class of workmen, from 1777 to 1795, had averaged 21s. 9d. per week, and the price of the quartern loaf being 74d., they could purchase thirty-six loaves with a week's wages. During the scarcity of 1795 their wages had been advanced to 25s., and in 1801 to 27s., in which latter year a week's wages would purchase only 18 quartern loaves. The wages of compositors had been advanced from 24s. to 27s. in 1795, and to 30s. in 1801. The advance in the wages of carpenters, bricklayers, masons, and artizans of a similar stamp was inconsiderable. The salaries of persons holding official situations under the government were also increased. The misery of the bulk of the people during the years of scarcity is shown by the diminished number of marriages, which, from 79,477 in 1798, were reduced to 67,288 in 1801.

The fallacy that wages advance with the price of food was never more glaringly displayed than at this period; and it is still a prevalent notion that there is a connexion between high prices of provisions and high wages, though seventy years ago, Adam Smith had shown (and his doctrine on this subject has never been controverted)-1. That the real wages of labor rise in a year of plenty and diminish in a season of scarcity. In the former, the funds in the hands of the employers of industry are sufficient to maintain a greater number of industrious people, and, as masters wanting workmen bid against each other, money wages may also rise. 2. That a year of scarcity and high prices diminishes the funds for the employment of labor; persons are thrown out of employment who bid against one another in order to get it; and wages fall. 3. That in the ordinary variations of the price of provisions these two opposite causes are counterbalanced, which is one reason why the wages of labor are more steady and permanent than the price of provisions. In the evidence before the Lords' Committee on the Corn Laws in 1814 there is a remarkable illustration of the effect of the scarcity of 1812 on wages. Mr. Milne, a landowner, stated that a certain description of farm-labor which twenty-five years before had cost him 3s., and which a neighbor of his had paid 5s. for two or three years before, was executed during a period of scarcity and high prices for 2s. 6d., the cause of this difference being, as he alleged, that a great many laborers were idle from having little work, in consequence of those employed doing double work.''

This season of general scarcity and distress proved, however, a golden harvest to the landed interest,-the farmers realizing enormous profits, and the landlords either raising their rents or preparing to do so. They, therefore, cheerfully acquiesced in the continuance of the existing system, and endeavored by various futile expedients to divert public attention from its enormous evils.. More abundant harvests, however, speedily followed, which greatly reduced the price of corn; and loud complaints were instantly made throughout the agricultural districts. The law which they had formerly magnified as the perfection of wisdom, was now repudiated as inadequate to their protection. Meetings were held in various parts of the country,

for the purpose of petitioning parliament for additional protection to agriculture, and another abortive effort was consequently made to give a permanent stimulus to its prosperity. The selfishness of class legislation was never more strikingly evidenced than in this case. The welfare of the country was set at nought, and the very subsistence of its population endangered, in order to enhance the pecuniary benefit of the few. Thus it has ever been when the interests of a privileged class have been deemed more important than the social comfort and moral welfare of the people at large. But the landlords succeeded in their object, so far at least as legislative enactments were concerned. In the spring of 1804 a select committee of the lower house was appointed, to inquire into the principle and operation of the corn law of 1791. In their second report, presented June 14th, the committee thus state their conviction of the necessity of some new measure. It appears to your committee that the price of corn from 1791 to the harvest of 1803 has been very irregular; but, upon an average, increased in a great degree 'by the years of scarcity, has in general yielded a fair profit to 'the grower. The casual high prices, however, have had the ' effect of stimulating industry, and bringing into culture large tracts of waste land, which, combined with the two last pro'ductive seasons, has occasioned such a depression in the value of grain as it is feared will greatly tend to the discouragement ' of agriculture, unless maintained by the support of parliament.' The scale established by the act of 1804 for the admission of foreign corn was as follows: Wheat under 63s. per quarter, 'the high duty' of 24s. 3d. payable; at 63s. and under 66s., 'the first low duty;' and at or above 66s., the 'second low "duty,' which amounted only to 6d. The free import or 'nominal duty price was thus raised from 54s., at which it 'stood in the act of 1790-1, to 66s.-an increase of 12s. The 'bounty of 5s. on exportation was to be paid when the average 'price of wheat was at or under 48s.; and when the average rose to 54s. exportation to be prohibited. The two latter ' enactments proved totally inoperative.'

