The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-01 00:00:00

THE CORN TRADE.

(From the Times.)
The unfavourable change in the weather which
took place last week at a critical moment for the
harvest, the uncertain state of the Eastern question,
aggravated by the stoppage of the Danube naviga-
tion and the interruption of the Wallachian corn
trade, and, lastly, the large purchases of corn made
in this country by French and other foreign dealers,
have had a powerful effect on our markets. The
last returns from Mark-lane show a clear rise in the
price of wheat cf no less than 4s. per quarter on the
week ; and the aggregate average price of the pre-
ceding six weeks is 525., which is 12s. a-quarter
higher than the comparative average for the corre-
sponding period of last year. The top price on Mon-
day was 555. to 58s. a-quarter, and flour rose to
60s. a-sack. This extraordinary increase of price,
at the very time of year when a turn generally takes
place in the market, is attributable to the demand
abroad even more than to the fears excited for our
own harvest. Although the French Government
endeavours by assurances in the Moniteur to per-
suade the country that the crops have turned out
better than was expected, the measures it has taken
and the active speculations of the French corn trade
prove that considerable scarcity is apprehended.
Louis Napoleon judges, rightly enough, that no-
thing is more likely to embarrass his Government
and to arrest the immoderate speculations now
afloat in France than a sudden rise in the price
of provisions. Accordingly, he some months
ago suspended the sliding scale of the French
Corn Law, and has since removed the differ-
ential tonnage dues on cargoes of corn. The
supply of flour which we have received from France
for the last few years has ceased, and the French
dealers begin, on the contrary, to import largely.
The floating cargoes in our ports were brought up,
and we soon for-id that when we went to the
Baltic and Black Sea ports for further supplies,
there, too, French orders had sent up prices. At
Dantzic fine high mixed wheat, weighing 621 b. a
bushel, cannot be bought under 585., free on
board ; at Stettin the same advance had taken
place ; in Holland the best Rhine wheat was fetching
60s. and 61s. Nor is there much prospect of
anv large supply from the Black Sea, for freights
at Odessa have risen to 17s. a quarter, and are 3s.
higher from the ports of the Danube. There is,
moreover, a great probability that the supplies
from the East will be largely required in the South
of Europe. The Belgian Government has also
taken the alarm, and the low duty established in
that country by the Corn Law of 1850 is suspended;
wheat and every other kind of grain are to enter
the Belgian ports free. Our correspondent in
Paris relates how rapid has been the rise in the
price of flour in that city, and corn is selling in
several parts of France at 100 per cent. above
what it would have fetched a few months ago. The
demand is everywhere excessive. The fear of con-
tinuedlhigh prices is, perhaps, somewhat exagge-
rated ; but the stocks of old wheat are low, and
the returns of the present harvest are generally
scanty. It is scarcely necessary to remark that this
unfortunate scarcity in many parts of Europe is
aggravated by the hostile attitude of Russia in the

