THE LANDLORDS' SCAPEGOATS.
IT is now certain that numerous petitions will be presented to the House of Commons, :seal after the confmencement of next session, for leave to prove at the bar of the House that the Corn-laws are injurious to the conununity at large, and more inmtediately to that portion of it dependent upon breign commerce for the profitable employment of capital. These petitions will proceed from the principal merchants and manufficturers in the United Kingdom, whose representations will be backed by many thousands of the middle classes, embracing no small portion of the constituent body. That the House of Commons will reject prayers so enforced, is hardly possible. No Government would venture to oppose a demand so reasonable, and at the same time so powerfully supported. Whatever be the state of party polities, whoever be Minister, it may be .assumed that the Corn-law question, the arguments and facts on both sides of it, will for the first time be subjected to a thorough examination in the Legislature. To shrink from the pro- posed scrutiny, would be taken as evidence of' conscious weakness. Probably an attempt may be made to evade the main points. A compromise may be offered, which it would be safe for the landed interest to reject, and fatal to the public interest to accept. But there must be no compromise, and no neutrality. The Members for large towns and manuflicturing districts should be called upon faithfully to represent their constituents. Not only ought Mr. POULETT THOM7+0N, Sir JOHN IIODUOUSE, Mr. PARKER of Sheffield, and Sir Hes ay PARNELL, be required to give an earnestaiupport to the movement, and diligent attention to the conduct of the case in the House of Commons, but Lord JOHN Russ.asa, RS Member for Stroud, ought either to resign his scat or maintain the important interests of his constituents. If on this great question he has re- solved to neutralize the vote,of his colleague, Mr. POULETT Scaora, he ought to follow Sir ROUERT Palm's example in 1829, resign his seat, and seek another constituency. If there is a really independ- ent party in Stroud, this course will be suggested to the Home Secretary as that which he is bound in honour to follow. We re- commend other constituencies with slippery representatives, to come to a clear understanding as to votes on the Corn-law ques- tion. We are well advised that stringent applications, in sonic quarters, are needed, and would be successful. Overpowering evidence of the injury inflicted by the Corn- laws on the foreign commerce of' the country will be laid before Parliament by the well-informed and intelligent persons who are now engaged in the struggle against the landowners' monopoly ; but there is another important part of the question which has not . received the attention it deserves, and which, there is some reason to fear, may be slurred over. We allude to the mis- chievous effect of high prices of agricultural produce, artificially maintained, an tlw cultivators of the soil. It is false to pretend that farmers need corn-laws for their protection ; and this is often said by men who clearly perceive the injurious operation of those laws upon tenants : but is evidence in support of the position ready—in a tangible, producible shape ? Are there enlightened and in- dependent agriculturists to face the landed aristocracy—the disinterested and candid gentlemen of not less than 300/. a year—at the bar of the House of Commons? There ought to be numerous witnesses to describe the effect of the Corn-laws on farmers' profits ; for this part of the case is really strong, and capable of demonstration. The farmer is just as much a capi- talist as the cotton-spinner, and his profits are liable to augmenta- tion or reduction according to the same laws which regulate mer- cantile gains or losses. Colonel Tonne-as, in a pamphlet just pub- lished, clearly shows that " a rise in the value of agricultural pro- duce is followed by a fall in agricultural profits ;" a result occa- sioned by the increased cost of seed and food, and the larger rent Ids landlord requires.
".When the quantity of wrought goods obtained by the advance of a given quantity of raw produce commands, in exchauge, a less quantity of raw pro- duce than before, it is self-evident that manufacturing profits must decline. Had the cultivators of the soil lenses for ever, at unalterable rents, the same Cause which depressed manufacturing would raise agricultural profits, and the fernier would flourish amidst the general distress. But this is impossible. Through- oat. all the departments of industry the rates of profit tend to a common level. 'When the quantity of manufactured goods prepared by the expenditure of a given quantity of agricultural produce purchased a less quantity of such pro- duce thao Wore, the capital invested in manufactures would gam a less, while the capital invested in agriculture would obtain a greater return than before. But as long as this difference in the rates of return to capital continued, so long would the competition for land be rendered more intense. The natural; the inevi0Ve result would be, that tenants at will, and all other tenants, as their leaikacipired, would be compelled to pay, as rent, such an increased por- tion of their surplus produce as would britig down agricultural profits to the reduced level of manufacturing profits. This, then, is the ,,,,reat practical con- clusion with which all should be familiar. An increase in the value of agricul- tural produce, while it confers a temporary benefit upon farmers, protected against competition by a currentlease, inflicts permanent injury and depression upon the important class who invest their capital in the cultivation of the soil. 6 A fall a the value of agricultural produce will, of course, be followed by effects the reverse of those occasioned by a rise. When the quantity of manu- factured goods which is fabricated by the advance of a given quantity of food and materials, exchanges for a greater quantity of these articles of raw produce, then manufacturing profits become higher than before ; and when the quantity of agricultural produce raised with the expenditure of a given quantity of clothing and implements, exchanges for a less quantity of these finished articles than before, then it is self-evident that agricultural profits will be lower than before. This, for a time, will occasion agncultural distress. But as the profits of the manufacturer increase and those -of the cultivator decline, there will be less competition for farms; and tenants at will, and all other tenants, on the expiration of current leases, will demand, and must ultimately obtain, such a reduction of rents as will leave in their hands a surplus produce sufficient to raise agricultural profits, not merely to their former level, but to that higher level to which manufacturing profit's may have risen. Thus, with respect to the effects of a fall in the value of agricultural produce, the important practical
principles are, that such full occasions temporary agricultural distress, while rents are in the course of adjustment to the reduced level ; and that, as this adjustment is effected, the fall in the value of produce confers upon those who invest copital in the cultivation of the soil a permanent prosperity greater than that which they previously enjoyed."
