produce, here, had no more 
 to do with the subject than the price of admission to a theatre at Paris. 
 And yet one of the modes of accounting for the strange misconceptions 
 into which the Bullionists fell, notwithstanding the light of their excellent 
 principles which they had for their guide, is, that they assumed a general 
 rise of prices from the dearness of agricultural produce ; a fresh proof, 
 by the bye, of the mischievous predominance of a land bias upon every 
 question. 
 
 Another mode of accounting for the prevalence of the error I have 
 exposed, is the course pursued by the Bank during the bullion contro- 
 versy, and the hne of argument adopted by their literary advocates. 
 These parties entered the field of theoretical discussion, and attempted to 
 overthrow the sound doctrines of Mr. Horner, Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Ricardo, 
 and the rest of the true school ; their object was, to establish principles 
 of currency upon which a cash suspension might be defended at all times. 
 If they had applied themselves to the task of proving the inapplicability 
 of those doctrines to the extraordinary facts of the then present times, 
 and had said, "Look at the prices of the British exportable goods and 
 our immense stocks of them^these are the representatives of our absent 
 coins; with them the coins can be recovered whenever the interruption 
 created by brute force shall cease." If they had said this, the unwelcome 
 answer to them might have been, "Very well, we will keep our eye on 
 those prices and on those stocks so long as that interruption lasts; but, 
 remember, that as soon as the interruption is over, your cash suspension 
 is over also ; and, therefore, be upon your guard, and take care that when 
 the time comes, these stocks shall really be exchanged for the coins." 
 But the Bullionists should not have waited for the Bank to have com- 
 menced this dialogue — they should have given the injunction themselves; 
 and most happy would it have been for this country if they had done so ;
 
 33 
 
 for then the finest opportunity in the world for retracing a step — false 
 in its nature but right under the circumstances — would not have been 
 lost. The BuUionists should themselves have pointed to the stocks of 
 exportable goods, their immense magnitude, and their miserable prices, 
 compared with their prices in their proper markets abroad, and they 
 should have said, " In this we admit an exception from our rule; here 
 is a force in operation which suspends the applicability of our doctrine." 
 Happy, I repeat, it would have been for the country if they had done this, 
 because then, the true cause of the high price of gold being acknowledged, 
 the period of its natural cessation would have been, assuredly, fixed upon 
 as the period also of the cash suspension. Had that period been so fixed 
 on, and resolutely adhered to — as it would certainly have been if the case 
 had been understood — we should have recovered our gold with increased 
 prices of the goods which we sent out in order to bring the gold back. 
 But the BuUionists were thinking of nothing but triumphing with their 
 principles over their antagonists, by whom those principles were most 
 at)surdly attacked ; and the Bank was caring for nothing but continuing 
 the cash suspension as long as they could ; and, therefore, not defending 
 themselves from unjustifiable assaults by pleading a justification which 
 was of a terminable character. 
 
 This letter has been extended much beyond the limits within which I 
 hoped to confine it; but I cannot conclude it without endeavouring to fix 
 on the mind of the readers the proposition I have advanced in the last 
 paragraph, viz.: — that we could have resumed Cash Payments within a 
 short time after the termination of the continental system — war or no war 
 — with more ease than at any much later time. The means of acquiring 
 gold are, the possession of such goods to give in return for it, as the parties 
 having the gold are desirous of receiving. The Continent never could be 
 more bare of all tropical productions, and of British manufactures, than 
 it was rendered by the privations which that system inflicted on it. 
 Neither could any other state of commerce whatever give occasion to so 
 large a collection of such goods in this country, as had, at the same time 
 and by operation of the same causes, been then forced into it and there 
 impounded. The people of a country which has lost its coin*, by the 
 high prices of its exportable goods, in consequence of an excessive issue 
 of paper money, can only recover the precious metals by such a contraction 
 of its currency as shall greatly reduce those prices. They must exactly 
 retrace their steps — they must make their markets attractive to buyers, 
 and repulsive to sellers, except the sellers of the precious metals; they 
 must make it profitable to a Ibreign merchant, who wants the goods of a 
 third country, to bring his gold first to them, and with it to purchase their 
 goods, as the cheapest medium for obtaining from that country the goods 
 he wants. Men who talk so composedly as they do of our alleged depre- 
 ciation, can have no conception ot the misery which this country would 
 have had to go through, if we really had lost our gold from that cause. 
 The real fact is, that the prices of all our exportable commodities rose 
 from fifty to a hundred per cent, during the time when the chief part of 
 our gold was spontaneously coming m ; and when we might most easily 
 have secured the whole, if the Bank had given only a slight appreciation 
 to our currency at the time. Let us reverse this case, and imagine that, 
 instead of the prices of our goods rising, as I have stated, they had fallen 
 considerably below what they had been — and they must have done so if 
 they had been depreciation prices — and then we shall have some concep- 
 tion of the distress which must have pervaded this country, wiule it was 
 undergoing such severe discipline. Let us, on the other iiand, imagine 
 that the Bank had seized the opportunity I speak of, for preparing speedily 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 for the resumption of cash payments; and, by an effort, which would 
 then have been a very easy one, for the work was almost done to their 
 hands, had consummated that work ; and then let us reflect on the number 
 of h-oubles and the mass of errors and misconceptions we should have 
 escaped. The question of previous depreciation is not affected by the 
 fault of the Bank in not taking the proper time for replacing the metallic 
 currency. It is enough to prove, that there was a time when it could have 
 heen done, not only with the facility 1 have described, but also with the 
 accompaniment of circumstances the very reverse of those which must 
 attend a recovery after depreciation. If any man doubt the fact, that the 
 price of all our exportable commodities were very high in the year 1814, 
 I will refer him to the amusing annual statements which poor Alderman 
 Waithman used to make in the house, for the purpose of showing the 
 liberality, or the folly, or something — but nobody could tell what — of our 
 exporters, in supplying foreigners with our goods so much more cheaply 
 than we used to do. He always pitched upon 1814 as his dear period. 
 
 But this extraordinary rise of the prices of our exportable goods at the 
 time referred to, is as little considered in discussions on currency, as their 
 previous low prices ; and to what must we attribute such remarkable 
 neglect of so strong a feature of that question ? To corn — corn again ! 
 Land, land and for ever. The price of corn, which proved nothing, fell, 
 and therefore the prices of our manufactures and colonial produce, 
 •which alone affected the question, are to go for nothing ; although the 
 first fell only because the expenses of importation were reduced ; and the 
 second rose only because foreign ports were opened for their reception. 
 
 I cannot tell, sir, whether I have shaken, in any degree, the decision 
 which has been so universally passed upon the currency question ; but of 
 this I am sure, that if our currency was depreciated during the last six 
 years of the war, the principles of currency, upon which the charge of 
 depreciation is to be founded, have not yet been propounded to the 
 public. 
 
