56 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



stomach belt more tightly. At the present time it is the 

 most powerful factor in the State, and we may be sure that 

 it will not sit still in face of a modern Pacta de Famine. 

 It has shown determination and spirit enough in the matter 

 of " profiteering." And it has been successful in its pro- 

 tests. It carries its suspicion of " profiteering " so far as 

 to suspect even our landed proprietors of the offence. It 

 may accordingly be trusted not to permit the hyper- 

 appreciation of corn and of bread at its expense. 



We began taxing corn, under the modern aspect, in 1804. 

 The result was distress. Time after time were new inquiries 

 into the presence and causes of such distress called for — 

 distress so unmistakably pronounced that, speaking in 

 Parliament, Lord Brougham declined so much as to enter 

 into the discussion of its existence, since that was " now 

 universally admitted to prevail over almost every part 

 of the Empire." That was in 1816, after the Corn Laws had 

 been in operation in their new form just twelve years, and 

 when a fresh sharp turn had just been given to the screw, 

 raising the price of wheat, regarded as normal — that is, 

 as precluding power to import under the law — from sixty- 

 four to eighty shillings, and when landlords' and tenants' 

 fortunes kept tumbling down right and left, leaving erst- 

 while wealthy men dependent upon charity, and condemning 

 the labourer, whose wages did not rise till he took to rioting 

 and rick-burning, to abject poverty. In 1801 the price of 

 wheat had stood at 119s. 6d. ; in 1812 it rose to 123s. There 

 had been an inquiry in 1802-3, there was another in 1814, a 

 third in 1821, a fourth in 1833, a fifth was called for in 1842. 

 By that time, however, reason had begun to assert itself, 

 and statesmen had almost arrived at a determination to 

 abandon the deceptive benefit. The inquiries referred to 

 had shown that Agriculture was retrograding, that land 

 was going out of cultivation, harvests were shrinking, rents 

 were being paid out of capital, capital was gone or going, 

 and bankruptcy was taking the place of affluence. It 

 would be worth while studying the Records of those 

 Inquiries now. Somewhat later the Times Commissioner re- 

 ported from Wales that small farmers,, if they could live at 



