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UC SOUTHERNI REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
II III Hill mil nil I
AA 000 564 000
AN ADDRESS,
&C. &C.
PricQ 25. 6d.
A
AN ADDRESS
Tfi THE
HOUSES OF LORDS ANJ) COMxMONS,
IN DEFENCE
THE CORN LAWS.
By GODFREY IIIGGINS, Esq.
OF SKELLOW GRANGE, NEAR DONCASTER.
SUUM CUIQUK.
J-ONDON:
PRINTKD nv A. J. VALI'V, PKD MON COURT, Pt.FKT STREET.
SOLD BY SHERWOOD AND CO. PATF.RXOSTKU ROW ; RIDOWAY,
PICCADILLY ; AND BY ALL nOOK3ELLERS.
182G.
AN ADDRESS,
&c. &c.
TO THE
HOUSES OF LORDS AND COMMONS.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
In perusing the reviews and newspapers, I have lately
observed, that scarcely a day has passed in whicli the most bitter
invectives have not been lavished upon the landlords and farmers,
on the subject of the Corn Laws. It appears that the press is almost
entirely in the possession of their avowed enemies, with very little
exertion on their parts to correct its mistakes ; or I fear, some-
times, its wilful misrepresentations. Amongst the enemies of the
farming interest, the Morning Chronicle and the Edinburgh and
Westminster Reviews, have taken a leading part. The last, in its sixth
number, with much ability, and in a snuill and reasonable compass,
seems to have consolidated all that has been alleged with any
appearance of reason, by the diflVrent writers on its side of the
(|uesti()n ; and as it has had no contradiction given toils statements,
I have bten induced to submit to your consideration some obser-
vations in reply to it, — to enter tlie lists, and try to break a spear
with this nanjeless, masked opponent, who has no hesitation to use
hard names to (fillers, very contrary to the usual practice of this
respectable reviewer, though he does not think it expedient to di-
vulge his own.
The article] of the Westminster Review is reprinted entire at
the end of this letter; and its sections are nmnbered, in order that
ref(;retu:e may be more easilv had to the arguments on each side,
and that you may be assured, without trouble, that the whole of
the question is .submitted to your consideration. If the sections
A
'>
in the earlier part of it do not always appear to be fully re-
futed, the -author flatters himself the refutation will be found
satisfactory in the end. The consideration, or full discussion of
them, is only delayed to the latter |)art, in order to condense the
matter as nuic'.i as possible, by avoiding repetitions.
By this means, the writer flatters himself that the subject will
be laid before you in a plain and simple form, without being con-
fused by the metaphysical profundity of modem political economy;
in the depths of which many excellent and very able men seem
lately to have been much bewildered, if not absolutely lost. And
as the article in the Westminster Review is the concentrated
essence of all tjiat has been said against the farmers and landlords,
the author considers, that if he succeed in refuting its arguments,
he will have a right to call upon you, in the performance of your
duty, still to continue to shelter and protect, as you have hitherto
done, the thousands and hundreds of thousands of farmers and
landlords, and their dependants, from the i uin with which they are
threatened.
From the opening paragraph. Sec. 1, it appears, that the subject
is not to be dropped till, by means of continual solicitation or
repetition, the object of the reviewer is obtained. He neither
hopes for, nor pretends to discover any thing new. He says, — -
It is not enough that they (meaning, of course, the legislators)
aliould be made to think on the suhject. Now it is here admitted
that they have thought on the subject, but it is said that sonie-
thing mure must be done by tiie enemies of the farmers; and what
is it that they are required to do ? Thei/ are to proclaim their
opinions zcith a loudness and perseverance rcJiich may overawe
those zohom they cannot hope to convince. "^I'hus, my Lords and
Gentlemen, you see that the manufacturers, who, good souls, are
totally without prejudice, and are the only persons capable of
judging, are to overawe you ; that is, to compel you to comply
with their views, by clamour, 8cc. ; and this they are to do because
they cannot hope to convince you. It is not necessary to add any
thing more respecting this candid peroration, except that it has
the great merit of being devoid of hypocrisy, though certainly it
contains a very bad compliment, either to your honesty, or to your
understandings. You either cannot see the truth, or seeing it, you
will not be convinced.
There can be no doubt that the assertion in Sec. 2, that it is the
inteiest of a nation to purchase its articles where they can be
had the cheapest, is generally true. But though this be true in
the abstract, it does not follow, that where very great, new and
artificial interests have been created, on the solicitation of either
the manufacturers, or on the mistaken views, or for the furtherance
of the guilty objects of a ministry, or for any other reason, that
these interests are to be sacrificed to an abstract theory, in gratifi-
cation of the caprice, or in promotion of the pecuniary views of
any set of men, and at the expense of all the remainder of the
community — a remainder, whose very existence Ijas become iden-
tified with the new and artificially-created state of society. Nor
does the expression used by Mr. Curteis justify the charge brought
against him, of supporting monopoly in the abstract, though he
probably may be weak enough to consider a little, — to hesitate,
befi)re he sacrifices, at a single blow, the certain comforts and
welfare of millions of his unoffending countrymen, at the shrine
either of a new or old philosophy.
It is not invariabh/ true, as stated in Sec. 3, that it is desirable
to the purchaser that commodities should be cheap. It is not de-
s'yable, if in order to produce this cheapness his means of pur-
chasing be thereby destroyed. Some years ago, when corn, &,c.
fell to a very low price, the labourers in husbandry were filled with
joy; but, alas! their joy was soon turned to sorrow, when they
found, what they had not before thought of, that by the ruin of
their masters, they were deprived of wages wherewith to buy the
corn, cheap as it was. ]Slany of them did not hesitate to ac-
knowledge their wishes for a return of high prices.
The small tradesmen in the country towns were equally delighted
with cheap corn ; but they soon repented, when they found that
there were no Christmas bills to be paid, and that gloom and
sadness had usurped the place of cheerfulness and brown stout, or
Chi istmas pies, in the former hospitable butlers' pantries, or house-
keepers' rooms of the landlords.
In most of the treatises on the Corn Laws, see Sec. 4, much labour
has been expended to prove, that their abolition would not injure
the landlords, as thereby the price of grain would not be decreased.*
Jiut this only proves tiiat their authors belonged to that set of per-
sons who were of o{)inion, that the landlords deserved the nick-
name, which has been humourously given to them, of Jolterheads,
However, I trust that upon this subject, such of them as have
seals ill the Houses of Lords and Commons, will show, that they
at least do not deserve it. The reviewer admits that the etl'ect of
♦ In the Morning Clironicic of Dec. 6ib, 18-25, is an account of the price
of provisions at Tour;*, in Irancc ; iVdni wliicli it appears lliat good bread
varies from one sous to one sous and ;i liaif a pound, and llial a man can
mauiiiiiM liirnscir, liis wife, and ilirce children, lor 7\d. a di> linfjlish, in a
coinlortaljlc manner; indeed the piper says, lwMiri(iw>> maimer. From this
adrni'-sioii of his opponent the Chronicle, the English farmer may easily
jn<l::e, what would be the price of grain in England, if tlie Corn Laws were
abolished.
the Coin Laws is to raise the price of grain ; and, iherefoif , that
their abolition will reduce it. Probably, before he gets to the end
of ihis letter, the reader may think that the reviewer, in main-
taining, in some degree in opposition to his former admission, that
the fall in the price of grain will be but trifling, shows that he is one
of the persons who take the landlords iov jolterheads.
The author is very far from justifying the whole of the conduct
of the landlords for the last thirty years; but he has no hesitation in
saying, that the disgraceful sweeping assertion which has escaped
the pen of this respectable reviewer, in the first sentence of Sec. 4,
tending to iiistil into the mind of the reader, that evil to the com-
munity was iuditi'ereut to the landlords without exception, so long
as they thereby obtained high rents, is an unfounded insinuation.
It is not true that the landlords are the sole gainers by the rise
in the prices of grain. It may be easily shown, that the farmers
are gainers in various ways ; but one will be enough. Along with
the rise in the permanent price of corn, the value of every article of
which the farmer's stock in trade consists increases ; and his lease,
not the least, if he have one.
In Sec. 5, the reviewer takes credit to himself for stating a case
most favourable to the landlords ; but surely with very little justice ;
for in the very first sentence he has mis-stated it. The question
does not lie betwixt the landlords and the people generally, but, as
I shall hereafter show, betwixt the persons who live on the interest
of money, the persons who live on fixed incomes, annuities, rent
charges, &c. the manufacturers solely for foreign consumption, and
a few professional men, on the one side : and the landlords, farmers,
and all the remainder of mankind, on the other, amongst whom
are to be placed an immense multitude of small retail tradesmen,
depending for subsistence on the landlords and farmers.
The whole of Sec. 6 and 7 are nearly as loose and indefinite as
the expression o{ ^' protecting agriculture ;" but yet, as it is admitted
that the Corn Laws increase the price given for agricultural pro-
duce, a person of plain common sense may be induced to believe,
that there is nothing very absurd in the supposition, that to give a
higher price than has formerly been given for the fruits of the
earth, is to encourage agriculture or horticulture, as the case may
be. There can be no doubt that the gains of the farmer are, in
some respects, of a difTerent nature from those of the landlord, but
it will be difficult to prove " that no two interests can be more
diametrical! ij opposite."
The reader may here observe, that the reviewer is beginning to
discover what I hinted at in a former section, that the exclusion of
foreign corn is not beneficial to landlords, to so great an extent as
has been supposed. Probably before we finish it will be disco-
vered, that the jolterheads will act wisely for their own comforts, to
reduce their rents a little below zero.
It is admitted in Sec. 8^ that although corn should rise, the
labourer would receive the same reat wages as before ; that as it
rises, his wages rise, and thus he receives no injury from the
dearness of corn. This is all true ; but not so the next assertion,
that the manufacturers are compelled to give a greater value to
their labourers, without having a greater value for themselves:
because it is notorious, that as wages rise they increase the price of
their articles ; and in order to enable them to do this tiiey have
surrounded themselves with restrictions upon articles of foreign
manufacture, in every manner that they could devise, and in many
cases very properly, although in some unwisely.
The farmer, like all other capitalists, will raise the price of his
produce to remunerate him for the rise of wages, if he be not pre-
vented by the opening of the ports. In this case, the admission
of foreign corn operates precisely the same as the admission of
foreign manufactures in the former case.
Notwithstanding what is said respecting the gain of capitalists in
Sec. 9 and 10, a liigli price of corn is beneficial to the farmer iu
various ways; as for instance, by increasing the value of his capi
tal ; for every article on his farm will rise in value with the rise in
corn; and thcnigh the corn which he and his labourers consume
cost him more, the additional cost is charged to those who pur-
chase the remainder of his crop. The same precisely as is done
by the manufactmer.
The landlords do not wish, as insinuated in Sec. 11, that the
whole community should be taxed for their sakes alone; they wish
for nothing but what is just ; and though the reviewer affects to
consider that he has proved his case, he feels conscious that it is
not safe to leave it here, — he seems to think it expedient to say a
little more than enough ; it will therefore be necessary to examine
this little additional matter. Notwiihstaiiding all that the ])olitical
economists may say, it has not yet been proved that national wealth
does depend solehj on large profits to individuals. Jt is very
possible that the profit upon stock or capital made l)y each
individual nuMnber of a community may be very small ; yet if that
community be terrj industrious, the capital may rapidly increase :
and, on the other hand, it is possible that the profits on the stock
of a community may be large, though if that community be very
idle, its wcaltli may not increase s<» fast as tiic wealth of the com-
munity that is very industrious. The great number of the small
jirofits of tiie industrious community may more than counterbalance
the small mimber of the large profits of the idle one; but it is
not of much consequence to push this any furllier, as it does not
seem much to affect the question.
The hindlords are accused, Sec. 12 to l6, not only of being
robbers, but of being wanton destroyers of the weahh of others.
In order to prove tliese assertions, a good deal of verbiage is used
not in a very tangib'e shape. It is very true that the purchasers
pay a higher price for the corn than if there were no Corn Laws ;
but this higher price consists of nuthing more than what the hind-
lord gets, and the increased price required by the persons whose
labour is used by the farmer to bring the corn to market, and the
increased price of his own subsistence. And though this may be
injurious to the purchaser, the cause of it is not to be foimd in the
lancUord, but elsewhere, which the reviewer d.es not notice ; but
into which a little enquiry w'ill presently be made. I'he reviewer
here contradicts what he has said before, that the situation of the
labourer is not worse in consequence of the increased price of
corn, because with its increased price his wages rise. It is cer-
tainly true that the Corn Laws have tlie effect of continuing a
portuin of capital in, and causing a quantity of labour to be
bestowed upon the land, which would not be so continued
and bestowed without them. It is also true that if the Corn Laws
Mere to be abolished, the labour of the 1'20 or 130 of the ujen of
Britain now employed to raise a given quantity of corn, would be
immediately dispensed with, and would be exchanged for the
labour of 120 men only of P<;land or France ; and the 120 men
of Britain would be actually reduced to starvation, whilst the
labonrer of France or Poland would be benefited. But it will be
difficult to persuade either English labourers, farmers, or landlords,
to approve this.
Every newspaper is filled with complaints, that the North
Americans cannot buy our manufactures, because we will not take
their grain in payment, it is very evident that a certain quantity
only is wanted for the world's consumption; and it mertly comes
to the question, Mhelher the given quantity is to be supplied by
American people or by British people? If the desired change
take place, the Americiin farmers uill consume a certain quan-
tity of goods V. hicii the English farmers now consume; and
the EnL'lish will cease to consume them. But how will this
niaterially benefit the manufacturers? By means of machinery,
more goods are made than the world can consume. At the same
time, by means of the f"a( iiitits afforded by banks, Jkc. new land is
daily brought into cultivation m America, &,c. and more corn
raised than the world can consume. Thus both classes are con-
stantly on the confines, or ratlier beyond their proper bounds; this
keeps down the price of both, and straitens them in their profits.
and causes complaints; but it increases population, and as popula-
tion keeps increasing, the difficulty keeps reinovincr. The increase
of population, both iii America and England, again increases pro-
duction, and its excess again keeps encouraging population. Thus
the quantity of calico and corn which overstocked the world seven
years ago, is now not enough; and thus, notwithstanding all the
complaints of the cotton-makers in England, and corn-makers in
America, they keep constantly increasing in numbers and wealth.
The reviewer seenis to consider what he pleases to call thruiving
the loKest soils out of cultivation, with perfect complacency ; see
Sec. 19. He never wastes a thought upon the sweeping ruin,
which would be produced by the employment of the 120 foreigners
instead of the 120 British, and the thruwing the loivest soils out of
cultivation. Tiiis mass of ruin is below his consideration. But
if he will be kind enough to descend from his lofty political eco-
nomical hobby-horse, and inquire a little further, he will find that
these two operations will not only involve the ruin of the largest part
of the farming labourers, the farmers, and th.e landlords, but that
along with them must go an iumiense luimber of little tradesmen,
in the villages and small agricultural towns throughout all the island,
who are entirely dependant on the occupiers of land. It caimot
be believed, that if these respectable editors and reviewers saw
the effect of the experiment which they recommend, they would
advocate it for a moment. But bad as is the effect which has been
described, there is yet another effect which has not been noticed.
In cotisequence of an outlay, under the patronage and en-
couragement of the government, of an immense capital, and of
unceasing labour and skill for the last twenty-five years, our country,
con»paratively sj)eaking, is converted from nearly a desert into a
beautiful garden. From a principle of ccunoini/ this immense
mass of wealth is to be destroyed, actually destroyed, as a taper is
destroyed when it is biunt; and the garden is to be converted into
a desert, throrcn out of cultivation. 'I'his is done to save or gain
money. In this case the caj)ital cannot bt transferred from the land
to some other employuieut ; it must be actually destroyed. In
consequence of the encouragement given by several successive par-
liaments, &c. to cidtivate waste lands, the author of this improved
an otate in Yorkshire, by enclosing, dr.iining, vk,c. &c. by which
it was raised in value, from about one sliillmg to twenty-live shil-
Imgs an acre; and thus an estate producing a profitable return to
the public, probaljly of not It ss than three pounds an acre for (;vcr,
it may be said, was created. The land which barely kepi a sheep
on live f)r six acres, is now covered with line cows, the butler of
which is regularly sent to E(;eds market once a week. This is
now all to be destroyed, the land again restored to its native ling or
8
giotise, in order lliat a new set of persons may be produced, who
are not vet born, to swell the size of our large manufacturing
towns, and people a new set of enormous factories, with a po-
j)ulation of miserable, short-lived children, rendered rickety
by the unwholesomeness of their employment, and the excessive
quantity of their work : — in order that the up-grown manufactu-
rers may, out of the seven in every week, spend three days
instead of two, in drunkenness and idleness:* and in order that
the chairman of the meeting at Leeds, who presided lately
when a petition was got up against the Corn Laws, may keep
three or four four-wheeled carriages instead of two. '^J'his case of
the author's estate may be seen repeated in a greater or less degree
in every parish in Britain. "^Jhe farms of Mr. Coke around Holk-
ham have been improved in a similar maiuier ; and instead of
keeping a few rabbits on land worth half-a-crown an acre, they are
covered with the finest crops of grain, and occupied with a healthy
and happy tenantry, all of whom must go to the parish; for it is
out of the question to think of employing a pair of hands, which
have been used perhaps for twenty years to fill a dung-cart, in
sorting the hairs of a Cashmere goat to make into Norwich shawls,
or handling the fine skeins of the silkworm.
The absurdity of all this in another point of view is very striking,
and exhibits an extraordinary example of short-sightedness. It
may be asked, who are the great consumers of the manufactures
made by these brawlers for no Corn Laws, but the landlords, the
farmers, their labourers, and the retail tradesmen and artificers de-
pendant upon them ? And though they are certainly not the sole
consumers, they are unquestionably the largest consumers, and the
best customers which the manufacturers have in the world : and
these cheap corn men are so weak as to think, that they will be
benefited by reducing the property of these customers ; by ren-
dering them less able to purchase their goods! Was ever any
thing so foolish .'' Very deservedly they might be left to suffer the
punishment which would naturally follow the effect of their folly;
but unfortunately this cannot be, without involving millions of un-
fortunates in their ruin, 'ihey cannot set their own houses on fire
without burning their neighbours'.
