part of the bounty is not felt in the market price, it is merely taken from the revenue; but the whole, with a fixed duty, would operate on price, and, of necessity, give it a much wider range than it now possesses. The variation of price allowed by the law, is about 20s. per quarter; but a fixed duty would allow one of from 30s. to 40s.

It is because the law admits foreign corn almost free from duty, that the agriculturists imagine it affords them little protection. The fact is, it does not so admit it, until their price rises much above what is call ed a remunerating one; and if this price should never rise above 60s., or 62s., it would be at it equal to a fixed duty of nearly 25s. In seasons of short supply, it acts as a prohibition, until the six weeks' average price rises to 73s., while, with the old laws, the prohibition ceased when this price reached 70s. Granting that foreign corn then enters the market nearly duty free, this is a loss to the revenue; but, in general, it makes little difference to the agriculturists; the certain rise of price is foreseen by foreign corn-growers and speculators, therefore the holder of the corn brings it into consumption at as great a cost to himself as he would do, if it were subject to a considerable fixed duty. A few shillings more or less in price, would have no material effect on importation. Compared with a fixed duty, in respect of protection, the law may give less than a duty would give, when the farmers have no corn to sell; but it gives far more than could be drawn from a duty when they want a market. Importation may be greater with it, than it would be with a duty, in times of short supply; but, in other times it is much less. We necessarily think the corn law infinitely preferable to a fixed duty; but still we wish to see in it great alterations, because it is obviously extremely defective.

All sides call for steadiness of price, and it is demonstrable that it can only be produced by steadiness of supply, with reference to demand. Of course, it can only exist in such a corn law as will, in the first place, exclude foreign corn when there is no deficiency; in the second, bring such corn into the market when

there is deficiency; and, in the third, admit no more than demand requires. The present corn law does exactly the reverse, therefore it causes violent fluctuations of price.

We do not say whether the quarter of wheat ought to sell for thirty shillings, or sixty, but it is clear to all living men, that if the market be plentifully supplied with English at any price, the admission of a considerable quantity of foreign must of necessity cause that price to fall greatly. Taking the sum at 60s., it is manifest that when there is with it a full supply of English wheat, foreign must be excluded, or there can be no steadiness of price. A duty cannot be depended on for causing such exclusion; at one moment it will do it, and at another it will do the contrary. The corn law imposes one, and it operates in this manner; when there is a short supply of English wheat, it rigidly excludes foreign; but when the supply of English is good, it brings half a million of quarters of foreign into consumption. This, in the nature of things, must be its general operation, because a bounty is offered by short supply, on keeping foreign wheat from, and, by abundance, on forcing it into consumption.

What, then, can exclude foreign wheat when there is a sufficient supply of English at 60s.? Nothing but a legal prohibition. We are not saying that this would be better than a violently varying price; we merely maintain that there must be the one or the other, and that such prohibition can alone produce that exclusion, without which there cannot possibly be steadiness of price.

In the nature of things, price, save in years of scarcity, must generally be some shillings below that fixed on for suspending the prohibition. If, therefore, the farmer ought to have 60s. for his wheat, the prohibition must be in force so long as the price is not higher than from 66s. to 70s.

The next thing for securing steadiness of price must bring foreign corn into consumption when there is a deficiency; and it must bring no ex

cess.

The present law, at such a time, keeps this corn from consumption-produces high prices when they cannot benefit the generality

of farmers-throws the whole importations of the year on the market at once, about harvest-makes these importations excessive-and binds the mass of farmers to losing prices, so long as they have corn to sell. In reality it compels the consumer to pay, on the average of the year, a considerably higher price than the British producer obtains, solely for the profit of speculators and foreigners; when he buys of the British farmer, corn is cheap; when he buys of the foreigner, it is dear.

When price rises to the point for suspending prohibition, the law ought evidently to take as much foreign corn out of bond as the market will bear. Suppose this point should be 66s., and the quantity 400,000 quarters; when the average price should rise to this sum, the law might command all bonded wheat to be cleared within a week, provided the quantity should not exceed that we have named; should the quantity be greater it might command the clearance of half, three-fourths, or any other proportion of it. In addition, it might prohibit the clearing of any more for a month or six weeks afterwards. In such case, speaking generally, when the average price should rise to 66s., as much foreign wheat would be brought into consumption as would not only prevent it from rising higher, but reduce it in a small degree; and the farmers would be protected from the glut which operates so perniciously against them for some months after harvest. The consumers would gain rather than lose; they would have wheat cheaper in summer, if they had it somewhat dearer in win

ter.

