The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1822-11-30 00:00:00

AGRICULTURAL MEETINGS.

[Eros• the Dublin Mercantile Advertiser.]

Before we conclude we shall have, perhaps, an
interesting piece of intelligence to lay before our
readers. But let us not auticirite. Our object
previously will be to submit• very plain and simple
statement to the Irish pubtie.
It is needless to pay that the condition of the
agricultural interest is still changing for the wore.
Though iii some markets the price of the superior
order of grunt has continued nearly stationary for

the last three months, mill particulary at Mark.
Line; yet the heaviness of the markets were never
so completely sod so constantly experienced: The
fittest wheat has ranged front 37% to 41a. at the
London Cora Exchange; and, with the exception
of beirley,„which if now demanded by the mallaters,
the other corn proportionately leas—that is to say,
• full third or more. The middle price of the
quarter of wisest, of the best quality, averages,
perhaps, in London, 395. In Liverpool it is about
361.; in the remote parts of England and Scotland
it a not more thin 34.., while the general average
of Ireland, taking in Kerry, Galwsv, Donegal, mid
Uubiny does not much exceed 32ri. for very fair
samples. II is clear that, wills such remetteratimi, such
rems as are still paid must be disbursed !ruin the
capital of the tenant.
The prices of black cattle and sheep, which con-
liaised to maintain themselves after the depreciation
of tillage had commenced, have beets wow time
yielding to the pressurtes4the • times. At length
they baste Come down irvel, sf wet wail lei.
low the level of the corn market. At the fair of
Ballitiasloe, in 1821, fat cattle, bought the previous
year as stores, sold fur exactly toe price paid for
them in 1820, leaving the grazier not only no profit,
bat without the memos of paying his rent, except
from the flaying, of previous years. In 1834, at the
fair of the same place, fat cattle d d not bring so
much as was paid fur them in their lean state ; ISi I
was considered a year of unexampled depressive',
but the prices had declined full thirty per cent. in
1844.

Since this period, only about a month to the
present date, the general fall in the country his
been even more rapid than at any former period.
At • fair in the county of Tipperary last week, ten
fat bullocks sold for fifty guinea.; they would
have fetched one hundred guineas eighteen months
ago. It is absurd to think that from these profile
rent can be paid. In fret. Gentlemen who farm
their own estates are the must distressed people in
this distressed country.
It is user's to multiply instances, or to go, at
present, into any lengthened dirquisition as to the
causes of this distress, or to state the reasons why
we think, if something wheal be not done, that the
distress will continue, sod that its features will be
still more deeply aggravated with the progress of
time. It is manifest that the motley is not in the
country, and without a currency we need not say
that business must come at last to a full stop.