The author of the Review Encyclopedique of France, has lately
given a comparative view of the commerce of France and England.
* It is well known, that in Yorkshire, when provisions are low and trade
brisk, the operatives seldom go to work before W etlnesday. The character
of the popnlati(jn formed in the factories on the ruin of the highly respect-
able domestic manufacturer, so much lauded formerly by Messrs. Wilber-
force and Lascelles, in tiieir report on the cloth trade, shows itself in times
of prosperity, in vice; in times of adversity, in crime.
9
As to the questions betwixt the foreign and domestic traders and
consumers of England, I do not see any reason why he should not
be considered an impartial judge; and he states as follows:
Francs. Pounds.
The home trade of Britain 8,604,850,000 358,535,416
The foreign trade of do. 1,894,275,000 78,969,791
The economists may dissect and distort these numbers as they
please ; the immense superiority of the certain domestic, over the
uncertain foreign trade, must always remain apparent.
The history of the trade of Great Britain since the peace proves
the truth of what has been advanced, respecting the consumption
of the manufactures. For some years after it took place, trade
was in the most depressed state. This was caused in great part,
if not entirely, by the state of embarrassment and misery into
which the landlords and tenants, and all the little dependent trades,
were brought by several causes united to the return to cash pay-
ments. By degrees, as they began to recover, trade began to re-
vive. They began to buy again, so trade flourished ; and so it
continued till the end of the year ending Jan. 5lh, 1824. There
never was a time when the manufactures of the country were so
flourishing, as during the year ending Jan. 5th, 1824. This was
entirely caused by a return of the landlords and farmers to a state
of comparative prosperity, and not by the. foreign trade, for in this
year the exports fell off" 432,163/.
The exports in the year ending January 5tli, 1823, being
44,236,533/., and in the year ending January 5tli, 1824, being
43,804,372/., a reduction, as said above, of 432,163/. ; since that
a great alarm has taken place amongst the landlords and farmers ;
all improvements have ceased, and the laborers in husbandry are
greatly distressed. '1 he landlords and farmers have been husband-
ing their resources, to meet the impending storm ; the trade in con-
sequence, this last year, it is said, has declined. This declension
the manufacturers attribute to dear corn ; when in reality it ought
to be attriljuted to the fears of the farmers. What can be more
striking than the fact, that the manufactures flourished in the year
1823, though the foreign trade declined? No person need wish
for a more decisive proof of the truth of what is iiere advanced.
It has been observed (just now), that the huullords, &c. are
not the sole consumers, 'i'liere is certainly another very large
class, and this shall be now introduced to your notice.
A set of ladies and gentlemen, who are of very great conse-
quence in this afltair, but who, very disrespectfully, have been en-
tirclv nvcilooked hv the icvirwrr — nrvcr named oiue. lie mav
10
prob.iblv be one of tliis class, and therefore too modest to speak
oniiniself; however, ihongh I am one of ihem to u small amount,
1 siiall not carry my modesty quite so far.
During the last and former wars, in order to raise supplies to
carry theui on, die govennnent, in return for sums of money ad-
vanced, granted annuities. These aniuiities were redeemable at
the option of the grantor, on paying a certain sum to the grantee,
for each given sum of annuity. 7'his annuity was secured on the
produce of the taxes. The holders of these annuities, to the
amount of betwixt thirty and forty millions a year, are called
stockholders, or fundholders. It is evident that they are consumers
to the amount of their annuity, and of course are greatly interested
in these discussions. It is worthy of observation, that in all the
speeches of the corn abolitionists, the public annuitants are never
once named, but studiously kept out of sight; though in fact it is
their existence, and not the avarice of landlords or farmers, which
causes dear corn — which renders the continuance of the Corn
Laws necessary. Abolish the annuity, (the landlords say,) and
you may abolish the Corn Laws when you please. The heavy
taxes are the cause of the dear corn : and though this has been
proved a hundred times, as it is studiously kept in the back ground,
it shall be once more explained.
It is constantly said, that all taxes are paid by the consumer.
'i'his depends entirely upon what is meant by the word consumer.
If it be meant that the person who eats, or drinks, or wears the
taxed articles, pays them, it is very far from being always true :
it is in fact very seldom true. An attempt will now be made to
discover who does pay them.
Let the case of a shoemaker be taken, who gains his living solely
by his trade : and suppose a tax laid upon leather, or a shop tax to
be imposed. It is very evident, that if the shoemaker only made,
before the tax was laid on, a fair living profit, — a fair return for
Lis capital, skill, and industry, he must make his customers pay the
tax, or he must be ruined. In order to do this he raises the price
of his slioes, putting a small additional charge upon each pair.
Suppose a pair bought by a tailor, a pair by a farmer, a pair by a
landlord, a pair by a laborer in husbandry, a pair by a fundholder,
and a pair by a cotton manufacturer, for the use of foreigners
only.
As soon as the tailor finds that he pays more than usual for his
shoes, he raises the price of his coats, and thus he escapes the tax ;
and if the persons who buy the coats be tradesmen, they make
their customers pay it, as the tailor made them pay it : but if his
customers be fundholders, or persons who live upt-n the interest of
11
money, these can no longer throw it from their shoulders, and thus
it ultimately falls upon them. If the customers who buy the
coats of the tailor be manufacturers of calicoes for Frenchmen,
the Frenchmen pay it. If the customers who buy the cqats be
laborers in husbandry, they raise their wages, and thus the farmers
pay it ; and if the farmers be only tenants from year to year, they
lower their rents, and thus the landlords pay it. But if the
farmers have leases they cannot lower their rents, and therefore they
pay it ; and if it be sufficiently heavy they are ruined, because they
cannot raise the price of their grain to their customers, being pre-
vented by several circumstances which do not apply to other
tradesnjen.*
If the customers who buy the coats be landlords, they pay it,
because they cannot raise their rents, the tenants, as has just now
been shown, in consequence of these very taxes, being under the
necessity of lowering their rents. It is useless to pursue this train
of reasoning through a thousand diflferent ramifications, as might be
done. Without going further, any person of common sense must
see, that this is at last the fact ; that the annuitants, the livers on
interest of money, certain professional men, and the landlords, are
the payers of the taxes, to which must be added the J'oreign con-
sumers, or buyers of our manufactures.
It was said above, that the farmer could not raise the price of
his commodity : this depends upon a variety of circumstances. In
a scarce year lie can, but not in a plentiful one : nor can he if corn
be brought into the ujarket by foreigners, who from any cause what-
ever can afford to sell corn for less money than he can : and as many
nations have not half the taxes to pay that he has, and have also a
finer soil and a finer climate, they can undersell him ; and thus as
he cannot laise his price, in consequence of this importation, he
is ruined by the taxes if he have a lease ; and if behave not, he then,
to save himself, obliges his landlord to reduce his rent, or else he
will throw up his farm, and the landlord is ruined ; or, in the lan-
guage of these economists, the land is ihroioi out of cu/iivation.
In order to prevent this, and in order that the taxes may be ob-
tained, and the amiuity paid to the fundholder, the Corn Laws
were made, to exclude foreign corn, by which means the farmer is
able to pay his rent, and the taxes to the government, and the go-
vermnent is enabled to pay the annuitant ; and thus the annuitant,
so carefully kept out of sight, is the cause of all the dilllcully. If
• In the beginning of the rrciich revolution war, when taxes were im-
posed, tradesmen were generally rniicli distressed by thcni, from not under-
standing bow to throw thern on to their customers. But before the end of
it, they learnt to raise their prices by a snuuitaneous movement, and a new
tax, however large, scarcely annoyed them at all.
12
riie rent and the animitj be paid to its extent, there niu«!t be a
Corn Law.
Now what the annuitants and the cotton manufacturers want is
this ; that corn should be admitted free. The effect of this would
be, that the manufacturers could sell their goods much cheaper to
foreigners, as they would get their food so much cheaper ; and
for the sake of the cheap food, the annuitants wish the same thing.
They calculate that though the landlords would be ruined, as little
or uo rent would be obtained, yet they, the annuitants, would live
much better on their tixed incomes, the provisions, and conse-
quently every thing else, being so much cheaper. 'I'hus the an-
nuitants, though kept out of sight as much as possible, on account
of the utter rottenness of their case, are strictly in alliance with the
manufacturers against the landlords : and for several powerful,
though concealed reasons, a part, if not the whole of the govern-
ment, is in strict league also with the manufacturers and annuitants
against the landlords ; therefore it is highly necessary for the land-
lords to look about them. Their enemies are both numerous and
active, and have the press entirely in their power. In order to
make the subject clear, 1 have put the cases in an extreme [loint
of view. It is obvious, that if the Corn Laws be abolished, the
landlords and farmers are ruined; if only partially removed, they
are injured in a proportionate degree.
But in the progress of these proceedings, it is very evident, and
has been proved by Mr. Cobbett over and over agam, that very-
near all the landed property of the kingdom must change hands.
It may be as well, in passing, just to observe, that n)y lords the
bishops, and all the numerous rectors, deans, prebendaries, &,c.
are to the full as much interested in the question, as the landlords
and farmers.
A strong epithet, i-ottenness, is applied above to the case of the
annuitants. Though not necessary for your information, it may be
useful to some persons into whose hands this may come, to know
a little of the nature of the transaction betwixt the fundholders and
the ministers. During the war, whenever the minister was greatly
distressed for money, he sent into the city to the money-jobbers
to ask them to assist him. A meeting then took place, and they
agreed to advance him w hat he wanted, at different times on different
terms, according to what they considered to be his necessities :
but usually in the following or a similar manner. They advanced
a sum, say 100/.; in return for which the minister gave them, say
30/. three per cent, consols, 10/. four per cents, 40/. long annuity,
and perhaps 10/. short annuity ; and perhaps three shillings and
sixpence three farthings in money. The real private object of all
this jargon was, to disguise the nature of the business from the
13
public* Tlie transaction being finished, the minister came ni^'
stantl}' to the house of commons, and announced that he had made
z famous bargain; in fact, overreached the jobbers. The jobbers
went instantly to the city, and nineteen times out of twenty sold
their annuities for a great premium, and made an enormous profit.
The real naked fact was this. In return for about bOl. the minister
granted an annuity of 3/. a year, redeemable by him whenever he
pleased, paying for such redemption the sum of 100/. for about
every 50/. advanced. Thus the sum now necessary to redeem
those annuities is, in proportion to the sum advanced, enormous.
These annuities are always on sale, in a place called the Stock
Exchange ; and the opportunity of speculating in their rise or fall
has created a system of profligate gambling, never equalled in the
history of the world before. Many of the aimuitants are un-
doubtedly above the least suspicion of being implicated in the
transactions to which 1 here allude. But taking them as a whole,
they are always protected by every minister for the time being, as
the apple of his eve.
Although the annuitant made a real Jew bargain, it was a bar-
gain, and it ought, if possible, to be supported. But under a
pretence of supporting or fuliilling a contract, he wishes the go
vernment to adopt such measures as will, in fact, out of the ruins
of his neighbour's property, give him double what he contracted
for. He says, I contracted to be paid a pound, and 1 ought in
justice to be paid a pound : but not if the government, from igno-
rance or design, has doubled the value of the pound ; particularly
too if the act of the govcrnmtut be at the instigation of the fund-
holder.
The government contrived to raise the annuity given in exchange
for such an enormous sum as six or seven hundred millions ster-
ling on such ruinous terms, by increasing the import price of grain,
from time to tinje ; so that, as the taxes increased, the rents increased,
and thus the landlords were enabled to meet them. Although
other means were used, yet without this raising of the import price,
the taxes never could have been paid. Now it is evident that the
import price cannot be raised above a certain height, and therefore
it is the object of the government to lower the price as nuich as
possible; so that, whenever another six hundred millions shall be
wanted, there may be room to raise it from tinu; to time. It is
like haviii'T a creat store of wealth in hand to go on with. And
such of the ministry as are uovi homines, and have no ancient pre-
jiuliccs in favour of old families, and family estates, only look to
the reduction of the rents as a source of power. I do not suppose
• It arose from accident, but it was coiilinucil from rlcsign.
14
iher, whatever tlje annuitants might do, would wish absohitely to
ruin the hindlords outright ; this would be bad pohcy for many
reasons ; but they would wish to bring them down as low as they
could, just to save lhon» : so that when they choose to begin a new
war, they may be sure, by a skilful use of this now tried machine,
to have a means of raising money ; and as the situation of the
landlords would begin to improve as the war advanced, they calcu-
late that they would have them also on their side.
You must now see, from what has been said in the foregoing
digression, that it is not for the landlords that the people of Britain
are taxed in the price of their corn, but that it is for the benefit of
the annuitants : that the landlords are, in fact, nothing but factors
and tax-gatherers for the annuitants.*
From Sec. 19 and 20, it seems the two political economists, the
Edinburgh Review and the Westminster, are at variance, as to what
would be the effect of abolishing the Corn Laws ; and you may
perceive that the Edinburgh wishes to persuade you, in the very
teeth of common sense, that the price of wheat would not fall below
6O5. a quarter : and the Westminster wishes to persuade you, that if
it should fall, the landlords would be most amply compensated, for
they would gain all the advantages of a steady regular price ; so
that, though there is evidently great doubt as to the result, they both
come to the same thing, abolish the law. As for the steadiness of
price, with which it is hoped to delude them, more of it presently :
it seems to be the grand sop, with which they aie to be bribed ; but
it must either be a very powerful spell, or they must be 'jolter-
heads' indeed to consent, in admitted ignorance of the effect,
to abolish the present laws, which work well for the whole com-
munity, as its great prosperity proves.
It is not necessary to follow the editor through his examination
of Mr, Solly's evidence, the returns from Dantzig, absurd ideas
about the monstrous price to which corn would be raised by our
going to buy it, &c. &c. as the reviewer admits what any person of
reflection must know, who has ever set foot across the channel,
that the moment it was known that we were absurd enough to ruin
all our farms, in order that we might send for corn from abroad in
future, in many countries, vast tracts of fresh laud would be
• A nameless annuitant, in a lately published pamphlet, in order the
better to deceive the jolterheads, and by a show of liberality strike the more
deadly blow at them, has admitted so much truth, that the author lias been
induced to reprint a part of it, and it will be found in an Appendix. Tlie
gentleman named in it, Mr. Mill, is a great favourite with the reviewers
and the new economists: I hope, my lords and country gentlemen, you will
not fail to bestow upon him some signal mark of your approbation. You
must approve his plan of di<^posing of the land. See App.
15
broken up, and sown with vvheat. Our foreign trade would per-
haps increase, but not in the same proportion as our domestic
would decrease. It seems very clear, that from Odessa and several
other places, if not wheat, flour at least could be sold in the Lon-
don market at a price equalling what could be made from wheat,
when under 30s. a quarter,* probably less. The landlords will
surely be more wise than to pay any attention to these returns from
America, Rotterdam, &,c. in Sec. 38, 40, got up by their enemies,
evidently to serve their own purpose. But there is one fact creeps
out from the Rotterdam return, well worthy of attention, as it is
the admission of an opponent.
The landlords are told, that steady prices are to be the effect of
open ports. The ports of Holland are always open ; and mark how
uncommonly well these open ports succeed in keeping the price
regular.
The price at Rotterdam, in 1817, was 93s. a quarter; in 1822
not quite 30s., one third ; and in 1824 it was actually under 25s.
See Appendix, No. 3. Surely if any thing can open the eyes of
the landlords to the nonsense of steady prices, this will do it.
Prices can never be made perfectly regular, till the east winds are
rendered more mild, mildew prevented, and a fine shower produced
every Sunday morning. Carry these points, and then you will
have regular prices. The practice of kiln-drying wheat, and storing
it in granaries, is more likely to produce regularity of price, than
any other device that I have heard of. VV^nehouses are building in
many parts of England iti great numbers, and of prodigious size;
where it is said, that if wheat be properly dried, it may be kept
perfectly sweet and good for eight or ten years, without being
moved even once ; that in fact turning it is detrimental : thus all
waste and expense is obviated. This seems to put it in the power
of a nation, always to prevent any very enormous variation ; at
least, to niuke the variation less than it was in the open port of
Rotterdam, where it was nearly as great as ever it was, betwixt
any two succeeding years within the last twenty-five years in
Jtngland.
The reviewer, in Sec. 38, says, that he has received from a great
commercial house at Liverpool, the average prices of wheat Irom
1820 to 1824 inclusive. It is uiiloitiinate that he did not procure
it finm 1 8 1.5, as he has done in the Rotterdam return in Sec. 40.
It seems very probable, as tin; pmls of America must have been
open to the Dutch, tlial (Ik; j)rices must have borne a relative pro-
portion ni the two eoiintnes ; and that w*- .should have found nearly
a similar difference, betwixt the year 1817 and 1822 in America,
• See Appendix, Nu. 3.
16
as we find in Holland. I attribute this deficiency in the retuni,
not to design, but to inadvertency ; because, if the reviewer had
wished to suppress inforniation, he would not have given the Rot-
terdam return, by wliich the argument of eqitalitj/ of prices^ so
niucli depended on, and which is to be produced by open ports, is
proved to be unattainable by tliat measure at least: and the failure
of tlie efiect in the open ports of HoUand, proves how dangerous
it is for the farmers to risk their very existence on the confident as-
sertions of the annuitants and reviewers. Assertions which, in effect,
produce to those who make them a great increase of property, are
easily made. Persons without any ill intention, easily persuade
themselves that those things are expedient, which benefit them-
selves.
The way in which individuals seem to think it their interest to
store corn in large granaries, promises to obviate the evil of future
very unequal prices in a great degree. If it can be made a source
of profit, it is evidently much better that it should be done by indivi-
duals, than by the government. If it be not possible to do it any
other way, it would be very desirable to do it by large joint stock
companies ; but it seems very certain that it may be done one
way or another, so as to prevent any ruinous fluctuation of prices.
