are given if in the one case they receive four shillings, their profit is forty shillings; if in the other they receive three shillings, their profit is only fifteen shillings. The agriculturist has only a certain quantity of produce to sell: if prices be very low, they cause him to have less, and not more, and he can merely consume the goods that his produce will exchange for. If his prices sink, so that he can only obtain one-tenth of the cloth for the quantity of wheat, this one-tenth must content him.

Let us separate the agriculturists entirely from the rest of the community, and let us assume that they have only wheat to buy cottons with, that they will consume all the cottons that their wheat will exchange for, and that they have ten millions of quarters of surplus wheat annually. If they sell their wheat at five pounds per quarter, they will buy fifty millions worth of cottons: if they sell it at one pound, they will buy only ten millions worth: they will consume five times more cottons and employ five times more labourers in the one case than in the other, assuming that the price of cottons will be in both the same. If we admit that they ought to pay fifty per cent. more for the cottons in the one case than the other on account of the difference in the cost of living, then the high price would enable them to buy above three times more cottons and to employ above three times more labour than the low one. This is not all. By employing so much more labour, they would enable the manufacturers to consume far more cottons themselves, and to export far more for the purchase of raw cotton, dyes, &c. If their consumption should be reduced from this to that allowed by the lowest price, in the first place, more than two-thirds of the manufacturers would be stripped of employment then as many more would be deprived of bread as these had employed, and then as many more would be deprived of bread as had been employed to manufacture for the purchase of the raw articles no longer wanted. The idle hands would run down the wages and prices of those left in employment in the most ruinous manner. More than three-fourths of the manufacturers would exchange comfortable competence for starvation, and the remainder would barely earn bread and water. Let our merchants and manufacVOL. XX.

turers ponder upon this. Let them remember, that the agriculturists, in one way or another, comprehend about half the population; that the latter have only their produce to buy with, and that if one-third or one-fourth be taken from the value of this produce, they will not be able to buy half the merchandise and manufactures that they buy at present. If this will not convince them, let them turn to Mr Jacob's most instructive Report, and they will perceive that in countries where corn is exceedingly cheap, there is no bread for merchants and manufacturers. Let them be assured that nothing more is wanted to reduce our agriculturists to the condition of the foreign ones, than the reduction of wheat to 40s. per quarter, and of other produce in proportion.

A vast portion of their delusion is produced by our foreign trade. Now, when we put out of sight foreign and colonial goods, and Ireland and our Colonies, our exports of British and Irish produce to foreign nations do not much exceed twenty millions annually. A large part of these exports consists of goods manufactured to a great extent by machinery; much of the raw articles are brought, and of the manufactured ones taken away, by foreign ships; and we are pretty sure that these exports do not in all ways give bread to more than a quarter of a million of our population. If each individual of the population should expend on the average sixpence per week less in manufactures, the manufactures would lose more by this than by the total loss of the export trade to foreign countries. The chief parts of the trades and manufactures depend solely on the home trade, and the trade to our own possessions.

As to foreign countries, the opening of our ports for their corn will be much worse than worthless to them, if we cannot consume this corn. At present we grow as much as we can consume; there is conclusive proof that our last year's crop was amply sufficient for our consumption. Our conviction is, that there will be much more old corn, and particularly wheat, in the market on the first of August in the present year, than there was on the same day in 1825. Our coming crop is thus far likely to be equal to our consumption; if it be, and the ports be opened, importations will soon run down prices until they ruin our own 3 B

agriculturists and re-establish the prohibition. So long as we cannot consume the foreign corn, the prohibition must exist either from low or destructive prices. The opening of the ports can only remove it for a moment to restore it again by a glut, and the ruin of our farmers. We already take all the agricultural produce of foreign nations in our power; and we take much of it to our grievous injury. We take their horses, wool, hemp, flax, tallow, butter, in a word, everything that we can make use of. If by taking their corn we involve our agriculture in ruin, we shall then be unable to take not only their corn, but a vast portion of their other agricultural produce which we take at present. As to the wretched trash that is uttered touching our light land, Mr Jacob's Report proves that if we put such land out of cultivation, we must be dependent on foreign land that is less productive. This Report proves likewise, that if our manufacturers buy their wheat of foreign growers, they will buy of those who will take scarcely any manufactures in exchange.

If we had an annual deficiency, it is preposterous to imagine that our open ports could raise corn throughout the world. The land already cultivated in most foreign countries would with improved culture yield far more than it yields at present, and many have an immense quantity of uncultivated land. Mr Jacob's estimate as to what the countries he visited could send us, is, we imagine, exceedingly erroneous. He states that the cultivators are as well acquainted with the improved modes of management as our own; if they have not money to buy oxen with for ploughing, &c., they have sheep to buy them with, and the wool trade will be glutted for many years to come; the land that has been laid down has in some degree recovered its fertility, and it could be sown with wheat in the first year of its being taken out; part of the land which is now sown with other grain could be sown with wheat; wheat would be the most profitable article to produce if it could be exported; there would be no home consumption, and infinitely more would be exported than Mr Jacob calculates upon. In addition to this, other nations could send us large quantities of wheat or flour. In average seasons our market would

be the only importing one in the world; Canada immediately on the opening of the ports was able to send us nearly 100,000 quarters of wheat annually, and this shows what we might expect from various countries not visited by Mr Jacob.