 I defend the Bank up to the end of the war. Their conduct since, till 
 lately, has been full of faults and full of blunders. Their attempt to 
 infuse gold into the circulation, by paying it away in driblets, till they 
 had wasted six millions of their treasure ; and, again, their quietly con- 
 senting to cash payments and withdrawing their own small notes, while 
 the country bankers were left at liberty to issue as many as they pleased ; 
 the omission of the Bank to insist on the revival of the whole of our 
 original monetary system, if the part which immediately affected them 
 was to be revived ; these, and many more matters, prove that there was 
 a time when the Bank did not understand their business. But they 
 understand it now ; they have had the lessons of costly experience, and 
 there is ample reason to be satisfied with their present management. 
 
 As to the suspension of cash payments, it might have been justifiable 
 for a short time in 1797, because the Minister had brought the Bank to a 
 standstill before they were aware of their situation, and some time was 
 necessary for them to recover a proper stock of metals and coin. This 
 being done, the suspension was indefensible, in my opinion, until the con- 
 tinental system came into operation. If, during the operation of that 
 system, we had resolved to keep a metallic currency, our circulating 
 medium must have been contracted* to a degree which no man at present 
 
 * We must either have given up the use of a bank, and been content to see the 
 price of a fat ox brought clown to 10s. ; or we must liave given up the orders in 
 council. I consider that our pecuniary difficulty lay in the orders in council, and not 
 in the French decrees : and I go so far as to say, that if we had not retaliated, I
 
 35 
 
 contemplates. If sixpence in metal could not be attracted into the coun- 
 try for a pound of coftee, which would insure the holder of it 3*. or 4*. 
 in France or Holland, I do not see how a bank c aikl issue a single note 
 more than it could pay in specie at the same moment, 
 
 I am. Sir, vour humble servant, 
 
 H. B. T. 
 
 Postscript. 
 If any Bullionist should condescend to notice this letter, with a view to 
 its refutation, I hope that he will stick close to the point. He must 
 apply his reasoning to the fact— that all exportable articles were, in this 
 country, far cheaper, computed even in Bank notes, than they were in the 
 countries of their proper markets in gold. The reverse of this fact has 
 hitherto been assumed by all the writers who have insisted on the depre- 
 ciation of our currency. In the works of Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Ricardo, 
 and Mr. Mushett, there is not to be found the slightest trace of any im- 
 pediment to^commerce. Future historians may very fairly endeavour to 
 prove, by arguments drawn from their total silence on the " continental 
 system," and their constant assumption of free agency in the merchants, 
 that the Berlin and Milan Decrees and the British Orders in Council 
 were fabulous traditions. 
 
 I have been desired, since this letter appeared, to reperuse the Appendix 
 to Mr. Ricardo's pamphlet, which he wrote in answer to an article in the 
 Edinburgh Review upon the previous edition of the pamphlet itself. It 
 is long since I looked into any of these treatises, and I turned with haste 
 to this Appendix, imagining that I should have found something which I 
 had formerly overlooked; but far from it — the Appendix, like all ihe 
 rest, proceeds wholly on the assumption, that " coffee, sugar, &c." were 
 cheaper in France than in England. I will give a quotation from the 
 Appendix, as a specimen of remarks and illustrations which midit he 
 selected from the writings of the BuUionists sufficient to fill a volume. 
 
 " The only proof which we can possess of the relative cheapness of 
 money in two places, is by comparing it with commodities. Commodi- 
 ties measure the value of money in the same manner as money measures 
 the value of commodities. If these commodities will purchase more 
 money in England than in France, we may justly say, that money is 
 cheaper in England, and that it is exported iofind its level, not to destroy 
 it. After comparing the value of coffee, sugar, ivory, indigo, and all 
 other exportable commodities in the two markets, if 1 persist in sending 
 money, what further proof can be required of money being aclually the 
 cheapest of all these commodities in the English market, in relation to 
 the foreign markets, and, therefore, the most profitable to be exp-orted? 
 What further evidence is necessary of the relative redundance and clieap- 
 ness of money between France and England, than that, in France, it will 
 purchase more corn, more indigo, more cuftee, raore sugar, more of every 
 exportal)le commodity than in England." I suppose that Mr. Ricardo 
 considered every thing that could be put into a ship an exportable com- 
 modity, or he would not have jumbled corn into this latter list ; but the 
 
 would not have admitted ttie decrees to have Justified llie cash suspension. The 
 stoppage of the direct cliannel of remittance by tlie enemy was iiotasuHicient excuse ; 
 but when we ourselves stopped all indirect and circuitous channels, and liiereby 
 brought also tlie American emtiargo upon us, it is most preposterous to talk coolly 
 of the never-failing eflicacy ol mercantile expedients; or rather, not even to deem 
 such a stale of things worthy of mention, in treatises upon currency, intended for the 
 use ofllie very times in which such things occurred. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 reader will remember that I have applied the word ^* exportable" to those 
 commodities which a country produces habitually beyond its consump- 
 tion, as contradistinguished from what we may denominate \\% consumable 
 commodities. Certain manufactures and colonial produce are our '* ex- 
 portable" commodities; and my position is, that so long as we possess 
 them in great abundance beyond our consumption, and the prices of them 
 are very greatly below their prices in other countries, the phenomenon of 
 a high price of gnkl does not prove the assertion that the currency is 
 depreciated ; nor is the coincidence of a high price of corn, which may 
 be the etfect of famine, a sufficient corroboration of that assertion. So 
 much for the classification of commodities: but Mr. Ricardo did not 
 attempt to say, that the high price of gold proved depreciation, nottoitli- 
 standing the low prices of all our exportable commodities; he assumed 
 that these prices were higher here than in France. He imagines the 
 peaceful merchant in his counting-house, with no other weapon than his 
 pen, nor ammunition than his ink, coolly calculating and finding that 
 gold will be a more advantageous remittance to France than coffee or 
 sugar, because, consulting the prices-current, he sees that " money will 
 purchase more coffee and more sugar in France than in England." Now 
 we know that this assumption was not merely untrue, in anything like 
 the ordinary degree in which prices vary, but that it was extravagantly, 
 ridiculously untrue ; for that coffee and sugar were 5 or 600 per cent, 
 dearer in France in gold and silver, than they were in England in Bank 
 notes, and that for four or five years together. It is quite in vain to say 
 that the depreciation of the currency is proved by such writings as this ; 
 and it will be found, that the reasonings of all the Bidlionists are based 
 upon the same false assumption, accompanied at the same time with a 
 total want of the discrimination necessary to be made between those com- 
 modities, which are properly the exportable commodities of the country, 
 and those which it could only produce or import to satisfy its own wants. 
 
 If, therefore, I repeat, any BuUionist should condescend to notice my 
 exposition of this subject, I hope that he will undertake, this time, to 
 prove that the high price of gold did not require the corroboration of a 
 high price of goods, in order to prove that the local currency was depre- 
 ciated ; but that the price of the gold is proof alone, even notwithstanding 
 the miserably low prices and the enormous stocks of our exportable com- 
 modities. 
 
