IMPORTED CATTLE, PROFITS, AND RENT.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
24th March 1845.
Su—In the discussion in Parliament on Mr. hfiles's motion for agricultural relief, Sir James Graham is reported to have said, "I am convinced that a steady annual importation of 10,000 head of cattle from abroad would produce no effect whatever upon the markets in this country; nor do I believe that if 300,000 were to come over they would have any. such effect" The weekly average numbers of cattle sold in Smithfield during last year are about 3,500, or 180,000 for the whole year; the weekly consumption of the large manufacturing towns is from 1,000 to 1,200 head: so that Sir James Graham's assertion amounts to this—that London, Birmingham, and Manchester, might take their supplies of butcher-meat exclusively from abroad, without inflicting any injury on the home market; the weekly average for London being 3,500 or 180,000 per annum For Birmingham 1,200 or 60,000 per annum For Manchester 1,200 or 60,000 per annum 300,000 It is not to be supposed that the breeders and feeders of stock can be convinced by the unsupported assertion of even so high an authority, that the three best markets in the kingdom could be shut against them without injury. With the rest of Sir James Graham's argument, all who have studied the subject mustagree.
One point seems to have been overlooked by the "farmer's friends" in the discussion of this question, to which I take the hberty Of drawing your attention. Last year the Conservative Government, in consequence of the reduction of prices under the new Tariff, reduced the Three-and-a-half per Cents to Three-and-a- Auarter for ten years and to Three per Cent for twenty years thereafter; making an average reduction of annual income to the holder of this stock of about 11 per cent for the next thirty years. The landlords in so far as they are consumers have equally benefited by the low prices and can therefore as well afford a similar reduction of rent to their tenants; and, find they made this reduction of rent, I, as a practical farmer paying 1,0001. a year of rent, have no hesitation in saying, that Parliament would not have been inundated by " whining " petitions from the farmers.
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