The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-09 00:00:00

EFFECT OF THE CORN-LAWS ON

THE FARMERS.

We now propose in continuation of our remarks on
Monday, to say something on the manner in which the
Corn-laws affect the farmers. Do they gain by them ?
Their condition is the best answer. "It is now nineteen
years ago," said a respectable farmer to us a few days ago,
" since I took my present farm, and my father lived in this
parish before me. At that time most of the farmers about
were doing well, they had all money and stock, and were
never behind hand. Now there is hardly one of them that
has anything, and a great many have been sold up and gone
away." This referred to the county of Kent, and we can
safely say that such a complete decay of the little gentry
and farmers as has taken place there since the Corn-laws
were passed in 1815 was never before known. This indi-
vidual case corresponds with the condition of the farmer
throughout England. Since 1820 half a dozen Committees
we believe, have sat to inquire into the distressed
condition of the agriculturists, and all have agreed in this,
that the condition of the farmer has been gradually and
successively deteriorated. All have agreed in this, too,
that the condition of the agricultural labourers has
been nearly as bad as it was possible to be. Facts which
are so notorious as these require no long quotations to
establish them.
The Commons' Committee which sat in 1821, say that" the
returns of farming capital were at that time considerably be-
low the ordinary rate of profit ;" and the Committee of 1833
say that " no evidence adduced before them warrants
a different conclusion." At the first period the farmer had
the Corn-law of 1815, at the second the law of 1828. The
Committee of 1833 says that savings of the farmer which
existed in 1821 " are either gone or greatly diminished, the
credit failing and their resources generally exhausted." In
the counties of England the same report says " where

yeomen heretofore abounded, occupying their own estates,
a great change of property has recently taken place." Tlitt
Committee also recognised the important fact, that " the
country is now annually dependent for a portion of its sup-
ply on importation from abroad."
Another Committee sat in 1836, but the Members could
not agree to a report, so none was made. We find Mr.
Eliman, however, giving such evidence as this :—" The
farmer's capital has very much diminished in the Weald of
Sussex. In 1833 the farmers were very much reduced, and
in 1836 were no better." In Mr. Well Hall's opinion they
" were worse off in 1836 than in 1833." He says too that
" the fluctuations of the times have rendered taking leases a

hazardous experiment for the farmers," and also that " im-
provements cannot well be made in agriculture by the
farmers without leases." Mr. Atkinson stated that " all the
clay farmers of Lincolnshire had felt distress." A
Committee of the Lords also sat in 1836, which
made no report, but the evidence before it con-
tains many passages like this. On Mr. Grey's evidence,
agriculture is said to be in a very distressed state ; in a Mr.
Carter's, " the present state of the tenants in Norfolk is
ruinous." We need not, however, quote more evidence to
prove that since 1820 till 1836, the condition of the farmer
was one of comparative distress and decay.
One general fact, indeed, we must remind the reader of,
because it is a proof of the dependence and degradation of
the farmer as well as of his distress and his decay. Every
Michaelmas, almost, for the last twelve years, the Provin-
cial Journals have resounded with the great kindness of my
Lord This and Bishop That, or Lady T'other-thing, and
Squire Gripe, and Mr. Seizeall, having graciously conde-
scended to abate fifteen, or twenty, or five per cent. of the
rent of the tenants, or of their tithe composition, on ac-
count of the sufferings of the farmers. No other class of
men in this kingdom besides them have been for a series of
years in a state of insolvency, and have only been kept out
of goal, because the landlords and tithe-lords knew that
if they were to exact what the law allowed them to exact,
they would have ruined the bulk of the farmers. For the
last twenty years the condition of the once justly proud
yeoman and farmer of England, has been one of dis-
tress, degradation, and grating dependence. If not caused
by the Corn-laws, it has been co-existent with that, and
began about the period when they consented to be the
landlords' tools in their base conspiracy to plunder the other
classes.

