Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 70, No. 433, November 1851

We do not make these quotations with any intention of criticising the opinions expressed. We simply lay them before our readers as a specimen of that spirit which is now possessing the farmers – a spirit engendered by wrong, and strengthened by the suffering of years. If anything could make us believe that coronets are in danger of falling, it is the expression of such views on the part of men who hitherto have been the best defenders of the Constitution, and the most averse to yield to any of the impulses of change. But, as we have already said, we cannot blame the speakers. If they are convinced in their own minds that a return to Protection is impossible, their condition is such that they must necessarily have recourse to any expedient, however desperate, which can afford them the prospect of relief. We have long foreseen this crisis. Situated as Great Britain is, the choice lies simply between a return to Protection to Labour, and an assault on the public burdens. There is no other alternative. Cheapness may be established as the rule, but cheapness cannot co-exist with heavy taxation. To hope that the burden can be shifted from one shoulder to another is clearly an absurdity. If it is to be sustained, the productive classes must have the means of sustaining it. If those means are denied them, the burden is altogether intolerable.

It is not a little instructive to remark that, even now, the supporters of Free Trade are compelled to stop and leave their scheme unfinished. They cannot carry it out in its integrity without ruining the finances of the country. They have exposed the farmer to unlimited competition in produce, but they still continue to restrict the sphere of his industry and production. The malt-tax is a heavy burden upon him, and he is specially prohibited from growing tobacco, or engaging in the manufacture of beetroot sugar. These restrictions, say the Free-Traders, are absolutely necessary for revenue. Granted; but if you put on restrictions, are you not bound to give an equivalent? As for the argument in favour of the malt-tax, that it is the consumer who really pays the duty, that might be extended with equal justice to the instance of raw cotton. Why is barley, the produce of our own country, to be taxed, and cotton, the produce of a foreign country, to be exempted? Besides this, we have always understood that beer, tobacco, and sugar, are articles which enter largely into the consumption of the agricultural as well as that of other classes; so that here is a grievance totally opposed to the principles of Free Trade, and yet supported and perpetuated by the very men who have adopted Free Trade as their motto! We instance these things as proofs that Free Trade never can be made, in the strict sense of the word, the law and system of the land, so long as the present enormous expenditure is continued; and in saying this, we hope it will be understood that we are as much opposed as ever to the views of the party who are for cutting down our national establishments.

We anticipate, in the course of next Session, to hear many propositions made on the subject of adjustment of taxation. Each class is anxious to be freed from its own peculiar burdens, and to devolve them upon others; and certainly never was there any case so strong or so urgent as that which can be brought forward on the part of the agriculturists. But who is to relieve them? Will any other class submit to the transference which is necessarily implied? Will the manufacturers or the capitalists undertake to provide for the six millions which at present they are most unjustly wresting from the owners and occupiers of the soil? Here is the real difficulty. Justice, we know, is not regarded as an indispensable element of taxation: if it were so, the income-tax would never have been imposed in its present form. If the claims of the farmers who are banded together for agricultural relief were granted, immediate national bankruptcy would be the result. This is the grand dilemma in which we are placed by the Free-Traders. Either a gross and palpable act of injustice and oppression must be perpetuated – so long at least as the victims have the means of payment – or, as was long ago prophesied, the capitalists and the fundholders must suffer. The truth is, that the productive power of the country cannot meet the demands upon it in the shape of taxation if it remains exposed to unlimited foreign competition.

In order properly to comprehend this point, which is one of the utmost importance, it is necessary to discard theory altogether, and to adopt history as our guide. The financial system of Great Britain, acting upon and influencing the commercial arrangements and social relations of the country, is not difficult of comprehension if we trace it step by step; and without a due understanding of this, and the vast influence which monetary laws exercise over the wellbeing and progress of a nation, it is impossible for any one to form a sound judgment on the conflicting principles of Protection and Free Trade, or to discover the true and only source of the difficulties which now surround us. It is the misfortune of the present age that so little attention is paid to the abstruser portions of history, which, in reality, are the most valuable for us. Wars of succession or conquest, naval engagements, records of intrigue or details of diplomatic dexterity, have a peculiar charm and interest for readers of every kind; but few take the pains to go more deeply into the subject, and investigate in what manner such events have affected the resources of a country, and whether, by diminishing its wealth or by stimulating the energies of its population, they have lowered or raised its position in the scale of nations. That portion of history which relates to external events is worthless for practical purposes, unless we combine with it the study of that portion which relates to its finance. Under the modern system, now universal throughout Europe, which leaves the debts and engagements of former generations to be liquidated or provided for by the next, no man can be called a statesman or politician who has not addicted himself to these studies.

