This

all hope of obtaining an effectual remedy for the evils under which it was suffering. Still it has moved onward, and its progress, when measured by years rather than by months, has been cheering and hopeful. Numerous circumstances have occurred to facilitate its advance in the right direction. The symptoms of disease in the body politic' have developed themselves more distinctly, and in an aggravated form, notwithstanding the partial remedies which have been applied. Our commerce has declined, large bodies of workmen have been thrown out of employ, and political discontent consequent on social disorganization and want has stalked through the land. fearful and ominous state of things has riveted public attention, and given rise to inquiries more searching and extensive than had previously been directed to the subject. The result has been a deep and thorough conviction that the alarming distress which prevails in our manufacturing districts is self-created, and therefore criminal,—that it is the result of an artificial and most impolitic legislation, which has closed against our industry many of the markets of the world, and raised up competitors where a more enlightened policy would have insured remunerative customers. The predominance of class interests in our legislature has caused the welfare of the many to be sacrificed to the temporary advantage of the few, and we have consesequently exhibited at this moment amongst our population, the extremes of wealth and poverty,- exorbitant rents with unremunerated labor,-immense competition for every farm which is to be let, with large manufacturers discharging workmen by hundreds, and contemplating the conveyance of their machinery and capital to other and more productive countries. The short-sighted and selfish policy of our landowners has been raising up formidable opponents to our manufacturers throughout the continent of Europe, until at length the competition is become so severe and alarining as to press upon the means of subsistence, and to threaten the speedy annihilation of our national greatness and power. The restricted limit within which the proverbial industry of our people is permitted to employ itself is now regarded-and justly so-as the radical source of most of the financial difficulties which we are experiencing. The folly of imposing restraints where God has left us free is now vastly augmented by the large proportion of the people who are wholly dependent on the extension of our commercial relations. This proportion has increased at an astonishing ratio during the last century. From 1700 to 1831, "the population of Lancashire increased 800 per cent.; War'wickshire 251 per cent.; Staffordshire 250; and Nottinghamshire 246; whilst the principal agricultural counties during 'the same period increased only 84 per cent. There is a con'stant stream of emigration from the agricultural into the

'manufacturing districts. From 1821 to 1831, the immigration 'into Lancashire averaged 17,000 a year. On the one hand ' in the rural districts we have a population fully equal to the 'existing demands for its labor, and requiring outlets for the increase of its numbers; and on the other, in the manufacturing districts, there is a population whose consumption confers a 'much higher value upon agricultural produce, and where, by extending the field of employment, room is made both for the expansion of the agricultural and non-agricultural population.' Such being the altered state of our population, a corresponding change is obviously required in our commercial policy. Fiscal regulations which may formerly have worn the appearance of wisdom, are now clearly hostile to the welfare and happiness of the people, and must be modified if the means of subsistence are to be kept within their reach. We are no longer an agricultural people, and it is the height of folly as well as the grossest cruelty to perpetuate, in our altered circumstances, the system which landowners formerly framed for their own exclusive benefit. This common sense view of the matter is now spreading rapidly through the country, and it is well for the people, that the exigencies of the Melbourne administration compelled them, at the eleventh hour, to put into the substantive form of a ministerial budget, some approximation to the only wise and righteous view which can be taken of the matter. Å failing revenue is an imperious but instructive monitor, and in the present instance it has wrought well for the people. Additional taxes had previously been tried and failed, the elasticity of our national resources was gone, and nothing was left to supply the necessities of the exchequer but a revision of our whole commercial policy.

Such were the circumstances under which the Melbourne administration brought forward their celebrated budget; and none of our readers need be informed of what followed. The monopolists took the alarm, and availing themselves of the growing unpopularity of the ministry, succeeded in carrying a No-confidence vote. Then followed the dissolution, and an appeal to the country. The queen nobly discharged her duty to an impoverished and suffering people, but it was too late. Confidence was not to be recovered by a single act. The Melbourne administration had sealed its fate beyond redemption, and the constituencies refused in consequence to make the sacrifices which were necessary to retain it in power. They had been refused the protection for which they had earnestly and repeatedly prayed, and now that the hour of trial came they shrunk from the hazards which that trial involved. The monopolists, on the other hand, put forth all their strength, and more than their usual craft, and thus

obtained a decisive, though as we verily believe only a temporary triumph. One advantage will result from their victory. The old enemies of English freedom will again stand out to public view as the advocates of class interests, and the sworn foes to popular rights. The delusive professions. which have been forced upon them during their exclusion from office will be detected and exposed, and the genuine blood of Toryism will be seen yet flowing in their veins. The policy of Sir Robert Peel is not to be mistaken. It has already oozed out notwithstanding his studied secresy, and will soon be seen in all its hollowness. One thing is certain-a starving people will gain nothing from the Tory premier, who looks only to the chapter of accidents, in the desperate hope that something will turn up to enable him to stave off the period of concession to popular demands.

In the meantime it rests with the people to say how long, and to what extent, Sir Robert shall succeed. They have the power to compel his submission, and we trust it will not be long before they use it. A severe struggle is impending, for which it becomes all patriotic and christian men to prepare themselves. The ministers of religion have done nobly in combining their testimony against the monstrous injustice of taxing the bread of the poor, in order to raise the incomes of the rich. Upon this ground the battle is to be fought, and who can doubt the issue. Our corn laws constitute the most palpable and revolting feature of that aristocratic system of legislation, which presses so heavily on the community. Its influence is most widely felt, the evils growing out of it are most easily traceable to their source, and public attention is therefore riveted on this as the first and most monstrous specimen of a numerous class. The leaders of the people will do well to keep their attention fixed in this direction. It will give a definiteness and practical aim to their efforts, which must greatly contribute to their success. It will serve to remind every man in the empire of his personal stake in the discussion. The poorest laborer-the most destitute mechanic-when he looks upon his half famished wife and children, will thus be taught to execrate a system which diminishes his supply of the staff of life, and renders useless to him the bountiful gifts of an overruling providence.

