180 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



eight hundred and ten millions in 1852. These would 

 have reached, in the present year, nine hundred and fifty 

 millions, or one milliard, if the impetus which they had 

 received previous to 1848 had been sustained ; and all 

 branches of public wealth would have responded to this 

 brilliant sign of prosperity. 



Finally, if I have found it necessary to relate what has 

 taken place in England since 1847, it must not be con- 

 cluded that a similar revolution appears to me desirable, 

 or even possible, in France. We are in all respects diffe- 

 rently circumstanced. To establish cheapness of food 

 cannot be a question with us, for that we already have ; 

 since England, after all her efforts, has not been able to 

 come below our highest current rates ; and over half the 

 country our prices are only too low. The rich and fully 

 populated parts of the country must not be confounded 

 with those which are not so. The requirements of the 

 one are not at all those of the other. We do not re- 

 semble the England of 1846, but the England of 1800. 

 With us it is not production which fails consumption, 

 but, in the half of France at least, it is consumption 

 which falls short of production. Instead of seeing every- 

 where corn at 56s. per quarter, and meat at 6d. per lb., 

 we have whole districts where the producer scarcely ob- 

 tains half of these prices for his commodities. It is not 

 a fall, but a rise that they there require. The time is 

 still distant when they will suffer from the excess of 

 demand for their agricultural produce, and from high 

 prices. 



But neither must it be imagined that the sliding-scale 

 for corn, and exorbitant duties upon foreign cattle, could 

 do any good to France. In fact, these duties have hither- 

 to had no effect in raising prices : they have rather con- 

 tributed to lower them by arresting the expansion of 