We deeply commiserate the present suffering of the trading and manufacturing classes, but the opening of the ports would only aggravate them. If wheat were reduced to 40s. per quarter, it would ruin the agriculturists, deprive of employment most of the manufacturers and merchants whom they now employ, and still bread would be little more than a halfpenny per pound cheaper. The distress which now prevails flows almost solely from the changes that have been made by the Government; that which over-trading produced would have been comparatively trifling, and would have vanished some time since, had it not been for these changes. A large number of manufacturers, &c., who were employed by our Colonies, have been deprived of their employment by foreigners—a vast number of seamen, shipwrights, shipsmiths, sail-manufacturers, ropemakers, joiners, &c. &c. have been deprived of employment by foreigners -a large number of silk-manufacturers, &c. have been deprived of employment by foreigners-the change in the currency, by its direct and anticipated effects, has beat down prices, and this has deprived prodigious numbers of the working classes of employment. The nation must by this time have had quite sufficient of cheap

ness.

Most things are now as cheap as possible, and what is the consequence? Does the cheapness increase consumption and employment for labour? Quite the contrary. Because things are so cheap, people cannot consume them, and labour cannot find employment. Let prices throughout the country be raised twenty or thirty per cent., and consumption will be prodigiously increased, and employment will be given to a vast portion of the idle labour. It is, however, the declared object of the New System to keep the price of everything as low as possible; it is not to raise the prices of the merchants and manufacturers, but to bring down those of the agriculturists to the same ruinous point. If this system be persevered in, if the

corn trade be made free, and heaven continues to bless the earth with average crops, then in less than five years this country will become bankrupt it will be revolutionised-the monarchy will be destroyed, and the empire will be torn limb from limb.

We therefore exhort the agriculturists-landlords, farmers, and labourers to make the most determined opposition to the proposed most unnecessary and destructive change. We exhort them to do this, not more for their own sakes, than for the sake of their country. In reply to the idiotic stuff, that the Corn-laws cause violent fluctuations of prices, let them call upon those who utter it to point out what fluctuations these laws have ever produced. Let them remember, that the fluctuations in corn have been very trifling ever since these laws were enacted; and that, a short time ago, when almost everything else was fluctuating in the most violent manner, corn remained comparatively steady. Let them observe, that almost everything in the market, in which the trade is free, keeps continually and often greatly fluctuating in price, unless it be kept down by glut; and let them be assured that corn would fluctuate far more with Free Trade than it has done under the existing laws, un

less it should be kept steady by glut at ruinous prices.

We cannot conclude without offering our tribute of admiration to the manly, disinterested patriotism, and great and practical ability which were displayed in the last Session by the Earls of Lauderdale and Malmsbury. The conduct, too, of the Tory Peers, who acted with the latter on the corn question, deserves the highest praise. We call upon these noble individuals, in the name of their country-in the name of the millions, not only of the agricultural, but likewise of the manufacturing population, who would be reduced by a Free Trade in corn to the lowest depth of wretchedness-to resist with all their might the proposed alteration. Arduous and thankless will be their toil; they will have to contend on the one hand with power, and on the other with popular feeling; but let them be of good courage, for their cause will be a righteous one. Let them turn from King, Ministry, and multitude, and look only at their duty. They may be defeated, but defeat will only give them a pure conscience and reputation, and protect them from the disgrace and accountability which it will cast upon their conquerors.

London Corn Exchange, July 3.

8.

8.

Wheat, red, old 40 to 46 White pease

Wheat, per 70 lb.

Eng.

8

3 to

9

Old

0

0 to

0

8

0 to

9

44 to 48 Tick ditto, new

7

6 to

8

9 Oatmeal, per 240 lb.

50 to 58 Ditto, old

Fine ditto Superfine ditto

Barley Fine ditto Superfine ditto Malt Fine Hog Pease Maple.

Maple, fine

62 to 65 Feed Oats 30 to 34 Fine ditto 24 to 28 Poland ditto 28 to 31 Fine ditto 32 to 33 Potato ditto 46 to 52 Fine ditto 54 to 62 Scotch

42 to 44 Flour, per sack 46 to 48 Ditto, seconds. -to- Bran

Seeds, &c.

Tares, per bush. 5 to 8 0 Rye Grass,
Must. White. 14 to 18 0 Ribgrass,

-Brown, new 16 to 20 0 Clover, red cwt.
Turnips, bsh. 12 to 16 0- White

-Red & green 0 to 0 0 Foreign red
White
0 to 0 0
Caraway, cwt. 30 to 34 0 Coriander
Canary, per qr. 84 to 88 0 Trefoil
Cinque Foin
36 to 45 0 Lintseed feed
Rape Seed, per last, £25 to £27.

0 to

28 0 to 36

0 to 30 0

28 0 to 35 0

0 Bran, p. 24lb.- to

0 Butter, Beef, &c.

Butter,p.cwt.s.d.

1 Belfast,

8. d.

88 0 to 90 0

11 Newry 85 0 to 86 0

1 Waterford 83 0 to 86 0 Cork,pic. 2d, 83 0 to 3d dry 700 to Beef, p. tierce.

Mess 90 0 to100 0 -p.barrel 50 0 to 63 0 Pork, p. bl.

Mess 55 0 to 65 0 half do.28 0 to 33 0 0 Bacon, p. cwt.

0 Short mids. 50 0 to 53 0 0 Sides 48 0 to 51 0 Hams, dry 48 0 to 50 0

.

34 0 to 360 0 Lard,rd.p.c. 44 0 to 48 0

4

9 English

lbs.

Scotch

28

3 Irish

10

3

0 Green