The Funding System, as is well know, began with the Revolution, and has continued up to the present hour. It was strenuously opposed and vigorously assailed by some of the most able and clear-sighted in the country, such as Bolingbroke, David Hume, and Adam Smith, who from time to time pointed out the consequences which must ultimately ensue from this method of mortgaging posterity, more especially if the burden were allowed to increase without any steps being taken to provide for its ultimate extinguishment. It is the peculiarity of a debt so constituted, that for a time it gives great additional stimulus to the energies of a country. It enables it to prosecute conquests, and to undertake designs, which it could not otherwise have achieved; and it is not until long afterwards, when the payment of the interest or annual charge becomes a severe burden upon a generation which had no share in contracting the debt, that the mischievous effects of the system become apparent. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, the public debt of Great Britain amounted to £261,735,059, and the annual charge was £9,471,675. A very large portion of this debt was incurred for the war waged with our American colonies.

At that time the currency of the country was placed on the metallic basis, but the great drain of the precious metals occasioned by the enormous subsidies which Great Britain furnished to her allies on the Continent, to engage their support against the revolutionary armies of France, reduced the nation to the very verge of bankruptcy, and necessitated in 1797 the suspension of cash payments. The immediate effect of this step upon the finances of the country has been so justly, and at the same time so clearly, stated by Mr Alison in his History of Europe, and the consequences of the subsequent return to the old system of cash payments, after their suspension for nearly a quarter of a century, are so graphically depicted, that we cannot do better than entreat the attention of the reader to the following extract: —

"This measure having been carried by Mr Pitt, a committee was appointed, which reported shortly after that the funds of the Bank were £17,597,000, while its debts were only £13,770,000, leaving a balance of £3,800,000 in favour of the establishment; but that it was necessary, for a limited time, to suspend the cash payments. Upon this, a bill for the restriction of payments in specie was introduced, which provided that bank-notes should be received as a legal tender by the collectors of taxes, and have the effect of stopping the issuing of arrest on mesne process for payment of debt between man and man. The bill was limited in its operation to the 24th June; but it was afterwards renewed from time to time, and in November 1797 continued till the conclusion of a general peace; and the obligation on the Bank to pay in specie was never again imposed till Sir Robert Peel's Act in 1819.

"Such was the commencement of the paper system in Great Britain, which ultimately produced such astonishing effects; which enabled the empire to carry on for so long a period so costly a war, and to maintain for years armaments greater than had been raised by the Roman people in the zenith of their power; which brought the struggle at length to a triumphant issue, and arrayed all the forces of Eastern Europe in English pay, against France on the banks of the Rhine. To the same system must be ascribed ultimate effects as disastrous, as the immediate were beneficial and glorious; the continued and progressive rise of rents, the unceasing, and to many calamitous, fall in the value of money during the whole course of the war; increased expenditure, the growth of sanguine ideas and extravagant habits in all classes of society; unbounded speculation, prodigious profits and frequent disasters among the commercial rich; increased wages, general prosperity, and occasional depression among the labouring poor. But these effects, which ensued during the war, were as nothing compared to those which have, since the peace, resulted from the return to cash payments by the bill of 1819. Perhaps no single measure ever produced so calamitous an effect as that has done. It has added at least a third to the National Debt, and augmented in a similar proportion all private debt in the country, and at the same time occasioned such a fall of prices by the contraction of the currency as has destroyed the sinking fund, rendered great part of the indirect taxes unproductive, and compelled in the end a return to direct taxation in a time of general peace. Thence has arisen a vacillation of prices unparalleled in any age of the world; a creation of property in some and destruction of it in others, which equalled, in its ultimate consequences, all but the disasters of a revolution."[7 - Alison's History of Europe, chap. xxii.]

