Star. — London, England, 1816-04-10 00:00:00

al J. IV. in in he ad . • . ot ib Woos . that every attention should be given to t h is subject than he was, and he trusted the Hon. Gol d ma n would, give his Majesty's Ministers credit welter being absent when it was before the House. That other Mensbers were not equally attentive, Might be attributed to the fatigue which all had un dergone its the course of the Session. He was sorry, dist the Honourable Gentleman had assigned this as a reason for withdrawing the question from the at tention of the House that evening, because it might produce a feeling in the public mind, that the House ins less anxious to make every effort to relieve the distresses which were known to exist, than before, a s ter as hi's opinion went, he thought that it would be vibe to keep the Committee alive till after the bolidsys. Mr. J. P. GRANT was also in favour of the post ponement of the Committee, as.was Mr. BRAND. Sir JOHN NEWPORT said, that even if the ge. rere l question was postponed, it was expedient for t he House to appoint Committees betdre the recess,' 'toexamiee into that part of the Resolutions relative to wool and seeds. • Lord CASTLEREAGH agreed in the propriety of this suggestion, and said, if the Right Hon. Gen. * me n would move the Committees * he would oder D e objection to them. Mr. S. THORNTON thought the cause of the Agriculturist would he best promoted by postponing the consideration if the Resolutions till alter the hull edys, as did Mr. LONG W. Poec. Mr. GORDON objected to any adjournment of t he question, and said that many Gentlemen had come down to the [ - louse prepared to delivnr their opinions ueon it. He took this opportunity of ask lag the Chancellor of the Exchequer a question or two, upon a subject materially connected with the agricultural interests of the country. The first wa‘ whether it was the intention of his Majesty's Govern. swat to allow additional time to the agriculturist for 'fit payment of the Income Tax, due in July next ? He also begged to call to the recollection of the Right Honourable Gentleman a Minute of the Trea sury, which had been issued for the purpose of guid ing the conduct of the Commissioners of the Property Ts& in cases where an actual reduction of rent had taken place for a whole twelvemonth, as to the allow. antes to be made to the landlord and tenant. He wished to know whether a proportionate allowance would not be made for reductioes which had only ex tended to half a year, and to those landlords who had sot yet received their rents, and therefore had nut de termined what reduction they would make ? The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER aid, that the general answer to these subjects would ie laid before the House in the shape of a Bill which en in preparation. The Honourable Gentleman lad alluded to the order of relaxation in the collec tion of the Prope:ty Tax. He could only reply to this by stating, that this order required he sanction of Parliament before it could be carried into effect ; and in , calling . tor that sanction, lie s hould p ro p ose additions indulgences in the mode of collec tion, which he liepcd w wild prove satisfactory to all Parties—(Hear, hear, hear I) With respect to the other part of tie Hon. Gentleman's question, namely, re specting the allowance to be made to land Ards who Lad not yet made up their minds as to the reductions -which they should make in their rents, he felt great ditlizulty in holding out any hope of a remission of the tax to this respect. After some retailer conrersation, in which Mr. BROUGHAM, Sir JOHN NEWPORT, Mr. BRAND, Lord CASTLEHLAOH, Mr CORWZN, Mr. H. SUMNER, Mr. %smite, and Sir EGERTON BRYDGES took part, Mr. WESTERN telt that the sense of the House was in favour of going into the Committee, and he accordingly moved that the Speaker should leave the Chair. The motion was agreed to, and the House went into the Committee. The Resolution having been read, Aro forma. Mr. 13R0fIGHA NI said, that it must be admitted en all hands that the agricultural interests of this, country ha,i reached a pitch of depression which had wither been experienced or imagined at any former period. It was unnecessary, therefore, to offer one observation in support of this proposition it was more important to inquire from whence this depression had ahem In entering upon this inquiry, the first ques tion that naturally suggested itself was, how comes it tipass, That, under all our distresses, the prices of Want ;vett much greater now than they had been . 01792, which was a period of peace ? For in 1792. to price of Wheat was only 4.74. per (porter, whereas .term the latest returns the price of that article ap. pared to be 575. per quarter, and other grain pro. Portionably great. This, he thought, was owing to the great mercantile monopoly which had taken place after the commencement of the war, which included the manufactures, and, in course of time produced a traction upon the farmer, The war at first restrained the intercourse with the Continent of Europe ; but Nit which created the great spring to cultivation in Ns country, were the scarcities of 1795 and 1796, aid the still greater scarcities of 1799 and 1600. . 