There is one granary lately built near Wakefield, in Yorkshire, the
different floors of which afford a space equal to more than an acre
of ground.
In the latter part of Sec. 43, the reviewer seems angry, because
the landlords will not believe that the opening the ports will only
make a difference of eight or nine shillings a quarter. But they
may reply, taking him at his word, if it only make so small a dif-
ference, the increase which this will make in the cost of any ma-
nufacture, will be so small as scarcely to be perceptible. It will
not, probably, raise the price of the lowest priced calico a half-
penny a yard, or the highest priced cloth a shilling.
The fluctuations in the price of corn, see Sec. 44, have not been
caused by the restriction on the import of foreign grain ; nor would
the removal of the restriction prevent them. They are sometimes
caused by the variations of the seasons, causing good or bad crops.
When a bad crop comes, making corn dear, landlords know better
than to raise their rents, because they know, what the annuitants
and manufacturers seem never to know, viz. that though corn be
dear, the farmers have less of it to sell. And when an unusually
good crop comes, reducing the price of corn, farmers do not think
of reducing their rents, because the increase of quantity balances
against the decrease of price.
But sometimes fluctuations are caused by the measures of go-
vernmeni, bank restriction acts, &,c. &c. Then, indeed, landlords
17
raise or lower iheir rents, to endeavour to save themselves from
ruin : but restriction on imports has nothing to do with these fluc-
tuations.
In Sec. 45, the reviewer seems to argue, as if, when corn was
scarce, it was prohibited by the English law. On the contrary,
the moment it becomes too dear, it is admitted. Our regulations
have prevented famines, though we have had severe dearths. Italy
with its open ports and fine soil and climate, has had a real
famine within the last seven years. Great numbers of people ac-
tually died on the road-sides of hunger. If our ports were open,
after a little time no more corn would be grown in the world than
is grown now. The only difference would be, that it would be
grown in Poland and America instead of Britain. The desert of
Poland would grow into a garden, the garden of England into a
desert. It is true what Mr. Tooke says, Sec. 46, that a small va-
riation in the supply will create a great variation in price. On this
account the newly formed large granaries promise to be peculiarly
beneticial; and indeed, to obviate all the difficulty, when combined
with several other measures always in our power, whether they be
used for home-grown or foreign grain. The permission to bond
foreign corn is excellent. The reviewer. Sec. 47, is under a great
mistake in saying less corn is not consumed when it is dear : the
contrary is the fact ; much less is consumed, and the poor suffer in
consequence.
He is also nearly equally mistaken in saying, that wages do not
rise in proportion to the rise in the price of corn, because they are
affected only by permanent variations in price. Every day's ex-
perience proves that they rise almost instantly. The assertion here
made, directly contradicts the assertion made in Sec. 8 ; but these
kmd of contradictions aln)ost always take place, where systems
and arguments are not on any solid foundation.
The arithmetical calculation, in Sec. 48, cannot be disputed ; but
this is no argument against the Corn Laws : and it may be shown
that the days are much more of the halcyon kind, when the farmer
is selling his corn cheap in consequence of iraving a double crop.
In the f(jrmer, when the crop is bad, he gains a certain smn, with the
ill-will of every one about liim ; in tli<; latter he probably gains a
larger sum, witli every cue's jjood-will. It is rather hard upon the
farmer, that he should be blamed for exertmg himself to cultivate
his farm well, and thuii to endeavour, by honest industry, to support
his fa!nily,at th(; same time that he is meeting the public necessity.
It is not true, see Sec. 4L), that a trilling excess of crop pro-
duces a depression in price, greater in proportion than a trilling
deficiency of crop produces excess of |)rice : the contrary is ge-
c
18
nerallv true, because the former case is not attended with un-
founded alarm, as the latter almost always is, The surplus pro-
duce of our plentiful years piomises to be eft'ectuully provided for
by the new granaries building ; and all the ruinous consequences
here described to arise from agricultural prosperity, are totally un-
known in Britain yet, and always will be, as long as we continue
an importing nation. There has not been any distress and throw-
ing land out of cultivation, like that described in Sec. 49, 50, ex-
cept that caused on the alteration in the value of the currency, by
the return to cash payments, &.c. As long as Britain cherishes her
agriculture so as to grow nearly enough for her own consumption,
the little she wants will probably ahoays be obtained ; but when
she ruins all her farms, except a few of the very best, she will find
she is liable, as she was formerly, to constant famines, though her
population bore no comparison to what it is at this time. The
farmers are much obliged to the reviewer for his anxiety displayed
for them, in Sec. 49 ; but they are willing to risk the ruin he
foresees : they quote to him the old line of Latin, which they learnt
at school, ' timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes.'
The landlords and farmers are also much obliged to Mr. Whit-
more for his anxiety for them, lest they should fall into the situ-
ation of West India planters, as shown in Sec. 53. If he wish
to oblige them still more, he will be kind enough to let them
alone.
There is no doubt, that an improvement might be made in the
mode of taking the averages, by increasing the number of places
where the prices or sales are registered ; but the landlords ought to
be very careful how they allow any alteration, where it is evident
that all the improvers are united against them. A few, and a very
few instances of fraud or abuse in the mode of taking the averages,
have furnished, to the manufacturers and annuitants, a ground for
much idle declamation and misrepresentation. And 1 believe that
the acts of fraud have been done, if done at all, for the sake of
opening, not of shutting the ports, to benefit the fundholders and
manufacturers, by reducing the price of grain.
The extraordinary depreciation in the value of grain, &c. which
took place a few years ago, was the effect of a combination of
causes, which is never likely to take place again. The change in
the value of the currency, by distressing the farmers, obliged them
to bring their grain to market, in a manner very different from what
was their usual practice. About this time the very proper measure
of opening the ports of [reland to England, began to operate with
an effect which had not been foreseen ; for in consequence of the
previous years of high prices in England, as soon as the ports
19
were open to Ireland, its farmers, to a very great extent, ploughed
up their rich pastures, and thus were enabled to pour an enormous
quantity of grain into the English markets. When, to their great
disappointment they found, that they had ruined their rich feeding
pastures to produce grain which was worth nothing.
About the same time several years of unusual productiveness
came together, in close succession. These causes operating,
opened the foreign ports, and thus aggravated the evil ; and the
union of then) all, produced the ruinous eflFects with which we are
acquainted. But it is evident that these causes can never unite in
the same manner again ; and therefore 1 hope that the charitable
and humane anxiety of the annuitants, for fear lest the farmers
should suffer from the unsteadiness of prices on the side of cheap-
ness, has no foundation in truth : at least to the extent to which it
was carried in the times of which we have been speaking. The
great granaries will, 1 trust, be ready and effectual to receive the
overplus of superabundant years, and reserve it for a time of
scarcity.*
The project displayed in Sec. 54, shows that the agricultural
reviewer is only qualified to farm in Grosvenor or St. James's
squares. He is a \ery good man at his pen, but he is not a prime
farmer. The greatest part of the corn land could not be con-
verted into pasture, but at a very great expense, and with an
immense loss. Not so much as a twentieth part of the pre-
sent corn lands could be returned to a good sward of grass
in less than ten or a dozen years ; and when they were so
restored, in cojiseqiience of the free admission of foreign wool,
they would be worth by the acre very little more than the land in
the neighbourhood of Odessa. As the wool from Odessa, Saxony,
8cc. could be brought in almost any quantity ; its supply would
be only limiled by the demand. It already competes with our
wool, 'I'he clip of the Uuke of Kichlieu and M. Pictct de
llochemont, of Oeneva, from their large llocks near Odessa, was
worked up by Mr. Gott, at Leeds, within iho last two years, as the
author was iiifornicd by M . l*iclct. Before the increase of the
population in the factories here contemplated could take place,
the agricultural |)opulatiou must be dreadfully reduced. Our
villages and rural farm-steads will Jiiake a gratifying appearance
under this new system, as not above one house m twenty will be
wanted for the shepherds, and not above a twentieth part of the
labouring population. The labourers will starve upon cheap corn,
and tlie farmers will become the shepherds.
• Sec a pamphlet on tins subjtct by Kdw. Chorlcy, Esq.; published by
Sheaidowii, Duncastcr.
20
Notwithstanding the unction about tlie happiness of future
thousands and millions, in Sec. 55, llic friends of tlie present laws
think it as well to attend to the present generation : and it may
be an object worthy of deliberation, whether it would not be de-
sirable rather to discourage the increase of the factory popu-
lation, in such towns as Birmingham and Manchester, than to en-
courage it.
The abuse into which the reviewer has permitted himself to be
betrayed, in Sec. 06, only shows the weakness of his argument.
The sophisms are all on the side of the reviewer.
As long as we require only a fourth or a fifth of our food from
abroad, on the event of a deficient crop,* there can be little doubt
that we shall be always able to meet the difficulty, by means of
importation, our'granaries, stopping the distilleries, &,c. ; but this is
very difl'erent from what it would be, if we grew only one-fourth,
and depended upon strangers for the remaining three-fourths. The
arguments against protecting laws, which are urged in the Sections
from 56, are all exceedingly good as long as one grand fact is kept
out of sight, viz. our excessive taxation. But this fact renders all
the reasoning false. Our manufacturers have hitherto beaten fo-
reigners by the union of great capital, skill, machinery, &,c. in op-
position to the excessive and grinding taxes, necessary to support
our expensive government, and pay the annuitant his thirty millions
a year. If this thirty millions could be removed, the Corn Laws
and all other restrictive laws might safely be removed ; but if the
restrictive laws were all taken ofil", and the taxes left as they are,
the rent of the land, where any rent was paid, would be instantly
transferred to the annuitants, and many of the manufacturers would
be ruined.
In consequence of the late wars, &c. an artificial state of society
has been created in this country, on the continuance of which the
existence of millions of persons depends. In Sec. 63, you are
in fact required, by withdrawing protection from manufactures, at
once to destroy this artificial state, in compliance with a theory,
without attending to the fact, that this must cause the destruction
of millions of human beings.
In a natural state of society, Mr. Iluskisson's theories are per-
fectly true ; but he is most earnestly implored to consider well,
whether the obliging this country to return to such a state, will not
cost more in human misery, as well as in wealth, than the advan-
tage is worth. For many reasons he has been very politic in be-
ginning his changes by an attack on the laws relating to the silk
* See Appendix, No, 2.
21
trade; but for an equal number of reasons, if he succeed,* it will
form an example proper for imitation in very few other instances.
Jiut 1 much fear that he will not succeed; but that, after havincr
reduced to the lowest stale of misery and distress an inconceivable
number of unfortunate operatives, he v,'ill be obliged to retrace
his steps.
The reviewer, Sec. 67, wonders that the continental powers do
not refuse to supply us, when our corn rises to 70,s. or upwards:
the fact is, unless they be satisfied that they have enough for iheni-
selves, they always do refuse, and prohibit its export. If they have
any to spare they have no objection to selling it to us, to take our
high pnre for it; nor did they ever think of being offended with
us for not buying it, as long as our own country could supply it to
us, until they were put upon this by our new economists, if indeed
they be oft'ended.
In the latter part of Sec. 67, an attempt is made to frighten you
with a prophecy, that encouraging agriculture and endeavouring
to grow enough corn for our consumption will cause a famine. It
is realiy unnecessary to attempt any reply to it.
In all former times, the man who made two blades of grass to
grow where only one grew before, was held up to view as a public
benefactor. Now all at once it is discovered, bi/ the gentlemen of
Change Alley, the annuitants, that so far from being a public
benefactor, he has been a public enemy. The writer of this is
obliged to confess, that he looks back vvith no pleasant sensations
now, to the time when he received the large gold medal from the
society of arts, by the hand of a royal duke, for the iniprovement
of the waste moors upon his property. He then foolishly ima-
gined, that when he was converting his personal into real property,
to the benefit of his family, he was to all real useful purposes in-
creasing the territory of his country, and benefiting mankind.
Alas ! he now fiuds, that when he received the gold medal, he only
ought to have received a halter.
The arguments, in Sec. (i8 and 69, may be true in the abstract,
and applicable to a country nearly in similar circumstances with its
neighbours. I3ut that is not our case. Our fund rent or annuity
is ten tunes as gnat as the fund rent of any other country. We
pay (iearer for our corn than we ought, in order that we may pay
the public annuity.
It has been proved that the manufacturers pay no taxes, but
charge thtm to the j)urclia8ers of their goods ; therefore the argu-
• Sec Ihralil, Df'c. lith, in2.'>, (or a pdition of llie silk mrimifacturers mid
and tlirowslets of Macclesfield to the privv tounril, against tin.* admissiun of
foreign wrouglit hjlks.
22
nuMUs, in Sec. 70. about the burthens on other classes of producers,
are evidently all unfounded, except with lespect, perhaps, to those
who make goods for foreigners. And here certainly is a difficulty
to enable them to undersell foreigners in their own markets. This
at first sight appears a difficulty ; but it is so in appearance, not in
reality. Nothing is more easy than to show how this is to be
removed, provided there be an anxious desire to remove it.
In the four concluding Sections, from 70, it may be collected
that these annuitant review^ers would not wish to ruin the landlords
instantly, with all their farmers and dependant little tradesmen, and
all their wives and children ; therefore they will consent to a pro-
tecting duty of 10 per cent., which, if wheat be about six or seven
shillings a bushel, will be about five or six shillings a quarter.
They seem to think there is no tax but the tythe tax. Sec. 71.
How absurd ! Unwise as the tythe system is, it has, comparatively
speaking, little to do with the question. They congratulate them-
selves that they have the minister on their side. For the reasons
before given, there is much reason to fear that this is true : there-
fore, such of you as are landlords have good reason to be on the
alert.
Besides all the other reasons which have been given against the
great alteration of the Corn Laws, contemplated by the manufac-
turers and annuitants, there is yet one more, of a different kind,
which the farming interest has a right to plead, and which cannot
be refuted.
By the cash payment act, all fair rents were reduced at least
one-fourth. At the same time, and by the same measure, the
property of the annuitant was increased in about a similar pro-
portion. By this proceeding a prodigious mass of misery and
distress was produced ; many persons being reduced by it to abso-
lute ruin. In justification or excuse for this act, it was stated that
the national faith was pledged to the annuitant, *' that at peace
a return to cash payments should take place." I do not here im-
pugn that act, or the arguments by which it was justified : 1 offer
no opinion upon them ; but 1 maintain, that the plea of na-
tional faith which was used to justify the deduction of one-third
or fourth from the property of the landlord, and farmer, to add
to the income and saleable capital of the annuitant, ought equally
to be open to the use of the landlord, to prevent another third or
fourth from being taken from him, and added to the property of
the same annuitant. This eff"ect, you cannot deny, would be the
immediate consequence of a repeal of the Corn Laws ; for ex-
actly as the price of corn is reduced, the value of the fixed annuity
is increased. Innumerable are the families of the farmers and
landlords, whose parents, on the faith of the existing laws, have
23
made arrangements by mortgage, jointure, settlements on younger
children, &,c. &,c. of such a nature, that by the abolition of
these laws, the totalruin of their descendants must be effected.
Thousands of cases will be found, where the eldest sons of fa-
milies must be ruined by paying the fortunes of their brothers and
sisters. Every person under engagement to pay money, must, in
realitij, pay much more than what his contract specifies; and for
endeavouriiig to prevent this effect, the landlords and farmers are
branded for their avarice, and called robbers. Surely, gentlemen,
if the plea of national faith be to justify the ruin of thousands of
landlords, farmers, and their dependants, to add to the luxury of
hundreds of annuitants, the same plea of national faith, when ap-
plicable, ought to be permitted to be as available, to prevent the
ruin of landlords or tenants — to prevent misery, as to create it. A
tirade from the annuitants about starving manufacturers will not
refute this argument. Allowing that the manufacturers for foreign
consumption are in distress, which is an assertion requiring proof,
a way for relieving them may be easily pointed out ; but it is not
right that one class of society should be relieved by a measure — a
breach of national faith, which ruins a second, and at the same time
enormously increases the wealth of a third.
The Corn Laws were not passed as temporary expedients, but
as perpetual laws ; nor was their repeal contemplated when they
were passed. All the landed and farming interests in the kingdom
have been settled upon the faith of these laws. The national faith
is pledged for their continuance to the landlords and tenants, as
much as ever it was to the annuitants, for a return to cash pay-
ments. Independent of the pleas of justice, humanity, and politi-
cal expediency, which are all in favour of the landlords, they take
their stand on the broad basis of iialioiia/J'ailh, and they challenge
the annuitants and manufacturers to remove them fron) it ; and
until by fair argument they be removed, they call upon you for
justice and protection.
There never was a clause in the acts of parliament creating the
annuities, stating that at the peace a return to cash payments should
take place. It was no part of the contract. Hut it will be said
that it was stated in other acts ; and though they did not make it a
part of the bargain, yet it was fairly inipiitd and uiukratood. The
same argtmient applies in a much stronger digree to the Corn
I>aws. It was not doubted that they were to l)e perpetual. The
[Jank restriction act was stated to be tempf)rary, because it was
intended to be so : the Corn Law was not slated to he temporary,
because it was not intended to be so; and the statement in tlie one
case, and the omission of such statement in the other, clearly shows
'24
that it was not intended to be temporary, and justified the farmer
in acting; upon its presumed countenance.
'1 "he Edmburgh llevicw, treating ot" the West India planters,
makes a comparison betwixt them and the landlords. He says :
" The parhament of England never entered into any contract of
any description whatever with the planters. They passed certain
acts regulating the colonial trade, m the san)e way as they passed
acts in relation to any other branch of internal or external policy.