The immediate effect of the suspension of cash payments on the part of the State bank was an enormous increase in the circulation of paper. The prices of commodities rose to nearly double their previous value, and a period of prosperity commenced, at least for one generation. During the twenty-two years which elapsed from the suspension of cash payments in 1797 down to 1819, when their resumption was provided for by Act of Parliament, or at least during eighteen years of that period, reckoning down to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the career of England has no parallel in the annals of the world. The vast improvements and discoveries in machinery which were made towards the latter end of the century – the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Cartwright, Crompton, and Watt, came into play with astounding effect at a time when Great Britain held the mastery of the seas, and could divert the supplies of raw material from all other shores except her own. During the hottest period of the war, and in spite of all prohibitions, England manufactured for the Continent. Capital, or that which passed for capital, was plentiful; credit was easy, and profits were enormous. Some idea of the rapidity with which our manufactures progressed may be drawn from the fact that, whereas in 1785 the quantity of cotton wrought up was only 17,992,882 lbs., in 1810 it had increased to 123,701,826. Under this stimulus the population augmented greatly. The rise in the value of commodities gave that impulse to agriculture by means of which tracts of moorland have been converted into smiling harvest-fields, fens drained, commons enclosed, and huge tracts reclaimed from the sea. The average price of wheat in 1792, was 42s. 11d.; in 1810, it was 106s. 2d. per quarter. Wages rose, though not in the same proportion, and employment was abundant.

In short, the paper age, while it lasted, transcended, in so far as Britain was concerned, the dreams of a golden era. Those who suffered from the suspension of cash payments were the original fundholders, annuitants, and such landlords as had previously let their properties upon long leases. But the distress of such parties was little heard, and less heeded, amid the hum of the multitudes who were profiting by the change. The creditor might be injured, but the debtor was largely benefited. One immediate effect of this rise in prices was, a corresponding rise in fixed salaries and the expenses of government. Hence, the domestic expenditure of the country was greatly increased; new taxes were levied, and the permanent burden of the National Debt augmented to an amount which, sixty years ago, would have been reckoned entirely fabulous. As a specimen of the increased expense of cultivating arable land, it may here be worth while to insert the following comparative table, calculated by Mr Arthur Young, and laid before a committee of the House of Lords. The extent is one hundred acres: —

So long as the war lasted, the import of corn from abroad into this country was insignificant in amount. In 1814 the amount of wheat and wheat flour brought in amounted to only 681,333 quarters, being considerably above the average of years since the commencement of the century. In fact, Britain was then self-supporting. In time of war it is plain that, from our insular position, we cannot trust to any supplies beyond those which are raised at home, and there cannot be any doubt of the capability of the land to support a much larger population than that which presently exists. To those who glance superficially at the above table, the price of wheat in the year 1813 will appear monstrous, even when the great increase in the cost of cultivation is taken into account. This is the error, and it is a gross one, which has been studiously perpetuated by our statists, and even by some eminent writers on political economy. True, the price of wheat was then 108s. 9d., but it was estimated in a depreciated currency. Owing to various causes which it would be tedious to explain, the apparent difference between the value of the pound note and the guinea was far slighter than might have been expected, not amounting to more than seven or eight shillings, and actual depreciation, by sale of the notes for less than their nominal value, was by statute made penal. The price of gold and silver bullion never rose to an extent commensurate with the depreciation of the paper: in fact the coinage, as must be in the recollection of many, almost entirely disappeared, and was replaced by tokens of little intrinsic value, which served as the medium of interchange. In this depreciated and fluctuating currency commodities were valued, and by far the greater part of our National Debt was contracted. The paper pound in 1813 was probably, we may almost say certainly, not worth more than 10s. of metallic currency. In this view the quarter, estimated according to the present standard, was sold for 54s. 4½d – a price which modern statesmen allow to be barely remunerative.

If this point were generally understood, a vast amount of delusion which possesses the public mind would be dispelled. The relative value of money to commodities has been as entirely changed, by the return to cash payments, as if shillings had been substituted for sixpences. If the creditor suffered in 1797, the debtor has suffered far more severely in consequence of the Act of 1819, as we shall immediately proceed to show. Meantime, we shall entreat the reader to keep in mind that all incomes and expenditure, public or private, during the war and the suspension of cash payments, are to be estimated not by our present metallic standard, but by the fluctuating value of a depreciated currency.

When peace was established the ports were opened. Then it became evident that foreign importations, if permitted, would at once and for ever extinguish the landed interest. The annual charge of the debt alone was, in 1816, the first year of peace, £32,938,751; and the current annual expenditure £32,231,020 – in all, upwards of sixty-five millions. Had, therefore, the price of wheat in Britain been suddenly reduced to the Continental level, as would have been the case but for the imposition of the Corn Laws, the national bankruptcy would have been immediate. No argument is required to prove this and it has often struck us as singular that this crisis – for such it was – has been so seldom referred to, especially in later discussions. We are not now defending the original suspension of cash payments – a measure which, nevertheless, seems to us to have been dictated by the strongest political necessity, however baneful its results may prove to the present and future generations. We simply say, that eighteen years' operation of that system, with the enormous expenditure and liabilities which it entailed, rendered Protection necessary the moment importation was threatened, to save the country from immediate bankruptcy following on its unparalleled efforts.

