This conviction was greatly strengthened by the result of the important changes made by Sir Robert Peel in the tariff in 1842, and more especially by those which had reference to the importation of live cattle and fresh provisions. These had previously been prohibited; but the minister proposed that this prohibition should be repealed, and that their importation should be permitted under reasonable duties. This proposal, when first brought forward, excited the greatest apprehensions among the farmers and graziers, and was followed by an immediate fall in the price of cattle. Happily, however, the measure was carried, and it was speedily discovered that there was no such difference between the prices of cattle of the same quality here and in the adjacent parts of the continent, as had been supposed; and that the fears entertained by the agriculturists of the approaching ruin of the businesses of breeding and grazing were altogether visionary and unfounded. The experience afforded by the reduction and subsequent abolition of the duty on wool was exactly similar. Instead of being injured, the interests of the British sheep farmers have been most materially promoted by these measures; the demand for home-grown wool having been rendered comparatively steady, and its price considerably increased by the powerful stimulus which the change in the duty on foreign wool gave to the woollen manufacture.

In the following year, that is, in 1843, a measure was adopted which made a wide breach in the corn laws. In 1842 the legislature of Canada passed a law imposing a duty of 38. a quarter on all wheat imported into the province, unless from the U. Kingdom, stating in the preamble to this act, that it was passed in the expectation and belief that a corresponding reduction would be made in the duties on wheat and wheatflour imported into the U. Kingdom from Canada. And conformably to this anticipation, the act 6 & 7 Vict. c. 29., passed in the course of 1843, reduced the duty on wheat imported from Canada to 1s. a quarter, and proportionally on wheat-flour. This act met with much opposition from a part of the agricultural interest in this country, who contended that it would lead to the introduction of unlimited supplies of corn from the U. States at a duty of only 4s. a quarter, or, allowing for smuggling, at perhaps only half that amount. But experience showed that these anticipations were not likely to be realised; for, though the imports from Canada were materially increased, the obstacles in the way of the importation of corn from the U. States into Canada, and the danger and expense of the voyage from Montreal or Quebec to England, must necessarily have prevented the importation through this channel from ever becoming of much importance. Still, however, the measure was in so far an abandonment of the corn laws; and if we were justified in admitting the produce of the U. States to our markets in this indirect way, it was not easy to discover satisfactory grounds on which to exclude the produce of other states.

The success of the measures adopted in 1842 encouraged Sir Robert Peel to attempt still more considerable changes in 1845, when he totally abolished the customs duties on no fewer than 420 different articles, some of which were of very considerable importance. The measures then adopted were equivalent, in fact, to the virtual abandonment of the protective system; and under such circumstances it could not be expected that the corn laws, on which so serious an inroad had been made by the Canada act, would be able to maintain their place on the statute book for any very lengthened period.

They might, however, have been continued for some time longer, had not the unsatisfactory corn harvest, and the failure of the potato crop of 1845, made it necessary to adopt measures for averting the anticipated deficiency in the supplies of food. Under the critical circumstances in which the population was then believed to be placed, the temporary suspension of the corn laws could hardly have been avoided; but if once suspended, their re-enactment would have been all but impossible, and it was better by at once providing for their repeal to make an end of the system, and of the dissatisfaction and agitation to which it had given birth, than to endeavour to continue it in any modified shape. Such was the view of the matter taken by Sir Robert Peel, and he fortunately succeeded, despite difficulties that none else could have overcome, in carrying the act 9 & 10 Vict. c. 22., for the immediate modification of the corn laws, and for their total repeal at the end of three years, or on the 1st February, 1849. (See post.)

II. PRINCIPLES OF THE CORN LAWS.

1. Internal Corn Trade. It is needless to take up the reader's time by endeavouring to prove by argument the advantage of allowing the free conveyance of corn from one province to another. Every one sees that this is indispensable, not only to the equal distribution of the supplies of food over the country, but to enable the inhabitants of those districts that are best fitted for the raising and fattening of cattle, sheep, &c. to addict themselves to these or other necessary occupations not directly connected with the production of corn. We shall, therefore, confine the few remarks we have to make

on this subject, to the consideration of the influence of the speculations of the corn merchants in buying up corn in anticipation of an advance. Their proceedings in this respect, though of the greatest public utility, have been the principal causes of that odium to which they have been long exposed.