 It is, of course, too late for such diffuse reasoners to fall back upon 
 the truism, which the simple price of the standard metal affords. If the 
 whole question lay in the price of gold, it could have been answered in 
 three words, and there would have been no need of three hundred pages 
 of elaborate argument. 
 
 A patient tells his physician that he has a pain in his side ; the phy- 
 sician immediately pronounces that the disease is in the liver, and then, 
 with great volubility, describes a variety of symptoms connected with the 
 origin and progress of such a disease, and which symptoms he assumes 
 the patient to be also suffering under. The patient, as soon as he can 
 obtain a hearing, assures the physician that he has not one of those 
 secondary symptoms ; on the contrary, he has some symptoms which are 
 directly opposite to those described. "I don't care for that," says the 
 physician; "you have a pain in your side, and that's enough to prove 
 to me that your liver is diseased, whether you have the other symptoms 
 or not." The patient would be very likely to say, " I have no doubt 
 that the man who, m addition to a pain in his side, has all those other 
 symptoms you describe, has a diseased liver, but I shall take other ad- 
 vice before I submit myself to the remedies which you prescribe.'*? The
 
 37 
 
 Iruth is, that if we search an inch beyond the main fact, of a hi^h price 
 of gold, we find that all the subordinate facts run counter to the doctrine 
 of depreciation, as its progress and workings have hitherto been ex- 
 pounded. 
 
 It is very excellent to furnish the world with sound abstract treatises on 
 currency ; but the public have a particular case before them, and they 
 want information exjjressly upon that case. Under circumstances so 
 extraordinary, as not to have their parallel in the history of human affairs, 
 we agreed, at a particular period, to dispense with a metallic currency, 
 and to adopt a substituted circulating medium. Now what the country 
 want to know is, whether, in that interval of time, the substituted cur- 
 rency fairly performed the duties of its absent principal ; they want to 
 know whether the prices of goods at that time were unduly raised by an 
 abuse of the substituted currency, in order that they may know whether 
 the difficulties under whicli they labour now, twenty years afterwards, in 
 consequence of low prices, are attributable to a fall of them from an im- 
 proper elevation. They don't want to know how much the true level of 
 prices would have been deranged on the side of depression, if, under such 
 circumstances as we were placed in, with nearly the whole world combined 
 in a conspiracy to deprive us of the use of the precious metals, we had 
 resolved to employ a metallic currency— they want a rule for judging, 
 by means of wliich, setting aside the extraordinary influences on both 
 sides, they may be able to estimate the fitness of the prices, according to 
 the ordinary operation of supply and demand — according to the quantity 
 of the precious metals in existence, and according to the share of those 
 metals to which, upon mercantile principles, we were entitled. 
 
 In the quotation I have given from Mr. Ricardo, he says, and says 
 most truly, " The only proof which we can possess of the relative cheap- 
 ness of money in two places, is by comparing it with commodities in those 
 two places." Our money at that time was wholly paper, unchecked by 
 gold as its test or regulator; it was, therefore, peculiarly fit to be tested 
 by the prices of commodities in countries where money was subjected to 
 the ordeal of the precious metals. Now I mean to assert that, from this 
 trial of its value, our currency of that day will come out triumphant. It 
 is a positive fact, that England was the cheapest country in the world 
 during the time when gold was twenty-five per cent, and upwards above 
 the Mint price. I am told, that if I admit the possibility of disturbance 
 by physical force I deny the theory of money. Then the surgeon who 
 recognizes the power of the tourniquet, denies the theory of the circu- 
 lation of the blood. 
 
 No. VI. 
 Morning Chronicle, \st February, 1834. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, January 3\, 183-4. 
 
 When men use the proverb, that " honesty is the best policy," 
 they are not contemplating that highest policy of which no reasoning 
 mind ever doubts, but they mean to intimate that those persons who 
 always refrain to seize the opportunities of incidental power for pushing 
 their interest beyond their rights, will generally find, in the end, that 
 they have adopted the most politic, as well as the honestest, course in 
 the management of their worldly affairs. But parties who suffer present 
 
 2029i^i
 
 38 
 
 evil from the conduct of those who have not philosophy enough to tnist 
 to this maxim in doubtful cases, or who want the virtue to act justly 
 without it in all cases, are not bound to defer their rights before the 
 claims of dishonesty until they can make out a clear case of impolicy 
 also, to the satisfaction of those by whom their rio:hts are invaded. I 
 have in several places sufficiently intimated my opinion, that the landed 
 interest have greatly misconceived their policy ; but, whether I bring 
 them round to this opinion or not, I shall equally call upon them to 
 desist from acts of injustice. " The Rights of Industry" do not depend 
 upon my proving, even to impartial minds, that our agriculture would 
 have been in a much more prosperous condition that it is, if there had 
 never been a Corn Bill ; much less do they depend upon my making 
 converts of the landed interest themselves to such a view of their case. 
 In " skimming the papers," on a club table, within these few days, I fell 
 upon a letter from some very angry Gentleman of Land, in which he 
 says, in a mighty high tone, " prove to us that the price of corn will rise, 
 as a consequence of free admission, and we will be very ready to give up 
 our Corn Act." In another place he says, " that the man must be an 
 incomparable coxcomb who would pretend to predict what the price of 
 corn would be after the repeal of that Act ;" forgetting that the Corn 
 Bill itself was founded upon predictions of this nature. Such an effusion 
 might have been suffered to pass quietly, if we did not know that this 
 gentleman is only an impatient spokesman of the sentiments of his class ; 
 and, therefore, whether T venture or not, under the peril of this denun- 
 ciation, to make the forbidden estimate, I have at least the boldness to 
 tell him, that the price, whatever it would be without a Corn Act, is all 
 that he or his friends who possess land can, as honest men, demand of 
 those who have none. 
 
 It is absolutely necessary to discharge the subject of all the false claims 
 of the landed interest, before either the question of their particular policy, 
 or the question of the general policy of the nation, can be advantageously 
 discussed. I have in former letters disposed of those claims wliich are 
 founded upon burthens created by the long and arduous war which 
 terminated about twenty years ago. The National Debt, I trust, will no 
 more be pleaded by the landed interest as the justification of a Corn 
 Bill, either upon the ground of its magnitude or that of its composition ; 
 and it may be hoped that, even in other quarters, the composition of the 
 debt will be thought a little better of than it has been. I now propose 
 to offer a few observations upon the claims which the landed interest 
 found upon their liability to tithes, to poor-rates, &c., and to taxation in 
 general. 
 
