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farmer , which it is highly important to notice . It is a propinquity analogous to that which subsisted between the planter and his slave . The landlord has the power of exacting from the farmer the greatest portion of the proceeds of the sweat of
his brow , and the wear and tear of his sinew , that he can possibly give . True , he wields not the lash , but the law is an instrument of torture not less efficient . In discussing the question we have propounded , it is essential that we bear ia mind the fact that those
< r Who till , but not in hope , the teeming soil , " are not benefited by legislative enactments , prohibiting the importation of cheap corn . No—high prices are required that high rents may be paid . This is a consideration of paramount importance , —we must occupy a little time in illustrating it . It is obvious that the necessaries of life consumed by the
cultivator of the soil , are grown by himself , and therefore it cannot matter what price they may bear in the market ; the surplus of his production he sells to buy clothing , &c . ; but principally to pay his rent . Now , if prices be high , we may be sure that high rents will be exacted . And as the main articles of subsistence cannot be affected , as far as the farmer
is concerned , it is obvious that the high prices produced by " protection , " must go into the pockets of the landlords . Facts bear out this argument . Mr . Blamire stated before a Committee of the House of Commons , in the year 1833 , that in Cumberland and Westmoreland , rents were 40 s . per acre for land that would not fetch above 26 * . or 27 s . ia Hampshire , owing to the frugal habits of the Cumberland farmers . Look at Ireland , —see the swine sent from the potatoe-fed renter to pay
the absentee landlord ; look at the ryotwary system of India ; look at Italy ; look wherever there is a landed aristocracy , and you will invariably see the cultivators of the soil , either in a state of servile vassalage , or in a state as toilsome as vassalage , without its privileges . Well did Mr . Oliver say , when examined by the Parliamentary Committee , that the " corn-law is the landlord ' s matter alone ; " and well was it to record on the
Lords * Journal of 1815 , with reference to the nefarious law of that year , that it was " to compel the consumer to purchase corn dearer at home than it might be imported from abroad . " There can be no doubt that high prices to the consumer and high rents to the landlord are the practical results of the " protective " legislative enactments in question . Then , we ask , is it just that we should pay a tax on every morsel of bread we eat , that the poor should be compelled to live on " coarser food , ' * merely that landlords might pocket our money to enable them to " fare" more " sumptuously every day ?" If the agricultural interest , then , as far as principle is con *
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Corn Laws . 211
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 211, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/19/
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