38 The Corn Laws. (Jury, 
must do so; we seenoremedy. We make no attack upon the property of 
the land-owners; we admit their distinct right to all the corn in the 
country ; but we contend that people cannot go on being compelled, by 
law, to buy it from them. 
The land-owners are a little fast and loose too, in their opinions and 
pretensions. They are a caste of themselves, above trade, traders are, 
in fact, the fruges consumere nati? There was nota little, dirty, job- 
ing, fraudulent, scheme, among the joint-stock bubbles, for making a 
little money by trade ae otherwise), that we did not find some “ landed 
gentleman, ’—who rather thought he saw the “ fruges” the other way— 
at the head of, or connected with it. On the merits of “ Free-Trade,” 
as regarded the article of si/k, the views of the land-owners were parti- 
cularly luminous. We will not challenge them to “play out the play,” 
because it would be too hard. They never could sell their corn at so 
high a price to any people as to the manufacturers of England, and the 
major part of the commodities that they want in return, they never could 
buy from any people at so low a price. The threat of general free-trade 
may have some weight with the manufacturing capitalist ; but to the 
workman, it is as ridiculous as the other great menace of the agricultural 
party—to wit, that if the manufacturer will only give the agriculturist 
50s. for the quarter of corn, instead of 70s., the agriculturist can only 
buy of him 50s. worth of cottons instead of 70s.—the fact being that the 
manufacturer has got the intermediate 20s. without giving any cottons 
for it, already in his possession. 
We do not desire to go the length of a total change, but we must have 
an alteration. If the country is not now in a state to bear a perfectly 
‘Free-Trade in corn, it is entitled to a right of constant importation ; and 
at such a rate of duty as will enable the foreign grower, in average sea- 
sons, to send some first-rate wheat into our market. The agriculturist 
will sustain a diminution of his profits by that change ; but when he does 
so suffer, he has little title to complain. 
Look at the increase of the land-owner’s income, all through the late 
war, in England, while the land-owner of almost every other country in 
Europe was becoming literally a beggar. Look, not at any nominal 
amount of money paid, subject to taxation or reduction, look at the ex- 
penditure, the manner of life of these persons, and ask if they will be 
poorer than they were in 1790, if twenty per cent should be abated from 
their incomes? They talk of the taxation that crushes the agricultural 
interest—What class of that interest has it crushed? Has it crushed 
the land-owner, whose expenses are nearly double what they were prior 
to its increase? or the farmer, who during its pressure, took a bailiff to 
look after his business, and shot up into a gentleman? It is ridiculous 
enough to find the High Tory party now crying out about taxation! The 
land-owner is taxed, no doubt—and is not the labourer taxed at least 
equally? Is not his beer taxed, his tea, his brandy, his tobacco? are 
not these very people who talk of “ taxation,” themselves making him 
pay a tax, for their personal benefit, upon the very meat and bread that 
he eats? Of this taxation that is so oppressive to the land-owners, how 
happens it that so few land-owners vote in Parliament for the reduction ? 
How much of what they pay in taxes, do they rece’ve back again in 
the emoluments of places, pensions, offices, and commissions ? which 
stand at the cost of the nation at large, ahd are bestowed upon them, 
their relations, and dependents in particular ? 
