The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

OCTOBER 25, 1856. MR. DISRAELI ON AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. THE first anniversary of the Amersham Agricultural Association was held on Tuesday, at Cheshs In, Buckinghamshire. At the dinner about 200 gentle men sat down, under the presidency of the Hon. C. C. Cavendishh, M.P. Among those present were the Right Hon. B. Disraeli, M.P., Viscount Curzon, Mr. William Loundes, Mr. T. T. Drake, Mr. John Hale, Mr. Sheriff Meohi, and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crosley. "The health of the County Members" having been proposed by Mr. WILLIAM LOUNDES, Mr. DISILtELI, on rising, was received with loud and prolonged cheering. He said Gentlemen, I assure you it is with great and unaffected reluctance that I trespass on your attention on this occa sion. I should have been most happy if the acknowledg ment of the toast which yon have been pleased to drink had been left in the hands of one of your members who, in this place, is so deeply and so deservedly respected. I mean Mr. Cavendish; but, after the kind manner in which you have received my name, I might perhaps be thought wanting in courtesy and a grateful respect to you if I were altogether silent. I must say, though I generally agree on all these occasions with Mr. Cavendish, I cannot approve of his sentiment, that it is not well to drink at meetings of this kind the health of your county members. I should be unhappy and ashamed if the members for a great and undivided county were to be considered in any place as mere political partisans ; but at meetings such as this they come without reference to political sympathies or passions, but are bound together by the common inte rest, the common pursuits, and the common county. It was far from my intention to have introduced a single word on the subject of politics, but I may say that though we sit on different sides of the House of Commons, yet, when the interests of the county of Buckingham are at stake, there is then no difference of opinion between Mr. Cavendish and myself, and on all such occasions I have received his support, and been benefited by his advice and counsel. Gentlemen, having said this much, I would now sit down, if I had not been asked a question downstairs by one of the most influential members of this association, which, in the hurry of the moment., I said I would answer after dinner. I was asked my opinion on agricultural statistics. Now, gentlemen, Ido not wish to avoid giving an answer to that question ; for if this association is formed for the advantage of agriculture, the question is a right quest on to be asked here, and it is one to which I would not avoid giving an answer. I hope it will never be said of me or any other member that I am, or that lie is, an enemy to information. I believe information, and accu rate information, to be the only sound basis of legislation. I am sure that no one is opposed to such information ; but, on the subject of agricultural statistics, there is a difference of opinion. It is a question, gentlemen, on which Ministers have been defeated—on which Parliament has been appealed to without being able to solve the diffi culty... I - believe that the Minister of no country in the world has • better means of ascertaining the produce of the country than the Minister of England. Remember, there is no parish in England in which the acreage is not known, and even the cultivation. That information exists in the Commutation of Tithe Acts, the awards ander Inclowire Acts, and the maps of parochial assessments. I give no opinion that it is not ne3essary to obtain wider informa tion ; but when it is maintained in this country that we are absolutely in the dark, it will not be considered by you either irrelevant or impertinent, if I, as your member, re mind you of the existence of these remarkable means for the purpose of obtaining information on the agricultural produce of the country. It may be said that there should be more accurate means. Suppose you had inspectors, and they furnished an estimate, is there a man here who does not feel that nothing could be more deceptive than a retnrn, for in stance, founded on the calculations of the last harvest? The only deduction I draw is, that we can only obtain general results to guide legislation, and that there exists in this country the means of obtaining such results which are not open to the Minister of any other country in the world. Ido not say this to encourage a blind and bigoted opposition to any measures which may be passed on this subject. I only say that we are living in an age of statis tical imposture, and that many returns in reference to agri culture are made by men who are not acquainted with rural life. We have a great basis, and on that we may build ; but let us not encourage the cry—which is the cry of ignorance —that in this country the Minister has no means by which he can obtain a general estimate of the agriculture of England. That, gentlemen, is not the case. We have the menus, and we can improve them. I trust we will; but we cannot improve them without that support which cannot, and which should not, be obtained unless the body from whom we ask it is treated with that deference and that courtesy which are necessary, and which they deserve. Gentlemen, I will not longer trespass on your time. I thank you it my, own name. and on behalf of my faithful colleague, Mr. Du Pre, to whom, when me meet, I will communicate the great distinction you have conferred upon him. I can only assure you that to be spoken of well and kindly by our constituents is the greatest re ward which we can receive, and is an inspiration of our public life which never fails in its effects. _ _ The right hon. gentlemal resumed his seat amid loud and prolonged cheering. At a later period in the evening, Mr. Disitssu, in proposing " Success to the Asso ciation," said : THE PRESS. Gentlemen, I recollect—though I hope there are very few here present who do, for it is nearly a quarter of a century ago—in your own