It is utter folly, and worse, to say, as political economists now contend, and as ignorant demagogues aver, that the Corn Laws were originally proposed solely for the benefit of the landlords. Without the imposition of such laws, the whole financial system of Great Britain must instantly have disappeared. The amount of taxes which were required – first, to pay the interest of the National Debt, and, secondly, to meet the expenses of Government, (greatly increased by the change in the monetary laws effected in 1797) – rendered Protection to labour and to native produce absolutely indispensable. How could it be otherwise? Had wheat been sold in the British market at 46s., or even 50s., from what sources could the revenue have been levied? Under the new system, the expenses of cultivation had nearly doubled in twenty-three years – could the produce be put back to the same rates as before? So long as the monetary system then established did exist, that was clearly impossible. Protection was imperatively demanded, not by any class of the community, but by the state. To refuse it would have been national suicide. And so it was carried, doubtless very much against the inclination of the populace, who naturally enough expected that the return of peace would bring with it some substantial advantages in the shape of cheapness, and were proportionally disappointed when they discovered that the whole rent-charge of the wars, which had been so long maintained, must be liquidated before they could taste the anticipated blessings of the cheap loaf.

The return to cash payments, effected by the Act of 1819, is by far the most important event in our history since the change of dynasty. We believe that the late Sir Robert Peel, then a very young man, who was made the mouthpiece of a particular party on that occasion, really did not understand, to its full extent, the tremendous responsibility which he incurred. He acted simply as the exponent of the measure, at the instigation and by the direction of Mr Ricardo, who, under the guise of a political economist, concealed the crafty and selfish motives of the race from which he originally sprung. Ricardo was at that time considered a grand authority on matters of finance, his field of preparatory study having been the Stock Exchange, on which he is understood to have realised a large fortune. All his prepossessions, therefore, were in favour of the capitalists; and it is not uncharitable to conclude that his private interests lay in the same direction. That act provided for the gradual resumption of cash payments throughout England, to be consummated in 1823, for the establishment of a fixed gold standard, and for the withdrawal of all bank-notes under the amount of five pounds. Had this act been carried into effect in all its integrity, general bankruptcy must have immediately ensued, from the absorption of the circulating medium. The existence of the small notes, however, was respited, and this enabled the country bankers to go on for some time without a crash. Still the violent contraction of the currency, so caused, had the necessary effect of spreading dismay throughout all sections of the community. The circulation of the Bank of England, at 27th February 1819, was £25,126,700. On the 28th February 1823, it was contracted to £18,392,240. At the former period its private discounts amounted to more than nine millions; at the latter, they were considerably under five. As a matter of course, the country bankers were compelled to follow the example of the great establishment, and the immediate results of this grand financial measure may be described in a few words. The tree was thoroughly shaken. According to Mr Doubleday —

"As the memorable first of May 1823 drew near, the country bankers, as well as the bank of England, naturally prepared themselves, by a gradual narrowing of their circulation, for the dreaded hour of gold and silver payments "on demand," and the withdrawal of the small notes. We have already seen the fall of prices produced by this universal narrowing of the paper circulation. The effects of the distress produced all over the country – the consequence of this fall – we have yet to see."

"The distress, ruin, and bankruptcy, which now took place, were universal; affecting both the great interests of land and trade; but amongst the landlords, whose estates were burdened by mortgages, jointures, settlements, legacies, &c., the effects were most marked, and out of the ordinary course. In hundreds of cases, from the tremendous reduction in the price of land which now took place, the estates barely sold for as much as would pay off the mortgages; and hence the owners were stripped of all, and made beggars. I was myself personally acquainted with one of the victims of this terrible measure. He was a schoolfellow, and inherited a good fortune, made principally in the West Indies. On coming of age, and settling with his guardians, he found himself possessed of fully forty thousand pounds; and with this he resolved to purchase an estate, to marry, and to settle for life. He was a young man addicted to no vice; of a fair understanding and a most excellent heart; and was connected with friends high in rank, and likely to afford him every proper assistance and advice. The estate was purchased, I believe, about the year 1812 or 1813, for eighty thousand pounds, one moiety of the purchase money being borrowed on mortgage of the land bought. In 1822-3 he was compelled to part with the estate, in order to pay off his mortgage, and some arrears of interest; and when this was done, he was left without a shilling – the estate bringing only half of its cost in 1812."[8 - Financial History of England. By Thomas Doubleday.]