In the passage quoted, there is an admission, that farmers pro- tected against competition by a current lease, are benefited by the higher price of' agricultural produce ; and this is indisputable ex- cept in the now common instances of corn-leases, which are so framed as to secure to the landlord the benefit arising from an ad- vance on the price of grain. But the great majority of farmers in England arc tenants at will ; and, it is to be feared, generally at the mercy of the landlords, their capitals being small, and their rents probably in arrear. The process by which they have been re- duced to this dependent condition is thus described by Colonel TORRENS- " When the price of agricultural produce fell, after the termination of the late Ivor, there were two, and only two ways by which a considerable fall in agricultural profits and a diminution of agricultural capital might have been prevented; namely, first, by an immediate reduction of money rents and of other money charges upon land, in correspondence with the dlimnishedprice of Produce ; second/y, by such a reduction in the ancient standard of value, as would have perpetuated high nominal prices, and have been, in effect, the same thing as a reduction of rents, and of other fixed money charges. Had the lantl&I proprietors of England, who then possessed the whole legislative power, adopted either of these courses, no fall of agricultural profits, no destr-etion of agricultural capital, could have occurred. They attempted neither. Unac- quainted with the principles of economical science, and not possessing suffi- cient intelligence to perceive their own ignorance, the landed proprietors of that day became willing instruments end coliperating agents in working out their own destruction. If they chose to consent to measures for raising the value of the currency, they Woulhl at the same time have made a cor- responding reduction in their own rents, and have compelled the Government to make a corresponding reduction in the public taxes. And, on the other hand, when they determined to keep up thew own rents, and to support the Minister in maintaining enormous establishments, they should have made it an indispensable condition, that the value of money should not be increased. But they seem to have acted under the influence of judicial blindness. They conceived, that without loss of profit and destruction of capital, their tenants might continue to pay undiminished money rents and money charges in a currency enhanced in value ; and, in order to render an impossibility possible, they chimoured for the Corn-laws, and, blind leaders of the blind, deluded their tenantry into the belief that the farmer is benefited by high prices and high rents. This delusion, and the expectation that the Corn-caws would eventu- ally restore prices, caused the necessary reduction in rents and in other money charges to be deferred. The consequences were, a ruinous fall in the rate of agricultural profit ; the loss of agricultural capital ; the less perfect cultivation; _ the deterioration of the soil ; the bankruptcy of tenants ; the abandomnent of land; the throwing out of labour; the all-absorbing increase of the poor's-rate; and all that train -of desolating evils, which, if the power of knuidedge cannot now remove them, may ultimately overwhelm labourer, farmer, and landlord, in one common ruin.
Yet these ruined farmers, victims of the ignorance and extor- tion of their "friends," will be marshalled by the landholders in defence of the Corn-laws. They are to be made the props of a system which has transferred their capital and the fruits of their industry into the pockets of the "predominant interest." Let the yet solvent agriculturist, the skilled cultivator of another's acres, beware how he is led on to destruction. Capital and knowledge may enable him to fight a hard battle; but the system will be found more than his match. The Manchester cotton-spinner de- clares that he is struggling for existence; and ,emphatically may i the same be said of the class of agriculturists, whose capital s their own, and who crouch not before "my lord" or his agent.
But it is not enough to quote pamphlets or to make forcible statements. Witnesses should be produced to lay before the House of Commons actual transactions—not the result of a brief employ- ment, or the occurrences of picked years, but the experience of a series of seasons under the Corn-laws. Let there be facts and figures, actual profits and prices. We want some agricultural COB" DENS and SMITHS, to break down the case of the adversary as well as to support our own. Proof of the injury which farmers have sustained from legislative "protection," will produce greater effect, perhaps, than any other part of the Anti-Corn-law argument.
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