12be prices of all agricultural produce were, at this tine, raked to an amount wholly unprecedented, and Produced an effect upon the growth of corn in this tOtntry similar to that produced in the growth of agar in the West Indies, on the destruction of the French Colonies, on which occasion so much land. eras brought into cultivation as to sink the price of 4ngar so much below the old standard, as it was on Sae first destruction of those Colonies above it. The GM cause of agricultural speculation was the restric tions on the cash payments of the Bank of England, alid the consequent increase of country banks, whereby lee facilities were afforded to the farmer to raise t° ca for bringing into cul t i vat i on o ld an d new land. o this were added the prodigious prosperity of our weit.ladia Colonies, in proportion to which the agri !alters' pursuits in particular districts of this country we tettanifestly exte n d e d.. A not h er i tem i n this ac `,?ast, and the l ast w i t h w hi c h h e s h o uld trou bl e the retrace, was the w ar . I n ment i on ing this, he 'rsot the smalle st w i s h to exc i te any f act ious or L° 4 out feeling. This was a great philosophical ?Pion, the ju st so l ut i on of wh i ch a ll part i es must ....fxious to arrive at; end, as the war had a very 7a* effect o n t h e agr i culture of the countr y, l ie rily alluded to it. If it had no other, or no pr 7. effect than th at , h e would not quarre l with the no more than he would find fault with the Bank - ritern, if it had kok merely increased the of the country , paper circula and by that weans occationo - much greater degree of cultivation than wet ever be; fore known. But the war occasioned the feeding of a great number of additional mouths-..and it could not be denied, that the money laid nut by Govern. ment in providing for them, would be expended more extravagantly, than if the same number of millions,' were dieaursed by private individuals, under all the guards and checks which private life afforded. These purchases, on the part of Government, went, there fore, to raise the price of all commodities, and gave a very considerable degree of encouragement to our farming transactions. It was impossible to say what the exact effect was. But, perhaps, the most cor rect criterion by which a judgment could be formed, was, the number of enclosures that had been made, since the commencement of the war, in 1792. From that time to 1812, a period of twenty years, one thou. sand two hundred commons had been enclosed. — Even this criterion was nut perfectly accurate; be cause the Enclosure Bills gave no account of the ex tent of the land enclosed—and it must be obvious to every Gentleman, that Enclosure Bills did not al ways refer to ground brought into cultivation, for the first. time, but that it frequently settled the right to land which had for years been productive.— He believed, that the quantity of land brought into cultivation during the period lie had mentioned, was about two million of acres. Allowing this, they would ' still be at a loss to know, what addition was made to the produce of the land, previously in cultivation, in consequence of the improved method of farming, and the additional capital expended on it. There was not, he was convinced, a farm in this country that did not produce, he would not say two blades of grass, where one grew before, but in which there was not an in crease of a fourth or filth, in the article of grain. If, however. they took it for granted, that two millioo, of acres had been brought into service since 1792, it would, without speaking of the increased produce of lands that had been tilled long before, give a total of six' Million of quarters (reckoning three quarters of wheat to an acre) io addition to what was grown before. The population, it must be observed. had multiplied at the same time. From 1792 to 1800 a very great increase had taken place ; and, from 1800 to 1811, the period of the last return, two millions of persons had been added to the population of England and Scotland. Now, taking the Average c insump tion of grain to be one guarkr for each :ndivitlual, an• 'wally, this would give a total of two millions of , quarters annually, mad; use of by the increased po pulation. Bur, on the other hand, looking to the number of acres brought into cultivation, it would be found that the excess of supply amounted to four millions of quarters; since the newly-cultivated lands produced six millions of quarters of grain, while the increased population consumed only two millions. He did not place great stress on this statement, be cause it was founded on vague calculations; but, if I it were allowed any weight, it would tend to throw ' some light on the causes which produced the present depression. It thus appeared, that, during the last twenty years, an increase of produce had taken p' Ice beyond the demand. This increase might, in some degree be attributed to an over-tradine. He was not one of those 'who attributed to that circumstance the present situation of the farming interest ; but he certainly was of opinion, that it had caused a de pression of the means and resources of those who had so user-traded, and must. therefore, be taken into the general account. Contemporaneous with the maximum of cultivation to which he had referred, two extraordinary crops, those of 1813 and 1,t214, occurred. All these circumstances, happening at the same time, occasioned a depression of price —as, in 1797, other occurrences had created a progressive rise. His Honourable Friend (M r . W estern ) i n t h e , luminous statement which he had made to the House, had, in his opinion, under-rated the change from a state of war to a state of peace, in assigning reasons' for the depression that bad taken place. He referred