Principalities, and by the ill-judged opposition of
the Porte to the terms recommended by the Con-
ference of Vienna ; and it is, to say the least of it,
an intolerable nuisance that the lawful operations
of trade should be paralysed and the sustenance of
large masses of the population of Europe raised to
famine prices, because the ambition and the pride
of two semi-barbarous States are pleased to inflict
those evils on the world, and to increase the hard-
ships of a natural calamity.
Our principal object, however, in calling the at-
tention of our readers to the peculiar state of the
corn market at this moment is to show the probable
effects of this scarcity on the progress of free trade.
The scarcity and high prices known to be impend-
ing over
,this country in 1845 were the decisive
causes which led Sir Robert Peel to the abolition
of the Corn Laws, and from the time of the passing
of that measure it was evident that the citadel of
Protection was carried. The present state of
Europe is strongly indicative of a similar change in
other countries, for it is clearly impossible for any
Government to support the odium of exclusive
duties while the people have not enough to eat, and
the example of England has shown that the groat
est security against the consequences of all artificial
systems of protection is absolute freedom. Accord-
ingly, the French Government has suspended its
sliding scale of duties and opened its ports ; but
all the well-known evils attendant on that
plausible but deceptive scheme are now felt in
France, as they long were in England, and there
is, undoubtedly, a growing disposition in that
country to establish the principle of a low fixed
duty. We shall not be prepared to find that the
Imperial Government is prepared to take advan-
tage of this season of pressure to propose a modifi-
cation of the existing law, and, if this great breach
be made in the protective system, we shall gradually
see a more liberal and enlightened policy extended
from the first necessary of life to the raw materials
of industry, and at last to its other productions.
The sliding scale of protective corn duties in
France has not by any means preserved that
country from a period of severe agricultural dis-
tress, equal at least to the depression felt in the
United Kingdom, and erroneously attributed to the
repeal of the Corn Laws. In France prices have
been lower, rents worse paid, and the condition of
the rural population more wretched in the last three
years than at any period since the war ; and, so
strongly was this felt by the community, that land
recovered more slowly than any other kind of pro-
perty from the effects of the revolution of 1848,
and a larger proportion of capital was consequently
thrown into commercial and industrial speculations.
In consequence of the want of means of internal
transport in France corn is frequently unsaleable,
at remunerative prices, in the departments which
grow it, while the population are reduced to miser-
able and unwholesome substitutes a short distance
off. M. Moreau de Jonnes states, in his essay on
the rural population, that the food of the bulk of the
French people has not improved since Arthur Young
described it in the reign of Louis XVI. "A large
portion of the French peasantry," says this writer,
continue by habit and by necessity to subsist on a
detestable sort of bread, an indigestible mixture of
rye, barley, bran, beans, and potatoes, which is
neither leavened nor properly baked, but kept for
months, until it is covered with mouldiness and
fungi, which would be revolting to the sight of the
most barbarous nations :" and this state of things
continues, although it is admitted that the rate of
wages and the profits of agriculture are at least
double what they were under Louis XVI. But if
under ordinary circumstances the nourishment of
the French peasant is of this coarse and wretched
quality, what must his condition become at a time
of scarcity and famine ? A people habitually fed
on wheaten bread may in a season of unusual hard-
ship descend to a lower kind of food ; but, as we
saw in Ireland, a people habitually subsisting-on
the lowest kind of food have no resource left when
that is deficient. Louis Napoleon professes to have
established his Government on the broad basis of
the lowest and most numerous class in the nation,
and he has promised to ameliorate their condition.
But the first, if not the only, practical service he
can render them is to insure their unrestricted ac-
cess at all times to the cheapest and most abund-
ant supplies of food. Until that stimulus be ap-
plied, French agriculture will remain what it now
is in the greater part of the country—the most back-
ward in Northern Europe ; and the peasantry of
one of the finest countries in the world will con-
tinue to be ill-fed, and exposed at times to the
horrors of scarcity.
We see reason to hope that the causes which are
leading several Governments to open their ports on
the present occasion will convince them that the
corn trade ought to be placed on a more liberal
basis ; and that the sustenance of a dense population
is best secured by establishing large and systematic
means of commercial exchange. At present
England is the greatest corn market in the world,
because grain is sold in our ports not only to our-
selves, but to other countries under the most ad-
vantageous circumstances. As far as we are con-
cerned that position is all we can desire, but we
cannot imagine that the short-sighted policy of
other States will long continue to throw into our
hands the maritime and comme:cial advantages we
derive from their restrict:o_ls, and we shall be not
less content to share in the benefits arising from
increased freedom of trade all over the world.

MONUMENT TO DR. JENNER.—His Royal Highness
Prince Albert has transmitted 251. to the committee for
the proposed monument to Dr. Jenner, to perpetuate
memory of that distinguished physician, in connexi, n
with his discovery for the preventien of that destructive
disease, the small pox. The American States, Sweden,
and other foreign countries, have forwarded liberal con',
tributions for the purpose. The statue is to be a colossal'
bronze figure, and is to be erected in a conspicuous part
of the metropolis The model hasbeen designed by
W. C. Marshall, R,A.