 Of tithes it may be enough to say, that they existed long before that 
 most abstruse and highly theoretical maxim in political economy, called 
 " Protection," was invented by " practical men ;" and they have always 
 existed, as a positive charge upon land, unqualified by any right con- 
 ferred on the owners of land to reimburse themselves from the monies 
 of the rest of the community ; except so far as such a charge may, by 
 the operation of trade, under some circumstances, infuse itself into the 
 prices of the productions of land. If, after one-tenth part of the pro- 
 duce of a field has been taken for the tithe, a law is to provide that the 
 value of the nine other parts shall be increased by one-ninth, the owner 
 of the field pays no tithe at all : and I believe that no man will say, that 
 it never was intended that the burthen of tithe should be borne by the 
 landowner. A Corn Bill, granted lor tlie purpose of relieving the land 
 from tithes, is a deliberate transfer of a charge from one party, who is 
 lial.'Ie to pay it, to another, who is under no such liability ; and nothing
 
 39 
 
 but an increase of population, which has added greatly to the value of 
 the remaining; nine parts of the produce of the field, could have enabled 
 the owner of it to execute a device for makinij the people pay him also 
 for the tenth part, which never was his property. 
 
 Tlie Poor Laws are of older date tlian the importation of corn : they 
 existed through a long term of exportation, when the owners of land 
 neither had, nor could have had, any protection upon the ground of the 
 charges they incurred in supporting their poor. The circumstance of 
 our having passed from the condition of an exporting to that of an 
 importing country, can give them no right to be reimbursed those charges 
 by the trading part of the community, although it supplies them with the 
 machinery for enforcing such a claim : and, indeed, if we reflect on the 
 number of idle persons who were supported by the great landowners 
 out of the produce of their estates, before commerce and refinement had 
 altered the habits of society, by converting squires into gentlemen, and 
 boors into artisans, the poor-rates would appear to be little else than a 
 substitute for the former practice, tardily adopted after an interval of 
 great disorder, under which the landowners were the greatest sufferers. 
 There is nothing in the first institution of the poor-law, nor in the 
 early practice under it, upon which the landed interest can found a 
 prescriptive or traditional right, to throw upon the rest of the com- 
 munity — directly or indirectly, by any device or contrivance whatever — 
 the charge they incur in maintaining the surplus part of the population 
 of their respective parishes. The demand of an additional price for the 
 produce of their lands, upon the ground of that charge, amounts to a 
 claim for personal exemption ; and if we follow out the proposition 
 contained in such a claim, it will be found to run into the most extrava- 
 gant conclusions. 
 
 Suppose the labouring population of an agricultural parish, which 
 had brought all its lands into fidl cultivation, to have been at any given 
 time so exactly measured to the work to be performed in it, that none 
 but the sick or infirm should require relief. In a few years this happy 
 adaptation of hands to work would inevitably be deranged by the na 
 tural increase of population; unless the portion which constituted the 
 surplus could be absorbed in the various occupations of other parts of 
 the country. The facilities for effecting their migration must depend 
 very much upon the prosperous condition of the manufacturing part of 
 the people ; and their ability to su{)port this agricultural surplus would 
 be evinced only by their ability to employ them. But suppose that from 
 some cause of distress — such, for instance, as being forced to pay a high 
 price for corn, while their foreign competitors were able to obtain corn at 
 a low price — the manufacturers were unable to find employment for this 
 agricultural surplus of people in their works, would it not be an 
 extraordinary proceeding to require them to remit money to the respec- 
 tive parishes of those people for the purpose of supporting them there 
 in idleness ? And yet a law which enhances to the manufacturers the 
 price of corn, upon the ground of the poor-rates paid by the farmers, 
 amounts to nothini^ short of such a requisition. Nor can the manufac- 
 turers see any end to such demands, except in ruin to themselves and 
 the farmers loo ; for let us imagine that, in a parish in Sussex, the work 
 and the work-people had, twenty years ago, been balanced in the manner 
 just mentioned, and that the lands in it produced at that time for the 
 market, after feeding its inhabitants, a thousand quarters of wheat, 
 which sold at sixty shillings tlie quarter; but that, now, the population 
 had become so much increased that the quantity left for market was only 
 eight hundred quarters; and that the farmers, therefore, demanded 7os.
 
 40 
 
 the quarter. If their demand were acquiesced in upon that ground, the 
 disposable quantity, at the end of the next twenty years, might be only 
 six hundred quarters; and then the price must be £5 the quarter; 
 and thus, in process of time, the whole produce of the parish would 
 come to be consumed upon its own lands, were it not that such false 
 systems must explode before these extremities are arrived at, or even 
 very closely approached. According to the Ai^ricultural Report of last 
 Session, there is a considerable extent of land in Sussex which is very 
 expensive in the cultivation, and which yields scarcely three sacks of 
 wheat to the acre. Such land must require the labour of many hands, 
 but yet we are told that there is not sufficient employment, in the several 
 parishes, for their respective populations. In these places the case we 
 have been supposing would soon be realized if the farmers are to throw 
 the burlhen of their poor upon Birmingham and Manchester; and the 
 owners of such lands would do well to consider, whether they are not 
 manoeuvring for the filling of workhouses in their own parishes, which 
 the}^ may find that they must support, instead of factories in the manu- 
 facturing districts. But in what light are we to view the significant 
 lamentation poured out over these barren soils by the Committee and 
 their witnesses? Can they possibly mean to intimate, that the people 
 of this country are to be fed upon a scale of supply, measured by the 
 produce of land which yields but three sacks of wheat to an acre in 
 return for expensive cultivation ? Can they really harbour an inclina- 
 tion to smite the country, as it were, with such a degree of virtual 
 sterility ? 
 
 The highway rates are a description of charge which naturally attaches 
 to the superficies of a country. The various roads are in the ratio of 
 that superficies, and the more numerous they are, and the better their 
 condition, the greater is the advantage of those persons who own or 
 occupy the surface of the country over which they pass. But the receipts 
 of tolls form the great fund of the main highways of the kingdom, and 
 from this source lines of communication have been made, by which the 
 value of land, in numerous and extensive districts, has been greatly 
 enhanced. The chief ground upon which the landed interest demand 
 reimbursement of such charges is, that they are not borne by their foreign 
 competitors. If this be so in regard to highways, I can only say that 
 their foreign competitors have the worst of the bargain. If an addition 
 can be made to the price of corn upon the ground of the highway rates, 
 it must be upon the principle that it is a charge which ought not to fall upon 
 land ; and how such a principle is to be maintained I cannot conceive. 
 
 The county rates are another grievance complained of; but the occu- 
 piers of lands, and the dweller-s in rural situations, are the parties most 
 interested in the purposes for which those rates are chiefly expended. I 
 can see no ground upon which the landed interest should throw their 
 portion of these expenses upon the other members of the community ; 
 but this they will do if the price of corn is artificially raised upon the 
 ground of the county rates. 
 
