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Untitled Article
the land-tax furnished 19 , 174 , 000 / ., or about one million and a-half per annum . The land-tax of 1832 , with a rental increased fourfold , was about one million and a-half . Redemption would account but for a small fraction of this discrepancy . In 1828 , Spain paid nearly one million and
a-half in land-tax . In France the fanciere or land-tax is one-fourth the revenue . Prussia has a tax on rent of twentyfive per cent . Take these facts into consideration , then look at the animus of the landlords of this country—see them demanding a bounty on the exportation of their corn in 1804 , with the most indubitable evidence of a deficient approaching
harvest . See them in seventy two years inclosing six millions of acres . Contemplate the improvements which have taken place in the culture of the soil—described by one writer as equal to the steam engine being added to machinery . Kota ^ tion of crops , bone manure , improved draining . These hn- » provements , as well as improvements in agricultural
implements , being adopted here to a greater extent than in all the world beside . Take into account the factitious value given to land by the enactments of 1815 and 1822 . The former inducing the farmers to expect 80 s . per quarter for their wheat , and the latter 70 s . Weigh all these facts thus crowded
together , and then put the question to conscience , whether the landed interest of this country is justly entitled to a protective duty on the importation of foreign corn . Are we more an agricultural than a manufacturing people , that we must pay more than other people for our bread , and thus pervert the great maxim of Bentham , " the greatest
good of the greatest number ? " No . —For in 1831 , we had 761 , 348 agricultural families , and 2 , 000 , 000 of families that were not agricultural . In Italy , agriculturists are to others as 100 to 3 k In France , as 100 to 50 . While in England , agriculturists are but 28 out of 128 . Why the 100 should be robbed for the benefit of the 28 , certainly does not yet appear . Whither shall we turn for a < c *> ood and sufficient" reason
for high rents being exacted , by the operation oi restrictive laws on the importation of corn ? Have manufacturers been obtaining inordinate profits , and have their high wages enabled their labourers to pay dearly for their food ? Let this fact answer . In 171 ) 5 , the price for weaving a piece of ti-4 cambric , was 33 . s \ IUL ; in 1815 , it was 14 s . ; in 1833 , 5 s . (> c / .
Did the price of wheat experience a corresponding reduction ? It is instructive to cxamiue : in 1794 , it whs 51 , v . Hd . per quarter ; in 1814 , it was 13 s . l ] r / . per quarter ; in 1833 , it was 52 . v . 11 r / . per quarter . From 1800 to 1819 , the price averaged in France 42 . s \ \ 0 d . per quarter . In England , during the same period , it averaged 87 s . S ( L per quarter . And in 1834 , the price of wheat was 7201 per cent , dearer in Loudou
Untitled Article
Corn Laws . 215
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 213, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/21/
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