ARISTOCRAT. To land stewards and valuers, and experimental agriculturists, of high character and large experience. PROTECTION. A nice string of questions, I dare say, you puzzled them with. ARISTOCRAT. Simply three, Madam. First,-Upon 100 acres of arable land, how many adult labourers employed? and of those, how many in the cultivation of wheat alone? Secondly,-Suppose 14,000,000 quarters of wheat to be grown annually in England, and the number of male adult agricultural labourers to be 1,000,000-you see, Madam, I took round numbers-and the number of men, such as masons, bricklayers, wheelwrights, and the like; including all artisans gaining their living indirectly from Land,-to be 1,500,000; being together 2,500,000 male adults; is it unfair to assume that one third of this number are employed in, or dependent upon, the production of wheat? Thirdly, If one third be too much; or if 14,000,000 of quarters of wheat will not require the labour, direct or indirect, of 800,000 menhow many will they require? or can you state any thing like an approximation to the truth? PROTECTION. Were not the answers very interesting? ARISTOCRAT. Extremely so, Madam; but I cannot occupy your time by going into any details. They varied very much. The lowest estimate was 420,000, and the highest 1,200,000; but from the result of all, I should feel myself quite justified in adopting the number I had assumed, viz. 800,000; still, as I wish to be quite within the mark, I can positively assure you, without fear of contradiction, that there are at least 600,000 adult males employed in, or dependent upon, the production of wheat in England alone. PROTECTION. Then, Sir, you mean to tell me that, with cotton produced by 55,000 men, and, if you please, adding 5000 more for the manufacture of the machinery those men employ-together 60,000-you can buy as much wheat as is produced by 600,000 English men. ARISTOCRAT. Most assuredly I do, Madam. The truth is far beyond that; so that, here we find the value, at actual prices, of this wheat, the staple manufacture of our land, and employing in its cultivation 600,000 D 2 men; this value, I say, we find to be less than the declared value of the cotton goods sent abroad, produced by our exquisite machinery with the labour of less than 60,000 men; thus the exchange of any given money value of cotton for corn displaces the labour of ten adult males by the labour of one; and those ten men so displaced are demoralized by being thrown upon the poor-rate, and supported in unwilling idleness, at the cost of the land, which can no longer employ them. Surely, Madam, after this, it is not difficult to understand how injurious "cheap foreign corn," may prove to the mass of our industrious population, by depriving them of employment, and consequently of all power to purchase, under the lying pretence of benefiting them by "cheap bread;" how we may exchange sixty millions' worth of our own goods for sixty millions' worth of foreign commodities, and yet bring ruin on British industry by the simple fact of exchanging the products of British machinery for foreign handicraft; how little then, the mere money value of an exchange can be relied upon as an equivalent; and how, therefore, the grand argument of the Free Traders-that our Imports must be adequately paid for by our Exports,-falls to the ground. PROTECTION. But why have you thus selected the exchange of cotton for corn? 4 66 ARISTOCRAT. Because, Madam, those two products have always been paraded before us prominently together; and we have been taught by the Free Traders to regard them as desirable equivalents. "Only let us admit their corn, and rely upon it they will be only too happy to take our cotton manufactures in return." But the argument holds good equally with regard to our woollen manufactures, and indeed all the principal articles of our exports. The manual labour employed upon our exports is quite inconsiderable, when compared with the handicraft required for the production of our imports, which thus destroy the steady demand for the produce of our own labour, and annihilate, by unfair competition, our working classes, whom we are bound by every tie to protect. We raise the labour of foreign nations on the ruins of our own; and brag of bringing down our operatives to the "continental level." But it is impossible. Even if the gaol and the workhouse did not, by their comparatively generous diet, forbid it, our climate would. The people of England have always been renowned for their good living; and with ample reason; for they could not exist upon the same food, as the inhabitants of the more arid continent. Opposuit natura. Even our cattle suffer more from wet than from cold. animal system becomes impaired, like our buildings, The by the dampness of our climate; and our atmosphere, by its humidity, causes a depressing effect, which can be counteracted only by nutritious and stimulating diet. We throw open our ports to the foreigner for unlimited competition in those articles which we produce largely at home; and we still maintain high duties on foreign produce, which an All-wise Providence has vouchsafed to others, and denied to ourselves. And this we call "Free Trade." "Take from France her wine, her oil, her brandy, which we cannot produce; lower the duties on all commodities, peculiar to each country, as much as our revenue will allow, but do not abolish duties upon foreign articles, the production of which is the mainstay and support of our own struggling population. Open the ports for all articles of subsistence, when Providence visits us with dearth; but do not let us avail ourselves of a temporary misfortune, to commit an act of permanent injustice. Admit foreign corn duty free, by all means, when our own deficient harvests require it; but do not allow, in ordinary years, the untaxed Yankee to undersell the over-burdened British farmer."* PROTECTION. But was not Mr. Pitt, an advocate for Free Trade? * Letter, &c. from a Protectionist. |