But isolated instances, however great may be their interest, will not adequately exhibit the effects of this measure upon the vital interests of the country. At least one half of the National Debt was incurred after the suspension of cash payments, and during the prevalence of the Paper Currency. The interest of that debt was now, and in all time coming, to be paid in coin greatly above the value of the currency in which it was contracted; and the Private Creditor shared in the advantage which thus was given to the Fund-holder. The taxes were all to be levied in the same way, the metallic standard being made of universal application. As a matter of course, prices fell, and fell in a corresponding ratio.

The great prosperity of England during the war, and the unexampled development of its resources, whether agricultural, manufacturing, or commercial may be traced to the combination of at least three causes. In the first place, England was thoroughly protected. Her artisans and labourers had nothing to fear from foreign competition. They had the monopoly of their own home market, and were not liable to be undersold by the products of other nations. In the second place, we had a most extensive foreign trade, the real value of which cannot be ascertained from the official tables, owing to the manner in which that trade was carried on. But even according to the defective records which we possess, it appears that our exports in 1805 were equal to those of 1823, many of the intermediate years showing a much larger amount. In 1810, our exports were close upon forty-six millions; in 1832 they were barely above thirty-six. In the third place, the country possessed a large circulating medium, which gave ample scope to enterprise. We shall not enter upon the vexed question of systems of currency in the abstract; it is enough for us to know that for more than twenty years British prosperity went on without a check, until it was strangled by the bullionists. At present, we have neither Protection, nor an Expanded Currency. Our foreign trade, in so far as exports are concerned, is nominally large; but those who are best qualified to judge of the value of that trade, declare that it is unremunerative.

We are therefore very much at a loss to know what element of prosperity exists at the present time. We have every faith in British energy if it is allowed fair play, but that is precisely what we contend is not vouchsafed to it. Our whole legislation, under the guidance of the political economists, may be characterised as a systematic attempt to depress British industry. This could not have been effected at once, or by one isolated effort: several attacks upon the productive classes were required before this was consummated. The change of currency lowered the value of produce, and increased the burden of taxation. In other words, it brought down both prices and wages, to the manifest gain of the capitalist. Then came the gradual relaxation of the tariff, which has resulted in free importation – a measure by which all the working-classes, without any exception, are assailed. This was effected with a perseverance and ingenuity which we cannot help admiring, even when we denounce it as diabolical. The first advances to Free Trade were no more remarked by the public in general than the footmarks of the tiger in the jungle when he advances stealthily on his prey. The real instigators were the exporting manufacturers. After the return of peace, they saw clearly enough that their old monopoly was at an end. Cobbett wrote, very shrewdly, though in his own peculiar manner, in 1815: —

"It is now hoped by some persons that the restoration of the Pope, the Inquisition, the Jesuits, and the Bourbons, will so far brutalise the people of the Continent of Europe that we shall have no rivals in the arts of peace; and that thus we shall be left to enjoy a monopoly of navigation, commerce, and manufactures; and be thereby enabled to pay the interest on our debt, and to meet the enormous annual expenses of our government. Without stopping to comment on the morality and humanity of this hope, entertained in a country abounding with Bible Societies, I venture to give it as my decided opinion, that the hope is fallacious. Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Austria, Spain, the Italian States, and even the Bourbons, will all push forward for their share of the benefits of the arts of peace. While our purse is open to them all, they will be subservient to us; but that cannot be for ever."

The old sergeant was perfectly right – with the return of peace our monopoly of the foreign market was over; but the question still remained, whether, by the sacrifice of home labour, our exporting manufacturers might not be able, for a considerable period at least, to keep ahead of their new rivals in distant markets. Unfortunately for us all, the political economists determined to make the attempt.