Here then is an overwhelming mass of evidence to prove
that since the Corn-laws were passed in 1815, for the
avowed purpose of keeping up the price of corn, the
farmers, the real cultivators of the soil, have been in one
continued state of distress. We need quote no evidence
to prove that the condition of the agricultural labourers
during the same period, has been at least equally unfortu-
nate and miserable. All the Agricultural Committees and
Poor-law Commissions establish this fact beyond the
shadow of a doubt. It is now only necessary, therefore,
for us to connect their miserable and degraded condition
with the Corn-laws, as its cause, and that we shall, we
hope, fully accomplish.
During this period, it must be remembered that the country
has been at peace, and in a state of progressive prosperity.
The population of Great Britain, as we have stated, has in-
creased since 1815 about 5,000,000 ; there has, consequently,
been a continually increasing demand for the produce of the
soil, which our own country, under the present system has
been unable to meet. There have been repeated supplies
of foreign corn brought in. The population has been con-
tinually going a-head of the food, or the natural circum-
stances of society have been extremely favourable to the
increase of cultivation and to the prosperity qf the farmers.
Nor is there any want of soil to cultivate, or hands to till
it. The agricultural population is in acknowledged super-
abundance ; and according to Blackwood, there is sufficient
land in the empire to produce, " at a very moderate calcula-
tion,sixty millions of quarters of,wheat a-year ;" or the "coun-
try contains within itself the means of maintaining in com-
fort, at least triple the present amount of population." Nor
is this bad land ; there are 15,000,000 acres uncultivated
which might be advantageously ploughed ; a great
part of it, in fact, • consists of deer-feeding parks
and pleasure grounds, of the law-making landlords.
Parks of 1,500, 1,200, 1,000, 500, or 100 acres of land cut
off from profitable cultivation—like the clergy wastes of
Canada—lie in the very heart of England. As long as the
landlords were content with the rent which naturally came
to them, we, and the whole community, saw, we believe,
their enjoyment of these magnificent domains with pride
and pleasure. What they honestly possess they should
freely enjoy ; but when they have the scandalous impu-
dence to tax us, on the groand of paying the expense of
cultivating bad soils, we cannot neglect to direct public at-
tention to their parks, as fertile land withheld from cultiva-
tion and general use, on which they expend, for sport and
amusement, part of the money they take from the public.
The facts are, then, that the land of England is imper-
fectly and incompletely cultivated ; that the population
is increasing ; that there is an increasing demand for agri-
cultural produce, and an abundance of agricultural la-
bourers ready to work at low terms ; and yet the whole body
of the agriculturists are, and have been, in distress. This
is the consequence, we assert, of the Corn-laws.
The pretext on which they are passed is, that cultivation
costs more here than on the Continent. This is a false as-

sertion, but supposing it true, what is the effect of the Corn-
laws ? They increase the expense of cultivating the soil ;
they augment rent which the cultivator pays ; they in-
crease Poor-rates, by increasing the expense of maintaining
the poor ; they increase the cost of seed corn, and feeding
cattle ; they add to the expense of feeding the labourer;
they increase, too, the expense of the farmer's living ;
increase the cost of his wife's gown and his own
shoes, of his harness and his ploughs, and, in short, of
everything he uses for his comfort or is necessary for his
trade. Thus, on the showing of the advocates of the Corn-
laws, they add to the burden of the laden horse ; they
lock the wheel of the loaded waggon going up hill ; they
help the hand-bound farmer by adding an additional chain
to his fetters. The result is that he cannot move. The
waggon is running backwards and the horse breaking down
under the load. The Corn-laws, by adding to the expense
of cultivating the soil, are breaking the back of the rate
and tax-burdened agriculturists.
The Corn-laws, it is said, are to prevent competition
with corn grown at a cheaper rate. The farmer relies
on the promise, and, calculating on getting a large price, he
neglects improvements. He goes on in the old jog-trot
way, and while every other trade or occup::tion is carried
on by ingenious mechanical helps, he sticks to the old plan
of manual labour, fed on taxed corn. Other producers
gain on their fixed capital ; he has comparatively none.
Hedge-rows are kept up to nourish weeds, birds, and game.
Manual labour, with a doubtful market, is so dear that he
can neither grub nor drain effectually. He dare not even
take a lease, such is the instability of the markets under
the Corn-laws, and such the cost of labour that compara-
tively no improvements are made, and no cheaper me-
thods of cultivation are fallen on. But while he dreams
that he is saved from the competition of cheaper
grown corn, he is deceived by the laws. They
cannot keep it out of the country. From Ireland, in fact,
where the tithes are next to nothing, and where the price
of labour is less than in Poland, they encourage importa-
tion. From Scotland, too, where there is compu-atively
no tithe, and where.great skill is displayed in cultivation,
and where wages are by no means good, the Legislature
of
invites importation into England. The improvement
steam navigation has brought those countries, with all their
comparative advantages over English agriculturists, into
competition with England ; and whenever there is a good
harvest, whenever there is a quarter of corn grown above
the average consumption of the year, the price at which
the farmers of England are obliged to sell their corn, goes
down to the price at which it can be and is grown
in Ireland. Thus the Corn-laws completely hum
bug and cheat the English agriculturist. They
promise him protection from competition with cheap-
grown corn, and they give it not. Agreeably to this view,
and amply confirming it, the distress complained of has