Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

"We imported last year," says Mr Carey, "about three hundred thousand persons. Estimating their consumption of food at twenty cents per day for each, there was thus made a market on the land for the products of the land to the extent of twenty millions of dollars. This transportation required the constant employment of two hundred and fifty thousand tons of shipping, and ships carried freight to Europe at very low rates, because certain of obtaining valuable return cargoes. The farmer thus obtained a large home market, and the power of exporting cheaply to the foreign one; and to the conjoined operation of these two causes is due the fact, that wheat and flour have continued so high in price.

"We may now, I think, understand many curious facts now passing before our eyes. Food is so abundant in Russia, that it is wasted, and yet among the large exporters of food to Great Britain is this country, in which it sells at a price almost as high as in Liverpool, and now even higher. The produce of Russia has to bear all the charges out and home, and the consequence is that the producer remains poor, and makes no roads; and thus the cost of transportation, internal and external, continues, and must continue great. The farmer of the United States sends his produce to market cheap, because the return cargo, being chiefly man, is valuable, and the space it occupies is great. He therefore grows rich, and makes roads and canals, and builds steamboats; and thus is the cost of transportation, internal and external, so far diminished, that the difference in the price of a barrel of flour in Pittsburgh and in Liverpool is, when we look at the distance, almost inconceivably small.

"The bulk of the trade of Canada is outwards; and the consequence is that outward freights are high, while our imports of men and other valuable commodities keep them low with us; and therefore it is that the cost of transporting wheat and flour from our side of the line is so much lower than from the other, that both now pass through New York on their way to Liverpool. Hence it is that there has arisen so vehement a desire for commercial reciprocity, and even for annexation. The protective system has thus not only the effect of bringing consumers to take their places by the side of the producer, facilitating the consumption on the land of the products of the land, and facilitating also the exportation of the surplus to foreign markets by diminishing outward freights, but the further one of producing among our neighbours a strong desire for the establishment of the same perfect freedom of trade that now exists among the several states, by becoming themselves a part of the Union. Protection, therefore, tends to the increase of commerce, and the establishment of Free Trade; while the British system tends everywhere to the destruction of commerce, and to the production of a necessity for restriction.

"We see, thus, that if we desire to secure the command of that which is falsely termed 'the great grain-market of the world,' it is to be effected by the adoption of such measures as will secure valuable return freights. The most costly and the most valuable of all are men; the least so are pig-iron and coal. The more of the latter we import, the larger will be our surplus of food, the higher will be the outward freight, internal and external, the greater will be the waste, and the poorer will be the farmer. The more of the former we import, the smaller will be our surplus of food, the lower will be the outward freights, and the more numerous will be the commodities that can go to Europe, to be given in exchange for luxuries that now we cannot purchase."

So much for the American views of reciprocity. Secured by her system of tariffs, which she is now about to heighten, against the effects of foreign competition, America is resolutely bent on availing herself to the utmost of all the vast natural resources which she possesses, and to render herself wholly independent of the conversion of foreign countries. By following such a course she must, as her population increases, grow in greatness and in might, as must every nation wherein labour is estimated and cherished according to its proper value, and the rights of the domestic producer and workman guarded with untiring vigilance.

One word as to the prospects of the British farmer. We know from undoubted authority that in many parts of the United States, for example Ottawa, excellent land may be purchased for £1 an acre, broken up for 7s., burdened by no poor nor county rates, and unconscious of the presence of the tax-gatherer. Land such as this can, indeed, afford to produce corn at an almost nominal price – ballast for the ships that shall bring back the overweighted and ruined yeomen and peasants of England to New York and New Orleans! But, vast as the immigration has been, the production of food has greatly outstripped it; and as fresh tracts of virgin land are, year by year, brought into cultivation, and internal communications opened or improved, we see no reason whatever to believe that the export of grain to England will diminish, or the price of that grain be enhanced. Let our readers bear in mind the wonderful development of the mining and manufacturing resources of America, to which we have just directed their attention, and then see how, in spite of, or far rather concurrently with that, the production of food also increased. We again quote from The Harmony of Interests. How great was the increase may be seen by the following comparison of the returns under the census of 1840, and the Patent Office Estimates for 1847: —

Showing an increase of not less than 40 per cent in 7 years, during which the population only advanced 23 per cent.