Bui it was not stipulated that these acts were to continue in force
for any specified time. Every one of them might have been re-
pealed the year afier it was enacted : and, in point of fact, many of
them have been repealed and others very much modified, without
any one ever presuming to say that a contract had been violated in
doing so. What should we think, were the landlords to insist that the
Corn Law of 1815 was to be viewed in the light of a contract with
them, and that parliament was not entitled to repeal or modify that
law, without previously comperisating them for any loss they might
sustain from its abandonment.'' Would not such a monstrous doc-
trine be scouted by every man of sense in the country ? And yet it
is not one whit more absurd than the doctrine of those who contend,
that we are bound either to continue the colonial monopoly, or to
pay the colonists for leave to abandon it. Opinions such as these are
not only wholly destitute of any foundation in fact, but they are sub-
ersive of every principle of improvement. They would go to
eternise the worst errors and absurdities, and are utterly inconsistent
with all the ends and objects of government." — Edin. Rev. No. 84,
p. 29.J. See also p. 300, line '23.
The whole argument here is a mass of the grossest sophistry. No
one can deny that any of the acts alluded to, might have been repeal-
ed : what is there that the parliament might not do if it pleased ? But
if on the faith of the laws (though not stipulated for any limited time),
a capital has been invested, the parliament has no n)oral right to abro-
gate those laws, by which such capital will be destroyed: and although
the laws alluded to have been modified, it has never been the object
of j)arliament to so modify them, as intentionally to destroy the ca-
pital, or even to injure it or its possessors. The same argument is
strictly applicable to tlie landlords. It is said that the doctrine held
by me is subversive of all iniprovement. The contrary is decisively
the fact, anci is well exemj)lified in the case of the author : for he
£ertainly would never have improved his estate, for which he got the
gold medal, if he had known that the Corn Laws were to be
abolished, by which the ntoney he laid out would be thrown away.
Who will ever expend any money in improvements on land, or the
establishment of manufactures, on the faith of an existing law, if it be
25
understood that the law is to be altered by Parliament at its mere,
pleasure, M'ithout any regard to the interests created on the faith
of that same law. ^loreover, the case of the planters differs essen-
tially in several important particulars from that of the landlords and
farmers, which renders the comparison useless.
In consequence of a motion of Sir John Sinclair, m the session
of 1794-5, tlie House of Commons " tnnoiii/ioiis/i/ resolved, to
promote the improvement of the zc'aste and unproductive lands of
the coimtri/, as a most essential public advantage." On the faitli
of that resolution, unanimousli/ passed, the landlords have ex-
pended large sums in improving waste lands ; and without the
greatest breach of national faith it cannot be rescinded.
If the annuitant choose to say, that the Parliament has a right to
abrogate the resolulion, if it think it be expedient: ' V^ery well,
reply the landlords; then let expediency be the rule:' and
away go all Corn Laws and public annuities together. Sauce for
a coose, is sauce for a gander. But whatever the fundholdcrs
Ox O
may do, the landlords wish for no such sweeping measures ; they
only wish the fundholders to enjoy their bed of roses in quietness,
and let them, the landlords, alone.
The landlords wish for no change. But if the annuitants, con-
sisting of about 280,000 persons, will insist upon the expedien c Y
of a change, i hope you will consider long before you consent to
sacrifice the existence of the landlords, farmers and their de-
pendant tradesmen and families, to the amount of niillions cf per-
sons, in order to support the luxuries of about two hundred
and eijihtv thousand annuitants.
Jt is well known that cheap bread is one of the cries by which
the passions of a certain class, who seldom reason, have been ex-
cited, not only to raise a great clamour, but to proceed to acts
of violence against others. This cry of cheap bread, the periodi-
cal press now endeavours to raise in every way in its power. And
if its wishes may be judged of by its violence and abusive epithets,
it does not seem to care how far it l)e carried.
An article in the Morning Chronicle, of Nov. Cist, speaking of
the landlords, and holding them up to odicmi, ends with the follow-
ing sentence: ' And the daring aim of an oligarchy, which, if not con-
trolled by public opinion, may provoke the more reckless aru) of
popular vengeance.' If Mr. Perry had been alive, he woidd not
have committed such an oversight, as to permit a sentence likt; this
to find a place in his journal.
The imceasing attacks made in your House, by the annuitants and
manufacturers, on the lan(ilf)rdH, is attended wah very great mjurv to
that mtercst ; and through that mterest to the society at large. 'V\nt
landlords and farmers are kept in a contmual fever. They know
D
26
not how to proceed in any of their concerns. They know not if they
sow, who is to reap. All improvements are at an end. All the open
unenclosed lands were fast improving into a high state of cultiva-
tion : farm houses and cottages were building, and a healthy and
a hardy race fast rising, to supply the armies, or man the navies of
their country. How different frou) the unfortunate inmates of the
much boasted factories ! I But all this is stopped : the common
aniuial triliuig repairs of the farms are scarcely executed ; and the
labouring poor in consequence are reduced, for want of work, to dis-
tress, though corn is now selling for a good and remunerating price.
Human nature is human nature, in all classes, and farmers and their
labourers are not exempt from its laws and its failings. A farmer
says to his labourer, '1 will not expend a shilling till 1 see whether,
by act of parliament, I am to be ruined or not. If you want work,
you must go to the parish.' Kvery newspaper is full of the re-
proaches levelled at the landlords and farmers, for the miserable
state of the labourers in agriculture, when these annuitant editors
are themselves the primary cause of the distress, by the constant
hopes and expectation which they indulge and declare, that you
will be prevailed on to comply with their wishes, and carry into
effect their zoell-intentioned, perhaps, though most mischievous,
theories. Unfortunately, many members of your Houses have
given them too much reason to indulge these hopes.
Crime is generally the produce of misery, vice of prosperity and
abundance. This has lately been excniplified in the agricultural dis-
tricts, which, it is said, have been more fertile in crime than the ma-
nufacturing towns ; the towns, forsooth, where the inhabitants can-
not aiiy longer carry on their trade for want of cheap bread. Though
the decrease of crime is not so striking a proof of their prosperity, as
the increase of the towns, it is as really and as decisive a proof, and
affords great reason to believe, that their complaints, *' that they
cannot carry on their trade iniless bread be reduced, are un-
founded." if the trade should continue in the same distressed state,
as they call it, for the next fifteen or twenty years, as that in which
it has been for llie last six or seven, Yorkshire will possess the
largest city in the world ; for Leeds, ikadford, Halifax, and Hud-
derbiield, will be all grown into one city.
The effects of this state of uncertainty are equally as pernicious
to the landlords as to the tenants and labourers. Of course they
caiuiot improve their estates ; and if they for any reason wish to sell,
they u\uht sell at a very inferior price ; nor can they grant leases
upon them.
If a landlord wish to make a will, and settle his family affairs, he
knows not how to proceed. If he provide for his younger chil-
dren, by a charge on his land ; if you adopt one line of conduct
27
(according as his will is made), his eldest son and family will be
ruined; if you adopt another, hi' younger thildren have not tiiat
given them which is just and equitable. Under ail these circunj-
stances, it is surely not unreasonable to hope, ihat by a strong and
decisive resolution, you will at once ciush the hopes of these
theorists, and set the matter at rest. Surtly if the fundholders
succeed in the House of Commons, the nobles of the realm will
be found at their posts ; and will extend their faving arm to protect
the tenants of the soil, as well as tiieir own families, from the cun-
ning of the annuitants, or the equally pernicious ignorance and
blindness of the manufacturers, who, by ruining their best cus-
tomers, would end in ruining themselves.
It has been said before that a remedy might easily be pointed
out for the difficulties of the manufacturers for foreign consump-
tion. In consequence of the enormous annuity, every article used
by the manufacturer is so heavily taxed, that it is said that he can-
not sell his commodity so cheap as it is sold in France, and other
countries. To remove this difficulty, the obvious course is to
reduce the annuity ; and this might be done by a direct tax upon
all annuities; for the sake of argument, say, of 23 per cent. At the
same time the import price of wheat should be reduced to fifty or
fifty-five shillings a quarter; or one of the other measuies adopted,
which it is known would, in ordinary years, reduce its price in our
markets to such sum as may be deemed proper : and the legal
rate of interest should be reduced from five to four per cent., if liuy
limitation bethought necessary. The tax of twenty-five per cent.,
upon thirty-two n)illions a year, will raise eight millions ; and of
course, eight millions of taxes sliotild be immediately abated.
In order that a new market ot thirty millions of persons may
be opened to our manufacturers, the wine tax ought to be entirely
abolished, as well as several others of a similar kind. To give
fair play to our barley growers, the lax should be lemoved from
malt and malt liquor. "^I'he taxes on the difi'erent kinds of poisons,
called spirits, niiglit remain as they aie ; liiey can never be too large.
It is evident that the annuitant would not lose, as at first he
would imagine, a fourth part of his means of support : the fall in
the price of wheat, and of every other article, joined to the abate-
ment of the taxes, would amply compensate for the nonjinal reduc-
tion of his income.
This measure would imnuiliately bring home almost all our
absentees, who now reside for economy in foreign rountries, and
who spend there a sum of money inconceivably large.*
• If after tliis they continued to reside abroad, the tax on tlic funds
would operate upon all such as arc fundlioldcr.'-, as an abi'cnti-e Ux.
28
If this bhoulil be done, the complaints of the fundholders will no
doubt be horrible ; but they will be ' vox et praeterea nihil :' and they
will cease ;is soon as it is discovered, that in consequence of the
abolition of the taxes, and the reduced price of every article of
their consun)plioii, they will be able to enjoy all the comforts of
life to the full, as well as they did before. Indeed, probably after
the first few months, better.
It is evident that the value of all the stock of tradesmen in hand
will be reduced instantly : this will form their fair subscription
towards the tax ; and as under these circumstances, Mr. Huskis-
son will be able to remove many of the restrictions on foreign
trade, in compliance with his new theories, if our tradesmen do not
reduce the price of the stock they have in hand, they will be under-
sold by foreigners. This will compel them to do what is right.*
By this means, nearly all smuggling will be prevented, an effect
very much to be desired.
If this be done iumiediately, great numbers of infant manufac-
tures on the continent, and in North America, will be nipped iti
the bud. When they have got firmly estabUshed, their owners
will be very unwilling to discontinue them, and will be desirous of
protecting them by restrictive laws.
Some time ago, the ministers reduced the live and four per
cent, annuities; this was a pitiful measure. The reason on which
it was grounded was true special pleading. In estimating the tax
of twenty-iive per cent, on the annuity, this should be considered as
pait of it. The whole measure was cruel, unworthy of a large and
enlightened policy ; though certainly, by an argumentuin ad ho-
miiiein it n)ay be defended. I would make some amends for this
cruel act, by estimating it in the fund tax. It is a very unjust and
indefensible thing, to reduce by legislative enactment, the incomes
of one class and not of another, if it can possibly be avoided ; no-
thing in fact could be more unjust, than to reduce the fives and
fours, and leave the threes and other property untouched.
The ammitant pleads the uatioiial faith ; — that it was expressly
stipulated with him, that his annuity should always be paid clear of
any deductions or out-payments whatever. ' Very well, say the land-
lords; in reply to you we make the same plea. But we wish for no
change. VVe only wish the law to remain as it is. We call for
• It is a constant comjilaint, that the prices of all articles of domestic
con.'iijinplion are now nrarly as liigfj as they were during the war, bcfoie
the import prices of the dilierent kinds of grain or tlie taxes were reduced.
Tlubis true, and is cau=ed by llie comhinations of tlie manufacturers, which
they are enahled to carry on by the proiiibitory laws on foreign manu-
facture?. If tlie prohihitory laws were repealed, every combination would
iubianily die a natural death.
29
no tax upon you. It is you that call for a tax upon us ; and a tax,
the eflfect of which is to ruin us, at the same time that it doubles
your annuity. The act for granting your antmity was simultane-
ous with the enacting of the Corn Laws. They stand precisely
upon the same ground ; only your annuity act was passed on the
clearly understood terms, that the Corn Law was to continue,
which being the regulator of the value of property, if it be altered,
the value of your annuity is altered.'
Necessity is set up as a plea for this breach of faith with the
landlord. Necessity is as imperious in its call upon the annuitant,
and may be applied as justly to him as to the landlord.
The landlord would never have thought of asking for a Corn
Law, had it not been for the contracts exacted from the necessities
of government by the annuitant. Not content with being paid the
usual interest, he exacted on repayment double.* As long as the
annuitant kept annually making loans to the government, he was
content that the Corn Law should continue ; he had even no objec-
tion to the import price being raised. Having now few or no
more loans to make, he wishes these laws to be abolished. The way
in which he wishes the annuity to be almost doubled, by changing
the value of money, (the necessary effect of the abolition of the Corn
Law,) is perfectly in keeping with the saving knowledge exhibited by
him in contracting, that nearly double should be paid to him on a
redemption of the annuity. The prudent care of his own interest
is as evident in one case, as in the other. In reply to his plea,
that it was stipulated that no tax shouki be laid upon !)im, it is
asked. How came he, after the property tax had been imposed, to con-
tinue his loans to government i If after the first income tax he had
protested against it, and had refused to advance any more money,
as he now dues to Spain, he then might have pleaded this with
some appearance of consistency : but tlie act of continuing to
advance new loans, without making any new objections, proves,
wliat he knew well enough, that there was no foundation for his
clamour on that subject ; and that the arguments used by Mr.
Pitt on that occasion were founded in truth. And it may here be
observed, that the contracts made hy the ofiicers of a government,
however solennily made, can never hind their successors, so that
they shall not yield to tlu; law oi imjicrious iicrcss/ly. if the very
existence of a state should at any tune depend upon the breach
of a contract betwixt two members of it; are the annuitants pre-
pared to say, that the contract nui^t be coniplited, ami the state
destroyed ? If the annuitants allige that it must be clearly shown
that the consei|utnce will follow before the contract be violated :
• See Appendix, No. 1.
30
f Very well, say tlic landlords : we say so too. Show us the conse-
quence, and we say, the remedy, the violation of a contract, is with
justice as applicable to you as to us. We relied on our Corn
Law contract, as you relied on your fund contract, and state ne-
cessity cannot justify the violation of one more than the other.'
The tax (as it has perhaps improperly been called) upon the
funds, stated in the proposed plan, is very different from a poor
tax, or any other common tax, cither parochial or otherwise. It
is, in tact, as accompanied with the change in the Corn Law, &c.
not a tax, but an alteration, effected in the nominal value of all the
properly in the kingdom ; and if the price of corn be only reduced in
its just proportion to the reduction of the annuity, the annuity is in
reality not touched : and then the question resolves itself into one,
not of principle, but of quantity. Will the annuitant deny that
his annuity is doubled if the price of corn and every other article
be reduced one half? By the reduction of taxes, and the change
ill the value of money, the public annuity has been increased one
third at least since the peace. This may account for much of the
luxury to be seen in London.
If you who are ministers succeed, by exerting the influence
which every one knows is in your power, when you desire to carry
a favourite measure, in passing an act so flagitiously unjust, as the
abolition of the Corn Laws ; what line of conduct do you expect
the few remaining impoverished old landholders to adopt, in the
event of another war ? Do you expect they will be such egregious
fools, as to forget the present confiscation, and be gulled by new
TEMPORARY Com Laws ? Do you suppose they will be so blind
as not to see that the temporary war rise will again be followed
by a peace confiscation ? Do you suppose that the new fund land-
lords, who will have bought the land of those who will be ruined,
will not profit by what they will see has happened to the old
ones ?
Your difficulties betwixt the annuitants and landlords are great
no doubt: but you are killing the golden egg-laying goose. Per-
haps you will fear that, if you offend the annuitants by this act of
justice, they will lend you no more money. They told Pitt so,
when he charged them to the property tax ; but they forgave him.
And when they find that they have received no injury, they will for-
give you.
Of course if the proposed alterations be made, either in the Corn
Laws or the annuity, all the placemen and pensioners are ready
greatly to reduce their salaries ; the king and all the royal family,
&c. There can be no doubt ; so I say no more about it ! ! !
But 1 once more beg you to observe, that the landlords and
farmers wish for no change. They are content with their property
3t
as it is. It is only those who wish to take it from them who wish
for a change.
With respect to the manufacturers, nothing can be alleged
against them; and if it be tuue, as they say, that they cannot
sell their manufactures in the foreign market, on account of the
nominal difference in the value of money here and in foreign parts,
they are deserving of every consideration. Their existence ought
not to be sacrificed, because the annuitants exact the last penalty
of the bond (like old Shylock), wrung from the necessity of the
government, — extorted irom the government in its distress. How
far will the annuitant go ? will he choose to see all the manufac-
turers and their wives and children starve, rather than adopt the
proposed plan — a plan which it is proved cannot injure him, but in
the execution of which he can only say that he fears some slight in-
convenience ? His plan, it has been shown (to say the least), 7naj/
totally ruin all the landlords, farmers, and little tradesmen depend-
ing upon them. He must admit that the other plan here proposed,
taken to its utmost extent, cannot, by any human possibility, injure
him to the amount of one-fourth of his income ; as he surely will
not be hardy enough to say, that he will not be benefited by lower-
ing the price of bread, and by taking off eight n)ilIions of taxes. But
it has been proved that the plan of the annuitants certainly will,
not may, ruin all the landlords, &,c. Then, under all these circum-
stances, will you, my Lords and Gentlemen, permit the annuitants to
plead the letter of the bond, tc> the ruin either of the landlords, &,c.
or the manufacturers f Will you see the farmers, the little trades-
men, the manufacturers, their wives and children starving, and the
country converted into a desert, in order that the annuitant may
have the whole penalty of his bond ? But this is not a fair state-
ment, it ought t J be said ; in order that he may be |)ermitted to
prevent a measure, absolutely essential to the good of the whole
country, and no ways injurious to himself, to gratify a punctilious
adherence to the letter against the spirit of his contract. It is re-
peated, against the spirit, because it has been shown that he will
not be injured by the measure.
The manufacturers act very unwisely in joining the annuitants
against the landlords. Good policy wonlil assuredly point out to
them to join the latter, to compel the annuitants to do what is right
and expedient for the good f)f the whole community. An igno-
rance of the true bearing of the (piestion cini be the only excuse for
their conduct ; and it is probably the real reason of it, aided by x\\v.
circun)slance, that many of then leaders, on whose opinion they
depend, are stock-huldeis, and know that their proj)Obed pi in
would raise th 3 Blocks enormously, ai;d enable them to buy the
land for an old song.
