No. 10. 



Agriculture and the Corn-Law. 



301 



produce uniformity of price. Yet the an-j 

 nexed table* will show how completely j 

 this, as well as all previous enactments, has 

 failed in effecting even an approximation to, 

 its object. And Mr. Tooke, Sir Robert 

 Peel's favourite authority, declares — and we, 

 doubt not, with perfect correctness — that, 

 under the sliding-scale, prices inust fluctu-| 

 ate at least from 36s. to 73s. a quarter, or 

 more than 100 per cent.f 



Here, then, we have three remarkable 

 facts. First, we have a parliamentary de- 

 claration, that steadiness of price is the pri- 

 mary object; which must never be lost sight 

 of, and which is perfectly essential to the 

 welfare of the landlord, the tarmer, and the 

 labourer. Secondly, we have a law passed 

 for the purpose of procuring this steadiness, 

 which nevertheless has not prevented the 

 most excessive fluctuations. And, thirdly, 

 we have it shown on the first authority, that 

 this very law does, and must, aggravate 

 these very 'fluctuations-! Surely a law 

 passed with a definite object, and producing 

 the exact opposite of that object, needs no 

 further condemnation. 



Moreover, it is perfectly evident that 

 steadiness of price is at least as important 

 to the consumer as to the grower of corn. 



The grower, if he be a man of capital, may 

 to a certain extent, set a high priced year 

 against a low priced year, and so make a 

 decent average. But the poor bread-eater 

 cannot do this. He cannot lay in a stock of 

 flour at 36s., and keep it by him to consume 

 when the price is 73s. He eats what he 

 wants in the low priced year; and when the 

 high priced year comes, he lives upon some- 

 thing else, or eats one half the quantity. 

 Had the price been stationary at 50s., he 

 would have been to the farmer a regular 

 customer for a regular quantity. But as it 

 is, he is a customer at 36s., and he ceases 

 to be a customer at 73s. This, therefore, 

 brings us to the important principle — that 

 the country could afford to pay the farmer 

 a better average price, if prices were steady 

 than if they are fluctuating. What we 

 complain of is, not so much that wheat 

 should average 50s. a quarter, as that it 

 should ever reach 80s. 



The third great mischief, then, which the 

 corn-law inflicts upon the farmer is this : — 

 by aggravating fluctuations, it upsets all his 

 calculations, and prevents the country from, 

 paying him as high an average, as with 

 steady prices it would be able to afford.^ 

 [To be concluded in next No.] 



t Tooke on Prices, III. pp. 35, 38. 



X Under a fixed duty or free trade, corn would come 

 in just as it was wanted; the supply would meet the 

 demand, and be proportionate to it, both in time and 

 in amount. Under the sliding scale the price is rapidly 

 and inordinately raised by the artificial withholding 

 of the supply, till the lowest duty is attained, when it 

 is as rapidly depressed by the sudden liberation of the 

 whole quantity in bond. 



§ We apprehend that the farmers are very much de- 

 ceived as to the actual average prices of wheat. The 

 apparent average from 1829-41, as taken from the 

 weekly returns, was 58s. Sd. a quarter; but, as by far 

 the greatest quantities are always sold in the low priced 

 years, and generally in the lowest priced weeks qf those 

 years, the real average paid to the farmers will be 

 much lower ; probably about 53s. On examining the 

 quantity of wheat sold in the 150 towns from which 

 returns were made to the corn inspectors, we find that 



I in the three dear years, 1829-30-31, when the average 

 price was 65s. 7d. the quantity sold reached only 

 I 8,515,000 quarters, while in the three cheap years, 1834 

 -5-6, when the price had fallen to 46s. 2rf., the quan- 

 i tity sold reached 11,236,000 quarters. And iu 1839-40 

 -41, when the price had a2:ain risen to 67s. W. the 

 'quantity sold, notwithstanding a great increase of 

 ! population, had fallen off to 10,938,000 quarters. In 

 1 1838, at 64s. 7d. 4,064,000 quarters were sold. In 1839, 

 ! the price had risen to 70s. 8d., and only 3,174,000 quar- 

 ters roere sold. The same peculiarity appears if we 

 [compare different parts of the same year. In thftwo 

 I highest priced months of 1835, viz. July and August, 

 I at the price of 49s. 9rf., only 510,513 quarters were 

 ^sold. But in November and December, when prices 

 I had receded to 35s. 5d., 704,100 quarters were sold. 



Mr. Tooke has a similar remark, (Prices, III. p. 40.) 

 I Between 1831 and 1839, the apparent average was 56s. 

 —the real average obtained by the farmer, he esti- 

 I mates at 50$. 



