The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-11 00:00:00

OUR CORN SUPPLIES.

IT is of permanent importance in connection
with our present commercial policy to ascertain
whether or not the unrestricted importation
of foreign corn has had the effect of diminish-
ing home production. Such is the defective
state of our agricultural statistics that it has
been truly remarked that we can estimate with
greater accuracy in any year the amount of
the indigo crop in Bengal, or of the cotton crop
in Carolina, than the quantity of grain grown
in the United Kingdom. Yet we do possess a
certain description of evidence upon the
subject, which, taken in the aggregate,
affords grounds for concluding that, however
strenuously some of our contemporaries assert
the contrary, the total abolition of the corn
laws has been followed by a material diminu-
tion of home production.

That this has been the result in Ireland is
well ascertained. According to the Govern-
ment tables, which are prepared with the ut-
most care, wheat cultivation in that country
fell off in the short space of three years after
the repeal of the corn laws to the extent of
fully one half. The imports of Irish wheat
and wheat flour into Great Britain diminished
in still greater proportions, as the following
figures show :
Wheat and Wheat Flour Imported from Ireland into
Great Britain.

In 1849. 18.50. 18.51.
Wheat 101,864 qrs. 68,133 qrs. 41,761 qrs.
Wheat flour 460,534 cwts. 352,077 ewts. 172,247 cwts.

There is good reason to believe that the
production of wheat has also declined in Eng-
land, though not to the same serious extent as
in the sister kingdom. The evidence which
we possess upon this point is not, indeed, posi
tive and direct. We have no reliable means
of ascertaining the quantity of wheat grown in
England and Wales, but we can learn from
each week's Gazette the precise quantity sold
in the market towns. By some of our eon
temporaries these weekly returns have been
discarded as utterly unworthy of attention—
in other words, we have been assured that the
quantity of an article sold bears no proportion
whatever to the quantity produced. The re-
turns in question may not, indeed, supply us
with anything like an exact account of all the
grain grown, but they supply us with a valu-
able test by means of which the comparative
amount of our home production in any par-
ticular year may be fairly estimated. If any
sceptical disciple of Mr. CHARLES VILLIERS
doubts the truth of this proposition, we must
ask him to examine these returns during a
series of years. We can confidently assure
him that they represent with remarkable
accuracy the comparative abundance or scarcity
of each particular season. When the harvest
has been plentiful he will find invariably that
the subsequent sales have been proportion-
ately large; when it has been small he will
find invariably the reverse.
Comparing the returns during the last three
years of protection with those of the last three
years of free trade, we find the following re-
sults :

SATURDAY,

Wheat Returned as Sold in the Market Towns of England
•

and Wales.
In 1844-5,4013,307 qrs. In 1851-4,487,011 qrs.
1845-13,660,240 „ 1.514-4,8454,417 „
1848-5,938,962 „ 1858-4,500,909 „

For a further proof that these returns sub-
stantially indicate the comparative abundance
or scarcity of our home production, we may
refer to the amount of sales which have taken
place since last harvest. We know to our cost
that it was deficient, and we find accordingly
that the quantity of wheat sold during the
three months ending the 31st of December
last was only 1,106,027 quarters, in comparison
with 1,445,906 quarters sold during the three
corresponding months of the previous year.
Coming still nearer to the present time, we
find that during the whole month of January,
1854, there were sold only 260,477 quarters.
Should the sales continue in the same propor-
tion throughout the year, the returns for 1854
will thus exhibit a falling off of more than one
half, as compared with those of 1845.
We are not surprised, therefore, that, with
these significant facts before them, the mer-
cantile community should seek for additional
information on the subject of home-grown
corn. They know that the price of that article
regulates that of most other commodities, and
hence it is of essential importance to ascer-
tain as nearly as possible the extent of our
home supplies. Before the abolition of the
corn laws this was comparatively a matter of
little moment. Our foreign importations, ex-
cept in years of great scarcity, were insignifi-
cant ; but they have since increased almost
beyond the bounds of credibility, and we may
add that the returns for 1853 far exceed those
of any former year. Nay, more, we recently
read in the circular of an extensive firm en-
gaged in the corn trade that in the present
year of 1854 we shall require to import the
enormous quantity of eight millions of quar-
ters of foreign wheat. Can we safely reckon
on these supplies in the present attitude of
Europe ? And, if so, are we sure that we
shall be able to pay for them without derange-
ments to our monetary system ? These are
grave questions, and of far greater interest at
the present time to our merchants and bankers
than to our agriculturists. The great fact that
we have now bec me dependent for a large
portion of our daily bread upon foreign coun-
tries is apparent. How this dependence will
affect us in time of war we shall, in all likeli-
hood, have a speedy opportunity of learning.
We refrain, therefore, from dwelling on the
past, and we leave the field of prophecy to Mr.
COBDEN ; but., in the meantime, we cannot but
approve of the important movement which has
lately been made in the City on the subject of
improving our means of information regarding
our home supplies of food.