In some important branches of manufacture Britain was still unrivalled. The nearest, readiest, and therefore most lucrative market for these was to be found in Europe, and in consequence, it was deemed necessary that concessions should be made to admit some kinds of produce as imports, by way of inducing the foreigners to concede a free admission to our exports. There is a scene in Shakspeare's play of Julius Cæsar, in which Antony, Octavius, and Lepidus are represented, seated at a table, conceding amicably the deaths of the near relations of each, in exchange for a similar surrender. This is not quite a parallel to the case before us. Our statesmen doomed their friends and fellow-countrymen without requiring a reciprocal sacrifice, and the consequence was that we gradually opened our home market to the foreigner, without insisting that he should render to us the same measure of justice. The artisans were the first to feel the blow. They had already suffered, most severely, from the change in the currency, which brought down prices, and, with them, the remuneration of labour; and the withdrawal of Protection from them made them the natural enemies of all those who were still shielded from foreign competition. The feeling was perfectly natural. The system begun by Huskisson, and consummated by Peel, could have no other effect than in arming one class of the community against the other. Deprive John forcibly of his coat, under the pretext of justice, and he will immediately insist that the same measure of deprivation shall be extended to James. He has a converse of a Christian rule to utter in his defence – "Why should not others be done to, precisely as I have been done by?"

This argument, in the hands of its able advocates, has proved irresistible. John and James are alike without coats; and until they agree with one another, and come to a common understanding, there is not much likelihood of their resumption of their necessary wear. It never has been, and never can be, for the interest of the producer that prices should be generally low. Very great nonsense has of late years been talked by public men, and, amongst others, by members of the present cabinet, regarding the "natural price" of corn. They seem to think that they have stumbled upon a happy phrase, and claim credit to themselves for patriotism in resisting all attempts to make the bread of the people dearer. But they do not, or will not, see that the great body of the people are interested in this question, not as consumers, but as producers. The vast majority of the population of these islands have hitherto derived their means of subsistence, not from manufactures, but from the soil. Manufactures do not in reality constitute more than one-fourth part of the annual creation of our wealth; and two-thirds at least of all our manufactures are intended for the home market, and will be profitable or not according to the circumstances of the general body of consumers. Now, the natural price of corn depends upon the circumstances of the country in which it is produced. It may be ten shillings in Poland: it may be sixty shillings in England. No doubt you can get corn, and are getting it, from Poland far cheaper than you can raise it in England – but at what cost? Why, at the sacrifice of that enormous capital which has been sunk in the cultivation of the land, and of nearly one-half of the annual creation of our wealth!

The average price of wheat, for a number of years preceding 1790, was 46s. per quarter. It is so stated in Mr Arthur Young's table, which we have given above, and may be taken as the average of thirty years. The average for 1790 was considerably higher, for we observe that Mr Porter states it at 53s. 2d. Now, since that period, both the amount of our debt and of our current annual public expenditure has been tripled – that is, we have three times as much to pay in the shape of taxation as formerly. This is independent of poor-rates and local taxation, which have also greatly increased. That being the case, we ask how it is possible that corn can be grown now in Britain at a profit, when the ruling price, owing to importations from abroad, is eight shillings per quarter lower than it was on an average of years preceding 1790? The absurdity is palpable.

How, then, are the taxes to be paid? That is the question. Not out of the profits of the foreign trade certainly, for the whole value of our exports is not much above the amount of the national expenditure, and when we add the local taxes, would not reach one-half of the requisite sum. Besides, at the present moment, the exports are not nearly balancing the imports. According to the official tables, the declared value of the exports for the year ending 5th January 1850, was £63,596,025; the official value of the imports for the same period was £105,874,607. We presume it will be admitted that taxes can only be permanently paid out of profits, and we want to know where these profits are? It is perfectly evident that the cultivation of the land cannot be carried on for ever at a loss. Sooner or later both capital and credit must be exhausted; soils of an inferior description – indeed all except the best land in the neighbourhood of towns – must be abandoned and withdrawn from tillage, and the working-classes will find themselves utterly unable to meet the demands of taxation. An immense portion of our taxation is, and must be, drawn from the labouring men. They contribute largely to our revenue through the customs and excise, and the extent of their consumption depends entirely upon the amount of the wages which they receive. Any measure which tends to lessen the sphere of production is a direct blow at their interests. Cheap bread is just another word for low wages, as already many of them have discovered to their cost; and we have now arrived at that stage of the experiment when its effects will be rapidly developed.

Mr Porter, whose brains are principally valuable in the preparation of cumbrous statistics, breaks out, for once in a way, into a fine burst of eloquence on the subject of over-population. Let us hear him in his animated mood: —

"Whence arises this fear – this childish fear of the increase of our numbers? – childish, because it exists without regard to the lessons of experience. What evidence is there in our present condition to justify the complaint of 'surplus population,' that did not exist in as great, or even in a greater degree of force, when our numbers had not reached one-half their present amount? Why, then, shall we not go forward to double, and again to double our population in safety, and even to advantage, if, instead of rearing millions of human clods, whose lives are passed in consuming the scanty supplies which is all that their task of intelligence enables them to produce, the universal people shall have their minds cultivated to a degree that will enable each to add his proportion to the general store?"[9 - Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 692.]

