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

AMERICA.

Intelligence from New York to the 11th inst. has
been received.

In some of the States the municipal elections
had taken place. In Connecticut Fremont had
gained twenty-three towns, and the Democ•ats
fourteen. In the Southern State of Florida, the
Buchanan party had been equally beaten. In Santa
Rosa cauntry the American party had gained a
majority, but the extent of it was not known.
At Baltimore, Maryland, during the election for
mayor, several riots bad occurred, and some
blood was shed. In the evening the opposition
parties had come into collision, and made use
of their firearms, by which four persons were killed,
and upwards of fitly wounded. Several personal
rencontres had also taken place on the 10th inst., in
one of which a man had been shot dead.
President Pierce had embarked at Portsmouth for
Washington.
The New York Herald, of the 11th, has the follow-
ing under the heading " Make way for Fremont ":
" On Tuesday next, the 14th inst., we are to have in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, those preliminary
battles against the demoralised democracy, which are
destined to culminate in a regular Waterloo defeat
to Mr. Buchanan on the great day of November.
In Ohio such is the overwhelming strength of the
Fremont movement that the Pierce-Buchanan demo-
cracy are merely keeping up a show of resistance for
the sake of appearances—in Indiana it is much the
same thing. In both States the result in October
will go far ahead of the tremendous revolution of
the same elections in 1840, against the corrupt and
condemned dynasty of Van Buren."

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF N ottnirmsEarAND
opened the Tyne Sailors' Home on Tuesday with
great ceremony. The day was kept as a holiday at
Shields, and upwards of 40,000 persons assembled to
greet his grace upon his arrival in the town from
Alnwick. The duke, accompanied by Sir Thomas
Herbert, M.P., and Mr. Bartleman, arrived at half-1 ait
twelve, when a procession was formed to escort his
grace to the Home. The building is situated en the
New-quay, and commands a very fine view of Shields
harbour. It is admirably located as a home and
place of accommodation for seamen, and is truly
a noble structure. It will cost the Duke of Northum-
berland between 8,0001. and 9,0001., and is a free gift
to the port, the merchants, shipowners, and other
inhabitants of the district contributing 3,0001. to its
endowment ; thus enabling the managers of the in-
stitution to offer better accommodation, at a lower
rate, to the seamen than the crimps and publicans
who have heretofore taken in sailors to lodge, and in
too many instances "done " for them, in the mise-
rable low streets of the town, a sort of Tyne Wapping.
The large dining-rooms, smoking-rooms, a long room
for meetings, a reading • room, a hospital for the
sick, a navigation school, a large warehouse for
storing seamen's effects, and dormitories for 150 men,
are all fitted up with every regard to the comfort and
convenience of the class for whom it is intended, and
the establishment is the result of the most compre-
hensive effort that has yet been undertaken in the
north-eastern ports to improve the social habits of
the seafaring population. But for the munificence
of the Duke of Northumberland the erection of such
a building might not have been accomplished for
some years to come. On the arrival of the duke at
the Home a presentation of addresses tock
after which the Duke of Northumberland, in a brief
speech, thanked the corporation for the honour done
him, and alluding to the objects of the institution
said :

I am sorry to say that the 7 sailor, who exhibits his
skill. perseverance, and daring on hoard, and overcomes
all the difficulties of the seafaring life, when he comes
on shore falls too often into the hands of those who
wish him ill. He is careless of his earnings, and to
him is not inapplicable that line of Dryden's :

Saved from the sea, but shipwre:ked on the shore.
it has been wisely determined to establish in connection
with this institution a savings•bank, where the seaman
may deposit his earnings and remit them to his family
as he thinks fit. There are also schools established
under the patronage of the Government, but there is
one thing more. While we look after the sailor's com-
fort, his health, and his pecuniary affairs, let us not
forget that which is of more essential importance—his
religion and morais. I wish to bring that point parti-
cularly under your notice. It is quite certain that we
should leave men not only happier, but better than they
were before ; for this is the only principle of doing good.
In that, by the blessing of God, we shall succeed, as we have
in founding this institution.

The Home was then declared open, and a dinner at
the Albion Assembly-rooms, at which Us grace pre-
sided, concluded the day's proceedings.

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

1016

wont not be productive of any great amount of good. He
should remark that it was the commercial and not ;he
agricultural part of the community that asked for the col-
lection of these statistics ; and it these returns were ob-
tained fairy,) and without any inquisitorial interference, he
thought there was no farmer who would not cheerfully
furnish such return so as to give a knowledge of what agri-
cultural property, increase, and produce consisted.
- -

Mr. Blakemore concluded by a powerful appeal in
favour of reviving the "Harvest Home," as a means
of bringing master and workman more together to
the promotion of the domestic happiness and comfort
of the labourer.