namely, an exhaustion of the stock in hand, it will not be found to be such an exception as to invalidate the hypothesis I have adopted. It should also be borne in mind that in 1820 we began with large stocks; there had occurred in the two antecedent years the largest import of wheat ever known, amounting to 1,582,379 quar ters, and this was followed by one or two years of extraordinary abundance; the result of which was, that at the harvest of 1821 there was a much larger stock on hand than is usually the case, and which must have required, under any circumstances, a certain period to bring down to the usual level.

I have thus, Gentlemen, endeavored to place before you the leading features of this most interesting and important subject, and if I have been at all successful in explaining to you the grounds of the opinion I entertain on it, I shall, I hope, stand excused from the charge of needlessly agitating so momentous a question. I should indeed feel that had I remained inactive, impressed as I am with the necessity of an alteration of this law, I should have betrayed a most important trust confided to my hands when elected as your representative, that of endeavoring to remove a most serious obstruction to the peace and the future welfare of the community I should have held myself in some measure responsible for the evils which the continuance of the present corn-law must inevitably entail on our country. The effort of combating the prejudice which prevails on the subject has been painful to me in no ordinary degree, and deeply have I regretted the hostile attitude in which it has made me appear to a class so deservedly esteemed as the agricultural body-with whom I am intimately allied, not only by a community of interest, but union of feeling in all save this question. I would implore them to weigh well the arguments which have been advanced on it; and to reflect whether, independent of all pecuniary considerations, the re-establishment of that harmony which used to prevail amongst different classes in this country, and which this question has already done much to weaken, would not be cheaply purchased by concessions no less demanded by fair argument than called for by the experience of those benefits which have resulted from the former existence of that most important of all branches of commerce, the trade in corn. I would implore them to consider that agriculture, although like other interests subject to temporary derangement, never can be other than permanently florishing in that country where trade and manufactures abound; and that any other advan tages to the agricultural interest than those which naturally arise from the increase of the industry, the skill and capital of the country are purchased at the expense of other classes, and though they may essentially injure, can never promote the real interest of England.

YOUR Letter to the Electors of Bridgenorth is distinguished by a fairness and liberality which give it every claim to attention on the part of those to whom the corn question is a subject of interest, Agreeing with you in many of the positions which you support, but being of opinion that there is much danger, in the present state of public feeling, of precipitancy in the alteration of the corn-laws which are now in force, I take the liberty of addressing to you, as one of the most able and candid supporters of the commercial interest, a few remarks on the subject, to which an attentive perusal of your letter to your constituents has given rise. You state, in unequivocal terms, your "fear" of "the immediate effects" to be produced by an alteration of the present system of corn-laws, unless we proceed in the measure "with great prudence;" and that, in amending such laws, it is "most desirable that we should not expose to unnecessary hazard an interest so extensive and so important as the agricultural interest of this kingdom."

When a gentleman like yourself, of independent character and circumstances, and eminently conversant with the philosophy, if not the details of commerce, comes forward as the champion of the mercantile world, and, with a candor and ingenuousness which are highly creditable to you, makes the admission which I' have now mentioned, it ought fairly to be expected to curb the impetuosity of those who are disposed to overlook practical considerations of expediency, in their anxiety to conduct legislation on philosophical principles.

The reign of ultraism in politics is over; but there is, in fashion, a species of ultraism in political economy, which requires the more attention from practical men, because it is thought to evince, in the possessor, a somewhat flattering degree of liberality and freedom from prejudice, which may be safely indulged in by the most cautious politicians, because it does not carry with it the indications or obligations of party.

Landholders bave been represented as a proud and interested body of men, having the power to check improvements, and the disposition to make laws in subserviency to their own purposes. Farmers have been described as mercenary and discontented, as making the most of their grievances, and watchful for opportunities of sounding them to the world. Agricultural meetings and petitions have been condemned as an unnecessary interference with the progress of liberal opinions, and decried as unworthy attempts to excite warmth, and to raise up an improper influence in the consideration of an important national question. And yet who were the persons that commenced the discussions on the cornlaws two years since? It cannot be denied, that agriculture had been in a state of extreme suffering for some years previously, and that it was then just beginning to emerge from a state of exhaustion which had scarcely ever a parallel. It is likewise very well known, that at that time manufactures and commerce were in a high, and I believe, unexampled state of prosperity, founded, in a very important degree, on the increased consumption which the improvement in agricultural affairs produced at home; and yet this was the period chosen for commencing an outcry against landholders and farmers, which could not, when soberly viewed, but be regarded as premature and mistimed. They were represented as gorged with the spoils of the public, though their prices were not one-half what they once were; and the most sensitive feelings of our nature were excited against them, though every one at all conversant with the subject must have known that such prices, for the short period of their continuance, and you yourself admit the fact, could not, by any means, make up the severe losses of former years.