32
In the proceeding here pointed out, it seems very possible to
rec:iilatc the tax on the annuitant in proportion to the price at
which grain is admitted, so as to reduce the nominal capital of each
in the same proportion. And these two form the great leading in-
terests of the country. It cannot be denied that if a reduction be
made in the nominal value of all the property of a nation ; in fact
none are injured. Every class keeps its relative situation in socie-
ty, lint if the measure stop here, there is one class yet remaining,
M'ho will gain a very great and unfair advantage, and that is the
class of persons living on the interest of money. This has already
been reduced from 5 to 4 per cent. ; so that they would experience
no present inconvenience : but on the repayment of the principal
the debtor ou2,ht to be allowed to make such deduction fron> the
principal as the legislature should think right; a due and just re-
gard being had to the reduction of the nominal value of tlie property
of all the other classes. The same line of conduct ought to be
adopted in all other cases, betwixt debtor and creditor ; the same
general rule would be applicable to all.
It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the manifold advantages
which the execution of this plan would produce to the country.
If all its parts were properly and siu)ultaneously put in force, no
human being would be injured by it.* The National Debt would
be reduced one-fourth. The power of the sinking fund, if it were
thought proper to continue it, would be greatly increased, at the
same time that the hands of government would be strengthened in
the event of another war, and the manufacturers would be able to
afford their goods to foreigners at a reduced price.
If any arrangement should be thought necessary with regard to
money owing to foreigners, it is of too small importance to be per-
mitted to prevent a great national object; and would not be attended
with any great difficulty. With respect to the plan here proposed, it
may be observed, that it is totally independent of the arguments
against the alteration of the Corn Law ; and is only proposed, to
meet the objection of the manufacturers, and to show tliatit may, if
well founded, be met without the sweeping ruin proposed by them
and the annuitants.
* Some years ago a pamphlet was published by a gentleman of the name
of Mushet, which proved that by the depreciation ot money, the annuitant
was a great loser, and that he did not make up the loss until the year 1821.
Very well : grant all this gentleman says, and take him on his own ground;
the loss was then made up, the accovmt was balanced ; and of course every
year since that lime the change in the value of the money must have been
putting large sums into the pocket of the annuitant. It is only named here
that he may not set up any plea of previous loss and hardship by the depre-
ciation.
33
I shall trouble you with but one more observation. It is very
certain that if the Corn Law be abolished, or the price of com
very greatly reduced, by any legislative measure whatever, if 1 be
correct in the eft'ects which 1 contend will be the consequence,
the mischief will be completed past all redemption ; it can never be
repaired. It will be impossible for you to retrace your steps. On
the contrary, the plan which I recommend is perfectly simple in its
machinery, and easy in its execution ; and if it should be found to
fail, or not answer expectation, it will be easy for you almost en-
tirely to retrace your steps, and return nearly to your former situa-
tion. The deduction of one-fourth from the income of an an-
nuitant, even in the worst case, could not be attended with ruin,
like that which the contrary course vrould entail upon the farmers
and landlords. 1 now conclude with the expression of a confident
hope, that you will see clearly that it is your duty to protect the
landlords, farmers, and the innumerable little tradesmen depending
jpon then), and that from the performance of this duty you will not
be deterred or overawed by the clamors or threats of any per-
sons whatever.
GODFREY HIGGINS.
20, Keppel Street, Russell Square,
25th January, 1826.
34
APPENDIX, No. I.
If the question at issue were sim|)ly between wliat is called the agri-
cuilnral and the commercial interests, that is, if tlieqnestion were, whether
Me shouUI have rich landlords, and poor merchants and manufacturers,
or rich mercliants and manufacturers, and poor landlords, I should say,
decidedly, that it was our interest to keep our landlords rich at the ex-
pense of the others. We know from experience, as well as from indis-
putable authority, that " wherever a man's treasure is, there will his heart
be also.'' A landlord's treasure must be in England, and all his interests
and affections must be bound up in her prosperity, however mistaken he
may be in his views of what is conducive to that prosperity. A mer-
chant's treasure is all over the world ; he therefore does not give to
England his undivided affections. " The little I know," said Lord
Chatham, in his speech during the debate on the Falkland Islands, " has
not served to raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called the monied
interest; I mean that bloodsucker, that muckworm, which calls itself the
friend of government, that pretends to serve this or that administration,
and may be purchased on the same terms by any administration ; that ad-
vances money to government, and takes especial care of its own emolu-
ments." In our own days, Mr. Canning, a statesman, second only to Lord
Chatham, says, " we well know that at this moment there is scarcely a
power in Europe that is not collecting, from the capitalists of Great Bri-
tain, the sinews of war; there is scarcely a single power that does not
look for resources to the exchequer of our exchange. We are all aware
that our monied men lend indiscriminately to all parties, and those who
are now ' the captains' captains, the true lords of Europe,' are furnishing
arms to those who are contending against each other. Therefore let me
not he told that I may look for security in the morality of our money
lenders. No, no. let Ferdinand himself, to-morrow, show signs of strength,
and a det<'rminati(in to fit out an armament, and the troops and fleets of
Spain, raised by British ca|»ital, will sail from your ports to strangle infant
liberty in South America. I defy you to prevent it, and I defy you to
show any thing, in the morality of late pecuniary transactions, to insure
you ajjainst such an event." Mr, Russell gives the same testimony in his
Tour tiirough Germany, vol. i. p. 52. " Frankfort," he says, " in conse-
quence of her commercial relations, is so thoroughly under foreign in-
fluence, and so polluted by a mixture of all foreign manners, that her po-
pulation can lia.dly ',e said to ha-c a character of their own. Even the
multifarious connexions with all ends of the earth, which have made her
citizens, in a manner, citizens of the world, have unfitted them to be Ger-
man citizens, for they judge of the happiness of mankind by the rate of
exchange. Let no one hastily condemn the worthy citizens of Frankfort,
3.5
for thus forgetting, in the pursuits of the merchant and money spccula(«u,
the interest of their country; or at least before proiiouncinj;: his dooiu on
their imagined selfishness, let him study the ports of London, or Liver-
pool, or Bristol, and discover, if he can, a purer foundation for English
mercantile patriotism."'
During the last war in Canada, the American and English armies were
in sight of each other for a consideraltle time, and neither could move for
•want of money. The English general applied to the English merchants
for some dollars, offering an enormous interest for the loan on the part of
government. I'he merchants demanded a still higher interest : the aid-
de-camp, afraid to agree without fresh orders, rode back to the general.
While he was gone, the American general offered to the English mer-
chants the interest they required, and he obtained the money. Tlie
American army was the first in motion to attack the English by means of
the money obtained from English merchants. During the former part of
the American war, it was very well known that English money was lent
to the government of the United States to carry on the war with this
country.
The ignorance of land-owners, and their want of liberal principles upon
the subject of the Corn Laws, is a favourite theme of declamation in
every assembly of" lean, unwashed artificers," from the common council
of the city of London, down to the lowest town parish vestry. One man,
■who assumes to himself the character of being a great doctor in political
economy, has had the infatnation to write, " let all the industrious classes
combine against their great enemy the landholder. The landliolders con-
duce nothing to the prosperity of the country. Nay, one of the most distin-
guished of our political economists, (Mr. Mill) alarmed at the increase of
the share of the produce of the soil which falls to the owner, a share which
grows with the numbers of the pcjople, actually proposes that the present
rents should be fixed, and made a perpetual rent-charge on the lands, fur
the benefit of the owners of the soil ; but that the state should be entilUd
to all future increase of rent, which should be applied to the benefit of the
community." When such absurdities are gravely set forth, it cannot be a
matter of surprise that the science of political economy, still in its infancy,
should excite the alarms of the timid, and the ridicule of the wise All
boiences must have their satellites of empirics; and althon^h llie ignorant
will draw from the latter arguments for suppressing the difiusiou <<f know-
ledge altogether, the true remedy is only t(j 1)C found in the wider incul-
cation of bettor principles. TJKtt the landlords have atKixatrd a uiomo-
poly of corn is but too true; but beluru the " gentlemen in the <oiiiu)crciiiI
and manufacturing interest" presume to lecture them, it would be well if
they would point out one instanre, wlierclhej have giv< u u|i a monopoly,
in which they were themselves interested, until it was wrung Iroin I hem.
Have the common council of the city of London ever UKinifcstcd the
slightest disposition to ubandmi one point of their absurd and noxious
privileges? Are the merchants, who have Ihc management of tin- bank of
Ilngland, willing to rrnouucc tlicir monopoly of unstanip<d pioniissory
notes, for the engagements of wlinh, millRT their persons nor ihcir pro-
perties are answerable? Did not all clus8«;s, conne«-led wilh the Mast
India Comp.iny, «ling witli inveterate obslinary to their monopoly «)f the
wholf! tratle with Asia, in (lrli;ine«; r)r reason, justice, Inets, and snliseipicnt
experience? J)oes not tiie whole West Indian body riiaintiiin the ri;;lii of
the planters to the m<Mioi)oiy of .•'tigar, ami to be le>;alise(l Irudeis in hu-
man blorxl ? Did not every i\nnn of manutacttirem nssnil the miiiij^ters this
last year willi |p« lilions, llial fn ( dom ol Iradc might not l.f e\ tended
to the commodities uilh wliitntlM-^ wejc cunctrned/ Kilu.-i. U« Is Lo
35
an, (au(i iliey are umlter ut' luulciiiabic iiotuiiely,) it is uot to be wuiidcred
at tliiit tlio lundlords I't-t'l indigtiuiit iit tlio false pretences to lilierality ad-
vanced by the merchanls and manufacturers on tlie subject «tf th(! corn
trade ; since it is perfectly obvious ibat, wliethcr liberal or illiberal, just
or unjust, wise or unwise, beneficial or pernicious, to (he country at largo,
it is their own personal advantage alone which instigates their complaints.
A loan-contractor, a stock-jobber, a merchant, or a manufacturer, can
transport himself any where, and be as much at home in one country as in
another. Not so the landlord, and those employed in the cultivation of the
land. It is in these only, therefore, that the permanent strength of the
country resides; and it is to these oidy that the honour of the country can
with safety be confided; and consequently of all the classes of the Jiri-
tish community this is the last whose interests ought to be lightly sacri-
ficed for the advantage of the rest.
APPENDIX, No. II.
The annuitant in his letter to G. H. Sumner, Esq. printed for Ridgway,
1S25, from which the preceding extract No. 1. is taken, informs us that the
grain grown and consumed in the United Kingdom is estimated at forty mil-
lions of quarters. Well, this is very good ! We now shall come at some-
thing tangible, on the unquestionable united authority of this great annui-
tant, and the Edinburgh Encyclopedia Brit. The Edinburgh Review, No.
LXXXI. p. 62, note, tells us, that wheat on an average of eight places,
weighs above 561bs. a bushel, Winchester ; therefore if the crop be deficient
one-fourth, or ten millions, we shall want at least two million tons of
shipping to supply us from foreign countries. But as all grain will not
weigh so much as wheat, we will strike off a fourth ; then we shall want
one million and a quarter of tons.
This great annuitant also tells us, we are in the United Kingdom twenty
millions of people. Now we will suppose each eats two pounds a day :
that will give a year 6,517,857 tons. The soldiers are allowed one pound
of bread and three quarters of a pound of meat; therefore for this and
other reasons, we will take from this a third, and then we shall have
4,000,000 tons; and if we are deficient one-fourth we shall require a mil-
lion tons of shipping. But if we follow the advice of the.se good econo-
mists, and by ruining our farms contrive to grow only one-fourth, and want
tiircc-fourtbs, then three million tons of shipping ONLY will be wanted.
I hope his majesty will be prepared to resign his fleet on Virginia water;
surely every cockboat will be wanted. The pleasure boats in your parks
wiM oil b» wanttd.
37
APPENDIX, No. III.
" The following is the report of the prices of wheal in several foreign
ports, published by order of the House of Commons, und signed by the
British residents, for the year 1824.
s.
. 20
Dantzig
Embden
Hamburg
Amsterdam
Antwerp
Palermo
Rotterdam
17
20
21
d.
Oi
Oi
2
27 11
16 5i
24
fit is to be observed that the quality of the Dantzig wheat is very su-
perior to any in the London market, in a degree (according to some)
equal to the cost of f relight. \
" Perhaps iMr. Wiiitniore will show how a duty of twelve shillings, or
of twcnfy-lour, will ])rotect us against such prices."
Letter to Mr. Huskisson, published by Ridgway, 1825.
38
[Reprinted from tlie Westminster Review, No. VI.]
A Letter on the F resent State and Future Prospects of
Agriculture. Addressed to the Agriculturists of the
County of Salop, By W. W. Whitmore, Esq. M. P.
Second Edition, with some Additions. Hatchard
and Son. 1823. pp. 111.
Observations on the Existing Corn Laws, By John Hays.
London: Richardson. 1824.
1. If the task of the philosopher and of the philanthropist were at
an end, when the threat truths which he teaches have been once demon-
strated, and their bearings upon the great interests of mankind once
pointed out, it might appear superfluous to return, at the present day, to
so hackneyed a subject as the impolicy of our Corn Laws ; for, after
the thorough sifting which this question has repeatedly undergone, and
particularly after the very able manner in which it has so frequently
been handled in the Edinburgh Review, it would be vain for us to
hope that we could add any thing to what is known on the subject;
and we can scarcely aspire even to the humbler praise of presenting in
a new light that which is already known. We shall not, however,
be deterred from calling the attention of the public once more to so
important a subject, because it may be that we shall say nothing which
they have heard before. It is not enough that they should be made
to think on the subject; they must be made to think of it continu-
ally; there must be "line upon line, and precept upon precept;"
and it will then be time to think that enough has been said, when that
which has been said shall have begun to be acted upon. We are far,
indeed, from supposing, that among the enlightened and thinking part
of the public, there are, or will ever be hereafter, two opinions on the
question : and if we now revert to the subject, it is not with any hope
of rendering their conviction stronger than it is, but because, in order
to triumph over the prejudices of the interested and the ignorant, it is
necessary that those who are without prejudice should proclaim their
opinions with a loudness and perseverance which msiy overawe those
whom they cannot hope to convince.
2. There is one part of the argument, however, which, at this time
of day, we hope and believe that we may safely omit. It will scarcely,
we imagine, be any longer deemed necessary to demonstrate the be-
neficial tendency of free trade in general, or to prove that it is for the
interest of a nation to purchase its commodities where they are cheap,
and not where they are dear. Self-evident as this proposition may
appear, it is one of the most modern of all modern discoveries, and has
had to make its way against all the resistance which strong interests
and still stronger prejudices could oppose to it. It lias made its way,
however ; and has penetrated even to the cabinets of ministers, usually
39
the last retreat of thread-bare and discarded errors. Aud, unless the
honorable member for Sussex be an exception,* we are not aware that
there is now any one who stands up for the principle of monopoly in
the abstract, or maintains that a nation can grow rich by paying a
high price for its goods. It is something gained for enlightened prin-
ciples, that every one should acknowledge freedom to be the general
rule, though almost every one should make an exception in his own
favour.
3. Two things, therefore, may be assumed ; that it is desirable that
commodities should be cheap ; and that the sure way to have them
cheapest, is to let the public buy them wherever they please. It may
likewise be assumed, that the effect of the Corn Laws is, to make
corn dear ; since this is the sole purpose for which they exist, and is
necessarily implied in every defence which can be set up for them. It
remains to be considered, what reason there is why that which would
be an evil in the case of any other commodities, should, in the case
of corn, be regarded as a good ; or, if it be an evil, by what prepon-
derant benefit the evil is compensated.
4. It is compensated by that which, in the eyes of the landlords, is
a benefit far outweighing the evil to the community — high rents.
That whatever raises the average price of corn, raises rent, is a pro-
position so conformable to ordinary ideas, that we are under no
inducement to spend much time in proving it. A rise in the price of
corn must evidently redound to the benefit either of the farmer or of
the landlord. But the farmer is effectually prevented, by the com-
petition of other capitalists, from obtaining more than the ordinary
profits of stock. The benefit, therefore, of the increase of price can
belong to nobody but the landlord. Or, more shortly, rent is all that
portion of the produce of the soil which remains after replacing the
capital expended, together with the ordinary profit : and this surplus
must obviously be greater when corn is dear (the quantity of corn
being the same) than when it is cheap.
.'j. So far, then, the question, Ijetwecii the people on the one side
and the laiidlonls on tlic other, would ap|)(ar to hv this — whether it
is better that the landlords should submit to a reduction of rent, or
that tin- whoh' people of (irtat Hiitaiii should pay a high price for
their corn ; whether, in short, the landlords can make out a case for
taxing the coniinunily to |)ut money in their pockets? And this, ils
being the aspect of i\u- (piesli<in most favorable U) tlu; landlords, is
that which we shall first consider.
(). The lant.Mia^e whic h we usually hciir from the landlords on this
question is not remarkaldy definite or precise, and presents littU: that
* Sec iMorninp; Chronicle for M;iy 'i'^d, lU2t.— "In this measure"
(the bill fur (icrmiuiuf; llic e.xiiort.ilinu of woul), " and in ihc consccpiences
it was calculated to produce, he fMr. Curleis) saw the first fruits of tlie
new philohOjihy of true trade, at the slirinc of which they were all called
upon to flow down and worship, but to winch he was determined to uflFcr no
incense."
40
is tangible in tlio form of a reason why their inttrest vhouhl be pre-
ferred to that of the public at large. Instead of proving (what their
language implies) that rich landlords are more conducive to the hap-
piness of the community than cheap corn, they talk vaguely about the
necessity of protecting agriculture : thus endeavoring to make the
public forget that this idol called agriculture, when narrowly in-
spected, proves to be no other than themselves. This artifice of
identifying themselves with an abstract term is not without example.
