18221] 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
OBJECTIONS 40 TALAVERA’S PLAN of 
- RELIEF fo the AGRICULTURAL and 
other INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES; and the 
PRINCIPLE of @ CORN-RENT recom- 
- mended. 
HE disease of the body politic is 
-become too inveterate and alarm- 
ing to allow of rash and empirical re- 
medies being applied without danger 
of a dissolution ; under this description 
of remedy, I cannot avoid placing the 
proposal made in the commencing 
paragraph of Talavera’s letter in your 
October number, page 226,—I mean 
with regard. to the sweeping enact- 
ment by which ho proposes to lower 
by one-half all wages and the prices of 
corn. What! after corn, and most 
other agricultural products, are al- 
ready lowered far more than one-half 
in price, and the funds, tolls, debts, 
rents of houses, and the salaries’ and 
pensions of public servants, have very 
rarely suffered any diminution, (the 
paying off the five per cents. being 
merely what was originally bargained 
for, aud always expected,). propose 
now to treat these claims all alike, 
and reduce them one-half in amount: 
was ever so unjust and monstrous a 
proposition made? 
I have not included rents of lands 
in the enumeration above, because it 
is well known to every one sufficiently 
competent to put pen to paper.on the 
subject, that these have suffered dimi- 
ution, in many cases almost to anni- 
hilation ; and that, except in a compa- 
ratively few instances, of rich land 
cheaply rented, no profits accrue to 
the farmer, (after paying his tithes, 
taxes, rates, tradesmen, labourers, &c. 
and taking the usual interest for his 
eapital employed and risked, whereon 
to subsist himself and family,) out of 
which any rent can be paid to the 
landlord; and, although a great portion 
of landlords may not yet have mate- 
rially lessened their claims, or abated 
or forgiven arrears, and settled with 
their tenants, yet it must. be evident 
that arrears.of rent are, in such cases, 
eruelly accumulating, which can only 
be discharged by a sacrifice of the 
farmer’s capital,,or more frequently - 
now of his very means of subsistence, 
his. capital being gone already; of 
which the shockingly numerous sales 
of farmers’ entire stock and furniture, 
which fill the advertisement-columns of 
most provincial newspapers, are me- 
Jancholy proofs. 
Montuty Maa, No. 375. 
On the Relief of the Agricultural Classes. 
393 
As to labourers, properly so called, 
especially agricultural ones, how can 
they possibly suffer a diminution of 
one-half of their wages without a cor- 
responding increase of poor’s rates? 
to say nothing of the misery, and en- 
dangering of the public peace, which 
such a project is calculated to occa- 
sion. Hard-hearted and inconsiderate 
parson-justices, like some in Wilt- 
shire, may have studied and proposed 
to allow the very minimum of food to 
the poor, which can keep soul and 
body together; but these projects will 
assuredly fail. As to the wages of 
common artizans and others in great 
towns, whom I intended to distinguish 
above from labourers, supposing that 
steadyindustry, sobriety, and frugality, 
were generally exercised by these, and 
by their families, corresponding with 
or.exceeding those habits in the coun- 
try labourers,. it might in such case 
seem, that their pay might suffer a 
great diminution; but, supposing that 
the difficulty, next to a miracle, could 
be effected, of suddenly reforming the 
habits of the ‘‘ Saint Monday” gin and 
porter swilling artizans and some la- 
bourers of towns, what in such case 
would become of the revenue? And 
how, and with the other proposed re- 
ductions, could even one-half of the 
present enormous funded interest, sa- 
laries, pensions, &c, continue to be 
paid? j 
The proposed exemption of the 
fundholders, in Talavera’s second pa- 
ragraph, I do not comprehend: how, 
also, the Bank’s own bullion, accumu- 
lated in its own coffers, for payment 
of its promissory notes, held by indi- 
viduals, can ‘‘ become disposable na- 
tional property,” I cannot conceive. | 
Jf agricultural produce could be 
supposed to sell at half its present 
price, which would be about two shil- 
lings per bushel for wheat, on the ave- 
rage of all the farmer’s sales,—well 
might the manufacturer and the mer- 
chant be capable of opening new 
channels of export, and find ‘‘a remu- 
nerating price abroad ;” but what, in 
such case, would become of the whole 
agricultural population? 
The remedies proposed by Talavera 
would infallibly bring upon us the 
“evil day” which he thinks to avert; 
but, whether with sufficient knowledge 
of his subject, your readers must 
judge; as they will also on the pro- 
priety of the suggestions with which 
I shall now conclude, yiz,—That as 
3E the 