to the peace of 1763 and 1783, at both which pe riods a rise of price had been experienced, and he inferred front these instances, that the peace recently ' concluded had little or no effect in producing the de- pression. He (Mr. Brougham) dissen:ed from this. He considered the peace as one great cause of the de pression, and he looked to it with comfort, because it was a cause that would have but a temporary operation. His Honourable Friend referred to the grain market in January, 1813, as compared with that of Novem ber, 1313, both periods of war—and he argued, be. cause grain had Linen from 120 s. the quarter, which was the price in January, to 755. which it brought in November, no change from war to peace having taken place, that it would ultimately have been re- , duced to 575. the sum it was at present worth, even if the war had continued. Now, it should be recol lected, that in January, 1813, there was not the smallest prospect of puce ; but in the November fol lowing, events had occurred, which promised a very speedy termination of hostilities. The results of that most aurpirieve calamity for all Europe, for all man kind, which happened to the French army in Russia, began to shew themselves. The French Ruler had not only been driven from Russia, but afterwards, in consequence of the battle of Leipsic, he had been obliged to abandon Germany. Peace was then no longer a matter of speculation. It was then se cer tain, that contractors would deal on the probability of its speedy accomplishment. Under these circum stances, when Government came into the market, backed by the extraordinary harvest with which the country bad been blessed, and feeling sensible that peace was ma the point of being concluded, they would naturally offer very low prices, .Surely there. fore, it was evident than the reduction which took place in the month of November, 1813, Was in a great measure to be ascribed to the approaching change from a state of war to a state of peace.-- Another great cause of the present agricultural dis tress was to be found in the rage for commercial speculation, whit* was so general in the years 1813 and 1314, when the ports of Europe were suddenly thrown open to us. It was a fact, so certain were individuals of a rich and speedy return for what they had laid out, that labourers, and eves menial servants in the country, who, when high wages Are paid, had laid by smelL sums of money, brought out those little hoards, and embarked them, in what they called ventures, in the Dutch, German, or Baltic trades.— Persons traversed the country who collected those small sums, seldom more than forty or fifty pounds. and when they had got a sum sufficiently large. it was vested An goods. which were sent abroad. Mil- liens Rpm . millions were Kat out of the country on gi • % that occasion —but s instead of milllons com7ng hack, he did not think the produce amounted to hundreds of thousands. Since the period of the Sold' Sea bobble, so much distress had not been felt is the ma nufacturing districts, as on that occasion. It was' said that things would find their level—a fashionable' phrase, which, it seemed, contained inn)s philosophic nostrum to remedy all errors of our complicated sys tem of commercial economy. The consequence of the loss resulting from the speculations %%15, that the market for agricultural produce was diminished. This could alone be attributed to peace—since, if it had not been concluded, the system of rash specula tion could not have been adopted. In the last year,, goods to the amount of eighteen millions were sent to .Adnerica. Now, although the property was not paid for, he was glad that it was sent there, since it would be the means of nipping in the bud the efforts of the Americans to produce several spe cies of manufactures, in the formation of which they might prove very powerful rivals to us. Of these 418,000,000, he believed, that returns to the amount, of eight or nine mill'oes had only been made. The. payments of the manufacturers, in this country, must, of course, be sleet —and consequently they were debarred, to a certain extent, from going into the Agricultural market. The next circumstance which he would state to the Committee, almost fur nished in itstlf, he conceived, a solutiop of the dis tress under which Agriculture now laboured. ing to the change in the system of the Bank of Erg. land, there bad been a diminuticn of the Bark paper is circulation, followed by a still greeter diminution of the circulation of Country Beek Notes. From 1797, downwards, the accommodation granted to the Farmer by the Country Banks, had tended greatly to s increase Agricultural speculation. la the course of a very few months, this system had been entirely altered-the accommodation to the Farmer was with. drawn—and he was called upon, not merely to pay the interest of the loans he had received, but to restore the principal, for the discharge of which he had looked to the continuance of the high price of grain. The persons who were chiefly affected by this revolution, were those who had speculated without any capital of their own. To them, the depression of prices, and the demand to make restitution for the accommodation they had received, were productive of certain ruin.— Persons would say, e How are you, farmers, worse now, when grain is at 575. the quitter, than you were in 1792, when it was only 475. r' This did not apply at all to Nowa; who hid depended on accom modation. They could not he bettelit,d by the low price of provisions. It seas all 1 ss and no gain to them. They might e:oily Ny for that accommoda tion, when grain w.:3 .1 quarter ; but how were they to do it now, when it had fdlen to 57i. ?