242 Rich and Poor. [ Serr. 
erty, and in an accelerated proportion to the rising amount of it. 
Then you would relieve the poor by saddling the whole expense of the 
state upon the rich? Yes. You would impoverish the opulent, to 
enrich the pauper? No: only curtail the superfluities of the one, to 
diminish the miseries of the other. We make neither rich, poor; nor 
poor, rich. We may narrow the range of inequalities a little ; but that 
is the desirable result. How many thousands have our public measures 
enabled to augment their style of living—have lifted from insignificance 
to splendour, within these fifty years; and where is the harm of their 
returning back to their original obscurity ?—But turn we to particulars. 
Repeal the tax on BREAD. But we have no tax on bread. Thank 
God, our rulers, whatever else they have taxed, never have thought of 
taxing the < staff of life.’ Well, the corn then. Nor the corn. The 
corn-/aws then. ‘The corn-laws? What revenue do they produce ? 
In what shape does such revenue come to the Treasury? It never 
appears in any tax-return. Nevertheless the corn-laws do impose a 
tax; they do produce a revenue; and though that revenue does not 
visit the Exchequer, it does the pockets of the landowner. We cannot 
understand this. Why, is not the price of bread nearly double of what 
it is in the nearest countries of the Continent? What is the cause of 
this? Is it not brought about by the exclusion of foreign corn? Is not 
foreign-corn excluded by the corn-laws? And who has the benefit of 
the monopoly-price, but the landowners—but those, by whom and for 
whom those laws were made? The corn-laws are neither more nor 
less than a disguised tax, levied—not as other taxes are, for the sup- 
posed use and advantage of the nation,—but exclusively in favour of 
one class at the cost of others—exclusively in favour of the landed 
proprietor at the expense of the whole community. But is not the high 
price of bread rather a consequence of the high price of labour? Why, 
what constitutes mainly the high price of labour, but the high price of 
provisions; and what mainly the high price of provisions, but the high 
price of bread? The price of bread enters more or less into every 
thing—all must eat; and therefore the root of the question is, what is 
the cause of the high price of bread? We say, the tax—the corn- 
laws. 
But this was not the object of the corn-bill. That object, avowed and 
allowed, was substantially to keep the price of corn in an equable 
state,—to prevent those fluctuations, which were so long observed to 
produce so much misery, the one extreme on the poor, the other on the 
farmer. The purpose was purely benevolent; the feeling that dictated 
the law was virtuous consideration for inferiors,—to insure bread to the 
industrious at a steady and reasonable rate, and to the farmer a 
remunerating price, securely and permanently. The interests of the 
landlord were never contemplated, and if the law have worked to the 
benefit of the landlord, that result is incidental, and not of design, and is 
far beneath his magnanimous views. 
Then we ask, why should he so pertinaciously resist the repeal,—or 
why the poor so perseveringly demand it? ‘The landlord means to 
confer a benefit. It proves none; or at least the country sees nothing 
but oppression and selfishness in it. Why should he gratuitously persist 
in inflicting a curse, and insultingly baptize it a blessing? Away with 
all idle pretences. Let us never forget, that the landowner not only 
originated the bill, but forced on the enactment, in defiance of the most 