When the Roman Catholic priesthood attempted to establish their
supremacy over the civil power, they said it was for the good of
religion : it was for the good of nobody but themselves. If Fer-
dinand the 7th is to be believed, it is for the sake of social order
that he is now laboring to clear his country of all the educated part
of its inhabitants : and indeed so it is in his sense of the word, which
makes social order synonymous with his own despotism. It might,
perhaps, be admitted, that the Corn Laws are beneficial to the
landlords ; but in what sense they can be said to be beneficial to
agriculture, unless the landlords be agriculture, it is not easy to see.
The artifice, however, is not without its use : " Protect agriculture,"
has a better sound than " Give me your purse :" and many a man
will readily do for the " protection of agriculture," that which he
would have hesitated to do for the mere purpose of enriching the land-
lords.
7. There is a fallacy involved in the phrase " protection to agri-
culture," which it is of the utmost importance that the public should
fully understand. Under the words, " agTiculture," and " agricul-
tural interest," are included not only the landlords, but the farmers,
a class whose gains are of an entirely different nature from those of
the landlords, and are governed by different laws. The exclusion of
foreign corn may be, and probably is, beneficial to the landlords,
though, we think, not to so great an extent as has been supposed.
But so far is it from being beneficial to the farmers, that there is no
class to whom it is more, and few to whom it is equally, injurious.
Not only is the interest of the farmers not the same with that of the
landlords, but no two interests are more diametrically opposite.
8. There is no fact in political economy better established than the
tendency of every tax on the necessaries of life, to produce a rise of
wages. We do not mean that it adds any thing to the comforts and
enjoyments of the laborer ; on the contrary, its ultimate effect is al-
most infallibly to diminish them, since by reducing the rate of profit,
it retards the accumulation of capital, on which the demand for labor
wholly depends. The laborer, however, is not benefited, and the
capitalist is injured ; the laborer continues to receive the same quan-
tity of commodities, or, as it has been sometimes called, the same
real wages as before; for the tax, though it affects the future accu-
mulation of capital, does not alter its present amount, and it is upon
the present amount of capital (as compared with population), and not
upon its future accumulation, that wages depend. While, however,
the laborer continues to receive the same quantity of necessaries at
41
before, corn (the most important of tliose commodities) has risen in
value. He must, therefore, receive a greater value, in order to com-
mand the same quantity : his money "washes must rise. The manufac-
turers and other capitalists are thus compelled to give a greater value
to their laborers, without having a greater value for tiieraselves. They
are, therefore, obliged to forego a portion of their profits. And thus
we see that a high price of corn, which is a cause of high rent, is a
cause of low profits. It is as prejudicial to the capitalist as it is be-
neficial to the landlord.
i). The farmer, however, is a capitalist, and his gains cannot be
permanently greater than those of other capitalists. Unless during
the currency of a lease, he has no interest whatever in high prices,
because competition will effectually prevent him from deriving more
than a very temporary advantage from them. Ho has, iiowever, in
common with all other capitalists, a very strong interest in high pro-
fits ; and it is not possible that profits should be high when a great
value is given to the laborers.
10. A high price of corn, therefore, not only is not beneficial to
the farmer as such, but it is positively injurious to him. He is in-
jured in two ways : first, as a consumer of corn, in common with the
rest of the community, by having to consume a dear instead of a cheap
commodity; and, secondly, he is injured, in a still greater degiee, as
an owner of capital, by being compelled to give higher wages to all
the laborers whom he employs.
11. Having provtd the Corn Laws to be injurious to all the rest of
the community, and beneficial to the landlord alone, we might here
close our remarks, since this alone, had we nothing else to urge, is of
itself sufficient to decide the question. For if, in any case, the |)rin-
ciple could be admitted of taxing the whole community for the benefit,
of a particular class, the landlords assuredly are not that class. To
the public, collectively speaking, it is of very little c<)nse(|ncnce
whether rent be high or low. IJut it is of the greatest importance! to
the public in general, that profits should be high. l*rofits are the re-
wanl of the industrious — rent, of the idle. It is the rate of profits
which constitutes the indiicenicnt to accumulation, and, whatever be
the advantage of a rapid accumulation, the advantage ot" hiirh profits
is the same. Hut it is on flu accuniulalion of capitiil thai tlic ad-
vancement of tin; national we.ilth is wli<»lly depen(l;in1. A jioiicy,
therefore, which consists in lowering profits for the purpose of raising
rents, must be, at best, of very «loul»tt'uI expediency.
12. ir, however, there were nolliini; in the wliole process liul a
transfer; if whatever is lost l)y the consumer and l»y (he (ii|iilalist
were gained by the landlord ; there miirht berobb'-ry, but there would
not ))e wasti' ; there niiuht be a worse di>^tril)ulii>ii n\' the national
wealth, b\it there would be no posilivt- diniiniilioii of its ag'^re^ah"
amount. The evil of the ('orn I^aws admits not even of this allevia-
tion : they occasion in all cases an absolute loss, greiitly exceeding
the gain which «an be derived from theiu l)y the reieivers of rent ;
and for every |K)1uh1 which finds its way into the p<jcket,s of the lund-
F
42
lords, in consequence of the Corn Laws, the comnunuty is robbed of
several.
13. Rent, it must be remembered, is only a part of the total pro-
duce of the soil, on many lands only a small part. There are some
lands which yield no rent ; there are many winch yield very little ;
and even on the best of all, the rent, probably, does not greatly exceed
one half of the produce.
14. Now, without disputing that it is the effect of the Corn Laws
to give to the landlord a greater quantity of corn, as well as to en-
hance its value, it must be remembered that all which he receives is
still no more than a part; another part is a})propriated to the payment
of laborers, a third to the maintenance of agricultural cattle and the
purchase and repair of instruments of husbandry, a fourth is reserved
for seed, and a fifth belongs to the capitalist as his profit. The in-
crease in the cost of the production of corn, which is the consequence
of the Corn Laws, operates to the benefit of the landlord only in so
far as it goes to enhance the value of that portion of the produce
which he receives as rent. Could all the rest of the produce retain
its former value, and that portion alone rise which is paid to the land-
lord, the gain to him would exactly equal the loss to the rest of the
community. While, however, it is only from the rise in the value of
a portion of the produce, that the landlord derives any benefit, it is
necessary, in order to the rise of that portion, that the whole should
rise. It is necessary that an increased price should be paid, not only
for that portion of the produce which goes to the payment of rent,
but also for that far greater portion which goes to replace the capital,
and pay the profits, of the farmer.
15. The able author of the article " Corn Laws and Trade," in
the Supplement to the Encycloptedia Britannica, estimates the total
rent of all the land in the country, compared with the total produce,
at one-fifth. Let us make a liberal concession to our antagonists, and
take it at one-third. In order then that the landlord may obtain an
extra price for a single third of the produce ; the purchasers, not only
of that third, but of the other two-thirds, are compelled to pay that
extra price for every quarter of corn which they consume !
1(5. What, then, it may be asked, becomes of the extra price,
which is paid by the consumers of the two-thirds ? It does not go to
the laborer ; for though he receives a greater value, his condition not
only is not improved, but, in most cases, it is ultimately deteriorated.
It does not go to the farmer ; for he, as we have seen, instead of gain-
ing any thing, sutlers, in two ways ; as a consumer of corn, and as a
payer of wages. What, then, becomes of it? We answer, it is entirely
swallowed up in the increased expenses of cultivation. By the effect of
the Corn Laws, a portion of the labor and capital of the country is
diverted out of a more into a less advantageous employment : a quan-
tity of labor is employed in growing corn, which would otherwise
have produced, not only cloth, or hardware, sufficient to purchase the
same quantity of corn in the foreign market, but much more. That
corn which could be obtained abroad, in exchange for the produce of
43
the labor of 100 men, is corajKjUed to be produced at home, by tliat
of 120, 130, or 140; the labor of 20, 30, or 40 men in every ioo is
expended in pure waste, and all which they miaht have produced is
entirely lost to the community. The consumer is taxed, not only to
give a higher rent to the landlord, but to indemnify the farmer for pro-
ducing, at a great expense, that corn which might be obtained from
abroad at a comparatively small one.
17. If the landlords were to require, that the whole people of
Great Britain should contribute a certain sum annually in direct taxes
for their benefit, who is there that would not raise his voice against so
impudent a demand '! Yet this would surely be a much more modest
request, than that, in order to put a certain annual number of pounds
sterling in their pockets, the people of Great Britain should consent
to pay three, four, or five times as many.
18. We seriously propose, therefore, as a great improvement on the
present system, that this indirect tax should be commuted for a direct
one; wiiich, if it still gave an undue advantage to the landlords,
would, at least, give them this advantage at a smaller cost to the
public : or that the landlords should make an estimate of their proba-
ble losses from the repeal of the Corn Laws, and found upon it a
claim to compensation. Some, indeed, may question how far they
who, for their own emolument, imposed one of the worst of taxes upon
their countrymen, are entitled to compensation for renouncing advan-
tages which they never ought to have enjoyed. It would be better,
however, to have a repeal of the Corn Laws, even clogged by a
compensation, than not to have it at all ; and if this were oiir only
alternative, no one could complain of a change, by which, though an
enormous amount of evil would be prevented, no one wouM lose.
19. We have hitherto taken it for granted, that the effect of the
Corn Laws is, to force the cultivation of inferior soils; and that,
therefore, if those laws were repealed, we should become a regularly
importing country, our lowest soilswould be thrown out of cultivation,
and the cost of production, and consccpiently, the average price, would
be lowered. \\ ^' have assumed this, b('c:ause we believe it to bi- true;
although the contrary opinion is maintained in a very able article in
the eighty-first number of the IMinhurnh Keview.
20. Thouuh it were conceded to the I'.dinburuh Reviewer, that if
the j)orts were constantly open, tlie av«ran(" price oi wheal would not
fall short of ()0«. p<'r (piarter ; arguments <'nout;li wouhl remain, to
prove the mischievousness of the Corn Laws, an<l the necessity of their
repeal; a nieasine which, in that case, no one would have more rea-
son fV)r promoting tiian the lamllords, since they wonM gain all the
advantage of a steatly price, without incurring the clisadvantage of a
low one. Great, however, as the benefit to the eoinninnity would be,
even tlioii;;h the averaiie price of corn shoiihl reniaiii uuchanued ; we
are con vincerl that ihis i^ not the whole ol the lienelit of which the
repeal of the Corn Laws would In piodiictive, and thai the price
wouhl not be stea<liti' only, but l«iwei , innh r a free Iiad4.
21. It 13 admitted by tjie Eilirdniri-li Heviewer, ili.it whon there i«
44
no direct t'oroip,n doniaiMt, a quarter of wheat can, in ordinary years,
be put on sliip-board at Dantzic for ;i5A'. ; and that allowins; 8s. per
qnarter for the expeiisi's of freighting", warehousinj^, <\:c. the price to
the importer \voidd be about 43*. They suppose, however, that a
regular demand from this country wouUl raise tlie ordinary price in the
Dantzic market, from lios. to oOs., which, together witii the freight and
other expenses, wouKl give in this country, a price of about 58s. per
quarter.
22. The assumption, that a regular demand from this country
would permanently raise the price at Dantzic from 35s. to 50s., is
wholly founded upon the evidence of Mr. Solly, before the Agricul-
tural Committee of 1821. This gentleman's evidence is a strange
mixture of hypothesis and fact. Tor matters of fact, coming within
the compass of his experience, Mr. Solly's evidence may be as good
as any other ; and we have the less reason to doubt the credibility of
his testimony, as it is entirely in accordance with tlie most authentic
information which we have been able to procure from other sources.
But the rise in price which is expected to be the consequence of a re-
gular exportation, is plainly not a fact, but an inference. The same
person may deserve great credit for his facts, and very little for his
inferences ; and, at any rate, no man's inferences are entitled to be
received, like matters of fact, upon his authority. How far Mr. Solly
is qualified to draw correct inferences on subjects similar to the pre-
sent, the following extract from his evidence may help us to judge :
23. " If the English ports were open for the free importation of
corn, at this moment, what rise do you think would take place in the
price of wheat in the Prussian ports ? 1 should think about 15s.
24. " Which would make the price in the Prussian ports how
much ? On board, 50s. for the best wheat ; they would make their
calculation on obtaining (JOs. here for it."
25. We can ea.sily conceive, that a sudden demand, before there is
time to raise a corresponding supply, may raise the price at Dantzic
15.S". per quarter, or much more ; but what follows ?
20. " Supposing the ports to be constant lij open for the free impor-
tation of corn, do you think the price abroad, on the average, would
be above or below 50s. in the Prussian ports ? It would he regulated
by the price, in England.
27. " What is your opinion of the eftect which the demand under
such circumstances would have upon the price in those ports ? 1 think
that the price would rise about 15s. as already mentioned.
28. " Although the demand should be permanent? Even then, the
price would be regulated by the price here."
29. This is true of the market price, but certainly not true of the
average. The market price at any given moment in Poland, would
doubtless be regulated by the market price in this country, because it
is the price here which, by determining the exportation, would regulate
the supply in t!ie market of Poland itself; but to suppose that the
average price in l*oland — which is of most consetjuence to the pro-
ducer — would be regulated by the price here, or by any thing what-
45
ever except the cost of production, implies an ignorance of the most
obvious principles of political economy. On the average, and making
abstraction from the temporary fluctuations of the market, it is the
price in Poland which would regulate the price here ; not the price
here which would regulate the price in Poland. The average price
in Poland, with the expenses of importation, and the profits of the
importer, would determine the average price at which wheat could be
sold in the English market. The mere unsupported conjecture of one
who is ignorant of this very obvious truth, is a very slight foundation
for such a conclusion as the Edinburgh Reviewer has founded upon it.
30. Before it can be admitted, that the repeal of our Corn Laws
would raise the average price of wheat at Dantzic from 35«. to 50*.,
it is necessary for Mr. Solly to prove, that the cost of production
would be increased in that proportion. The only cause (taxation
apart) which can raise the cost of production, is the necessity of cul-
tivating inferior lands, or of applying capital with diminished return
to those which are already in cultivation. And on this, as a neces-
sary effect of an increase of demand, Mr. Solly lays great stress.
" They want their land," he says, "for the cultivation of corn, for
cattle, and fuel for their own inhabitants. They have in Prussia
about eleven millions of inhabitants ; and it contains sixty-seven
millions of English acres, or five thousand square miles ; and they re-
quire almost all the arable land to grow corn for their own inhabi-
tants ; the principal corn that is orown and consumed, is rye ; and I
question, if they had to supply Kngland with wheat corn, it would be
in their power ; they have not the soil, and 1 do not think they would
be able to increase the quantity of wheat to any great amount in
Prussia."
31. This he afterwards accounts for, from the nature of the soil,
which he states t(j be for the most party sandy, and unfit for wheat.
That this may be the cast- in those districts of Prussia with which
Mr. Solly is actpiaiuted, we have no reason to d()ul)t : that it is not
the case in the great corn districts of I'oland, we have the best possi-
ble antlioritv for ;isMrliriir. All coniixtciit uitiicsscs atirco in declar-
ing, that so tar lioui ik (MJiiig all, lluii :ti!ii)lf laud 1<» raise corn tor
their own consumption, tlu; INdish cultivators have been reduced to
the extremity of distress in the last 1"( w years, by the cessation of
foreicrn demau<l. ^^ e are irifornu-d by Mr. JJehreuil, of the house of
Almondeand IJelirend, great corn merchants at Daiit/ic, that fully
one-third of the firfile corn lands are entir«ly waste ; that great tracts
of land, admirably fitted for wheat, have been thrown into pasture,
merely tor wiiiit of a market, and that (ireat «|uaiitilies of corn are
consumed l)V cattle, iuid in \iti ions (itli(r ways among the < nil i\ ators
themselves, wliieli.on the <i|)( ninn of our ports, ^^((Mld be Inouiiht to
market immediately. So ijreat an elVeet does .Mr. lie lire nd ascribe
to this la.st circumstance, that l'olan<l, in his opinion, could export
three times as niiK-li wheat as at present, without raisins; one
bushel mor<! than is already produced (it is true, that her ex-
ports have of late years been comparatively small) ; and if to this wc
46
add the c;icat quantity of wheat which could be raised on the excel-
lent lands which arc now in |)astura!2,c, or entirely waste, Mr. Beh-
rend is of opinion, that Poland could supply this country with from
200,000 to 300,000 quarters of wheat, without any material advance
of price, beyond that which is a remuneratinfj; price to the Polish cul-
tivator at present, viz. 35«. in the greater part of Poland, and 3»s.
in Volkynia, from which province the best Polish wheat is chiefly
drawn.* Now, if it be considered from how large a surface we should
draw our foreign supplies, if we became a regularly importing country,
it can hardly be supposed that we should, in ordinary years, import
from Poland a greater quantity than 200,000 or 300,000 quarters ;
say 400,000, and suppose the last 100,000 to raise the price from 35s.
or 38«. to 40*., or even 4'2s., which is an ample allowance ; adding
8*. for freight and other expenses, this will give 50s. for the probable
average price of wheat in this country, if importation were permitted
at all times, duty free.
32. With regard to Odessa, the facts adduced by the reviewer are
singularly scanty. The following passage contains all that he says on
the subject : —
33. " The prices of wheat at the market of Odessa, on the Black
Sea, the only port f in Southern Europe from which any considerable
supplies of wheat can be obtained, are extremely fluctuating and
various. In 1821, the price of wheat at Odessa amounted, according to
Mr. Tooke, to about 'SOs. a quarter ; and we are informed, by the same
excellent authority, that the charges necessarily attending the impor-
tation of wheat from Odessa to London, would not fall short of 22*. 6d.
a quarter. [Report, p. 226.] It must be further kept in view, that
if the average price of English wheat was 60*., Odessa wheat would
not, on account of its inferior quality, be worth above 48*., or, at
most, 50*. : so that it would be impossible to bring Odessa wheat into
competition with English wheat worth 60*., unless its prime cost was
rather below 21s., which is very rarely, if ever, the case, with such
qualities as are fit for exportation." — p. 61.