Good lack, Mr Porter, there was no occasion at all for your putting yourself into such an inconvenient heat! Nobody, so far as we know, is making any complaint of surplus population. You and your friends have taken effectual measures to prevent such a state of matters, and we may now rest without any apprehension of a visit from the ghost of Malthus. The "universal people" alluded to in your last brilliant though somewhat unintelligible sentence, are likely to follow your advice, and abstain from "rearing millions of human clods," at least upon British soil. Be satisfied – you have done for the clods. Ireland is a noble example of your trophies in that way; and if you want to glorify yourself on another, you may refer to the Scottish Highlands. The true way to provide against the evils of over-population is to lower the value of produce, which is the condition of labour, below the remunerative point. Do that, and you may make a wilderness out of the most fertile region of the earth. But then, Mr Porter, did you never ask yourself what is to become of those who derive their subsistence and incomes from the labour of these self-same clods? A good many of us, we suspect, are in that condition, and very melancholy indeed would be our countenances if called upon to assist at the funeral of the last of that race. "Meddle not," said the Giant, in the German fable, to his child, who had picked up a peasant as a plaything – "meddle not with the husbandman! But for him, what would become of us Giants?" It would be well if you and your political allies had the intelligence to apprehend the moral.

The Times, in a late number, has treated the subject of emigration in a lively manner. The depopulation which has taken place since Free Trade became the law of the land, is too startling a fact to be passed over without notice; and it is thus that the leading journal speculates on the strange phenomenon. The announcement in the opening sentence may puzzle, if not alarm, some of the most zealous advocates of foreign production: —

"The stream of emigration now set towards America will not stop till Ireland is absolutely depopulated; and the only question is, when will that be? Twenty years at the present rate would take away the whole of the industrious classes, leaving only the proprietors and their families, members of the learned professions, and those whose age or infirmities keep them at home. Twenty years are but a short time in treating great social or political questions. It is more than twenty years since the passing of the Emancipation Act and the introduction of the Reform Bill. What if it should really come to pass that before another twenty years the whole Celtic race shall have disappeared from these isles, and the problem of seven centuries received its solution? We dwell in wonderful times, in an age of great discoveries, splendid improvements, and grand consummations. Art has always been found the handmaid of human developments. The discovery of gunpowder put an end to the little wars and little states of the middle ages, and introduced larger political manipulations. The discovery of printing prepared for the revival of learning and arts, and paved the way to the Reformation. The discovery of the mariner's compass showed our navigators a path to the East Indies and the New World. It may be the first mission of railways to set all the populations of the Old World on the move, and send them in quest of independent and comfortable homes.

And when will this movement stop? Incuriousness and prejudice are ready with the reply, that it will stop, at all events, when the Celtic race is exhausted. The Englishman, we are assured, is too attached to his country, and too comfortable at home, to cross the Atlantic. But surely it is very premature to name any such period for this movement, or to say beforehand what English labourers will do, when seven or eight millions of Irish have led the way to comfort and independence. The Englishman is now attached to his own home, because he knows of no other. His ideas of other regions are dark and dismal. He trembles at the thought of having to grope his way through the Cimmerian obscurity of another hemisphere. The single fact that he will have no 'parish' in America is, in his mind, a fatal bar to locomotion. But all this is quickly passing away. Geography, union workhouses, ocean mails, and the daily sight of letters arriving in ten days from prosperous emigrants, are fast uprooting the British rustic from the soil, and giving him cosmopolitan ideas. In a very few years the question uppermost in his mind will be whether he will be better off here or there? Whether he should go with the young and enterprising, or stay at home with the old and stupid? If a quarter of a million British subjects have left this country for the Australian colonies in the present generation, there may easily be a much larger movement to a nearer and more wealthy region. It has been imagined, indeed, that such a migration will have a natural tendency to stop itself at a certain stage. We are told that the English labourer will find a new field in Ireland, deserted by the Celt. It will, however, cost no more effort of mind to cross the ocean at once than to cross the Irish Channel for a land which, in the English mind, must ever be associated with violence and blood. High wages, again, we are told, the enjoyment of a liberal government, and an improved condition, will bind the Englishman afresh to the soil of his ancestors. But when you make the English labourer richer, more independent, more intelligent, and more of a citizen, you have put him more in a condition and temper to seek his fortune, wherever it may be found. The men who in the United States leave their homes for the Far West are generally they who have prospered where they are, and who want the excitement of another start in life. On the whole, we are disposed to think that the prospect is far too serious to be neglected, or treated as a merely speculative question. The depopulation of these isles, supposing the Celtic exodus to run out its course, and a British exodus to follow, constitute about as serious a political event as can be conceived; for a change of dynasty, or any other political revolution, is nothing compared with a change in the people themselves. All the departments of industry – the army, the navy, the cultivation of the fields, the rent of landed property, the profit of trades, the payment of rates and taxes – depend on the people, and without the people there must ensue a general collapse of all our institutions. We are, however, rather desirous to recommend the question to the consideration of others, and especially of our statesmen, than to answer it ourselves."