—They might, even under those adv.:v:4 cirritinstaact., pay I the interest of their loans, but it was impossible they could liquidate the ptincipal. s'iontd now advert to a circumstance of so much importance, that he knew not whether to place it move, or on the same level with the orerdrading. He meant the goat change that had taken place in the last twenty or twenty-five years, in the finances of the country. The Taxes had been swelled from re 15,000,0e1y their amount in 1799, to A75,W0,000; and, during the last year, the expenditure, intJndin loan., amounted to *120,000,000, of which the taxes produced nearly £C80,000,000. Such an elt..ht of taxation must evidently bear laid on the agrizi.l,. tural interest, and it did, notwithstanding the ;chef recently aflorded, continue to press heavily un them.— To place this in a proper point of view, the Learned Gentleman submitted to thb Committee a calculation, from which it appeared that, on a farm of 4.4)0 acres, the charge of servants, taxes, and on other items, not regulated by the price of grain and provisions, amounted to 4282. He also pointed out the heavy expense which the excise on leather, soap, candles, and salt, visited on the farmer—as well as the addi tional erpendttore to which he was subject in conse quence of the increase of duties on beer and milt. So long as the farmer continued to be liable to thole high tens, a return to the prices of 1792 could not relieve him. While his prices were kept up, the farmer had no right to complain of taxation—but, when his prices were lowered on the one hand, and the taxes kept up on the ether, he might well say, that he was unable to beer his burdens, since his staff had been taken from him. The Learned Geetlernan then adverted to the weight with which the I'oor's Rates fell on the agricultural interest, particularly in the neighbourhood of large manufactories. The manufacturer, he observed, occasioned an increase of the poor, which the farmer was obliged to support. Having gone over the different causes that appeared' to him to operate in depressing the agricultural inte rest, he should now state the rernedies for - the evil which suggested themselves to him. Here the Learned Gent. observed, that to one class of persons, namely, those who had speculated on the accommodation of country bankers, he believed, no relief could be afford- i ed. But the greatbodyot the agricultural interest were in a more healthy state, and for them measures of relief might, he conceived, be devised. Alluding to the Corn Bill of the last Session, he considered it as a wise measure, even if merely temporary ; but Le felt much diffidence in expressing an opinion on that subject, on which the most eminent persons of the country were divided. His Honourable Friend (N:. Western) had stated, that much of the agri cultural distress had arisen from ovesetradingands excess of taxation. He was of the same opinion ; but he was surprised at the glaring inconsistency of . his Hoeourable Friend's proposition, of compelling exportation by means of a bounty, which was in fact a bonus to over-trang, and supplying that i bonus by still taxing the people.—(Near, hear.) — He was generally hostile to the system of warehous ing, whether of foreign or native Corn j indeed, why native corn should be watehoused, he could not con ceive, to the termer had a barn of his own, and had no more reason to apprehend rats there, than in the Government stores— (ffear, hear, and a laugh).— With respect to the Poor hates, be was extreine:y desirous that some means of equalizing them, accord. ing to the rate of every species of property, might be adopted. Connected with the poor, there was ano. ther calamity, which was, that the poor laws were the cause of the poor— ( Hear, gar)--as the poor rates were of the deterioration of our peasantry. There was a time, when every peasant in the kingdom would have felt his character affected, if he were thought obliged to go on the parish ; but now the poor rates entered into his calculation of support, particularly , • . • • • . , . . • 'at the time of hie marriage. He observed, that-Mr. Malthus attributed the excess of poor in England to an excess of populatiOn, and conceived the peer kiwi very inducive to early and improvident marriageso e •. He thought the tree exportation of wool would be of the greatest possible aJeaNtage to the people s and the House should consider'Ait this was one of the staple export commodities of the kingdom.— rite great consideration then was, whether :tny relief could be afferded to the excesses of iaxati3r, and the diminished demand for manufactures ? He could nut but think that the Sinking Fund afforded one ereat means of relief. The Sinking Fund for the present year amounted to 13 millions. of which six only were sufficient to keep up the price of the funds. There were consequently seven millions wh:ch it was quite unnecessary to divert from the efficient relief of the public. By removing the Malt TUC, Leather Tax, and the Assess - ed Taxes,-he hoped that our ran. nuf , cturers would, by the exertions of his Majesty's Ministers, obtain a new market, by an inlet into South AnltiliCl. This he threw out, not in the sprit of parte, but as a means of great and efficient relief. He was too far exh , testesi to proceed further ;—lie should, therefore, not ec:epy the time of the. Com mittee any longer.