332 



Agriculture and the Corn-Law. 



Vol. VIII. 



pauper expenditure between a cheap year, 

 and a dear one, was £78,131 under the old 

 system, and £71,913 under the amended 

 law. The former effect, though equally 

 certain, it is not so easy to show by tabular 

 statements ; but it is notorious that th'e 

 manufacturing districts, when prosperous, 

 draft off and provide employment for many 

 thousands of labourers from the agricultural 

 counties, who would otherwise have to be 

 supported by the rates of their native pa- 

 rishes;* — that, if these labourers had re- 

 mained, or were now to be returned upon 

 their native parishes, the consequent aug- 

 mentation of the rates would bring ruin 

 upon every farmer in the country; — that 

 this re-emigration will assuredly take place, 

 if the present depression of trade and manu- 

 factures should unhappily continue ; — and 

 that continue it assuredly will, unless those 

 restrictive corn-laws, which press so hea- 

 vily both upon our foreign commerce and 

 our home demand, shall be speedily removed. 

 The repeal of the corn-laws is therefore 

 necessanj to save the farmer himself from 

 ultimate and entire ruin. 



Let us now consider the effect of the 

 corn-laws upon the farm labourer. The 

 effect may be stated in two words: — They 

 raise the price of the commodity he has to 

 buy, and lower the pride of the commodity 

 he has to sell. They enhance the cost of 

 provisions, and depress the wages of labour. 



I. Like all consumers, the agricultural 

 labourer has a paramount interest in cheap 



food. It is calculated, that in ordinary 

 years, one half his whole expenditure is 

 laid out in bread. In years of scarcity, 

 however, he must expend much more than 

 this, and yet obtain much less. When the 

 price of corn is low, he has therefore, a far 

 greater command of the comforts and neces- 

 saries of life than when it is high. This 

 requires no elaborate demonstration. The 

 labourer knows it to be the case. A very 

 slight consideration will show that it must 

 be so. Uniform experience has shown that 

 it is so. 



Some persons, however, have ventured to 

 assert, that this operation is counteracted by 

 an alteration in the rate of wages; — that 

 ithe wages of the labourer rise and fall ac- 

 cording to the price of corn, and in propor- 

 tion to the price of corn; — and that his 

 command of the necessaries of life in conse- 

 quence, always remains the same. The 

 falsehood of this statement is obvious from 

 the following consideration : Years of high 

 price are always years of scanty crops, and 

 are so merely because they are years of 

 scanty crops. To affirm, therefore, that 

 vvhen corn is dear, the labourer is enabled 

 to purchase as much bread as when corn is 

 cheap, is to affirm that he can obtain a larger 

 proportion of a scanty crop than he can of 

 an abiindant one ; — which is manifestly both 

 an untruth and an absurdity. In years of 

 scarcity, it is obvious that some classes must 

 consume much less bread than they do in 

 years of plenty; because there is much less 

 to be consumed. What are these classes ? 



* "We do not know the exact amount of migration from rural to industrial districts, but we know that it 

 must have been immense; for while the natural increase of the population (i. e. the excess of births above 

 deaths) during the last ten years, has been much the greatest in the former, the actual increase has been much 

 the greatest in the latter. A careful examination of the table given below, coupled with the annual increase 

 of the population, will leave little room for doubt, that since 1836, the manufacturing districts have found em- 

 ployment and subsistence for at least, 400,000 additional persons. 



AGRICULTURAL 

 COUNTIES. 



Hereford 



Cumberland . ■ 



Norfolk 



Oxford 



Suffolk 



Buckingham . . 



Average 



41 '3 00 



„ 3 - 

 CO CJ 1-t 



.= .5.2 



2.9 

 4.8 

 5.7 

 61 

 6.3 

 6.4 



5=> 



C 00 



o c 



one in 

 37 

 36 

 33 

 32 

 37 

 36 



35 



one in 

 63 

 51 

 51 

 50 

 52 

 52 



5-i 



MANUFACTURING 

 COUNTIES. 



Lancaster . 

 Uiirham ... 

 Warwick . . 



Si afford 



York, W. R. 

 Chester .... 



Average 



£g-no 



3 rH 



C X 

 O c 



i§ 



one m 

 .38 

 35 

 36 

 32 

 38 

 43 



37 



2.5 



one in 

 32 

 43 

 45 

 51 

 43 

 42 



43 



N. B. The year 1830, is the last for which we have any calculation of the births.—" J\'o« Overprodvctim,' 

 Sec, by W. R. Greq, p. 16. 