Although the landed people and the land oc-
cupiers complained for a lung time—for the last
three or four year*, indeed—yet to complaints and
to ineffectual petitions they have hitherto confined
themselves. 10 the mean time the race of Irish
farmers is almost extinct. IVe speak quite ad-
visedly. The middle-men have all gone. They
have sunk into the class lions which they emerged,
or died off, broken-hearted. The inferior gentry,
those who had I , demised to the groadlathero,
from the year 1760 to 17go, have followed. Agri-
cutaral produce is now far below whin it was, as
we clearly proved on a former occasion, in the year
1790. Beet, in a word, is now 2d. a pound. These
persons have felt the shock. inn, from being gentle-
men of some rank and leading in their respective
counties, are now busy in soliciting places under
the Constables' Bill. In the county of Galway we
have heard, and we believe we know the land—very
poor and bad, it must be confessed it is—that •
tenant, whose father or grandfather held a farm,
leased in the year 1760, at 78.6 d. an acre, threw it
upon the landlord's hands the week before last.
Though the land was bad, yet it is • good sheep-
walk, and it is situate within six miles of the most
considerable town, and indeed the capital of
Connaught—Galway. The truth is, that we doubt
whether the tenant could keep it, even if rent had
been entirely remitted.
la England affairs are in as bad • situation, but
there the farmers, being for the most putt men of
considerable capital, are able to hold out longer ;
and, if we may tire • phrase of the fancy, to die
harder. As it is, there is not a tenant in England
who is not at this moment paying out of his capital,
'it being utterly impossible, that after selling the
produce of his farm, Ise could pay a single sixpence
from his profits. Nay, we are satisfied, that in •
majority of caser, the English farmer must lose,
even if he paid. no rent at all. Besides rents, tithes,
and lazes, which are as high, and, with the excep-
tion of the tithes, higher than similar imposts are to
Ireland, the English farmer has to maintain the
infirm and unetuployed poor. This is a tax which
amostito to between seven and eight . millions
annually. .
We have not -heard sermuch of agricultural dis
tress from Scothiod, until lately. Yet it is in the
nature of things that the Scotch must have partici-
pated iu the general paralysis.- 'We know, indeed,
that the Highlands are in sl most deplorable con-
dition. Yet the country-is constantly eared by the
incessant emigration ;• stilt this could not be felt as
a permanent relief, for,•by the law of nature, if not
of habit, it is well known *hot districts from which
the greatest emigration-pourii• out are generally the
most populous. It was from Gallia., in Spain,
that South America, or a considerable part of it,
was supplied with colonists; yet Galicia cuntinued
for many years the most populous province in the
Peninsula. But, though they have less poor to
support in Scotland, and though their system of
poor laws be better, and better administered than
in England, yet the distress they experience is
similar in degree and extent.
Thus, the., the agricultural interests of the whole
empire 14 involved in one common scene of destitu-
tibn. From peculiar circumstances, and particu-
larly front abundance of her population, and the
unsparing ity with which the tithe system is
practised we are of opinion that Ireland is, of
the three no, the worst off. But in Ireland, till
within the last week, we have not heard that any
plan is in contemplation for the purpose of arrest-
ing the evil before it arrives at its final termination,
general anarchy and irretrievable ruin.
The county of Galway, s county difficult enough

La"

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to be moved, but which is bow writhing in its heart's
core, has, much in the credit of its resident gentry.
taken the lead. A requisition signed by almost all
the proprietors of the county, has been handed to 'I
the High Sheriff, requesting him to convene the
county, in nrder to adopt resolution', and to pre-
pore a Petition Parliament on the unparalleled
state or misery to. cb the !aided juiciest of that
county b Sar beets wed. and paying the Legisla-
ture to grant relief. The Sher.ffs complied with
the revolution, and dm county is to meet on the
30th instant, at Longbres. We suppose that the
example set by this county will be generally fol•
lowed by every other iu the kingdom.
What the Legislature proposes to do, or whether
they purpose to de any thisse it is not for ha to
say; but it is material that the people of Galway,
and the kingdom of Ireland, should know this, that
the agricultoral interest of &gland will press for
• low to limit the importation of Irish coca into
England, wider the pretext that foreign ems is
smaegled throng's. OE 'enemy into -site ..
market. This is the circumstance to which we
alluded at the begi tttt ing of this article; mid,
though it is very unlikely shut Parliament will listen
to an iniquitous 0 proposition, it behoves the people
of this country to be on their guard. It is impossi-
ble to say what distress may compel it man or a
nation to do. The agricultural iistereg of Eng-
land is, after all, the strongest, the most influen-
tial, as well as the most numerous body in Parlia-
ment. As to the import of forrigu grain into
Ireland, slid its re-export to England. it would be
wasting words to shew its utter falsehood. Yet this
bright thought has gotten into the English land-
holders' head-. has been put fairly forward in print, '
and changes have been wrung upon it. saw ad
nauseam, in The Farmer's Journal, • paper which
is their text-book; and which, we conscientiously
believe, by putting the farmers on the wrong scent,
by ;nosing to them about averages and foreign im-
portation, has done more injury to the interest it
affected to advocate than any newspaper pablished
in England. When we say it is the echo of all the
crude and ignorant dicta of Mr. Webb Hall, we
nerd tint add, that it is wrong in its theory, and
most ridiculous and foolish in the remedies it would
propose. Yet John Bull believes in the same; and
all history shews that John is an obstinate and head-
strong animal.
We beg the people of Galway, and the other
counties, which no doubt will follow their example,
to bear this fact in their recollection—the thing will
certainly be attempted : they should be forewarned.