 But the landed interest do not confine their claim of indemnification to 
 those taxes or rates which attach immediately to their lands; they inti- 
 mate, in no doubtful expressions, that they must be supplied with the means 
 of bearing their share of the general taxation of the country. Heavy 
 duties have, of late years, been imposed on horses, carriages, servants, 
 wine, and other articles of their use and consumption, and they conceive 
 that their liability to these duties constitutes a right in them to require 
 that their incomes shall be proportionably raised. Their incomes are the 
 rents of land, and as rents cannot be increased except the prices of
 
 41 
 
 agricultural produce be increased, they have brought themselves to believe 
 that they are entitled to compel the public, by the aid of a law, to pay 
 higher prices for bread and meat, in order that they may compete — as I 
 suppose — with foreign landlords in keeping horses and carriages, and 
 using other luxuries. It must be admitted that very strange ideas are 
 entertained generally of taxes. They are recognized by every man as a 
 burthen, and yet every man thinks he is ill used the moment he feels the 
 slightest sensation of the burthen on his own shoulders. The common 
 remedy, in these days, is to call for a repeal : but the landed interest only 
 demand reimbursement. Give us plenty ofrent, they say, and we will not 
 complain of taxes. 
 
 There is but one construction to be put upon this conduct — it amounts 
 to a plain avowal that the landed interest are in effect to pay no taxes. 
 A demand of increased price of corn upon the ground of taxes, is a 
 demand of an exemption from taxation. Nothing but an open market 
 for the consumer can enable him to compel the producer to pay his own 
 taxes. 
 
 If this country choose, in the midst of all its pecuniary difficulties, to 
 indulge in acts of profuse liberality to particular classes in the country, 
 let it do so with its eyes open, and at least let the objects of its generosity 
 confess their obligations. Every sum paid under legal compulsion for a 
 commodity beyond its' natural price in open market is a positive tax 
 upon the consumer of that commodity, whether it go into the national 
 purse or into a private pocket. We are under the necessity of raising a 
 large revenue, and it has become a matter of great difficulty to fix on 
 subjects through the medium of which the power of the population to 
 bear taxes shall be advantageously exerted in the production of the 
 required amount. This power is expended in vain with reference to the 
 national purposes, in the degree in which it is made to exert itself for the 
 purposes of private interest ; and when the public collector comes with 
 his demand, he finds that power almost exhausted by the previous 
 demands of private "collectors. The tax-paying power is limited of 
 course; but if the whole of it were exerted for the State, the receipts of 
 the Revenue would overflow ; and relief from the more injurious taxes 
 would be easily granted. The heavy burthen of public taxes under 
 which the country labours is supposed by many persons to constitute the 
 very reason why it should also be burthened with private taxes ; an idea 
 which is so strange, that one hardly knows how to deal with it. The 
 proposition, which is supposed to be conclusive to this purpose, is, that 
 in a country which is so heavily taxed — alluding to general taxation, not 
 a specific tax, which may be and always is countervailed — certain trades 
 — the cultivation of barren land, for instance— cannot be supported, 
 unless the public be compelled to purchase its productions at arbitrary 
 prices. Now, it appears to me, that the true form of the proposition 
 would be, that a country, which has already such heavy and necessary 
 burthens upon it, cannot afford, and ought not to be expected, to take 
 upon itself other and unnecessary burthens. If we had very few or very 
 light public taxes, then indeed we might give way to whims of generosity, 
 and agree to pay taxes for the sake of supporting private individuals in 
 losing trades. But when we hear it often questioned, whether it will 
 be possible to keep the Revenue up sufficiently to satisfy the public cre- 
 ditor, it is most outrageous to plead such a difficulty as a reason for 
 paying over immense sums, raised upon the people, to parties who are 
 no creditors at all, and who have not a shadow of claim upon the general 
 funds and resources of the country. It is said that these sums are spent 
 in the country — so also, I say, are pensions and sinecures ; but a trades-
 
 4-2 
 
 man has only small thanks to the man who lays out in his sliop the 
 money he had first taken out of his pocket. The public may roly upon 
 it, that the cause of all our fiscal difficulties lies in the protective system. 
 The people cannot ])ay public taxes and private taxes too. But the evil 
 does not stop here; because a protected trade is, of course, a losing 
 trade, or it would not want protection ; so that the means of paying 
 taxes is crippled into the bargain. Those means must be in profitable 
 and not in losino; trades. Tiie parlicular amount of taxes which are paid 
 by those parties who are supported in carrying on losing trades by con- 
 tributions from the rest of the people, forms an insignificant sum, com- 
 pared with the amount which would flow with ease from the country at 
 large if none but profital)Ie trades were pursued. Analyze the farming 
 accounts of that land which yields only three sacks of wheat to an acre, 
 in return for great labour of horse and man, and ascertain how much 
 that land contributes to the state by its own productive powers, after 
 deducting what is first contributed towards its cultivation out of the 
 sources of employments which really are profitable ; and then it will be 
 seen in what manner the taxes, which are paid by the thriving part of 
 the people, are interce[jted in their way to the National Treasury ; and 
 the difficulty we have in raising a sufficient revenue will be understood. 
 I wish, with all my heart, that the lands of the kingdom were of a cpiality 
 to yield, by their intrinsic value, the rents out of which the owners are 
 paying their taxes to the State : — then, indeed, their contributions would 
 be valuable, because they would be made without impairing the powers 
 of other people to pay their taxes also; then might our agriculture 
 boast of being the " foundation of all our prosperity ;" but it is the 
 greatest delusion imaginable to suppose that the expenditure of the higher 
 orders is beneficial to the revenue, or to the industry of the country, if 
 the means of it be not drawn from the sources of real and unfactitious 
 property. 
 
 It appears to be perfectly clear that the rights and immunities to which 
 the landed interest lay claim, are of a description which cannot be con- 
 tingent upon any property whatever. There is no intelligible principle 
 upon which the owner of an estate can be held to possess more than that 
 estate. In the earliest and rudest states of society mere accidental pre- 
 occupation was a title to land, which time afterwards sanctioned. In 
 later times, grants from the ruling powers contituted the original right, 
 and the priority of the right to grant, claimed by every State, is familiarly 
 shown in the conduct of the European Governments respecting the lands 
 in their colonies. The common assent which mankind — taken in their 
 most collective character as possessors of the earth — have given to the 
 appropriation of spots of land to particular individuals, as their exclusive 
 properties, is founded upon the conviction that they would be better supplied 
 with food from the land, through the interested exertions of those indivi- 
 duals, than they would be through the combined efforts of the community 
 in its co-operate capacity. The human race were not bound to concur 
 in partial seizures and distributions of the surface of the earth, except 
 under the expectation of universal benefit : and had this expectation been 
 disappointed, we may rest assurred, that the system would not have 
 descended to our times within many generations. In the beginning, the 
 quantity of land compared with the number of inhabitants, precluded 
 almost the idea of value, much more the contemplation of a monopoly: 
 and we know, beyond a doubt, that no right of monopoly is contained in 
 the grants of land made by any State. How strange a proposal it would 
 be for the settlers in Canada, when they are taking their grants of wilder- 
 ness, at two or three shillings an acre, to desire the insertion of a clause
 
 43 
 
 in the grants which should be the foundation of a Corn Bill a thousand 
 years hence, in case tlie population should by that lime be such as to 
 require more food than all Canada could then produce ; and when, 
 perhaps, their descendants would be receivin<r, as annual rents, ten times 
 tiie aniuLuit of the purchase prices, computed at the same relative value 
 of money. It cannot he pretended that in any case whatever tlie original 
 grantee acquired with his land a right of taxing his fellow-subjects for 
 his own personal benefit; the land, and nothing but the land, was granted 
 to him : his successor can have no more. In the name of tlie Working 
 Classes, and in defence of the " Rights of Industry," and in behalf of 
 every man who has no land, I call upon the Landed Interest to be con- 
 tented with their estates — is that an unreasonable demand ? 
 
