Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 by Various
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Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55
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Further, if we compare the proportion purchased of our manufactures, which
is taken off by foreign nations, for the export to whom we are required to
make the sacrifice of our domestic agriculture, with what is consumed by
our own native population, whether in the British islands or in our
colonies of British descent, the difference is prodigious, and such as
might well, even for their own sake, make the Anti-corn-law League pause
in their career of violence. From the tables compiled from Porter's
_Parliamentary Tables_, and the population of the different states to whom
we export, taken from Malte Brun and Balbi, it appears, that while the
British population, whether at home or abroad, consume from L3 to L5
a-head worth of our manufactures, the foreign nations to whom we are
willing to sacrifice the British agriculturists, take off per head ONLY AS
MANY PENCE. In preferring the one to the other, therefore, we are,
literally speaking, penny wise and pound foolish.
We have shown how agriculture was ruined in the Roman empire in Italy, by
the free importation of grain from the Lybian and Egyptian provinces of
the empire. As a contrast to that woful progress, the main cause of the
destruction of the empire of the Caesars, we request the attention of our
readers to the progress of British exports in official value, which
indicates their amount from 1790 to 1840, premising that the _whole_ of
that period was one of protection to the British agriculturist; during the
first twenty years of the period, by the effects of the war--during the
last twenty-five, by the operation of the corn law and sliding scale,
introduced in 1814. We recommend the advocates of free trade to search the
annals of the world for a similar instance of progress and prosperity
flowing from, or co-existent with, the practical adoption of their
principles.
These facts, which, in truth, are altogether decisive of the present
question, point to the great source from which the errors of the free
trade party are derived, and which appears, in an especial manner, their
favourite position, that cheap prices is an unmitigated blessing, and that
the great thing to attend to is to increase our imports. Cheap prices of
grain are like the Amreeta cap in Kehama; the greatest of all blessings is
the greatest of all curses, _according as they arise from magnitude of
domestic production, or magnitude of foreign importation_. Of the first we
had an example during the five fine years in succession, from 1830 to 1835,
during which the foreign importation was practically abolished by the
abundant harvests, and consequent high duty on grain under the sliding
scale. This was a period, as all the world knows, of universal and
unexampled commercial prosperity. Of the second we had a memorable example
during the five bad years in succession, which elapsed fiom 1836 to 1840,
in the course of which the corn laws, from the effect of the same sliding
scale, and the continued low prices, were practically abolished; and
importations, at the close of the period, amounted to 2,500,000 quarters,
and, on an average of the whole, was little short of 2,000,000 of quarters.
And what was the result? The exportation of 6,000,000 of sovereigns in a
single year to buy grain; an unexampled pressure on the money market;
commercial embarrassments, long-continued, and severe beyond all former
precedent; the contraction of ten millions of additional debt in four
years, and the creation of a deficit which at length rose to the
formidable amount, in 1842, of L.4,000,000 sterling! And what first
dispelled this distress, and arrested this downward and disastrous
progress? The fine harvests of 1842--the blessed sun of its long summer,
followed by the more checkered, but also fine summer of 1843, which again
gave us plenty, derived from domestic production, and consequent general
and increasing manufacturing as well as rural prosperity.
It is in vain, therefore, to say, cheap prices are a blessing in
themselves, and the consumers at least are ever benefited by a fall in the
cost of grain. Cheap prices are a real blessing if that effect consists
with prosperity to the producer, as by improved methods of cultivation or
manufacture, or the benignity of nature in giving fine seasons. But cheap
prices are the greatest of all evils, and to none more shall the consumers,
if they are the result, not of the magnitude of domestic production, but
of the magnitude of foreign importation. It was that sort of cheap prices
which ruined the Roman empire, from the destruction of the agriculture of
Italy; it is that sort of cheap prices which has ruined the Indian weavers,
from the disastrous competition of the British steam-engine; it is that
sort of low prices which has so grievously depressed British shipping,
from the disastrous competition of the Baltic vessels under the
reciprocity system. It is in vain for the consumers to say, we will
separate our case from that of the producers, and care not, so as we get
low prices, what comes of them. Where will the consumers be, and that
erelong, if the producers are destroyed? What will be the condition of the
landlords if their farmers are ruined? or of bondholders if their debtors
are bankrupt? or of railway proprietors if traffic ceases? or of owners of
bank stock if bills are no longer presented for discount? or of the 3 per
cents if Government, by the failure of the productive industry of the
country, is rendered bankrupt? The consumers all rest on the producers,
and must sink or swim with them.
* * * * *
_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
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