How much of this surplus produce may be expected to find its way into the English market, we do not pretend accurately to foretell; but when we find that, without the inducement of an unrestricted access to it, in 1846 America was able to raise her exports of grain to thirteen millions of bushels, from six millions in 1845; and in 1847, with only the preparation of a year, to twenty-six millions, we think Lord Fitzwilliam is quite justified in taking it for granted that the price of corn in England will not rise above its present ruinous average. Attempts, no doubt, will be made to show that the emigration to California has deprived the Western States of the labour that is required to raise these enormous crops. Our answer is, that 300,000 souls were added by immigration to the population of the United States in 1849; and that our own emigration returns for 1850 show that the tide from England is flowing in that direction with unabated force. So last year, when the great and unexpected import of French flour was adding to the depression, and stimulating the complaints of the English agriculturists, the Free Import authorities explained it away as a forced unnatural importation which must speedily cease, as France was an importing, and not an exporting, county, and the price of corn there was naturally higher than in England; and yet we learn from the same organ of public opinion which favoured us in the summer with this satisfactory explanation of the French importations, that in the month of November last, the prices of wheat, flour, and bread were all much higher in London than in Paris. In its City article of November 14th, appeared the following comparison of the present prices of wheat, flour, and bread, in London and Paris: —

"The highest price of wheat of the first quality in Paris is 24 francs per 1½ hectolitres, which is equal to 36s. 8d. per quarter; and the highest price of white wheat of the first quality, in London, being 48s. per quarter, it follows that wheat is 307⁄8 per cent dearer in London than in Paris. The highest quotation of flour of the first quality in Paris is 29 francs 95 cents the 100 kilogrammes, which is equal to 29s. 11d. per sack of 280 lb. English; and the highest quotation of flour in the London market being 40s. per sack, it follows that flour is about 335⁄8 per cent dearer in London than in Paris. The price of bread of the first quality in Paris is 27 cents per kilogramme, which is equal to 45⁄8 per 4 lb. loaf English weight; and the price of bread in London, at the full-priced shops, being 61⁄2d. per 4 lb., it follows that bread is 401⁄2 per cent dearer in London than in Paris."

We apprehend that a difference of thirty or forty per cent is sufficient to tempt the French corn-grower, or miller, into the higher-priced market which lies so conveniently open to him; and thus from the model republic of the Old, no less than from the model republic of the New World, must the English farmer expect to see for the future those supplies of grain and flour pouring in, which shall prevent his produce procuring a remunerating price. To complete the picture, it should not be forgotten that both these exporting countries impose considerable duties on the importation of grain and flour, and thus afford us a perfect specimen of that reciprocity which all Liberal governments and free nations were so anxious to establish, according to our sapient rulers, in 1846.

We do not think that we need add any further argument to what has been already said. Our antagonists, the Free-traders, have been allowed – what they required and what was fair – time for the working of their experiment. Ample time has been granted, and we now see that it has failed in every particular. They said that it would induce reciprocity; it has induced higher opposing tariffs. They said it would secure for Great Britain the manufacturing custom of the world; on the contrary, foreign manufactories are springing up with unexampled rapidity. They said it would increase the demand for iron; it has prostrated it. They said it would give full employment to all our labouring population; it has displaced labour, and driven our working men by hundreds of thousands to emigrate. They said it could not attract such an importation of foreign grain and provisions, as permanently to beat down prices in this country below the remunerating level; it has already brought such an influx of these articles, that the grower of grain is impoverished, and the breeder of cattle ruined. They said it would be the commencement of a new era of prosperity to Ireland; it has laid it utterly desolate!

Are we, then, obstinately to persevere in a course of policy so evidently obnoxious and detrimental? Are we still to crush down labour for an end which is now proved to be impossible of attainment; and to tell the working classes, that because our rulers have made a false step, they and theirs must submit to descend into the hideous gulf of pauperism? These are questions for the nation to consider – questions of unparalleled magnitude, both for the present and the coming time. If we are not so to persevere in our folly, there is no alternative left but to build up our commercial system anew upon wiser and sounder principles. It cannot be expected that we shall ever again possess a monopoly of the manufactures of the world. We must be contented with that share which our skill, and energy, and undeniable resources can command; and if we wish still to retain possession of the vast Colonial Empire which has long been our pride and boast, we must foster, stimulate, and protect the industry of the colonists as sedulously and anxiously as our own.