It is not to be wondered, then, that meetings should be held in the country as well as in towns; and that associations should be formed for the protection of agriculture, when a single movement of the corporation of London, or of any principal manufacturing town, excited, perhaps, by the exertions of a single bustling individual, is able, in an instant, to sound an alarm through the whole kingdom. Agriculturists may be unreasonable in their claims and expectations, and many of them are so; but they would really be the stupid and doltish individuals which some are

inclined to represent them, if they did not see that the simultaneous efforts which the activity and union of commercial men are so readily capable of making against their interests, aided, as they generally are, by much of the powerful exertions of the daily press, can alone be met and counteracted by activity and union on their part.

The most important part of the discussion which is carried on in your letter to your constituents, relates to the necessity for certain alterations in the corn-laws, and the advantages which such alterations would be likely to produce.

You give it as your opinion, that the landed interest attach far too much consequence to the present corn-laws; and that their fears are greatly exaggerated, as well respecting the quantity of wheat that could be furnished to us by foreign countries, as the price at which it could be introduced into Great Britain. But supposing this to be the case, are not the advantages to be derived from the admission of foreign corn overrated in precisely the same ratio?

If your statement is correct, that the free importation of corn is so small a boon, as far as agriculture is concerned, as not to be worth refusing, how are we to reconcile this view of the subject, to the magnitude and importance which it is represented to possess in commerce, and which makes it dangerous to be withheld?..

In optics, it is well known that indistinctness of vision produces many errors in the estimate of the size of bodies; a crow in a mist appearing as large as a man, or a horse as a castle.

With

men of less clear understandings, I should be inclined to refer, what appears to me so material a defect in the main argument of your letter, either to that species of optical deception which I have just mentioned, or to the microscopic influence of a fervid imagination.

Importation of corn is considered as operating in two ways; first, by reducing its price in this country, and thus allowing British manufacturers to diminish the wages of labor, and therefore to compete with other countries where the prices of labor are less; and, secondly, by enabling our manufacturers to transmit to such countries as send us corn an equal amount of their manufactures, which could not be purchased in any other way.

When you state that 600,000 quarters of wheat are as much and even more than can reasonably be expected as an average of importation, which, at 24s. per quarter, would cost 720,000l. from the grower, it cannot but forcibly press itself on the consideration, whether this amount of annual importation would be at vall likely to remove the difficulties under which manufactures 918 VOL. XXVIII. NO. LV. P

Pam.

and comnierce at present labor, or in any material degree to ade vance their general interests.

1

!

We are informed by Mr. Jacob, that in the year 1810 our exports (setting aside fractions) amounted to sixty-two millions; and that a deduction of fifteen millions of colonial produce re-o exported, left an amount of forty-seven millions, which consisted entirely of British produce and manufactures. This sum is not far, I believe, from the truth at present, though I have not at hand the full opportunities of ascertaining the point. It is apparent, however, that if this is at all near the average of our exports, an addition of 720,000l. to them would be only a sixty-fifth part of the whole; and it is difficult to see how an increase of our exports to this extent, though of course useful as far as it goes, can be the means of rescuing our manufacturers from a state of utter depression and debasement, to that of the high prosperity which, we are told, would be the effect of repealing the corn-bill.

You are too candid to insist that the distress of the manufac→ turing districts is mainly attributable to the corn-laws. You admit that it is not strictly dependent on them; and speak with a feeling of doubt on the extent to which they are even accessary, in increasing the difficulties which our manufacturers have so largely experienced. It can hardly be questioned, that the great cause of those difficulties is the weight of goods with which machinery and enterprise have loaded them; and it does not appear, on any calculation of the amount which a probable annual importation of corn bears to the probable mass of accumulated production, that the relief to the manufacturer would be very sensibly felt, by an importation being permanently allowed by law to the extent which you mention. In point of fact, an experiment has been made, as you yourself state, of an admission into our markets of corn from Canada, or from bond, during each of the two last years, to an extent nearly equal to that for which you contend, and yet without any material influence arising from it, in either preventing or removing the evils complained of.

It seems, indeed, to be apparent, that no permanent extension of trade can keep pace with production, which is conducted as if demand were interminable and unlimited.

In reasoning from the past to the future, you appeal to the period between the years 1773 and 1815, as proving the very high state of prosperity which Great Britain enjoyed, in all the particulars which constitute the greatness of a country; and you connect this with the existence of a principle of law, relative to the impor

Considerations on the Protection required by British Agriculture, and on the Influence of the Price of Corn on exportable Productions, by W. Jacob, Esq. F.R.S.