county the institution of the first agricultural society of the country, and at which I assisted. I well recollect the tone of ridicule and deprecia tion with which it was attacked at that time, and not only with which it was attacked, but that the same ridicule was directed against all men who collected toge ther for any object. Even our great scientific institutions, which command the respect of Europe, have been sub mitted to a tone of ridicule and depreciation. It was said that Sir Isaac Newton had not discovered the law of gra vitation at a scientific meeting, and it might have been said that at no agricultural meeting was the plough in vented ; but the instinct of human nature was superior to all such criticisms, and these societies continued to be formed for the benefit of agriculture. . . . It is with satisfaction - I observe that there is in this county now, not alone one agricultural society, but that their name is legion, and they exist in all parts of Buckinghamshire. Men must feel the advantage of those meetings whereby they are brought together in com munion in one town and in one district. Here we find the life and spirit of the county united, and in that union is strength. I know there is some jealousy with respect to these societies. Far be it from me to feel it ; on the contrary, I only regret that I have not the physical means of meeting all my constituents at all these societies and in all these neighbourhoods. I place not only the de• fence, but the vindication of all these societies on the broad truth, that it is beneficial to men to meet together— and where there are, as in large towns, the means of con gregation, you must have recourse to societies such as these, and on no occasion do we fail to recognise their beneficial effects. The operations of this and other societies may not be extensive, but the object at which they aim is the benefi cial condition of man. You cannot throw your eye over the awards of this day without feeling that they tend to elevate man. It is idle, gentlemen, to suppose that the ceremonies of to-day will vanish as the sun. No ; the sturdy ploughman of to morrow, or the boy who " whistles at the plough," if he should meet the successful farmer who has cultivated the best five acres of swedes, will feel a spirit of fraternity which all the laws invented by sena tors can never achieve. I would uphold these societies on the ground that man is never so weak as when he is isolated. It is on this that I rest the vindication of these societies; and if there be one man on whom the truth should be impressed more than another, it is on the tiller of the soil. He fulfils the noblest of duties, but he fulfils it alone. And, gentlemen, we must always remember that emulation is the parent of enlightenment. It is emulation which leads to improvement. What has kept you alive in the old days of your depression ? Why, it is the market day which has kept the farmers alive. They are driven into the town--they meet their fellow-men—they exchange ideas. They hear that such a man has made some im provement whereby he has attained some advantage, and they are induced to enter on an hononrable rivalry. But what is the tendency of these associations? To multiply market•days—to take the agriculturist more out of his solitude—to mingle more with his fellow-men, and to teach him that it is only by union he can obtain that fair play to which he is entitled. There is not a class of agriculturists whose position is not advantaged by these institutions. From the inhabi tant of the cottage, who possibly at this very moment is communicating t 3 his little circle the feats of the day, down to the proud occupier of the soil, meditating the re sults of future enterprise, an impulse is given to all classes. Ido not assume that this association pretends to a higher basis—is is high enough, for by it the tone of your mind is heightened, the scope of your enterprise is increased, and your sense of importance in society ma tured and confirmed. Gentlemen, with these feelings very hastily and imperfectly expressed—for I could hardly have supposed that such a toast would have fallen to my lot—l will now proceed to give the toast which has been in trusted to me; but, frightened by the number of names which I see in the toast as printed, some defined and some indefinite, I will combine them all in a shorter phrase, anti give you " Prosperity to the agricultural association of your happy valley." MR. C. W. FACILE, M.P., at the Loughborough Agricultural Association dinner last week, in pro posing the toast of the evening, referred to the subject of agricultural statistics:— This question was not an owner's question, it was en tirely an occupier's question; and, as he said before, he said still, that if be could hear any fair argument which would convince him that the measure which the Govern ment were anxious the farmers should accept was for the benefit of the occupiers, he should have been as strong a supporter of it as he was now an opponent. The question hai occupied the attention of nearly all the agricultural meetings since the prorogation of Parliament, and it was a question of such serious importance to themselves, and at the same time so fraught with difficulties, that he must be excused for going into it a little fully. They had hal some few, but he did not think many, gentlemen attend. ing agricultural meetings, who had advocated the collec tion of agricultural statistics. One of these was Mr. Wren Hoskyns, who, at a meeting last year, stated that in September and October, 1846, wheat was selling at 48s. per quarter, while in May and Jane of the following year the produce of the same harvest was selling at 1255. It was therefore clear that the needy seller who went into the market in September had to sustain additional pressure, with the further disadvantage of getting only 48s. for wheat which was afterwards proved to be worth treble that sum. Mr. Hoskyns went on to say that they knew every pound of sugar and every bale of goods that came into the coun try and went out of it. No