The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-07 00:00:00

at all hours and in all weathers, with much more
comfort than before. And here the good of the road
stops.
Moreover, the Government, not anticipating the
recurrence of such a calamity, were anxious to set
about works which could be readily discontinued
with the cessation of famine. This feature was found
of course more frequently in works promising little
public or permanent advantage, than in those of a more
important kind, in which the half-finished operations
would remain at once &scandal to the government which
originated them, and a source of remonstrance and
complaint : a grievance, in short, for the inhabitants of
the locality. The intelligence from Ireland brings
daily petitions against the discontinuance of works
still in progress, or for their resumption where they
have been abandoned. The distress, as they urge
with melancholy force, is greater, if possible, now
than before August. All the reasons which existed
to justify Government aid then, exist now in increased
force. _ _ _

This state of things will, we fear, throw Lord JOHN
RU • SELL into a painful perplexity. The principle of
government advances has been changed. Loans have
been substituted for grants. Where public money is
lent, Government must have some security for its
repayment. But few of the works now in progress
offer this security, or would have been under-
taken had it been required before they were begun.
The executive says to the landlord, " You must
employ your poor. We will lend you the money to
set them to work." The landlord replies, " It'fi no
use to talk of lending; you must give it to us; PEEL
gave it." Lord JOHN RUSSELL may urge that the
experience of last year cries aloud against the adop-
tion of such a course as was then pursued. But his
alternative is a distressing one. While the landlord
declares, in words, his inability, or, in practice, his
indisposition, to do anything for the suffering poor,
except as the agent of an almsgiving government,
—the minister must risk his character for humanity
by refusing, or sacrifice his claim to sound
political discretion by giving. Yet, reluctant as we
should be to stand between starving Ireland and the
bounty of her wealthier sister, we feel that the best
interest* of both demand a strict adherence to the
altered measures of the present Administration.
Landlords, like those represented at the Cork meet-
ing, seem beat on pauperizing their unhappy island.
They must not be allowed, whether involved or un-
burdened, poor or rich, willing or unwilling, to fling
their duties wholesale on to the shoulders of the
Imperial Government. If the carrying out of the
present measure should require such an adjustment
of the real and nominal ownerships of property
as will place the actual recipient of the profits of
the soil under a compulsory obligation to contribute
to the support of its starving sons, we must not shrink
from it. One thing is certain. Ireland is bound to
support her inhabitants. She possesses ample means
somewhere. They must be made applicable to their
primary purpose. The Government measure gives
facilities for promoting this purpose without any
violent displacements. But it requires Irish co-opera-
tion. It would be well for Ireland that what of her
population is able should give this co-operation, before
Hunger, against which even Governments are power-
less, proceed to • rude re-adjustment of rights and
duties after its own sadden and irresistible fashion.

THE farmer's condition and prospects, under that
new era of British husbandry which has opened
with the repeal of the Corn-laws, is well worthy of
consideration at the present time.
The effect of the high prices of the war, we have had
other opportunities of showing, was to make farmers
rely mainly on price for profit. This led to an undue
increase of the size of farms, without a commensurate

increase of the capital employed in their cultivation.
The Corn-law was an attempt to perpetuate the
same state of things as had existed during the war,
and reliance on Protection has hitherto prevented
farmers from fully perceiving the error of their
actual system.
The delusions of Protection must now fairly come
to an end. In three years, at the latest, the last rem-
nant of duty on foreign corn will cease, and the British
farmer will have to compete in the open market of the
world with all other corn growers. Nor need he be
alarmed at the prospect. He has the best corn market
in the world at his very door. The roads on which his
produce is carried are so good, that no where else can
more than half the quantity of grain be conveyed by
the same expense of animal power ; while the rail-
road is every day extending itself more and more into
all the agricultural districts. The facilities which
railroads have already given to our farmers are
immense; and facility in conveying articles so bulky
as farm produce, is money to the producer. We know
a farmer, farming in one of the home counties on the
line of a projected railway, who estimates that this
railway, when completed, will enable him to gain and
save an extra 100/. a year, and that on a farm of only
300 acres. Then mark the vast and industrious

population of this country, whose present power of I
consumption requires more food than our own soil
has hitherto, in ordinary years, produced. Yet any
one who knows aught of the circumstances of
all classes of our people below the more opu-
lent, will admit that any reduction in price
of the prime articles of food, bread and meat,
butter and cheese, would canso a large increase
of consumption. All our people are bread-eaters and
meat-eaters; and there is not a family between the
rank of a moderate tradesman and the day labourer,
who would not be greater consumers of bread and
meat in the event of a moderate, if permanent, reduc-
tion of price. This will effectually keep prices here
at a comparatively high rate, and render our market
the best in the world for the producers of food.
That being so, what has the British farmer to fear
from foreign competition? He has been told of the
fertile fields of Poland, the vast and fruitful plains of
Hungary and the Ukraine, and the alluvial soils of
the Western States of North America, as the
sources from whence corn, especially wheat, can
be imported into this country at prices so low as
to drive all but our best lands out of cultiva-
tion. Never was a more complete fiction invented.
All authentic accounts from the north of Europe, from
the reports of Mr. Jacob in 1827 and 1828 to that of
Mr. MEEK and the British consuls in 1842, prove that
the quantity of wheat which could be sent from that
quarter would not be sufficient, when imported as a
regular article of commerce, to affect our markets in
any appreciable degree. The exaggerated statements
we hear on this point in Parliament and elsewhere
are obviously the result of sheer ignorance ; but how
an English farmer, who knows the care, and cost, and
the amount of preparation and skill, required to grow
a gocid crop of wheat, should for a moment give heed
to such fairy tales, passes our comprehension. Let us
note a few points of the evidence on record as to the
cost of producing wheat at some of the places from
which our foreign supplies must come. Mr. MEEK
states that at Dantzic the price paid by the merchants
to the growers of wheat in Poland is generally un-
derstood to be 235. per quarter, and that 10s. a quar-
ter more is the cost of bringing it down to that port.
Now, one year with another, there is no place from
which we should purchase foreign wheat so cheaply as
Dantzic, and here we find it costs the native merchant
335. the quarter. To that sum, 10s. a quarter, at least,
must be added as profit, freight, and insurance, before
it can come into competition in this country with oar
home-grown corn. This gives a price of 455. a
quarter without any profit to the importer. Now the
price of wheat in Jersey and Guernsey, which are
entirely supplied by importation, ranges from 475. to
50s. a quarter, and furnishes a striking confirmation
of the accuracy of the estimates made by the gen-
tlemen we have mentioned. From Hungary and the
Ukraine, and the Western States of America, the dis-
tance and difficulties of transit will, in ordinary sea-
sons, prevent the growers of those countries from