Were the harvests always equally productive, nothing would be gained by storing up supplies of corn; and all that would be necessary would be to distribute the crop equally throughout the country and throughout the year. But such is not the order of nature. The variations in the aggregate produce of a country in different seasons, though not perhaps so great as are commonly supposed, are still very considerable; and experience has shown that two or three unusually luxuriant harvests seldom take place in succession; or that when they do, they are invariably followed by those that are deficient. The speculators in corn anticipate this result. Whenever prices begin to give way in consequence of an unusually luxuriant harvest, speculation is at work. The more opulent farmers withhold either the whole or a part of their produce from market; and the more opulent dealers purchase largely of the corn brought to market, and store it up in expectation of a future advance. And thus, without intending to promote any one's interest but their own, speculators in corn become the benefactors of the public. They provide a reserve stock against those years of scarcity which are sure at no distant period to recur; while, by withdrawing a portion of the redundant supply from immediate consumption, prices are prevented from falling so low as to be injurious to the farmers, or at least are maintained at a higher level than they would otherwise have reached; provident habits are maintained amongst the people; and that waste and extravagance are checked, which always take place in plentiful years, but which would be carried to a much greater extent if the whole produce of an abundant crop were to be consumed within the season.

It is, however, in scarce years that the speculations of the corn merchants are principally advantageous. Even in the richest countries, a very large proportion of the individuals engaged in the business of agriculture are comparatively poor, and are totally without the means of withholding their produce from market, in order to speculate upon any future advance. In consequence the markets are always most abundantly supplied with produce immediately after harvest; and in countries where the merchants engaged in the corn trade are not possessed of large capitals, or where their proceedings are fettered and restricted, there is then, almost invariably, a heavy fall of prices. But as the vast majority of the people buy their food in small quantities, or from day to day, as they want it, their consumption is necessarily extended or contracted according to its price at the time. Their views do not extend to the future; they have no means of judging whether the crop is or is not deficient. They live, as the phrase is, from hand to mouth; and are satisfied if, in the mean time, they obtain abundant supplies at a cheap rate. But it is obvious, that were there nothing to control or counteract this improvidence, the consequence would very often be fatal in the extreme. The crop of one harvest must support the population till the crop of the other harvest has been gathered in; and if that crop should be deficient if, for instance, it should only be adequate to afford, at the usual rate of consumption, a supply of 9 or 10 months' provisions instead of 12it is plain that, unless the price were so raised immediately after harvest as to enforce economy, and put, as it were, the whole nation on short allowance, the most dreadful famine would be experienced previously to the ensuing harvest. Those who examine the accounts of the prices of wheat and other grain in England, collected by Bishop Fleetwood and Sir F. M. Eden, will meet with abundant proofs of the accuracy of what has now been stated. In those remote periods when the farmers were generally without the means of withholding their crops from market, and when the trade of a corn dealer was proscribed, the utmost improvidence was exhibited in the consumption of grain. There were then, indeed, very few years in which a considerable scarcity was not experienced immediately before harvest, and many in which there was an absolute famine. The fluctuations of price exceeded every thing of which we can now form an idea; the price of wheat and other grain being 4 or 5 times as high in June and July as in September and October. Thanks, however, to the increase of capital in the hands of the large farmers and dealers, and to the freedom given to the operations of the corn merchants, we are no longer exposed to such ruinous vicissitudes. Whenever the dealers, who, in consequence of their superior means of information, are better acquainted with the real state of the crops than any other class of persons, find the harvest likely to be deficient, they raise the price of the corn they have warehoused, and bid against each other for the corn which the farmers are bringing to market. In consequence of this rise of prices, all ranks and orders, but especially the lower, who are the great consumers of corn, find it indispensable to use greater economy, and to check all improvident and wasteful consumption. Every class being thus immediately put upon short allowance, the pressure of the scarcity is distributed equally throughout the year; and instead of indulging, as was formerly the case, in the same scale of consumption as in seasons of

plenty, until the supply became altogether deficient, and then being exposed without resource to the attacks of famine and pestilence, the speculations of the corn merchants warn us of our danger, and compel us to provide against it.