doubt they did, but did those gentlemen who kept ships furnish thou with returns of 1015 what they sold, and what they had in their shops—give them, in fact, those statistics of what was in their houses which the agriculturists were required to furnish of what was on their farms? Another gentleman had said Govern. ment would compel them to supply statistics in order to ascertain how much corn was grown, so as to be indepen dent of foreign supply, and had remarked he believed the land would then produce ten times as much as it did. That might be, but the breadth of corn sown in this country depended in a great measure upon the prices of the pre. vious year. If corn sold this year at rcinous prices farmers would not sow next year the same breadth as if prices had been good. They had nothing to do, therefore, with the question whether the land would produce more or not, for if they could not get good prices for corn they would turn their land to something else. Another hon. friend of his, Mr. Tollemache, had said they did not know the quantity of wheat produced in this country. and people ought to know whether they had the quantity they re quired for their support. Yes, they ought to know, but let them know the quantity they were likely to be inundated with from abroad—that was what they wanted to know. They wanted to know what competition they should have from other countries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, referring to this subject, told his Welsh audience, in Rad norshire—speaking in the true financial spirit of a Chan cellor of the Exchequer—that the information would not be worth the cost of obtaining it. But, more than this, an influential supporter of her Majesty's Government, at the meeting which Lord Palmerston called of his sup porters before the debate on the fall of Kars, when Lord Palmerston said he could not be expected to carry on the Government unless he was supported by his party, replied, " If you bring forward such bills as the Agricultural Sta tistics Bill you can't expect to be supported." He knew this to be true, because he had it from the gentleman him self. And Lord Palmerston, when he found he was re ceiving blows from his own party as well as from the Opposition, abandoned the bill. They had been told that the Scotch had no objection to furnish agricultural statis tics. Mr. Hall Maxwell, the secretary to the Highland Society, had been examined before the committee of the House of Lords, and asked the question,—" Would it be desirable to make the returns compulsory?" to which he replied, " It would be very undesirable; it would put up the back of the Scotch farmers at once." And now it was attempted to introduce a bill to compel them (the English farmers) to do that which, according to Mr. Maxwell's evidence, the Scotch farmers would not do. After expressing his regret that the question of agri cultural statistics was not allowed to be introduced at the meetings of the Royal Agricultural Society, he observed that a good deal had been said about what had been done abroad on this question, but Mr. Leone Levi had stated before the committee that he knew no country in Europe where statistics were collected for the purpose now proposed. He appre hended, however, that the bill would not be again introduced ; Government was heartily sick of it, and no future attempt would be made. In conclusion, he observed that the Western States of America could part with more corn than we could take from them, and it was of no use inquiring what we grew ourselves when we had a country which could pour in 18,000,000 of quarters, or, in fact, any quantity we might want. Wheat, he went on to observe, was now at a remunerative price, and barley was at a very high price, but no man living could tell whether it would be best to sell now or six months hence, even if they had agricultural statistics, because these would not furnish him with the quantity wanted for other countries, or inform him whist those countries could supply to us. Until it could be shown that agricultural statistics would be a benefit, not to the community at large, but to the farmers of England, he should be slow to believe that it was to their in terest that their concerns should be exposed to the public in the way proposed. SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL LEWIS, M.P., attended the annual meeting of the Herefordshire Agricul tural Society, held at Hereford last Saturday. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to his health, said the agriculture of this country did not depend for its prosperity upon any temporary influence of war, bat that it would continue to thrive during the peace which now happily existed, as it had thriven during the peace which preceded the last war:— Agriculture rested on foundations broader and deeper than these—it rested on the skill, on the industry, and on the enterprise of the agriculturists of this country. When he saw before him so distinguished a party of persons mainly belonging to that class; when he thought of the splendid exhibition of stock which be had that day wit nessed; and when he thought of the general prosperity which, so far as he understood, distinguished the proceed- ings of that day, he could not but think, when he looked around him and saw what was the state of the country, and heard no despondency of any class of the agricultural community—for he did not hear either of landlords being compelled to lower their rents for a time, or of tenants driven from their holdings by their incapacity to obtain remunerating prices fur their produce—when he saw around him those circumstances, be could not but regard them as certain indications of agricultural prosperity. Mr. B. BLAKEMORE, M.P., in acknowledging the toast of "The County Members," made a few remarks in favour of agricultural statistics : The question had elicited great difference of opinirm Some considered with him that great advantages would accrue to all interests by a system of carefullreollected statistics, while others were of opinion that these statistics