332 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



intolerance, both in respect to politics and religion, are not wanting 

 on both sides of the water. One is almost discouraged to per 

 ceive, in many cases, that the only advance made upon the intol 

 erant and ferocious spirit of the dark ages, is the immunity from 

 personal violence and suffering. Men are not now, for their 

 religious or political convictions, burned at the stake ; but to a 

 sensitive mind, a penalty scarcely less bitter is often adminis 

 tered, in the opprobrium which follows the profession of unpop 

 ular opinions. The tiger, though muzzled, still growls, and 

 beats the bars of his cage with his tail, showing what he would 

 do if he could. It is a singular and instructive fact, that formerly 

 it was the great aim of the municipal and the national govern- 

 iient to keep down the price of bread, but that the present 

 oolicy of the government is to keep it up. Two centuries and 

 i half ago, the city itself provided large stores of grain, imported 

 from the Continent, and even established and maintained several 

 public ovens, in order to prevent a scarcity of wheat, and to save 

 the poor from suffering by a high price, consequent upon a defi 

 cient supply. The several livery companies of London were 

 required by law to have several thousand quarters of grain always 

 on hand, for the same object. It contrasts strongly with such 

 provisions, that, a few years ago, two thousand quarters of wheat, 

 that is, sixteen thousand bushels, were thrown into the river, 

 because the owners would not pay the duties or keep it longer, 

 subject to expenses of storage and port charges. Whether the 

 policy of the present day is an improvement upon the wisdom 

 and good government of former times, I shall leave to the calm 

 judgment of my readers ; but such a fact as that detailed above, 

 occurring where so many thousands are constantly suffering, and 

 many dying by slow degrees, from a deficiency of food, can 

 hardly fail to bring a cold chill over a man of common sensibility, 

 though he be cased in the triple brass of the most orthodox 

 school of political economy, and seems such a resentment and 

 defiance of the goodness of Heaven, that one can scarcely trust 

 himself to speak of it. 



1. ARGUMENTS FOR PROTECTION. The protectionists, who 

 are opposed to the introduction of foreign grain, maintain that a 

 free competition in their own market by supplies from abroad 

 would so reduce the price of grain as to render its cultivation not 