It is not easy to suppose that these proceedings of the corn merchants should ever be injurious to the public. It has been said that in scarce years they are not disposed to bring the corn they have purchased to market until it has attained an exorbitant price, and that the pressure of the scarcity is thus often very much aggravated; but there is no real ground for any such statement. The immense amount of capital required to store up any considerable quantity of corn, and the waste to which it is liable, render most holders disposed to sell as soon as they can realise a fair profit. In every extensive country in which the corn trade is free, there are infinitely too many persons engaged in it to enable any sort of combination or concert to be formed amongst them; and though it were formed, it could not be maintained for an instant. A large proportion of the farmers and other small holders of corn are always in straitened circumstances, more particularly if a scarce year has not occurred so soon as they expected; and they are consequently anxious to relieve themselves, as soon as prices rise, of a portion of the stock on their hands. Occasionally, indeed, individuals are found, who retain their stocks for too long a period, or until a reaction takes place, and prices begin to decline. But instead of joining in the popular cry against such persons, every one who takes a dispassionate view of the matter will perceive that, inasmuch as their miscalculation must, under the circumstances supposed, be exceedingly injurious to themselves, we have the best security against its being carried to such an extent as to be productive of any material injury or even inconvenience to the public. It should also be borne in mind, that it is rarely, if ever, possible to determine beforehand, when a scarcity is to abate in consequence of new supplies being brought to market; and had it continued a little longer, there would have been no miscalculation on the part of the holders. At all events, it is plain that by declining to bring their corn to market, they preserved a resource on which, in the event of the harvest being longer delayed than usual, or of any unfavourable contingency taking place, the public could have fallen back; so that, instead of deserving abuse, these speculators are most justly entitled to every fair encouragement and protection. A country in which there is no considerable stock of grain in the barnyards of the farmers, or in the warehouses of the merchants, is in the most perilous situation that can easily be imagined, and may be exposed to the severest privations, or even famine. But so long as the sagacity, the miscalculation, or the avarice of merchants and dealers retain a stock of grain in the warehouses, this last extremity cannot take place. By refusing to sell it till it has reached a very high price, they put an effectual stop to all sorts of waste, and husband for the public those supplies which they could not have so frugally husbanded for themselves.

We have already remarked that the last remnant of the shackles imposed by statute on the freedom of the internal corn dealer was abolished in 1773. It is true that engrossing, forestalling, and regrating-(see ENGROSSING, &c.)—are still held to be offences at common law; but there is very little probability of any one being in future made to answer for such ideal offences.

2. Exportation to foreign Countries. The fallacy of the notion so long entertained, that the prevention of exportation was the surest method of increasing plenty at home, is obvious to every one who has reflected upon such subjects. The markets of no country can ever be steadily and plentifully supplied with corn, unless her merchants have power to export the surplus supplies with which they may be occasionally furnished. When a country without the means of exporting grows nearly her own average supplies of corn, an abundant crop, by causing a great overloading of the market, and a heavy fall of price, is as injurious to the farmer as a scarcity. It may be thought, perhaps, that the greater quantity of produce in abundant seasons will compensate for its lower price; but this is not the case. It is uniformly found that variations in the quantity of corn exert a much greater influence over prices, than equal variations in the quantity of almost any thing else offered for sale. Being the principal necessary of life, when the supply of corn happens to be less than ordinary, the mass of the people make very great, though unavailing, exertions, by diminishing their consumption of other and less indispensable articles, to obtain their accustomed supplies of this prime necessary; so that its price rises much more than in proportion to the deficiency. On the other hand, when the supply is unusually large, the consumption is not proportionally extended. In ordinary years, the bulk of the population is about adequately fed; and though the consumption of all classes be somewhat greater in unusually plentiful years, the extension is considerable only among the lowest classes, and in the feeding of horses. Hence it is that the increased supply at market, in such years, goes principally to cause a glut, and consequently a ruinous decline of prices. These statements are corroborated by the widest experience. Whenever there is an inability to export, from whatever cause it may arise, an unusually luxuriant crop is uniformly accompanied by a very heavy fall of

price, and severe agricultural distress; and when two or three such crops happen to follow in succession, the ruin of a large proportion of the farmers is completed.

