On the Corn Laivs. 



157 



may be divided, by the occupations they respectively pursued, into the 

 following classes : 



Analysis of the Occupations in the Population of Great Britain 

 ^1831-2. 



In sucb calculations, regarding matters subject to perpetual fluctua- 

 tions, minute accuracy is not to bo expected. All that can he look- 

 ed for is an approximation to truth. It is evident however, that the 

 manufacturing classes, when compared to the agricultural, form but 

 a small portion of the community ; yet, in consequence of their living 

 contiguous to each other, their being easily assembled, having active 

 and interested leaders to manage their concerns, and being dispo- 

 sed to act in unison, they have acquired a degree of importance in the 

 state, to which they have no just pretensions. 



But the persons who are at the bottom of this mischievous cry for 

 a change in our corn laws, who demand cheap corn, and who deceive 

 the public by the most artful misrepresentations of the advantages to 

 be derived from foreign importation, are, ** the dealers in foreign 

 corn" and in particular those who are employed to sell that article on 

 commission. It is they who insist on the repeal of all laws favourable 

 to domestic growth, and demand, that full liberty shall be given, for the 

 importation of grain, without any restraint whatever, and from every 

 country in the universe. 



Such doctrines cannot be too loudly reprobated. 



The territory belonging to a nation is its u capital stock" on which 

 it necessarily depends for its prosperity and subsistence ; and " the 

 " agricultural classes" and those depending upon them, are, properly 

 speaking, " The nation," being the only individuals in it, who have a 

 per mum nt interest in its prosperity. The importance of these classes 

 is not sufficiently known or appreciated ; but it evidently appears, 