* In corroboration of Mr. Behrend's opinion, and in contradiction to Mr.
Solly's assertion, that there is comparatively little land fitted for wheat in
Poland, we extract the following passage from the conclusion of Mr. Jacob's
evidence : " Are you of opinion, that if the price of corn did rise materially
in Poland, there is a very great extent of country there, which might be
made to produce very good corn, if they had a more encouraging price for
it? — Yes; and if they liad a capital. — Would they not be tempted to bring
that which is now under cultivation for rye, under cultivation for wheat? —
Probaidy they might." — Report, p. 376.
t Odessa is the only port in Southern Europe from which a considerable
supply of wheat can be at present obtained. It is impossible to say, how-
ever, to what extent corn might he supplied frfim the countries adjoining the
Mediterranean, were any tolerable government introduced into those coun-
tries. Sicily, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the African coast, were once the
granaries of the world; and might he so ;igain, under any government
which wo\dd but aflord tolerable security to person and property.
47
S4. It appears, however, from Mr. Tooke's evidence, that the
price, at the time of which he spoke, was unusually high, there being
a great demand for exportation, and the supply being deficient. The
fact is, that whatever may have been the price at the period to which
Mr. Tooke's evidence referred (April 1821), the average price of the
whole year did not exceed '2os.
35. We have received from the best mercantile authority at Odessa,
a table of the average prices of hard and soft wheat in that market,
for almost every week, from the beginning of 1H17 to the end of 1824.
From this statement, estimating the rouble at 9|rf., and reckoning 100
chetwerts as equivalent (which is nearly the fact) to 70^ quarters, we
have extracted the following table of the average prices of average
Odessa wheat in sterling money for the last eight years : —
Years. s. d.
1817 37 3|
1818 26 lOf
1819 17 1
1820 18 6
1821 21 10^
1822 22 6|
1823 16 74
1824 15 04
The average of these eight years is 22*. Aid. Allowing 225. Gd.
for freight and other expenses attendant on importation, the price at
which Odessa wheat, of average quality, could be sold in Mark-lane,
will appear to be rather below 4o*. Odessa wheat being interior to
English wheat by about one-sixth, it may be concbubd troin the au-
thentic statements which we have given, that Odessa wheat would
come into coujjjetition with Knglish wheat whenever the latter sold at
a higher price than from 53.v. to 54s. per ((uarter.
3(5. It may be well to adfl, that whatever foundation there might be
for the supposition, that an increase of exportation wouUI permanently
raise the priei- of wlicat in Poland ; on tln'side of Odessa, at least,
such an apprt lien^ion is chinieiieal. There are vsust tracts of fertile
land in the Ukraine, I'odolia, and the countries adjoining the Crimea,
at present uiiculf ivated, or in pasfiirate ; and from wliicli corn mi;;ht
be supplied, pirliaps lor centuries, at tin; same low price at wliuli it is
now supplied from Odessa. We are even informed by the u«'ntleman
to whom we have before alluded, that, in the neiiililiourliootl of
Odessa itself, so great is the ahundauce <»!' fertile soil that the same
piece of land is rarely cultivated for m«)re than two or three years
together. When one piece of land is exhausted, the cultivators with-
draw U) another, as w:is the rase aniont: the (iernmns of old, aiul as
we knf)W to be the case at this day, in the back settlements of North
America.
37. With regard tf» New '^'ork, the ie\iewer has j:iven us the
prices by which the value of the wheat expoil4 d has been cal< iilated
at the treasury department for five years, the greater numljer ot which,
48
if those prices be coiroct, were years of unusually hi2;h price, and
which give an averaiic that even \u> would admit to be far too hi^h.
We know not m hat di'U,ree of reliance is to l)e placed upon the cal-
culations on which these statements arc founded; if they are as in-
accurate as the olficial valuations at our Custom-house, there cannot
be a worse authority.
38. We have received from a great commercial house at Liver-
pool the following statement, extracted from the New York prices
current, of the average price of wheat at New York, from 1820 to
1824 inclusive : —
Year. Price in Cents
per Winchester Bushel.
1820 87
1821 100
1822 131
1823 130
1824 110
The average of these five years gives 38s. per quarter.* Omitting
1820, a year of extraordinary depression, the average of the last
four years gives 40s. per quarter, for the price of wheat at New York,
the dearest port in the Union. In Virginia and Maryland wheat is
usually from 16 to 20 cents per bushel, or about Gs. per quarter
lower than at New York. To the price at the latter port, add 12s.
or 14s., the expense (as estimated by the/eviewer) of importation, and
from 52s. to 54s. will appear to be the average price at which wheat
imported from New York could be sold in Mark-lane. In this case
no deduction is to be made for difference in quality, average Ameri-
can being fully equal to average English wheat. f
39. Besides, America exports flour as well as corn, and the car-
riage of the less bulky commodity being so much less expensive, it is
probable that American flour would come into competition with
English flour, at a much lower comparative price than American
corn.;;:
40. But the facts which we shall now adduce, with regard to the
price of wheat at Rotterdam, from 1815 to 1824 inclusive, are per-
fectly decisive. Holland, as is well known, has long been in the
habit of importing a very great proportion of the corn which she
consumes. She draws her supplies from a very wide surface ; she is
at nearly the same distance as Great Britain from the principal
* During these five years the dollar has gradually sunk in value from
4«. 6d. to 4s. Id. or 4s. 2rf. sterling. We have made our calculations at the
rate of 4s. 3d., being that assumed by the reviewer.
t See the Edinburgh Reviewer liitnself, note to p. 62.
t When tlie immense line of country on the hanks of the Mississippi
River comes to be in full cultivation, it may be expected, from the amazing
fertility of its soil, and the facilities of water carriage which it enjoys, that
it may be able to supply the western countries of Europe with corn at a
much lower price than it is possible to calculate upon at present.
49
exporting countries; and there is, therefore, no reason why we should
not obtain corn from those countries at the same price as she does.
The following table of the averasre prices of wheat at Rotterdam
for the last ten years is derived from the veiy highest mercantile au-
thority : —
Years. Price in Guilders
per Last of 86 Winchester Bushels.
1815 257
181G 390
1817 574
1818 396
1819 284
1820 235
1821 221
1822 193
1823 197
1824 147
These prices, being reduced to sterling money at the average rates
of exchange for the several years, give the following as the average
prices, per Winchester quarter, for those years: —
Years. Price per Quarter.
S. d.
1815 47 8J
181G GO 111
1817 93 0^"
1818 GG 8
1819 4(; G.l
1820 3(; io|
1821 33 5
1822 29 9.1^
1823 30 3
1824 32 WX
The average of the ten years is 47s. 9.2d.
41. It is true that, in these ten years, there were several seasons
of very general almiuhincc. It will be <»bsor>-ed, however, that llure
were two years (I81G and ir.l7) of very general dcticicncy. In 1815,
before the .scarcity began, and in 1819, between the; end of the
scarcity and the beginning of the glut, the price seems to have very
nearly approximated to the average that we have assigned ; and this
* These fluctuations arc greater titan could have been anticipated in a
country whirl), at the period referred to, enjoyed almost a frcr trade in corn :
but it must be rcniemljcred that in tlie ^tars of greatest titvalion (1R17
anfl in in), the price iiad hirn ar.ifirially r.-iised by our great iinportiitions,
wliicli carried off a portion of that grain which had been produced for other
market.s.
G
50
circumstanrc ;\(l<is to tho prosumptioii, thai: the average of these ten
years is a i'air eiiteiion o\' ihv oiflinaiy price.
4-. The advocates of the opinion >vhich we are combatinf!; lay
great stress upon the circinnstance, that the returns of average prices
inchide all (pialitics of wheat, and not the best qualities oidy ; for-
getting that since it is average English wheat, and not the best
English wheat alone, which is our standard of comparison, it would
be unfair to ground our calculations on the price, in the Dutch mar-
ket, of any description of wheat which is of higher quality than
average English wheat. It is not with Holland as it is with Odessa.
Average Odessa M'heat is inferior to average English wheat, by about
one-sixth. The average of the wheat which is sold in the Dutch
markets is inferior to average English wheat, by three or four shil-
lings per quarter at the utmost. The statements which we have ex-
hibited give something less than 48*. as tlie average price of the
average wheat which is sold in the market of Rotterdam. 'J'o this
add 4*. for the difference in quality between that average and the
English : and this calculation gives 525. for the price at which, in
ordinary years, wheat equal to average E>nglish wheat could be im-
ported. And this is the same conclusion at which we had previously
arrived, from a calculation founded on an estimate of the remunerating
prices in the principal exporting countries.
43. The average price of wheat would therefore be reduced eight
or nine shillings per quarter, by the opening of the trade. This fall
of price, though quite sulHcient to give a great relief to the consumer,
is nothing compared to that which we were taught by the agricul-
turists to expect as the inevitable consequence of a free importation
of corn. These gentlemen, indeed, in their pathetic appeals to the
compassion of the public for protection against the utter ruin which
they would have it believed that the repeal of the Corn Laws would
involve them, seem to have forgotten that this kind of argument cuts
two ways ; that if it tells in their favour, it tells still more strongly
against them ; that if the price of corn really is kept, in consequence
of the Corn Laws, so much higher than it would otherwise be, these
laws are only by so much the more insufferable a nuisance, and their
repeal only by so much the more imperatively required.
44. Without disguising our opinion that the repeal of the Corn
Laws would lower the average price of corn, we can supply the land-
lords with topics of consolation which, if duly appreciated, are fully
suflicient to make them readily acquiesce in this most important of all
commercial reforms. For if it be of consequence to them to have a
high price, it is also of very great consequence to have a steady one ;
and it may fairly be doubted, whether they gain so much, by a higher
average rent, as they lose by the constant fluctuations which are the
necessary effect of the exclusion of foreign corn.
45. A country which freely admits the corn of all nations into its
market, is scarcely ever exposed to either of the opposite evils of
excessive dearth or ruinous depression. If there be a bad harvest in
51
one country, there is a siood one in another; and the surplus produce
ef the latter supplies the deticiency of the former, thus savinij the
ene country from the evils of famine, and relieving: the au,riculturists
ef the other from the ruin attendant on an extraordinary depression of
price. But a nation which denies itself the power of supplying- its
wants from the resources of foreign countries, becomes dependent for
its supply of corn, not upon the annual produce of the whole world,
which may be regarded as tolerably uniform in its quantity, but upon
the goodness or badness of the harvest in a particular country, which,
from the vicissitudes of the seasons, may vary so much as to occasion
the most distressing tluctuations of price.
46. There is nothing in political economy more certain, than that a
sj-mall variation in the supply of such a commodity as corn produces a
much more than proportional variation in price : a proposition which
Mr. Tooke, who has explained so many of the complicated phenome-
na of prices, has shown to be as conformable to observed facts, as it
is to sound reasoning.
47. In most other commodities an increase of price induces the
purchasers in general to restrict their consumptioir, and the rise of
price, therefore, is little more than proportional to the falling-oft' in
the supply. But corn is a commodity of which, whatever may be its
price, all are desirous of consuming the same quantity as before ;
being willing to renounce almost every other comfort, rather than
diminish their consumption of so important a necessary of life. They
bid, therefore, against one another, until the poorer competitors are
driven out of the market from mere necessity. If the deficiency be
considerable, the amount of the misery produced balfles all calculatidn.
AVages do not rise in proportion ; i'or wages are aftected oidy by per-
manent variations in price ; the whole weight of the evil is, therefore,
thrown upon those who are least alilc fo bear it. The poorest class
of labourers are deprived of the food which is absolutely essential to
well-being, and the class immediately above them are comp»llcd to
sacrifice almost all their other comforts, in order to obtain their usual
quantity of bread.
4H. Though the farmers, in bad seasons, have less corn to sell, yet
if foreign supplies be excluded, tin* value of their produce is increa.sed,
more than ils (piaiitity is dirniiiisiied, and it is uiore profihiblc to them
to sell a million of (piarlers, at l(M».v. prr «piarl(;r, (hiin 1 ,-i(»(),(t()() at
00*. These aceordin-ily are the halcyon days of agricidtural pros-
IM-rity. !f the lii^h prices, from a .succession of l)ad seasons, continue
(as (luriiiu: tlie late war) tor a number of years, the farmers grow rich,
rents are puiutually pai<l, new Ieiis<-s ar*: graut<'d at increased rent.s;
both larmers aiul landlords arc; templed to ijiereas<- their domestic ex-
penses; (he f;irm« IS, ;illnied liv the pmspec-f of liitili prices, eoulinue to
apply addiliouiil e:i|iitiil to the soil ; eouiuions :ire enclosed, new :iiid
expensive niode^ot ( nhi\:ition are iulro<ln( • d, :iiiil :i luiindiit inn i>; liiid
for that ruin \\lii< li mcessarily follows on the successive n tiiiii i>\ \\\-t
or (hree abundant harvests.
52
41). For it is not more cortaiu that ti small tloficioncy produces a
great cnhanccinont of price, tiian that a trilliiiu, excess often occasions
an inordinate depression. No doubt, when any class of the commu-
nity was before insulKciently provided with food, an increased con-
sumption is the probable consecpience of a fall in jjrice ; the increase of
consumption, however, is rarely, if ever, proportional to the excess of
supply, since they, who already had food enough, are under no in-
ducement to consume more. In a state of freedom the surplus pro-
duce would find a market abroad, as soon as the price had fallen suf-
ficiently to indemnify the exporter for the expenses of transit. But
when, by a system of restriction, the averap,e price of corn has been
raised in any country much above that which is the average price in
other countries, an abundant harvest becomes not only a curse to the
farmer, but a curse from which there is no relief. His corn is raised
at an expense far exceeding the cost of production abroad, and that
which is a remunerating price to the foreigner, would to him be abso-
lute ruin. If he exports, he must submit not only to the payment of
the expenses of exportation, but to the loss of all the difference be-
tween the cost of production at home, and the price abroad. If the
average home price is, by the effect of the Corn Laws, kept 10 per
cent, above the price abroad, he can obtain no vent for his surplus
produce in the foreign market, but by a sacrifice of 10 per cent, and
the cost of carriage in addition.
50. To a period, therefore, of dearth and agricultural prosperity,
succeeds a period of plenty and agricultural ruin. The inferior lands
are thrown out of cultivation, and the capital which has been ex-
pended on them is utterly lost ; the poorer class of farmers become
insolvent ; the landlords receive no rent, or if they receive any, re-
ceive it out of the capital of the tenants ; the provisions for children
and other fixed charges, which were a moderate burden upon their
former incomes, now swallow up the whole ; and the ruin both of
landlords and of tenants is accelerated by their inability to renounce
in adversity those expensive habits which the former high prices had
encouraged them to contract.
51. As if it had been resolved that all possible varieties of absur-
dity should meet together in a single enactment, even the subordinate
arrangements are nearly the worst which could be derived, for that
very class whose interests they are intended to promote. If importation
were permitted at all times, subject to a high duty, the evils of great
fluctuation would indeed be unavoidable ; the agriculturists would be
ruined in periods of abundance ; but they would at least be assured,
of prosperity in periods of scarcity. But now, when importation is
prohibited until corn shall have attained a certain price, and even
then permitted only for a few months, the importers being compelled
to hurry their corn into the country, without having time to form a
judgment as to the causes of the scarcity, its extent, or probable du-
ration, have no means of ascertaining how much corn is wanted, and
53
much more than is wanted is frequently brought ; the price is propor-
tionally, or more than proportionally depressed ; and at a time when
the fanner, having an unusually small quantity, has the greatest oc-
casion for a high price, he is forced to content himself with Avhat
would not perhaps be an adequate remuneration even in an average
year.*
52. If the landlords would attend a little to these, and some other
effects of the restrictive system, we should no longer hear them cla-
moring, as so many of them have done, for a protecting duty of
20, 30, or 40 shillings. Can it be doubted that a steady price, though
at a somewhat lower averao-e, is better for the landlord than an alter-
nation of famine and glut, of exorbitant gains and absolute ruin ?
53. " Granting that hLs rents will be higher; granting that, for a
few years, he may receive a larger sum than he would have done if no
such monopoly had existed ; still it will be difficult of proof, that a
system by which his tenant is injured can be a beneficial one to him.
Let us look at his situation ; he has a large income, perhaps, and
lives in a corresponding style of splendor and comfort ; his establish-
ment is upon a proportionate scale ; his agencies, his allowances to
his children, his subscriptions, in short, all the various charges of this
description are settled accordingly. During the period of deficiency
his rents are paid; but the period of abundance is as alarming to him as
to the farmer, for then his account is made up of small actual receipts
and a long column of aixears ; but his expenses remain for some time
undiminished ; and as he also considers tliis state of tilings teni[)orary,
he is not willing to make such an alteration, as, if permanent, he
would be compelled to do. Some of his out-goings cannot be di-
minished ; if he before lived up to his income, it is quite clear, this
year, he must live much beyond it. The frequent recurrence of such
periods would place the landed interest of this country in the same si-
tuation as the West India planter ; and whoever really wishes to pro-
mote their welfare, would choose any other state than that, to wiiich to
assimilate tluiirs.f — Hut supposii'g a proprietor to have; his land
thrown upon his hands ; supposing it Ijeugand, iujpovcrishe<l, ;in<l ex-
hausted ; supposing his buildings without repair, his hedges and gates
neglected, to all which the distress of the farmer must tend ; how can
* On the other hand, the Cdmplicaicd and intricate provisions of the pre-
sent law atTord such ^coye to franclidcnt artifircs, that iniporlation is often
prevented, even when corn is hcllinj; to lioNii fide purchasers at a price ex-
ceeding ttiat at wliicli it was tlie inteiiliori u\ tiie leuislalnrf; ih a tli(; ports
should open. Of the I'raud and trickery which it is the inevilahh- tcnihiicy
of the system of averagj 9 to produce, tlie painplilel of Mr. Hays (hnusclf
an eminent corn-dealer) alfords a nvihi instrticiivc display ; and we rciitet
that want of space prevents us Iroin (l(iin;i niorc than dirt ctni^ the alteniion
of the reader to the jiam|>hlei ilsi If, wliicli, liioiij^h short, is vahialilc, and
will reward him well for the trouhlc of its perusal.
t ' The property in the Wist Indies is said, upon the average, to change
hands every twenty years.'