Is it only now that this question is submitted to the consideration of our statesmen? Why, if they are statesmen at all, they must have thought and dreamed of little else for the last few years. The picture here presented, though a frightful one, is by no means new. It has been drawn over and over again by the advocates of the protective policy, and as regularly ridiculed by the Free-Traders as a suggestion of a diseased imagination. Now, the facts have emerged, the prophecy has proved strictly true, and we are asked to consider about a remedy! What remedy is there open to us, save one? Let labour be made remunerative at home, which can only be done by Protection, and we shall answer for it that the tide of emigration will be stayed. People do not leave their country and their homes, at least in numbers like this, except under the coercion of the most stringent necessity. Give an Englishman work to do, and wages to live by, and he will rather remain here than attempt to better his condition in a foreign soil. But in order that he may remain here, his labour must be protected. Very truly says the writer in the Times, that "all the departments of industry, the army, the navy, the cultivation of the fields, the rent of landed property, the profit of trades, the payment of rates and taxes, depend on the people; and without the people, there must ensue a general collapse of all our institutions." To every word of this we adhere. But unless we can suppose that the people will submit to the degraded position of the foreign serfs, with whose produce they are now called upon to compete, Britain cannot hope to retain anything like its present population. The exodus must go on, and every vestige of our former greatness disappear. Unprotected labour and high taxation cannot exist together. Prolong the struggle as we may, the experience of each succeeding month will show the impossibility of such a reconciliation.

We are curious to know if, with such facts before them as those admitted in the Times, Ministers will have the temerity next year to assure us that the country generally is in prosperous circumstances. Do men emigrate wholesale from prosperous countries? Are they ever ready to leave comfort behind them, and recommence the struggle of life on a more unpromising field? If we are forced to reject that conclusion, then we defy any one to arrive at another save this – that our recent legislation has so narrowed the sphere of labour, and so depressed its prospects, that the population are driven per force from their native country, to seek elsewhere the means of existence which they cannot procure at home.

To talk of Protection as hopeless, is to acquiesce in the national doom. All classes of the community, from the fundholder and capitalist down to the meanest labourer, have a stake in this great question. Let not the former deceive themselves. Without the labour of the people their securities are as valueless as the mere paper on which they are written. Therefore, it is their part to see that no line of policy shall be allowed to continue if it has the effect of drying up the springs of our national prosperity. If they will not listen to the remonstrances of the distressed, let them at all events view their own position dispassionately. We may be on the verge of a great crisis, and a great struggle may be approaching, but we have not the slightest doubt that the cause which must ultimately prevail is that which is essentially the cause of the people. Prosperity will only return to the nation when Native Industry is protected.

notes

1

Philip Van Artevelde: A Dramatic Romance.—Edwin the Fair: An Historical Drama; and Isaac Comnenus: A Play—The Eve of the Conquest, and other Poems. By Henry Taylor.

2

Zwei Monate in Paris. Von Adolph Stahr. Two Vols. Oldenburg: Schulzeschen Buchhandlung. London: Williams and Norgate, 1851.

3

Ein Jahr in Italien. Three Vols., 8vo. Oldenburg: 1850.

4

Blackwood's Magazine for December 1848.

5

I must be pardoned for annexing the original, since it loses much by translation: – "Hominem liberum et magnificum debere, si queat, in primori fronte, animum gestare."

6

Other tables contained in the same pamphlet, but which are too long for insertion here, exhibit the various items and particulars of the loss sustained.

7

Alison's History of Europe, chap. xxii.