Under these circumstances, it is obviously of importance that the whole history and bearings of the corn monopoly question should be clearly understood. To judge from many statements of the bread-taxers, we might conclude that the present system has come down to us from a remote antiquity,-that its details as well as its principle were commended by the experience of many generations, that our national prosperity had, in a word, grown out of it, and would wither and die if the profane hand of modern improvement were permitted to modify any of its

features. From noble dukes down to the humblest of their tenantry, we are accustomed to hear the present system eulogized as the perfection of wisdom-that, without which agriculture could not exist in our country, nor England continue for six months longer to retain her position as a first rate power in Europe. Such statements, oracularly delivered, are supposed by our agriculturists, to settle the merits of this great question, and much wonder is expressed at the infatuation of a government, which could venture to propose such a modification of the landlord's system as that involved in a fixed duty of 8s. A little attention, however, to the history of our corn laws will suffice to disclose the folly and ignorance which are couched under such representations, and we deem it our duty as public journalists to put our readers into possession of the real facts of the case. With this view we propose in the present paper to supply them with a succinct history of the system and we shall be greatly surprised if the narrative does not dissipate whatever difficulties and mystification an interested sophistry has thrown around it. In doing this we shall freely avail ourselves of the information which Mr. Platt has furnished in the valuable tractate before us, which we cannot too strongly recommend to our readers.

In the earlier period of our history, England was an exporting corn country. The quantity produced exceeding the demands of the home market, the landlords, who constituted then, as they have done ever since, the main strength of our legislature, sought for themselves a market on the continent. In 1393, corn might be exported by the king's subjects' to what parts ' that pleased them,' except to the king's enemies, and this act was confirmed in 1425. Eleven years after this latter date, the exportation of wheat was allowed without license when its price at the place of shipment was 6s. 8d. per quarter. In the preamble of this statute, 15 Henry VI., loud complaints are made of restrictions on importation; for cause whereof, farmers and other men, which use manurement of their land, may not sell their corn but of a bare price, to the great damage of ' all the realm;' and the remedy provided is a freer permission to export the surplus-a regulation which is intended for the profit of the whole realm but, especially for the counties adjoining to the sea.' Shortly after this period an important change appears to have taken place in the relative position of the corn grower of England and of the continent. Instead of the former exporting to the latter, the produce of the continent was brought into the English market, and the selfishness of class interests immediately demanded protection for the home grower. In 1463 was passed the first corn law designed to protect the English farmer from a depreciation of prices conse

quent on a supply of foreign grain. In the preamble of that act it is remarked, that 'Whereas the laborers and occupiers of 'husbandry within this realm be daily grievously endamaged 'by bringing of corn out of other lands and parts into this 'realm when corn of the growing of this realm is at a low ' price;' and it is enacted in remedy of this evil that no wheat should be imported unless its price at the place of import exceeded 6s. 8d. per quarter. So long as the price of wheat 'was below 6s. 8d. per quarter, exportation was free, and im'portation was prohibited. The price, therefore, was intended 'to be sustained at that height, so far as it was possible so to 'sustain it by legislative contrivance; and the benefit of the corn-grower was the sole object of the statute.' The same object continued to regulate the proceedings of the legislature in the several minor alterations which were adopted from time to time. The importation of corn was during this period practically free, as the price of grain did not fall below the standard of the law as fixed in 1463.

In 1592.3 the price at which exportation was permitted was raised to 20s. per quarter, and the customs duty was fixed at 2s. In 1603-4 the importation price was raised to 26s. 8d. per quarter; and, in 1623. to 32s.-having risen, in the course of sixty-five years, from 6s. 8d. By the 21 Jac. I. c. 28, unless wheat was under 32s. per quarter, and other grain in proportion, buying corn and selling it again was not permitted. The king could restrain the liberty of exportation by proclamation. In 1627-8 another statute relative to the corn-trade was passed, which, however, made no alteration in the previous statute of James I. In 1660 a new scale of duties was introduced. When the price of wheat per quarter was under 44s. the export duty was 5s, 6d. ; and when the price was above 44s. the duty rose to 6s. 8d. Exportation was permitted free whenever the price of wheat did not exceed 40s. per quarter.

In 1663 the corn-trade again became the subject of legislation, and an act was passed which favored the corn grower, or at any rate that portion of the community connected with and dependent upon agriculture, to a greater extent than any previous statute. The preamble of this act commenced by asserting that the surest and effectualest means of promoting and advancing any trade, occupation, or mystery, being by rendering it profitable to the users thereof,' and that large quantities of land being waste, which might be profitably cultivated if sufficient encouragement were given for the cost and labor on the same, it should be enacted, with a view of encouraging the application of capital and labor to waste lands, that, after September, 1663, when wheat did not exceed 48s. per quarter at the places and havens of shipment, the export duty should be only 5s. 4d. per quarter. The demand of the home market was not sufficient to take off the surplus produce of the corn-growers, and the reduction of the duty was intended to encourage exportation. By the same act