If the mischiefs resulting from the want of power to export stopped here, they might, though very great, be borne; but they do not stop here. It is idle to suppose that a system ruinous to the producers can be otherwise to the consumers. A glut of the market, occasioned by luxuriant harvests, and the want of power to export, cannot be of long continuance; for, while it continues, it can hardly fail, by distressing all classes of farmers, and causing the ruin of many, to give a check to every species of agricultural improvement, and to lessen the extent of land in tillage. When, therefore, an unfavourable season recurs, the reaction is, for the most part, appalling. The supply, being lessened, not only by the badness of the season, but also by a diminution of the quantity of land in crop, falls very far below an average; and a severe scarcity, if not an absolute famine, is most commonly experienced. It is therefore clear, that if a country would render herself secure against famine and injurious fluctuations of price, she must give every possible facility to exportation in years of unusual plenty. If she act upon a different system, if her policy make exportation in such years impracticable, or very difficult, she will infallibly render the bounty of Providence an injury to her agriculturists; and two or three abundant harvests in succession will be the forerunners of scarcity and famine.

3. Bounty on the Exportation of Corn.-In great Britain, as already observed, we have not only been allowed to export for a long series of years, but from the Revolution down to 1815 a bounty was given on exportation, whenever the home prices were depressed below certain limits. This policy, however, erred as much on the one hand as a restriction on exportation errs on the other. It causes, it is true, an extension of the demand for corn: but this greater demand is not caused by natural, but by artificial means; it is not a consequence of any really increased demand on the part of the foreigner, but of our furnishing the exporters of corn with a bonus, in order that they may sell it abroad below its natural price! To suppose that a proceeding of this sort can be a public advantage, is equivalent to supposing that a shopkeeper may get rich by selling his goods below what they cost. (See BOUNTY.)

4. Importation from Foreign Countries.. If a country were, like Poland or Russia, uniformly in the habit of exporting corn to other countries, a restriction on importation would be of no material consequence; because, though such restriction did not exist, no foreign corn would be imported, unless its ports were so situated as to serve for an entrepôt. A restriction on importation is sensibly felt only when it is enforced in a country which, owing to the greater density of its population, the limited extent of its fertile land, or any other cause, would either occasionally or uniformly import. It is familiar to the observation of every one, that a total failure of the crops is a calamity that but rarely occurs in an extensive kingdom; that the weather which is unfavourable to one description of soil, is generally favourable to some other description; and that, except in anomalous cases, the total produce is not very different. But what is thus generally true of single countries, is always true of the world at large. History furnishes no single instance of a universal scarcity; but it is uniformly found, that when the crops in a particular country are unusually deficient, they are proportionally abundant in some other quarter. It is clear, however, that a prohibition of importation excludes the country which enacts it from profiting by this beneficent arrangement. She is thrown entirely on her own resources. Under the circumstances supposed, she has nothing to trust to for relief but the reserves in her warehouses; and should these be inadequate to meet the exigency of the crisis, there are apparently no means by which she can escape experiencing all the evils of scarcity, or, it may be, of famine. A country deprived of the power to import is unable to supply the deficiencies of her harvests by the surplus produce of other countries; so that her inhabitants may starve amidst surrounding plenty, and suffer the extreme of scarcity, when, but for the restrictions on importation, they might enjoy the greatest abundance. If the prohibition be not absolute, but conditional; if, instead of absolutely excluding foreign corn from the home markets, it be merely loaded with a duty, the degree in which such duty will operate to increase the scarcity and dearth will depend on its magnitude. If the duty be constant and moderate, it may not have any very considerable effect in discouraging importation; but if it be fluctuating and heavy, it will, by falsifying the speculations of the merchants, and making a corresponding addition to the price of the corn imported, be proportionally injurious. In whatever degree foreign corn may be excluded in years of deficient crops, to the same extent must prices be artificially raised, and the pressure of the scarcity rendered so much the more severe.