 I am, Sir, your humble Servant, 
 
 H. B.T. 
 
 No. VII. 
 Morning Chronicle, 24th February, 1834. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR. 
 
 Sir, February 12, 1834. 
 
 We are now in condition to consider of the " policy" of the Corn 
 Law. The respective "ris:hls"of the conflicliui: parties — the landed 
 interest and the trading interest — have been (iretty fully discussed. The 
 " Rights of Industry" are found to consist, in the liberty of the workman 
 to exchange, in their best market, the fruits of his labour, for those 
 necessaries and comforts of life of which he has need, Tlie rights of the 
 landowner consist, in ttie exclusive proprietary possession of a particular 
 portion of the superficies of our common country, upon which no man 
 may come without his consent, and of the produce of which no man may 
 take any part, without first paying to him the sum for which he agrees 
 to exchange it. But it is the very essence of human laws, that all private 
 rights should be held subject to limitations for the public good ; and the 
 question therefore is, whether the public good requires that the exercise 
 of either of these rights should be subjected to any description of restraint ? 
 No reason has, as yet, been assigned, or pretended, for imposing any 
 restraint upon the landowner; the free exercise of his rights are supposed 
 to be perfectly consistent with the general welfare; and he is left in the 
 unlimited enjoyment of them. But not so the workman ; restraint is 
 imposed on the exercise of his rights, and it is for those who impose that 
 restraint to show the national necessity for such a measure. There can 
 be no doubt that the original right of a workman to the fruits of his labour, 
 is of a character far superior to that of the right which any ])arficular 
 man can have to any particular portion of the eartii. The right of the 
 workman is founded in nature, the right of the landowner isconventionaL 
 
 The restriction which is imposed on the rights of the workmen by the 
 Corn Law, has not even the outward show of being intended for the 
 ))ub!ic good ; and it is in vain to fell the landowner that the burthen of 
 the proof, that it is so inten led, lies on him ; because we see him, on every 
 occasion, claiming the benefit of it as his peculiar right. It is his own 
 case which lie perpetually pleads, and it is upon the merits of the case 
 which he thinks he makes out, that he demands an extra twopence of 
 every poor man for his loaf. Nothing can exceed the indignation or 
 resentment with which a thorough-going landlord treats every man who
 
 44 
 
 hesitates to admit the justice of their demand ; and we occasionally 
 see some of them, of the first rank, travelling to county meetings in 
 splendid equipages to enforce their claim to those twopences. In your 
 paper, sir, of the 6th instant, there is a report of such a meeting in the 
 county of Suffolk, at which a noble lord felt himself entitled to say, that 
 ** A cry for an alteration in the Corn Laws proceeded from a base, demo- 
 cratic spirit in the country — that wanted cheap bread for its fellows, no 
 matter what injury the agriculturist sustained." I can assure that noble 
 lord, that I have not, in my sentiments or inclinations, a particle of that 
 democracy which he thinks is the sole enemy of his rental. So far from 
 it, that what remains to me of my animal strength should be exerted, if 
 necessity arose for it, in the defence of his aristocratic privileges, and of 
 his proprietary rights. But I would remind him at the same time, that 
 his indignation is warmed up by feelings of a direct, personal, pecuniary 
 interest ; while it does happen, as he must know, that among those who 
 Vi'ould advocate a greater freedom in the trade of corn are to be numbered 
 many men of great virtue, talents and attainments: aye, and some too 
 of deep interest in landed property. Look at Lord Grenville's protest — 
 was he a base democrat ? — As to the affected care of this Suffolk noble- 
 man for the " Agriculturist" — 'tis sad meanness. Why, sir, the Agricul- 
 tural Report rings, from one end to the other, with evidence of the heart- 
 less depredations of the landlords upon the capital of the farmers. The 
 agriculturist, my good lord, is in no danger except from his landlord. 
 It is the deduction of tlie "lion's share" from the gross produce which 
 impoverishes the farmer; and these lamentations over him are only the 
 growl of the lion while making the division. The trade of farming, as a 
 trade, is invulnerable by competition in an importing country ; and if it 
 is not a trade, what is it^is it an office ? The sole cause of the farmer's 
 difficulty lies in an ill-conceived, impotent corn law ; and in the obstinate 
 confidence with which the owners of their farms have relied on its efficacy 
 in fixing their rents. But, my good lord, you have got your corn law, 
 and you have got your distress too — what do you say to that ? If " De- 
 mocracy" is only to be starved down, and if bread is to be made dear for 
 that purpose, what steps will " Aristocracy" take, when bread is cheap 
 in spite of all the corn bills it can devise and pass ? How low is the 
 country to be brought before the landed interest will admit that their 
 scheme works downwards instead of upwards ? 
 
 I must not quit this part of the subject without stating, that although 
 the ill-judged words I have been commenting on, were dropped by a par- 
 ticular nobleman, I use them only in the most abstract sense, and with- 
 out attaching to them any idea of an individual person. 
 
 It would be trifling with the subject not to consider the landed interest as 
 demanding the exclusion of foreign corn, for the sake of their own private 
 benefit ; and, except that they assert that their luxuries and enjoyments are 
 the only alembic through which the industry of the country can be converted 
 into prosperity and wealth, I do not know that they even attempt to state 
 a public ground as the basis of their particular pretensions. If they be 
 right in their views, they have certainly a pleasant duty to perform, and 
 they might, at least, go about it with a little better humour. But has it 
 never occurred to them that they might enlist many recruits into this ser- 
 vice which they so voluntarily undertake to perform alone — that pensioners 
 and sinecurists might be multiplied, and that the salaries of all placemen 
 might be doubled ? It would make no difference to the public whether 
 the taxes, which they would have to pay for this purpose, went first 
 through the Exchequer, or went directly into the pockets of the parties, 
 as the bread tax does ; and we may be quite sure that these recruits
 
 45 
 
 would not be backward in luxurious expenditure. But, perhaps, we 
 ought to admit that the trial is too much for human nature. Few men 
 can arjtjue against a proposition which goes to prove, that they benefit their 
 country and become patriots by keeping two carriages instead of one, 
 and by drinking claret instead of port. 
 
