The National Register.
London, England, 1819-08-23 00:00:00

THE IiATTON'AL

circumstances such as these that any wise man
would suspend the tontines of Britain, and the
chances of supply to her petiple, or speak of culti-
vating the Cape is identified with the engagetuent
of our Home Produce. • The lesson which America
read to us on this subject can hardly be so soon
forgotten, and-yet the COUIV, which she followed' is
lint the soave of nature. The friends of colonise-
' t ion, and the advocates of that horrible war talked of
the separation of that country, as nothing-less than
the filmdom ruin and downthll ofGreat Britain ; but
the fact both with regard to America and all our other
Colonies is, that they have never contributed any
thing towards the defence of the mother country, or
to the support of its civil Government, and that
their utility as independent States is quite as great
as in the character of colonial derendencies. But
with respect to the great bug-hear of not being able
to Jed nor Forla at home, and the Use and lying
assertion that large capitals employed in Agriculture
hate erlingnislwd our pmsantty, the first is a gratu-
itous assumption which ignorance of the subject can
alone lead any one to make, and the latter is plainly
dcmonstraLle by era:prison and by facts to be quite
groundless. The Report of a statistical survey,
nuule about three years ago, stated, that there yet
remained in the British Kingdom 22,351,000 acres
of waste but improveable land, which; enclosed and
cultivated, and let at but 10s. per acre,would produce
upwards of 11 millions, to be thrown into the great
stream of our circulating metlitun, to augment
the sum total of private wealth, and to promote
by its expenditure, the Interests of Commerce, and
of the public Revenue ; but above all to furnish
subsistence and employmont to a much greater po-
paition. than this country now contains or would
in the natural progress of population, contain for
many years to come. But even this is but a small
part of this important question.. No man who
has •seen what has been done in Norfolk, and
is now doing, by Mr. Coke on theone side, and
by Lord Albemarle on the other, and by men
who have the sense and patriotism to follow
these bright examples can doubt that by skill, by
capital, and by industry, . and still more, if we can
only said to these the due encouragement which
the Legislature owes as a•hoon duo to that .great
tower of national strength and prosperity, that the
agricultural produce of Great. Britain migbt at least
be doubled and that the employment it now furnishes
might be doubled likewise. Let the man who
has the hardihood or the folly to tell the world that
large capitals have extinguished the peasantry of
the couutry look at the situation and condition of
the lower classes wherever the improved system of
cultivation has extended. Let bins look. at Holk.
ham, where labouring inhabitants,. so far from• ex-
tinction, have multiplied under its present owner

from less than three hundred to more than seven.—
Let him enter their cottages, let him converse with
those who inhabit them, let him view their furni-
ture, their ruddy children, their pig-styes and their
gardens, and then we may safely leave him to answer
to his own heart and conscience what is the justice,
where thnianindations of his charge. But if he is
still dissatisfied, let him pass to other parts of the
country where the whole scene is exactly as he
would recommend, where the farms are small, and
their occupants as poor as he could wish them, and
we would tell him that among, no race of men
uprin the face of the earth can he find less to envy
and mors.to pity. Labouring and toiling infinitely
harder than • the common peasantry, he will find
them, generation after generation, passing on with.
out spirit, without comfort, and almost even with-
out hope. Here and there perhaps the niggard
yersinsony, which can have. no other name than the
basest love of money, may have enabled a long us
to scrape together a few hundred pounds; but much
oftener the last days of life are devoted to a work-
house, or to dependence on parochial aid. Is this a
state of society to be wished fin. or admired? Can
it contribute to public strength or public happiness ?
Certainly not. The produce of the land is poor
and icanty, the occupier is miserable, the labourer
badly supported. and wretchedly paid, and every
shift and contrivance teed to throw the whole of
upon the paris'o-rates. Besides this the expenditure u
who can be so absurd' I% to maintain that Agricul-
ture is not as fair and open a channel for the em-
ployment of capital, where it is possessed, as any
other? How would the Editor of the Times like
to be told that lie was injuring the community by
the profit he derives, and from the immeasurable
space of intellectual ground he occupies by the cir-
eulution. of his paper ? A law to prevent his selling
beyond a limited number of copies would he just as
wise, and quite as equitable, as any regulation ex to
the size of hums. Yes, we have no doubt but half a
dozen editors might live very respectably upon what
he thus miserably and voraciously put into his own
pocket. Nor would the small farmer much thank
him, if he reflects a little, fur his theory. The
hopes of rising is the great stimulus and solace of
exertion. He that now oxiipies twenty acres sees
reach to forty,
and feels that be may one day rens

and he that has mounted to an hundred, can still
look to other steps of the ladder which be may
Eddy aspire to mount. He can see and feel that
be is engaged in :► persui.t where all is not low and
mean and grovelling, but that like other professions
and employments it has its gralutions anti its ranks,
which only confur,respectahility no least, it not the •
palm of honor The greatest authority upon the
law of nations and the principles of naturcljustice
has most wisely and beautifully told its,•that " it is
the bounden duty of every Government to give to
its agriculture its first and earliest cure, and to •
make it, as fir us possible, to be held in honour."--
" For,"-ssid he, " witliont this; tradesmen in cities,
even the most servile mechanics; grill be.iticlined to
consider him that. cultivutes the earth with a dis-
dainful eye, and dare to despise a profession tha
feeds the human race, which is. the natual employ-
ment of mau,, and was the darling occupation of
the first Consuls and. Dictators of ltome."