After all, we may possibly, at no very distant period of time, have reason to be thankful that the experiment has been made, notwithstanding all the misery and loss which have accompanied the trial. For, if anything could have broken down the free independent spirit of Great Britain, and rendered it callous and listless to external aggression or insult, no better method could be found than the complete adoption of a system which must have made us perpetually subservient to the wants of other nations, doing their work to order, and receiving wages in return. In order to emancipate ourselves from this state of threatened Helotism – the state which the disciples of the Manchester school regard as the most enviable upon earth – we must attempt to re-establish perfect harmony and mutual co-operation amongst all the interests of Britain, to give productive labour its proper place and pre-eminence, and, since we cannot secure for convertive labour the command of foreign markets, to take care that, in the home market, it is not exposed to any undue or unfair competition. We hold by this proposition, well understood and energetically supported in America, that "when a nation makes a market at home for nearly all its products, other nations have to come and seek what they require, and pay the highest price; and that, when it does not make a market at home, markets must be sought abroad, and then sales must be made at the lowest prices." If this be true, it will follow that the way to sell at the highest prices, and to buy at the lowest, is to buy and sell at home.

notes

1

See "Fall of Rome," Alison's Essays, vol. iii. p. 440.

2

See a very able article on California, Quarterly Review, Oct. 1850.

3

"Quum Censores ob inopiam ærarii, se jam locationibus abstinerent ædium sacrarum tuendarum, curuliumque equorum præbendorum, ac similium his rerum: convenere ad eos frequentes, qui hastæ hujus generis assueverant; hortatique censores, ut omnia perinde agerent, locarent, ac si pecunia in ærario esset. Neminem, nisi bello confecto, pecuniam ab ærario petiturum esse." – Livy, lib. xxiv. c. 19. "The censors," says Arnold, "found the treasury unable to supply the public services. Upon this, trust monies belonging to widows and minors, or to widows and unmarried women, were deposited in the treasury; and whatever sums the trustees had to draw for, were paid by the quarter in bills on the banking commissioners, or triumvirs mensarii. It is probable that these bills were actually a paper currency, and that they circulated as money on the security of the public faith. In the same way the government contracts were also paid in paper; for the contractors came forward in a body to the censors, and begged them to make their contracts as usual, promising not to demand payment till the end of the war. This must mean, I conceive, that they were to be paid in orders upon the treasury, which orders were to be converted into cash when the present difficulties of the government should be at an end." – Arnold's History of Rome, ii. 207, 208. This was just an inconvertible paper currency; and its issue immediately after the battle of Cannæ saved the Roman empire. We have heard, from a gentleman who was present, that, in a political Whig party many years ago, when the conversation turned on the service of a paper currency in bringing a state through a pecuniary crisis, and some one said it was that which enabled the Romans to surmount the Second Punic war, Lord Melbourne, who was present, immediately repeated, from memory, the words above quoted from Livy in capitals.

4

Quarterly Review, October 1850.

5

Average Prices of Wheat: —

6

Exports to the United States from Great Britain: —

7

"Entre tout, l'état d'une prison est le plus doux, et le plus profitable!"

8

Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs now-a-days.

9

Lives of the Queens of Scotland. By Agnes Strickland. Vol. I. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London.

10

Mr Aytoun's noble Lyrical Ballads, and Mr Grant's admirable History of the Castle of Edinburgh.

11

Falkirk, Torwood, Bannockburn, Stirling Bridge.

12

Schiller, in his noble drama of Maria Stuart.

13

"Ach! nicht durch hass allein, durch sund' ge Liebe
Noch mehr hab' Ich hochste Gott beleidigt.
Das Eitle herz ward zudern Mann gezogen,
Der treulos mich verlassen und betrogen."

"Ah! not through hatred only, but still more through sinful love, have I offended Almighty God! My tender heart was too strongly drawn to man, by whose faithlessness I have been forsaken and betrayed." – Maria Stuart, Act v. scene 7.

14

The Fall of the Niebelungers; otherwise the Book of Kriemhild: a translation of the Niebelunge Nôt, or Niebelungen Lied. By William Nanson Lettsom. London: Williams and Norgate, 1850.

Ueber die Iliade und das Niebelungen Lied. Von Karl Zell. Karlsruhe: 1843.

15

Das Niebelungen Lied; in's hoch Deutsche übertragen. Von August Zeune. Berlin: 1814.

16

These Burgundians are, in the second part of the poem, also called the Niebelungen, which epithet, however, in the first part, is applied to certain distant Scandinavian vassals of Siegfried. The origin of this name has caused much dispute amongst the learned.

17