The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-29 00:00:00

DEBATES ON THE CORN-LAWS

Before we examine the- arguments of the gentle.
men who took part in the debates on the Corn-
laws, it seems necessary to bring some general
principles under notice. The problem, be it re-
membered, is not whether the law will hereafter be,
but whether hitherto it has been, beneficial. Now,
to solve that problem, we must have some term, of
comparison. Since the law was paSsed the popu-
lation of the country has increased very consider-
ably—its wealth has augmented—its exports have
become greater—its trade has increased—its agri-
culture has undoubtedly been extended—and the
advocate of the law may, and do, assert—for there is
nothing they will not assert which serves their
purposes—that this increase of population, wealth,
power, and production, has been caused by the co-
existing law. Again, since the Corn-law was
passed, there have been acknowledgedly great fluc-
tuations in the prices of corn, which are asserted by
the Earl of Ripon and his. friends to be natural,
and not more than is warranted by variations in the
seasons. And we want to ascertain whether these
assertions be correct or not. Before we can do
that we must form some idea of what are the na-
tural fluctuations the price of corn is liable to. Thus
to test the Corn-law, we must first of all ascertain
the general principles which regulate, for example,
the progress of population and the prices of com-
modities.

NECESSARY PROGRESS OF POPULATION.--
Now one of the leading principles established by
modern science is the existence of a natural and
almost irrepressible tendency in population to in-
crease. Nothing can ever prevent the increase but
an absolute impossibility to augment the supply of
food ; and sometimes individuals put up with a
smaller share in order to supply a great number with
food. It is clear that the Corn-law had nothing
whatever to do in creating this irrepressible ten-

dency, and that it can have had no part in con-

tributing to the increasg of the people since 1815
or 1828, except as it has augmented the whole
supply of food. In truth, according to our phi-
losophy, the whole gist of the question lies in that
one fact. So much do all the social phenomena
depend on the
.increase, decrease, or stationary
condition of the number of the people, and so ex-
clusively is that regulated by the quantity of food
produced or obtained, that the utility of the Corn-
law may be decided by the single circumstance
of its augmenting or limiting the supply of food at
the command of our people. What are its effects
in this point of view, will be afterwards investi-

gated ; for many of the arguments of the Corn-law
advocates went to prove that the law encouraged
agriculture—that it gave a bounty on production,
and so increased the average or constant supply of
food ; but we must at once observe that the law

immediately and directly cut short the supply. It
prohibited our people, unless under very peculiar
circumstances, from receiving food from abroad ;
and in order to vindicate the law, it ought to be
proved that its after-consequences more than com-
pensated for its immediate cutting off a supply of
food. We shall look closely at this point when we
come to analyse the assertions of the advocates of
the law at present ; we wish to establish, to the
satisfaction of our readers, the natural law which
regulates the progress of population, and to point
out the natural rule it obeys in the present condition
of society, independent of the Corn-laws.

Under the most favourable circumstances, as
those of the United States, whose modern skill
operates in an unoccupied country, it has been
proved that population exclusive of all helps
from emigration, doubles itself in twenty-seven
or twenty-five years. The example cf such a rapid
progress is found only in modern times, and
there is no proof, whatever may be boasted—there
is indeed, much reason to doubt—whether any so-
ciety in the ancient world, for then wars were more
frequent, and the arts of nourishing men less known

than at present—ever increased so fast as that of
the United States. Looking at that as entirely
the result of increased knowledge—for the soil could
have been used by Indians if they had possessed
European arts—we_are inclined at once to suppose
that the ratio of increase in any population should
be accelerated as knowledge increases, or as the
world grows older. Startling as such an assertion
may appear to those who have not investigated
the law, it is nevertheless countenanced by many
circumstances. England has now been historically
and consecutively known for upwards of 2,000
years. What the exact amount of population was
when Julius Caesar invaded it is not accurately
known, but the mode of life of the people satisfies
us that they could not have been much more
numerous in proportion to the extent of surface

than the Indians of North America when that
continent was first discovered. From that time to
the Conquest it is supposed that the population did

:tie more than double itself ; or it took a thousand

years to accomplish that by our ancestors, in a com-
paratively unoccupied country, which their descend-
ants in the United States have done in the fourth
part of a century, or the fortieth part of a thousand
years. The proofs are mote distinct and certain
that subsequent to the Conquest it required, not a
thousand, but five hundred years for the
population to double itself. In latter times
however, we find it doubling itself in less than a
century. In the middle of last century, it doubled
itself in about 80 years, and during the first thirty
years of this century, the ratio of increase was about
60 years. The town population, however, has
nearly doubled itself in thirty years. "It will be seen,"
says Mr. Porter, in his Progress of the Nation,
" how slowly, when compared to later periods, the
population increased during the last century.". But
it increased more rapidly in the last century than in
the preceding centuries. Now, this accelerating
ratio of increase in England, combined with the un-
exampled increase in the United States, owing to
the people having modern knowledge, is an ample
proof of the law, that population has a tendency to
increase in an accelerating ratio, as society grows
older.

To apply this rule to our own country and
our own times, we must remember that we possess
a most astonishing mechanical power at our com-
mand. The population of our towns which has
doubled in thirty years, has been enabled
to procure food by their possession of this extraor-
dinary power. By its means they have amply paid
the agriculturists for their increased supplies of
food. It is at the same time unlimited, and could
as well be employed to purchase food from producers
of it in every part of the world as from our own
farmers. The mechanical power is unlimited ; its
produce will buy food, and consequently there is no
other natural limit to the command it may
give our
people over the food of other countries, but the
disinclination of foreign cultivators to buy the
produce of our machinery. There is, how-
ever, abundant evidence that they were and are
anxious to buy this produce, they are willing to
create food to give in exchange for it, and our
most extraordinary mechanical power gives us in
fact a means of purchasing food from the whole
world. The actual ratio of increase in modern