 In all this, however, the landed interest have only fallen into a most 
 common mistake ; they have seen trade and agriculture increase together, 
 and being misled by coincidences, which pride and avarice prevented 
 them from comprehending, they have mistaken the effect for the cause. 
 "VVe have long passed thaf point up to which the prosperity of a country 
 is based upon its land. Our trade has outgrown our agriculture, because 
 it has led to an increase of population, which the land can neither profit- 
 ably employ nor plentifully feed. What it is to have a redundant popu- 
 lation the landed interest well know, and the more trade is cramped 
 the more redundant will a given population prove, to their cost. I know 
 they think that there is a circle of employment to be found in the home 
 trade, in which the same internal elements of prosperity may be perpetu- 
 ally revolved and improved — that as mouths increased in number bread 
 would get dearer, rents would rise, expenditure enlarge, home trade flou- 
 rish, and the power of the people to pay for the bread increase with its 
 price. The particular trades, which act as purveyors to the luxuries of 
 the rich, cordially believe in this view of national prosperity; and the 
 country shopkeepers, who, during the " war prices," felt the influence of 
 them in an unusal expenditure of the farmers' families, pant for the return 
 of dear bread, and imagine that a price, created by Act of Parliament, is 
 the same thing as a price created by actual circumstances. Home trade 
 and agriculture may, indeed, run a round of the nature described, while 
 a country is passing, from the jjractice of exporting corn, to the practice 
 of exporting manufactures; but then the uicrease, in the price of corn, 
 will be a natural effect, partly of an increase in the home demand for 
 corn for the consumption of the export manufacturers, and partly of a 
 proportionate relief from dependence on the more remote foreign markets 
 for the sale of the surplus quantity. When this surplus is absorbed by a 
 general increase of population, and the import trade is kept at its usual 
 amount, by means of payments made with manufactures instead of corn, 
 the two branches of industry may be considered as balanced ; but with 
 this advantage to the side of corn, that it henceforth saves the charges of 
 exportation. But if the increase of population should not comprise a new 
 body of manufacturers, capable of supplying commodities for the foreign 
 market ; besides having mouths enough to consume all the home-grown 
 corn, then, not only would the import trade be lost, but the home trade 
 and the agriculture would languish together, and the country would 
 become little else than one great poor-house. 
 
 On the other hand, if the additional population consist chiefly of manu- 
 facturers, who produce commodities suitable to foreign markets, and the 
 export of those commodities materially exceed in quantity the corn which 
 had formerly been exported, in return for the imports — the case of the 
 country is thenceforth entirely changed, and its future prosperity will be 
 based upon trade, and not upon land ; and no imaginable measure can 
 be so injurious to land as that which may impede the progress of trade. 
 
 It happens very unfoitunately that the chief part of this transition in 
 our case took place during the war; because the contemporaneous effects 
 of the war, which was totally unlike all other wars, were so niixi^d with both 
 the causes and the effects of the transition, that the public have never 
 been able to separate them; and the consequence is, that the most fatal 
 mistakes have been made in the appropriating and consorting of causes
 
 415 
 
 and effects relative to the events of that period. It was about the time 
 when the improvements in machinery and steam-power were makinff their 
 greatest strides, that the then vain-glorious, military France thought 
 proper to despise trade, and to deride us as a "nation of shopkeepers," 
 and this affected contempt for trade, accompanied by a positive neglect 
 of it, when added to the impediments to the progress of trade, which war, 
 of almost any description, still more a war of a revolutionary character, 
 must have interposed on the Continent, gave to us the possession, as it 
 were, of a patent for manufactures against all the world. The " nation of 
 shopkeepers" had the undisturbed enjoyment of this patent for full fifteen 
 years; and until Napoleon, who at last saw the effects of the folly of the 
 French, had recourse to his continental system, which he ushered in with 
 the well-known declaration, that lie wanted only " ships, colonies, and 
 commerce." These two quaint expressions were, perhaps, of more por- 
 tentous import to the affairs of man, than any other words that ever were 
 uttered on the authority of man. They designate respectively two eras of 
 most extraordinary consequences; and although most men still look back 
 upon them with astonishment and with a vague consciousness that they 
 were of a wonderful character, still no one attempts to consider seriously 
 or distinctly what that character was. 
 
 The first era was marked by the most extraordinary advances in opu- 
 lence that ever occurred in any country. The trade of the world, taken 
 as a whole, was, no doubt, lessened by the war ; but we had nearly all of 
 it ; and as the causes by which we obtained such an enormous share were 
 of a nature to make it also a monopoly trade, the profits of it were ex- 
 tremely large. Here then arose, at one and the same time, two very 
 powerful causes of increased consumption of agricultural produce, and 
 both decidedly of a temporary nature — the one wholly so, the other so in 
 a great degree. The first was the war, bringing with it a lavish use of 
 such produce in the military and naval services ; the second was an 
 entirely new demand for such produce, by reason of the extraordmary 
 start which, partly in consequence of the war, and partly in consequence 
 of the freshness of the inventions referred to, our manufacturing industry 
 then took of all the world. The enormous profits which these circum- 
 stances threw into the hands of the landed interest, and the effect of these 
 profits in swelling the gross amount of our national debt, have been 
 pointed out in a former letter; but the means which the contempora- 
 neous increase of general commerce afforded to the country for bearing 
 the burthens which were then Ijrought u])on it by the war, and by the ex- 
 travagant prices of agricultural produce, were not there taken into conside- 
 ration — either as an explanation of the past or as a lesson — and a powerful 
 lesson it furnishes — for the futuie. That commerce was supjiorted chiefly 
 by profits drawn from foreitrners for exported articles, which, for the 
 reasons before-mentioned, we were then able to produce at less than 
 what had been the previous cost, either to them or to ourselves; and this 
 very power, upon the remnant of which alone we nozo subsist, was, 
 happily, in its greatest vigour in the hour of our greatest need. But, 
 besides this, our " national shopkeeping" propensities — so long as we 
 were left to indulge in them without the interference of rivals, and had 
 also, as was then the case, the whole ocean almost to ourselves— led us 
 into a very extensive and lucrative traffic in foreign commodities. Nearly 
 all the colonies of Europe were at the same time in our actual possession ; 
 and so great was our command over foreigners, for prices which should 
 cover all charges, that we shipped to the colonies even the high-priced 
 corn of England. 
 
 Through the whole of this period the landed interest believed, and they
 
 47 
 
 still believe, that their great profits constituted the national prosperity, 
 which then enabled the country to furnish the loans as they were wanted 
 — although they spent all their money themselves as fast as they got it — 
 and also to supply the sums raised in the current year by taxes, although 
 the public was all the while paying to them, in extraordinary and un- 
 earned profits, four times as much as the taxes they contributed. These 
 are some of the grievous mistakes which the landed interest — blinded, as 
 I am justified in saying, by pride and cupidity — committed in those days, 
 and which, unfortunately, they have never rectiiied since. And the fearful 
 problem, affecting the salvation of the country, which remains to be 
 solved, is, whether they will discover and correct their errors in good 
 time — and there is not much time to be lost — or will obdurately wait till 
 facts past question dispel the mist from their eyes, and they wake, as it 
 were, from a delusive dream, only to survey and to lament, in useless 
 penitence, the mischiefs they shall have brought on them^^elves and on 
 all around them. 
 