— (Pt honourable Geneenzais . limn rat dm' eon;d 14ud tittering.) Lord CASTLE R. - EAGFI complimented the Tie, nourable bomber on the great ability and conciliatory temper with which he had discussed the question. He felt it impossible to follow him through his lon,l speech, but he thought it necessary to reit r p trt:cu lady to the great advantages which the country de. rived from the restrictien imposed on the cash pay ments of the Bank of England. That measure sup plied commerce with a circulation it could not other. wise have enjoyed, and was also a great monument of our national strength, which alone could have sup ported it. He was extremely happy to hear the Ho nourable and Learned Gentleman acknowledge, that the present distresses were merely temporary, in which he was convinced the House would concur, when they had considered the cause of them. The principal operative cause was the depreciated velee of the staple of life, which he attributed to the g: harvest of 1813, and the large quantities of corn im ported since that period from foreign countries. Corn was now fallen to .sqi. but he could not i m agine on what principle it was :apposed that it would continue at that price. During the disci sia ins last Sessam nn the Corn Bill, it had been stated bat the a gticultureofthis coun try hod been so tar improved as to prod.:ce not only our own contumption, but also a redundance that might be exported ; while, on the other hand, :yore. hensions were expressed cf a famine, if the foreign supply was excluded. The truth, he believed, would he teurol between those extremes; and he doubted not, :hat as the l rte tanustot;ly high prices had caused ail ueusually Brea: prod'ic., so the diminution of pi ice would di :courage ;tee - ice:here ; and as land must be thrown out of erophymect, tile dirdnution of sup. ply must ineiciise the price. Throughout- the coon. try there a oo. : _o o i t i oo in t!1•_ markets to rite j and it, as had been state:, corn in Scotland had risen to 72e. he saw nothing to iacuce the House. to suppose the present low price would continue; and it c ern would rite to 80s. or Oos. would any one cronpleia of the national distress e Ha flue:Ted ' , that the price was influenced consisferably by the wi:ledrawing of moon et the circulating medium from the country. and by a con;tquent diminution of credit between man and man in their commercid This diminution of the circulation was caused by the unwillingness of the Country Banks to continue their accommodations, • while they apprehended that the restrictions on cash payments would immediately ter minate. He did not, however, think that the coentry was fundamentally drained, and was confident that the adoption of measures calculated to establish gene. ral good credit would relieve it from its present chs. tresses. He lamented that the Property Tax had not met with the approbation of Parliament, as it would:rave precluded the necessity of touching the money market. To trespass on the Sinking Fond he was also uio flint ► ; for to that alone could the country look for ultimate relief from the heavy bur. den of the debt. stated (in answer to an observe. tiun of Mr. Brougham) that the trade of this country to South America was vet y grea, and that no exer. tious would be wanting, on the part of his Majesty's Government, to afford it every possible adattional advantage. Sir JOHN NEWPORT said, that the war in the Peninsula created a demand for agricultural produce, to a considerable extent, in Ireland. The termina. tion of that war had, con;equently, a great aim! in reducing the demand. Another source of the pre sent dßtresses etas to be (mind in the delay of the Corn Bill, which induced persons to pour as much grain as possible into the market here, for the purpose of avoiding the protecting duties. At the time that this importation took place, the mai Let was already loaded with foreign corn, sufficient to supply all Eng land for a year. It also operated to the discourage meat of tillage, and in that way retarded the operation of a measure decidedly beneficial. He differed from his Honourable Friend ( Mr. Western) as to the erre.cts of the warehousing system, velich he thought it would not be right to depart from. He doubted the probability that corn would ever he stored to such an extent as to render that apprehension alone a reason for abandonidg the principle altogether. He agreed with his Honourable Friend in thinkipg that many of the evils were temporary, in case they were provided for by proper regulations. but if left to themselves they would become perm meat. Mr. %V. SMITH protested against the declaration I made by the Noble Lord (Castlereagh) that the re moval of the Income Tax created a necessity fcr raising a loan. Mr. WESTERN'defended his arguments against the warehousingsystem, which, he - maintained, was prejudicial to agriculture, by diverting British capi tal from the purc:lase of British' corn to the purchase of foreigncorn. Mr. PRESTON said, he should propose some re , lief in a future stage, applic4ble to tenants for li►e, and public chanties who held leases, founded on the high price of corn. On the motion of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, the Chairman reported progress, and obtained leAse to sit again on MuncLay the 29th iastant. Sir J. NEWPORT moved that a Speci il Com. mittee should be appointed to examine the policy cf MpOSiag ala iucrcaacd duty on the importation 01 .