A succession of unfavorable seasons, in combination with the European war, in which we were then engaged, tended greatly to raise the price of corn, which attained such an enormous height as to produce the most serious embarrassment throughout the country. Such prices naturally stimulated cultivation to the utmost possible extent, and consequently the number of enclosure bills which received the royal assent from 1804 to 1814 inclusive, was 1084.

The following is Mr. Tooke's account, as given by our author, of the state of the agricultural interest at this period. A great amount of gain had been distributed among the agricultural

'classes; and as the range of high prices (with an interval of 'depression between the harvests of 1810 and 1811, so short as 'not to have been felt at all by the landlord, and very little by the farmer) had been of an unusually long continuance, it was 'concluded that the causes of that high range were permanent. From 1809 to 1813 was accordingly the period in which rents experienced their greatest rise,—that is, upon the expiration of 'leases, they were advanced in full proportion to the high range ' of the prices of produce; and in several instances they were 'raised threefold or upwards of what they had been in 1792.' Such prosperity, as it grew out of temporary causes, was of course short-lived. A reaction took place at the close of the war, which precipitated prices below their natural level, and gave rise to extensive and loud complaints. The laboring classes, however, were far from being benefited by the high prices of the war, but on the contrary suffered deep injury and wrong. The trifling advance made in their wages bore no fair proportion to the increased cost of food, and they were consequently great losers by the system which poured wealth into the pockets of the landlords.

In 1812 and 1813 the poor-rates amounted to about £3,300,000 more than they had been in 1803, a year of low prices and agricultural distress. Still further attempts had been made to adjust wages to the high price of provisions, and the demand of men for the navy and army offered a resource which frequently rendered the strikes of workmen for advanced wages successful. The wages of artizans and laborers were nearly doubled, that is, the money value of their wages; but their real value-the command of a week's earnings over the necessaries of life-was diminished. The rise of money wages had reached its maximum in 1812. The workmen employed in manfactures experienced severe distress during this period; the advance of wages was less in their case than that of any other class; in some branches of manufacture there had been no change; in others it was accompanied by longer hours of work; and the stagnation of the export-trade occasioned nearly a total cessation of employment in several branches of manufacturing industry. Many parts of the country were disturbed by riots in consequence of the inability of the poorer classes to purchase an adequate share of food during these seasons of agricultural prosperity and high prices arising from defective harvests and the other causes to which allusion has been made.'

The return of peace in 1814 brought with it a general reduction of prices, of which agricultural produce of course partook. This led to loud and general complaints amongst the farmers, who justly alleged their inability to pay the rents which had grown out of the high war prices. Another effort was consequently made by the landlords to obtain from the legislature the artificial stimulus, which was needful to maintain their

present rentals. A committee of the House of Lords was appointed in June, 1814, which made a report, July 25th, recommending that 'so long as the average price of wheat was ' under 80s. the ports should be completely closed against 'supplies from other countries.' The country was alarmed at this barefaced attempt of the landed interest to impose so enormous a burden on the community for their own exclusive benefit, and expressed its repugnance to the measure in so decided a form as to compel its framers to abandon it. The average price of wheat during this year was about 34s. per quarter lower than that of 1813. In the following year, 1815, the landholders renewed their efforts to obtain a complete monopoly of the food of the people, and unhappily with more success than formerly. Early in the session a bill was introduced, fixing 80s. as the lowest price at which importation might take place, which was pressed through the legislature with a determination which despised all warnings, and triumphed over every obstacle. Various attempts were made to fix a lower standard than 80s., but without effect. The bill produced great excitement throughout the country. The gallery of the House of Commons was closed against the admission of strangers, and the military were called out in order to protect the members in their passage to the house. Notwithstanding these strong marks of public feeling, the landlords' House of Commons passed the landlords' bill by a majority of 168 on the third reading. The measure was opposed with great ability and force by some of the most eminent statesmen of the day, whose views were embodied in the following protest, which was drawn up by Lord Grenville.