MURDER MADE EASY—BURIAL CLUBS.
AFTER the exposures of burial clubs, in
our two preceding articles, it remains only to
indicate two points—first, the calculable
magnitude of the evil ; and, next, the
most fitting legal remedy to apply. The
former of these questions can only be decided
approximately, and by infqlence of the un-
known total from facts which come under our
observation. We have already referred to the
case of one man who put his children's names
into nineteen separate clubs ; thus obtaining
nineteen times the amount which the general
opinion of the neighbourhood pronounced
sufficient for purposes of decent interment.
Mr. CLAY here again comes forward and fur-
nishes us with a fact which may serve by way
of sample. In a town of 60,000 inhabitants, in
1846, there existed and flourished eleven
clubs of this kind, the aggregate of members
attending which was 52,000, not including
sick clubs, which would probably bring up
the number by 2,000 more. Now, let it be
remembered that not all the population is
eligible to a burial society under the rules
universally laid down. Persons in weak
health are excluded ; so are infants under two
months old; the rich have no inducement to
join; none become members to whom Si. or
10/. payable on the death of an infant is not a
valuable consideration. Deducting the very

2

FEBRUARY 11, 1854.

young, the unhealthy, the rich, and, as we
must also do, the wholly idle and improvident,
it follows that the death-lists actually contain
a much larger number of names than that of
the whole available population—in other
words, that very many names, especially of
children, are entered over and over again, as a
profitable speculation; and this not in a few
isolated instances, but habitually and as a
general rule. The inference is inevitable.
To take the mildest and most favourable view
of the matter, these investments are made.
not in order that a child chancing to die may
be respectably interred, but that the father
may receive something like a set off or com-
pensation for his bereavement. We subjoin
additional testimony of the state of things
described above
Lest it should be imagined that such excessive addiction
to burial clubs is only to be found in one place, I can
refer to a "report" for 1846 of a single club which then
boasted 34,10 members—the entire population of the
town to which it belongs having been, iu 1841, little more
than 36,000 ; and though it must be admitted, by way of
mitigation, that the increase of population in this town
between 1841 and 1846 has been very great, and that the
club admits members who live beyond the limits of the
town, the fact of the 34,010 members betokens a most ex-
traordinary fondness for adventure in death-list transac-
tions.
In a recent case, tried in the Blackburn
County Court, a mother enrolled her own
name, her husband's, and those of four
children in the lists of a club which she after-
wards attempted to defraud, and which con-
tained 80,000 members. Of the total number
of these clubs we know nothing. They thrive
in every great town, in every large village, nay,
almost in every hamlet. They have multi-
plied alike in urban and in rural districts ;
and, like betting-houses, the failure of one by
fraud or proved mismanagement, or actual
embezzlement of funds, does nothing to pre-
vent the setting up of another in its place
immediately afterwards, just as if all had
flourished, and no loss been incurred. That
they are an abuse we know—that they are a
growing abuse we need but open our eyes to
see. Remains the question, what shall Parlia
menu—what shall the community do?

There are those who in this as in all reforms
would desire to make but short work of the
matter. They would say, " Prohibit burial
" clubs as you prohibited betting-houses, and
" they will be put down with equal safety and
" speed." We do not dispute the right, the
abstract right, of the Legislature to deal thus
with a notorious evil. The very precedent
cited is sufficient. If the choice lay between
the utter suppression of these societies and
the keeping them up on their present footing,
we should not hesitate in pronouncing for the
former alternative. But a course so decided
appears impolitic and needless—impolitic, we
may say, because needless ; for in human
affairs coercion, or governmental control,
ought always to be reduced to the lowest
possible point. It is not the existence of
burial clubs that creates the evil. It is but
reasonable that the labourer should be allowed,
if he will, to ensure beforehand the means for
giving a deceased child, or relative, a decent
funeral. The practice itself is good rather
than bad ; the abuse consists in substituting
for a mere discharge of funeral expenses as
actually incurred the payment of an undefined
sum applicable to any other purpose, and
quite unlimited in amount. Abolish, then,
the money payments, and leave the clubs alone.
This is the view taken by the Liverpool Grand
Jury, of which Mr. W. BROWN, M.P., was
foreman, at the last RSSiZCS. This is the view
taken also by Lord SHAFTESBURY, whose good
sense, when unbiassed by sectarianism, is not
exceeded by his philanthropy ; and to this
proviso we think all legal interference ought
for the present to be limited. If these milder
measures be found unavailing, Parliament will
still have it in their power to enforce a more
stringent law. Something may also be done
by local authorities—magistrates and others—
exerting themselves more vigorously to put in
action the existing machinery against unen-
rolled illegal societies. They have hitherto
been more remiss in the matter than becomes
their office or their usual energy.
To the suppression of money payments, as
here recommended, we know only one valid
objection that can be raised. It may be