54
tJic system be a permanently beneficial one to him ?" — fVhitmore, pp.
on, <»().
ol. It should also be remembered, that the corn which we mii^ht
import, would not be gratuitously bestowed upon us by the foreign
producers : it would be well it" it were ; but unha})pily they are not so
generous. They demand our manufactures in exchange ; and if the
raw material of those manufactures be of home growth, the produc-
tion of that material would open a new channel for the profitable em-
ployment of agricultural capital. Suppose that we were regularly to
import corn from Dant/ic or Odessa, and pay for it in Yorksliire
cloths, the produce of English wool ; much of the land, which they
tell us would lie waste, might be profitably laid out in sheep-walks for
the production of this wool. Not to say that it would allhe ultimate-
ly employed in this or some other Avay equally advantageous to the
landlord, since the repeal of the Corn Laws could not fail, by raising-
profits, to stimulate accumulation, and promote the increase of ])opu-
lation to such a degree, that all but our very bad lands would speedily
be wanted for pasturage, and for the growth of such products as must
necessarily be grown at home, though every quarter of corn which
we might require should be imported. The free importation of corn
in this respect resembles an improvement in agriculture, which, though
it may lower rent for a time, is ultimately beneficial even to the land-
lord himself.
55. The landlord should consider, that if he has an interest op-
posed to that of the community, he has also an interest in common
with them : that if, on the one hand, he may prosper at their expense,
he cannot fail, on the other hand, to be a sharer in their prosperity
also. It is his interest, as well as theirs, to eat cheap corn ; it is his
interest, as well as theirs, not to be burthened with a heavy parochial
assessment, to provide for the starving laborers in seasons of dearth.
And if all these considerations should fail of convincing him that he
would not be to any great extent a loser by cheapness of corn ; let
him throw the hapj)iness of thousands and millions of his countrymen
into the scale.
56. To those londlords, however, in whose minds inveterate habit
has created so intimate an association between the robbery of the
public and gain to themselves, that if they can but make others pay,
they find it not possible to conceive that they should not be gainers by
it, we have only to say, if they will have it, that if what is a blessing
to all the rest of the community, is an injury to them, they miist even
pocket the loss, and make the best of it that they can. For the stale
sophisms, which answered very well formerly, will go down with few
people now ; so few, that it is scarcely necessary for us to notice
them : since, however, this inquiry would not be complete were we
not to make some mention of the more prominent among these so-
phisms, we will trespass somewhat longer upon the patience of the
rea<ler for that purpose.
•57. They say, then, that there is danger in de|>ending for any part
of our supply of so im[)ortant an article as corn upon the will of fo-
55
rcigners, with whom we may be at war, and who would have it In their
power, by prohibiting exportation, to involve us in all the miseries of
famine. " This argument," says Mr. Mill [Eltnieuts of Political
Economy, 2d Ed. p. 1J)7], " implies an ignorance, both of history and
of principle ; of history, because, in point of fact, those countries
which have depended the most upon foreign countries for their supply
of corn, have enjoyed, beyond all other countries, the advantage of a
steady and invariable market for grain : of principle, l)ccause it fol-
lows unavoidably, if what, in one country, is a favorable, is in other
countries an unfavorable season, that nothing but obtaining a great
part of its supply from various countries can save a nation from
all the extensive and distressing fluctuations which the variety of
seasons is calculated to produce. Nor is the policy involved in this
argument better than the political economy. It sacrifices a real good,
to escape the chance of a chimerical evil ; an evil so much the less to
be apprehended, that the country from which another derives its sup-
ply of corn is scarcely less dejiendant upon that other country for a vent
to its produce, than the purchasing country is for its supi)ly. It will
not be pretended that a glut of corn in any country, from the loss of a
great market, with tliat declension of price, that ruin of the farmers,
and that depression of rents, which are its unavoidal)le consequences,
is an immaterial evil."
5». INlr. ^^'ilitmore makes on this subject [p. 87] the following very
pertinent observations :
" Upon this subject, however, we may proceed upon proof and ex-
perience, and need not, therefore, trust to general reasoning. It is
well known that this country constantly imports nenrly all the hemp
it uses ; it is e(|ually clear that, if de[)rived of it, the conse(pienet;s to
us, a maritime and commercial people, would be to the last degree
injurious. If there be one article more tlian another, of whieli an
hostile country would wish to deprive us, it would be this very arlieh'
of hemp, which may fairly be considered the sinews of naval warfare.
But were we ever de|trive(l of it.' Was there ever any s»rious ob-
struction, either to our naval armaments or to our commercial specu-
lations, arising from a <leficicncy of this important article? If not,
it is chimerical to imauine that we shoidd ever be deprived of the corn
we are in the habit of importing."
V.i. It is furtlH-r allcgtid, that the various classes of manufactures
are protected from forei;;n conipelilion, and for this re:i.son it is con-
t( injcd that the buidlords ouLihl to obliiiri a simdiir prottction. To
this oltje* tion ai^o we sliall reply in (hf woids of Mi. .Mill — i'Jtnuiidi,
|)p. mt-j).
()(>. " \\\ the (ii><l place, it may l)c oIim rvrd, that if tlijs art;um( ut
is tiood for the urowcrs ol corn, it is g«iod Ibr eNcry otluT spceiis ol
producers whatsoever ; if, because a tax is in»posed upon the importa-
ti«)n of woollens, a lax ouiiht to be imposed upon the iniportation of
corn, a tax ouuht also lo be im|ioM'd upon the ini|ioiliilion ol every
thing which tlie eoiuiliy e:iii prodmc ; llie eonutiy oii.;lil. in short, lo
have no foreiun conimerce, ( xeept m thoM' arti<des :iloii( uIikIi il
56
has not the means of prothicing. This is a rechiction to absurdity
wliich appoai-s conclusive. The argument moreover supposes Unit an
extraordinary gain is obtained by the manufacturer, in consequence of
his supposed protection ; and that a correspondent evil is sustained by
the corn-grower, unless he is favored by a similar tax. The ignorance
of principle is peculiarly visil)le in those suppositions, in neither of
which is there a sliadow of truth.
Gl. " The man who embarks his capital in the woollen or any other
manufacture, with the produce of which that of the foreign manufac-
turers is not allowed to come into competition, does not, on that ac-
count, derive a greater profit from his capital. His profit is no greater
than that of the man whose capital is embarked in trades open to the
competition of all the world. All that happens is, that a great num-
ber of capitalists find employment in that branch of manufacture ; that
a portion, in short, of the capitalists of the country employ themselves
in producing that particular species of manufacture, who would other-
wise be employed in producing some other species, probably in pro-
ducing something for the foreign market, with which that commodity,
if imported from the foreign manufacturer, might be bought.
02. " As the man who has embarked his capital in the trade which
is called protected, derives no additional profit from the protection ; so
the grower of corn sustains not any peculiar loss or inconvenience.
Nothing, therefore, can be conceived more groundless than his demand
of a compensation on ^that account. The market for corn is not di-
minished because a tax is laid upon the importation of woollens ; nor
would that market be enlarged, if the tax were taken off. His busi-
ness, therefore, is not in the least degree affected by it."
63. Not only is the existence of other monopolies no reason why the
corn monopoly should be kept up, but the mutual support which every
monopoly lends to every other, is one of the strongest reasons why
they should all be destroyed. Every monopoly annihilated, takes
one member from the confederacy ; leaves one restriction less to be
appealed to as a justification for others ; adds something to the num-
ber and strength of those interested in freedom of trade, and takes
something from the mass of interest enlisted on the side of restraint.
The Corn Laws are not merely to be viewed as the cause of those evils
which directly and immediately flow from them. They are to be
judged, not only by the evil which they do, but by the good which
they prevent from being done. If the landlords had no longer a mo-
nopoly of their own, they would no longer, perhaps, uphold the mo-
nopolies of others. It is no more their interest than it" is that of the
public, to pay dear for their goods ; and the protection of manufac-
tures might find fewer supporters in a certain honorable house, were
it not for the necessity of conceding something to those who might be
dangerous enemies to the protection of agriculture.
64. Nor are the mischievous consequences of our Corn Laws con-
fined to this country. Who can know to what extent they may have
served as a motive or as an apology for equally pernicious monopolies
in other countries ? But for the parliamentary slang of protecting
agriculture, America niight never have conceived the ridiculous idea
of protecting manufactures; since this is the cant word which custom
has appropriated to those measures by which a nation renounces the
benefit of all the peculiar advantages which nature has bestowed upon
her in the production of particular commodities. The late Russian
Tariff is believed to have been partly intended as a measure of re-
taliation upon us; and the last Corn Circular of jMessrs. Almonde
and Behreud observes, " It has been rumoured that our government
intends to retaliate, or at least to meet the present prohibitive system
of the western countries by a similar measure as regards several ex-
j)ensive articles of importation which are not in the number of the
immediate necessaries of life; but little good," they add, " is ex-
pected from such a measure, as it would, perhaps, tend to annihilate
trade altogether."
Go. Were the exclusion of foreign goods a real advantage instead
of a positive evil, it would yet be expedient for a commercial country
to sacrifice this advantage, in order to obtain in its turn a similar con-
cession from other countries; on the same principle on which every
man would find it his interest, even if there were no laws, to refrain
from picking his neighbour's pocket, lest by so doing he should pro-
voke his neighbour to perform a similar manoeuvre, upon liis.
G(j. We are continually calling ourselves a trading nation ; and
we boast of our commerce, no doubt very justly, as one of the grand
sources of our wealth. Yet, M'ho ever heard of a commerce which
was not mutual .' Ilow can we expect to export without importijig?*
or of what advantage would it be to us if we could ? since, demon-
strati vely, it is the imports alone from which llie benefit of foreign
commerce is derived. Nobody is enriched by giving any thing aw ay.
Should we grow rich by exporting all that we liave, and importing
nothing? How truly, then, do we misunderstand our own interest, if
we attempt to sell our own commodities to foreigners, and yet refuse to
take tlurirs in exchange? !
()7. NVe wonder that it has never occurred to tiiose governments,
from whose territories we draw our foreign supplies of corn, to punish
us for n iu^inii fo lake tiieir coin re;;ularly, l)y not periiiittiiiu, us to
take it at all. Tiie foreign iigriiMilturist, ;i.s he can never re« kou upon
our demand, of course never produces a corresponding sujiply ; :ind
we, if our price rises to 7(^., rush in and carry ofi' pari of a crop which
WJis not more than sMllicieiit, perhiijis was not siiDicieiit, lor the
supply of tlie coiiiilrv iVom whence it was drawn. 'I'he extent to
which this evil may be carri<(l is little conceived in this country.
• Messrs. Almonde and nrhrrnc!, in llicir circular already quoted, ol»-
stTv, " Ir is generally thoui^lit lliat llie roi suini'iimi el" Hrili'th cnldiiials
and inanufartures does not, at iirt.sejit.eNc ecd cuie iiall el wliat il was heTore
tliis unfortunate crisis of the corn trade took |ila(C." The crisis alluded to
is the glut of agricultural |)ri)diice, wliicii lias heen |)riiu inally occahimied
hy ihc ccbsatioii of deniaiHl Iruni llii^ cuiiniry since lIlKi.
II
68
Afr. Bohrond infonns us, that the cessation of our deniaiul for Polish
corn, since IBiU, has caused such a falliiit;-ofl' in the suj)|)ly, that
wcrv it suddenly to Ihoouu' known that ()()(),()()() <|uartersof wlieat
^vould be speedily wanted for ini|)ortation into iMigland, he should
expect the price in the Dantzic market to mount up at once to i20s.
or 140*. And at no price, he says, in the present state of cultivation,
could l*oland furnish us with as much corn as she did in 181(5. I'hus,
if our Corn Laws should not be repealed, two or three bad harvests
juay be expected to bring on us all the evils, not of dearth alone, but
perhaps of actual famine.
08. It has been said, that although the home-growers have no claim
to be more favored than the importers, they have a claim to be
equally so : that the home-grower is subject to many taxes, from which
foreign corn is exempt; and that a countervailing duty ought, there-
fore, to be laid upon the importer, equal to all the taxes which fall on
corn of British growth.
(51). If, in this country, raw produce v/cre the only article subject to
a tax, this argument would be perfectly just. It is now acknowledged
that taxation should be so regulated as to disturb as little as possible
that distribution of capital, to which the interests of individuals would
lead in a state of perfect freedom. A premium should be given nei-
ther on importation nor on home production. A law which forces us
to import our corn is as bad as a law which forces us to grow it at
home. In both cases the effect is, that we pay dearer for it than we
ought.
70. But when other commodities are taxed as well as corn, we
think, with the writer of the article already referred to in the Edin-
burgh Review, that the agriculturists are not entitled to a counter-
vailing duty, unless they can show that they are more heavily taxed
than other classes of producers ; nor ought the duty even then to ex-
ceed the difference between the burdens of the agriculturists and those
of others. The reason is, that if all commodities of home production
are taxed exactly alike, even without countervailing duties, it is the
same thing with respect to trade, as if they were not taxed at all ;
since prices are not higher than if there were no tax, and there is no
motive therefore to import any thing, which there would not be a
sufficient motive to import in a state of perfect freedom. A protecting
duty, in that case, would be a premium on home production, and,
therefore, injurious. But if commodities are taxed unequally, those
which are most higlily taxed rise in price, and there is an immediate
motive to import them from abroad, paying for them in those which
are less heavily burdened. To prevent this, therefore, there is need of
a countervailing duty, equal to the difference between the two rates of
taxation.
71. Should it appear, then, that agricultural produce is subject to
higher taxation than manufyietured goods, a countervailing duty would
be required, llie Edinburgh reviewer is of opinion, that an ad va-
lorem duty of 10 per cent, would be amply sufficient. This would be
equivalent to five or six shillings per quarter. But a fixed is ob-
59
viously preferable to an ad valorem duty, as the latter, increasing
with the price, falls heaviest in dear years, when it is of the greatest
consequence that importation should be free. Should the time come,
as come it must, when the tithe-tax shall cease to exist, the import
duty may be totally discontinued.
72. jNIr. Uicardo, who concurred in Mr. Whitmore's recommenda-
tion of a fixed duty of 10*. per quarter, advised, however, as a mea-
sure of indulgence to the agriculturists (to give them time for gradu-
ally withdrawing their capital from the land), that the duty should
be originally fixed at 20*., and lowered 1*. every year until reduced to
10. We shall be believed when we say, it is with the greatest hesi-
tation we presume to differ from so great an authority ; but we fear
that, in general, these gradual changes, which are intended as a Ijoon
to the producers, are felt rather as an evil than as a good, even l)y
those for whose benefit they are designed. On a recent occasion,
when, to save the silk manufacturers from loss, the period of the re-
duction of the silk duties was postponed for a year, the silk manu-
facturers themselves very generally complained, that they would have
suffered less from the immediate operation of the measure, than they
did from the stagnation of business which was the consequence of the
<lelay ; and we suspect, that if the gradual reduction proposed by
Mr. Uicardo, were adopted, the anticipated fall of price would oc-
casion so general an indisposition to lay in any quantity, beyond what
was wanti-d for iuinicdiiiti- consumption, as uiiglit involve the producers
in all the evils of a glut. We believe, therefore, that the introduction
at once of tliat system wliich is intcnd'd to be jxrinaiu'iitly established,
is the most desirable course for the agriculturists, as it certainly is for
the rest of the conimunity.
73. ^^ e cannot conclude these observations witiiout again reniind-
\n\i our nadcrs, tliat if ever there was a time when it was of import
ancc that the |)ui)li(' opinion siiouhl stnmuly and loudly (helarc itself
upon this (juestion, it is now. .Mr. N\ liitniorc; has plediied himself to
brini^ the subject before piirliainent in the present session. 'I'he good
disposition of a portion of the miiiislry on this question is well known ;
of that erdiirhtened portion fo whom we are already indebted for the
abolition ol that worst of tax«s, the duties on law proceedings ; for
the openini; of the silk trade; for the fr«'e, or virtually free exporta-
tion of wool ; for the partial abandonment of that ludicrous policy,
which tbrnis the basis of our navigation laws; and (in a great dogree)
for the repeal ot those barbarous statutes, which were exprtssly «h'-
sigiied to keep down the \vaues of labor. M misters who have done
thn.s much, will do more ; and. on tlw sidiject of tin; Corn Laws, they
have alreadv expressed the sound'-sl o|iini<iiis. liifortuiKitely . how-
(■ver, th< v are not all-powerlnl in the cabinet ; they \\ dl not always
be in oflice, and .should they continue as lonu in power as it is our wish
that th(y may, they will riee<l all thesiqi|)ort which |iul)lic opiiiitui can
t:iv<', to carrv th» repeal of the Corn Laws against half the cabinet,
and the whole of the landed aiistocracy.
7 J. We linvr givt-n our praise, as we shall always give our censure,
(JO
where we feel it to be deserved ; nor is there any inconsistency in
praising niinisteil;, and censuring those institutions, under wliich such
men are prevented iVoni wisliing all the good wliich they might do, or
from doing all that which they wish. Measures, not men, is our
motto ; and had we a government, constituted as we desire, we shouhl
not wish its administration to be placed in better hands. Freed from
the trammels of sinister interest, they would then follow where their
better inclinations would lead. And when we consider what is the
ordinary etfect of power upon the human mind, and what sort of
being's ministers usually are ; that persons situated as they are should
have the smallest sympathy with the public^ is a degree of merit which
we scarcely know how sufficiently to praise. Should they succeed
in relieving the connnunity from the intolerable scourge of our Corn
Laws, they will be justly considered as the wisest and best ministers
whom this country has ever produced.
THE END.