 I have in this letter only broken ground on the policy of the Corn 
 Laws; and my inclination is to follow out, to their legitimate conclusions, 
 the points of that subject which have been barely propovmded. But your 
 columns, sir, can afford me but little space during the sitting of Parlia- 
 ment ; and it happens, too, that my own avocations press upon me at the 
 same time. Delay, also, is rendered of less importance by a late minis- 
 terial declaration. Nevertheless, 1 shall not lose sight of the subject — 
 my feelings upon it will not suffer me to do so — and I may, perhaps, 
 seek a future opportunity of impressing upon the landed interest the 
 great and important truth, that they never did, nor never will, experience 
 prosperity by any other means than the secondary effects of our foreign 
 commerce. 
 
 I am. Sir, your humble servant, 
 
 H. B. T. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 It is manifest that the landed interest have mistaken the means and 
 sources of their prosperity. At the end of nearly twenty years of trial of their 
 own nostrum, accompanied- by an immense reduction of taxes — in the 
 second year of abundant harvests — with a protection, amounting to a total 
 prohibition of foreign corn, and at a time when other interests are, at least, 
 without immediate cause of complaint, the distress of agriculture is such, 
 that it is proclaimed from the Throne, and reiterated in both Houses of Par- 
 liament. The landed interest have either aimed at more than is attainable, 
 or, in their impatience, they have sought their object by wrong methods. 
 I believe the error to be of the latter description. A country like this 
 cannot be isolated from the rest of the world ; it cannot take an arbitrary 
 level at its own choosing : it never has done so ; and the condition, 
 aimed at by the corn law since the peace, is totally new in practice. A 
 country requiring foreign markets for its surplus industry, to the great 
 extent that England does, can no more assume a station inconsistent 
 with the relations of commerce, than it can create a peculiar atmospiiere 
 for itself. In the case of the precious metals we have seen how vain it 
 is to attempt a fictitious local standard — it is only not quite so difficult 
 to fix an artificial local price for corn. Commerce is the unrelenting 
 rectifier of either error ; and the only difference in the alteration is, that 
 in the one case the cessation is rapid and i)ali)able, and in the other it is 
 slow and lingering, and not readily perceptible to common observation.
 
 48 
 
 The foreign price and the British price have a natural tendency to assimi- 
 lation, whether direct mixture be permiited or not. The influence of the 
 foreign price is felt through the medium of the exjjorfs ; it comes back 
 upon the British price in the form of low returns for those exports. The 
 only question is, at what level shall they meet ? The landed interest 
 are manoeuvring for the lowest level that can be apprehended in any 
 case. Their plan depresses the price abroad, and the home price must 
 be drawn downwards the more. If they would take courage and consent 
 at once to direct mixture they would elevate the foreign price, and thereby 
 arrest the downward progress of their own prices. 
 
 Those of the landed interest who are not so besotted as to despise foreign 
 trade, seek to extricate themselves from the dilemma of their position, by 
 professing unlimited confidence in the superior faculties of British industry, 
 and the greater energies of the British workman. I beg them to follow 
 out this view of the question. Suppose it to be true, as they say, that 
 one Manchester factory-man is equal to two foreigners, are those superior 
 powers their property or his ? Have they a right to make him carry 
 double weight for their emolument ? Are we to treat a superior breed of 
 men as we would treat a superior breed of horses ? But are not the la- 
 bourers in agriculture of the same breed ? We know they are ; and it is 
 also known, that the farmer as well as the manufacturer, obtains a greater 
 produce from a given quantity of human bone and muscle in England, 
 than in any foreign country whatever. 
 
 But the landed interest are afraid that we shall become dependant on 
 foreign countries for food. Let them, I say again, follow out also this 
 proposition ; to what conclusion does it lead them ? Simply this, and no 
 other — that the population must be kept down by starvation. This is 
 treating the high-bred Manchester workman rather worse than the high- 
 bred horse. However severely the horse may be matched by his unfeeling 
 master, he is sure to have all the invigoration that the most heartening 
 food can give him. But suppose it to be the policy of the nation to check 
 the increase of the people by the dearness of their food — would that be a 
 reason forgiving the additional part of the price to the producers? Most 
 certainly not. The instrument used for the purpose sliould be an excise 
 tax, the produce of which should increase the public revenue for the 
 general benefit. 
 
 And yet, notwithstanding the strength of my case, I will agree to a com- 
 promise. The whole difficulty of the subject lies in a misappropriation of 
 the soil of the country— caused in the first instance by the high war prices, 
 and imprudently kept up since the war, under the fallacious premises of 
 the Corn Laws. We have lately purchased Negro tmancipation — let us 
 now make a similar, and a far easier, effort to purchase Corn emancipa- 
 tion. If about a million acres of the worst of our strong arable lands were 
 laid down to grass, the quantity of corn withdrawn from the market 
 would be such, as that the foreign supply would not be able to distress 
 the good lands. The scheme of our agriculture is absolutely defective 
 from the want of a greater breadth of inferior grass land: the graziers, 
 notwithstanding the richness of their pastures, and the high price of meat, 
 complain much of low profit, from the want of lean stock at reasonable 
 prices. 
 
 The outline of the plan is — to impose a duly of \Qs. the quarter on 
 every species of corn ; to be reduced by 1*. a year for five successive 
 years, until it settled at 5a'. tiie quarter. The produce of this duty might 
 be a fund to be applied in bounties to those landowners who should lay 
 land down to grass, under covenants not to break it up again within twenty 
 years, without returning the bounty and the interest upon it. There
 
 49 
 
 might also be given to the parishes in which this conversion of land took 
 place, and in proportion to the quantity converted, some of the money, to 
 assist a part of their labourers to emigrate, if they should be disposed so 
 to do. 
 
 That there is no way out of our difficulty, except by giving up the arable 
 cultivalion of a large breadth of our worst land, I am most confident. 
 The only question is — whether the consummation shall be brought about, 
 in a sure and beneficial manner, by a legislative measure, or left to the 
 slow operation of distress. The corn farmers are like trees too closely 
 planted : — none flourish until a sufficient number of the weakest have 
 died off. The measure I suggest is like that of the woodman, who 
 thins them out at an early state of their growth. 
 
 I propose the same duty upon cats, barley, &c., as upon wheat, because 
 a greater encouragement to the spring corns would lead to a more 
 wholesome and more ameliorating system of husbandry. I am not at all 
 afraid of the difficulty of the details for the working of the measure I have 
 here suggested. 
 
 H.B.T. 
 
 27th February, 1834. 
 
 FINTS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Printed by Wiii.iAM Clowes, 1-J, (.'hariiig Cross,
 
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