1. Because we are adverse in principle to all new restraints on commerce. We think it certain that public prosperity is best promoted by leaving uncontrolled the free current of national industry; and we wish, rather, by well-considered steps, to bring back our commercial legislation to the straight and simple line of wisdom, than to increase the deviation, by subjecting additional and extensive branches of the public interest to fresh systems of artificial and injurious restriction.

2. Because we think that the great practical rule of leaving our commerce unfettered applies more peculiarly, and on still stronger grounds of justice, as well as of policy, to the corn-trade, than to any other. Irresistible, indeed, must be the necessity which could, in our judgment, authorize the legislature to tamper with the sustenance of the people, and to impede the free purchase and sale of that article. on which depends the existence of so large a portion of the community.

3. Because we think that the expectations of ultimate benefit from this measure are founded on a delusive theory. We cannot persuade ourselves that this law will ever contribute to produce plenty, cheappoor steadiness of price. So long as it onerats effects

must be the opposite of these. Monopoly is the parent of scarcity, of dearness, and of uncertainty. To cut off any of the sources of supply can only tend to lessen its abundance; to close against ourselves the cheapest market for any commodity must enhance the price at which we purchase it; and to confine the consumer of corn to the produce of his own country is to refuse to ourselves the benefit of that provision which Providence itself has made for equalizing to man the variations of season and of climate.

4. But, whatever may be the future consequences of this law, at some distant and uncertain period, we see, with pain, that those hopes must be purchased at the expense of a great and present evil. To compel the consumer to purchase corn dearer at home than it might be imported from abroad is the immediate practical effect of this law. In this way alone can it operate. Its present protection, its promised extension of agriculture, must result (if at all) from the profits which it creates by keeping up the price of corn to an artificial level. These future benefits are the consequences expected, but, as we confidently believe, erroneously expected, from giving a bounty to the grower of corn, by a tax levied on its consumer.

5. Because we think that the adoption of any permanent law for such a purpose required the fullest and most laborious investigation. Nor would it have been sufficient for our satisfaction could we have been convinced of the general policy of so hazardous an experiment. A still further inquiry would have been necessary to persuade us that the present moment was fit for its adoption. In such an inquiry we must have had the means of satisfying ourselves what its immediate operation will be, as connected with the various and pressing circumstances of public difficulty and distress with which the country is now surrounded; with the state of circulation and currency; of our agriculture and manufactures; of our internal and external commerce; and, above all, with the condition and reward of the industrious laboring classes of our community. On all these particulars, as they respect this question, we think that parliament is almost wholly uninformed; on all, we see reason for the utmost anxiety and alarm from the operation of this law.

Lastly. Because, if we could approve of the principle and purpose of this law, we think that no sufficient foundation has been laid for its details. The evidence before us, unsatisfactory and imperfect as it is, seems to us rather to disprove than to support the propriety of the high price adopted as the standard of importation, and the fallacious mode by which that price is to be ascertained.

'And on all these grounds we are anxious to record our dissent from a measure so precipitate in its course, and, as we fear, so injurious in its consequences.

'AUGUSTUS FREDERICK

(Duke of Sussex), WILLIAM FREDERICK (Duke of Gloucester), GRENVILLE,

WELLESLEY,

TORRINGTON,

DUTTON (Marquis of Douglas),

CHANDOS BUCKINGHAM,

MONTFORT,

KING,

CARLISLE.'

ESSEX.