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Untitled Article
cerned , be not entitled to this immunity , let us inquire whether there are any circumstances in existence to which principle must succumb , and on which a claim so intrinsicall y unjust may be based in consonance with justice .
And first , does agriculture aggrandise or render a nation powerful , that we should foster it at the expense of every other interest ? Consult the histories of Phoenicia , Tyre , Carthage , Palmyra , and Rome ; inquire why Venice , Genoa , Holland , rose to eminence ; why is England all potent , and Poland
extinct as a nation ? Wh y did Napoleon sigh for " ships , colonies , and commerce ? " Are the germs of our national greatness in the varied carpet of agricultural districts , or deposited in the sublime undulations of Wales and Cornwall ? These interrogatories are an answer . The agriculturist must put in a better claim for his privilege .
Are agriculturists placed in a naturall y disadvantageous position with reference to the rest of the community ? Population is year after year a better customer . Population has increased nine millions in seventy-six years . The produce of the agriculturist is sold in a home market ; the foreign grow er
must pay a freight and other charges for transit of his corn to this country , before it can compete with the home-grown corn , whereas the manufacturer ' s produce must pay a freight before it reaches the foreign market ; the foreigner must pay more for his English made coat and utensils than the British
farmer . No , there can be no reason found here , why the labouring mechanic should give twelve hours of toil instead of eight , for his daily bread . Are there no accidental disadvantages under which the agriculturist has laboured , and in consideration of which , he may
justly demand protection against foreign competition : What does corn-law legislation reply to this ? The earliest enactments forbade exportation . Up to 1670 , importation was practicall y free . Why were not the agricultural producers of this country able to compete with foreign growers as well after 1670 as before ? Let us glance at the operation of restrictive laws .
RENTS . millions . POPULATION . million * . 1723 Kngland & Wales 7 £ 174 H Kngland & Wiiles < S \ 1 S 01 - - - IS 1800 - 9 18 ) 5 - 25 J J I 8 \ r > - - - - 11 So that each individual in England and Wales in the first half of the eighteenth century , paid annuall y about J / . 4 . v . for rent ; in IB 15 , each individual paid about two ami a-lialf times as much .
Sir W . Curtis said , in the House of Commons in 181 / 3 , that rtjnt had in all e . jiseH doubled—in some trebled . Of fortynine millions of taxes exacted during tin * reign of William III .
Untitled Article
212 Corn Lcuvs *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 212, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/20/
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