Such would be the disastrous influence of a restriction on importation in a country which, were there no such obstruction in the way, would sometimes import and sometimes export. But its operation would be infinitely more injurious in a country which, under a free system, would uniformly import a portion of her supplies, The restriction

in this case has a twofold operation. By preventing importation from abroad, and forcing the population to depend for subsistence on corn raised at home, it compels recourse to comparatively inferior soils; and thus, by increasing the cost of producing corn above its cost in other countries, adds proportionally to its average price. The causes of fluctuation are, in this way, increased in a geometrical proportion; for, while the prevention of importation exposes the population to the pressure of want whenever the harvest happens to be less productive than usual, it is sure, at the same time, by raising average prices, to hinder exportation in a year of unusual plenty, until the home prices fall ruinously low. It is obvious, therefore, that a restriction of this sort must be alternately destructive of the interests of the consumers and producers. It injures the former by making them pay, at an average, an artificially increased price for their food, and by exposing them to scarcity and famine whenever the home crop proves deficient; and it injures the latter, by depriving them of the power to export in years of unusual plenty, and by overloading the market with produce, which, under a free system, would have met with an advantageous sale abroad.

The principle thus briefly explained, shows the impossibility of permanently keeping up the home prices by means of restrictions on importation, at the same time that it affords a clue by which we may trace the causes of most part of the agricultural distress experienced in this country since the peace. The real object of the Corn Law of 1815 was to keep up the price of corn at about 80s. a quarter; but to succeed in this, it was indispensable not only that foreign corn should be excluded when prices were under this limit, but that the markets should never be overloaded with corn produced at home: for it is clear, according to the principle already explained, that if the supply should in ordinary years be sufficient to feed the population, it must, in an unusually abundant year, be more than sufficient for that purpose; and when, in such a case, the surplus is thrown upon the market, it cannot fail, in the event of our average prices being considerably above the level of those of the surrounding countries, to cause a ruinous depression. Now, this was the precise situation of this country at the end of the war. Owing partly to the act of 1804, but far more to the difficulties in the way of importation, and the depreciation of the currency, prices attained to an extraordinary elevation from 1809 to 1814, and gave such a stimulus to agriculture, that we grew, in 1812 and 1813, sufficient corn for our own supply. And, such being the case, it is clear, though our ports had been hermetically sealed against importation from abroad, that the first luxuriant crop must have occasioned a ruinous decline of prices. It is the exclusion, not the introduction, of foreign corn that has caused the occasional distress of the agriculturists since 1815; for it is this exclusion that has forced up the price of corn in this country, in scarce and average years, to an unnatural level, and that, consequently, renders exportation in favourable seasons impossible, without such a fall of prices as is most disastrous to the farmer. It may be mentioned, in proof of what is now stated, that the average price of wheat in England and Wales in 1814 was 748. 4d a quarter, and in 1815 it had fallen to 65s. 7d. But as these prices would not indemnify the occupiers of the poorest lands brought under tillage during the previous high prices, they were gradually relinquishing their cultivation. A considerable portion of them had been converted into pasture; rents had been generally reduced, and wages had begun to decline; but the legislature having laid additional restrictions on the importation of foreign corn, the operation of this natural principle of adjustment was unfortunately counteracted, and the price of 1816 rose to 788. 6d. This rise was, however, insufficient to occasion any new improvement; and as foreign corn was now excluded, and large tracts of bad land had been thrown out of cultivation, the supply was so much diminished that, notwithstanding the increase in the value of money, prices rose in 1817, partly, no doubt, in consequence of the bad harvest of the previous year, to 968. 11d.; and in 1818 to 86s. 3d. These high prices had their natural effect. They revived the drooping spirits of the farmers, who imagined that the Corn Law was, at length, beginning to produce the effects anticipated from it, and that the golden days of 1812, when wheat sold for 126s. 6d. a quarter, were about to return! But this prosperity carried in its bosom the seeds of future mischief. The increased prices necessarily occasioned a fresh extension of tillage; capital was again applied to the improvement of the soil; and this increase of tillage, conspiring with favourable seasons, and the impossibility of exportation, sunk prices to such a degree, that they fell, in October, 1822, so low as 38s. id., the average price of that year being only 448. 7d.

It is thus demonstrably certain, that the recurrence of periods of distress, similar to those which have been experienced by the agriculturists of this country since the peace, cannot be warded off by restricting or prohibiting importation. A free corn trade is the only system that can give them that security against fluctuations that is so indispensable. The increased importation that necessarily takes place, under a free system, as soon as any considerable deficiency in the crops is apprehended, prevents prices from rising to an oppressive height; while, on the other hand, when the crops are unusually luxuriant,