Whether the trade in corn ought to be free or the contrary-whether a legal prohibition up to a certain point is a more baleful thing than ruinous fluctuations of price-whether the quarter of wheat ought to sell for twenty shillings or eighty, are matters with which we have nothing to do. The question before us is-what will produce general steadiness of price? and in reply we say, nothing but a law which will prohibit foreign corn when there is abundance of British, and bring the former into the market when there is a deficiency of the latter, but only

in such quantity as the market can sustain.

It is our conviction that, putting years of decided scarcity out of sight, a duty of eight or ten shillings per quarter on foreign wheat would raise the price very little to the consumer. The English market is the principal, and often the only one to which the foreign corn-growers and dealers can look; therefore they must take almost any price it will offer them. If their corn should only be admitted with an average price of 66s., a duty of 10s. would leave a price to the importer of 56s., and under it importations would be nearly as large as they now are. Should the law clear bonded wheat at 66s., this duty would fall almost wholly on the foreign producers in ordinary years.

The present system is in the highest degree false in principle. It forces foreign corn up to a high price in order to exempt it from duty, and then it throws all the advance on the consumer; it really taxes the latter for the purpose of robbing the Exchequer. The consumer and the Exchequer jointly lose from it nearly a pound per quarter. While most imported commodities are subject to heavy duties, which fall on British consumers, corn is admitted nearly free from them, although such duties on it would fall mainly on foreign producers. At the very least half a million per annum is lost in this manner to the revenue, and the loss causes corn to be dearer rather than cheaper to the community.

We, of course, conceive that foreign corn should be prohibited by law up to a certain price, and then admitted at a fixed duty of 8 or 10s. on wheat, and a proportionate one on other kinds of grain.

In years of decided scarcity the duty would be added to price, therefore in them government ought to have the power of suspending it.

It must be observed that the Corn Law has only been tried in years of short supply. Let the next two harvests be good ones, and it will bring a ruinous accumulation of foreign wheat into the market under a duty of 25s.

Our belief is that these changes in the law would in the first place ensure as much steadiness in the price

of corn as the variation of seasons will admit of. Secondly, they would cause corn to be on the average of the year cheaper rather than dearer to the consumers. Thirdly, they would give better prices to the British producers. And fourthly, they would add a considerable sum to the

revenue.

If we be in error, it is at any rate certain that those who wish to judge correctly of the question, must examine it as we have done. Yet who does so examine it? Do the landowners, and their scribes, who decide with so much ease and confidence that a fixed duty would be better than the law, assign any substantial reasons for their decision? No, they stand on the assertion-foreign corn is admitted almost free of duty, therefore the law yields no protection. It is evident enough that they imagine a fixed duty would add its amount to price in moments of short supply; and that they never bestow a thought touching what it would do in those of abundance. To make price higher when it is remunerative, they would make it lower when it is ruinous.

There is another set of agriculturists who declaim against taxes, and profess they would consent to a free trade in corn, if they could have them reduced sufficiently. Do these men support their doctrines by argument and calculation? They stand on assumptions which are manifestly groundless. They speak of poorrates;-in a large part of England, these only form a tax of about a shilling per quarter on the corn sold; in other parts where they are heavy, wages are low in proportion, therefore the landowner gains in rent much of what he has to allow for poor-rates. If a farm in Sussex pay yearly fifty pounds more for poorrates, and fifty pounds less for than one of the same size in Yorkshire; such rates are really no greater a burden to the Sussex landowner, than they are to the Yorkshire one. It must be remembered, that the continental corn countries have what is equivalent to poor-rates.

wages,

Then these men clamour against the malt-duty. It is paid chiefly by the consumers, and what benefit could its abolition yield to the corn

growers, if coupled with the free import of foreign corn ?

As to direct taxes, the land pays none of moment. Land in England is less burdened with them than it is in many continental states.

