ΤΟ

OBSERVATIONS

ON

THE PRESENT

AGRICULTURAL AND NATIONAL

DISTRESS;

ADDRESSED TO A NOBLE LORD.

BY VINDEX.

LONDON:

POSTSCRIPT.

20th August, 1822.

SINCE the first letters were published, in the Pamphleteer, No. 34-the Agricultural Distress has advanced with a rapid pace, and has now very nearly exhausted the capital of the Farmers, from one end of the kingdom to the other. Hitherto those unfortunate men have persisted, where it was possible, in prosecuting a losing trade; partly from habit, partly from inability to find any other employment whereby they could procure a livelihood—and partly, no doubt, from the hope that things were come to the worst, and must begin to mend. The event, however, has hitherto proved the fallacy of that expectation; and every article of produce, instead of advancing in price, has steadily continued to fall. Corn has declined considerably, although the last year's crop (that of 1821) was by no means immoderate; and sheep and cattle, how low so ever they might have been purchased when lean, have constantly been sold at a proportionably lower price by the time they were fit for the butcher; so that many intelligent Graziers have been obliged to sell both sheep and cattle, after keeping them upwards of twelve months, for less than their original cost: and although the Dairyman may not be equally pressed as the corn-farmer by wages and other outgoings, his business requiring fewer hands, yet when we perceive the staple article, cheese, reduced from 90 or 95 shillings the cwt., to 40 or 45 shillings, his loss we may be sure is likewise excessive, whatever may have been the reduction of his rent.

And here I would beg leave to observe, that the misconceptions of the people at large on the subject of rent, and its influence on the sufferings of the Farmers, is still surprisingly great, after all that has of late been said and written concerning it. Whenever the Farmers' misfortunes are mentioned, the common remark is sure to be" let the Landlords lower their rents then, and the Farmers will continue to live and thrive as well as ever:" as if the rent were to be considered as the sole existing grievance, the only cause of the overwhelming distress of the Agricultural body. But it is demonstrably certain, that the rent in many cases-particularly on arable farms-is an object of minor importance in the list of expenses: besides, in point of fact, rents have almost everywhere

been greatly reduced, without sensibly abating the distress of the Farmers. The great body of Landlords have not failed on this occasion to display their wonted liberality and public spirit, by a large remission of rent and arrears; and the reduction of rent will 1 doubt not be universal, the moment the rest of them shall have acquired just conceptions of the real state of the case. Their conversion has indeed been tardy; but that is little to be wondered at, when it is considered what unwearied pains had for many years been taken to blind and mislead them on this difficult and complicated question. For if, as ministers allege, the low price of produce were merely the temporary effect of abundant harvests, and might of course be expected to rally as heretofore, in less productive seasons; it was natural the Landlords should hesitate to release their tenants from their engagements, when the result of the very next crop might perhaps relieve them from their embarrassments, by restoring produce to a remunerating price. It is therefore both illiberal and unjust to accuse the Landlords of want of generosity or sympathy in this particular, when it is notorious that rents have almost universally been reduced 20, or 30 per cent., whether the lands were held under lease, or at will. Tithes likewise have in many instances been somewhat reduced, although not in proportion to the reduction of rents: but poor's rates, on the contrary, have not unfrequently increased of late, notwithstanding the unexampled cheapness of provisions; and tradesmen's bills a material item in the charges of a farm, are scarcely at all reduced from the scale of the dearest times; so difficult it is to bring wages and prices to a just equilibrium, when once the balance has been improvidently disturbed by altering the current medium or measure of value, with which those wages and prices are measured and paid. The wages even of the common laborer in husbandry, although more reduced perhaps than those of any other, have still not fallen in proportion to the prices of produce, and the ability of the Farmer who may be truly said to be in general in a much worse condition as to circumstances, than his laborers at seven or eight shillings a week and whoever attentively considers the particulars above adverted to, will be at no loss to perceive, how no degree of reduction in rent could in many cases afford an adequate relief to the distresses of the Farmer, while prices and outgoings continue as at present.

