^[^Wi^p ©^ 



^^£RICAN HERD-BOOTi 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry. — Liebiq. 



Vol. VIII— No. 10.] 



5th mo. (May) 15th, 1844. 



[WhoJe No. 112. 



rnnnsHED monthly, 

 BY J O S I A H T A T U 31, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — For conditions see last page. 



Agriculture and the Corn-Law: 



SHOWING THE INJURIOHS EFFFCTS OF THK CORNI.AW 

 l;P0N TENANT FARMERS AND FARM-LABOURERS. 



PRIZE ESSAY, BY VV. R. GREG. 



Issued by the National Anti-Corn-Law League, 

 A'twall's Buildings, Manchester, Rtigland. 



The effect of our restrictive corn-laws in 

 hampering the commerce, dcpressin;:,' the 

 mannfacturos, and famishing the people of 

 England, has been long known and amply 

 discussed. But that these laws nre ecpially 

 injurious to those classes for who.^e especial 

 benefit they profess to be enacted — viz: 

 farmers and farm-labourers — has not been 

 so clearly made out, and is not so generally 

 believed. The fact that any system of le- 

 gislation should have the effect of diminish- 

 ing the subsistence and fettering the trade 

 of a great nation, ought, no doubt, to be 

 sufficient to procure its immediate alteration. 

 But unhappily it is not so; and in this coun- 

 try, as long as any numerous and powerful 



Cab.— Vol. VIII.— No. 10. 



body of men believe, however erroneously, 

 'that their own interests are bound up in 

 :the continuance of unjust and partial enact- 

 !ments, so long will those enactments be 

 Imaintained ; or, if abolished, will be abol- 

 lished only at the cost or the peril of a se- 

 jvere civil struggle. 



The following pages, therefore, will be 

 devoted to an examination of the real ope- 

 ration of our corn-laws on the welfare of 

 farm-tenants and larm-labourers ; — and if it 

 shall appear, upon a dispassionate inquiry, 

 'that these classes have been, and are, not 

 ^gainers, but sufferers, by these laws, we 

 ;may hope that they will speedily join their 

 their commercial and msinufacturing fellow- 

 icitizens, in demanding their total abroga- 

 ition. And first, as to their effect upon Farm- 



1 TEN A NTS. 



I 1. At the very outset of the inquiry, it 

 cannot fail to strike us as remarkable, that 

 the very rlosses, prafesseflh/ to promote 

 whose iiileresls the principles of equal jus- 

 lice and cnmmercidl freedom have been 

 trampled tmder foot, are, generally sjieal- 

 vig, — Ml the majority of case.';, and in the 

 majority of years, — about the most depressed 

 and unprosperoiis in the community. If 

 the system of legislative protection which 

 ihas been so uniformly and unscrupulously 

 jfollowed, were a sound one, the fiumers 

 ought to bo the most thriving and fortunate 

 [of men ; since tor centuries back, but par- 

 [ticularly for the last seven and twenty 

 years, their prosperity has been professedly 

 ' (297) 