With regard to general taxes, other countries pay them as well as this; let us, therefore, assume, that on the average, the Englishman pays twice as much in taxes as the foreigner. It must be remembered, that many articles of dress, &c., are much cheaper here than they are abroad, and that this goes far towards balancing the difference against him in taxation. Let us farther assume that the agriculturists pay twenty millions of the annual taxes, and that their yearly sales of corn, cattle, wool, timber, &c., amount only to one hundred millions. In each case, they pay ten millions of taxes more than they ought to do, to be on a level with foreigners. This sum amounts to ten per cent on a sale of one hundred millions; therefore, taking the quarter of wheat at three pounds, they ought to obtain only six shillings more for it than foreigners, on account of difference in taxation. We believe that this greatly exceeds the truth, and that the advantages possessed by the Englishman over the foreigner in a market for animal food, butter, poultry, &c., fully cover such difference.

Amidst foreign agriculturists, the landowners draw very little revenue from their land; there are comparatively no farmers or other middlemen to be supported by it, and the standard of living is at the lowest point among the labourers: this is the difference which prevents British ones from competing with them.

It is not necessary for us to say that we are the friends of agricul ture, but in fighting its battles we must look at truth and honesty. We cannot say it is oppressed with taxes, because we know it is not; instead of paying more than its share of them, it pays less. These men, in offering to give up its protection in exchange for a reduction of taxes, are advocating its ruin. This is not the only reason why we notice their conduct. Their preposterous outcry against taxes nurtures the spirit of disaffection and revolution, and it

contemplates the spoliation of the public creditor.

Why do they so act? Because, forsooth! they must be liberalthey must not gainsay the economists -they must be so far enlightened as to admit that the doctrines of free trade are true in the abstract. this they despise demonstration, promulgate the most gross errors, and render the cause they profess to support, indefensible.

For

Turning to the avowed enemies of agriculture, do they speak from careful and dispassionate investigation? They assert that the Corn Law is a monopoly which excludes foreign corn to rot where it is grown. This law has admitted all the surplus corn of other countries at much higher prices than free trade would have allowed; it has, therefore, given a greater stimulus to the production and import of foreign corn, than free trade would have given. They thus put forth a deliberate falsehood.

These people assert, farther, that foreign corn, bought by this country, must be paid for wholly with manufactures, and that by its exclusion, the export of the latter is prevented. As the law causes the price of foreign corn to be higher, and the import to be larger than they would be with free trade; it, of necessity, on their own doctrines, makes the export of manufactures greater than free trade would make it. Here they put forth another gross falsehood.

These men make it a fundamental principle, that variations in the price of corn must affect rent alone. In addition to the evidence of all history, the present state of England proves, that in their natural operation, they affect rent the least, and fall principally on the wages of husbandry labour. It is evident to all, that the landowners could now obtain the rents they received before the reduction in prices, of late years, and throw the reduction on such wages. These very men are practically confessing it, for instead of leaving rents to be regulated by the

common laws of bargain, they bully and intimidate the landowners into a reduction of them. They here put forth another manifest falsehood.

What is their object? It is to mislead and inflame the ignorant.

There is another set of people who pretend to favour free trade in corn, not from hostility to agriculture, but for the sake of common good. Do they stand on enquiry and proof? No, with them, all is ignorant assertion-prohibition is wrong, no matter what may be its fruits; free trade is right, however ruinously it may operate; the object of legislation is to practise doctrine in contempt of consequence. They are utterly incapable of understanding the question, and they do not attempt it. They are sordid traders in place and creed, who take up any opinion which is calculated to promote their personal benefit.

And there is another set of men who despise investigation, because they are pledged. They voted for the Corn Law, they belong to the parties from which it emanated, therefore they pronounce it faultless. All the evils experienced under it, are produced by change of currency, bad seasons, or any cause, save its defects. To escape the confession of their own errors, they close their ears to argument, and insist that the most decisive demonstrations are false, and below notice.

Yet, it is self-evident to every human being, that if the regulations for the import of foreign corn be not framed upon comprehensive investigation, severe fact and accurate deduction, in total disregard of abstract doctrine and prejudice, they must operate most injuriously against the interests of manufactures, trade, and the empire at large, putting those of the agriculturists out of the question. If this truth be disregarded by all other men, it ought at least to be attended to by landowners and farmers we, therefore, call on them to examine deeply and dispassionately, before they pledge themselves.