I will here likewise beg leave to remark, how unfair it is to the Farmer to reason, or rather to talk on this subject, as if he could have foreseen every thing; as if he had been under an absolute obligation to have saved in the favorable times, enough to balance his present losses, and enable him to sell his produce in future at less than its cost, for the benefit of the public. For besides that they

would thus exact a pledge of foresight and prudence from Farmers, which is never expected from any other class of men; they forget that the greatest number of those Farmers who profited by the high prices, had either ceased to live, or ceased to be Farmers, before the present crisis; and have been succeeded by another race, who had no time nor opportunity to profit by those high prices; but who on the contrary have lost their all, in an unequal struggle with the falling prices, the effect of the restoration of the currency; the power and operation of which, they were in the beginning not at all aware of, and even yet can scarcely comprehend. Nothing therefore can be more uncandid or unjust, than to affect to consider their present ruinous losses as nothing more than a fair set-off for the advantage formerly obtained by their predecessors; men with whom they have in general no sort of connexion whatsoever.

The agonies of the Farmers, however, seem now to be nearly over. Their whole property being gone, they cannot sink lower in the scale of society: for it is notorious, that three-fourths of them are not worth a single shilling; and are only going on from hand to mouth, through the indulgence of their Landlords, to whom they are in general some years in arrear; and by whose capital, therefore, their trade may be justly said to be carried on. The occupiers of the land having now nothing more to lose; the future losses, the inevitable result of a losing trade, must of necessity fall on the Landlords; who will very soon be reduced to the same ruinous condition as the Farmers, if things go on as at present; and those great national interests are suffered to perish, without a single real and efficient effort made to save them. Hitherto it is too evident that nothing has been effected, nor indeed seriously attempted for their relief; nothing beyond mere demonstration and pretence. It cannot indeed be alleged, as in former years, that the Agriculturists have excited no attention in Parliament. On the contrary, numberless discussions have taken place; and Committees have repeatedly been appointed; who consisting chiefly of Fundholders, Merchants, and other persons connected with the monied interest, have given in such reports on the subject as were to be expected from such a quarter, and which have proved equally unsatisfactory and useless to the Agricultural community. A million or two of taxes have indeed been repealed; but the amount is wholly inadequate to restore prosperity to the Farmer, or to avert the impending ruin of the Landlord. To the selection of the taxes repealed there is perhaps but little to object. Remission of taxation is sure to do good, so far as it goes. I will only observe, that although it is given out, that those particular taxes were selected with a view chiefly to the relief of the Agriculturists;

they do not in fact-with the exception of the Agricultural-horsetax, tend more to the relief of that class than of any other.

Such indeed is the disastrous state to which the landed interests. have been reduced, that if relief is sought through the lessening of taxation alone, it is evident that nothing short of a reduction of taxes and payments to the scale of 1793 could have any chanceof affording adequate protection, and of averting that total ruin and confiscation of property, which stares every owner and occu pier of land in the united kingdom, full in the face. Neither would the reduction of taxes to any given amount, prove sufficient to relieve the general distress, and restore prosperity to the nation, without a corresponding revision and adjustment of all private contracts and engagements for money, which were entered into in the depreciated currency; as it is evident, the restoration of the value of the currency is now pressing with cruel and overwhelming injustice on a vast proportion of the community, who are thereby plundered of more than half their property, and rendered unable to perform their wonted part, in supplying wages to labor, and employment to industry. In point of fact, this equitable reduction of contracts is of equal, if not greater importance, as a means of alleviating the general distress, than reduction of taxation itself; and would prove far more efficacious in that respect than any trifling or limited repeal of taxes, such as we have hitherto witnessed.

To return, as it seems we must, to the rents and prices of 1793, without returning to the taxes and expenditure of 1793, must inevitably prove the confiscation of three-fourths at least of all the landed property in the kingdom; which surely the legislature never could intend, and which as surely they would not now enforce, were their eyes and understandings open to the fact. For it is. equally contrary to equity and common sense, that the whole burden of the war expenditure should be flung, through the restoration of the currency, on one class of the community alone; while another class, who have profited and fattened to an unparalleled degree, by that restoration which has led to the ruin and impoverishment of the rest of the community, should be suffered to stand exempt from almost any share in the cost of supporting that government, and maintaining that state of national security, industry, and affluence, by which alone their property exists.

As the Fundholders, during the latter period of the war, were assessed to the Income or Property-tax, as it was called, they cannot, strictly speaking, be said to have contributed nothing at all towards their own protection. It is however certain, that they did not contribute in an equal ratio with the other classes of the community, nor in proportion to their property at stake. The IncomeVOL. XXI. Pam. NO. XLII. 2 1